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Though Leeson was center of attraction on the trading floor, he was, for the most part, a loner. Last week some of his associates expressed surprise that he was married. Said one: "His behavior was more like that of a bachelor." Almost no one had heard of Lisa Leeson in the expatriate community; she was not a member of any of the social clubs. The live-in maid next door says Lisa rarely left the house. When she did, she wore jeans and T shirts or athletic sweats--and according to the apartment building's security guard, "her face looked angry, thin and pale." Apart from her husband, she seemed to have only one other constant friend, a woman who may later have helped the Leesons with moving arrangements when they fled Singapore.
A competent soccer player back in England, Nick was one of only two foreigners on the otherwise all Malay team of Admiralty Club in 1992 and 1993. He showed up for a few months of training and played in two games before quitting. His coach, Mohamed Ansari, says Leeson was too big and too slow to play with the shorter and swifter Malays. "He was always friendly," says Ansari. But no one on the team ever really got to know him.
In addition to trading, Nick Leeson excelled at partying hard at night. In Singapore, it is a customary coda to the workday. After toiling over charts and numbers, the traders leave en masse for the rows of bars and cafes of the Boat Quay. Some of them tell stories of Leeson as "the wild man." After one late night bout, he was charged with indecent exposure for dropping his pants in front of a group of women. He then gave them his phone number and address and dared them to turn him in. (As good Singaporeans, they did. Leeson was fined $140.) One of his favorite hangouts was Harry's Pub, a small dark bar where the sounds of a jazz trio pour out onto a stone walkway. Says Mary Bell, a Singapore family therapist who works mostly with expatriates: "They really are just kids. When they are all together at Harry's Pub, it seems like they are a universe unto themselves."
As his reputation as Barings' master of SIMEX grew, however, Leeson's tastes changed. He gradually spent less and less time in Harry's Pub and moved upmarket to a row of bars closer to home. One of those he favored was 5 Emerald Hill, an understated establishment favored by the artistic community. There, surrounded by walls of peeling paint and cooled by electric fans, he would listen to blues and soul in the evening, drinking gin and tonics or whiskey, perhaps staring at the apple slices in the giant jar of vodka or the bottled snake on the liquor shelf. When a wine bar opened next door, Leeson spent more and more time there. "It's like an old boys' club, where the guys smoke cigars in leather arm chairs," said Johnny Walker, the bartender at 5 Emerald Hill. Leeson began to learn to buy wine. One of his last purchases, says Walker, was a $93 bottle of St. Emilion 1990, Chateau Trottevieille. "He was a nice guy," says Walker. "He always paid his bills."