Carver - By Tom Cain Page 0,108
murder.’
‘Not if I refuse to give evidence,’ said Carver. ‘Come on, Grantham, you of all people don’t ever want me anywhere near a witness box.’
Cameron Young raised an eyebrow and made a mental note to discover what it was that Carver knew that Grantham would never want made public. Grantham himself, however, was undeterred.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘There’s still Drinkwater, and even the dimmest juror won’t miss the fact that he’s walking around wearing Zorn’s face. If the police can get Razzaq and/or Sternberg in custody, one of them’s bound to start talking in exchange for a lighter sentence. Meanwhile, get the best forensic accountants the taxpayers’ money can buy, and start them working through the money trail. Let’s try sorting something out the proper, legal way for once.’
Now Young entered the conversation, easing his way in with a contemplative ‘Hmm’ before starting to speak. ‘I completely sympathize with you, Grantham, and of course you’re right that this is evidently a conspiracy. But take it from a former barrister, conspiracy cases are a nightmare to prosecute. It may be quite clear to us how the whole thing was put together, but that’s a very long way from saying it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. All the evidence so far is either hearsay or circumstantial. There’s no smoking gun, no email from Zorn ordering the attack, let alone a bomb with his DNA or fingerprints on it. He will be able to hire the best lawyers his huge wealth can buy. Meanwhile one of our key witnesses may very well die of cancer before the case even comes to court. A second witness may herself not recover from her wounds, and even if she does, her admitted involvement in a terrible crime would clearly give her a motive to lie about Mr Zorn in exchange for favourable treatment. And a third key witness is a former Royal Marines officer who appears, if you will excuse me, Mr Carver, to have spent many years behaving in a way that does little credit to his former regiment. If I were acting for Mr Zorn in that case, I would be very confident indeed of securing a not guilty verdict.’
‘I see,’ said Grantham sullenly. ‘Well, then, we’d better take the Carver option … again.’
‘Ah, well, that may also be a problem,’ said Young. ‘This is, I’m sure you will both agree, a very embarrassing situation for a great many influential people. Mr Zorn has, to be blunt, conned his investors. But they don’t know that yet and I’m not sure we want to be the ones to tell them. After all, these are some of the world’s richest men and women. They wouldn’t enjoy looking foolish in public.’
‘So what?’ Carver asked. ‘There are millions of people out there who’d be only too happy to see a few rich bastards taken down a peg or two.’
‘Possibly,’ Young conceded. ‘But those rich bastards would not appreciate the government that let that happen, would they? And they aren’t Zorn’s only victims. Every one of his trades required a counterparty … or to put it another way, each of his bets required a bookie who took it. So when he made money, someone else lost it. And by someone else I mean either multinational financial institutions – banks, in other words – or London and New York-based hedge funds.’
‘Once again, I can hear the cheering crowds,’ said Carver.
‘As can I,’ said Young. ‘But I can also see the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s face when he is told that all these institutions have taken their revenge by quitting London, thereby depriving the Exchequer of tens of billions in tax revenues. And I must also think of the Governor of the Bank of England, who is already fighting hard to save the value of the pound without raising interest-rates to the point where they cripple the UK economy. One more straw could easily break the camel’s back. This country has been limping for years. Do you really want to bring it to its knees?’
Carver shrugged. ‘That’s not my problem.’
‘No, but it is mine. It seems to me that if we expose Zorn we will play right into his hands. The end result will be to destroy the market. And that is exactly what he wants.’
‘Really? I thought he said today that he was putting his money back into the market.’
‘And you believe him? I must say, Mr Carver, I would not expect you to