Has spy novelist Len Deighton heard of the merger that the rest of us have missed? In his latest book, Charity, the main character, Bernard Samson, meets "a mergers and acquisitions man from Deutsche Morgan Stanley" in Berlin.
Did Deighton latch on to earlier rumours? "We were certainly interested in buying them back in 1984-85, but the deal fell through," says a former Deutsche Bank employee who helped to set up the bank's London operation in the 1980s. "I still wouldn't rule it out."
Although Morgan Stanley was too busy to comment, a spokesman for Deutsche said: "We're not jumping into bed with Morgan Stanley. Maybe it was wishful thinking on their part."
The reference was finally explained by Deighton himself: "I dearly wish I could account for it by means of an amusing anecdote or a Freudian revelation. But to tell you the truth it was a careless slip of the sort that many freelance writers are prey to because they don't know when to go to bed and leave the rest of their work until morning."
It's a good job it was a mistake. Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Stanley Dean Witter, Discovery & Co is not a name that trips off the tongue. Antony Currie