Chapter 1

 

CHAMPAGNE AND BONUSES

  

 

t was 10am, Friday the 20 December, when Stephen Parkly presiding at a special board meeting, in the headquarters of West Mercian Finance on Bank Street in the City of London, put his signature to the document approving the firm’s annual bonuses.

The announcement, scheduled for 11am, was impatiently awaited by the firm’s executives and staff, most of who would be leaving at lunch time for the Christmas vacation during which the offices were to all intents and purposes closed until the 2 January.

 It had been a good year, perhaps not as good as 2006, but nevertheless good in spite of a slower fourth quarter. Parkly’s bonus was £250,000 – modest by some standards – but West Mercian was not Morgan Stanley, but it was over a quarter of his £900,000 fixed annual compensation.

If things went well Parkly could expect to be on the Queen’s Honours List with perhaps a knighthood for his contribution to Britain’s glowing economy and more especially that of the City.

The only black spot was nagging question as to the extent of the firm’s exposure to certain mortgage backed instruments, a question that would be faced in January, after his return from the year end break and the completion of the provisional year end accounts. The next day he was leaving for India with Emma, his new and young wife, he had promised her sunshine to make up for all those long hours he had been putting in following the recent turbulence in the financial markets.

In spite of the billions lost and the trillions wiped off stocks City bonuses in London were almost unaffected, some were a modest few percent lower than the previous year, others were equal to or even better since all in all the year had been a good year for the City in general.

City bankers, executives and traders had become used to stuffing their pockets with what was in effect their shareholders or customers money ignoring the plight of many of their fellow citizens beyond those hallowed shrines of finance. More than five million Britons were living on benefits, the old, the sick and the poor after a decade of unbroken economic growth as the Government ran a huge deficit borrowing more than forty billion pounds a year.

Emma Parkly was almost twenty years younger than her husband; she was what Americans would have called a trophy wife. Emma, the daughter of a prominent newspaper editor, a sometime model and TV fashion journalist, wrote for Tattler; the kind of articles that described Madonna’s romantic rural retreat in the English countryside or Marella Agnelli’s enchanted villa and gardens in the Palmeraie of Marrakech.

She had met Stephen at a party given by Karl Lagerfeld in Ramatuelle, near Saint-Tropez, to celebrate the launching of a new fashion line. She was fascinated to meet a City financier, from a world so different to that of the illusory scene of fashion and showbiz personalities, who had arrived by helicopter and private jet, as to Parkly he was delighted to talk to a refreshing young woman about everything but finance.

That weekend Parkly’s now ex-wife had been in Manhattan for the vernissage of an up and coming Spanish modernist painter with whom she had become infatuated, whereas Parkly, normally a calm individual, seriously riled by her antics had accepted the invitation from one of his new highly geared city friends to fly down to the Côte for the party in his jet.

Stephen Parkly’s sudden rise to fame as CEO of West Mercian Finance came just four years previously, after the tragic death of the firm’s founder John Cameron in a helicopter crash, projecting Parkly to unexpected power and wealth. Until fortune smiled on him he had been the long standing right hand man of the founder, who had transformed the West Mercian Permanent Building Society from a small regional mutual into a modern broad based finance group based in the City of London.

Parkly was a good account, but with neither the charisma nor the business flair of the late lamented Cameron. An accountant by training he had been taught impartiality veering to disbelief vis-à-vis others, which had led to a certain reserve and some even said dourness of character. However, the housing market was already launched on its vertiginous ride from an average price house price of £121,000 in April 2002 to the present £230,000 and the firm prospered as never before. After the tragic loss of the founder the directors, without any other strongman amongst them, a result of Cameron’s overwhelmingly dominant position, voted Parkly as the new CEO, there was no reason to risk a radical change. Parkly, credited with having been instrumental in guiding Cameron’s decisions towards demutualization, was unanimously voted to take over as the new CEO.

As the firm surfed the boom, investing its funds in the new instruments that were developed by leading American investment banks, it went from strength to strength, borrowing on the financial markets to finance mortgage loans to the average Brit, since West Mercian was no longer a building society and savers deposits were insufficient to cover the growth of its mortgage business.

Building societies had originated in the 18th century when working men pooled their funds in mutual societies from which members could borrow to build homes, once every member had a house the society was closed. Some of these were transformed into ‘permanent’ building societies, accepting savings deposits from members and offering loans not necessarily linked to homes as well traditional mortgaged linked home loans.

With deregulation many building societies were demutualised and floated on the stock exchange. Since then the only major difference between most building societies and banks was building societies primarily offered mortgage services. However, current, savings and business accounts, credit cards and loans were available from both.

 

Chapter 2

 

 CHRISTMAS IS COMING

 

 

t was just after six thirty in the morning, a freezing damp mist hung in the air under the watery glare of the yellow street lamps. Just seven more shopping days to Christmas, and three more market days including today, Karen thought to herself as she unload the last of the cardboard boxes bulging with jeans and tee-shirts from her white Ford Transit. The stall was beginning to look ship shape and it was almost time for a good strong hot cup of tea and a bacon sandwich from the café across the market place before the early birds started to arrive.

It was Wednesday morning in Romford Market, market days were Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Christmas fell on a Tuesday, but if things went well she with her sister Sharon and the kids would be far from the rigours of the British winter and mistletoe by then.

Mi mum and dad will look after the stall on Saturday morning and whilst we’re away, she reminded herself. Everything depended on Harry, if he could get rid of Dave’s goods at a decent price then it would be a great holiday. It was a pity it was a bit late for the Christmas trade, but still the goods should move quickly with the holidays, there would still be plenty of money floating around until the New Year, still time to give a late present.

Harry ran a garage near the railway not far from the Liverpool Street line, repairs and second hand cars. From time to time he rebuilt a wreck, it was the only thing that kept the garage in business, but he had to be careful, he’d never had any real bother with the police, keeping in their good books, running what he liked to call a legitimate business, though servicing the cars of one or two of the local CID officers for free and feeding them with titbits of local gossip.

However, Harry’s business was not entirely above board. He had a sideline that involved in everything from stolen cars to receiving, he was an old fashioned crook, though he kept well clear of modern crime, which was to say drugs, serious violence, illegal immigration and tax fraud, yes he paid his taxes and kept the books of the family business.

Terry, his brother, looked after the car recycling end of the business, buying a badly damaged upper range vehicle from a friendly breakers yard, not write offs, but with serious accident damage, and no obligation to return the logbook to DVLA. The V5 logbook with engine block and chassis VIN numbers were transferred to the stolen car as well as the tax disk. Then the stolen car was meticulously cleaned; the new number plates corresponding to that of the wreck added, a new radio and accessories added, in brief no expense was spared, no corners cut.

Harry’s policy was based on zero risk; he had learnt the lesson when he was a kid from his own dad who seemed to have been in and out of the country like a yoyo dodging the police, suspected of everything from receiving to attempted armed robbery.

Hubert, Harry’s dad, was a respected citizen of the Commonwealth of Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic, where he had lived for several years after acquiring a Dominican passport for a few thousand pounds, a small price to pay to escape the clutches of the Metropolitan Police back in the seventies when the small island had just been granted independence.

Since those days Hubert was reformed, on a day to day basis he helped to run the Romford market stall, but his real role was caring for the family money that was safely tucked away in an offshore account in Roseau, the Dominican capital. His knowledge of the Caribbean ensured that the modified vehicles were legally exported as second hand cars to the different islands of the Eastern Caribbean States where import taxes ran at 40% to be sold though a dealership run by Cecil Reed.

Cecil, Karen’s ex – they were separated not divorced, was a Dominican and Carib Indian or Kalinago, from the Commonwealth of Dominica that lay between French Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Alistair Darling, the then Transport Secretary, had introduced a new telephone and online car tax service at the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency, a heaven sent gift for Harry, making re-licensing easier, impersonal and quicker than ever before. The process could be completed in a matter of minutes thanks to the introduction of a new computerised vehicle licensing service. Motorists could renew their car tax wherever and whenever they want, without the need to produce copies of supporting documentation such as insurance and MOT certificates. Tax discs were dispatched by post and received within three to five working days.

Dave, Sharon’s friend, worked as a guard for a security firm and had been hired out to Safeway in Romford for the Christmas period. He was one hundred percent above board and enjoyed a good reputation at the security firm as a serious though rather introspective worker; he worked part time, that is to say whenever it suited him. Dave’s side line was stolen goods and fencing, though never from the companies where he worked or with their personnel. As a fence he worked alone, he trusted no one, except for close family. Dave was of average height, slightly built, quiet and if it were not for his sharp eyes and weaselly face, a casual observer could have been excused for thinking of him as almost sickly.

A week before, making his late night rounds at Safeway, he had noticed a white Vivaro delivery van in the Dixon car park, which was separated by a wire fence from the Safeway loading bay. There was nothing unusual in that, but what caught his attention was the van’s backdoors were slightly ajar. He stubbed out his cigarette and waited in the shadow of a doorway, then after some moments he saw a movement, a figure appeared opened the van door and unloaded a carton. Dave flashed his torch in the direction of the van, there was a heavy thud as the carton fell to the ground and the figure made off at speed to the nearby goods entrance gate which he pulled open and made off.

Dave made his way out of the Safeway compound towards the Dixons’ goods entrance, which should have been locked. The only noise was that of the distant traffic, there was not a soul in sight; Dixon’s security guard should have been making his rounds. He carefully approached the Vivaro and inspected its back doors, the packing case lay on the ground where it had fallen. He walked around to the driver’s door, it was open, he flashed his torch inside, there was no key in the ignition He returned to the back replaced the packing case and quietly eased the doors close. Then slipping into the driver’s seat expertly pulled out the steering wheel surround, checked it for the alarm which he short circuited, then with the starter wires made contact and the motor sprung into life. He drove towards the gate stopped, pulled it open, drove through, stopped again and carefully pulled it to.

Five minutes latter he parked the van a couple of blocks away amongst other parked vans and goods vehicles and made his way back to Safeway. It was six in the morning when he signed off leaving his place to the day shift, there was nothing unusual to report, that is at Safeway.

It was still another two hours before daybreak when Dave parked the Vivaro in a rundown hanger that backed onto the railway, a short walk from the garage. He then called Harry and together it took them less than half an hour to unload the van. The van was abandoned in an M25 service station and Dave returned to the hanger in Harry’s car.

It was their Christmas jackpot, digital cameras, PC flat screens, laptops, mobile phones and other devices, all the goodies for the Christmas rush, worth tens of thousands of pounds to a fence. Before midday, when Dixons finally discovered and reported the disappearance of the van and their security guard tried to explain the unexplainable – his coffee had been doped by a couple of amateur insiders who had fled, all had been sold to a couple of East London fences who would have it all moved up country by the end of the same day, way off the beat of the Mets. It was a ten grand windfall and would more than pay for Christmas in the sun with the girls and their daughters.

Earlier that same morning as Karen drank her coffee and ate her bacon sandwich she gave a friendly nod to a well dressed man taking a quick breakfast at a nearby table in the steamy café. It was nothing unusual for office workers and other commuters getting off to an early start to stop for a coffee or a bite after dropping their cars in the multi-storey car park before taking the city train at Romford Station. Karen was an attractive girl, she could have done with losing a few kilos, but she had an attractive face and nice teeth, though her accent let her down. Tom Barton nodded back and a mouthed a hello hello, she smiled back. Barton had an open friendly face in his business his open easing going manner had always been an advantage.

‘Getting ready for the Christmas rush?’ he said.

‘Yeah, at least mi dad is, the rest of us are off to the sun,’ she told him without the least pretension.

Barton envied the stall owners, they seemed from his position to have a trouble free life, sure it was hard work, but they earned good money. He knew that Karen lived not more than a mile from his place in a very comfortably detached house.

‘Where you off to then?’

‘We’ve booked a flight to India.’

‘India! That’s not exactly sea and sand.’

‘In the south, Kerala, some nice beaches, was there a few years ago, before Deana was born.’

‘Oh, I hope you enjoy it,’ he said looking at his watch. It was almost seven thirty and if he wanted to catch the fast train to Fenchurch Street he would have to step on it.

‘Have a nice holiday then, I must rush, have a happy Christmas.’

‘You too.’

Barton hurried down the High Street wondering why on earth someone would want to go to India for the Christmas holidays. He soon put the idea out of his head, there were more urgent things to attend to, he had a busy day ahead of him. First he had to pick up the papers for his appointment at Canary Warf and call his solicitors, settle some final details before he put the final touches to his plans and then some last minute shopping.

 

Chapter 3

 

WINDING UP

 

 

arton ran a finance and mortgage brokerage business in the City and the last five years had been the most profitable of his career. He had arranged mortgages and re-financing for countless families: for their dream homes, house extensions, holiday homes, cars and exotic holidays. He himself was mortgaged up to the hilt with his unnecessarily large status symbol home on the edge of Epping Forest. Now it was time to get out, for a time he had even allowed himself to be lulled into believing his in own spiel, it was a costly mistake. Only when the Northern Rock fiasco erupted the previous summer did the alarm bells start ringing. The subprime risk had been discussed by the contrarians for months, who were considered purveyors of doom, few were prepared to listen to them in the heady boom time when prices rose by the day. Then slowly but surely the market started to unwind in the States and he realized it was just a matter of time before the UK was affected. The game was up and it was time to call it a day.

Tom Barton’s prosperity had been based on a golden rule; don’t spend more than you earn, this rule had however already long been dumped overboard by a large segment of the British public to be replaced by don’t spend more than you can afford to pay back, and more recently by don’t spend more than the credit being shovelled daily through your letterbox.

Barton had been a willing participant in the mortgage crisis, indirectly fuelling the house price bubble by encouraging all and sundry to make fraudulent declarations as to their revenues and invest in everything from BTLs to apartments on the Costa del Sol and even further afield for the wealthier such as in the Emirates. How could the punters lose? Home prices went up quicker than he could put a loan together, in the euphoria he not only leveraged his clients investments but his own to acquire even more property, pumping up the balloon faster than mortgage companies could invent more unbeatable deals for home owners.

It had reached a point whereby anyone who could hold a ballpoint pen and was not brain dead could sign up for a one hundred percent plus plus mortgage on almost any property after self certification. In the words of a friend, the director of a leading bank, it was one of the greatest credit bubbles ever seen.

The writing was on the wall, the music had stopped, whatever the cliché it was time to get out, and quick, but how? Prices has stalled and were even starting to fall, behind the hype it was difficult to move property. Barton’s worse deal was in Dublin, where prices had fallen ten percent in six months.

To his great regret, across the water, he had become involved in the development of an upmarket BTL project. After three months of unsuccessfully trying to let them at a profitable price flats the bank had leaned on him and forced him into lowering the rents. It was costing him as he pumped money into the business to cover the shortfall and keep the bank happy, it couldn’t last long and he had to find a way out. To top it all the Irish stock market had lost 26% in one year, a bad sign, a very bad sign. The Irish banks had thrown enough money away to make the Northern Rock look like Scrooge.

The same scenario was unfolding at the Guadalmina Golf and Country Club development in Spain where he was promoting the sale of luxury holiday homes to British buyers on the first and second phases.

Like in many other businesses the alarm bells, rather than tills, were ringing. After a ten year spending boom, hundreds of thousands of over indebted families were plunge into insolvency as their creditors caught up with them. It was time to move on, to where and into what he was unsure. Dubai looked good on paper, but in view of the quantity of units the Arabs were putting on the market it was not the Yanks or the Brits who were going to put their money there. In any case Tom did not feel happy with Middle Easterners, things could turn out nasty there with Iran just short hop across the water.

Then there was China but he new nothing about the country or its language, his only experience was limited to the very friendly manager at an expensive local Chinese restaurant, whom he suspected would shake hands with anyone with a suitable credit card, and the menu at high street takeaway. As for Australia the shit had already hit the fan where homeowners, lenders and real estate agents were running for cover.

Though Tom had taken risks and enjoyed extravagant good living, he knew that inevitably all good things came to an end, past experience had taught him that when he had fallen back to earth, but he had always dusted himself off picked up the pieces and started again.

Now, older and wiser, he had had the foresight to set up what he liked to think of as a disaster fund. He had on the advice of a banker friend opened a bank account in Luxembourg into which he transferred money from time to time. He congratulated his prudence since unlike Gordon Brown, who had convinced the British public in better times that the boom was all to do with his prudent management; he had put something aside for a rainy day, which was now at hand.

That Wednesday morning Barton was about to unload several BTLs at a Canary Warf development, he had bought them off plans three years previously and the prices had more than doubled, even taking into account the unfavourable discount he was forced to cede to his buyer under the present market conditions. It was a good deal, the BTLs were all occupied and paying their rents, young City executives.

The buyer was an Indian investor who owned a chain of supermarkets and was paying cash, which he suspected was derived from some undeclared business in the Midlands, wherever it came from it was not his problem, business is business he thought, caveat emptor. Barton would make a cool three point five million pounds profit once the outstanding loan to the mortgage company was settled.

After his solicitor had overseen the signatures and approved the certified bank drafts, Barton wished his buyer goodbye and turned his attention to another task. Papers had been drawn appointing his very capable junior partner and longstanding assistant Michael Smeaton as managing director of the brokerage firm, a limited company, it was Barton’s Christmas gift. The business was sound; only Barton’s personal investments had been bad.

Late that afternoon he headed back to his office, satisfied with the day’s business and knowing that his profits were safely deposited in the Kansallis Bank in Luxembourg. At the office he would announce the expected news of Michael Smoult’s appointment as MD as well as the year end bonuses.

A letter confided to his solicitor covering the transfer of ownership of the brokerage, effective the 1st January, to Smoult who would be informed the 2nd, once the year end holidays were over.

  

 

Chapter 4

  

A CHRISTMAS BINGE

 

 

  

nce the serious business was over his next job was to fit himself out with a new wardrobe and prepare for his retreat by joining the Christmas crowds at the West End stores. His needs included a new set of quality suitcases as he planned to be away for an undetermined period of time. Then there were things he had not had much use for recently such as swimming shorts, Bermudas, trainers, polos and sunglasses. As for cameras and electronic gear he would be able to pick up all that he needed in Dubai.

The orgy of Christmas shopping was everywhere, he had expected crowds, but nothing like he encountered on Regent Street and Bond Street. It only confirmed that year end consumer spending was hitting an all time high in spite of the bad news on the economic front. The rosy future that had become a permanent feature for most Britons was slowly beginning fade, in fact it looked much less promising and the looming economic crisis was slowly but surely beginning to weigh on the finances of the average Briton.

 It was like fiddling as Rome burnt, a Bacchanalian feast of food and drink as plastic flashed across the counters of department store, supermarkets, travel agencies and restaurants to satisfy the need of a generation raised on rising expectations, rising house prices and rising incomes.

Low interest rates and the battle between credit card firms had sparked a deluge of unbeatably offers. The invention of introductory balance transfer rates with an interest free period for new customers had given birth to a new species called rate tarts by the media, which spent its life jumping from one card to another. Debt was recycled and though every time an application was made for a new card a credit search was carried out and recorded, if the outstanding balance of a previous card had been transferred, then it showed up as having paid off the debit, which was interpreted as an indication of creditworthiness by lenders.

As credit companies fought it out, vying with each other to press new cards onto their already overloaded customers, hopping from card to card became a habit with card holders being drawn into the plastic frenzy developed an uncontrollable desire for limitless spending.

However, in spite of the events that were threatening the financial institutions and the economy of the country, a situation which had been announced by the spectacular nineteenth century run on the Northern Rock, the British public flooded into their brightly decorated temples, their wallets bulging with plastic and seemingly limitless credit, to celebrate their annual pagan feast to offer sacrifice, in the form of obscenely high interest rates, to their pagan goddess Juno Moneta.

 

 

Chapter 5

  

RETURN TO KERALA

 

  

he same morning in their Smethwick semi, David and Barbara Parkins were preparing for their Christmas break, they deserved it. They managed a local hotel and restaurant, part of a countrywide chain. Twice a week Barbara used a meeting room in the hotel for her meditation classes and Ayurvedic massages, she also ran a mail order business selling diets and herbal supplements to a growing number of Ayurvedic adepts.

Over the years they had managed small hotels in different locations, living carefully and putting their money aside for an early retirement. They had worked hard and the BTLs they had invested in were nearing completion, in fact the first of the six apartments they had bought was completed and they had found a tenant. The rent was a little lower than they had expected, but perhaps it was just the time of the year. The other five were nearing completion and when they returned from vacation they would start advertising for tenants.

Their holiday destination was Kovalam in Kerala, situated on the Malabar Coast in south west India, where Barbara would attend classes given by her Ayurvedic guru Doctor Dharma Jayanthi for advanced training.

Barbara’s first visit to India went back several years. Up to that time her travels had been confined to the Costa del Sol or Tenerife. She had jumped at the opportunity of joining a couple of girl friends, who were into yoga, on a holiday in India. David agreed and would look after the business as usual; taking holidays together had always been a problem with the hotel to run.

With her two friends she had left a miserably cold Smethwick under three inches of melting snow, Barbara sniffing throughout the eleven hour flight to India as flu invaded her body.

The next morning filled with aches and pains she discovered Dharma Jayanthi’s small massage centre nearby the guesthouse, she was perhaps attracted by the smell of eucalyptus oil, but in any case was convinced by the tall bearded Indian who told her a massage would put her right in no time.

At first the massage seemed to increase her aches and pains, but then they started to ease as Dharma’s skilful hands needed her body and as the aroma of exotic oils invaded her sinuses, clearing the thickness that had filled her head, and a wave of well being flowed over her.

Barbara had never before experienced such a sensation of pleasure and relaxation, and each morning she went to Dharma’s to be massaged listen to his soothing words – at that time the prices were affordable and well within her budget, he had no difficulty in persuading her to join his daily yoga class.

Dharma was a born businessman from a merchant caste, though his family had little money. He realised that the thousands of foreigners who spent money to come to Kerala could be his path to wealth, if only he figured out how to use them. By speaking to women like Barbara every day he began to understand a world he knew little of, he had never if fact travelled outside of Kerala. But it was difficult, the foreigners lived so far away, the telephone was out of the question, surface and even airmail mail took too long, it seemed insoluble, that was until the Internet came to Kovalam some five years earlier.

In no time enterprising Indians like Dharma flooded the web with Ayurvedic websites, mixing exotic holidays with mystical massages and hotel bookings with rejuvenation in Kerala and its budding beach resorts.

Kerala was still a relatively unknown tourist destination but its government did not intend for it to remain that way for long and ayurveda with cheap medical tourism was their trump card.

As tourists were delivered to their hotels in Kovalam they were submerged by signs of all shapes and sizes, vaunting the quality of innumerable ayurvedic centres.

Ideally, a complete Ayurvedic diet needed four weeks for its benefits to be longer lasting, but for most tourists their vacation lasted one or two weeks and perhaps at a stretch three, but very few stayed longer and those who did were mainly retired and were those most in need of a cure.  Return business soon became a key part of Ayurvedic tourism with Dharma’s need to cultivate the loyalty of clients.

Ten years later his Ayurvedic centre had grown into a luxurious establishment set on several acres of gardens bordering a private beach to the north of Kovalam. The centre consisted of a clinic with luxury airconditioned cottages attractively disposed amongst the palm shaded gardens. The season ran from September to February with the peak at the year end holiday period when Europeans in search of sunshine flooded in and the occupancy rate soaring to one hundred percent.  The prices also soared; cottages commenced at one hundred pounds a night with three hundred for the larger family units. The treatment Ayurvedic commenced with massages and essential oils at twenty five pounds and at the top end of the range five hundred pounds for the five day programme excluding accommodation.

Dharma paid special attention to detail, ensuring that the centre was impeccably maintained, a difficult task in southern India, and to what he described as Swiss standards with fully sterile oils, herbal powders and trained masseurs. Certain Europeans overlooked the failings in India, but not the kind of client Dharma sought.

His recently created foundation controlled a budding European network counted several associates, such as Barbara, and formed an essential part of his business development plan, promoting his centre and distributing his products.

What most attracted clients such as Nicole was the weight loss and rejuvenation programme. The special purification diet, entirely vegetarian and without alcohol, was a great success with the ladies. Very few returned home without having lost a few or more kilos, which together with the winter holiday break gave them a healthy tone, not forgetting a glowing tan, which guaranteed them the admiration and envy of their less fortunate girl friends back in the UK or Sweden.  

Even better for Dharma, was their need to continue to feel good, which ensured a steady demand for his products and courses, and of course a desire to renew the experience by returning to his centre in Kerala.

The growing success of Barbara’s business fuelled her ambition to set up a system of franchises in the UK and in the long term setting up an Ayurvedic treatment centre in Birmingham.

However, not all advocates of Ayurveda saw it as a business, but rather as a science not to be commercially exploited, which did not prevent the Kerala state government from promoting Ayurvedic treatment as one of the tourist attractions of their state, which had few other resources, in an award winning advertising campaign.

Dharma’s master stroke was convincing the Maharaja Palace to invest in a health care centre in the hotel grounds, giving him the operating and management franchise, in that way guests such as Nicole had not need to leave their luxurious hotel and near to their families who were not necessarily amateurs of Ayurvedic massage, as was often the case for husbands.

The hotel’s restaurants offered dishes and desserts designed to meet the strict vegetarian parameters of Ayurveda with Chinese, Indian and European flavours.

The hotel health care centre also boasted a stylish shop where a full range of Ayurvedic products from shampoos to medicines were available.

Dharma was a pretended purist. Accusing many newcomers to the business of not providing genuine treatment and only interested in making money. He was of course protecting his interest and disapproved of licenses being indiscriminately handed by the state government to almost anybody wanting to set up a centre. 

Dharma had been awarded a honorary doctorate from the long established School of Ayurvedic Medicine in Thiruvananthapuram; however, it was more a tribute to his success as a businessman and his generous contributions than that of a student in Ayurvedic medicine and of course sided with the school which criticised the tourism lobby responsible for the indiscriminate growth of Ayurveda centres.

He strongly disapproved of practices that gave Ayurvedic care a bad name, such as the massage parlours that employed female masseurs, beach massages, poor quality oils as well as profiteers without any qualifications who fooled ignorant tourists.

   

Chapter 6

  

DUBAI

 

 

arton left his Jaguar as planned at the Terminal 4 car park. Heathrow was the usual shambles with its flight delays and the constant threat of strikes. That evening he was lucky things went smoothly at the Emirates check-in counter, the flight was on time and he presented his passport and electronic ticket for Dubai, he had no problem with his forty kilos of baggage; he was flying first business.

It had seemed like a good idea to check out Dubai for the real estate market and he had armed himself with a folder full of brochures. It was a seven hour flight to Dubai and as he settled down in his wide business class seat to sip his Champagne he felt very pleased with himself.

The Irish could stuff themselves as far as their extravagantly expensive BTLs were concerned, he told himself, they were so effing slow, it would take them weeks if not months to discover the limited company he had set up to manage them had folded and he had disappeared. As for his Epping home it would be repossessed when on default after he was posted as having absconded.

After the meal he started to thumb through Dubai guide book and the real estate brochures. Though he had heard of the construction boom in the Gulf he had never realised that it had been on such a scale, it seemed that there were skyscrapers everywhere and even offshore condominiums built on artificial islands. It seemed like the dream of a real estate scam come true. He knew there were a lot of rich people around, but this many seemed absurd or perhaps he was simply out of touch.

On arrival in Dubai he took a taxi to the Grand Hyatt situated near the Creek where he booked into a suite at 3,300 Dirham, about £400 a night. The 10th floor suite overlooked a series of swimming pools and palm studded gardens, beyond here was also what appeared to be a lake and further to the west was a stunning view of the city’s extraordinary skyline to the west.

The hotel was situated to the south of the Old Town and was surrounded by new buildings, offices, apartment buildings and shopping malls. The only negative point was the suite’s sitting room was not separated from the bedroom, with its price and the evident availability of construction workers they could have paid for a wall or partition.

He was undecided whether to take a sleep or not, it was early, eight thirty in the morning. After thinking about it for a moment he concluded his catnap on the plane was enough and decided to take a shower before checking the mass of brochures announcing the good things in Dubai. He then unpacked the overnight case, leaving the other two closed then took the benefit of the extravagantly appointed shower to shake off the flight hangover.

After some searching he found the coffee shop in the cavernous maze of the hotel, he ordered a coffee and croissant and started to flip through a tourist guide, after all he was a tourist and he needed to get his bearings before he decided on to start the exploration of the emirate. It was all a little confusing, museums, shopping malls, beaches, shopping malls, dunes and more shopping malls.

A recurrent ad announced a two hour circular bus tour of the city; there was a picture of the bus, a double-decker with an open top deck, which stopped at the different points of interest. His mind made up he called for the bill, forgetting any idea of air-conditioned limousine in favour of an airy open top double-decker bus. There were two routes, blue and red, he decide to start with the red route through the Old Town.  A taxi dropped him off in by the Creek at the Heritage Village in the Old Town, where the Big Bus City Tour started; he paid 175 dirham for the ticket boarded the bus and took a seat on the upper deck.

His first observation from the taxi had been the volume of the traffic, it seemed worse than London, a slow moving jam, taking about twenty minutes to do a couple miles; the second was the city seemed to be like a gigantic building site. Perhaps it would improve further on, he thought, where he had caught a glimpse of what the brochure described as the world’s highest building. The bus was due to leave in five minutes and he settled back on his front seat to enjoy the warmth of the morning sun, there was no disputing that was a considerable improvement on the grey London weather.

He was awoken from his reveries by a loud female cockney voice; he looked around and saw two girls of about ten years old arriving at the top of the stairs followed by two women who appeared to be their mothers. One of them he seemed to vaguely recognise. There made their way forward and the two girls occupied the empty seats across the aisle from him. He smiled at them and the mothers.

‘Hallo,’ said the more attractive of the two mothers, ‘aren’t you from Romford?’ The cockney accent was pronounced, the smile familiar.

‘Oh hallo,’ he replied surprised. ‘Of course we’ve spoken together in the market.’

He felt a little uncomfortable being recognised, it was his first day out of the UK and here he was talking to somebody from Epping. On the other hand, he had done nothing, at least know to the public, he was simply taking a hard earned break, even it was to be a long one, no one was looking for him. The girl did not even know who he was, even his name.

‘On holiday?’

‘Yes, getting in some sun. What about you?’

‘India, were going to Kerala.’

‘Ah yes, I remember you mentioned that.’

‘We arrived yesterday, doing a bit of shopping, though there’s not much we really need,’ she said nodding to her new camera. ‘Were not short of clothes either,’ she laughed alluding to her stall in the market. ‘It makes a break in the flight for the kids.’ The two girls were chatting excitedly and pointing to the small ferry boats on the Creek, completely oblivious to the rest of the world around them.

‘What about you?’

‘Me, well I’m staying here for a few days, after that I don’t know.’

The bus started and made its way through the Old Town traffic, passing by what was announced as the National Museum and other places of interest. Then it looped back and taking the Al Shindagha Tunnel to the other side of the Creek up to the Al Maktoum Bridge, where Barton wishing the East Enders goodbye abandoned the bus for a taxi back to the hotel before he was burnt up by the sun.

It had all taken an hour, without the traffic it would have been all over in ten minutes. For the moment he was unimpressed by what he had seen.

After lunch he took the blue tour along Al Jumeira Road that ran westwards along the Arabian Gulf overlooking the beach area, passing the palace and a series of luxury hotels: Hiltons, Sheratons, Meridiens and other look a likes standing almost side by side. The guide announced the offshore residential developments: behind was the Palm Deira, after Medina Jumeirah was The Crescent, then beyond the port and residential district The Palm Jebel Ali followed by the Dubai Water Front.

Barton was astonished by the skyscrapers, one after the other, and by the offshore residential developments. He was undecided as to whether it was a real estate man’s dream or nightmare; he could not deny the achievements and the reality that stood before him, on the other hand the ambitions of the developers seemed staggering and the risks enormous. He could not help asking himself how they were going to sell it all and concluded that there were a lot more oil rich Arabs in Dubai than he had thought.

The tourist hotels situated along the beach area offered the usual combination of sea, sand and sun, as well as alcohol, which though forbidden in Saudi Arabia, just a couple of hours drive to the south, one of the pleasures that attracted many Saudis to the emirate  

The information booklet he had read over lunch told him that Dubai was one of the seven emirates that constituted the United Arab Emirates; Dubai City was its capital. Dubai had the largest population of the seven and was the second largest in land area. Contrary to what Barton could have thought revenues from petroleum and natural gas contributed less than six percent to Dubai's economy and its reserves were soon expected to run out, as a result the emirate was dependent on revenues from its tax free zone, tourism and service businesses. In any case evidence of the country’s prosperity was everywhere for the eyes to see, whether it would last or not was another question, especially if there was a sustained global economic downturn as Barton suspected was at hand.

The total population of the Dubai was about one point five million with three times more men than women, though less than a fifth were UAE nationals. The foreigners, more than 80% of the population, were immigrant workers, in the vast majority men: Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Filipinos. Barton soon discovered foreign nationals worked principally in construction and low level service jobs, often under poor living conditions, where it was not uncommon for six or more people to share the same room. He also observed a small minority of Westerners also lived in the emirate, both men and women, whom he had seen passing by wearing business suites and outfits carrying briefcases, they worked in specialised jobs in the finance and technical sectors.

The bus then turned back taking Sheik Sayed Road past the spectacular Burj Al Arab tower the world’s tallest building with 164 floors, 818 meters high, he could not help thinking it would a spectacular potential target for Al Qaeda.

Barton’s head was dizzy with towers, concrete and construction. It was all part of the Dubai government's decision to diversify their economy to service and tourism; the result was real estate had shot up following the worldwide trend. All personal, corporate and sales taxes were abolished so as to transform the emirate into the trading emporium of the world, where foreigners could invest, own property and companies hopefully resulting in a huge influx of businesses and foreign workers.

He wondered if he was a witness to the long anticipated decline of the West and the take of its businesses by the rising powers as another emirate, Abu Dhabi, became the largest shareholder in the mighty Citigroup’s investment group, the Government of Singapore taking part ownership in Merrill Lynch whilst the Chinese government helped themselves to ten percent of Morgan Stanley, the list was long, but of course sovereign funds held but a tiny three percent of world businesses, in spite of that it could have been an augur of what was to come.

That evening he offered himself a lobster and steak dinner at the Manhattan Grill to celebrate the first day of his new life. The only question mark was his next stop, the emirate did not seem like the kind of place he would care to spend the next couple of years of his life. In spite of that he would check out one of the offshore property developments and perhaps make a visit to the Bur Juman shopping mall that had been recommended by the concierge.

Dubai would be just a stop over, it was as clear as spring water that the emirate was surfing the ten year world economic boom, what would happen when the music stopped as it inevitably would; there was a lot of expensive real estate out there he thought as he watch the lights of Dubai sparkling through the panoramic windows of the restaurant.

The next morning he slept until almost nine, he was feeling good as he took a taxi to Bur Juman, the weather was fine, which seemed quite normal for Dubai and the traffic seemed to move a little smoother, perhaps it was just that time of the day. At the entrance to the mall was Paul’s French Café, he took a table and order a latte with an almond croissant and a French finger; a short piece of baguette with butter and two kinds of jam. He savoured his late breakfast warmed by the rays of the morning sun, at the neighbouring table was a couple of Emiratees, he in a long immaculately pressed white robe, called according to Barton’s guide book a dishdash, his head covered with a white gutra held in place by a gizham, a coiled black head band, she in the traditional woman’s black abaya embroidered on the edges with gold thread. They chatted easily, perfectly relaxed, nothing stern or menacing about them.

After his pleasing breakfast he made his way into the mall, a vast building in glass and steel with escalators to carry shoppers and strollers to its many levels, each one a maze of luxury boutiques selling everything from diamonds to fashion and luxury time pieces to fitness equipment.

What could he offer himself as a souvenir of Dubai, which was by the minute becoming nothing more than a brief stop-over to more distant and promising places. Why not a watch, the choice was endless, each brand claiming its longevity and originality, he finally opted for a Blancpain Lehman Chronograph, he paid with his Amex card, US$12,000. He was pleased with it, but at a loss for what to do with his eye-catching Gold Rolex GMT Master II. Wearing the Blancpain he was now part of the less conspicuous rich.

He then spotted a stand for the promotion of the Kempinski Palm Jumeirah Residences with an architect’s model of their condominium project in a glass case. The salesman explained to Barton that the Palm Jumeirah was an artificial island built on land reclaimed by the Dubai government.

It was one of three islands called The Palm Islands designed to increase Dubai’s shoreline by over five hundred square kilometres. It was the smallest of three the Palm Islands, in the shape of a palm tree, consisting of a trunk, a crown with seventeen fronds surrounded by a crescent island that formed an eleven kilometre-long breakwater. The trunk was connected to the mainland by a three hundred metre long bridge and the crescent connected to the top of the palm by an undersea tunnel.

When completed the island would be covered by hotels, villas, shoreline apartment buildings, beaches, marinas, restaurants, cafés and a variety of retail outlets. Over thirty beachfront hotels were planned on completion.

The smooth young salesman, a Turk, was promoting apartments, penthouses and townhouses being developed by the German Kempinski hotel group. The prices ranged from 500,000 Euro for a one bedroom apartment to 1,250,000 Euro for a four bedroom apartment. He was evasive when Barton wanted to visit a show apartment producing artist’s impressions and announcing the scheduled project completion date was set for the end of 2010 beginning of 2011.

The illustrations in the brochure showed an exotically palace situated on the crescent section, described as having a ‘stunning, elegant look with a sophisticated essence’, it was divided into luxurious two, three or four bedroom apartments, penthouses and grand villas together with a five star deluxe hotel. On completion the Emerald Kempinski Palace would be surrounded by gardens and a private beach with an underground car park and shopping facilities.

It reminded him of the Miami condominiums that were currently being auctioned off with no reserve price and there was no way he was going to invest a million euros in a permanent building site and what seemed so obviously like an extension of the worldwide property bubble. So with little else to do he returned to the hotel where he consulted the Emirates time table to decide on his next destination.

As he looked down the list of destinations the thought occurred to him he should settle for a less organised spot, neither Singapore nor Hong Kong with their computer driven societies. It should not be too far, he did not feel like another long flight just yet.

The route map showed Dubai as the hub of Emirates and looking at the lines the looped out from the city he saw many unappealing names including as Baghdad, Kabul, Karachi and Dhaka, then there was India with Bombay now known as Mumbai, Goa and an unpronounceable destination - Thiruvananthapuram. It rang a bell, wasn’t that the place where the East Enders were headed?

He picked up the phone and asked for the travel agency in the hotel lobby; there were flights just three times a week to Thiruvananthapuram, a good sign. There were seats available on the flight the same evening; there was little point in hanging around in Dubai and the Hyatt’s gilded cage and he asked the agent to make a booking.

‘Do you have a visa Sir?’

‘Visa?’

‘Yes for India.’

‘No.’

‘We can ask for an urgent visa, it will cost 1,000 Dirham.’

‘Sounds expensive for a visa.’

‘Yes I’m sorry Sir, but if you would like to wait a few days it will cost less.’

‘Okay, what do you need?’

‘Come down to our office sir with your passport and we will arrange everything.’

Sure enough they were organised, a couple of photos printed out from a digital camera, 1,000 Dirham and he was promised a visa for the end of the afternoon.

That evening as he checked out of his luxurious hotel Karen and her family boarded a bus at the Al Ghubaiba bus station for the airport just five kilometres from the centre of the Old Town.

 

The same day David and Barbara boarded a Jet Airways charter flight at Birmingham International Airport, it was an eleven hour non-stop to Thiruvananthapuram, Trivandrum for short. Their package tour at £684 each all included with bed and breakfast, for the two weeks Christmas and New Year holiday. It was the high season, but David had little choice with the dates, Christmas was quiet in the Smethwick hotel business, it suited the head office as his replacement would not have too many difficulties.

David was worldly but careful with money; the ups and downs of life had transformed him into a cautious man. His dream was early retirement and had preferred modest living in their Smethwick semi to trading up and burdening themselves with long term debt. They described their home as very pleasant, their neighbour’s large old trees overhung the end of their garden, a screen of greenery during the summer months that hiding the houses opposite giving an almost pastoral impression. We’re not far from Stratford-on-Avon they liked to tell strangers.

The charter flight was full with little leg room, but it was worth putting up with a night of discomfort for the guaranteed sunshine they knew they could expect in Kerala. There were also looking forward to meeting Dharma Jayanthi again, whom they now considered as a friend, and discussing the business plans Barbara had in mind with him.

  

Chapter 7

  

OIL RICHS

 

 

he flight to Trivandrum would take about four hours, just long enough to get a little sleep after diner and drinks. As Barton sipped a glass of whisky he flicked through The Daily Telegraph and stopping at an article in the business section headed Crisis may make 1929 look a stroll in the park. It talked of the banking and credit crisis that was entering its fifth month as economists warned that the world’s central banks were fighting the wrong war, running the risk of a policy error of huge proportions.

For once I’m lucky, getting out at the right time, he congratulated himself. He then turned his thoughts to Kerala, he knew strictly speaking nothing of the south Indian state, in fact he had to admit that he knew very very little of India. Their was a pang of anxiety as he wondered about the Maharaja Palace at Kovalam, where he had been booked by the travel agent in the Hyatt and had been reassured it belonged to an Austrian group. He pulled out the Emirates in flight magazine and turned to the maps, looking at India there was no sign of a place called Kovalam, though he spotted Trivandrum, which lay near the south Indian coast, a straight line from Dubai over what he discovered was called the Arabian Sea, a giddy ten kilometres below.

The meal was not bad and as he finished a glass of Australian Cabernet he turned his attention for the want of nothing better to do to a copy of the Economist. An article that announced world oil production had reached 84 million barrels a day. Making a quick mental calculation based on a price of $100a barrel multiplied by 365 days a year the total oil producers revenue came to about 3,000 billion dollars a year, an astronomical sum, but of little meaning. Then trying to put it into perspective he remembered that the total gross domestic product of the UK was about the same figure, in other terms about $40,000 per year for every British man, woman and child.

According to the article one third of the oil was pumped in the Middle East. So what were they doing with that money, a lot of it went into world debt markets pushing down real interest rates fuelling a global lending boom, especially by debt laden Western governments and more specifically American consumers, though in his opinion the Brits lagged not far behind. This meant that in effect the oil producers were lending a lot of the money they were making back to their customers.

It also seemed that with global bond yields so low the countries of the other oil producing countries of the Middle East were doing the same thing with their money, investing far more in their own economies, building for the future. If Dubai was anything to go by then the Middle East was a vast construction site and as to Dubai, which had practically run out of oil, it was obviously attracting a lot of those dollars, shrewdly transforming itself into an investment hub, a vast emporium and tourist destination, not unlike Singapore or Hong Kong, with a view to developing itself into a regional business centre, investing billions of dollars in offices, hotels and infrastructure.

Middle Eastern financial markets had developed at an astonishing rate and expanded into Europe and the USA targeting Western business acquisitions. Like all investors they had begun to worry about their investments and especially with a falling dollar, turning their attention to Europe to which they were closer and had longer traditional links, fearing Europe less than the USA embroiled in its Iraq debacle and faced with looming trouble from its debt laden economy.

Thinking how all very abstract it was and how little it affected his own immediate future, a modest man by Dubai standards, perhaps rich by Indian standards, he slowly dozed off and a passing hostess pulled up his blanket and gently eased back the large comfortable seat.

  

Chapter 8

 

THE MAHARAJA PALACE

    

  

mirates flight EM555 landed in Kerala at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport at exactly three thirty that morning. The small airport was almost deserted and formalities were completed in a few minutes. Barton collected his bags and found himself outside of the customs area looking at a small colourful crowd of early risers anxiously waiting the arrival of family and friends returning home after working as long as two uninterrupted years in the Gulf. He found a bank and after a glance at the rates changed a couple of hundred pounds into Indian rupees and was soon seated in an Ambassador taxi, an Indian model originally based on the 1948 Morris Oxford.

It was a sedate twenty minute ride to the Maharaja Palace in Kovalam. After checking-in the night manager led him to what he described as a Club Wing suite, announcing that it overlooked the Arabian Sea, not that Barton could see very much at four thirty in the morning, though he could hear the waves on the shore below. The suite was comfortable enough with a large balcony, very different from the Dubai Hyatt.

Once the inspection was over and he was handed the room key Barton dropped onto the bed fully clothed and slept until he was awoken by the room boy knocking at the door; he looked at his watch and saw that it was eleven local time, remembering he had moved his watch forward one and a half hours from Dubai time.

After telling the boy to come back he stepped out onto the balcony and into the brilliant sunlight. The hotel was built on a palm covered headland, about twenty or so metres above the sea that crashed onto a mass of huge red coloured sandstone rocks worn smooth by the waves. To his left a broad bay swung around to another high point a bout two kilometres distance, on which stood a red and white lighthouse, the further part of the bay was lined with low building. To the right the coast stretch far into the distance, the long sandy beach lined with coconut palms, and not too far off was what he assumed to be a small mosque, it was pastel pink with picturesque onion shaped tops to its minarets.

On both beaches he saw knots of people punctuated by the colourful saris of Indian women.  There was a slight breeze that moved the palm fronds, the air was warm and clean. He stretched and thought about eating, but first a shower and a quick exploration of the hotel.

The lobby area was long and spacious, the cool marble floor shone under the discrete lights, it was of a clean uncluttered design with two parallel rows of pillars supporting a high peaked roof in heavy wood beams. He found the restaurant and selected a table overlooking the north beach. A waiter presented a menu and Barton asked if it was too late for breakfast.

‘The buffet is finished Sir, but you can order à la carte.’

He ordered toast and scrambled eggs with freshly pressed orange juice, then leant back to admire the surroundings. It was a little early for lunch and there was just one other table occupied by a young couple. The guide book entitled South India he had bought at Dubai Airport lay on the table.

He had absolutely no idea what to expect, his knowledge of India to that point was strictly limited to the little one or two of his Indian clients had told him in passing, Indian restaurants and cricket. As for the rest he vaguely remembered snippets of the stories his father had told of his travels and the objects that had decorated his parents’ home, a bronze Nepalese Buddha and a couple of tankas, one of which tastefully decorated the visitors bathroom. As to history it was not his strongest subject, Ghandi was reduced to some kind of inspired fakir who had led India to independence and Indira must have been his daughter. As to Imran Khan he could not remember whether he had played for India or Pakistan.

 

 

Chapter 9

 

 

A WRITER

 

 

 

 

 

ohn Francis and his wife Claire had travelled on the same flight as Barton, in economy, they also made a stopover in Dubai, but only for the day. Arriving from Paris at seven in the morning they had had time to explore the Old Town, followed by a quick shopping tour at Bur Juman mall before taking the evening Emirates flight to Trivandrum.

They were experienced travellers, it was not their first visit to India and they planned to stay at least two months renting a villa near the beach in Kovalam. However, their Internet search had been infructuous, the prices seemed hi