Pinstripes Read Free Page A

You’ve sold five hundred to SAM at twenty-five and a half. You’ve got a balance of half a mill to buy for them. Top limit is five-eighths. Try to improve. Oh, and, Ella, you’ve got one hour.”
    Ella remained cool but she knew this was potentially a good trade. She also knew it was risky: she didn ’t own the stock she had just sold. She was short of half a million shares, and needed to buy them back at a lower price to make a profit. “Sure thing, Charlie,” she shouted, as she sat down and picked up the phone.
    Half an hour later, the order was filled, the price good, both Ella and the client were happy, and Charlie asked Ella to marry him.
    Ella was a trader on the European Equities desk. She bought and sold shares in European companies both for clients and for SFH’s own trading account. Her own trading account, ‘her book’, gave her more satisfaction than the client trades. It was her book that had made her a small fortune in commission over the last few years.
     
    ***
     
    Ella had had a good day. She pulled out-a calculator and worked out how much money she’d made for the firm. Not bad at all. Picking up her gym bag, she grabbed her coat, said goodbye to anyone still on the desk and left. It was a quarter past five.
    When she reached the stop the bus was waiting, which was always a good sign. It was a fitting end to the day. Ella was buzzing all the way home. She loved nothing more than making money, and the thrill it gave her was better than sex. Well, better than the sex she remembered. She thought fleetingly back to Tony, her ex-fiancé, and tried to push him out of her mind. God, no matter what she did or where she went he was always there, haunting her, and she didn ’t even know if he was dead or alive.
    Ella knew she was one of the best traders at SFH, and she had proved herself. She worried about the lies catching up w ith her, about Tony finding her if he were alive, or the police finding her, if he were dead. She also worried about her brother Sam. Her only contact with him now was the monthly cheques she insisted on sending him. She still couldn’t see him; she still couldn’t give him her address. She couldn’t even bring herself to call him. As far as Ella was concerned, she was a fugitive. Before she allowed herself to dwell on her past for too long, the bus pulled up and she got off.
    She walked from the bus stop to her smart, riverside Docklands flat, laughing at herself through the sadness , as Sam would have laughed if he could see her. With her smart flat and her TVR in the underground car park he would call her a yuppie, although they no longer existed. It was these imaginary conversations with her brother that kept her going. If only Sam could see her now, she knew that, along with the jokes, he’d be proud of what she had achieved.
    She let herself in, kicked off her shoes and made herself a cup of tea. Then she put the stereo on and relaxed on the sofa, sipping tea and thinking about her work. She knew that she was in line for promotion to the manager position within the next year or so. Then who knew? She was looking forward to being the first black female managing director of SFH.
    Her flat was incredibly tidy, because Ella could hardly bear for it to be lived in. She could still remember when she had got the mortgage, signed the forms and been given the keys. It was hers, the first thing in her life that had belonged to her totally. She loved it: the polished wooden floorboards, the big red leather sofa, the huge television she hardly watched, the stereo, the abstract paintings she had chosen. The bookcase was jammed full of books: books that offered Ella the escapism she craved. She had a few knick-knacks from her old life: a china elephant Sam had given her, a photo of her family, and some wooden boxes she had once kept her treasures in, but that was all. The coffee table had only today’s Financial Times on it and the book she was reading at the moment.
    The kitchen was