Craven Conflict

by David Cooper

  Wednesday 15 th May

  Karen looked to her right as she lowered her wine glass, and realised that the smartly dressed man who had been determinedly working the room for the last half hour had appeared by her side. He offered his hand and made a show of carefully inspecting her name badge.

  “So you’re Karen Rutherford. I’ve been really keen to meet you. I’m Piers Allason, from TARL Associates.”

  “It’s a pleasure.”

  When she had arrived at the Thornbury & Summerson wine tasting an hour earlier, Karen had noticed the list of client attendees prominently displayed on a noticeboard next to the reception desk. An eager looking guest was studying the list with almost exaggerated interest, occasionally pausing to tap the screen of his iPad. Having never found hard core networking to her personal taste, Karen banished him from her mind as soon as she collected her badge and found Lennie waiting to greet her. But once she had sampled the first glass of wine, she could not stop herself constantly glancing in the direction of the mysterious guest, as he proceeded to embark on what appeared to be a mission to worm his way into every small group in the room. It was almost inevitable that she would be in his line of sight before the evening was over.

  “I gather you’re in the recruitment business. Do you have a card?”

  “Yes, of course.” Karen extracted one from her handbag, accepting Allason’s own unsolicited card in return. “What’s your line of work?”

  “Broking and introductions. Business to business sales and mergers. Not too different from what you’re involved in, by the sound of it?”

  With the ice broken, Karen was content to put her prejudices on one side, and they continued to chat. She had been determined to keep her vow that her next glass of wine would be her last, but felt her resolve weakening. Without initially realising it, she had swung round to the view that Allason was quite engaging, and she began to think about how she might prolong the conversation. But in an instant, he took his leave.

  “I must move on. Nice to have met you. Mind if I give you a call tomorrow? I think there’s something back at the office that might be of interest to you.”

  “Yes, please do.”

  “And best of luck with your court action.” Allason melted into the crowd after a handshake that had lingered a moment more than Karen had expected. She could not avoid thinking that Allason was more attractive close up than she had anticipated after her unfavourable first impressions. Maybe it’s the wine…

  “How’s it going, Karen?” Lennie came up, accompanied by an older man with a benevolent air. “Can I introduce you to Don Owen, our senior partner? Don, this is Karen Rutherford, probably my most important client at the moment. We’ve got a trial coming up in a month’s time.”

  Two hours later, Karen was back at her flat. As she contemplated the unappealing choices for an evening meal, and weighed up the possibility of a Chinese takeaway, she was interrupted by the ringing of her mobile phone. The number on the screen was completely unfamiliar, but she would never want to risk losing out on a possible client or candidate.

  “Hello, Karen speaking.”

  “Karen, this is Piers. Piers Allason. We met earlier.”

  “Piers? It’s nice of you to call…”

  “Not too late, I hope?”

  “No, not at all. I just never expected…”

  “Good. I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve just checked up on that issue I mentioned earlier. There is something on our books that could give you and me the chance to do some business together. I wonder, might you be free at all for lunch tomorrow, twelve thirty?”

  “Yes, I can manage that.” It was not lost on Karen that the restaurant Allason went on to propose for their meeting was some way above her own customary boundaries. “Anything in particular to talk about?”

  “Let’s not spoil the surprise. See you tomorrow.”

  Thursday 16 th May

  “You’re off the Endbrack case.”

  Craven looked up from his desk as Finnie announced his reason for bursting in, without pausing to exchange pleasantries. He tried to think of a response before Finnie saved him the need.

  “Jerry’s told me he can’t work with you any longer. You’re spending far too much time on fringe issues and you’re not thinking commercially. You’d better let me have the file back.”

  “OK. I understand.” Craven reached immediately to his right for the file and passed it over. Although he felt some sense of relief that he would be spared further involvement with one of his least favourite clients, he resented Endacott’s criticism. As far as he was concerned, he had done nothing more than ask a number of pointed questions about the dispute that Endacott seemed far too determined to downplay. But he knew that Finnie would take his client’s side, and that it would be futile to argue.

  “Er…” Having taken the file, Finnie had made to leave Craven’s office without a further word. He turned round, annoyed at the interruption. “Do you have any other work for me? I know you’re my supervisor, and I’m a bit quiet at the moment.”

  “I’ll let you know.” Finnie’s tone was indifferent as he walked out just as quickly as he had entered, leaving the door open. Craven closed it behind him. Earlier that morning, he had realised that Squire and Finnie had only passed one new matter to him since he had come clean about his disability. And that had been the dispute where Squire had lined him up for a meeting that he would rather have avoided.

  The arrival of a new email snapped him out of the unhappy train of thoughts. It was from Jackie Browning, asking if he was free for their usual Friday lunch. He quickly confirmed that he would be, and was intrigued by the response.

  ‘Just heard some good news. Will tell you more tomorrow.’

  * * * * *

  “How was your lunch? You look pleased about something.”

  “Pretty good, thanks. Can you field my calls for the next hour or so? I need some quiet time.”

  “OK.” Dawn looked back to her screen as Karen closed her office door behind her, sat down and tried to collect her thoughts. She had allowed both Dawn and Neeta to assume that she had been meeting a candidate or a law firm partner on neutral ground, and had every good reason to let this go uncorrected for the time being.

  Once they had placed their lunch orders, Allason had wasted little time in explaining exactly what he had been so keen to discuss. He had been asked to investigate the local recruitment industry. His client was a small Manchester agency that was looking to establish a presence in Birmingham via a merger or a takeover, rather than by simply opening a new branch and hoping for the best. Their area of practice, which he had preceded with a beaming smile and an unduly dramatic ‘this is where you come in’, was finance and management accountancy. Karen had expressed polite interest, but still felt that she should be on her guard. Her unease increased when Allason went on to ask whether she might be interested in selling her finance division, if the price was right.

  “Sorry, that’s a non-starter.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why?”

  “This is everything I’ve ever worked for. Not only the practice, the people too. I couldn’t live with the thought of casting Neeta adrift on an impulse.”

  Almost as soon as she had replied, Karen’s thoughts flew back to the meeting when she had initiated a process that might have led her to cast Avery adrift. But she quickly shook off the unwelcome memory, knowing that she had done so to protect her own area of business and her personal livelihood, never suspecting for one minute that it would lead to an acrimonious court battle. She was also in no doubt that Ripple’s legal division, as matters stood, was in all probability being kept afloat by the finance division, pending the next upturn in the fortunes of city law firms. But she could never bring herself to admit anything of the kind, especially not to a commercial broker whom she had known for less than twenty four hours.

  If Allason had felt disappointed at Karen’s response, he had concealed it well. Barely missing a step, he had steere
d the discussion into a wider exploration of what the whole Ripple practice might be worth, prompting Karen for a general idea of turnover and profit levels. By the time they had finished their main course, and the accompanying bottle of wine that Allason had selected from the expensive end of the list, the likely premium that an outside player might pay for a toehold in a new area had almost gone to Karen’s head. As she weighed up all the stress and strain that came with self employment on a small scale in a cyclical industry, she began to wonder if a lesser stake in a slightly larger firm, in return for more financial security and peace of mind, might be tolerable after all. But Allason then came up with a dampener.

  “There’s one problem, though. It’s this legal dispute. Buyers hate litigation.”

  “I gather that. But right now, it’s a matter of principle. Wayne Avery stabbed me in the back and he’s too pig headed to accept that he’s in the wrong. Pathetic, if you ask me. That’s not to say that I’d close my mind if he put a sensible offer on the table. But I’m not prepared to show any weakness. If he makes a move, though, that might be different.”

  “Interesting. If only…”

  The arrival of coffee, and the accompanying bill that Allason promptly covered with his credit card and waved away, brought an end to the discussion. When they parted company, Allason promised to keep in touch and reminded Karen that he was always available on the end of the phone. For her own part, Karen had begun to wonder whether Allason was in a relationship, but could not bring herself to make the casual enquiry that might have helped her find out. Once she had returned to the office, she found it hard to forgive herself for not plucking up the courage to ask.

  Karen’s half hearted attempt to weigh up her most recent profit and loss figures, alongside Lennie’s latest advice about the dispute, soon ground to a halt. She was on the verge of trying to satisfy her curiosity about Allason via a surreptitious round of Facebook stalking, when the phone rang to announce the arrival of a new candidate. The interview lasted the rest of the afternoon, and Karen was left with her private thoughts until she set off for a long anticipated girls’ night out later that evening. She took care to keep the court action and the possible buyer for Ripple well out of the conversation. But on the personal side, she was told in no uncertain terms that she might have missed out on a big chance, and that she should not let it slip by again.

  Friday 17 th May

  Jackie waited patiently for Craven to finish telling her how he had managed to break the news of his disability to Squire. She could almost have predicted the manner in which Squire had reacted, but tactfully refrained from criticising the approach Craven had chosen.

  “So has he said anything to HR yet?”

  “Yes, I think so. He called me in this morning. Said something about speaking to ‘those who must be obeyed’, whatever that meant. I wish he’d explain things more clearly.”

  “Never mind. At least he’s kept his promise. So what’s going to be done?”

  “I wish I knew. He said they’d make sure that anyone who needed to know about the way I am would be told discreetly. And anyone asking questions would be answered discreetly if they were entitled to answers. He kept saying ‘discreetly’ all the time. I’m not sure if he really meant any of it. Then he got onto this point about…let me think, now….yes, the scope of the duty to make reasonable adjustments. I couldn’t work out what he was trying to say.”

  “Go on.”

  “He told me that if I needed improvements to my working conditions, in a way that only affected me, it shouldn’t be a problem. But then he said that I couldn’t expect everything I wanted, if it was going to affect anyone else. He said they weren’t allowed to force people’s minds.”

  “I’m not sure I follow that.”

  “Well, he mentioned this policy about keeping office doors open. He said it didn’t trouble him to give me an exemption, and it wouldn’t affect the way in which the partners thought about me. But he said other people might still choose to think badly of me, rather than sympathise with me. And he wouldn’t be able to stop it, if they did. Then I nearly asked him outright about that nasty trainee Jake Hutchings and his smoking, and what they’d do about it if he deliberately bothered me again.”

  “You didn’t, did you?” Jackie’s question was heartfelt, and Craven shook his head. “Good job. You can’t say things like that about people if you’re not a hundred per cent sure.”

  “There was something else odd, though. He said he was pleased that I’d already taken the initiative to tell someone else. There’s no way he’d know that I’d been speaking to you, because you won’t have told anyone.” Jackie nodded. “But I definitely haven’t said anything to anyone else. I think he meant Roger Blake. And he’s not someone I’d tell, especially not when he’s in charge of social events.”

  Jackie was on the verge of suggesting that Blake would be the ideal person for Craven to sound out for a quiet personal conversation, but refrained.

  “That’s strange. Well, at least Rufus has done what he promised, and the roof hasn’t fallen in yet.” Jackie noticed Craven’s confused look, and quickly translated. “I mean, no one’s criticising you, and no one’s doing anything to make life at work any harder for you. None of the partners, at least.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Anyway, enough of that. Let me tell you why I’m in a really good mood right now. Strictly between you and me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ve been told, off the record, that I’m almost certainly going to be made an associate. All it needs is approval from the Executive Board. Ruth’s let me know that all the property partners are backing me, and it should be nothing but a formality with the Board when they next meet.”

  “That sounds good…” Craven hesitated. He had very little experience of work promotions. In his previous employment, news of that kind had only ever involved a few colleagues whose areas of work did not overlap with his own. “What does it all mean?”

  “It’s a better job title, for a start. There’s something demeaning about being described only as an assistant, when we all deal directly with clients. It’s especially demeaning for people like me in our thirties who’ve worked for other firms before coming here. There’s a small pay rise too, and an extra day’s holiday. One or two little extras as well. The downside is that my hourly charging rate goes up, and so does my fee earning budget, so there’s more expected of me. Then again, for anyone who’s after a partnership, it’s suddenly come one step closer. Not that I’m too concerned about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know if it’s what I really want. And I’m not alone. A lot of women in the profession feel that way. I’ll have a lot to think about when Adam’s back from Afghanistan for the very last time…” Jackie hesitated, sensing that any talk of starting a family might be embarrassing for Craven. “Anyway, it’s all right for Ruth. She’s devoted to her work. I think she’s gay as well, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  Craven’s blank look was a cue for Jackie to look at her watch.

  “Same time next week?” Craven nodded. “See you then.”

  Craven’s afternoon passed uneventfully, as he dealt with the next steps on three low key contested debt claims before moving onto the file that Squire had passed him. He carefully went over the crucial issues once more, still convinced that it was a tactical mistake to have arranged the forthcoming meeting rather than test the critical interpretation point first. As he finished for the week and cleared his desk, he remembered that this was the only new case that had been passed to him since he had shared his innermost secret with Squire.

  * * * * *

  “Karen, it’s Lennie. Is it convenient to talk?”

  “Yes, of course.” Karen had barely been able to focus on anything connected with work all morning. She had spent a troubled night, lost in an array of conflicting thoughts, not helped by her further copious intake of wine in her girlfriends’ company followin
g the previous day’s lunch with Allason. Having arrived in the office an hour late, only just in time for a meeting that had slipped her mind, she had been desperately hoping for a stress free afternoon. But she was never going to duck a call about the court action.

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “They’ve made an offer. And it actually involves some money.”

  “Really?” Karen was suddenly alert. Her first thought was that Allason had described the litigation as a stumbling block to any deal involving a sale of Ripple. “Tell me more.”

  “I wouldn’t get excited. It’s only five thousand. No injunction. No undertakings, I mean. They’ve described it as equivalent to the minimum fee you’d have got for placing the three paralegals, at fifteen hundred per head, and a bit more on top.”

  “I see.” Karen’s hopes subsided as quickly as they had been raised. “What about costs?”

  “There’s a contribution. It’s what we call a Part 36 Offer. In theory, you’ve got twenty one days to think about it, and if you accepted the five grand, you’d be entitled to something from them towards your costs as well. Probably around two thirds’ worth, a bit more if you were lucky. The court would have the last word on how much. You’ll see what I mean when I send you the email. Just ignore all the extra drivel that Wagstaff’s padded it out with. Making out there’s still no merit in the claim, and demanding we get next Friday’s hearing postponed.”

  “OK…” Karen’s head spun, not for the first time that day. “You say twenty one days in theory. What about in practice?”