Deadly Business

by Quintin Jardine

  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.’

  ‘Non-executive chair,’ Culshaw murmured.

  ‘She didn’t, actually. She appointed me chair and that was it. When she did it, she envisaged that she’d still be around, still pulling the strings. Sadly, she isn’t, so I intend to assume an executive role.’

  The managing director leaned across the table. ‘The shareholders may have something to say about that, given what’s happened to the company’s share price since your appointment was announced. I don’t condone what Gillian did, but we can’t hide from the reaction to the information she circulated.’

  ‘Your problem, Phil,’ I countered, ‘seems to be that you don’t keep up to date. This is what’s happened in the last hour.’ I took the sheets I’d printed in the hotel from my folder and slid them across to him, then watched his face change as he read it. ‘Seems there’s a significant new shareholder on my side, who now owns, by my calculation, around one-eighth of the equity, based on the buying price. Before you ask, it certainly is not me and no, I don’t have clue who it is.’ I looked at Wylie Smith. ‘Would you call the PR people, please, and find out what the current share price is?’

  ‘Certainly, Madam Chair,’ he replied, with a look in his eye that suggested he was enjoying the show, then rushed from the room.

  ‘While he does that,’ I continued, ‘I want to come back to the so-called confidential information that’s been used to undermine the company. I’ve had a day to study the accounts, that’s all, but even I can see that there’s a question needing answered. This golf course project; what the hell is it and why are we involved?’

  ‘It’s a joint venture with a partner,’ Culshaw replied, ‘a company called Monsoon Holdings Limited.’

  ‘How big a piece do we have?’

  ‘The Gantry Group owns fifty per cent of the vehicle company. It’s called Babylon Links Country Club PLC.’

  ‘Fifty,’ I repeated. ‘Not fifty-one?’

  ‘No, exactly fifty. It’s a true joint venture.’

  ‘Where’s the minute recording board approval? I can’t see it and I’ve checked.’

  ‘The late executive chairman signed off on it, last October. I can show you her instruction.’

  ‘That would be around the time she was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of leukaemia.’

  He nodded. ‘It was, but what does that have to do with it?’

  ‘It suggests to me that Susie’s eye might not have been too firmly on the ball. Did she also sign off on the twenty million pound contribution that we’ve made to the new company?’

  ‘Effectively; she gave me permission to proceed as I saw fit.’

  I eyeballed Gerry Meek. ‘Is that correct?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Do you know anywhere I can hire a set of golf clubs?’ I asked Culshaw, casually. ‘I’d like to try the course out for myself.’ I smiled. ‘In fact, why don’t we have a board outing?’

  ‘That won’t be possible for a while,’ he murmured. ‘Construction hasn’t begun yet.’

  ‘No? Then where’s the twenty million gone?’

  ‘Nowhere yet. The planning authority needed assurances that the company was properly capitalised before they would give consent.’

  ‘And has it? Given consent?’

  ‘Not yet, but my project team assure me that it’s close.’

  ‘So meanwhile the company’s sitting there with forty million in the bank, uninvested and earning nothi
ng.’

  We were interrupted by Wylie Smith as he came back into the room. ‘The company’s share price has stabilised,’ he announced. ‘The wave of selling has stopped, but our market value is still twenty per cent below its closing level on Friday.’

  It wasn’t the greatest news, but still I was pleased to hear it. It strengthened my hand as I turned back to Culshaw.

  ‘Not forty million,’ he said. ‘Twenty.’

  I stared at him. ‘Are you telling me we’ve only got fifty per cent of the shares, yet we’re putting up all the money?’

  ‘Yes,’ he snapped impatiently, ‘but it’s not as cut and dried as that. Monsoon Holdings are putting up the land; they own that.’

  ‘How much land?’

  ‘Three hundred and ten acres.’

  ‘Of what? Agricultural?’

  ‘No. There’s a little woodland, but mostly it’s just grass.’

  ‘Not residential, though?’

  ‘No, it’s green belt, but that’s not an issue. There are golf courses on similar land all along that coast.’

  I did some sums in my head. ‘I’m a country girl, Phil. I’m not up to date with current land values in Scotland, but I do know that if you can’t build homes or factories on it or grow things or graze things, then it isn’t worth a hell of a lot. Let’s say on a good day, three to four grand an acre. That would value it, tops, at one and a quarter million, against the Gantry contribution of twenty.’

  ‘Yes, but … When permission is granted and the course is built it will be worth much more.’

  ‘So where’s the business plan?’

  ‘There …’ He stopped, and glared at me, fiercely. ‘Look here,’ he barked, ‘enough of this! I haven’t come here to be cross-examined by some bloody woman who’s just walked in the door!’

  ‘Then resign.’ I eyeballed him back. ‘I could have another managing director in here by the end of today. Gerry,’ I snapped at Meek, ‘as finance director do you believe that the company has got itself a good deal here?’

  As I looked at him I thought I saw an honest man, and he proved me right. ‘Frankly, Mrs Blackstone, I don’t. Phil is right that when the project is up and running, value will have been added to the property, but to give us a decent return on investment it would have to be showing an operating profit of at least seven million a year and have a capital value of fifty. In my opinion, those are high expectations, and no way will they be achieved overnight.’

  ‘Were you consulted over the commitment of this sort of investment?’

  ‘No,’ the FD replied. ‘I was simply told. I did consider going to Ms Gantry about it, but she was uncontactable.’

  ‘Where’s the business plan?’ I asked Culshaw, again. ‘The one you showed the bank.’

  ‘There is none,’ he admitted. ‘We funded it from within our own resources.’

  ‘Added to by a certain amount of borrowing from the bank,’ Meek chipped in.

  ‘All well within our agreed limit,’ Culshaw shouted, ‘as Gillian would have told you if she’d still been here.’

  ‘Boys, boys, boys,’ I said. ‘Let’s be calm, please. Phil, I have a duty to ask these questions, to try to get a handle on substantial spending that I don’t understand.’

  ‘Investment,’ he hissed.

  ‘Twenty million out of our coffers any way you look at it,’ I shot back. ‘Who are the directors of Babylon Links?’

  ‘Must we dwell on this?’ he protested.

  ‘Yes, until I’m reassured about this project.’

  He threw his hands up in exasperation, and turned to the company secretary. ‘Wylie, tell her.’

  Smith nodded. ‘There are two. Mr Culshaw, and Mr Diego Fabricant.’

  I frowned. ‘Diego Fabricant?’ I repeated. ‘Never heard of him. Who the hell is he?’

  ‘He’s a member of the board of Monsoon Holdings Ltd. Its only director, in fact.’

  ‘So he owns the land?’

  ‘Not personally, no. The company owns the land.’

  ‘Okay, but he owns the company, so same thing.’

  ‘Actually, he doesn’t,’ Smith said, a little diffidently. ‘He’s an appointed director, but it’s unlikely that he’s actually a shareholder.’

  I almost blew up, almost but not quite. ‘So …’ I murmured.

  ‘All one hundred issued shares of Monsoon Holdings Limited,’ he continued, ‘are held by a company registered in Jersey, where there’s no requirement to disclose the beneficial owner. Nominee shareholders can be used; that’s what Fabricant is.’

  ‘Fucking hell!’ I glanced at Cathy Black. ‘You can minute that if you like. Wylie, you’re telling me that the Gantry Group has a business partner and we don’t know who he is?’

  ‘Effectively, yes.’

  I turned on Culshaw. ‘Who brought you this deal, Phil? Let me guess. It wasn’t your bloody nephew, was it?’

  There followed one of the most eloquent silences I’ve ever not heard. I felt like someone who’d just fired a rifle straight up in the air, and hit my target on the way down. The managing director’s jaw fell a couple of inches ‘How the h …’ he began.

  I laughed out loud. ‘I didn’t know. I wasn’t even serious. I think you’re done here. Mr Smith, I need advice on the legal implications of this.’

  ‘Enough,’ Culshaw shouted. ‘I’ve had enough of this interference. Mrs Black, please minute my withdrawal from this meeting. Note also my request for a general meeting of the company to be held as soon as possible, to consider and pass a vote of no confidence in Mrs Blackstone as chair, and requiring her resignation.’ He pushed himself out of his seat, and leaned over me, right in my face. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, a majority of the shares in this company are now held by two young people who are by marriage my great-niece and great-nephew. How do you think their stepfather is going to vote on their behalf?’

  ‘Phil,’ I asked him quietly. ‘Did you leak the contents of the management accounts?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he blustered. ‘I’m a shareholder in this company myself.’

  ‘Then who the hell did? It wasn’t Gillian Harvey, it wasn’t Gerry or Audrey Kent, it wasn’t Wylie and it wasn’t me. So who the hell did it and why? Ask yourself that as you plan my downfall.’

  Thirteen

  After he’d left, I had to ask myself the same question, but I couldn’t come up with a good answer.

  There was one prime suspect, of course. As soon as I’d closed the meeting, formally, I called Audrey Kent in Monaco.

  ‘How did things go?’ she asked, at once.

  ‘Combustibly,’ I replied. ‘Gillian Harvey resigned and Phil Culshaw’s just walked out in the huff, vowing to have my head in a basket. He’s called for an extraordinary general meeting, as soon as possible.’

  ‘Can he do that?’

  ‘Technically, no; Wylie Smith says he doesn’t have enough shares to force it. But I’m going to allow it. This golf course scam that he’s committed us to is a resignation issue; he’s more or less gambled company money with no guarantee of a return. No chair could let that go unchallenged: one of us has to go. I’ve suspended him from his employment pending the meeting, and Gerry Meek will be acting managing director till the EGM takes place.’

  ‘But will you win?’ Audrey asked, nervously.

  ‘I don’t know. It’ll depend on who votes Janet and wee Jonathan’s shares and how. My next meeting will be with Greg McPhillips, Susie’s lawyer. I’m going to show him my power of attorney and instruct him to put the trust in place, the one she asked me to set up.’

  ‘Can it be done in time?’

  ‘Time shouldn’t be a problem. I can delay the meeting, to an extent. The key question is whether I’ll be able to do it at all; right now I just don’t know what the position is. But to other things. First, how are the kids?’

  ‘Calmer this morning. Janet’s still a bit tearful; I’m staying close to her and wee Jonathan’s hardly let Conrad out of his sight. At least
Mr Murdstone isn’t around …’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘David Copperfield’s wicked stepfather,’ she replied, chuckling. ‘You should read Dickens, Primavera; it’s full of analogies.’

  ‘Where’s he gone?’

  ‘I have no idea. When Conrad and I got up this morning he’d left, without as much as a note on the kitchen table. Is it too much to hope that he won’t be back?’

  ‘Probably,’ I suggested. ‘As for your Dickensian image, I’d be surprised if he’s at all interested in the kids.’

  ‘In that case, what’ll happen to them? There’s no role for me here without Susie, and you can forget what Duncan said last week about keeping Conrad on. The two of them had a big argument last night. Conrad tried to speak to him about the children’s needs, and how he should be considerate with them in the wake of their mother’s death, but Duncan blew up at him, told him to mind his own so-and-so business.’

  ‘What did Conrad say to that?’

  ‘He got specific, and said that if he ever caught him looking at Janet inappropriately again, or if he frightened the wee chap any more than he does already, he would have to take action to protect them. Duncan yelled at him that from now on he was to have nothing more to do with them, but Conrad replied, very quietly, that he takes his orders from the chair of the Gantry Group, and that isn’t him. Primavera,’ she murmured, ‘I’m glad he’s gone too. You don’t push Conrad one inch.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ I suggested. ‘Bravery isn’t the man’s trademark. Duplicity is, though. Audrey,’ I went on, ‘do you know if Duncan’s had access to Susie’s private papers?’

  ‘Physically, no,’ she said, at once, then knocked me back by adding, ‘but he doesn’t need to. He’s had access to her laptop, and I think he’s taken it with him. Everything’s on there, and if he has the password …’

  ‘Would she have given it to him?’

  ‘Susie was so erratic in her final days that she might have; or he could simply have watched her key it in. I’m an idiot, Primavera; I knew what it was and I could have changed it after she died. Dammit, I should have. But why do you ask?’