To Die For

by Janet Neel

  A thirty-two and a half per cent shareholding had cost them £162,500 four years earlier. Richard, who would not normally have been able to find that sort of cash, had had a lucky sale of one of the less secondary properties, a small supermarket in Acton, right at the top of the market.

  ‘But how much exactly?’

  ‘Two hundred thou. Well, it was a life-saver at the time.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Oh, about six months ago.’

  Or, to put it another way, at about the time Brian Rubin had first tentatively started discussions about buying the Caff. It said much about both borrower and lender that Richard was so soon broke again, and that Brian Rubin had felt able, in view of his reported cash flow difficulties, to find such a sum. He must have been very keen on the deal then and must, like Richard himself, have been in deep trouble when the deal foundered on Selina’s change of heart. Not only would he not be able to buy the two restaurants and get in new money, but he would have the greatest difficulty getting his company’s £200,000 back from Richard. Not a lot to be done with an option over shares in a private company where thirty per cent of the shareholders were determined to keep it in private hands, and not even to put you on the register. A further set of questions occurred to him.

  ‘What are the terms? Are you paying interest? When do you have to repay?’

  ‘Ah, well, it was only to tide me over, or that’s what I thought.’ He looked out of the window. ‘I’m paying interest at ten per cent.’

  ‘That’s reasonable. What about repayment?’

  ‘That, yes. Twelve months after the loan, or he takes the shares.’ He looked sideways at Michael who was trying to keep his face still. ‘Well, he wants the business and he didn’t want to be left with the whole thing up in the air for ever. He gets them if I die, as well.’

  ‘So in six months’ time, your shares are forfeit to him? Jesus, Richard.’

  ‘Yeh, I know, but the whole sale should have been over.’ He looked sideways, hopefully. ‘You could lend me some against Selina’s shares. They’re mine, in two months, or whatever.’

  ‘Have you tried Brian Rubin?’

  ‘He’d jump at it. But he hasn’t any cash. Or not this month, which is when I need it.’

  Michael nodded; this went to confirm market gossip about the current financial state of their potential purchaser.

  ‘Let me think about it. I’ll come back to you by the end of the week.’

  Francesca gazed, exasperated, at the weeping second-year student in front of her. The young woman had come to her, as Bursar, seeking a grant or a loan to enable her to continue her studies at Gladstone. The Hardship Fund, established by an outgoing senior tutor, amounted to just over £5000 in total, counting accrued interest, and had to be used very sparingly indeed if it was to meet the potential needs of the four hundred young women in residence. This one had come, pale and tear-stained, bearing letters from her bank, dressed in old torn jeans and a chewed-looking sweater. Which had made Francesca suspicious; she had an eye for clothes and had admired this particular undergraduate’s style. It had not taken more than ten minutes to establish that such of the young woman’s student grant as the college did not take in advance for residence, most of a student loan and all of a grudgingly extended overdraft had gone on her back. Repentance had been expressed, reform tearfully promised along with a holiday job that would set her right with the world again, and Francesca didn’t quite believe any of it.

  ‘I think this needs a little more thought, Christina. From both of us. But this college does not allow its students to starve or be sued for debt, so you are not to worry about that. Come and see me tomorrow.’

  She escorted Christina, now doing no worse than sniffing, to her outer office and raised an eyebrow at the secretary she shared with two other people.

  ‘Three messages, but all from the same person. Judith Delves.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, yes. She is one of our Old Girls and her partner was found in a deep freeze.’

  ‘Well, she really, really wants to talk to you, but I said I couldn’t interrupt the college meeting. And then you had Christina.’

  ‘Indeed, I did. I’ll do Miss Delves next, thank you.’

  What Judith Delves wanted was to talk to her with an urgency which meant that she was prepared to drive out, now, to Gladstone College in the thick of the morning traffic. Sensible alternative propositions like waiting until the evening when the discussion could take place at her house in West London, and/ or talking to a good lawyer, were plainly a waste of time, so Francesca agreed, commiserated on Selina’s death and organised a sandwich lunch. Feeding the afflicted often helped and never hindered. She found herself wondering whether Judith Delves was in a state to be driving a car and was much relieved when she presented herself undamaged but pale, swollen-eyed, looking very plain without make-up and with her hair flattened and messy.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Francesca said, leaning to kiss her. They were not really on those terms but the other woman looked in need of all the comfort she could find. She sat her down on the visitors’ sofa which was wedged into a corner of her small office, and uncovered the plate of sandwiches, on which Judith fell with the appetite of someone who has missed a few meals.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve eaten much more than my share.’

  ‘No matter.’ Francesca, who found hunger one of the principal symptoms of pregnancy, lied gallantly. ‘I expect you’ve barely had time to eat. What a dreadful thing to happen.’

  ‘Yes. Poor Selina. Who could do that? Strangle her, I mean.’

  The newspapers had not been explicit about the manner of the death, and Francesca was relieved not to have had to ask. A further question did however present itself.

  ‘How long – I mean, do you know when she died?’

  ‘No.’ She stared ahead of her, unseeing, at a very dark nineteenth-century lithograph of the college. ‘I last saw her in the evening about ten days ago. The day you were in for lunch. I don’t suppose you saw her.’

  ‘A very beautiful blonde in a very smart cherry-coloured suit?’

  ‘You did see her. Oh, I suppose Mr Sutherland pointed her out.’

  Matt Sutherland must have fallen even further out of favour, Francesca thought, and hesitated on how to proceed, but Judith forestalled her.

  ‘I came to see you because I don’t know what to do. And I’ve asked people about you – they all say you’ve got very good ideas. And, well, you’re at the college and I’d met you.’

  ‘And done a party for my brother, and anyway Old Girls have some call on a Bursar’s time. I’ll be glad to help if I can.’

  Judith Delves looked back at her thoughtfully. The sandwiches seemed to have restored her; she looked less puffy and her hair had somehow stopped flying about. ‘You read Law?’

  ‘Yes, but did not go on to qualify. I got a good place in the Department I wanted in the Civil Service. I’ve done a lot of company and insolvency law in the DTI though.’

  ‘That’s what I’d heard.’ She paused but only to think how best to tell her story. ‘I don’t want to sell the company, you see, and Selina’s shares are left to Richard. So he’s after me to agree to a sale now on the basis that I’ll have to agree when he owns the shares, however long that takes.’

  ‘Even after all this, you don’t want to sell.’

  ‘Even more after all this. Selina was murdered, and I’ve known her since we were three. And someone killed her, not long after she decided to stay with me and not sell the restaurant.’

  ‘So, you’re damned if you’ll sell.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Mm.’ Francesca considered her guest uneasily; the emotional response was entirely understandable, but the facts appeared to be against her. ‘Take me through it. You have fifteen per cent, Selina has – had – fifteen per cent.’

  ‘Richard and Michael have thirty-two and a half per cent each. They had thirty-five per cent each, but we had to find five per cent for To
ny. Chef.’

  ‘And Selina’s shares are left to Richard? Yes? Who is trying to persuade you to sell before probate? What do the Articles of Association say?’

  Judith Delves leant over and fished a weighty tome out of her briefcase and handed it over. ‘Where the sticker is.’

  The Articles provided that in the event of death the shares were to be treated as non-voting unless and until probate or Letters of Administration were issued. Francesca frowned and moved back a couple of pages. ‘Ah. You don’t have to register a transfer if you don’t want to. Collectively, I mean.’

  ‘No, we don’t but I can’t believe the others would refuse to register a transfer to someone who is already one of our shareholders. As Richard is.’

  Francesca laid the tome aside, the better to think, and found herself back in a lecture hall, on a spring morning, listening to a distinguished barrister saying that the point about a largely statute-based area of activity, like company law, was that it didn’t have the barnacle accretion of precedent and case law that attached to Contract or Tort. If there was ambiguity or doubt, opportunity was usually taken by the government of the day to legislate, hence the plethora of Companies Acts. So, take it that there was no way that that fifteen percent could be voted in advance of probate. But seventy per cent of the remainder wanted to sell; could they do that without the blocked fifteen per cent? She reached for a calculator and established that even with Selina’s shares not voting Judith still only had seventeen and a half per cent of the remainder, not enough to block a sale. She gazed at her calculations, unseeingly, hearing the trained clear voice in her head. On the other hand, it had said, where no specific provision is made, the principles of Equity must still obtain. And where was Equity now that he was needed? Well, surely not on the side of anyone trying to rush through a sale both against the last known wishes of the testator and the wishes of a substantial minority.

  ‘I think you could get an injunction to stop any sale ahead of probate,’ she said, reaching the end of her thoughts. She realised that she had gone too fast and took Judith carefully through her reasoning. ‘So you could go to court to stop a sale.’

  ‘Michael would hate it.’

  ‘Michael Owens? With thirty-two and a half per cent?’

  ‘A very orthodox banker and hates hassle and lawyers. If I even hint that I might go to court he would insist Richard waited for probate.’

  ‘Judith, sorry, but won’t you have to sell anyway once probate is here?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I’ve been a bit slow but I have now understood that Brian Rubin has to buy a small restaurant chain and has to do it fast, or he could go broke. So I thought that if I could find a way of delaying he might go away and find something else to buy. And now you’ve thought of a way of holding the whole thing up – you are brilliant.’

  Francesca gazed at her. ‘I may not be right,’ she said feebly, then thought about it. ‘No, actually, I’m sure, at least that you have enough grounds to go for an injunction, and then you’ve got your delay.’ She stood up, the better to think, and felt instantly dizzy. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Francesca! Are you all right?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ she said, breathlessly, gripping the desk, feeling the darkness recede. ‘I’m pregnant, not ill. I just got up too fast. All I need is something more to eat.’

  ‘I am a pig.’ Judith Delves briskly settled Francesca in a chair. ‘I’ve eaten all the food. Let me go and organise some for you.’

  ‘I can get another load from the canteen and if you can find coffee and sugar right now I’ll be fine.’ She watched while Judith Delves commandeered someone else’s secretary to go to the canteen, and made coffee herself, automatically cleaning up the mess round the little sink.

  ‘Judith, what were you going to do if the sale had gone through? Were you going to work for Brian Rubin?’

  ‘I don’t like working for other people. I was going to start again with a smaller restaurant. If I could get the money together. It would have been – well, may still be – a terrible sweat.’

  ‘Was this realistic?’ Judith blinked at her. ‘Sorry, I mean did you have any money lined up?’

  ‘Well,’ Judith was looking rather pink, ‘I’d talked to Michael Owens about perhaps using some of the money he was going to make to invest – everybody would make a very nice profit from the sale, you know, more than double their money in four years, that’s not bad, is it?’

  ‘Bloody sight better than the lot who invest the college funds do, I can tell you. Did he seem willing?’

  ‘Not really.’ Judith was blushing in earnest, and Francesca waited, with interest, until the other woman found a way to continue. ‘What happened was that he … that we … started going out together.’

  ‘Never having contemplated this before?’

  ‘No. We didn’t know each other well and every time I saw him he had a different girl with him. Very attractive girls.’ She looked across at Francesca, still rather pink, and a little anxious, but obviously pleased with herself.

  ‘So, as sensible men do, he got tired of airheads and looked around for someone who knew how to run their own life,’ Francesca said, encouragingly, liking her. ‘So where are we now, as it were?’ She understood the question was too abrupt. ‘How old is Michael, by the way?’

  ‘Thirty-eight. Four years older than me.’

  ‘And perhaps finding that it’s time he settled down?’

  Judith smiled at her gratefully. ‘Well, that’s it. And it does seem to be me he wants to settle down with, even though he could have all these dazzling blondes.’

  ‘They do, you know, sensible men. You should see some of the creatures that litter the past of my good husband. So what are your plans now?’

  ‘He’s got this house. In Hampshire. He bought it last year when he got some giant bonus. He says it was just the house he’d always wanted, going cheap, so he bought it and let it.’

  ‘So his plan would be to marry and install you there?’

  Judith went scarlet. ‘It’s rather … well, I mean we haven’t known each other very long.’

  ‘It still sounds like the right working assumption,’ Francesca said, briskly, and blinked as the other woman started to laugh.

  ‘I absolutely knew you would be the right person to talk to. I had a tutor like you; she treated anything difficult as an administrative problem. It’s very comforting.’

  Francesca, taken aback, considered her. ‘Romeo and Juliet as seen by a senior civil servant?’

  ‘Yes. Precisely. So sorry, yes, I think that is his plan. To find someone to sort out the house and have children. And Michael wants to do a lot of entertaining. That’s part of the point of the house.’

  ‘So he is going along happily in the expectation that you will devote yourself to the country life and his affairs?’

  Judith gave her a hunted, hostile look.

  ‘I’m only asking.’

  ‘I suppose I thought I would get the house right and have a child, and then look round and buy another business. Or start one. After all, you work.’

  ‘Not full-time. Even with just the one child. Mind you, I worked until the night before, but I got ill after William was born – he was one of those that never slept. I was extremely lucky to get this job. I’d have been counting paperclips in some backwater of the DTI otherwise.’ She stopped; this was no time to upset her visitor further, and she wished she had not embarked on this line of conversation.

  ‘But you’re having another one.’ Judith appeared interested, rather than distressed.

  ‘Well, yes, but I … we … didn’t want Will to be an only child. And I think I can manage two and a job with not much more difficulty than one and a job. But you do need a husband pulling in the same direction. John does, most of the time. He knows of course that we would be a bit pressed without my salary.’

  ‘Michael, I have to say, earns enough for several people.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ Francesca said, warming to her su
bject, ‘that most men, if they were honest, would rather be free to work much too hard while the wife handled all the domestic side. I can see that my John would be happier if he didn’t always feel under pressure to help at home on top of a very heavy job.’

  ‘Does he say so?’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t. But I see something else too. I’m not a career asset to him at all, quite the reverse. The colleagues hate him sloping off after only a twelve-hour day, because it’s his turn with Will. Or refusing to take a posting outside London, because of my job – he doesn’t know I know all this, by the way, but I do, some of them take the trouble to let me know. And if that is true for the Metropolitan Police, I bet it’s even truer for merchant bankers.’

  The other woman was looking stricken and she tried to think of a way of softening what she had said. She gave up; a truth that she herself had recognised, out of the corner of her eye, was now officially sanctified by research done in America. She had read the summary conclusions in The Times only that morning; employers had, as one man (and one woman, too), confirmed that the best opportunities went to the employee whose domestic situation allowed them to snatch them, with no whingeing about the needs of dependents.

  ‘So you don’t think that’s going to work?’

  ‘Well,’ Francesca said, slowly, recognising yet another unpalatable truth about her own situation, ‘you would have a better chance than me, if you could keep your own business, so you didn’t need your boss’s approval and were able to delegate everything you could afford to, and to go home when there’s a crisis …’ She hesitated. ‘Look, tell me more about your man, Michael. He was one of your original backers, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t know him then. He was brought in by Richard, Selina’s husband. They’d known each other since Summerfield.’

  ‘So Michael went to Eton as well?’

  ‘No. No, he was meant to but his father … well, something went wrong, and he lost his job and left them. So Michael went to Sevenoaks, on a scholarship, then Cambridge. Then into banking.’

  ‘To make a lot of money.’

  ‘Yes,’ Judith said, slowly. ‘Yes. To make enough money so he could have a big house and garden and send the children to Eton.’ She looked at her hostess. ‘And a châtelaine for the house, I know that, of course, but I’ve just seen it differently.’