The Best of British Crime omnibus (36 page)

‘That's too innocent,' Molly answered.

Treasure shrugged, then changed the subject. ‘Alison McFee was trying to persuade me to bring you to that Scottish binge of theirs in Maidenhead.'

‘Hughie had the same idea. Must have been a conspiracy. It's a week on Saturday. I said I wasn't sure if you'd be back from New York.'

‘That was a sound blocking tactic.' The banker chuckled. ‘I was just purposely vague. Incidentally, the American trip's no excuse. I'm only there two nights. Out this Sunday, back Tuesday.'

‘I knew that. Well let's see how we feel about it on the day. It might be fun.'

‘If it doesn't rain.'

‘Oh, the main programme takes place under cover.'

‘In a marquee?'

‘A very superior marquee. A pavilion, Hughie said. With a pavilion you don't need poles to hold it up in the middle.'

‘That should please any Poles attending.'

‘Very droll. Anyway, Hughie made it all sound like the Braemar Gathering.'

‘Well so long as I don't have to dance any reels.'

‘Oh, come on, last time we did Scottish dancing you thoroughly enjoyed it.'

‘That was at Gleneagles. The atmosphere was right. Maidenhead doesn't sound so convincing. Of course, I couldn't very well admit I'd already given our tickets to Miss Gaunt.'

‘Oh, I did. Hughie's sending some more. In case. Are the tickets expensive?'

‘Yes. Not that it'll break the McFees to give more away in future.'

‘Are they rich from the flotation?'

‘A lot richer than they were before it. At today's price, Hughie's shareholding would realise … let's see … nearly two and a half million pounds.'

‘Making him the biggest director shareholder next to Bob?'

‘About equal second with the Closter-Bennets.'

‘Who you said were well off anyway. Before the flotation.'

Treasure smiled ruefully. ‘Better off than Barbara pretends. She has quite large interests – horsy and landed – in South America. Her mother was Argentinian. I imagine a lot of her British resources went into the Closter management buy-out five years ago. It's certainly paid off this week.'

‘You mean her husband put the capital in?'

‘Yes, but it would have been Barbara's money. Giles was an unmonied and unspectacular accountant who married well.'

‘His wife doesn't think he's unspectacular,' said Molly with feeling.

‘I know. She thinks he should have been made Managing Director instead of Bob. He would have been apparently, if her family had gone on owning the company.'

‘Would he have been any good at it?'

‘A disaster I should think. I told you, he's not a bad accountant, but limited. Even so, the managing directorship was actually promised to him at one time, by Barbara's father. She and Giles are both still very aware of it. Barbara will be pushing for him to be promoted again if I bow out and Bob takes over the chairmanship.'

‘Which is something that wouldn't please Stuart,' said Molly. ‘He was on my other side at dinner. He hasn't much time for any of the others except Mary.'

‘What did you talk about during dinner?'

‘That was the problem. He had very little to say. Until I encouraged him to tell me about his work.'

‘That must have been entrancing.'

‘Well it was, in a way,' Molly offered slowly. ‘What I understood of it. He explained all about Seromig, and the two other new drugs. A safer anti-depressant, he said, and a new er …'

‘Antibiotic based on a derivative of quinolone,' Treasure completed.

‘That's right. And much more complicated than the other one. Sounded as if it'd be ages before either of them would be ready.'

‘Five years at least. And even that's optimistic.' He paused, watching the full moon's reflection in the river as the car sped by the Tate Gallery. ‘But if Seromig's a success, the new drugs will fall into place very neatly as the next big profit earners. Especially after the Seromig patent runs out.'

‘And if Seromig isn't a success?'

‘It's bound to be a success if it cures migraine, which is what it's supposed to do. If it doesn't, a lot of money will have gone down the drain, and Closter Drug will just have to soldier on, doing what it's been doing for the last five years. It wouldn't be a disaster, but the company wouldn't be too exciting for investors.'

‘Which would be a pity since it's just gone public?'

‘Oh, it would have quite a few things going for it.'

‘Even if the directors aren't exactly one big happy family.'

Treasure pouted for a moment. ‘A degree of antagonism is often quite healthy in a management team. Bob Larden's a good catalyst.'

‘I thought you were that. Stuart Bodlin says it's essential you stay as Chairman. That you give the company style.'

‘How touching. I'm not sure a pharmaceutical manufacturer needs much style.'

‘Well Stuart obviously respects you enormously.'

Treasure gave a cynical chuckle. ‘That's not the reason for the loyalty. If Bob Larden became Chairman, someone else would have to be Managing Director. The likeliest contender would be Dermot.'

‘Which wouldn't suit Stuart either.'

‘Because he'd like the job himself.'

‘You're not serious? I mean, I don't know much about running companies, but Stuart isn't at all the managing director type is he?'

‘No he isn't, except you'd be surprised at the number of people who privately yearn for jobs that are way above their capacities. Not that if it came to it most of them would actually want to be promoted. Not to industrial stardom.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because it's the illusion they enjoy. While even deeper down in the sub-conscious they know perfectly well they lack the ability to match the aspiration.'

‘So why the yearning?'

‘Oh, sometimes envy of the chap already in the top job. More often, jealousy of whoever's really going to get it next.' He shook his head. ‘It's a negative syndrome, but very common.'

‘In the theatre too,' said Molly thoughtfully. ‘And Giles Closter-Bennet is another yearner like Stuart?'

‘Ah, there the negative syndrome has a related one attached to it.'

‘You mean, related by marriage. Barbara?'

‘That's right. The ambitious wife. Quite a common quantity in that sort of situation. I'm sure Giles wouldn't be ambitious on his own. It's only because Barbara expects him to be. Basically he's probably too lazy.'

‘I suppose Hughie McFee doesn't have these hopeless ambitions?'

‘Curiously enough, if it weren't for Dermot, Hughie would make a very competent managing director under Bob's chairmanship. He's very experienced, in the industry as well as the company. Very respected.'

‘Not too old?'

‘He's fifty-two. I agree he looks older.'

‘Would he like the job?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘But Dermot's better qualified?'

Treasure hesitated. ‘I didn't say that. It's simply that if anyone else were appointed, the mercurial Dermot would probably resign on the spot. He'd regret it afterwards, but he'd still resign.'

‘And he's too valuable to lose?'

‘Yes, he is. Immature in many ways, but exceedingly valuable.'

‘It sounds as though Mary Ricini is the only director happy with her lot.'

‘To an extent that's true. She's still learning the ropes of course.'

‘Of medicine? But she's a qualified doc— '

‘No, of management,' he interrupted. ‘She's a high flyer. Already too good for the job she's doing. Give her a year or two, with broader experience, she could make a very good chief executive somewhere.'

‘But not at Closter Drug?'

‘Possibly. If she can be persuaded to stay long enough.'

Molly was leaning forward, screwing up her eyes to see something ahead of them.

Henry Pink was putting the car through a U-turn, just before Albert Bridge, and before swinging it into Cheyne Walk.

‘Well here's your chance to start persuading, darling,' Molly said. ‘That's Mary paying off a cab outside our house. I wonder what she wants at this time of night.'

Doris Tanner, secretary to the Managing Director of Closter Drug, counted the cups again. There were seven on the tray. Then she remembered there would only be six people at the meeting. Mr Treasure hardly ever came to the weekly directors' meetings, only to the formal monthly ones. And he definitely wouldn't be coming today because he was in America. She took one of the cups away and, focusing hard through her glasses, counted the pile of saucers. If her husband Bert hadn't made sexual demands of a very strenuous kind at five thirty on this same morning, Doris would not have been so dozy here at the office less than three hours later.

Bert was a caution all right. What with his thinking it was Sunday not Monday like that. She took away one of the saucers. Bert was an emergency fitter with British Gas, and worked odd shifts. That was why he sometimes got randy at inconvenient times: well, inconvenient for Doris – and that was apart from his getting the days mixed up. Still, it'd be time to complain if he stopped fancying her, which would be a long time off yet, judging by current interest. She smiled to herself as she put the extra cup and saucer back in the high cupboard behind her desk. The special crockery was stored there – where she could keep an eye on it.

The Tanners would both be thirty-seven in a month's time: they'd even been born on the same day. Bert liked to say that proved they were made for each other. They had put off having children for a long time, for money reasons, then discovered they had left it too late, or good as. After Doris's miscarriage two years before, they had been advised not to try for a baby again. Having to stay childless hadn't bothered them much. Doris had mentioned adopting once or twice, but Bert wasn't keen. They kept dogs instead – a pair of Alsatians. They had a neat, modern semi-detached house on a small estate a mile from the Closter factory. There was a handy-sized garden at the back.

‘Morning, Doris. Lovely day. Got the coffee on, I see.' Bob Larden had come from the main corridor and into her office through the door in the small shared vestibule; the door to his own office was opposite. He was carrying his black leather document case, also the pile of professional journals he regularly took home on Fridays. He dropped the journals on Doris's desk. ‘Present for you,' he said, smiling.

‘Did you have a good weekend then, Mr Larden?' she enquired with a brightness that was still requiring effort. She usually addressed him as ‘Mr', sometimes as ‘sir': he wasn't the type of boss whom you called by his first name. ‘It was ever such lovely weather,' she added in her smoothed-out, Lambeth accent. You didn't get Chelsea dolly birds doing the secretarial work around Longbrook, even in the top jobs like Doris's. And Longbrook bosses should be truly grateful for that great mercy, was what Doris always felt, and sometimes said. She moved the journals to her ‘out' tray. ‘Get out of London did you at all, Mr Larden?'

‘Not really,' he said, his mind half on something else. Her question had reminded him that his wife had been working at a block of flats in Wapping for most of the previous afternoon and evening. The design job she was doing there had fallen behind schedule. He resented it when her work intruded on their time together. ‘Played a bit of tennis Saturday morning.'

‘Nice,' she said.

‘And you?'

‘Oh, we were very quiet. Enjoyed the weather.'

These were the standard Monday morning answers to the standard Monday morning questions. Doris was sure he didn't want to know about her weekend. He wouldn't half be surprised, she thought, if she'd told him what she and Bert had been up to at dawn. Talk about contortions – and all because Bert had bought a sex manual in a book sale. Mr Larden wouldn't have believed unglamorous Doris capable of such antics. Except he did look at her legs sometimes. She was no beauty – a thin rather than a slim brunette, with rather pronounced teeth – but she made the best of herself, and her legs were definitely her most attractive feature. She imagined his own sex life would be pretty boisterous with that young wife of his: she looked like a real raver from the photos – classy, but still a raver. Doris had never met Jane Larden.

Larden was still standing in front of her desk while he studied the meeting agenda he'd taken from his case. He stroked his chin with his free hand. ‘Doesn't look as if we'll need you in the meeting for anything this morning, Doris. Mr Closter-Bennet will take the minutes. Should be a short meeting too. I'll buzz if anything crops up.' He glanced at the electric percolator that was making erupting noises on her side table. ‘Can we have the coffee before we start?'

‘It'll be ready in two minutes.'

‘Good.' He was glancing at his watch as he turned about to go across to his own office. It was 8.34. ‘Everyone's cutting it fine this morning. Seen Mr Hackle?'

‘I don't think he's in yet, Mr Larden.'

Regular informal directors' meetings took place in Larden's office every Monday morning at 8.45. They didn't last long, and were held so that progress could be reported on major company activities. Larden called them essential exercises in top level communication. On the first Monday of the month there was an official board meeting instead, at ten o'clock, usually with Treasure in the chair. Douglas Figg, the Company Secretary, normally attended all the meetings and took the minutes, but he had succumbed to shingles three weeks before. Closter-Bennet had been taking the minutes instead, without much enthusiasm. This was why Doris had sometimes been called in to take the occasional long note.

Hackle usually came to the Managing Director's office ahead of the others to discuss the agenda. Twenty minutes later, with the meeting well under way, he still hadn't appeared.