by Peter Tonkin
‘Sounds nasty! And?’
Harry pulled a flimsy out of his pocket. ‘My office downloaded this half an hour ago and messengered it straight to me. The messenger thought they were mad. Stonking great motorbike roaring right across London - all for one sheet of paper. And on a Saturday. And in the middle of the night. Cost an absolute fortune. But I don’t have a fax or a printer at home. I think they did the right thing, Richard. Look at it.’
Richard glanced down and Robin looked past his arm. The paper was an A4 colour print-out of a corporate news-page, the sort that every major company in the world displays - and a few who would just like to be major.
At the top, the company logo showed a tiger on a palm-fringed beach, simplified and stylized, but unmistakable nevertheless. ‘WHITESAND- SANDARKAN’ announced the title.
Beneath, came the headline: ‘IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM WHITESAND- SANDARKAN’.
Beneath that, a sub-headline: ‘Whitesand-Sandarkan Board Announces Acquisition of Western Shipping Legend’. And the story:
At mid-day today Hong Kong time, the Chairman of Whitesand-Sandarkan announced that his company has acquired a controlling interest in the legendary London-based shipping company Heritage Mariner. During the last few weeks, the court case involving CEO Captain Richard Mariner, which has gripped the news media world-wide, has driven Heritage Mariner shares down and down in price, the Chairman said. Whitesand-Sandarkan has been able to purchase all the shares available upon the open market and so has acquired control of the company itself.
There was more, but Richard jerked the paper down before Robin could read on. ‘This simply isn’t right,’ he grated. ‘The family hold a controlling interest. It’s by no means common knowledge, but we have always held more than fifty per cent of the shares, specifically to stop something like this happening! Whitesand-Sandarkan - whoever they are - have got it wrong!’
He threw the paper angrily aside, and turned away.
But, seeing the expression on Harry’s face, Robin pulled him back.
‘That’s not quite right, though, is it, Richard?’ said Harry gently. ‘It’s not just the family, it’s the family and the Board. You hold ten per cent, as do Robin and Sir William. The twins hold five per cent each. Five per cent - the late Lady Heritage’s - is held in trust. Helen DuFour holds four per cent. Making up forty-nine per cent. The other member of the Full Board holds the controlling three per cent, taking it from forty- nine to fifty-two. And the other member of your board is Charles Lee, Richard. Charles Lee.’
‘Do you see what you’re saying?’ asked Robin, breathlessly. ‘Do you understand the implications?’
‘Well,’ said Harry, wrong-footed by the intensity with which she spat the question at him; feeling a little like a messenger he had once seen bringing bad news to Cleopatra in William Shakespeare’s play. Expecting at any moment to have his hair pulled and his eyes clawed.
‘It’s all been a trap,’ said Richard, straightening, his jaw squaring and his shoulders tensing as though for a wrestling match. ‘The whole thing. A betrayal and a trap three years and more in the making. The invitation to join the charity board. The missed meetings, the doctored minutes, the loss of the Goodman Richard, the vanishing Captain Jones and the disappearing Charles Lee. The case. Almost certainly yesterday’s acquittal, all designed to drive the share- price down until these Whitesand-Sandarkan people could afford to buy them. All except the family share. But if they hold the whole forty-eight per cent that is out there in the public domain, and if Charles Lee is with them - with his three per cent holding - then you’re right. They’re right. They’ve made a massive fortune overnight - repaid their investment ten times over if they bought at the lowest last week. We’ve been raided. Robbed. Ruined. Victims of the other kind of Corporate Killing!’
As Richard’s blistering anger rang round the stricken silence of the room, it was the most unexpected voice of all that answered his anguish and his outrage.
‘Charles Lee,’ said May Chung dismissively. ‘I know this Charles Lee. Maybe I better take you to see Grandmother Chung, Captain Mariner! And soon!’
Chapter 29: Taking Stock
In the face of this new crisis, Richard and Robin went home. But it was a regrouping, not a retreat. A chance to take stock and plan the next step. Richard had been faced with ruin so absolutely for so long that this new challenge was not the straw that broke the camel’s back for him. Like Robin’s ill-fated party, it was a simple, enraging, energizing call to arms.
They arrived at Ashenden soon after lunchtime on Sunday and set about opening up the house. They had employed staff when they lived in Hong Kong, but apart from a gardener and occasional cleaners, they preferred to run the rambling old house themselves. Or, to be fair, Robin preferred to. But the cleaners had been in last week in preparation for the family’s return and the gardener was still at work when the Bentley crunched up the drive and the pair of them climbed out of it.
Robin stretched extravagantly, amazed by how happy she was to be home, even under these circumstances. Especially under these circumstances, perhaps. Richard went round to get their cases from the boot. As he did so, Robin looked around, content to stand and think. In any case, it was Richard who had the front-door key. He soon popped up with the cases and walked towards the porch. They were travelling light. Everything they needed was here already, she thought, following - and what they needed for camping in London remained there. Robin herself hadn’t needed all that much in the hospital and, with the preparations for the party, they hadn’t even had the opportunity to replace the clothes she had been wearing when she was blown up. She had managed one hell of a posh frock for the party itself and some really wicked underthings beneath it, she thought with a tiny, almost guilty smile, which turned into a big smile and a moue of thanks as he held the door wide for her.
Richard hardly had anything in the bags he was carrying off upstairs, she thought, her mind still on domestic matters as she drifted across the hallway and into the big sitting room. He in any case was a bird of passage, preparing simply to greet his children, hold a conference with his father-in-law and return to Heritage House early next week. There was a lot to sort out - not least what May Chung’s grandmother knew about Charles Lee that would help them. Robin would have liked him to stay, had planned on him doing so in fact. But Harry’s news had put that plan away into the long grass.
Robin needed to remain. And, she thought, looking out through the French windows over the summer-still Channel at France, she was happy to do so. There had been enough adventures during the last few months to last a lifetime. In fact they had very nearly outlasted her own lifetime. She was still convalescent - there had been a lively debate on the drive down about the employment of a private nurse and/or housekeeper for the next couple of months, the resolution of which so far was, ‘Well, we’ll see.’ And, to be fair, she was thinking seriously about it. Her near-death experience and long convalescence had made her ache to be with her babies - though the twins were in their teens now, and more than a handful than ever. She might indeed need some help if they were going to be difficult.
On the other hand, it had been the better part of a year since the family had been together properly, so they might be tractable, if she could come up with things for them to do that didn’t cripple her physically or financially. Christmas had hardly been a success with Richard on bail and Easter had been little short of disastrous with the trial so imminent. Both were traditionally spent with parents - but, with the rigid restrictions to Richard’s freedom of movement, it had hardly seemed worth the trouble. But everyone had found the changes to routine disturbing and unsettling. They had needed a holiday after each of the holidays - but of course, they hadn’t had one.
As she thought, Robin wandered out of the sitting room into the other rooms downstairs and was happy to note in the last of them the pile of supplies Dottie Stephenson, their nearest neighbour and close friend, had dropped off in the kitchen. Robin herself woul
d shop online sometime tonight and get a huge delivery tomorrow in time to feed her children’s limitless appetites. Or that was the plan, unless Richard wanted to take the Range Rover into Eastbourne and buy Sainsbury’s for her. Or the bulk of its stock, at least.
This thought was enough to get her upstairs, and she drifted into the other rooms, to the nice domestic sound of him unpacking in the master bedroom, humming quietly to himself. As always, he had been round and opened all the windows the moment he got up here. The air around Ashenden flooded in, simmering and scented, out of the still, summery afternoon. William’s room smelt of roses from the big rambler growing up the side of the house, but Mary’s looking over the garden was full of the straw-yellow scent of camomile from the lawn. It made both mother and daughter think irresistibly of horses - perhaps that was why they loved it.
The suite her father and stepmother would share opened to the back of the house and was full of wood smells from the hill behind and the sound of early evensong bells from the local church. The sound of the bells seeped through as far as the two spare bedrooms, Robin noticed as she prowled through them, though Richard hadn’t bothered to open the windows in either of them. Full of aching contentment - and something more - she moved, catlike, back into the cool gloom of the corridor, walking on her tiptoes, tugging at warm cotton and fiddling with cool pearl buttons as she went.
Richard had emptied both the cases and put them neatly to one side. Ever precise and tidy - after all his years at sea - he had piled the contents on their respective chests of drawers ready to put them properly away. As she arrived, he had just started on his own sock drawer, checking each pair was rolled just the way he liked it. He sensed her lingering in the doorway behind him and spoke without turning round.
‘Evensong,’ he said. ‘I hear the bells. We could just make it if we hurry. Want to go?’
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
He glanced across at her, frowning. And found that she was leaning in the doorway dressed only in the sleekest black body - the one she had bought for her Welcome Back party. It was see-through and beneath its smoky darkness it was obvious that the physiotherapy had done more than simply repair the damage she had suffered. From neck to knees, her muscles were toned, defined. There was something powerful, almost animalistic about her; as though in the months they had been forced apart she had become an Olympic athlete. Under his suddenly burning gaze, she pirouetted like a ballerina until she faced him once again. She was panting now - and so was he. ‘Hello, sailor,’ she growled.
That was the last coherent thing either of them said for some time. And they missed evensong altogether.
The Cold Fell contingent arrived twenty-four hours later in two cars. They had driven down in convoy, Helen DuFour’s big Citroën C5 Estate following Sir William’s Mulsanne. And the reason for the unusual indulgence became obvious immediately. ‘This is Eloise,’ said Helen as she climbed out of her car. A tall, slim athletic-looking blonde shot Robin a shy smile, then followed as Helen took Robin’s arm almost conspiratorially. William and Mary, Robin’s teenage twins, followed behind her in their turn. ‘I do hope you don’t mind me bringing her. I could not run Cold Fell without her and I could not possibly do without her here for any length of time.
‘Eloise is everything to me,’ Helen confided, guiding Robin back inside as the men began to labour over the much more considerable baggage she had brought with her - though Helen was in fact ‘travelling light’ as well. ‘I am not as - what you say? Souple? Supple? As limber as I was. Eloise is a trained physiotherapist. And when she is not making me like a prima ballerina, she is a first-rate housekeeper. She is Provençale, naturellement!
‘I tell you I could not have handled the darling twins without her. She rides! You have stables nearby? She and Mary are constantly a-horse. And she golfs! On the rare occasions my darling Sir William cannot be persuaded to swing a club she will take care of your William. Which does he adore more? Golf or Eloise? Golf! Eh? But not for much longer, I think. Thank God for golf. It is like fishing - men spend hours doing it with almost no discernible result except that they leave us poor women alone!’
And so, through the practical Gallic wisdom of her stepmother, supported no doubt by the ready concern of her indulgently devious father, a nurse/housekeeper did in fact arrive to help them all with the twins. A nurse, a housekeeper and whatever the French was for Mary Poppins, thought Robin ruefully. Then she tore herself away from her stepmother and gathered her children to her for one big group hug.
‘You get my fax, Bill?’ asked Richard, heaving a case heavier than an anvil out of the Mulsanne’s boot. He was able to start the conversation he was burning to have because the twins had gone in to greet their mother. But time would be limited because they would be back soon and he didn’t want to talk in front of them.
‘Yes,’ answered Sir William. ‘It came as quite a shock. Lucky Helen and the twins have been keeping the old ticker up to scratch. D’you think it’s true? Could we have lost everything to these Whitesand-Sandarkan people?’
‘There’s a chance. What about Lee?’
‘Still no trace. It’s incredible. I mean - as you know - when he first went missing we turned London upside down. So did the police of course. Then Britain, then Europe. The authorities seemed to run out of steam after that but we kept on. Contacted Edgar Tan in Macau - remember him? Still the best P.I. in the area. And he went for it, covering all points East. Then we got people working in America and Russia into the bargain. As far as we could. I mean at that stage we still thought he could have been kidnapped, killed, God knows what. But nothing turned up. No ransom demand. No body. He’s just bloody vanished and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Like Lord Lucan?’
‘Yes. But there’s no dead nursemaid. No dead anyone as far as we can discover. No question of any wrongdoing at all, in fact.’
‘Not until Saturday, at any rate. And the Sanna Maru being Triad.’
They had to leave the discussion there as the twins brought Eloise back to help get the cases up to their respective rooms. And opportunity to continue it did not present itself until after dinner.
Alone in the study, the two men sat while Sir William sipped his favourite single malt and talked, while Richard checked his email. Like the snail mail, it was full of congratulations. But, unlike the post, it also contained the first messages of concern at the news that had broken in the financial sections of yesterday’s newspapers.
‘But, apart from Lee’s latest starlet - who went off with a producer within the week - there was nobody else out there. We were his only friends really - apart from some yachting people. And they were more business associates. Like the charity folk. He’d no family; even those in Hong Kong are dead now I understand. No creditors. He left no huge bills. Maybe a tailor or two. He co-owned his yacht; his partner bought him out. He rented that flat in Mayfair and it went back to the landlord on the first of the next month. Finance company reclaimed his latest car. That was that. Quite amazing, really, when you look at it. Man must have been Teflon-coated.’
‘Strange, though, how it all fits together.’ Richard closed the email, signed off the internet and snapped off the computer.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Lee’s been gone for nearly a year now, right?’
Sir William nodded.
‘But no one’s declared him officially dead, have they?’
‘Surely that’s because he’s probably still alive. Isn’t it, Richard?’
‘But, by the time the inquiry was sitting, a coroner’s court had already declared Captain James Jones and his senior officers legally dead. And that was only a matter of months after Goodman Richard went down.’
‘Yeeees...’ Sir William clearly did not follow Richard’s reasoning yet.
‘Has there even been a coroner’s inquest into Charles Lee?’
‘Well, no. Should there have been?’
‘That’s just it. Under the circumstance
s, no; I don’t think there should. I think that under English Common Law you have to be missing for something like five or seven years before you can legally be presumed dead. Unless, as in the case of Captain Jones and co., there is a very strong presumption that you are dead.’
‘Such as having gone missing at sea...’
‘Exactly. But you see what this means, don’t you?’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘I could be charged with Corporate Killing because there was a presumption of death, a relatively quick inquest and a declaration of legal death. OK? But, Charles Lee is not likely to be declared dead for another six years or so, because he has vanished without any suspicion of foul play or fatal accident.’
‘God, Richard, one can certainly tell where you’ve been during the last few weeks. You’re starting to sound like Maggie DaSilva.’
‘And it may in fact be crucial that Charles Lee is not declared dead - it’s crucial if this is all some kind of plan at any rate - because the three per cent share holding he has are not his in perpetuity. He can take the profits, rights issues and returns from them. He can use them for surety, even. But he cannot sell them, give them away or leave them to his children in his will. They only belong to him during his lifetime. The minute he is legally dead, his shares are returned to Heritage Mariner. If Whitesand-Sandarkan are relying on possession of that three per cent, then they only have a controlling interest while Charles Lee is legally alive.’
‘That’s looking on the bright side, I suppose. But they are corporate raiders, asset strippers. They could do one hell of a lot of damage in six months - let alone six years.’
‘I know,’ said Richard, pouring Sir William another whisky. ‘But it’s worse than that, isn’t it? Charles must be alive or Whitesand-Sandarkan wouldn’t have access to his shares. I’d guess they’ve only used his disappearance and the trial as a smokescreen to distract us while they bought up the shares behind our backs. Maybe even set it all up in the first place, like I suspect. If they’d have tried it fair and square we’d have stopped them. And Charles could never have pulled this off within English jurisdiction in any case - he’s blown the terms of his contract to Hell and gone.