Banker

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Gordon Michaels stood in the fountain with all his clothes on.

‘My God,’ Alec said. ‘What is he doing?’

‘Who?’

‘Your boss,’ Alec said. ‘Standing in the fountain.’

I crossed to the window and stared downwards: down two floors to the ornamental fountain in the forecourt of the Paul Ekaterin merchant bank. Down to where three entwining plumes of water rose gracefully into the air and fell in a glittering circular curtain. To where, in the bowl, calf-deep, stood Gordon in his navy pin-striped suit... in his white shirt and sober silk tie... in his charcoal socks and black shoes... in his gold cufflinks and onyx ring... in his polished City persona... soaking wet.

It was his immobility, I thought, which principally alarmed. Impossible to interpret this profoundly uncharacteristic behaviour as in any way an expression of lightheartedness, of celebration or of joy.

I whisked straight out of the deep-carpeted office, through the fire doors, down the flights of gritty stone staircase and across the marbled expanse of entrance hall. The uniformed man at the security desk was staring towards the wide glass front doors with his fillings showing and two arriving visitors were looking stunned. I went past them at a rush into the open air and slowed only in the last few strides before the fountain.

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