As the Crow Flies

by Jeffrey Archer

  Within a fortnight of that fateful meeting, Nigel Trentham had agreed to part with his shares at the market price. Now that interest rates had risen to eight percent it was hardly surprising that he had little stomach for a protracted and bitter wrangle over any claim he might or might not have to the Hardcastle estate.

  Mr. Baverstock, on behalf of the Trust, purchased all his stock at a cost of a little over seven million pounds. The old solicitor then advised Charlie that he should call a special board meeting as it was his duty to inform Companies House of what had taken place. He also warned Charlie that he must, within fourteen days, circulate all other shareholders with the details of the transaction.

  It had been a long time since I’d looked forward to a board meeting with such anticipation.

  Although I was among the first to take my place at the boardroom table that morning, every other director was present long before the meeting was scheduled to begin.

  “Apologies for absence?” requested the chairman on the dot of ten.

  “Nigel Trentham, Roger Gibbs and Hugh Folland,” Jessica intoned in her best matter-of-fact voice.

  “Thank you. Minutes of the last meeting,” said Charlie. “Is it your wish that I should sign those minutes as a true record?”

  I glanced round the faces at the boardroom table. Daphne, dressed in a perky yellow outfit, was doodling away all over her minutes. Tim Newman was looking as suave as ever and simply nodded, while Simon took a sip from the glass of water in front of him and when he caught my eye raised it in a mock toast. Ned Denning whispered something inaudible in Bob Makins’ ear while Cathy placed a tick by item number two. Only Paul Merrick looked as if he wasn’t enjoying the occasion. I turned my attention back to Charlie.

  As no one appeared to be showing any dissent, Jessica folded back the last page of the minutes to allow Charlie to scrawl his signature below the bottom line. I noticed Charlie smile when he reread the final instruction the board had given him on the last occasion we had met: “Chairman to try and come to some amicable agreement with Mr. Nigel Trentham concerning the orderly takeover of Trumper’s.”

  “Matters arising from the minutes?” Charlie asked. Still no one else spoke, so once again Charlie’s eyes returned to the agenda. “Item number four, the future of—” he began, but then every one of us tried to speak at once.

  When some semblance of order had been regained, Charlie suggested that it might be wise if the chief executive were to bring us up to date on the latest position. I joined the “Hear, hears” and nods that greeted this suggestion.

  “Thank you, Chairman,” said Arthur Selwyn, removing some papers from a briefcase by the side of his chair. The rest of the board waited patiently. “Members of the board will be aware that,” he began, sounding like the senior civil servant he had once been, “following the announcement by Mr. Nigel Trentham that it was no longer his intention to mount a takeover bid for Trumper’s, the company’s shares subsequently fell from their peak of two pounds four shillings to their present price of one pound nineteen shillings.”

  “We’re all capable of following the vagaries of the stock market,” said Daphne, butting in. “What I would like to know is: what has happened to Trentham’s personal shareholding?”

  I didn’t join in with the chorus of approval that followed as I already knew every last detail of the agreement.

  “Mr. Trentham’s stock,” said Mr. Selwyn, continuing as if he had not been interrupted, “was, following an agreement reached between his lawyers and Miss Ross’, acquired a fortnight ago by Mr. Baverstock on behalf of the Hardcastle Trust at a cost of two pounds one shilling per share.”

  “And will the rest of the board ever be privy to what brought about this cozy little arrangement?” asked Daphne.

  “It has recently come to light,” answered Selwyn, “that Mr. Trentham has, during the past year, been building up a considerable holding in the company on borrowed money, causing him to accumulate a large overdraft—an overdraft, I am given to understand, he can no longer sustain. With that in mind he has sold his personal holding in the company—some twenty-eight percent—direct to the Hardcastle Trust at the going market rate.”

  “Has he now?” said Daphne.

  “Yes,” said Charlie. “And it may also interest the board to know that during the past week I have received three letters of resignation, from Mr. Trentham, Mr. Folland and Mr. Gibbs, which I took the liberty of accepting on your behalf.”

  “That was indeed a liberty,” said Daphne sharply.

  “You feel we shouldn’t have accepted their resignations?”

  “I certainly do, Chairman.”

  “May one ask your reasons, Lady Wiltshire?”

  “They’re purely selfish, Mr. Chairman.” I thought I detected a chuckle in her voice, as Daphne waited to be sure she had the full attention of the board. “You see, I’d been looking forward to proposing that all three of them should be sacked.”

  Few members of the board were able to keep a straight face at this suggestion.

  “Not to be recorded in the minutes,” said Charlie, turning towards Jessica. “Thank you, Mr. Selwyn, for an admirable summary of the present situation. Now, as I cannot believe there is anything to be gained by continuing to rake over those particular coals, let us move on to item number five, the banking hall.”

  Charlie sat back contentedly while Cathy reported to us that the new facility was making a respectable monthly return and she could see no reason why the figures should not continue to improve for the foreseeable future. “In fact,” she said, “I believe the time has come for Trumper’s to offer its regular customers their own credit card as…”

  I stared at the miniature MC that hung from a gold chain around Cathy’s neck, the missing link that Mr. Roberts always insisted had to exist. Cathy was still unable to recall a great deal of what had taken place in her life before she had come to work in London, but I agreed with Dr. Atkins’ assessment that we should no longer waste our time with the past but let her concentrate on the future.

  None of us doubted that when the time came to select a new chairman we wouldn’t have far to look. The only problem I had to face now was how to convince the present chairman that perhaps the time had come for him to make way for someone younger.

  “Do you have any strong feelings about upper limits, Chairman?” asked Cathy.

  “No, no, it all makes good sense to me,” said Charlie, sounding unusually vague.

  “I’m not so sure that I’m able to agree with you on this occasion, Chairman,” said Daphne.

  “And why’s that, Lady Wiltshire?” asked Charlie, smiling benignly.

  “Partly because you haven’t been listening to a single word that’s been said for about the last ten minutes,” Daphne declared, “so how can you possibly know what you’re agreeing to?”

  “Guilty,” said Charlie. “I confess my mind was on the other side of the world. However,” he continued, “I did read Cathy’s report on the subject and I suggest that the upper limits will have to vary from customer to customer, according to their credit rating, and we may well need to employ some new staff in future who have been trained in the City, rather than on the high street. Even so, I shall still require a detailed timetable if we’re to consider seriously the introduction of such a scheme, which should be ready for presentation at the next board meeting. Is that possible, Miss Ross?” Charlie asked firmly, no doubt hoping that yet another example of his well-known “thinking on his feet” had released him from the jaws of Daphne.

  “I will have everything ready for the board to consider at least a week before our next meeting.”

  “Thank you,” said Charlie. “Item number six. Accounts.”

  I listened intently as Selwyn presented the latest figures, department by department. Once again I became aware of Cathy questioning and probing whenever she felt we were not being given a full enough explanation for any loss or innovation. She sounded like a better informed, more professional
version of Daphne.

  “What are we now projecting will be the profit forecast for the year 1965?” she asked.

  “Approximately nine hundred and twenty thousand pounds,” replied Selwyn, running his finger down a column of figures.

  That was the moment when I realized what had to be achieved before I could convince Charlie he should announce his retirement.

  “Thank you, Mr. Selwyn. Shall we move on to item number seven?” said Charlie. “The appointment of Miss Cathy Ross as deputy chairman of the board.” Removing his glasses, Charlie added, “I don’t feel it will be necessary for me to make a long speech on why—”

  “Agreed,” said Daphne. “It therefore gives me considerable pleasure to propose Miss Ross as deputy chairman of Trumper’s.”

  “I should like to second that proposal,” volunteered Arthur Selwyn. I could only smile at the sight of Charlie with his mouth wide open, but he still managed to ask, “Those in favor?” I raised my hand along with all but one director.

  Cathy rose and gave a short acceptance speech in which she thanked the board for their confidence in her and assured them of her total commitment to the future of the company.

  “Any other business?” asked Charlie, as he began stacking up his papers.

  “Yes,” replied Daphne. “Having had the pleasure of proposing Miss Ross as deputy chairman I feel the time has come for me to hand in my resignation.”

  “But why?” asked Charlie, looking shocked.

  “Because I shall be sixty-five next month, Chairman, and I consider that to be a proper age to make way for younger blood.”

  “Then I can only say—” began Charlie and this time none of us tried to stop him making a long and heartfelt speech. When he had finished we all banged the table with the palm of a hand.

  Once order had been regained, Daphne said simply, “Thank you. I could not have expected such dividends from a sixty-pound investment.”

  Within weeks of Daphne’s leaving the company, whenever a sensitive issue came under discussion with the board Charlie would admit to me after the meeting was over that he missed the marchioness’ particular brand of maddening common sense.

  “And I wonder if you’ll miss me and my nagging tongue quite as much when I hand in my resignation?” I asked.

  “What are you talking about, Becky?”

  “Only that I’ll be sixty-five in a couple of years and intend to follow Daphne’s example.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Charlie,” I told him. “Number I now runs itself—more than competently since I stole young Richard Cartwright from Christie’s. In any case, Richard ought to be offered my place on the main board. After all, he’s taking most of the responsibility without gaining any of the credit.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” Charlie retorted defiantly, “I don’t intend to resign, not even when I’m seventy.”

  During 1965, we opened three new departments: “Teenagers,” which specialized in clothes and records with its own coffee shop attached; a travel agency, to cope with the growing demand for holidays abroad; and a gift department, “for the man who has everything.” Cathy also recommended to the board that after almost twenty years perhaps the whole barrow needed a facelift. Charlie told me that he wasn’t quite sure about such a radical upheaval, reminding me of the Fordian theory that one should never invest in anything that eats or needs to be repainted. But as Arthur Selwyn and the other directors seemed in no doubt that a refurbishment program was long overdue he only put up token resistance.

  I kept to my promise—or threat as Charlie saw it—and resigned three months after my sixty-fifth birthday, leaving Charlie as the only director who still survived from the original board.

  For the first time in my recollection, Charlie admitted that he was beginning to feel his age. Whenever he called for the minutes of the last meeting, he admitted, he would look around the boardroom table and realize how little he had in common with most of his fellow directors. The “bright new sparks,” as Daphne referred to them, financiers, takeover specialists, and public relations men, all seemed somehow detached from the one element that had always mattered to Charlie—the customer.

  They talked of deficit financing, loan option schemes and the necessity to have their own computer, often without bothering to seek Charlie’s opinion.

  “What can I do about it?” Charlie asked me after a board meeting at which he admitted he hardly opened his mouth.

  He scowled when he heard my recommendation.

  The following month Arthur Selwyn announced at the company’s AGM that the pretax profits for 1966 would be £1,078,600. Charlie stared down at me as I nodded firmly from the front row. He waited for “Any other business” before he rose to tell the assembled company that he felt the time had come for him to resign. Someone else must push the barrow into the seventies, he suggested.

  Everyone in the room looked shocked. They spoke of the end of an era, “no possible replacement,” and said that it would never be the same again; but not one of them suggested Charlie should reconsider his position.

  Twenty minutes later he declared the meeting closed.

  CHAPTER

  49

  It was Jessica Allen who told the new chairman that a Mr. Corcran had phoned from the Lefevre Gallery to say that he accepted her offer of one hundred and ten thousand pounds.

  Cathy smiled. “Now all we have to do is agree on a date and send out the invitations. Can you get Becky on the line for me, Jessica?”

  The first action Cathy had proposed to the board after being elected unanimously as the third chairman of Trumper’s was to appoint Charlie as Life President and hold a dinner in his honor at the Grosvenor House Hotel. The occasion was attended by all Trumper’s staff, their husbands, wives and many of the friends Charlie and Becky had made over nearly seven decades. Charlie took his place in the center of the top table that night, one of the one thousand, seven hundred and seventy people who filled the great ballroom.

  There followed a five-course meal that even Percy was unable to fault. After Charlie had been supplied with a brandy and had lit up a large Trumper’s cigar, he leaned over and whispered to Becky, “I wish your father could have seen this spread.” He added, “Of course, he wouldn’t have come—unless he’d supplied everything from the meringues glacés to the bread rolls.”

  “I wish Daniel could have shared the evening with us as well,” Becky replied quietly. A few moments later Cathy stood and delivered a speech that could have left no one in any doubt that they had elected the right person to follow Charlie. Cathy ended by inviting the assembled company to toast the health of the founder and first Life President. After the applause had died away, she bent down and removed something from beneath her chair. “Charlie,” she said, “This is a small memento from us all to thank you for the sacrifice you once made in order to keep Trumper’s afloat.” Cathy turned and handed over an oil painting to Charlie, who beamed in anticipation until he saw what the subject was. His mouth opened and his cigar fell on the table as he stared in disbelief. It was some time before he could let go of The Potato Eaters and rise to respond to the calls of “Speech, speech!”

  Charlie began by reminding his audience once again how everything had begun with his grandfather’s barrow in Whitechapel, a barrow that now stood proudly in the food hall of Trumper’s. He paid tribute to the colonel, long since dead, to the pioneers of the company, Mr. Crowther and Mr. Hadlow, as well as to two of the original staff, Bob Makins and Ned Denning, both of whom had retired only weeks before he himself had. He ended with Daphne, Marchioness of Wiltshire, who had loaned them their first sixty pounds to make it all possible.

  “I wish I was fourteen years old again,” he said wistfully. “Me, my barrow, and my regulars in the Whitechapel Road. Those were the ’appiest days of my life. Because at ’eart, you see, I’m a simple fruit and vegetable man.” Everybody laughed, except Becky, who gazed up at her husband and recalled an eight-year-old boy in sho
rt trousers, cap in hand, standing outside her father’s shop, hoping to get a free bun.

  “I am proud to ’ave built the biggest barrow in the world and tonight to be among those who ’ave ’elped me push it from the East End all the way into Chelsea Terrace. I’ll miss you all—and I can only ’ope you’ll allow me back into Trumper’s from time to time.”

  As Charlie sat down, his staff rose to cheer him. He leaned over, took Becky by the hand and said, “Forgive me, but I forgot to tell ’em it was you what founded it in the first place.”

  Becky, who had never been to a football match in her life, had to spend hours listening to her husband on the subject of the World Cup, and how no fewer than three West Ham players had been selected for the England squad.

  For the first four weeks after Charlie had retired as chairman, he seemed quite content to allow Stan to drive him from Sheffield to Manchester, and from Liverpool to Leeds, so that they could watch the early rounds together.

  When England won a place in the semifinal, Charlie used every contact he could think of to obtain two stand tickets, and his efforts were rewarded when the home side won a place in the final.

  However, despite those contacts, a willingness to pay over the odds, and even writing to Alf Ramsay, the England team manager, Charlie still failed to get even a standing ticket for the final. He told Becky that he had come to the reluctant conclusion that he and Stan would have to watch the match on television.

  On the morning of the game, Charlie came down to breakfast to find two stand tickets wedged in the toast rack. He was unable to eat his eggs and bacon for sheer excitement. “You’re a genius, Mrs. Trumper,” he said several times, interspersed with: “However did you manage it?”

  “Contacts,” was all Becky would say, resolved not to let Charlie know that the new computer had revealed that Mrs. Ramsay held an account at Trumper’s, and Cathy had suggested she should join that select group of customers who received a ten percent discount.