Deadly Business

Twelve

We knocked on Tom’s door a minute after the promised time. He must have been waiting behind it, for it opened in one second flat. It was clear he saw it as a special occasion, for the boy who would normally dine with his mother on a June evening wearing shorts and a cap-sleeved T that showed off his thickening biceps was dressed in creased, dark, long trousers, a conventional pale blue shirt and his black soft leather jerkin. I glanced at his feet. My God, he was wearing black shoes … and socks!

He looked different, a boy who’d taken a firm step up the ladder to manhood. Having reclaimed my womanhood, I wondered whether he saw a change in me.

He had his iPad tucked under his arm. ‘Do we need that?’ I asked. He nodded, frowning slightly, and so I didn’t take it further.

He waited until we were seated at our table, before flipping back the tablet’s blue cover, and handing it to me. ‘I thought you’d want to see that, Mum,’ he said.

Tom’s a regular trawler of news sites, among them the BBC. The page he showed me was from its Scottish section, a report headed, ‘Oz Blackstone widow dies’.

Immediately below was a photograph of Susie, taken some years ago, with Oz; around ten, I reckoned, for she was pregnant with wee Jonathan and they were on the red carpet at a movie premiere. I read the story.

Scottish business is today mourning the death of Susie Gantry (40) who passed away this morning at Nice Airport, after touching down on a flight from Paris, the last leg of a journey from Arizona, where it is understood she had been receiving treatment for leukaemia.

Her death came minutes after the company she controlled, The Gantry Group PLC, announced that she was stepping down temporarily as chairman, to be replaced by her friend Mrs Primavera Blackstone, the Scottish film legend’s second wife, and mother of their son, Tom. Tragically, Ms Gantry, three times winner of the Scottish Businesswoman of the Year award, was accompanied on her last journey by her second husband, the Scottish writer Mr Duncan Culshaw. The couple were married in a whirlwind ceremony in Las Vegas only last week.

This afternoon Mr Culshaw was unavailable for comment at the family home in Monaco, where he was understood to be comforting his two stepchildren, Janet and John.

His uncle, Mr Philip Culshaw, the chief executive officer of the Gantry Group, said, ‘We are all devastated by this tragedy. The company has a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow, but it is questionable whether it can proceed. In the meantime, shareholders can be assured that its business will continue as usual, in their best interests.’

Sources close to Duncan Culshaw added that he was overcome by the tragedy, but that he would protect his stepchildren’s interests as their new guardian.

I was steaming mad as I handed the iPad to Liam, but I kept quiet until he’d finished reading, and handed it back to Tom. ‘Two points,’ I said, when he had. ‘Phil Culshaw is not the CEO of the Gantry Group, and he never has been. Susie always had executive control, until this morning. I’m the new chair, and I will have a part to play in deciding who the new chief executive will be. Second, he can question all he likes, but the board meeting is going ahead. If he thinks I can be brushed aside …’

Liam touched my arm. ‘Darlin’,’ he murmured. ‘Be cool. This man worked with Susie for years. He’ll be as shocked as the rest of us, so it’s best not to make judgements on what he says in the immediate aftermath, based on quotes in a report that can’t even get the kids’ names right.’

I frowned. ‘Granted. But surely to God he’s not so dazed and confused that he isn’t making a point of getting in touch with me. He knows where I am. Audrey told him.’

‘Oh.’ Tom’s voice was a murmur but it carried across the table.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I had a phone call,’ he said, ‘in my room. I picked it up and I answered.’

‘How did you answer?’

‘I said Digue at first, then I remembered where I was and said, “Yes?” the way you tell me to answer the phone in English.’ It’s true; I taught him to give nothing away before the caller’s identified himself. ‘There was a silence and then a man said, “Is that …?” then he stopped and said, “No, that’s absurd, it can’t be. I’m sorry, I must have the wrong room,” and then he hung up.’

‘The voice,’ I asked. ‘What can you remember about it? Young or old? What accent?’

‘Older. And he was Scottish, a bit like Grandpa Blackstone, but it definitely wasn’t him.’

I looked at Liam. ‘Culshaw?’

‘Probably.’

‘But why was he put through to Tom’s room?’

My new partner beamed, and his eyes twinkled behind the specs. ‘Because I signed for our room. As far as reception’s concerned, you’re Mrs Matthews. If Culshaw asked, “Do you have a guest named Blackstone?” they’d put him through to Tom automatically.’

‘Okay, I can see that, but when he picked up, why should he ring off like that?’

‘The only thing I can imagine,’ Liam replied, ‘is that he thought he was talking to a ghost. When Tom used his telephone voice just now, it dropped an octave, and went right down to where it’s headed full-time. It even gave me a start and I’m sitting across the table from him. Culshaw must have known Oz well. To hear his son, out of the blue, without knowing who it was …’

Of course. I remembered I’d warned Susie about that very thing, in one of our last conversations. And that made me think of her, and realise that we’d never speak again, and that she would never have the shock of hearing her stepson answer the phone in his father’s voice.

And that made me whisper, ‘Poor Susie,’ lay my head on Liam’s solid, comforting shoulder and shed a few tears.

He slipped an arm around me, with Tom, my young man, looking on. When I was okay and had dried my eyes, thankful that I hadn’t given myself the full treatment and wasn’t in need of repair, I was aware that there was a waitress hovering, ready to take our orders. I hadn’t even looked at the menu, so I told Liam that fish of the day would be fine by me, if that’s what he fancied; he did. Tom is still a full-on carnivore; he opted for steak and chips.

I went with Liam’s suggestion and joined the guys in the fizzy water. ‘Should you call Culshaw?’ he asked as we waited for the bowl of green salad that he’d ordered as our starter.

‘Hell, no. If I did, we’d probably get into an argument about whether the meeting should go ahead or not. I don’t need that right now … nor is there any need for it. The company secretary had his instructions. It’s been convened. End of story.’

‘What’s the agenda?’

‘The usual; minutes of previous meeting, chair’s remarks, review of current activities, finance director’s report, any other competent business.’

‘Will there be?’

‘Other business? Almost certainly, but I’ll decide whether it’s competent or not.’

Liam smiled. ‘You’re looking forward to it, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ I protested. ‘It’s the last thing I wanted to be doing.’

‘But you are. Susie’s destiny has affected yours. Yes, you could walk away and decline the chair. You could still do that with a one-page letter. But you won’t because it’s not in your nature. Your blood’s up, you’re seeing enemies in the shadows, and you’re spoiling for a fight.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘You reckon?’

‘I do. When I was in the GWA, we all played characters, and that was mine. For a while it was me for real, too, until I got straightened out.’

‘But my enemy isn’t in the shadows. He’s Duncan Culshaw. We’ve clashed before, and he threatened me again a couple of days ago. He told me he was out to destroy Oz’s memory.’

Tom straightened in his seat, his face darkening; he hadn’t known that.

‘That was before Susie’s death, and it was bluster,’ Liam said. ‘I won’t ever let that happen, I promise you. If you ask me, Culshaw was only ever out to make a fast buck for himself. That’s what his extortion attempt was about. As Susie’s widower, he’s achieved that, so why should he bother with you any longer?’

‘Because it’s personal between us?’ I suggested.

‘If so, he’s made a big mistake and he’ll discover that. As of now it isn’t just between you two,’ he nodded in Tom’s direction, ‘and him. A threat to either of you is a threat to me, and I’ll deal with it.’

‘How?’ I asked.

‘Simple. I’ll visit him and tell him to stop.’

‘When you do,’ Tom murmured, ‘can I come?’

‘As long as you promise not to get angry with him.’

‘I promise. I know, Liam,’ he added. ‘Anger weakens me.’

‘In that case I’ll barely be able to lift that fork in front of me,’ I told them both. ‘For what I feel about the man goes way beyond anger.’

‘Which is why you must put him out of your mind,’ my man declared. ‘He won’t be in the room at your meeting tomorrow, and you mustn’t give him access through your thoughts.’

As he spoke, the salad bowl arrived. One of us had been wrong, for not only had I the strength to lift the cutlery, I wolfed my way through half of it.

Dinner was over by nine fifty-five. There were a few people in the bar, but Liam and I didn’t even think about joining them. Instead we went upstairs with Tom, and straight to our rooms. I warned him not to stay up late watching television, realising at the same time that his own hotel room was effectively his own household, and that he could bloody well do what he chose.

I switched on the Ten O’Clock News on BBC as soon as the door closed behind us. Still thinking like a single person, Primavera. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Did you have other ideas?’

‘Maybe,’ Liam grinned, ‘but watching the TV news shouldn’t knock them on the head.’

We sat on the couch in the Rock ’n’ Roll sitting room, and watched as the day’s events unfolded. I hadn’t expected Susie’s death to make the national news, but it was second lead in the Scottish segment that followed. It was no more than a video version of the report I’d read, but with some library footage of Susie with Oz and a clip of Phil Culshaw being interviewed. I’d seen a still picture, but you can never be quite sure when those were taken, and a good photographer can be a really accomplished liar. I tried to picture Duncan in his late sixties, but couldn’t see much of a family resemblance. I hoped that extended to his character as well, noting the truth that it was the BBC who’d described him as CEO, and not a title he’d claimed for himself.

I turned the telly off as the end credits ran. ‘You want first shot in the bathroom?’ Liam asked.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘You go ahead. I’ve got one thing left to do.’

I’d put my phone to sleep during dinner, so I wakened it and checked to see if I’d missed any calls or texts. I hadn’t so I used it to call the landline number in St Martí, and punched in a code to interrogate my voicemail there.

I had two messages. The first was from Miles, my brother-in-law.

‘Hi, Primavera,’ he began. There’s virtually no Australian left in his accent; today it’s nearly all Californian. ‘I just had a call from your father, telling me about Susie. That’ll be bad news for Tom even more than for you, but I guess you parted on good terms, since David said she’s made you chairman of her company. If there’s any help I can give you, or any advice on your new role, you just have to pick up the phone. Say hi to our nephew, from us and his cousin.’ I thought he was done, but he carried on. ‘By the way, I spoke to an old acquaintance of yours a while back, Liam Matthews. He’s at a bit of a crossroads in his life. His partner left him for somebody else a while back, and he’s been on a bit of a downer ever since. He told me he was going travelling, and it struck me that you two might be good for each other, so, I hope you don’t mind, I took a big chance and suggested he looked you up. Don’t be surprised if he does.’

Miles’s offer made me feel good, although I’d always been confident that he’d be there for me if needed. So did the second part of his message.

The other call was much more disturbing. It was from Oz’s father, Grandpa Mac, and he was far from cool and composed.

‘Primavera,’ he barked. ‘I’ve just heard about Susie. I didn’t even know she was ill. You think somebody would have told me since she’s the mother of two of my grandchildren. But maybe not, since she and I were never the best of friends after the way she split you and Oz up. Anyway, what’s this about her having married again? Did you know about it? And how does it affect Janet and wee Jonathan? I’ve called Monaco, of course. I spoke to Janet … Hardly recognised her. God, she’s grown up … and I asked to speak to this man Culshaw, but Audrey said he wouldn’t take my call. Then I remembered the guy. He came to see me last year, to interview me for a book he claimed to be writing based on Oz’s life. I didn’t take to him, so I didn’t tell him much. I’ve heard neither hide nor hair of him since, or of the book, and now he shows up married to Susie and claiming to be my grandchildren’s guardian! What the fuck’s going on, Primavera? Call me as soon as you get this, please.’

Mac is normally a placid guy, as laid-back as Oz was until Jan died and everything started to change. But when he goes off on one, he goes, and you see the side of him that Ellie’s inherited. I’d decided that it was too late to phone him back and that I’d do it in the morning, when I realised that my suite-mate was standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the jamb, barefoot and shirtless but still in his jeans.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

‘Just hold that pose,’ I ordered.

I took a photograph with my phone and sent it straight to Miles, with a message that read, ‘At a crossroads, did U say? Gone travelling? We’ll see about that.’

And then I took him to bed, and gave him good cause to stay put for a while.

I’d hoped to sleep until seven thirty, giving me time to be completely ready for the meeting but my sister knocked that on the head by calling my mobile at six forty-five. My ringtone is Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’. But I’m usually awake when it goes off.

I woke and sat bolt upright within a couple of seconds, and for a few more I was very disorientated. Christ, there was a man lying beside me and we were both naked! Then everything fell into place, and I snatched the phone from the bedside table much too late to prevent Liam from stirring.

I swiped the screen to take the call, rolling out of bed as I did so. ‘Do you know what fucking time it is, Dawn?’ I mumbled.

‘Quarter to ten here,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t call you straight away, after you sent Miles that photo. What have you been up to? Or were you still up to it? Did I interruptus the coitus?’ Those are the only two Latin words that ever stuck in Dawn’s head. The rest passed all the way through, largely unimpeded.

‘No, you did not,’ I told her, firmly.

‘Prove it, then. Put me on video. Ever since you and Oz caught Miles and me on the job in your flat I’ve been waiting for a chance to get even.’

‘Bugger off!’

‘How did it happen?’ she laughed. ‘Did he drug you? I thought you were off men forever.’

‘So did I, but I’m glad to say I was wrong. Now go away. I have some serious business to do this morning. We’re in Glasgow and I have to chair a board meeting later.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Her tone changed completely. ‘Tragic about Susie.’ ‘Tragic’ is another Dawnism, but for once it was accurate. ‘Call me later and we can have a longer chat.’

‘I will do,’ I promised. ‘In six or seven hours.’ I ended the call, leaving her to do the sum on her fingers. (Actually my sister isn’t that dumb; that’s just a game we’ve played since she was a kid.)

I put the phone down and got back into bed. ‘Does that happen every morning in your life?’ Liam asked.

I slid up against him, and my eyes widened. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘but I hope that does in yours.’

By the time we’d done something about it, I was on the schedule I’d set for myself. I showered and did all the other morning stuff, then dug my laptop from its bag and logged on to the hotel’s wireless network. Audrey had promised to send me a briefing for the meeting, most importantly the minutes of the last two … they were usually held quarterly … and the latest set of management accounts, that Susie received on a monthly basis.

Once I’d downloaded them, I called Tom. He was awake and I could hear Daybreak in the background. His interest in the female presenter seems to be growing; it’s a toss-up between her and the witch in Merlin as to who’s his top girl. A sign of the times. I asked him to join us for room service breakfast at eight thirty, then called to order it. With all that done, I began to study Audrey’s documents.

The minutes didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t know in broad terms already. As Tom’s guardian I had oversight of the equity in the company that he’d inherited from Oz, and so I received all the company’s shareholder communications, and was aware of its business. The Gantry Group was split into divisions: property management, leisure and development. It owned a large portfolio of economic rent housing, commercial offices, retail parks and a chain of pubs and boutique hotels; they made up the first two divisions. The development side held its construction interests, in private housing for owner-occupation, factories and commercial buildings.

Given that knowledge, what was in the minutes was mostly old news, apart from one reference to a projected golf course-cum-country club down in Ayrshire: that, I hadn’t heard of. (Yes, I know, ‘they’ say you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, but I have news for ‘them’: language evolves.)

No, it was the management accounts that would give me a detailed insight into how the group was actually running, and how sound its trading position really was. I scanned through them; the information was detailed and it showed that while the group was sound, across the board, it was no more recession-proof than any other company. The rental houses were fine, but there were a number of voids … empty units … in the office and retail holdings that were pulling down the profits of those sectors. The pubs and hotels were washing their face, but their profit contribution was way below what it should have been, given the value of the assets.

Still, given the economic situation, those two divisions were okay, yet the company’s bottom line wasn’t. I’d brought the last annual report with me; I dug it out and compared the last year-end figures with the accounts I had on my computer screen, then did some simple calculations in my head. A healthy profit had been reported for the previous year, but I was looking at a future projection of break-even at best, and a chunky loss at worst. The company’s year-end was September; just about the time when Susie’s illness was diagnosed. She’d been more affected by it than she’d admitted in our conversations, but there was more to it than that. Someone beneath her in the group’s hierarchy hadn’t been doing his job. I went back into the management accounts and spotted the devil in the detail at once. Construction of private housing and commercial stock had stopped; there were a few high-value houses left unsold but they weren’t suicidal. No, it was that damn golf course that was the money pit. Over the previous six months, twenty million pounds had been transferred to the subsidiary company that was executing the venue. Without that, the business would have been far healthier, and obviously its indebtedness would have been that much smaller.

Liam came out of the bedroom as I was looking at the figures. ‘Do me a favour, lover,’ I asked him. ‘Give Tom a call and ask him to get along here now, if he’s ready, and to bring his iPad with him.’

‘Sure.’ He noted what I was doing. ‘Trouble at mill?’

‘I hope not.’

Rather than call, he walked along the corridor, and returned a couple of minutes later, with my son, who was dressed more like himself, in pirate pants and a T-shirt that he’d blagged from a friend of ours in the village, who combines running a restaurant with a music career. Monoceros, his alter ego, might not have been a household name in Glasgow, but my son was doing his bit to change that. I was pleased that he seemed completely relaxed in Liam’s company, and that they were chatting like a couple of old mates.

‘When we get back to St Martí, Mum,’ he said, ‘Liam and I are going to do yoga on the beach in the morning. You can come too, if you like.’

‘Maybe I’ll just watch,’ I replied. Liam and I had been too busy with other things to discuss what was going to happen when we did return home. I was taking nothing for granted. Our three days and one night together had been great, but I was making no assumptions … of either of us.

‘What do you want me to do with this?’ Tom asked, holding up his tablet.

‘Can you log on to the BBC website and find out what the Gantry Group share price is doing?’

‘Sure, but I can log on to the Stock Exchange as well. That would be quicker. Susie Mum showed me how last time I was in Monaco.’

‘Then do it, please,’ I asked. It was something I should have done the day before; I’d been asleep at the wheel … or maybe the previous day’s events had simply overwhelmed me a little.

He nodded and set to work, with a certainty in every step he took and every page he called up. ‘The share price fell by twenty-eight per cent yesterday,’ he announced, after only a couple of minutes, ‘and it’s fallen by another twelve per cent this morning.’

I looked at Liam. ‘A forty per cent drop,’ I exclaimed. ‘On the basis of what I’ve been looking at here it’s been overvalued lately, but by nothing like that much. That needs investigating.’ I picked up the annual report and looked through the list of the company’s professional advisers: auditors, solicitors, stockbrokers, all blue chip, and last of all, financial public relations, a consultancy called Groynes deVelt.

There were contact details for each one; I called the PR people, knowing that if they were any good at all they’d be open during stock exchange hours and beyond. They were; I was answered almost instantly, by an androgynous voice, youngish and pronouncing the firm’s name very carefully in a voice that made me wonder if Mick Jagger had sent one of his many kids out on work experience.

‘My name is Primavera Blackstone,’ I told him/her. ‘I’m the new chair of the Gantry Group PLC and I’d like to speak to the person who handles our affairs.’

‘Mmmm, let me see, mmm, that would be Cressida Oldham. I’ll see if she’s available.’

As I waited, patiently, there was a knock at the door. Tom opened it and admitted the room service waiter with breakfast for three on a tray, thanked him and bunged him a couple of coins that I hoped were sterling and not euro.

‘Mrs Blackstone,’ a decidedly female voice boomed into my ear. ‘Cress Oldham here. Look, I hope you don’t mind, but since we don’t know each other would you mind answering a standard verification question?’

‘Depends what it is.’

‘Your mother’s maiden name?’

I told her and she relaxed. ‘How can I help you?’

‘You can give me some insight into the company’s share price. It’s heading groundwards like a skydiver in lead boots. What the hell’s going on?’

‘Well …’ she began, giving the impression that she was struggling to come up with a good answer, ‘… Ms Gantry was a strong and prominent company chair, highly regarded by the City. It’s quite natural that the share price should have fallen as a reaction to her death. I have to say it might have been wiser to prepare the market for it.’

‘As in Susie releasing a statement,’ I retorted, ‘that her street-smart twelve-year-old daughter might have read, announcing that she was terminally ill? That sort of preparation?’

‘Well,’ she conceded, ‘maybe not.’

‘In any event, Ms Oldham,’ I continued, ‘forty per cent is a hell of a strong reaction.’

‘Yes, but … Can I be blunt?’

‘As blunt as you like. The way I see it, advice only comes in two categories, good and bad. Sugar-coating always leads to the latter, so don’t do that with me.’

‘Okay. First, the analysts don’t know you; you don’t have a track record with them. So when you suddenly pop up as the last act of a dying woman, they’re likely to see you as a desperation gambit, someone chosen in haste because there was nobody of quality available.’

‘I was chosen in haste,’ I conceded, ‘but Susie could just as easily have appointed someone from the board. She anticipated market reaction; a small initial fall, but nothing to worry about.’

‘Yes, but then she died.’

‘And three or four per cent suddenly became forty? I might be a novice, but I’m not a fool. There are other factors involved. I want to know what they are. I might have been appointed as non-exec chair, but as you say, Susie’s death changes things. I’m forced to be hands on, to protect the shareholders, one of whom is my own son. So trust me, Cress, if you don’t spill everything you know and I find out you’ve held back on me, your firm will be history as far as the Gantry Group is concerned.’

The guys were watching me. Liam was smiling; Tom was looking as if he’d never seen me before, as I laid it on the line for the PR lady.

My message was absorbed. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ve been told by a couple of analysts I spoke to in the fifteen or so minutes before you called that someone’s been briefing against you. They’re saying that you have a criminal conviction for deception, and that you’ve been in prison.’

‘That’s true,’ I admitted, ‘but it was a long time ago and it had nothing to do with any sort of business activity, as Susie Gantry was well aware. You can brief in return that I’m happy to talk to anyone about it and to give them a Nigella-style critique on the standard of catering in HMP Cornton Vale. And you can add, as robustly, and publicly, as you like that anyone who suggests that it makes me an unfit person to hold the chair of a public company will be hit so hard by the ensuing writ that they will be knocked flat on their back. Now please get that message out there, and put a stop to this selling stampede.’

‘I will do, I promise,’ she replied, ‘but there’s more. I am reliably informed, although nobody will give me a source, that someone has leaked extracts from the company’s recent confidential management accounts. That more than anything else has made the institutional shareholders run for cover.’

That, I hadn’t expected. ‘Oh shit,’ I murmured. ‘Now that is trouble. I’ve just been looking at those, and there’s a great big twenty-million pound hole in them. But it’s not life-threatening and it’s a hole that I intend to plug. Would it help if you put that word around as well?’

‘Yes, it would. It would show that the new chairman is firmly in charge, and aware of the company’s position.’

‘Then do that too. Anything else,’ I asked, ‘that would turn this around fast?’

‘Buying,’ she shot back, without any pause for thought. ‘At the moment it’s all one way, but if a serious investor came in, that would stop it, at the very least.’

‘How much?’

‘About five million.’

‘Ouch! Too rich for me, in cash terms. Some of my personal wealth is in a private investment trust in Canada. I could move some stock around, but it would take time.’

‘Maybe the briefing I’m about to do will stimulate some new investors. At the very least it should stop the slide.’

‘Let’s hope so, but leave it with me anyway.’

‘What’s up?’ Liam asked as I ended the call. ‘Come on,’ he grinned. ‘Tom and I have a right to know. Remember, we’re both shareholders.’

‘And your shareholdings are under attack,’ I retorted. ‘We have an enemy.’ Breakfast came first, though; there was plenty of it. The trolley was continental rather than the notorious ‘full Scottish’, which can have pretty much anything on it, including black pudding, fried dumpling and, for all I know, for I’m out of touch, pakora.

Tom started with muesli, with a couple of vanilla yoghurts stirred into it instead of milk, while Liam and I went straight for the fruit. It took us less than ten minutes to demolish everything, down to the last piece of melon and the last slice of toast. Liam’s a fairly big guy, Tom’s fuelling his growth, and I was unusually hungry. Whether that was because I was nervy in advance of the meeting, or because of my unaccustomed nocturnal exercise I knew not, but whatever the cause I wired in as if I’d been a jungle celebrity and they’d just got me out of there.

Once we were left with nothing but slightly stewed tea, I gave them both a rundown on my discussion with Cressida. Tom stiffened in his chair when I told them that my brief run-in with the law was being used against me. It’s a part of my life that he knows about but we don’t discuss it.

I tried to tell him once that I did something wrong and that I paid for it, but he asked me, ‘Did you think it was wrong?’ I told him that at the time, I didn’t, but that sometimes the law takes a view that’s different from a person’s. ‘I don’t care,’ he declared. ‘If you thought that what you did was right, then it was. I don’t care what the law said.’ Ever since then, ‘lawyer’ has never featured among the future careers included in his list of possibles.

Liam agreed with me that my ball and chain time was ancient history and therefore irrelevant. ‘You never did anything remotely as serious as crashing a bank, honey,’ he commented, ‘and all those guys walked away scot-free. As for whoever’s leaking confidential information, in what has to be an attempt to sabotage the company, I’d like to see him thrown in clink. In fact I’d even volunteer to guard the key.’

‘What are you going to do, Mum?’ Tom asked. Before I had a chance to answer he put a second question. ‘Do I have enough money to buy shares?’

Tom knows he’s wealthy, but that’s about it. Unlike Susie, his father kept his will up to date. In it, he expressed the view that since his wife had a plenty in her own right, she didn’t need any of the fortune he left behind him. Therefore, apart from a substantial bequest to a charity established to provide for hard-up actors and actresses, it was divided among his three children to be held in trust until they reached the age of eighteen, in the care of, the will specified, ‘their legal guardians’. In Tom’s case that’s me. His seven-figure inheritance is invested by the same people who look after me, and thanks to the earnings that still accrue to the estate from DVD sales, it’s completely recession proof.

And it was going to stay that way. ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘but you’re not going to. If I let you do that, I’d be gambling with it and I’m not going to do that. Besides, you already own six per cent of the company, and when Susie’s affairs are settled, you, your sister and your brother will own a lot more. But your shares will be equal, and I don’t believe it would be right to upset that balance.’

‘There’s nothing to stop me investing, though,’ Liam murmured. ‘I’m not minted, but I’m comfortable. I have some spare capital, and I was planning to sell my Dublin apartment. I only ever bought that for tax reasons anyway.’

‘Five million?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Nowhere near.’

‘In which case, boys, I have to look elsewhere. Tom,’ I said, ‘wheel that trolley out into the corridor, then go and sort out what you’re going to need for the day.’

‘What am I going to do today, Mum?’ he asked.

‘Well, you can’t come into the meeting,’ I said, ‘nor can Liam, even though the two of you are both shareholders. So I thought that you might spend the morning getting acquainted with Glasgow and with each other.’ I looked at them both. ‘How does that sound?’

‘Good to me,’ my partner agreed. ‘There’s some new stuff been opened down by the river since the last time I was here. You up for checking that out, Tom?’

He nodded, picked up his iPad and headed for the door, pushing the trolley as requested.

‘I’m not rushing you, am I?’ I asked Liam, once he’d left. ‘If you feel uncomfortable, just say so.’

‘About what? I don’t see myself as a child-minder. He’s a bright, mature kid, and I enjoy his company, just as I enjoyed his father’s. If you’re worried that I might put myself forward as a replacement, then don’t. I’m happy to be his mate and his mentor, but never his dad.’

I hugged him to me. After years with nobody to hug whose head came past my shoulder, I was enjoying the novelty. ‘You’re a sweet man. I’m going to miss you when you go back to Toronto.’

‘It’ll be quite a little while before I think of that. You’ve promised to show me Catalunya, remember. I have a book to do. This morning might help towards that. I brought my camera with me.’ He kissed me on the forehead. ‘Once the smoke clears, babe, we’ll be able to see the future better.’

‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘But one thing I can see already; when we do get back to Spain, you are moving out of that hotel and in with me.’

‘What was that you were saying a minute ago, about rushing me?’ He laughed.

‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured, my crest a little fallen. ‘Too big a step?’

‘Hey, I’m kidding. That would be great, this is great. If Tom’s happy with it, let’s take our thing for a test drive.’

‘Good. Now that’s sorted, let me get on with clearing the way so we can go back. I have a call to make.’

Liam went through to the Rock ’n’ Roll bedroom and left me to it. I dialled the number, straight from my contacts list. Miles answered, straight away.

‘Primavera!’ he exclaimed. ‘Hussy! I knew you and Liam would get on, but not that well. Your sister has been smirking like the cat that got the cream ever since I showed her that image. Go carefully, both of you, but have fun.’

‘Don’t worry, Miles. We’re both grown-ups; and we like each other. Listen, in your message you said I could come to you for advice.’

‘Of course. Shoot.’

I thanked him, and I did.

‘I see,’ he said slowly, when I was done. ‘Someone has got it in for you, in a big way. You reckon it’s Susie’s new husband, do you?’

‘Yes, I do. Who else would it be?’

‘I have no idea,’ he admitted, ‘but why would it be Culshaw? Doesn’t he stand to inherit?’

‘That’s another story. Susie’s will was out of date. She never changed it after Oz died. When I showed her the implications of marrying Culshaw, she asked me to do some things to ring-fence the children’s interests, and gave me legal authority to act for her. But you’re right, even in the absence of a relevant will he’s likely to be entitled to a good chunk of her assets.’

‘So, I ask again; why would he want to diminish those?’

‘To get at me, by hurting Tom. There’s something else you don’t know.’ I hadn’t told him about Culshaw’s crude attempt to extort two million from me the year before, so I updated him and told him of the get-even threat the shit had made in our last exchange.

‘Indeed?’ Miles growled when I was done. ‘Yeah, the guy is a nasty piece of work. But from the sound of things he isn’t exactly stupid either. He made that threat while Susie was still alive. You’re small beer to him now, Primavera. Still, I don’t like the idea of him having any hold over those other two kids of Oz’s.’

‘How do you think they feel about it?’ I said.

‘I know, I know.’

‘And what can I do about it?’ I moaned.

‘Could the marriage be declared invalid?’ he murmured, more to himself than to me. ‘It happened in Vegas, you said?’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t make it any less valid. Audrey Kent was the witness. I don’t imagine there’s any doubt about it.’

‘No,’ he conceded, ‘as long as all the legal requirements have been met, and as long as the person who performed the ceremony is fully licensed. Leave it with me. I’ll have that checked out. Now, about your problems in the City. If someone in the US accessed, without authority, information that’s confidential to the management of a quoted company, and used it in any way, that would break a whole raft of laws. I’m sure it will be the same in the UK. You might want to get back on to your PR people and get a list of anyone they know to have been shown this information. They won’t have any sort of privilege; you could go to court to force them to reveal the source.’

‘I can do the first part of that in two minutes and instruct the second in not much longer,’ I told him.

‘Yes but, and there is always a but … what if the information hasn’t been stolen? Who’s on the circulation list?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Normally it would be the directors and maybe also the company secretary if he isn’t on the board.’

‘He isn’t.’

‘Okay, then if I were you, before I took any action I would report what you know to the directors and ask them point blank whether one of them has been leaking information. They’ll scream bloody murder, but you can tell them it’s your duty to ask the question, and they’ll have to live with it.’

‘What if one of them admits it?’ I asked.

‘Then you push a pad and a pen across the table and ask for a resignation letter there and then.’

‘It could get messy, Miles.’

‘From what you’ve told me, Primavera, it’s messy already. Your PR lady was right, you need some public support, and you need it fast.’ He paused for a few seconds. ‘This golf course development; what do you know about it?’

‘Very little. There’s no reference in last year’s annual report, and only a couple of brief items in minutes since then.’

‘In that case, you ask the managing director for a full report, and to account for every penny that’s gone into the development so far. Then you veto any further spend.’

‘Can I do that?’

‘You’re the chair; you can do what you like till the shareholders stop you.’

‘It’s my first meeting,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m a new girl.’

‘By the time the meeting begins, you’ll be a very powerful new girl.’ He laughed.

‘How, for God’s sake?’

‘Sister-in-law,’ he drawled, ‘I could invest five million in Gantry shares with one call to my London broker. Problem is, if I did that, the city would see through it; it would be me doing a family member a favour. However … I have friends, seriously wealthy friends, that I’ve made even wealthier by giving them crazy returns on their investments in my movie projects. When does your meeting begin?’

I checked my watch. ‘An hour and a quarter.’

‘In that case, check the company’s share price fifteen minutes before, and look for recent acquisitions. When you get in there, lay the information you get on the table, and look around as you do it. If your enemy’s in that boardroom, he’ll be the one who looks sick.’

My conversation with Miles boosted my confidence for the meeting. I’d had no clear plan of action before, but he’d more or less drafted my agenda. I’d packed a business suit for the occasion, the kind that Susie would have worn, but on impulse, I left it in the case and opted instead for my casual Catalan look, Cardin jeans, a flowery shirt, tucked in, a wide black belt and black moccasins. I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to say to them, ‘This isn’t someone sent along to play a part and nod her head when required. This is a new broom and watch it, or you will be swept away.’

‘You sure?’ Liam asked, when I revealed myself.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then God help whoever’s been making mischief,’ he chuckled.

The guys decided that they were going to visit Glasgow’s still relatively new Riverside Museum. Tom had done the planning on his iPad and had decided that the best way to get there was by using the dedicated bus service, which runs from the city centre. I let them go on their way, and then called a taxi to take me to the Gantry Group head office. While I waited in the lobby, I went online via my laptop (I’d asked Tom to use his iPad earlier because it’s instant, and takes no time to boot up), found the Stock Exchange site, and looked up the Gantry listing. The share price hadn’t recovered fully from its slump since Susie’s death, but the loss had been halved. As Miles had told me to, I checked recent acquisitions and found an eight million pound purchase by an American corporate buyer. Eight million! Bloody hell, Miles had called in a big favour. I managed to link up to the hotel’s printer and ran off a copy, just as my black cab arrived.

Actually they weren’t that far away from the hotel, in a modern block on the intersection of Waterloo Street and Wellington Street, nice military names that helped boost my combative mood.

The noticeboard in the foyer told me that the company occupied the third floor. I took the lift up and stepped out, at five minutes to ten.

The first thing I saw was a framed photo of Susie, on a table in front of the reception desk. It was draped in black ribbon and there was a condolence book in front, with a ballpoint pen in a stand. I signed it, glancing at some of the other names; there were many. I recognised a couple of footballers, a musician, and a comedian; three others had added the word ‘Councillor’ after their names, as a form of underlining.

If I’d been expecting the managing director to be waiting to greet the new chair, I’d have been disappointed. There was no welcoming group in reception. The immaculately dressed woman behind the desk wasn’t too effusive either, but I made allowances for that. She’d have known Susie well, no doubt, and had no reason to be cheerful.

She had done her homework, though. She knew who I was. ‘Mrs Blackstone,’ she said, rising from her chair and coming round from behind the barrier. ‘Cathy Black, office manager.’ We shook hands, and she ushered me into a corridor to my left. ‘Mr Culshaw and the other directors are here already. They’re waiting in the boardroom. I’m sorry, I should have said two of the other directors. There’s been a formal apology for absence from Mrs Kent.’

I nodded. ‘I’m aware of that,’ I said. ‘She advised me.’ I didn’t bother to add that she’d also faxed me a proxy form allowing me to vote on her behalf in any division, as I thought fit.

Mrs Black … I assumed from the weight on her left-hand ring finger … opened a door halfway along the corridor, then followed me into the long room behind. ‘I take the minutes of the meetings,’ she explained quietly.

My new colleagues were gathered at the far end of the board table, coffee cups and saucers in hand. I’d seen Culshaw on TV the night before of course, and I knew who the others were, since the annual report had included directors’ photographs, and the odd one out had to be the company secretary, Wylie Smith, a plump little guy in his forties, who had the air of someone who’s always slightly out of breath, a man running for a bus who’s never going to catch it.

The other woman in the room, Gillian Harvey, was all smiles in the report mugshot, but not in real life. I’d read up on her; she was a banker, which may have helped explain her cheerless expression as she eyed me up and down, making me feel glad that I’d dressed the way I had. There had been a period in the company’s history when its bank had felt it necessary to insist on having someone on the board, and she’d been put in place then. Those days were long gone, but somehow she’d managed to hang around.

Gerry Meek, the finance director, middle-aged, balding and bespectacled, hadn’t been foisted on Susie by anyone. He’d been her choice when she had taken complete control of the company from her old man, to replace his less efficient predecessor. He’d been around as she’d rebuilt the group from the mess she’d inherited, so he must have been competent to say the least. Whether he’d also been compliant in recent months, I planned to find out.

Phil Culshaw came towards me, hand outstretched, white-haired, tanned, with the weathered complexion of a sailor. That’s what he had been, mostly, easing out of his accountancy firm when Oz had recruited him and brought him in on a temporary basis that had become permanent when he and Susie had moved offshore. He was smiling, but I eyeballed him and didn’t see it reflected there.

‘Primavera,’ he exclaimed, ‘welcome to the Gantry Group. You’ve met Cathy, let me introduced the rest of my colleagues.’ He did the rounds; the two men were pleasant, if diffident, but the grey-haired lady banker gazed at me as if I was a member of a parliamentary select committee.

‘Can we have a word in private?’ the managing director murmured.

I beamed at him. ‘Once I have a coffee in my hand, Mr Culshaw, certainly,’ I replied. I used his surname deliberately and spoke loudly enough for the rest to hear.

Wylie Smith rushed to the coffee pot, poured me a cup and handed it to me. I thanked him, declined the Belgian chocolate biscuits, then walked to the other end of the table, leaving Culshaw to follow behind.

‘Yes?’ I said sweetly, being a bitch and revelling in it. Fucking man had annoyed me, twice, first by using my given name without invitation and second when he’d said ‘my colleagues’ rather than ‘our’. I’d gone in there with the intention of building a high wall in my mind between him and his nephew, but I was having trouble.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get hold of you yesterday,’ he murmured, dispensing with the smile.

‘You got close, though. I assume that was you who spoke to my son in the hotel last night.’

His jaw dropped. ‘That was …? My God, I don’t mind telling you …’

I cut him off. ‘You don’t have to. I know what you thought. If you hadn’t hung up on him, we’d have made contact then. If we had,’ I asked, ‘what would you have said to me?’

‘More or less what I said in my television interview. I’d have asked you about the advisability of continuing with this meeting.’

‘That’s what I assumed. And I’d have told you then what I’m telling you now, that there is not one good business reason for cancelling it, and several valid ones for pressing ahead, as I intend to do.’

‘Then I have to tell you that in my opinion, your taking the chair of this company, unless it’s so you can resign immediately, isn’t in its best interests.’

I pursed my lips. ‘In that case,’ I murmured, as I sipped the worst coffee I’d tasted since I left prison, ‘we’d better bring the meeting to order, and we’ll see what I do.’

I sat myself down in the big chair at the head of the table, that I just knew had been Susie’s, and I called along to Wylie Smith, ‘Mr Secretary, I’d be grateful if we could convene the meeting now. It’s gone ten a.m.’

‘Of course, Madam Chairman,’ he replied, picking up his papers as I took out my meeting folder and laid my bag on the floor. The other two directors followed suit, although Harvey shot me a glare that made me wonder if she’d gobbed in my coffee when no one was looking.

When everyone was in place, I kicked off.

‘The first thing I want to do as your chair,’ I began, ‘is to call for two minutes’ contemplative silence in memory of my friend Susie. I’ve known her, I believe, for longer than any of you have, so do not any of you think for a second that I feel any lightness in my heart as I sit in her chair. I wish that she was in it, and not me, but she isn’t, and so I promise you as I promised her that I will preserve and protect the company that bears her name.’

I fell silent, and so did the others. When the two minutes were up, Wylie Smith signalled the fact by shuffling in his seat and distributing agendas. ‘Since this is an unscheduled meeting of the board,’ he explained, ‘this is a very short list of business. As always it begins with minutes of the last meeting. You have all received them, yes?’

‘Taken as read,’ Culshaw grunted.

‘Was that a motion?’ I asked him, calmly.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘of course, I’m sorry.’

‘Seconded,’ Harvey snapped.

I looked at Meek; he nodded approval. ‘Agreed,’ I declared, glancing at Cathy Black, who was taking what I guessed was old-fashioned shorthand, in a pad.

‘Second item on the agenda is chair’s remarks,’ I noted. ‘That’s as well, because I have a few.’

‘Before we proceed,’ Gillian Harvey interrupted, ‘I would like to ask you to explain to us your qualifications for chairing this company. Your background calls them into question.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked her, evenly.

‘You have a rather colourful past, if you don’t mind me saying so. Is it not the case that you have a criminal conviction?’

I laughed. ‘Isn’t that funny,’ I exclaimed. ‘There were people running around in the City yesterday asking every sector analyst they could find that selfsame question, and here you go and bring it up at a board meeting. Your bank, Miss Harvey; it employs people to run around in the City of London, doesn’t it, spreading information and asking questions?’

‘Oh, really, that’s-’

‘True or false?’

‘True, but-’

‘Stop,’ I snapped. ‘I have another question. Were any of those people involved in spreading the word about me? But think before you answer. I spoke to Cress Oldham, the company’s financial PR adviser, this morning and instructed her to find out who they were. I could receive a text from her at any moment. So once again, were your people out there spreading the poison to undermine me as chair, and severely damaging the company’s share price in the process?’

She stared at the table. ‘They could have been.’

‘I’ll take that as a “yes”. On whose instructions?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Don’t prevaricate, Miss Harvey. If I phone the chief executive of your bank right now, and ask him if it’s his policy to brief against the chair of a client company, in any circumstances, he’s going to do his nut and launch an investigation. When the bank’s messengers are put up against the wall, who are they going to name as the person who sent them out there?’

She sighed. ‘They’re going to blame me,’ she confessed. And then she shot me a look that was nothing but pure envy.

‘Because you expected to be chair yourself,’ I said, ‘and that’s not a question; I can see it.’ I looked at the company secretary. ‘Mr Smith, please give Miss Harvey a notepad and a pen, if she needs one.’

He did as I instructed. She stared at the items as they were put before her. ‘What are these for?’ she asked.

‘Jesus!’ I exclaimed. ‘Would you prefer a pearl-handled revolver? Write your resignation, please, with immediate effect. Otherwise I will put a motion of no confidence, it will be passed and all this will be minuted and reported to the bank, your employer, when the company’s business is moved to its rival.’

She looked at Culshaw, and then at Gerry Meek. Neither would meet her eyes. She picked up the pen and scribbled a few words, tossed the pad back at Smith, and started to rise.

‘Hold on,’ I told her. ‘Before you go, will you confirm also that your people have been leaking information from our confidential management accounts, also on your say-so? If they have, I’ll find that out too, one way or another, easy or hard.’

‘No!’ she protested. ‘Certainly not! That would be outright dishonesty.’

I shrugged. ‘As I say, I’ll find out, but actually, I believe you. Goodbye.’

The remaining five of us sat in silence until the door closed behind her.

‘I never did get round to answering her question,’ I remarked, once she’d gone, ‘but I don’t think I need to as it’s a matter of record. What’s also a matter of public record is that I’m a director of another company, in Spain, and that I have operated successfully in a commercial role for the UK government. Privately, I manage personal wealth, accrued through my association with my late former husband, that runs into seven zeroes and has grown significantly since it came to me. Susie knew all that; it’s why she appointed me to the chair.’

‘Non-executive chair,’ Culshaw murmured.

‘She didn’t, actually. She appointed me chair and that was it. When she did it, she envisaged that she’d still be around, still pulling the strings. Sadly, she isn’t, so I intend to assume an executive role.’

The managing director leaned across the table. ‘The shareholders may have something to say about that, given what’s happened to the company’s share price since your appointment was announced. I don’t condone what Gillian did, but we can’t hide from the reaction to the information she circulated.’

‘Your problem, Phil,’ I countered, ‘seems to be that you don’t keep up to date. This is what’s happened in the last hour.’ I took the sheets I’d printed in the hotel from my folder and slid them across to him, then watched his face change as he read it. ‘Seems there’s a significant new shareholder on my side, who now owns, by my calculation, around one-eighth of the equity, based on the buying price. Before you ask, it certainly is not me and no, I don’t have clue who it is.’ I looked at Wylie Smith. ‘Would you call the PR people, please, and find out what the current share price is?’

‘Certainly, Madam Chair,’ he replied, with a look in his eye that suggested he was enjoying the show, then rushed from the room.

‘While he does that,’ I continued, ‘I want to come back to the so-called confidential information that’s been used to undermine the company. I’ve had a day to study the accounts, that’s all, but even I can see that there’s a question needing answered. This golf course project; what the hell is it and why are we involved?’

‘It’s a joint venture with a partner,’ Culshaw replied, ‘a company called Monsoon Holdings Limited.’

‘How big a piece do we have?’

‘The Gantry Group owns fifty per cent of the vehicle company. It’s called Babylon Links Country Club PLC.’

‘Fifty,’ I repeated. ‘Not fifty-one?’

‘No, exactly fifty. It’s a true joint venture.’

‘Where’s the minute recording board approval? I can’t see it and I’ve checked.’

‘The late executive chairman signed off on it, last October. I can show you her instruction.’

‘That would be around the time she was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of leukaemia.’

He nodded. ‘It was, but what does that have to do with it?’

‘It suggests to me that Susie’s eye might not have been too firmly on the ball. Did she also sign off on the twenty million pound contribution that we’ve made to the new company?’

‘Effectively; she gave me permission to proceed as I saw fit.’

I eyeballed Gerry Meek. ‘Is that correct?’

He nodded.

‘Do you know anywhere I can hire a set of golf clubs?’ I asked Culshaw, casually. ‘I’d like to try the course out for myself.’ I smiled. ‘In fact, why don’t we have a board outing?’

‘That won’t be possible for a while,’ he murmured. ‘Construction hasn’t begun yet.’

‘No? Then where’s the twenty million gone?’

‘Nowhere yet. The planning authority needed assurances that the company was properly capitalised before they would give consent.’

‘And has it? Given consent?’

‘Not yet, but my project team assure me that it’s close.’

‘So meanwhile the company’s sitting there with forty million in the bank, uninvested and earning nothing.’

We were interrupted by Wylie Smith as he came back into the room. ‘The company’s share price has stabilised,’ he announced. ‘The wave of selling has stopped, but our market value is still twenty per cent below its closing level on Friday.’

It wasn’t the greatest news, but still I was pleased to hear it. It strengthened my hand as I turned back to Culshaw.

‘Not forty million,’ he said. ‘Twenty.’

I stared at him. ‘Are you telling me we’ve only got fifty per cent of the shares, yet we’re putting up all the money?’

‘Yes,’ he snapped impatiently, ‘but it’s not as cut and dried as that. Monsoon Holdings are putting up the land; they own that.’

‘How much land?’

‘Three hundred and ten acres.’

‘Of what? Agricultural?’

‘No. There’s a little woodland, but mostly it’s just grass.’

‘Not residential, though?’

‘No, it’s green belt, but that’s not an issue. There are golf courses on similar land all along that coast.’

I did some sums in my head. ‘I’m a country girl, Phil. I’m not up to date with current land values in Scotland, but I do know that if you can’t build homes or factories on it or grow things or graze things, then it isn’t worth a hell of a lot. Let’s say on a good day, three to four grand an acre. That would value it, tops, at one and a quarter million, against the Gantry contribution of twenty.’

‘Yes, but … When permission is granted and the course is built it will be worth much more.’

‘So where’s the business plan?’

‘There …’ He stopped, and glared at me, fiercely. ‘Look here,’ he barked, ‘enough of this! I haven’t come here to be cross-examined by some bloody woman who’s just walked in the door!’

‘Then resign.’ I eyeballed him back. ‘I could have another managing director in here by the end of today. Gerry,’ I snapped at Meek, ‘as finance director do you believe that the company has got itself a good deal here?’

As I looked at him I thought I saw an honest man, and he proved me right. ‘Frankly, Mrs Blackstone, I don’t. Phil is right that when the project is up and running, value will have been added to the property, but to give us a decent return on investment it would have to be showing an operating profit of at least seven million a year and have a capital value of fifty. In my opinion, those are high expectations, and no way will they be achieved overnight.’

‘Were you consulted over the commitment of this sort of investment?’

‘No,’ the FD replied. ‘I was simply told. I did consider going to Ms Gantry about it, but she was uncontactable.’

‘Where’s the business plan?’ I asked Culshaw, again. ‘The one you showed the bank.’

‘There is none,’ he admitted. ‘We funded it from within our own resources.’

‘Added to by a certain amount of borrowing from the bank,’ Meek chipped in.

‘All well within our agreed limit,’ Culshaw shouted, ‘as Gillian would have told you if she’d still been here.’

‘Boys, boys, boys,’ I said. ‘Let’s be calm, please. Phil, I have a duty to ask these questions, to try to get a handle on substantial spending that I don’t understand.’

‘Investment,’ he hissed.

‘Twenty million out of our coffers any way you look at it,’ I shot back. ‘Who are the directors of Babylon Links?’

‘Must we dwell on this?’ he protested.

‘Yes, until I’m reassured about this project.’

He threw his hands up in exasperation, and turned to the company secretary. ‘Wylie, tell her.’

Smith nodded. ‘There are two. Mr Culshaw, and Mr Diego Fabricant.’

I frowned. ‘Diego Fabricant?’ I repeated. ‘Never heard of him. Who the hell is he?’

‘He’s a member of the board of Monsoon Holdings Ltd. Its only director, in fact.’

‘So he owns the land?’

‘Not personally, no. The company owns the land.’

‘Okay, but he owns the company, so same thing.’

‘Actually, he doesn’t,’ Smith said, a little diffidently. ‘He’s an appointed director, but it’s unlikely that he’s actually a shareholder.’

I almost blew up, almost but not quite. ‘So …’ I murmured.

‘All one hundred issued shares of Monsoon Holdings Limited,’ he continued, ‘are held by a company registered in Jersey, where there’s no requirement to disclose the beneficial owner. Nominee shareholders can be used; that’s what Fabricant is.’

‘Fucking hell!’ I glanced at Cathy Black. ‘You can minute that if you like. Wylie, you’re telling me that the Gantry Group has a business partner and we don’t know who he is?’

‘Effectively, yes.’

I turned on Culshaw. ‘Who brought you this deal, Phil? Let me guess. It wasn’t your bloody nephew, was it?’

There followed one of the most eloquent silences I’ve ever not heard. I felt like someone who’d just fired a rifle straight up in the air, and hit my target on the way down. The managing director’s jaw fell a couple of inches ‘How the h …’ he began.

I laughed out loud. ‘I didn’t know. I wasn’t even serious. I think you’re done here. Mr Smith, I need advice on the legal implications of this.’

‘Enough,’ Culshaw shouted. ‘I’ve had enough of this interference. Mrs Black, please minute my withdrawal from this meeting. Note also my request for a general meeting of the company to be held as soon as possible, to consider and pass a vote of no confidence in Mrs Blackstone as chair, and requiring her resignation.’ He pushed himself out of his seat, and leaned over me, right in my face. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, a majority of the shares in this company are now held by two young people who are by marriage my great-niece and great-nephew. How do you think their stepfather is going to vote on their behalf?’

‘Phil,’ I asked him quietly. ‘Did you leak the contents of the management accounts?’

‘No, of course not,’ he blustered. ‘I’m a shareholder in this company myself.’

‘Then who the hell did? It wasn’t Gillian Harvey, it wasn’t Gerry or Audrey Kent, it wasn’t Wylie and it wasn’t me. So who the hell did it and why? Ask yourself that as you plan my downfall.’