A toastmaster in red tailcoat announced dinner was served and the vast herd of guests began their slow migration down the horseshoe staircase into the Great Room. Miles found his guests milling around the table and they all took their places. As well as Rick Partington, the Strakers’ MD, Miles had invited two of their more presentable account directors and two senior Pendletons executives, plus Paul and Brigitte Tanner, Greg and Mollie, and a business journalist from The Times.
They had no sooner sat down than the Freeza Mart party arrived at the adjacent table. There was Ross in his dinner jacket, copper bracelet jangling at his wrist, though he wore a proper bow tie these days, Miles noticed. He scrutinised Ross’s face for signs of stress, but couldn’t spot any. Annoyingly, he looked rather cool and relaxed as he directed his guests to their seats. Both his business mentors, Callum Dunlop and Brin Williams, were at the table with their women, and Miles identified Freeza Mart’s finance director, Heather Smail, and a couple of their non-execs. Then Archie turned up with Gemma, which took him by surprise since he hadn’t expected it, and finally, sitting on Ross’s right, Samantha in a silver beaded evening dress split to the knee.
Dinner was predictably detestable, Miles felt, with the gala food he left ostentatiously untouched: a glutinous salmon and leek roulade, rubbery breast of duck with Dauphinoise potatoes, some preposterous pudding involving blackcurrant ice-cream inside a basket of spun barley sugar. He devoted himself to telling the Times journalist how he confidently expected Freeza Mart’s bid to collapse within the fortnight, and how he’d make himself look clever if he wrote that in his next column. ‘I think you’ll agree,’ he told the journalist, ‘that if Ross can’t even convince his own son the takeover’s a smart idea, then he’s going to struggle to convince anyone else.’ Across the table, Greg loosened the waistband of his trousers. He was conscious of being the centre of attention in the room tonight, the man of the moment. He had been invited to appear on Question Time and relished the prospect. For the first time in his life he felt he was receiving proper respect as a statesman. From time to time he glanced surreptitiously at his father at the next table, taking care not to catch his eye. Ross had rung him after his defection to the Tories, and again after his remarks about the takeover, but Greg hadn’t taken the calls, nor rung him back. It was a nice feeling having the upper hand for a change.
He glanced stealthily at Samantha too, wondering what she thought of his recent prominence. He assumed even someone as uninformed about the world as Sam could hardly have failed to know about it; his face had been on the front of every newspaper as well as on TV. He wondered if she now regretted the way she’d behaved towards him in Thailand; he doubted she’d be so dismissive these days, when he was shortly to become her Member of Parliament. There was no question about it, Sam was a great-looking bird, much better looking than Mollie, he’d definitely married the wrong sister in the looks department. Generally, he was disappointed in Mollie who had scarcely congratulated him on winning the constituency nomination and was still banging on about those losers up in Droitwich. Move on, babe. Some people were their own worst enemies.
Dinner was followed by a loo break and then an auction.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ announced a smooth-looking auctioneer, loaned by Sotheby’s for the event. ‘Now, we have a long list of very special lots to get through and I can see some very generous individuals in the room tonight, so I want you all to have your cheque books open. There are a number of highly attractive young ladies on standby, ready to take your names and, haha, your money when you are successful … so let’s move straight on to Lot One, which is one week’s stay at a Center Parcs of your choice for a family of four people, including complimentary upgrade and food and beverage vouchers to the value of £250 redeemable in any of the resorts’ many restaurants and cafes. Now, for a lot of this quality, who will kick off the bidding at one thousand pounds? One thousand pounds … come on, this is cheap at the price … worth double that at least … thank you, sir … yes, you sir.’ A Primark executive raised his arm. ‘And now we have twelve hundred … fourteen hundred … sixteen hundred pounds … against you, sir … thank you sir … we have two thousand pounds now, two thousand pounds …’
The auction ground on from lot to lot. With only a handful of guests willing to take part, few dared raise their heads, still less their hands, lest they were accidentally mistaken for bidders. Men stared down at their pudding plates, or shook their heads in warning at their wives as holidays and cars were sold at stratospheric premiums. A Lexus went for forty thousand pounds to a Mancunian mall owner, a VIP day at Alton Towers for six people for fifteen thousand, and a villa holiday in Sardinia with use of a boat and eighteen holes of golf for thirty-six thousand, drawing gasps of excitement.
‘Lot twenty,’ said the auctioneer, ‘is the chance to win dinner à deux with a very lovely model, the face of Freeza Mart, who we all recognise from television and posters across the country. If Samantha Straker could join me up here on stage …’
Ross rose to his feet and gallantly pulled back Sam’s chair, and she walked up the steps to the stage. Mollie thought she’d never seen her sister looking more beautiful than that night in the silver dress. But she also looked shy and vulnerable, as if she wished she hadn’t agreed to be a prize.
‘This is a lot I’m sure every red-blooded man in the room will kill for,’ said the smoothy auctioneer. ‘So who will make me an opening bid of, let’s say, five thousand pounds? Do I have five thousand anyone? Thank you sir …’ There was a thicket of raised hands. ‘Ten thousand … twelve … fifteen … twenty …’
At twenty thousand the bidding lost momentum, and the auctioneer was about to bring down the hammer when Ross stuck up his hand.
‘Ah, thirty thousand … thank you Ross Clegg. Any advance on thirty thousand pounds? I now have thirty thousand, thirty thousand from the Chief Executive of Freeza Mart, to have dinner with his own supermodel …’
Miles was indignant. He glared across the room at Ross and felt pure hatred. No way, absolutely no way, was that man buying dinner with Sam. So he raised a languid hand, gold cufflinks glinting, and the auctioneer said, ‘Forty thousand. We have a new bidder on table thirty-three.’
Ross looked at Miles in surprise, shrugged and raised his arm. ‘We have fifty thousand from Ross Clegg. Fifty thousand pounds.’
Miles swallowed, then nodded. ‘We have sixty thousand. A bid, unless I’m mistaken, from Samantha’s father, Miles Straker. A bit of fatherly interest here. Dinner with his daughter for sixty thousand pounds.’
A gust of laughter rose from the room. This was fun: boss versus father. People were craning their necks to catch sight of the two adversaries. The better informed appreciated the additional dimension: that Miles, chief spin doctor for Pendletons, was entering a public head-to-head with Ross.
Looking down from the stage, Samantha suddenly felt sick. She could see her dad at the centre of his table in his perfectly cut dinner jacket, perfect white silk shirt, perfectly tied bow tie, relishing the attention. He looked almost obscenely smooth, hair swept back, cuff links glinting. The idea of having dinner alone with him filled her with dread.
She stared plaintively at Ross who seemed to understand and, after a terrifying delay, stuck his hand up. ‘We have seventy thousand pounds,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Thank you very much sir. That’s seventy thousand pounds for this very worthy charity from Ross Clegg.’
All eyes were on Miles. He could feel the whole room staring at him. He looked at Ross and felt … contempt. He thought of Ross’s hideous house ruining his view, he thought of the shoot bought from under his nose, he thought of Ross buying his daughter at this auction. He could not concede, his pride would not allow it.
He raised his hand from the table with a curt nod of assent.
‘We have eighty thousand pounds,’ announced the auctioneer and the room exploded into applause.
Now it was Ross’s turn. Total silence descended
on the Great Room, an anticipatory hush.
Sam stared at her boss imploringly. But Ross shook his head. ‘I’m out,’ he said. ‘I fold.’
Now the room rose to its feet, aware they’d just witnessed something rather incredible, and Miles adopted his special expression of triumphant modesty that he reserved for occasions like this one. Sweet revenge!
‘Sold for eighty thousand pounds … dinner with this stunning young lady … bought by her father, Mr Miles Straker.’
The auctioneer beamed out at the crowd, his job well done.
Then Sam dissolved into tears on the stage as her long brown legs gave way beneath her.
68.
Sam caught the midday flight up to Wick, desperate to put as much distance between herself and London as possible. After the auction, Miles had loomed over her at Ross’s table and said, ‘I’m very much looking forward to our dinner, Samantha. We have some catching up to do.’ And there had been a malicious, prurient look in his eyes she’d found creepy. Miles then shifted his attention to Ross. ‘We’ve been reading a great deal about you recently, Ross. Can’t get away from you, frankly.’
‘Well, don’t read too closely,’ Ross replied. ‘It hasn’t been that friendly just recently.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be. You’ve overreached yourself. Big mistake. But we all learn from our mistakes, do we not, Samantha? At least we would be well advised to.’ Then he had glared at her meaningfully.
On the journey to the airport her mobile rang twice, and each time the number for Miles’s office had flashed onto the screen. She hadn’t picked up, but let it go to voicemail. Later she’d listened to her messages. The first was from Sara White: ‘Hello, this is a message for Samantha. This is Sara from your father’s office. He has asked me to confirm you are coming to his lunch party at Chawbury Manor. Please call me at the office.’ The second said, ‘This is a message for Samantha Straker from Anya in Miles Straker’s office. He has asked me to fix up a date for the dinner with you he bought at auction last night. Please ring me at your earliest convenience with your schedule.’
Sam shuddered. There was no way, absolutely no way, she was going to be having that dinner, trapped in a restaurant alone with her dad.
Peter had said, ‘Get on the first plane. I’ll drive over and meet you.’
‘Shouldn’t you be doing something more important? Like signing autographs or whatever?’
‘Forget that. No one knows me from Adam up here. Actually that’s not true. I did get asked for an autograph yesterday in Durness, by a kid in the carpark. It was quite weird.’
‘Get used to it. How long have you been in the charts? Six weeks?’
‘Er, nine. But sinking like a stone now.’
‘They’re still playing it everywhere. You’ve been Number One.’
When they stopped for petrol at a garage on the way back from Wick airport, there was a display of The Cormorant’s Cry alongside the till and a cardboard cutout of Peter’s head. Not that the cashier noticed when he paid. They were driving along the coast road when a wall of bright sunshine swept across the bay, illuminating the tops of the waves and turning the sea a deep, alluring blue. ‘Thank God I’m here,’ Sam said. ‘I always feel nobody can get at me here. I have to tell you about last night …’
She was halfway through her description of the auction when Peter’s mobile leapt into life, announcing a voice message. ‘I’d better listen to it, probably the record company, they keep stalking me.’
‘Hello, is that Peter? This is Sara from your father’s office. He’s asked me to confirm you’ll be at the Chawbury Manor lunch on Sunday week. And he’s asked me to say he hopes you’ll be wearing a suit. Kindly confirm you received this message.’
‘Jesus,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve been dodging that lunch for weeks but she won’t let it go. I’m getting three messages a day about it.’
‘Me too.’
At that moment, Sam’s mobile began ringing and she glanced down at the screen. ‘Them again.’ She pushed the button to switch it off.
For three days they sat outside the cottage in the sunshine, doing nothing but talking fitfully about Miles. Peter strummed at his guitar and built a fire out of driftwood over which they grilled fish. Sam became increasingly despondent as the prospect of the dinner weighed upon her. ‘How can I possibly have dinner with him on my own?’ she asked over and over. ‘It’d be hideous. I think he’s quite evil, he has to control everything. He’s even got my old boyfriend, Dick Gunn, on his side in this takeover thing, Ross told me that last night. I bet Dad only did that to freak me out.’
They walked to the furthest end of the beach where it became headland, and their mobiles leapt simultaneously into life. ‘More voicemail,’ Peter said. ‘Any bets?’ Both messages were from Miles’s office. There was also a second message on Peter’s phone, this time from Mollie, asking him to ring back as soon as possible.
‘Mollie? It’s Peter.’
‘Hi Peter. Look, I need to know, are you going to this lunch thing at Chawbury? I was wondering if you’d be there. And Sam. I don’t know where she is.’
‘Right here. You can talk to her. But we’re both undecided. We’d love not to, but we’re under big pressure.’
‘Please do come,’ Mollie said. ‘I can’t tell you why yet, but I’d love you to be there. Something’s probably going to be announced and I want you to see Dad’s face.’
Archie had found the perfect place from which to communicate with Miles. If he took the lift up to the top floor of Freeza Mart House, there was a fire exit outside onto an area of flat roof where the water tanks and machinery rooms were. Nobody ever ventured out there other than an occasional maintenance man, so he would shelter behind the tank room with a birds eye view across the Thames, and speak to Miles on his mobile. He rang him twice a day, immediately after the war cabinet finished at ten o’clock, and again at close of play. If anything came up after that he felt his father might be interested in, he would slip out of the kitchen door into the back yard of Roupell Street and call him from there, having first checked Gemma was reading Mandy a bedtime story and safely out of earshot, at the front of the house.
As the takeover ground into its ninth week and matters looked ever gloomy for the predator, Ross worked harder. Although now privately conceding there was a chance they might not succeed, he remained resolutely confident in the media, refusing to give an inch. He spent his days touring those financial institutions which had not yet declared for one side or the other, spreading his mantra of greater efficiency and enhanced margins. Other days he flew up to Edinburgh to lobby the Scottish institutions, or to Zurich where two Swiss-based hedge funds had taken strategic positions in Pendletons plc.
It concerned Ross that, wherever he went, he was met by a level of scepticism he had never previously encountered. Often, this turned out to be based on misinformation freshly fed to investors by the other side, and it took all his efforts to put them right. It was peculiar and disturbing, almost as though people knew his schedule in advance, and which investors he’d be calling on next. Similarly, any small setback had a way of leaking into the financial diaries. And several of his key decisions about the shape of the merged business, including sensitive personnel deployments, were splashed across The Times, causing endless embarrassment.
On the rare evenings he didn’t work late, Ross often headed round for kitchen supper in Roupell Street. He found it therapeutic spending downtime with his daughter and granddaughter, talking about anything and everything except the takeover battle. And if he felt the need to discuss work, Archie was fully in the loop so was a useful sounding board. Over time, Ross had come to have a lot of respect for Archie, who was always well informed and sharp as a pin. At weekends, if he thought he could justify a few hours away, Ross piloted the helicopter down to Chawbury for a night at home to check everything was OK with the place. If truth be told, he found it rather joyless being there on his own, so he generally drove over to Serena’s for a mea
l and a friendly face.
One evening in Roupell Street, after a particularly challenging day when a pension fund previously thought to be supportive of the takeover had suddenly gone wobbly, he felt knackered. It was as much as he could do to eat the bowl of pasta Gemma placed in front of him and sink a big glass of red wine. Gradually, however, he revived enough to tell Archie about his difficult ride, and how he was afraid another investor had moved over to Pendletons’s side.
Not long afterwards, while going for a pee, Ross was surprised to hear furtive talking in the backyard, through the cloakroom window. The voice had been Archie’s, and was repeating, word for word, the conversation they’d just been having together in the kitchen, plus details from that afternoon’s strategy meeting.
He listened until he was in no doubt at all about whom Archie had been speaking to. Suddenly, a great deal was explained. Once again, Miles Straker was the cause of his problems. ‘That fuckhead,’ Ross cursed, shaking with a hatred and fury he didn’t even know himself capable of. Well, two can play at that game, he thought grimly. At that moment, he had only one thought: revenge. Whatever it took, he would win this great standoff with Pendletons, and do his damnedest to ruin Miles in the process. Without challenging Archie, but with a very stern expression on his face, Ross said goodbye and headed out into the night.
69.
Striding purposefully across the terrace in his new summer suit, Miles surveyed the activity of the lunch party preparations. Nico Ballantyne of Gourmand Solutions was briefing a phalanx of forty young waiters and waitresses in the marquee, while the florists put finishing touches to the table centres. The garden, he was pleased to see, had finally achieved the standard of near-perfection he demanded, having been tended over the past ten days by contractors brought in specially for the job. The glass panes of the orangerie sparkled in the sunshine, as did the hundreds of champagne and cocktail glasses set out in rows. The yew hedges were newly sheared with precision.
Pride and Avarice Page 51
