Deadly Business

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘The bastards!’ I shouted, as I took Cress’s call. ‘They’re going to use our own money to buy us. You can bet that the twenty million will be diverted from the Babylon Links account.’

  Of course, there was even worse. The announcement had concluded by saying that Torrent PLC had already secured acceptance of its offer by a representative of holders of more than fifty per cent of the Gantry equity. Duncan Culshaw, Mr fucking Murdstone, had committed Janet and wee Jonathan’s inherited shareholding to seal the deal.

  ‘What you said yesterday, Primavera,’ Cress sighed, ‘you were right. It is the end. But why?’

  ‘I believe it’s the culmination of a vendetta, but I won’t know until I’ve talked to the bitch who’s behind it.’

  ‘Does it relate to that image you sent me yesterday?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I snorted. ‘Very much so.’

  ‘Who were those people? How did you get it? Who took it?’

  ‘She’s Natalie Morgan and he’s Duncan Culshaw. It looks like they’ve met before, doesn’t it? My boyfriend took it. Duncan visited Susie’s lawyer yesterday, to confirm his position under the will as the children’s guardian and administrator. I found out about it and asked Liam to follow him to see where he went. That’s where he led us.’

  ‘Do you want me to leak it? The trouble is, it wouldn’t mean anything outside Scotland, and even there …’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Investors don’t read the sort of paper that would publish it. No, don’t do anything with it. Common sense tells me this is the time to stay on the moral high ground, even if it means smiling as we mount the scaffold.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  I’d been giving that some thought. ‘I believe that I have a duty to call an emergency board meeting. I can do that right away, and I will. Gerry Meek’s here, I can ask Phil Culshaw to come in, and Audrey can sit in on the internet. We’ll have to consider the offer formally and make a recommendation … not that it’ll make any difference, by the looks of it. What about the minority shareholders? Given your experience, how do you think they’ll react?’

  ‘Normally I’d expect them to cut their losses and accept. But you’ll have a decision to make yourself, won’t you, for your son?’

  ‘No I won’t,’ I replied, firmly. ‘I’ll explain the situation to him. With what Susie left him, he now owns twenty-six per cent of the Gantry shares. He can’t be forced to sell, and if he doesn’t want to, I won’t make him. Liam, my partner, has a few shares as well; I can see him staying in there if only to make a nuisance of himself at the annual meeting. Thanks, Cress,’ I concluded. ‘I’ll be back in touch after the board meeting. We’ll have to issue a formal reaction. Cheers for now.’

  I hung up, then called Phil. He was up to speed with the news and he hadn’t been surprised either. He knew what had to be done as well as, if not better, than I did. I set the meeting for eleven, giving him plenty of time to get to the office, then had a similar discussion with Gerry Meek, and asked Wylie to join us as well.

  When I returned to my room, I had a call waiting. It was from a man I’d never heard of, but that didn’t stop him being rather pissed off.

  ‘Mrs Blackstone,’ he began, in an accent that could have come straight from the oil barons’ club in Houston, ‘my name is Buddy Beaujean. I used to be a friend of Miles Grayson, until he persuaded me yesterday to invest eight million sterling in your company. I did that on his say-so, because he said you were a chance worth taking and now I find that my stake’s worth five million and I’ve pretty much got to settle for that. I’ve tried to contact Miles to thank him personally for his helpful advice, but he’s gone to ground, or maybe to Mexico, which is much the same thing. So you hear from him, you tell him, Buddy says thanks, but don’t be givin’ me any more hot stock tips.’

  ‘I thought you Texans had balls,’ I retorted.

  ‘Say what?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘You heard me. You haven’t even asked what I have to say about it, yet you’re in the bloody lifeboat rowing for shore as hard as you can.’

  ‘Indeed?’ he drawled. ‘So tell me, ma’am. What are you going to do to make forty-eight per cent worth more than fifty-two?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but I’m working on it.’ The guy had riled me; I let him have it. ‘Fuck it,’ I snapped. ‘Guys like you don’t invest money they can’t afford to lose, not at the sort of notice you did yesterday. Okay, run out on me and you’ll only lose three million; stay and you’ll either find you lose most of what’s left, or you’ll make a decent profit at the end of the day.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how you’re going to bring that about?’ He was curious, and his accent was suddenly less cowboy.

  ‘At this moment,’ I replied, ‘not a single one, but there’s this. The guy I was married to for a while, and whose name I still use, we had several things in common, but the greatest was this. We were both inexplicably, but invariably, blessed with the most extraordinarily good luck. You’re a gambler, or you wouldn’t have invested in me. So, Buddy, stick with me now.’

  I didn’t give him a chance to come back. Instead I slammed the phone down and left him to think about it.

  Pure bravado, pure bullshit, ancient history. I didn’t have a single card in my hand and I knew it. Well, no, maybe I had one. I would find the best family lawyer I could and instruct the implementation of Susie’s wishes about the children’s trust. I was sure that my power of attorney had ended with Susie’s death and Greg McPhillips becoming her executor, but my talk with him had left me with a candle flame of hope that the court might respect her clear wish.

  It took one phone call to blow it out. I caught Harvey January on his mobile, in a break between court sessions, and explained the situation. He was appalled by what had happened, and outraged that his niece and nephew were being manipulated, but that didn’t override his legal instincts.

  ‘You could try it,’ he said, ‘but if it came before me, I’d probably rule against you. Even if you did win a couple of rounds, it would be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court in London, and meantime the existing guardian’s rights would continue to be exercised.’

  ‘Even if there’s been fraud?’

  ‘If you could prove fraud, that would affect the situation, but you’re right. These people have been clever, so you never will, or not unless the law of Jersey is changed, and don’t look for that to happen in a hurry. Sorry, Primavera. Barring miracles, we’ve had it. I say “we”, because I’m as angry about this as you are, but if no law’s been broken … well, we’re down to Divine intervention.’

  I thanked him, hung up, leaned back in Susie’s chair and stared at the ceiling. That’s what I was doing when God walked into the room.

  ‘Miles,’ I gasped, amazed, as he stepped through the doorway. ‘What the hell are you doing here, and how did you get here?’

  ‘On my jet, of course. This couldn’t wait for normal scheduled.’ He grinned from ear to ear. ‘Sister-in-law,’ he laughed, ‘some things are so good that they have to be done face to face.’

  Sixteen

  Once we reached the Edinburgh Park office complex, the headquarters of Torrent PLC was pretty easy to spot. It wasn’t the four-storey building itself, although it was classier than most of its neighbours in that it was faced in stone; no, it was the towering pole in front of it, with a bloody great ‘T’ on top, visible from a mile away.

  We parked in the visitors’ area and my driver and I went inside, into a square atrium, with glass walls looking down on it from the floors above. The reception desk was set in the middle; I announced myself to the young man who was stationed there.

  He nodded. ‘Miss Morgan is expecting you. If you’d sign yourselves in, please …’

  I signed for both of us. The lad tore slips from each form and fitted them into plastic cases, then handed them to us. ‘We like you to wear these all the time you’re in the building. Health and Safety, you understand.’ I didn’t, but
I nodded anyway. He handed me a key card. ‘You’ll find the lifts behind the desk. Take the one on the left, it goes all the way up. Put the card in the slot you’ll find there, then press the button.’

  I wondered why they both didn’t go all the way up, but found out pretty soon. Natalie Morgan’s office suite was on the roof of the building, out of sight of the car park, built around the glass ceiling of the atrium. Another young man met us as the lift opened. ‘Mrs Blackstone.’ He frowned. ‘Miss Morgan is only expecting one visitor.’

  I smiled, sweetly. ‘And my driver is expecting to wait in an anteroom. It’s what drivers do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course.’ He chuckled. ‘If you’ll follow me, please.’

  We did, along a corridor with a door at the end, facing us, and a low sofa outside. ‘If you’ll just take a wee seat there, sir,’ our escort said, as he opened the heavy wooden door for me. It seemed to be the only upright surface that wasn’t made of glass. (I must explain that it’s a Scottish peculiarity, that in my home nation you are never simply offered a seat. It’s always ‘a wee seat’. It doesn’t matter how small you are, or how large, or on the dimensions of the furniture in question; it’s always ‘a wee seat’.)

  Natalie didn’t stand as I entered. She leaned back in her very big seat and smiled at me, a look of triumph as naked as she had been last time I’d looked at her. And yet there was something else there too, a question that she couldn’t quite pin down.

  ‘Come to hand over the keys to the kingdom?’ she asked.

  I didn’t wait to be offered a chair, I sat down facing her. ‘I thought we should meet,’ I replied. ‘Imagine my surprise when I found that we had already.’

  ‘Indeed. Maybe you think I should apologise for my small deception in Diego’s office. If so, tough; apology is not my style.’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t give a toss,’ I said. ‘I would like a drink, though. It’s going on lunchtime.’ I glanced at a wine fridge in the corner. ‘White wine, slightly dry, that would be nice.’

  Natalie gazed down her nose at me. ‘If you wish. I might even join you.’

  She rose, walked across to the cooler and took out a bottle; Fransola, by Torres, I saw from the damp label. It had been opened but it was kept fresh by a pressure cap. She poured two glasses, and handed me one. The bitch had legs to die for, and clearly she was committed to figure-hugging clothes.

  She eased herself back into her swivelling seat. ‘You must be pretty close to setting a record,’ she murmured, ‘for the shortest period of office of a company chair.’

  ‘I’ll be there until my successor is appointed,’ I pointed out. ‘That can’t happen overnight. You still have minority shareholders to buy out.’

  ‘I take it the Gantry board will recommend against acceptance.’

  ‘We’ve still to reach a consensus on that. I’m against, of course, and so is Audrey Kent, but my colleagues are still considering their position. Have you had any other acceptances yet?’

  ‘It’s a little early for that.’ She frowned, very briefly, but it was her first sign of anything short of total confidence.

  ‘You’re still working on it, aren’t you?’ I said.

  ‘Working? On what?’

  ‘On how I knew before I walked in here that Kim Coates was actually you, given that you seem to be very camera-shy. Your face doesn’t appear in any of Torrent’s corporate brochures, and when I trawled the internet I couldn’t find a single photograph.’ I reached into my bag, took out a print of Liam’s image and tossed it across to her. ‘That’s how.’

  She picked up the image, and as she realised what it was, her eyes widened then she frowned again, full force, for real. ‘What the hell is this?’ she hissed.

  ‘What does it bloody look like? What I don’t understand, Natalie, is … why the hell didn’t the idiot bother to close the curtains? Do you like it in the daylight, is that it? Can you fake it either way?’

  ‘You cow! I could go to the police with this.’

  ‘What makes you think I haven’t?’ I shot back. ‘You and Culshaw, with the aid of his ageing and gullible uncle, have conspired to cheat the majority shareholders of the Gantry Group into accepting an offer for the business that undervalues it ridiculously. And he’s gone further; the people he’s cheated are my son’s sister and brother, by committing their controlling interest to you at that price.’

  ‘Oh really,’ she blustered. ‘Don’t be so fanciful.’

  ‘Don’t give me that!’ I shouted at her. ‘I bloody know, okay! And what makes me even angrier is that I also know I’ll never be able to prove it! I’m angry because I’ve spent some time as a guest of Her Majesty, and I would so enjoy sending you to do the same. So think on that, madam chairin-waiting, as you’re running the merged company with not much more than the percentage you have already. My guys and I haven’t reached a recommendation to minority shareholders, because that’s pretty much us now. My partner has an investment, Phil Culshaw and Gerry Meek have private holdings, Buddy Beaujean, my Texan support, he has a sizeable chunk. When you add them to my son’s twenty-six per cent … and he has said, Natalie, without my coercion that he’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes than sell to you … we will have a block that’s big enough to be a fucking spear in your side, never mind a thorn.’

  ‘And I don’t care,’ she yelled back, ‘because I’ve got it. Susie Gantry’s business, bloody Oz Blackstone’s business is under my control; my only regret is that they’re not here to see it! I’d have loved that even more. I don’t care about the company; all I want to do is wipe it off the face of the earth. I hated Oz for what he did to me, when I was with Ewan Capperauld! But for him, nobody would ever have known about it, but he spilled the beans and caused the chaos that followed. Then when I tried to get even with my first takeover bid, he got in the way of that too.’

  She had so lost it that I thought for a second she was going to spit at me. ‘As for Susie,’ she hissed, ‘little miss perfect? Businesswoman of the Year three times? Sure, thanks to her sucking every dick in Glasgow to get the votes! Well, let them fucking rot, the pair of them, because finally I’ve had a day of my own against them!’

  She was out of her seat, leaning across the desk, glaring at me, eyes like organ stops.

  ‘Sit down, Natalie,’ I told her quietly. ‘You’ve made your points; some of them might even be the truth. Now just tell me, how long have you been using Duncan to hatch these plots of yours? Because they weren’t his alone, that’s for sure. He’s not the sharpest tack in the box. The exposé book about Oz for example; I’ll bet that was your idea all along.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll give you that one,’ she conceded. ‘You want to know? Is your mobile switched off?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to fall for that one the way he did.’ I took it out of my bag, showed it to her, then laid it on her desk. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘then I’ll tell you, for it isn’t going to do you any good. Duncan and I have been a couple for a few years, but we kept it quiet.’

  ‘How did you get together?’ I asked.

  ‘He did some writing for me. I fancied him, and it went on from there. He is a bit of a stud, I must tell you; his sword is mightier than his pen, and no mistake. We didn’t make a noise about it, though, because I didn’t want old Phil to know. The last time I tried to take over the Gantry Group, when Oz got in the way, Phil helped him stop me.’

  ‘Are you telling me you were using the guy as a weapon all along?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I didn’t have that in mind at the start. But when Phil introduced him to Susie, and he told me that she’d made a flat-out play for him, I thought, “why the hell not?” so I told him what I wanted him to do. At first, all I’d thought about was getting some revenge in general. Yes, the book was my idea; I know that Oz was no lily-white, and don’t you try to deny it, Primavera, so do you. But it was meant to embarrass Susie, that was all. Using it to extort cash from you, that was all Duncan’s stupid idea. I don’t know why, but Duncan h
ates your kid; that’s where it came from, why he did it.’

  She paused for a couple of seconds. ‘Yes, I know, it was stupid; I went ballistic when he told me, I almost chucked him out, I was so mad. He backed off from Susie, thinking you’d be bound to tell her, then, just a couple of weeks later, Phil told him that she was ill, very seriously ill, maybe even terminally, and that he’d be pretty much running Gantry for a while.’

  ‘Was that when you came up with the Babylon Links scheme?’

  Natalie smiled, her self-confidence and self-satisfaction restored. She nodded. ‘I’d owned the land for years. My Uncle James bought it for a song from a friend who needed some cash. He was a secretive sod, was old James; in particular he wasn’t a big fan of inheritance tax, and did everything he could to avoid it. He salted away all sorts of assets in offshore companies, mainly Monsoon, using a nominee shareholder, usually Diego Fabricant. They all came to me when he died. Some I disposed of, but the Monsoon Holdings land was pretty much useless, so I was stuck with it.’

  She sipped some wine and gazed at me, across her desk. ‘There are some big advantages in looking like me,’ she said. ‘Probably the biggest is that people focus on one’s body without even considering one’s mind. But in business that can work against you, especially when you find yourself running a major company in your twenties as I did. That’s why you didn’t find my image on any of my corporate literature: I don’t want it to affect perceptions of Torrent PLC. You must know this, Primavera; you’ve probably experienced it yourself. Little Susie, on the other hand, not being quite so gifted in the looks department, found it much more easy to be taken seriously as a businesswoman. You with me?’

  I nodded; I couldn’t disagree with her.

  ‘What I’m saying is that I really am very bright. I think even you will concede that Babylon Links was a masterstroke. When I heard of Susie’s illness, I knew that Gantry had to be vulnerable. But it was still too big for me to swallow without conceding a substantial slice of the ownership of Torrent. In other words, I couldn’t do the deal for cash alone, there would have had to be shares involved, diluting my one hundred per cent ownership. So I wondered, “With Susie gone for a while at least, can I find a way to destabilise Gantry’s share price?” and that’s when the golf development was born, a joint venture, my land, their cash, and great wedges of it, without anyone ever knowing that I was involved because the true ownership of Monsoon is untraceable. Brilliant, yes?’