by D J Harrison
The document’s title is Heads of Terms of Agreement. It goes on to list the parties to the transaction, what is being purchased and eventually the financial consideration involved. Two million, one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. My heart thumps faster, my excitement must be obvious to even the most casual observer and Hector is watching me closely for my reaction. Breathing carefully and fully I calm down, read the whole page, start again and make sure I understand it. There is one problem I can see immediately. A big one. I try not to be too deflated by it, reasoning that this document is only Hector’s starting position. I must adopt a contrary position so that we can negotiate our way to a situation which feels hard-won but fair. My biggest mistake here would be to concede too much too quickly. If I’m being honest, though, I feel desperate enough to take what’s on the table and run. It means a new life, a chance to get out while I’m still able, a chance to shake off the people who want to cause me harm. A new home for me and Toby.
I push the paper back to Hector’s side of the desk. ‘GOD Security made a quarter of a million profit this year, we’ll clear at least half a million this current year. Two million isn’t enough and you know it, Hector. That’s only four years’ earnings.’ What I’m saying is true if I include O’Brian’s money. The profit I make relies on the cash O’Brian gives me. It also works its way back to him. If only Doreen and I could keep it, we would be wealthy women already.
‘We have to continue to make that profit,’ Hector speaks softly, as if there’s a small delicate man inside his massive body. ‘We might make nothing, there’s always a risk when you project forward. Two point one two five million is a fair price in an uncertain market. The way GOD Security is expanding your earnings will be insufficient to provide cash-flow for the business, you’re in danger of running out of money.’
He would be absolutely right under normal business conditions. I can’t tell him we are awash with cash, that the volume of money provided by O’Brian is almost embarrassing.
‘We get by,’ I say, hoping I maintain my deadpan face but fearing I’m an open book, desperately eager to conclude the deal. Hector pours two cups of pale yellowish tea and passes me one. It has the colour of urine rather than the dark brown I’m used to. He sips his appreciatively without adding any milk or sugar.
‘Darjeeling,’ he says, ‘light and refreshing. My one weakness, I’m afraid. I am addicted to good tea.’
I put a drop of milk into my cup and the entire contents turn off-white.
‘Our valuation is a generous one,’ Hector says. ‘It reflects our real interest in acquiring GOD Security.’
‘Not generous enough, Hector. Our order book is full and our cash reserves are more than adequate. I have ambitions for the business. If you come back in two years’ time, you’ll have to pay double your offer.’
‘Then stay on and help us expand the business, Jenny.’
‘No. The only reason we’re still talking is that my ambitions lie outside the security industry.’
‘You can’t expect to be paid for value that we might add, my offer already includes an element of hope value.’
My mind is filled with the prospect of two million pounds, one for Doreen and one for me. A fortune. Even after I pay half of it in tax, it’s more than enough to get me away from all this anguish. I have to take this offer. I want to grab it, to dance around this plush office waving it in the air.
‘The proceeds of any sale have to be distributed amongst Gary’s family. By the time I’ve done that, there’s not enough for me to do what I want. I’m inclined to keep going, grow the business and look for an exit in a few years’ time, when it might be more worthwhile.’ I can hardly believe my own words, I hope that Hector has more success.
‘As I’ve already told you, this is a fair offer in today’s market and I can’t improve it. What I am willing to do is offer you a consultancy contract. Something that allows me access to your talents on an agreed basis. It needn’t interfere with anything else you might want to do, unless it involved a rival business. It would mean that I have you at the end of a phone and you’re unable to engage in anything that might be detrimental to SG. Would that be of interest?’
‘It might be. I won’t be setting up my own security business, or doing anything to compete with GOD Security.’
‘Good, I’ll have something drawn up. I suggest we make it five thousand pounds per month for a minimum two year period, would that be okay?’
‘As long as it doesn’t tie me down to set hours.’
‘Then we have a deal,’ Hector smiles.
‘No, not yet. The consideration has to be paid on completion, no stage payments.’
‘But it’s normal practice, we pay half up front and the remainder over two years.’
‘That’s not acceptable. I have to have all the money up front, otherwise I can’t do the deal.’
Hector frowns. It’s not a very convincing frown and I know I am home and dry.
54
The door to my solicitor’s office is firmly locked, stranding me in the wind and rain that inevitably follow any period of sunshine in these parts. I push hard, barge it with my shoulder, but it remains immovable. There’s a new box fastened to the wall with a button to press for entry. I rest my thumb on it and keep it there, a slightly satisfying continuous whine is created which eventually receives a response. A voice crackles from the box, there’s a metallic click from the door.
Stephen Bailey greets my bedraggled appearance with joviality.
‘What happened to your door?’ I ask.
‘Oh, you mean the new entry system. That’s to stop people coming in off the street, security.’
‘It works. I’m wet through.’
‘This is Suriya Melling.’ Stephen ignores my moans and introduces me to a tiny Asian girl already seated in the meeting room. She half rises and we touch hands briefly. ‘Suriya will be handling the sale of GOD Security. She’s our corporate law specialist.’
She looks far too young to be entrusted with such an important role. I feel like asking for someone else but recoil from all the awkwardness that that would entail.
‘Oh,’ I hear myself say and leave my reaction to hang in the air.
If he’s noticed my discomfort Stephen chooses to ignore it. ‘Before I leave you two to discuss the deal, I have some good news for you, Jenny. Arrangements have been agreed for access to your son at long last. I think you’ll be pleased with what we’ve managed to negotiate.’
Stephen gives me a single typed sheet which details arrangements. Every other weekend, one week during summer holidays; it’s not much better than I used to have. I was unhappy then and I’m more upset now. Yet a gnawing feeling tells me I can’t have Toby at the flat, not after the way that poor woman was killed. Imagine what would happen if they burst in while he was with me. I’m spending most of my nights at Alex’s these days and I certainly can’t take him there.
‘It’s the best we could do,’ he says.
‘I know, but it all seems a bit inflexible.’
‘Look, Jenny, these terms were hard-fought and hard-won, you can’t just take them or leave them. The commitment is binding on both sides.’
‘What if I want to alter them?’
‘Then you’ll need to talk to your ex-husband and his wife.’
This prospect is a difficult one but I’ll have to manage if things are to run smoothly now for Toby. I have to face it, they’ve got the upper hand and I’m going to have to bide my time and bite my tongue. At least there’s a starting point at last, a firm foundation to work from.
I turn to the diminutive Asian lady. ‘Suriya, I need this deal done quickly and smoothly. I can’t afford any delay. Push them hard to make them sign, the sooner I get the money the sooner I can get on with my life and be a proper mother to Toby.’
‘You won’t get any delays from our side,’ Suriya promises. ‘I’ll make sure everything gets turned around as quickly as possible. You do realise that they will re
quire you to answer an awful lot of detailed questions? It’ll be a lot of work for you and take up a lot of your time.’
‘No problem, I’ll work all day and all night if I have to. How long do you think it will take?’
‘From when we get their initial heads of terms of agreement I’d say six or seven months realistically.’
‘Six months! This is a tiny deal, two million, that’s all. I have a small, very simple company to sell. Six months is what it takes for a large corporate merger, I can’t wait six months.’
‘I’ve been involved in transactions that have proceeded more quickly but not very many. I’m only giving you a realistic timescale, that’s what you asked for.’
Six months. There’s a lot that can go wrong in six months.
55
Alex is away all week, working in London and spending some time with his daughters. It’s good for him, I know. He sees so little of them, he’s missing all the best parts of them growing up. At least I’m never far from Toby, it must be horrible for him to have all that distance between them. But now I miss him, I know I should be more understanding but I don’t like that he has to be down there when I so badly need him here with me. Now I have to try to sleep alone in my gloomy flat, waiting for someone scary to kick my door down and murder me. Every little click, every distant voice, each passing car, holds menace. I try to comfort myself that nothing else is going to happen and that the hit and run on George might not be connected after all.
At least Leroy is still in no fit state to run up three flights of stairs looking for revenge. And even when he is, I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere apart from prison. The call I made after I left the hospital has made sure of that. Leroy’s arrest even made the front page of the Manchester Evening News.
It’s no wonder that I’m feeling less than on top of the world, even Emma is getting it in the neck and that’s neither fair nor reasonable. I am tired, lack of sleep-weary, but most of all I’m realising that I’m in a constant state of fear. It’s the fear that takes most out of me. Ever since the police raided my house, disturbed Toby, found the cash, I’ve been constantly afraid. Being scared is my default mode and it’s a debilitating one. That’s why I have to make this drastic change, get out while I can, leave all this terror behind me. At least Hector has given me a way out, and at exactly the right time. Maybe things aren’t completely against me after all. I remind myself that I’ve been in a lot worse situations than this one. All I have to do is find a way to influence things in my favour and I know I’m damn good at that kind of thing, there’s nobody better.
*
Stuart Donaldson, the head of SG’s accountants, sits in his glass-fronted corner office overlooking Manchester city centre, a position very similar to the one I commanded long ago at Landers Hoffman. I can see the front of my old building from here. They have installed a swish Italian restaurant in the cavernous entrance space on the ground floor. Spinningfields is looking very chic, shiny and new, amongst the black-stained, crumbling mess all around it. I do get a pang of regret when I see what should have provided the backdrop for my non-contentious career in accountancy. A place where I should have enjoyed a normal life, doing a routine job. If life were in any way fair I would be sitting in comfort, distracted only by staff squabbles, work capacity and other trivial details. Instead, the Stuart Donaldsons of this world sit in these glass and steel towers, with no idea how scared the rest of us can get in the real world.
That’s my default setting now, fear. It bubbles like a sulphurous pool inside me, belching poison. Even those fleeting moments of joy when I’m with Alex or Toby are soon corroded by the terror of their impermanence. When I’m unhappy I think I’m unhappy for ever. When I feel good I know it’s only a transitional state. It’s only a habit, though, and one I can get rid of. It’s a matter of taking things one at a time, living in the present moment, not projecting my worries into the future. Alex will help me do this, I know he will.
Stuart knows about the proposed acquisition of GOD Security by SG. It’s his firm that will be conducting the due diligence exercise and it’s his report that will form the basis for the transaction. I find myself in very familiar territory.
The soft, inconsequential pleasantries are slipping by, his family are well, my Toby is likewise. His eldest placed at Oxford, the younger brother’s aspirations are the same. Business is difficult, the traffic a nightmare, property prices unpredictable, insolvencies abound.
As we talk my resentment of all he has that might be mine dissolves into gratitude. He has everything to lose, exactly as I did.
‘I have something for you,’ I say, pushing the thick envelope across his desk. His eyes betray his panic as his hands reach out for it and feel the wads of currency inside.
‘What’s this?’ he asks.
‘A token of my appreciation, Stuart. I don’t believe this takeover would be on the cards if it weren’t for the help you gave me. That information on the Stretford contract not only won me the job, but it brought SG to the table. They would never have bothered to approach GOD Security otherwise.’
‘No, Jenny, I can’t take this.’
‘Of course you can, Stuart, it’s only the same as the cash I gave you before.’
His eyes widen. His hand hovers over the money. I press home my point.
‘Take it. It will help with the university costs, think of it as a second instalment, a bonus if you like.’
He reluctantly scrapes the offending item off his desk and into the obscurity of a drawer. I stand up, reach out my hand. He half rises to clasp it briefly.
‘I need to be going now, Stuart, I’ve a lot to do. I’ll not be popping in again, at least not until the deal is completed, we wouldn’t want Hector thinking we were in cahoots, would we?’
56
It shows what little I know about the intricacies of business. After all my worrying and heart-searching, our insurance company paid up a sizeable sum to Alan’s widow. Enough so I certainly don’t mind sitting at her kitchen table with a mug of tea in my hand.
‘Thanks for all you’ve done, Jenny,’ she says, as if I had carefully made financial provision for her misfortune. ‘How’s GOD Security getting on? I heard they were prosecuting you over Alan’s death. Ridiculous if you ask me, there’s nothing anyone could have done, least of all you.’
‘It’s the way of the world these days, Alice. The authorities always have to have a scapegoat and we’re it. They say we were negligent and there’s nothing we can do to prove otherwise. We had to plead guilty and they fined us twenty thousand pounds, would you believe it?’
‘You should have got them to listen to me. I’d have stood up in court for you, Jenny. I’d have told them it wasn’t anything that GOD Security did. I told him to be careful, but he said it was perfectly safe, that nobody was going to get hurt.’
This unexpected turn of the conversation jolts me out of my placid conciliatory posing.
‘What are you saying, Alice?’
‘He died because of their special trailers.’
‘What’s so special about their trailers?’
‘Alan told me that they fabricate them in the big shed on site, that they’re used to hide people. Someone else must have found out about them and decided they wanted one.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Alan told me what he was doing for George Bottomley.’
‘Which was what?’
‘He helped out with special consignments, the lorries with people in. About once a week, he told me. One of the special lorries would be there and men would come with vans to take the people out. Alan had to let them in and help them.’
‘Did he say what sort of people?’
‘The ones he saw were young people, mainly girls. Alan said they were here to get jobs. He made a joke every time we saw a Starbucks that he should get a commission for providing staff.’
My heart is thumping. Aware or not, it sickens me that Alan was assisting the importa
tion of these poor women and that GOD Security is implicated in the whole business. It shocks me to think that someone at Trafford Trailers has almost certainly made the same arrangement with Alan’s replacement by now. After all, if a customer instructs us to allow access to certain people, we’re not going to deny him. It’s their business. We’re under their instructions. It can be argued that Alan was doing nothing wrong, but I don’t accept that. He should have informed me or Mick about what was going on. Alan must have known full well that he was involved in people-trafficking, even if he didn’t fully realise the fate of the girls being brought in.
My breath is shallow, restricted, too fast. I look at Alice, her face drooping with sadness, her eyes wide with anxiety. I decide that whatever the cost might be, I can’t walk away from what’s been happening.
57
Lottie looks puzzled when she opens her front door. ‘Chris is away, working, he never said you were coming here.’
‘He doesn’t know, Lottie, it’s you I want to talk to. Can I come in?’
‘Sure.’ She waves me into the kitchen and boils a kettle. I wait until she brings the mug of tea before I get down to the reason for my visit.
‘Your sister, have you heard from her?’
A dark cloud crosses her pretty face, the sadness in her eyes tells me the answer to my question before she speaks. ‘No, nothing.’
‘I want you to tell me what you know, how she was supposed to travel to England, who arranged it, what she was expecting when she got here.’
Lottie’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I can’t tell you, I’m so ashamed.’
‘Please, Lottie, you don’t have to worry about anything you tell me. I’m your friend. You can trust me.’
