In Vino Veritas

by J M Gregson

  On the morning of Tuesday, May the eleventh, Beaumont chose to bully Tom Ogden.

  PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES.

  Ensure that you have the freshest fruit of all. Bring the family and enjoy a day out.

  Tom Ogden was inspecting the signs which had been newly prepared for this season’s picking. There was a road junction near to the entrance to his fields which meant that traffic often had to stop. That gave drivers and passengers a chance to read more than if they had been passing at thirty or forty miles an hour. Last year’s signs had been perfectly serviceable, but Tom had decided upon complete refurbishment.

  The psychological effect of pristine paint was to assure the public that a new and exciting opportunity was now available; Tom’s son assured him of this. And Tom, like many people of his age and background, affected to despise such nonsense, but felt secretly that there might just be something in it. No one ever went bankrupt by underestimating the intelligence of the public. Some rich American showman had said that, and Tom’s experience bore it out.

  Take all those idiots who poured into Abbey Vineyards next door, for instance. The supermarkets and the specialist wine stores were full of decent wines at decent prices. Yet people who should know better not only flocked in to eat in the expensive restaurant. They also bought the dubious English wines grown on the long lines of vines which had surrounded Tom’s defiant fields over the last twenty years.

  Tom Ogden did not pretend to be objective: he saw no need to sample the product before delivering his trenchant verdict.

  When he turned from the new signs to find Martin Beaumont also inspecting them, Ogden’s day took an immediate turn for the worse. He said harshly, ‘You’re not welcome here. You should know that by now.’

  Beaumont gave him a leisured, mocking smile. ‘Going to horsewhip me out of town, are you, Thomas?’

  ‘Don’t think I wouldn’t, if I thought I could get away with it!’

  ‘Ever the friendly neighbour, aren’t you?’

  ‘There’s nothing for you here. How many times do you need telling?’

  ‘I’m a persistent soul, Tom. Anyone who has had dealings with me will tell you that. I get my own way in the end. Always, and usually on my own terms. At the moment you’re lucky, Tom. Very lucky, because I’m being patient. But don’t rely on your luck lasting forever. Those same people who would tell you how persistent I am could also tell you that I am not noted for my patience.’

  It was like a confrontation in the western films Tom Ogden had so relished as a young man. The small landowner was being threatened by the wealth and power of the land baron who wanted to consolidate his holding. At least there were no guns here, as yet. ‘We’ve nothing to say to each other, Beaumont.’

  ‘Not quite correct, that, Thomas. You don’t have much to say to me, but in spite of your churlish attitude I am still prepared to talk to you. To say things which would be sweet music in your ears, if you weren’t such a stubborn old mule.’

  ‘My family’s farmed this land for years, Beaumont. I don’t intend to change that now to suit some johnny-come-lately like you.’ It was an old argument that he had delivered before, but Ogden enjoyed repeating it, enjoyed the contempt he could put into his epithet for this unwelcome presence.

  ‘Times change, Thomas, times change. Bigger people than you have ended up in the bankruptcy courts through failing to recognize that.’

  ‘Get lost, Beaumont! Look at the evidence before your eyes!’ He waved a wide arm towards the fields behind the man and his Jaguar, to where Spot Wheeler and his workers were assiduously tending the rows of his crop. ‘We’re going to have a bumper crop and a bumper year. We’ll still be here when your bloody vines have been and gone!’

  Beaumont’s face darkened, as it always did when anyone directly insulted his enterprise. ‘I hope you’re right about your crop, Thomas. It would be a shame if anything happened to affect this bumper year.’

  This was more than ever like a western. Tom Ogden felt he should have his gun belt slung low on his hips, with his hand hovering above the holster. ‘If you’re threatening me, Beaumont, you’d better watch out. That’s a game two people can play.’

  Martin knew he held all the cards here: God was always on the side of the big battalions. ‘You shouldn’t be hinting at violence, Thomas. Most inadvisable, for a man with your record.’

  Tom Ogden whirled from a contemplation of his land and his workers. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Beaumont tapped the side of his nose. ‘No names, no pack drill, eh, Thomas? Let’s just say that I have ways and means of finding out all I need to know about the people I do business with. And those ways and means tell me that you aren’t a man who can afford to threaten anyone with violence.’

  ‘Look, just get off my land, will you, before I treat you as a trespasser.’

  ‘Very complicated, the law of trespass, Thomas. A study of it would tell you my rights as a bona fide visitor. A visitor who comes here in a neighbourly spirit.’ He held up his hand as Ogden advanced towards him. ‘As that spirit clearly isn’t reciprocated by a man who seems to be under business pressures, I shall say what I came to say and depart. I wish you to know that my very generous offer for this small parcel of land still stands. No one else will match it, and it won’t last for ever. It won’t last longer than another month or two, I think. The best tactic for you – the only realistic tactic for you – is a prompt acceptance. I might even be prepared to cover your legal fees for the transfer, and set a date which allows you to have the takings from this year’s crop, if you sign by the end of June.’

  ‘I shan’t be signing anything, Beaumont. I’m sick to death of telling you that.’

  Martin had his hand on the driver’s door of the Jaguar as he delivered his final thought. ‘Sick to death, eh? I do hope it doesn’t come to that, Thomas.’

  ‘I’ve been watching Dad closely. He doesn’t seem much different, as yet,’ said thirteen-year-old Luke Hook magisterially to his brother.

  ‘Maybe we shall have to wait until after this graduation ceremony we’re being forced to attend,’ said Jack gloomily. He took advantage of his two years of seniority to ask a more practical question across the family’s evening meal. ‘Will it mean promotion, Dad?’

  ‘No, it certainly will not!’ said Bert Hook.

  ‘Your father could have been an inspector years ago,’ said his mother sternly. ‘He had all the exams, but he turned down the chance because he enjoyed the job he was doing.’ Eleanor caught Bert’s sharp look of surprise. She probably shouldn’t have said that, but she was immensely proud of her husband’s integrity, and felt that it was only right that the boys should know about it. They were at an age when they should be learning that there were more important considerations in life than money and rank.

  ‘So we could be living in luxury, rather than leading a life of abject poverty,’ said Jack soulfully.

  ‘You two have never wanted for anything! Finish your dinner, if you want pudding.’ Eleanor began to gather in the plates. ‘Abject poverty, indeed!’

  It was becoming almost too easy to wind up the old folks, especially Mum, reflected the precocious Luke. He dispatched the last of his roast potatoes with impressive speed and enquired innocently of his father, ‘Will you be learning to play the violin and smoking coke now that you’re an intellectual, Dad?’ An enthusiastic form-master had lately introduced his charges to Conan Doyle’s immortal creation. Luke pushed his empty plate towards his mother, leant back, and lit an imaginary pipe. ‘This is almost certainly a three-pipe problem,’ he informed his brother in an artificially deep voice.

  ‘The only crime I am likely to indulge in is infanticide,’ said Bert Hook as sternly as he could. ‘And you’re both very welcome to miss Friday’s graduation ceremony. I’d rather like to miss it myself.’

  ‘No chance, Dad, with Mum and Mr Lambert on the job,’ said Jack. ‘And Luke and I aren’t going to miss a day off school, are we?’ His eyes lit up delight
edly as apple pie and custard arrived upon the table. ‘I expect you’ll get a more interesting succession of cases, now that you’re a graduate, Dad. When you have to pit your brains against the modern Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, I might agree to chronicle your exploits, if you ask me nicely. I quite fancy being your Watson.’

  Martin Beaumont was elated by his latest encounter with Tom Ogden. He had seen fear in the man’s eyes. No one enjoyed the feeling that an enemy had the power to find out all about him, including those secrets he had kept hidden for years. It gave you a feeling of power over other people’s lives, and Martin knew enough about himself to know that nothing excited him more.

  Today was a day for action; he felt that he was definitely on some sort of a roll. That was no doubt why he decided it was time to have a word with Jason Knight and Gerry Davies. The two were conferring outside the entrance to the shop as he drove back into Abbey Vineyards. Martin lowered the window of the Jaguar and called, ‘I’d like to see both of you for a short meeting. In ten minutes?’

  He didn’t believe in giving people time for elaborate planning.

  They came in nine minutes; he was still arranging the set-up of chairs he wanted in his room when he heard them talking to his PA in the outer office. He had pulled up the two armchairs in front of his desk, so that they would be looking into the light and lower than he would be on his seat behind the desk. Crude stuff, but it often worked, even now that more people were conscious of such things. If they realized that he had arranged things to give himself the advantage of position, that would be no bad thing. He decided against coffee.

  He would sound them out, test whether they were moving to curb his power, as he suspected they might be. He wasn’t paranoid about such things, but it was as well to be perpetually aware of the way your senior executives’ minds were working. He would approach the matter obliquely, as was his way in these matters.

  He said, ‘This shouldn’t take very long. I wanted your advice about something. Both of you have your fingers on the pulse of this place.’ A little flattery never came amiss, so long as you did not lay it on so thickly as to sound false. He might quite enjoy this, if it went as he hoped it would.

  Neither of them spoke. He sensed that they wanted to look at each other, but the configuration of the furniture he had set up did not allow that without it being a sign of weakness. He asked each of them conventional questions. Gerry Davies reported that there was as yet no discernible decline of spending in the shop as a result of the recession which was hitting other Gloucestershire businesses hard. Jason Knight reminded him that there was usually a falling away in the number of restaurant bookings in spring and early summer, as the lighter evenings offered other options and the tourists were not yet around in great numbers. However, he had compared April bookings with those for the same month last year and found that they were marginally up.

  It was all a little cautious and stilted, as if they were waiting for something more important. Martin cleared his throat and said, ‘We must continue to expand. I regard you two as the most forward-looking and experienced of my senior staff. That means I shall need your support.’

  There was a pause before Jason Knight said, ‘Are you thinking about something which wasn’t discussed at our general meeting in March? If you are, perhaps we should convene—’

  ‘It’s nothing very radical. Merely a continuation of the expansion we have pursued successfully over the years.’

  Gerry, feeling the unease of the man beside him and wanting to support him, said, ‘We’re only talking about a meeting of six people, Martin, with you in the chair as usual. It’s easy enough to arrange. Even if it was only an informal meeting, you would then be aware of everyone’s opinion.’

  Martin Beaumont hadn’t expected opposition from this quarter: Davies had always been the most stalwart of his supporters. And this was opposition, despite the reasonable tone used to clothe it. It seemed that he was justified in his suspicions: Knight had been marshalling support. It was just as well he’d detected this now, whilst there was still time to nip it in the bud. He gave them what he hoped was a disarming smile. ‘As I said, there is no radical departure from previous policy involved. I am merely keeping you in the picture. I propose to buy out the strawberry farmer next door and incorporate his land into ours.’

  They were feeling their way as he was, but it was he who held the map. He knew where he was going; no doubt they would follow him when they saw his plans clearly. Jason Knight said cautiously, ‘It’s a logical development. His land would consolidate our control of the area.’

  ‘I knew you’d see that. It would make future planning much easier if we got rid of the hedges and allowed our machinery full scope over the whole area.’

  It was Gerry Davies who said, ‘Has Tom Ogden accepted your proposal?’

  Martin smiled as if they were discussing the best way to deal with a recalcitrant child. ‘Ogden’s a pig-headed soul. He doesn’t see the realities of the situation. I’ve made him a very good offer. He hasn’t yet accepted it, but I’m sure he will, before the summer’s out.’

  ‘His family’s farmed that land for a long time.’

  ‘So he keeps telling me. That doesn’t alter the realities of economic life, Gerry. Times change, and Ogden must be made to recognize that.’

  Jason Knight knew Ogden because he was a member of Ross Golf Club. He was well aware of the farmer’s bitter resentment of his more powerful neighbour. He said, ‘Tom’s a stubborn old bugger, as you say. Is there any way you could offer him some sort of junior partnership in Abbey Vineyards, rather than just money? That would allow him to continue an association with the land he feels he cannot relinquish.’

  Martin frowned. ‘I wouldn’t want Ogden anywhere near this firm. He’s looking backwards, not forwards. We don’t need people like that.’

  Gerry Davies said, ‘He’s capable of taking new ideas on board. Look how he’s converted his land from mixed farming to a specialization in strawberries and hooked on to the pick-your-own market.’

  Martin frowned. He had only introduced the subject to sound out the thinking of these two. Ogden and his strawberry fields were not really up for discussion. ‘You can leave Ogden to me. I’m confident I can make him see sense.’ He certainly wasn’t going to tell them exactly how he proposed to do that.

  This time Jason Knight did glance sideways at the man next to him before he spoke. It was instinctive, but significant. With the autocrat’s paranoid sensitivity to any sign of dissent, Beaumont divined in that instant that these two had been plotting against him. ‘This is, as you indicated at the outset, a policy matter, Martin. And Gerry and I have been thinking for some time that we – that is to say the five of us who are most involved in forward planning in the firm – should have a greater say in policy.’

  It was out at last. But this was exactly the situation that Jason had been trying to avoid when he spoke to Gerry about a united front. He had wanted to come here with Vanda North and Sarah Vaughan and Alistair Morton and present a unified group, instead of being anticipated by Beaumont and pinned down like this. At least he had Gerry Davies to support him, but he would have preferred that they and not Beaumont had taken the initiative and chosen the moment.

  The silence seemed to the two men in the easy chairs to stretch for a long time, though it was probably no more than a few seconds. Martin Beaumont finally said with ominous calm, ‘I built this firm up from nothing. I brought us to where we are at the moment. Neither of you would hold the jobs you have without my efforts.’

  Gerry felt that he must support his friend, though neither words nor resistance came easily to him. ‘I don’t think any of us would dispute that, Martin. We are well aware of what you have done for the firm, and indirectly for us. It’s just that as it gets bigger and bigger, Jason feels – well I feel as well, and I think we all feel, really – that the senior people should have a greater say in policy matters.’

  Martin stared hard at him whilst he thought
furiously. They weren’t organized yet, but they were moving against him: he had been right to suspect that. And the man behind it was Jason Knight, as he had known it would be. He said firmly and with ominous calm, ‘This firm is a one-man band. It has been from the outset and that is the secret of its success. If you don’t like that, you should think seriously about other employment.’

  Jason smiled and tried to simulate a relaxation he could not feel. ‘There’s room for manoeuvre here, surely, Martin. I don’t mean – none of us means – to challenge your leadership. It’s just that as things move on and development becomes more complex, a different sort of organization might benefit us all.’

  ‘You’ve taken everyone’s opinion, have you, Jason? Gone behind my back without saying a word to me in order to organize opinion against me, have you? I don’t like what I’m hearing, Jason.’

  Gerry Davies tried desperately to mitigate a confrontation he had never envisaged. ‘We haven’t talked to anyone else, Martin. All we’ve done is exchange a few ideas on the best way to go forward. Jason was able to convince me that we should look at new ways of running things. Surely it’s in everyone’s interest that we should keep open minds as—’

  ‘So you two have been making your little plans to take over, have you? Without even having the decency to take me into your confidence. How long would it have been before you came out with these ideas if I hadn’t brought you in here today?’

  Gerry said miserably, ‘It isn’t like that. There isn’t a plot against you.’

  Martin Beaumont had the knowledge he wanted now. The others weren’t in on this, but only because he’d nipped it in the bud at this stage. And the man behind the challenge to his authority was Knight, as he had suspected it would be. He’d intervened at the right time, though, before Jason had been able to unite the others against him. Divide and rule was the answer. That maxim had always served him well in the past. Leave Knight isolated, then attack him. He didn’t want to lose him, if it could be avoided. He was a brilliant chef, and the restaurant was a healthy profit-maker on the back of the reputation he had built there. Send him away chastened, but still prepared to work as hard as ever.