‘Aye. I have no definite proof for you but I am confident that is what it will do, yes. There is no limit to its potential.’
‘My understanding is that Alzheimer’s is a genetic condition for which there is at present no known cure. Is that correct?’
‘The condition is attributed to at least seventy per cent genetic factors; and yes, at the moment there is no cure.’
‘But to which your research, if successful, may find the answer?’
‘It is too early to say for certain but I believe it may well do that.’
She felt a jar in her gut and recognised it at once for what it was: a feeling of excitement both indefinable and undeniable. She had felt it several times in her life: when at sixteen she had made up her mind to run away from Pattinsons’ farm; the decision to head west; opening her own real estate agency in Perth; the never-to-be-forgotten day a decade earlier when she had committed herself to Craig Laurie. Now she had the feeling again, the sense that she was standing on the threshold of something important, perhaps even life changing. In this case for her, for the company, for humanity at large.
‘I must have some independent assessment of your work. You cannot realistically expect us to provide funding purely on trust: neither business nor life works like that. But I understand your concerns. Leave it with me,’ Hilary said. ‘Give me a contact number and I’ll get back to you within two days.’
2
She convened a board meeting for the following morning. Her financial director came to see her at once and he was not pleased. If Robert Clarke had a pet hate it was having his plans disrupted at the last minute. He had lined up meetings with the company’s banks to finalise the funding arrangements for a new multi-tower development in Cairns and the idea of having to rearrange his schedule was enough to give him indigestion.
‘Damn it all, Hilary, it sends such a bad signal to the banks.’
‘They’ll get over it,’ Hilary said.
‘What’s so important, anyway?’
She explained briefly, knowing he would be against the idea. Robert’s tidy mind abhorred what he called chaos and the idea of funding medical research would seem to him chaotic in the extreme. Sure enough:
‘It’s ridiculous! We’re in construction and the media. What do we know about medical research?’
‘We know nothing,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s time we changed that.’
He looked at her as though she’d lost her marbles. ‘It’s a hare-brained idea. We should stick to what we’re good at.’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Hilary said. ‘We shall discuss it properly at the meeting tomorrow morning.’
3
Hilary looked around the boardroom table.
Vivienne Archer; Martha Tan; Desmond Bragg; Robert Clarke. Faces she knew; faces she trusted; faces that in some ways she loved. But she was under no illusions. All of them were business people, their senses finely tuned to what was profitable and what was not. If she were to persuade them to explore the concept of what William Gainsborough had brought her yesterday she needed to do a selling job on them. And perhaps on herself too.
She spelt out what William had told her: how the opportunity existed to earn vast profits while involving the company in a project that could be of great benefit to humanity.
As she spoke she watched each face in turn: Vivienne with the calm expression that hid her inevitable anxiety; Robert, stiff-backed and disapproving, frowning at the writing paper on the table in front of him; Martha watchful; Desmond Bragg doodling on his pad, seeming not to listen to a word but in reality, Hilary knew, taking it all in.
She finished her spiel and waited for comment.
‘Medical research,’ said Robert Clarke. As though Hilary had suggested marketing the Black Death. ‘We have no expertise in medical research. Why didn’t this man,’ promoting his opposition to the proposal by pretending he couldn’t remember William Gainsborough’s name, ‘go to one of the big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer or Merck?’
‘I asked him that. He said he wanted to keep the project in Australia.’
A sniff. ‘Very commendable. Unless of course he’s tried them already and they turned him down.’
‘That is possible,’ Hilary said. ‘But not relevant at this point.’
‘Not relevant?’ It was possible that Robert’s outrage was genuine; he had never been a pioneer.
‘We are talking of the concept here,’ Hilary said. ‘Only that. If we believe there is a possibility of this being a worthwhile investment I believe we should investigate it. Obtain the best available advice; check out the financial implications, the costs and possible rewards; look at the legal implications.’
‘We are talking genetic modification,’ Vivienne said. ‘Some shareholders might not be comfortable with that.’
Hilary said: ‘This board has been appointed by the members to represent their interests commercially and financially. It is not our function to be the guardians of their souls.’
‘And if they sell?’
‘Then they sell.’ Her eyes moved to Martha. ‘Any thoughts?’
‘I am in favour,’ Martha said. ‘Provided we are satisfied on the scientific side.’
One in favour; two – the most conservative members of the board – against.
Desmond said: ‘You say this bloke was involved in that Dolly the sheep business?’
‘That is what he told me. Should we go ahead we would of course need to confirm that.’
‘That was one of the greatest public relations coups of all time.’ Desmond rested his stomach against the edge of the boardroom table. ‘Provided the science makes sense I think we should go for it.’
Two yes; two no. Hilary’s casting vote would decide.
‘We’ll give it a go,’ she said.
Robert’s mouth was a disapproving line in his pale face. ‘Subject to our obtaining satisfactory evidence scientifically speaking.’
‘Of course. I shall get back to you all on that.’ Hilary stood up; the meeting was at an end. ‘Back to the treadmill,’ she said. ‘Martha, I’d like a word.’
It took less than a minute; she stood and watched Martha’s back as she hurried out. A million bucks, she thought. Funny how things worked out. It didn’t seem that long ago when a thousand would have been too much, ten thousand riches beyond measuring. Now everything depended on what Martha could find out. Then a decision, one way or the other, would have to be made. And that, as always, would be down to her.
She would not have had it any other way.
Ten hours later Martha was back.
‘The time differences held me up,’ she said.
‘But you spoke to them?’
‘Oh yes. I spoke to them all. Four people William Gainsborough has worked with in his career.’
‘And their verdict?’
‘Unanimous. Very, very talented, they say. If he has confidence, they seem to think there’s a ninety per cent chance he will succeed. That was what his professor at university told me. I also spoke to Professor Wee in Singapore. He knows Gainsborough. Not personally but his work. Professor Wee concurs. William Gainsborough is a winner: those were his words.’
It was what Hilary had hoped to hear. ‘Good. We’ll go for it then.’
‘Beauty!’
Hilary smiled. Martha’s voice still had echoes of Asia but she had picked up the Aussie idiom too. Sometimes it created an odd combination.
‘Beauty!’ Hilary agreed.
2000
A DOOR INTO CHINA
On Saturday 27 May 2000 Hilary Brand went into her office for a meeting with Willard Rice, CEO of Premier Tractors. Premier was the major manufacturer of earthmoving equipment in Australia with a significant investment in Asia, China in particular.
Willard had not been happy about coming into the office on a Saturday but Hilary had heard a rumour that Premier was in trouble and therefore it was for her to say where and when they would meet.
‘Ten o’clock in my offi
ce. The only time I can manage, I’m afraid,’ she told him. ‘And I’m tied up the rest of the week. In any case, a confidential chat is best held when no one else is about, don’t you find?’
So, like a lamb which by its expression was hoping to avoid the slaughter, Willard Rice had turned up. Ten minutes late, to prove to himself he was still the man, but Hilary was patient about that. The point was he had come and at her bidding.
‘Coffee?’
Hilary had it ready but with no biscuits, chocky or otherwise; hospitality had its limits. No offer of a comfortable chair, either, although the office had several. She poured the coffee and sat behind her desk and smiled at him.
‘Willard, you are looking well.’ It was a lie and they both knew it. It was why she’d said it; Willard Rice was by way of being an old enemy. He had been a prime mover in a consortium that some years ago had hoped to mount a takeover of Brand. He had failed but she had not forgotten. ‘How can I help you?’ she said kindly.
He tried to box around the subject, saying how marvellous business was, how the sky was – or could be – the limit, while his eyes swithered this way and that like greased ball gearings. It was a kindness to cut him short. Hilary made sure he saw her look at her watch.
‘I don’t want to press you,’ she said, pressing him, ‘but I have another meeting in twenty-five minutes.’
So at last he came to the point. Premier had agencies all over the country. They also had a very big one in China, a smaller one in Southeast Asia…
‘You’re telling me you’re stretched,’ Hilary said.
Well, yes. Temporarily that was true. ‘Cash flow is a problem for us all,’ Willard said.
Hilary had had her share of problems in that area but not for some years now. ‘It all comes down to planning, doesn’t it?’
Premier’s planning was impeccable, he assured her. Absolutely. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘So what’s the problem?’
China was the problem. Language was a hurdle. There was lack of skills on the ground. Technicians were inadequately trained. China was chewing up cash like a ravenous wolf. Which in turn was impacting on Premier’s operations in Australia. In New South Wales in particular.
Hilary poured herself a second cup of coffee. She wasn’t sure about China but New South Wales might be a different story. Now they were coming to it.
‘What is the problem in New South Wales?’
Again it was a question of cash flow. Inadequate premises; inadequate training facilities for salespeople and mechanics; a question mark over the quality of management.
‘You’re telling me it’s a mess,’ Hilary said.
Willard Rice winced. ‘Nothing that can’t be put right with adequate resources. It could be a gold mine but –’
Hilary deliberately hardened her voice. ‘But isn’t. It’s a mess and you want me to sort it out.’
‘I was thinking perhaps a joint venture –’
After her experience with Haskins Gould Hilary was an all-or-nothing woman. Joint ventures in Hong Kong were an unavoidable fact of life but in this case she wasn’t willing to be saddled with Premier’s management inadequacies. If she couldn’t claim one hundred per cent possession she didn’t want to know. But she smiled at Willard and said she would get back to him.
After he had gone she sat pondering current plans and future developments. And wondering, as always, how Craig Laurie was doing so far away. For over twelve years she had contrived to spend time with him regularly; they exchanged emails on a daily basis and phoned each other several times a week. Her breasts burnt with remembered kisses, the children’s home was going great guns, but there were many days when she asked herself whether they would ever get together again properly. Would they greet the dawn together, lie beside each other at night, smile into each other’s eyes across a café table, take leisurely walks along the beach side by side?
She had promised herself – and Craig – that when the moment was right it would happen.
‘Permanently?’
‘Permanently,’ she said.
She had meant it absolutely. But it was hard to imagine when; it would take something drastic to jolt her out of her present life, the hustle-and-bustle wheeler-dealer world she had made her own. To go and sit on a tropical beach? It was indeed hard to believe, yet a significant part of her mind could imagine nothing better. When the moment was right.
In the meantime, what was she going to do about Willard Rice and Premier?
On Monday she discussed it with Vivienne Archer. She had already made up her mind but as her number two Vivienne had the right to know and – who could say? – might have some useful input on the subject. But when they talked they found they were in complete agreement: they wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.
‘Don’t we have enough problems without taking Premier’s on board as well?’ Vivienne said.
Hilary’s thinking precisely.
‘It could be a door into China,’ Vivienne said.
‘Maybe in a year or two’s time,’ Hilary said. ‘But never in a joint venture. We don’t know how bad their real position is. If it is really bad there may be something in it for us, down the track.’
‘You mean take them over entirely?’
‘Why not? If we let the fruit ripen on the vine –’
‘It may fall off into our lap?’
‘Exactly.’
So there, for the moment, they left it.
2004
HYENA IN AMBUSH
Physically he was a giant and knew better than most how to use his size to intimidate the world but, as he stood at the window of his thirtieth-floor office with its views over the harbour and the city that he was still determined to make his own, Haskins Gould felt twice the size he was.
Back in 1987 Hilary Brand had thought she’d ruined him. He’d introduced her to the world of shopping malls, he’d made her rich and in return the bitch had turned on him. He’d survived – no thanks to her – and now payback time was coming. Not long now and he’d be in the position to do to her what she had failed to do to him.
He’d started to play the market in the 1970s, shortly after the initial success with the Majestic Mall. At first he’d used money his father had lent him, money he’d promised to repay. Somehow he’d never got around to doing that and the old miser had moaned but only for the form of it: he’d never had any real need for it.
He’d done well – brilliantly – until the crash in ’87. After the bust-up with Hilary he’d had to sell up almost everything he owned; things had looked grim for a while but he was resilient – by God he was! – and soon he’d turned to other games.
He moved to Zurich, where he found a mentor in Selwyn Glass; with him he learnt to play the market like a violin. Like an orchestra of violins!
Play was what it was. The world was a casino. He won often; occasionally he lost; the thrill of the spill took hold. He was never one to let the law stand in the way of excitement; many times he chose to do something illegal rather than within the law because that added to the thrill. He became addicted. He drew like-minded men to him. The helter-skelter became his vehicle of choice, up and down, up and down. By the time the 90s rocked around he had several bank accounts in Zurich and the Bahamas, all in the name of nominees.
They were the cowboy years. Takeover followed takeover and soon he was making money by the truckload. He’d liked everyone to know it too; he still did. Showing off was part of the deal; a low profile was for the birds. As he used to say to his many girlfriends, if you got ’em, flash ’em around. His parties were legendary; one of them aboard his motor yacht Ariadne had set him back over a hundred grand.
Ariadne was a work of art. Silk drapes on the walls of the master suite, gold taps in the bathrooms and the latest TV bimbo in his bed. Sometimes two. ‘When you got it you share it,’ he’d told one of his admirers. He had a Rolls Royce and a Lear jet, a Ferrari and a house in Bellevue Hill that
had cost him a couple of million. When in Zurich he took a suite at the Hotel Storchen with terrace and views over the river; in London it was the Dorchester’s Harlequin suite. When he travelled on business he left his bimbos behind but wherever he found himself fresh meat was always available to a man with his connections.
Oh yes. Life was the biggest birthday cake you ever saw and soon he’d be enjoying the cherry on top.
Hilary, take a bow.
He picked up the phone.
A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
1
On Tuesday 10 February 2004, twelve days later than the day initially proposed by Wong Chee-Weng, the three musketeers arrived in a bitterly cold Beijing. Andrea Chan, who Hilary told Sara had impressed her enormously, came with them.
They were met by an anonymous official, very young and smartly dressed, and a chauffeur-driven limousine half a mile long – thankfully heated – that drove them to their hotel. Hilary stared out of the window. It was her second visit to China’s capital; she had been here seven years earlier as member of a trade delegation and was interested to see what changes had taken place since.
They were many and impressive. There were crowds of pedestrians muffled against the cold; bicycles still wove this way and that down the streets but there were many more vehicles; tower blocks were rising behind the one- and two-storey shopfronts that lined the street, each with Chinese characters in glossy red or gold above the entrance. A seething city, its pulsing energy evident even through the glass of the limousine’s tinted windows.
‘I feel like stout Cortez,’ Hilary said.
‘What’s Cortez got to do with it?’ Sara said.
‘Keats’s poem,’ Hilary said. ‘Staring with a wild surmise…’
‘Silent upon a peak in Darien?’ Sara said. ‘Wherever that was.’
‘Maybe Panama?’
‘Yellow fever and the canal.’
‘No canal in Cortez’s day,’ Hilary said.
The two Chinese women might have been watching monkeys at play.
‘Don’t mind us,’ Sara said. ‘We’re just crazy.’
A Woman of Courage Page 31
