Deadly Business (27 page)

‘Can I do that?’

‘You’re the chair; you can do what you like till the shareholders stop you.’

‘It’s my first meeting,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m a new girl.’

‘By the time the meeting begins, you’ll be a very powerful new girl.’ He laughed.

‘How, for God’s sake?’

‘Sister-in-law,’ he drawled, ‘I could invest five million in Gantry shares with one call to my London broker. Problem is, if I did that, the city would see through it; it would be me doing a family member a favour. However … I have friends, seriously wealthy friends, that I’ve made even wealthier by giving them crazy returns on their investments in my movie projects. When does your meeting begin?’

I checked my watch. ‘An hour and a quarter.’

‘In that case, check the company’s share price fifteen minutes before, and look for recent acquisitions. When you get in there, lay the information you get on the table, and look around as you do it. If your enemy’s in that boardroom, he’ll be the one who looks sick.’

My conversation with Miles boosted my confidence for the meeting. I’d had no clear plan of action before, but he’d more or less drafted my agenda. I’d packed a business suit for the occasion, the kind that Susie would have worn, but on impulse, I left it in the case and opted instead for my casual Catalan look, Cardin jeans, a flowery shirt, tucked in, a wide black belt and black moccasins. I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to say to them, ‘This isn’t someone sent along to play a part and nod her head when required. This is a new broom and watch it, or you will be swept away.’

‘You sure?’ Liam asked, when I revealed myself.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then God help whoever’s been making mischief,’ he chuckled.

The guys decided that they were going to visit Glasgow’s still relatively new Riverside Museum. Tom had done the planning on his iPad and had decided that the best way to get there was by using the dedicated bus service, which runs from the city centre. I let them go on their way, and then called a taxi to take me to the Gantry Group head office. While I waited in the lobby, I went online via my laptop (I’d asked Tom to use his iPad earlier because it’s instant, and takes no time to boot up), found the Stock Exchange site, and looked up the Gantry listing. The share price hadn’t recovered fully from its slump since Susie’s death, but the loss had been halved. As Miles had told me to, I checked recent acquisitions and found an eight million pound purchase by an American corporate buyer. Eight million! Bloody hell, Miles had called in a big favour. I managed to link up to the hotel’s printer and ran off a copy, just as my black cab arrived.

Actually they weren’t that far away from the hotel, in a modern block on the intersection of Waterloo Street and Wellington Street, nice military names that helped boost my combative mood.

The noticeboard in the foyer told me that the company occupied the third floor. I took the lift up and stepped out, at five minutes to ten.

The first thing I saw was a framed photo of Susie, on a table in front of the reception desk. It was draped in black ribbon and there was a condolence book in front, with a ballpoint pen in a stand. I signed it, glancing at some of the other names; there were many. I recognised a couple of footballers, a musician, and a comedian; three others had added the word ‘Councillor’ after their names, as a form of underlining.

If I’d been expecting the managing director to be waiting to greet the new chair, I’d have been disappointed. There was no welcoming group in reception. The immaculately dressed woman behind the desk wasn’t too effusive either, but I made allowances for that. She’d have known Susie well, no doubt, and had no reason to be cheerful.

She had done her homework, though. She knew who I was. ‘Mrs Blackstone,’ she said, rising from her chair and coming round from behind the barrier. ‘Cathy Black, office manager.’ We shook hands, and she ushered me into a corridor to my left. ‘Mr Culshaw and the other directors are here already. They’re waiting in the boardroom. I’m sorry, I should have said two of the other directors. There’s been a formal apology for absence from Mrs Kent.’

I nodded. ‘I’m aware of that,’ I said. ‘She advised me.’ I didn’t bother to add that she’d also faxed me a proxy form allowing me to vote on her behalf in any division, as I thought fit.

Mrs Black … I assumed from the weight on her left-hand ring finger … opened a door halfway along the corridor, then followed me into the long room behind. ‘I take the minutes of the meetings,’ she explained quietly.

My new colleagues were gathered at the far end of the board table, coffee cups and saucers in hand. I’d seen Culshaw on TV the night before of course, and I knew who the others were, since the annual report had included directors’ photographs, and the odd one out had to be the company secretary, Wylie Smith, a plump little guy in his forties, who had the air of someone who’s always slightly out of breath, a man running for a bus who’s never going to catch it.

The other woman in the room, Gillian Harvey, was all smiles in the report mugshot, but not in real life. I’d read up on her; she was a banker, which may have helped explain her cheerless expression as she eyed me up and down, making me feel glad that I’d dressed the way I had. There had been a period in the company’s history when its bank had felt it necessary to insist on having someone on the board, and she’d been put in place then. Those days were long gone, but somehow she’d managed to hang around.

Gerry Meek, the finance director, middle-aged, balding and bespectacled, hadn’t been foisted on Susie by anyone. He’d been her choice when she had taken complete control of the company from her old man, to replace his less efficient predecessor. He’d been around as she’d rebuilt the group from the mess she’d inherited, so he must have been competent to say the least. Whether he’d also been compliant in recent months, I planned to find out.

Phil Culshaw came towards me, hand outstretched, white-haired, tanned, with the weathered complexion of a sailor. That’s what he had been, mostly, easing out of his accountancy firm when Oz had recruited him and brought him in on a temporary basis that had become permanent when he and Susie had moved offshore. He was smiling, but I eyeballed him and didn’t see it reflected there.

‘Primavera,’ he exclaimed, ‘welcome to the Gantry Group. You’ve met Cathy, let me introduced the rest of my colleagues.’ He did the rounds; the two men were pleasant, if diffident, but the grey-haired lady banker gazed at me as if I was a member of a parliamentary select committee.

‘Can we have a word in private?’ the managing director murmured.

I beamed at him. ‘Once I have a coffee in my hand, Mr Culshaw, certainly,’ I replied. I used his surname deliberately and spoke loudly enough for the rest to hear.

Wylie Smith rushed to the coffee pot, poured me a cup and handed it to me. I thanked him, declined the Belgian chocolate biscuits, then walked to the other end of the table, leaving Culshaw to follow behind.

‘Yes?’ I said sweetly, being a bitch and revelling in it. Fucking man had annoyed me, twice, first by using my given name without invitation and second when he’d said ‘my colleagues’ rather than ‘our’. I’d gone in there with the intention of building a high wall in my mind between him and his nephew, but I was having trouble.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get hold of you yesterday,’ he murmured, dispensing with the smile.

‘You got close, though. I assume that was you who spoke to my son in the hotel last night.’

His jaw dropped. ‘That was …? My God, I don’t mind telling you …’

I cut him off. ‘You don’t have to. I know what you thought. If you hadn’t hung up on him, we’d have made contact then. If we had,’ I asked, ‘what would you have said to me?’

‘More or less what I said in my television interview. I’d have asked you about the advisability of continuing with this meeting.’

‘That’s what I assumed. And I’d have told you then what I’m telling you now, that there is not one good business reason for cancelling it, and several valid ones for pressing ahead, as I intend to do.’

‘Then I have to tell you that in my opinion, your taking the chair of this company, unless it’s so you can resign immediately, isn’t in its best interests.’

I pursed my lips. ‘In that case,’ I murmured, as I sipped the worst coffee I’d tasted since I left prison, ‘we’d better bring the meeting to order, and we’ll see what I do.’

I sat myself down in the big chair at the head of the table, that I just knew had been Susie’s, and I called along to Wylie Smith, ‘Mr Secretary, I’d be grateful if we could convene the meeting now. It’s gone ten a.m.’

‘Of course, Madam Chairman,’ he replied, picking up his papers as I took out my meeting folder and laid my bag on the floor. The other two directors followed suit, although Harvey shot me a glare that made me wonder if she’d gobbed in my coffee when no one was looking.

When everyone was in place, I kicked off.

‘The first thing I want to do as your chair,’ I began, ‘is to call for two minutes’ contemplative silence in memory of my friend Susie. I’ve known her, I believe, for longer than any of you have, so do not any of you think for a second that I feel any lightness in my heart as I sit in her chair. I wish that she was in it, and not me, but she isn’t, and so I promise you as I promised her that I will preserve and protect the company that bears her name.’

I fell silent, and so did the others. When the two minutes were up, Wylie Smith signalled the fact by shuffling in his seat and distributing agendas. ‘Since this is an unscheduled meeting of the board,’ he explained, ‘this is a very short list of business. As always it begins with minutes of the last meeting. You have all received them, yes?’

‘Taken as read,’ Culshaw grunted.

‘Was that a motion?’ I asked him, calmly.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘of course, I’m sorry.’

‘Seconded,’ Harvey snapped.

I looked at Meek; he nodded approval. ‘Agreed,’ I declared, glancing at Cathy Black, who was taking what I guessed was old-fashioned shorthand, in a pad.

‘Second item on the agenda is chair’s remarks,’ I noted. ‘That’s as well, because I have a few.’

‘Before we proceed,’ Gillian Harvey interrupted, ‘I would like to ask you to explain to us your qualifications for chairing this company. Your background calls them into question.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked her, evenly.

‘You have a rather colourful past, if you don’t mind me saying so. Is it not the case that you have a criminal conviction?’

I laughed. ‘Isn’t that funny,’ I exclaimed. ‘There were people running around in the City yesterday asking every sector analyst they could find that selfsame question, and here you go and bring it up at a board meeting. Your bank, Miss Harvey; it employs people to run around in the City of London, doesn’t it, spreading information and asking questions?’

‘Oh, really, that’s—’

‘True or false?’

‘True, but—’

‘Stop,’ I snapped. ‘I have another question. Were any of those people involved in spreading the word about me? But think before you answer. I spoke to Cress Oldham, the company’s financial PR adviser, this morning and instructed her to find out who they were. I could receive a text from her at any moment. So once again, were your people out there spreading the poison to undermine me as chair, and severely damaging the company’s share price in the process?’

She stared at the table. ‘They could have been.’

‘I’ll take that as a “yes”. On whose instructions?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Don’t prevaricate, Miss Harvey. If I phone the chief executive of your bank right now, and ask him if it’s his policy to brief against the chair of a client company, in any circumstances, he’s going to do his nut and launch an investigation. When the bank’s messengers are put up against the wall, who are they going to name as the person who sent them out there?’

She sighed. ‘They’re going to blame me,’ she confessed. And then she shot me a look that was nothing but pure envy.

‘Because you expected to be chair yourself,’ I said, ‘and that’s not a question; I can see it.’ I looked at the company secretary. ‘Mr Smith, please give Miss Harvey a notepad and a pen, if she needs one.’

He did as I instructed. She stared at the items as they were put before her. ‘What are these for?’ she asked.

‘Jesus!’ I exclaimed. ‘Would you prefer a pearl-handled revolver? Write your resignation, please, with immediate effect. Otherwise I will put a motion of no confidence, it will be passed and all this will be minuted and reported to the bank, your employer, when the company’s business is moved to its rival.’

She looked at Culshaw, and then at Gerry Meek. Neither would meet her eyes. She picked up the pen and scribbled a few words, tossed the pad back at Smith, and started to rise.

‘Hold on,’ I told her. ‘Before you go, will you confirm also that your people have been leaking information from our confidential management accounts, also on your say-so? If they have, I’ll find that out too, one way or another, easy or hard.’

‘No!’ she protested. ‘Certainly not! That would be outright dishonesty.’

I shrugged. ‘As I say, I’ll find out, but actually, I believe you. Goodbye.’

The remaining five of us sat in silence until the door closed behind her.

‘I never did get round to answering her question,’ I remarked, once she’d gone, ‘but I don’t think I need to as it’s a matter of record. What’s also a matter of public record is that I’m a director of another company, in Spain, and that I have operated successfully in a commercial role for the UK government. Privately, I manage personal wealth, accrued through my association with my late former husband, that runs into seven zeroes and has grown significantly since it came to me. Susie knew all that; it’s why she appointed me to the chair.’