humidity grew too much. He left it behind for his cool hotel. Result, he found himself fighting a chill - but not the onset of malaria he initially imagined. He slept fitfully and woke at 3 and 5 and finally at 7 am.
The image of last night stayed with Ted as he headed off into the frantic morning for his interview. He felt stupid at coming over maudlin and sentimental. Who was he to judge what was going on around here? Maybe this was what they chose? How they wanted to live? If he’d learned nothing in his twenty five years of reporting, he’d at least understood you couldn’t apply Western rules and standards to the outback.
But whatever the reason – needing a drink, jet lag or still smarting at hav ing to make this trip at all - Ted was angry. It made him mad to think of some bastards cleaning up from high interest loans to these poor suckers. He’d seen it before in the burst housing bubble across America. Ghost towns created by banks foreclosing on homes they valued less than their mortgages. Millions of poor bastards suckered onto a housing ladder with low starter rates that flipped to high regular rates beyond their income levels. Now the same wolves were marketing the foreclosed houses – people’s homes – as great investments. Bankers always win and always find another variation on the sucker loan.
By the time he arrived at the head office of the Peoples’ Bank, Ted Saddler was spoiling for a fight. The taxi shuddered to a stop and several pairs of hands dragged at his cab’s door handle. All these scruffy gents pretending to be doormen at the Waldorf. He eased out, and took his bearings. They were well off anything that could be called a main street. Yet the small brass plaque on the wall confirmed it was the People’s Bank head office. It said so, beneath a stylised engraving of a tree. The bank was housed in a block that would have been condemned and knocked down in Harlem in the ‘70s. Its façade was distressed concrete and smeared glass.
He forced his way past the human barrier and into an echoing hall of concrete sl abs and doorways. It was about 20 degrees cooler – making 90 seem bracing – and a fan chugged round overhead, spilling the humid air at him. A young woman in a cream sari sat behind a counter at a window on the right. He went over to her.
‘I have an appointment with Mr Ramesh Banerjee. The name’s Saddler.’
She consulted a screen in front of her. It shouldn’t have taken long. No-one else was waiting.
‘We are all very pleased to welcome you, Mr Saddler. May I offer you a nice cup of tea?’
While smiling at the quaint offer, he thought of the billion bugs he could get from the water, far less the milk, and politely declined. He took a seat on the other side of the small lobby from her window and went over his interview questions one last time. Then he got back up and began to pace up and down, relieved that despite his fears some of the old excitement was working its way through. The hunter’s instinct not yet dead.
All the time he paced he felt her proprietorial eye on him. She half-bowed at him every time he looked her way. He guessed he’d been prowling for five maybe ten minutes when a door opened in the centre of the lobby facing the exit. A little man came through. He looked like any one of the threadbare characters Ted had seen around the hotel and streets this morning. Maybe a porter or clerk or something. He came over. He was wearing glasses and looked maybe mid-forties. He was thin and short. His black hair smudged with grey around the ears. He smiled. Ted smiled back, wondering what he wanted.
‘Mr Saddler?’
‘That’s me.’ He stood, assuming the man had been sent to get him. The man reached out a hand and they shook. Then the face became familiar from the news clip.
‘My name is Ramesh Banerjee. Please call me Ramesh.’
FIFTEEN
T ed Saddler had met many top men in his time. Ramesh Banerjee fitted none of the profiles. His unheralded
The image of last night stayed with Ted as he headed off into the frantic morning for his interview. He felt stupid at coming over maudlin and sentimental. Who was he to judge what was going on around here? Maybe this was what they chose? How they wanted to live? If he’d learned nothing in his twenty five years of reporting, he’d at least understood you couldn’t apply Western rules and standards to the outback.
But whatever the reason – needing a drink, jet lag or still smarting at hav ing to make this trip at all - Ted was angry. It made him mad to think of some bastards cleaning up from high interest loans to these poor suckers. He’d seen it before in the burst housing bubble across America. Ghost towns created by banks foreclosing on homes they valued less than their mortgages. Millions of poor bastards suckered onto a housing ladder with low starter rates that flipped to high regular rates beyond their income levels. Now the same wolves were marketing the foreclosed houses – people’s homes – as great investments. Bankers always win and always find another variation on the sucker loan.
By the time he arrived at the head office of the Peoples’ Bank, Ted Saddler was spoiling for a fight. The taxi shuddered to a stop and several pairs of hands dragged at his cab’s door handle. All these scruffy gents pretending to be doormen at the Waldorf. He eased out, and took his bearings. They were well off anything that could be called a main street. Yet the small brass plaque on the wall confirmed it was the People’s Bank head office. It said so, beneath a stylised engraving of a tree. The bank was housed in a block that would have been condemned and knocked down in Harlem in the ‘70s. Its façade was distressed concrete and smeared glass.
He forced his way past the human barrier and into an echoing hall of concrete sl abs and doorways. It was about 20 degrees cooler – making 90 seem bracing – and a fan chugged round overhead, spilling the humid air at him. A young woman in a cream sari sat behind a counter at a window on the right. He went over to her.
‘I have an appointment with Mr Ramesh Banerjee. The name’s Saddler.’
She consulted a screen in front of her. It shouldn’t have taken long. No-one else was waiting.
‘We are all very pleased to welcome you, Mr Saddler. May I offer you a nice cup of tea?’
While smiling at the quaint offer, he thought of the billion bugs he could get from the water, far less the milk, and politely declined. He took a seat on the other side of the small lobby from her window and went over his interview questions one last time. Then he got back up and began to pace up and down, relieved that despite his fears some of the old excitement was working its way through. The hunter’s instinct not yet dead.
All the time he paced he felt her proprietorial eye on him. She half-bowed at him every time he looked her way. He guessed he’d been prowling for five maybe ten minutes when a door opened in the centre of the lobby facing the exit. A little man came through. He looked like any one of the threadbare characters Ted had seen around the hotel and streets this morning. Maybe a porter or clerk or something. He came over. He was wearing glasses and looked maybe mid-forties. He was thin and short. His black hair smudged with grey around the ears. He smiled. Ted smiled back, wondering what he wanted.
‘Mr Saddler?’
‘That’s me.’ He stood, assuming the man had been sent to get him. The man reached out a hand and they shook. Then the face became familiar from the news clip.
‘My name is Ramesh Banerjee. Please call me Ramesh.’
FIFTEEN
T ed Saddler had met many top men in his time. Ramesh Banerjee fitted none of the profiles. His unheralded
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