by Penny Avis
On the train, Meredith reverted to her standard defence mechanism and threw herself into her work. She needed to stay busy and ‘work the problem’, as her old boss used to say. First she typed an email to Nick, keeping it short and to the point, letting him know the key facts and that she’d be in to brief him in person later. She then typed out a long explanatory email to Alfred and Jackie, listing a number of alterative profit scenarios she wanted to run through their valuation model, and jotted down ideas for new conditions that could be attached to Equinox’s offer that might save the deal, such as Lloyd leaving the business or money being set aside to cover claims. For once, she was pleased to get the perfunctory Okay, noted reply from Alfred. She didn’t have the energy to deal with a barrage of probing questions.
For the last half an hour of the journey Meredith sat almost motionless, letting the rocking sensation of the train wash over her, until finally she felt calm again. And she’d been able to make one decision, at least. She wasn’t going to tell Ryan that Lloyd Cassidy had been her surgeon. The less personal she made this, the better.
Back at her flat, Meredith reluctantly picked up the phone to Ryan. She wasn’t looking forward to this at all. Ryan listened in silence as she ran through her conversation with Tom Duffy. As she finished, Meredith waited for the inevitable explosion, but to her surprise it didn’t come.
‘He’s the doctor we met, right?’ Ryan asked after a brief pause to digest what Meredith had just told him.
‘Yes, just after we finished our meeting with Charles.’
‘How could they not know what he was up to?’
‘That’s what they’re trying to find out,’ said Meredith. ‘For what it’s worth, Tom did sound genuinely shocked.’
‘Well, there’s no way we’re paying forty-eight million for the business now,’ said Ryan.
‘I think they know that. Tom’s getting us the numbers for the business excluding Lloyd, so we can see what it’s worth without him,’ said Meredith, quite surprised that Ryan was still thinking of making an offer. ‘What do you think Lawson will say?’
Ryan laughed. ‘He’ll probably wish he’d thought of it first.’
‘Won’t it put him off buying the business?’
‘No, I doubt it. He’s a wily old devil. Nothing shocks him. Yes, it’s a setback, but one doctor doesn’t make a summer, or whatever the expression is, and it puts us firmly in the driving seat. Providing our lawyers can deal with it, it’s still a good business, and we can probably name our price now: might save us a fortune. We’ll get Warren Wickens on the case.’
‘Who?’
‘Our lawyer. Nothing gets past him; he’s like a machine. I’ll bring him with us when we come over, and it sounds like that should be sooner rather than later.’
‘How many of you will come?’
‘Four, I guess. Lawson, Brenda Martinez – she’s our in-house legal counsel – Warren Wickens and me.’
‘We’ll have to be very careful,’ said Meredith, worrying about Ryan’s natural over-exuberance. ‘You know, totally professional at all times.’
‘Well, most of the time, at least. I’m sure we can find a quiet few minutes to ourselves,’ said Ryan.
‘You’ll all be staying in the same hotel,’ Meredith pointed out.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll find a way,’ said Ryan, laughing. ‘Anyway, I’ll book flights for the day after tomorrow and let’s take it from there.’
Meredith knew that he was right. They would find a way. That’s if she hadn’t been ritually humiliated by the Lloyd Cassidy investigation first.
Chapter 18
The next morning Meredith was immediately followed into her office by Alfred and Jackie, who’d been in early, waiting for her to arrive. Jackie looked flushed with excitement, in total contrast to a very calm and collected Alfred.
‘Oh my God, I simply couldn’t believe your email,’ Jackie exclaimed as soon as they sat down. ‘That’s some serious gossip – how exciting! We’ve made a start on the scenarios you sent us. What else do we need to do?’ she asked, bouncing on her chair in anticipation.
‘Gossip isn’t exactly the term I would use, Jackie,’ said Meredith. ‘This is a serious deal issue. We need to stay calm, carefully analyse the facts and then decide how we can best advise our client.’
Jackie sank back into her seat. ‘Yes, of course it is, sorry.’
‘Do you think Equinox will pull out?’ Alfred asked.
Meredith shook her head. ‘Not based on the initial conversation I had with Ryan last night. Obviously their offer is going to come down, but he still seems to think there’s a deal to be done, providing they can get all the legal protections they need. They need to be sure that any claims that may crawl out of the woodwork don’t end up falling to them.
‘We’re going to have our work cut out over the next couple of days now. I’ve had an email from Tom Duffy. He’s got a revised cut of the numbers, excluding Lloyd Cassidy’s results, and he wants to talk me through them. Once we have them, we’ll need to re-run the valuation model. Plus we’ve got the VuePharma presentations to prepare for. How’s the war room coming on?’
‘Almost ready,’ said Alfred. ‘I’ve got us a room for the next week in the new training building. It was the only place I could find a room free for that long.’
‘Is it ready? Last time I walked past it, it still looked like a building site.’
Alfred nodded. ‘They’re still finishing off the interiors, but the basic infrastructure is all in. Plus the IT access is up and running, which is the critical thing.’
‘Fine. Let’s work there tomorrow. I suggest we spend most of the morning on Vue, then focus on Beau Street in the afternoon. I’ll go out there after lunch today and meet Tom, while you guys finish off gathering all the Vue information we need. Does that work?’
Alfred and Jackie both nodded.
‘Shall I come with you?’ Jackie asked.
‘No need,’ said Meredith. ‘Given the sensitivity, Tom will expect that I go, and it won’t take two of us. You’ll be better off here.’
Meredith could see that Jackie was disappointed. Clearly she’d been relishing the prospect of getting stuck in to a major drama.
‘Okay. How was your trip to Paris?’ Jackie asked.
Since she’d taken Tom’s call, Meredith had almost forgotten about her coup at Patrick’s lecture.
‘I met two students who’ve worked with Patrick Fournier for the past fourteen months on a research and development project. Anyway, they knew loads about the company and had got to know Patrick well too. I also met him after the talk, which was very helpful. At least he can now put a name to a face.’
Meredith took her notebook out of her briefcase and gave it to Alfred. ‘Here you go. I took several pages of notes. Can you corroborate as much of it as possible? Check it against news stories, views of industry commentators, trade magazines, that sort of thing. We don’t need to check every fact, just make sure that the general direction of what they told me stacks up. Plus can one of you read every company press release for the last two years at least? We need to make sure we haven’t missed anything.’
‘Wow, that’s a lot of reading,’ said Jackie, looking rather fazed by Meredith’s long list of instructions.
‘That’s just the start of it,’ said Alfred.
‘Yes, it is. We need to live, breathe and sleep pharmaceuticals if we want to win this pitch. I’m leaving nothing to chance,’ said Meredith, repeating the lines Jamie had used at the conference in relation to his Brightside Care Homes pitch.
‘Then neither will we,’ said Jackie firmly, looking as if she was trying to make amends for her earlier misplaced excitement.
‘Come on. We’d better get going,’ said Alfred, and the two of them trudged off to start their reading marathon.
Meredith watched them go and actually felt slightly sorry for Jackie. Being the junior member of the team was pretty rubbish: all of the dull jobs and hardly any front-line acti
on. No wonder she’d been so excited about a bit of drama coming her way. But there was no other choice: if you wanted to make it, you had to do the hard yards behind the scenes. It had been the same for Meredith; it had taken her years to make director. But right now she wasn’t finding leading from the front a particularly fun experience either – quite the opposite.
Meredith left the office and made her way to the Beau Street Group. As she entered the building Fred, the now familiar security guard, came out of his room to greet her.
‘Hello, miss.’
‘Hi, Fred. How are you?’
‘Mustn’t grumble. Weather’s looking changeable, though.’ He peered out of the glass doors and shook his head with concern.
‘Oh dear,’ said Meredith, following his gaze towards the darkening clouds outside.
‘There’s a nasty cold front coming in from the east.’
‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘It isn’t. I feel there might be turbulent times ahead.’ Fred folded his arms and sighed.
‘I think you might be right,’ said Meredith.
And she could tell by the look on his face that both of them knew that they weren’t just talking about the weather.
Tom Duffy looked tired and stressed as Meredith sat down in his office.
‘Right, we’ve reworked the numbers,’ said Tom, pushing some sheets of paper in Meredith’s direction. ‘And actually it’s been a very interesting exercise.’
Meredith looked at Tom sceptically. Right now she needed straight facts, not some hard-sell story.
‘What it shows is how fast the rest of the business is growing. Lloyd mainly focused on our core procedures, whereas it’s our newest procedures that are growing most quickly. So without him our growth rates still look very strong, just off a slightly lower base, of course.’
Meredith nodded to show she understood his point and looked at the numbers. It was hard to take it all in but the headline figures did still look very positive. She’d get Alfred to go through them when she got back to the office.
Tom spent the next twenty minutes talking her through exactly what adjustments he’d made to the numbers they’d had before, stressing to her every few minutes how careful and conservative he’d been.
‘So this is a very realistic case,’ he summarised as his explanation came to an end. ‘Is it enough for you to advise Equinox on a revised valuation?’
‘Yes, plenty, thank you.’
‘We’re still very keen for this deal to go ahead,’ said Tom, rubbing his nose nervously.
I bet you are, thought Meredith. She knew from experience that it didn’t take long for management teams to become enchanted by the prospect of a large pay-out, even if it did mean ceding control to someone else.
‘We’re determined to get to the bottom of what’s been going on and to make sure we learn from it, so we can make sure it never happens again. The accountants have found a set of manual records that show how much Lloyd actually charged his patients, so that should give us an idea of how much money he’s pocketed.’
‘Manual records?’ asked Meredith, worried by the prospect of yet more documents she might appear in.
‘Yes, he kept ledgers in a series of notebooks showing the real names of all those people who’d booked in under false names.’ Tom shook his head in disgust. ‘I still can’t quite believe something like that has gone on here.’
Well, at least that was one set of documents she wasn’t in. She’d booked in under her own name in the normal way. And she’d paid by credit card, when hopefully most of the focus would be on people who’d paid in cash. Meredith began to feel slightly less anxious. Maybe, just maybe, she’d stay below the radar.
Meredith gathered up her papers. ‘Look, thanks for doing this so quickly, Tom. Could you kindly email me the electronic copies? And I spoke to Ryan last night. He’s booking flights for the day after tomorrow. There’s a team of them coming: Lawson and Ryan plus two lawyers.’
Tom nodded. ‘Yes, he’s emailed me.’
‘We’ll get through this as quickly as we can, and then be in touch about next steps. I’ll see myself out; I can see how busy you are.’
Meredith left Tom’s office and started down the corridor. As she approached the lift, she heard footsteps coming up quickly behind her.
‘Miss Romaine,’ called out a voice in a loud whisper.
Meredith turned round. It was Audrey Fox, Lloyd Cassidy’s assistant nurse. She was looking around nervously and beckoning to Meredith.
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘What about?’ asked Meredith, rather alarmed by Audrey’s furtive manner.
‘Not here,’ said Audrey, opening a door into a small office. She disappeared inside, only to stick her head back out around the door and wave at Meredith to follow her. Meredith walked slowly into the office behind her.
‘What’s this all about?’ Meredith demanded once Audrey had shut the door behind them.
‘Doctor Cassidy. He’s been suspended,’ said Audrey.
‘I know,’ said Meredith. Where was this heading?
‘I knew nothing about what he was up to, but no one seems to believe me. I’ve got accountants and lawyers crawling all over me and I’m worried that they’re looking for scapegoats. Lloyd used to look after me, you know? But now I’m on my own.’
‘It must be a very unsettling time,’ said Meredith. ‘But I’m not sure what it’s got to do with me.’
‘I’ve heard that you’re running this Equinox takeover thing; is that right?’
Meredith nodded.
‘Well, I need to know what’s going on,’ said Audrey, pacing around the room anxiously. ‘Are they still thinking of buying us? And what’s going on with the investigation into Lloyd? Do they think I’m involved?’
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t talk to you about that. They’re confidential discussions between my client and Beau Street.’
Silly woman. What did she expect?
Audrey stopped pacing and looked pointedly at Meredith. ‘So you’re working for Equinox? I see. How does that fit with you being a patient of ours?’
Meredith bristled at the question. ‘It has no impact at all. They weren’t my client at the time, and even if they had been, there’s nothing to stop us buying goods or services from anyone we work with, provided we do so on the same terms as everybody else.’
Audrey looked unconvinced by Meredith’s argument. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, it is. Not that it has anything to do with you.’
‘Does Equinox know that Doctor Cassidy did your surgery?’
‘My surgery is simply not relevant,’ said Meredith angrily.
‘I’ll take that as a no then. And I’m guessing that you’d rather they didn’t.’ Audrey raised her eyebrows enquiringly.
Meredith stared at her incredulously.
‘Without Lloyd around, I need a few more people on my side. You know, looking after my interests. And I want to know what’s going on.’ Audrey leaned forward and smiled menacingly at Meredith. ‘Unless, of course, you want everyone to know where your lovely curves and that pretty nose of yours came from?’
‘You’re bound by a code of patient confidentiality. If you breach that, they’ll probably fire you too,’ retorted Meredith.
‘Oh, don’t worry. I won’t need to actually tell them. I’ll just make sure that your records are nice and near the top of the pile next time those irritating accountants come sniffing round. They’ll find out all by themselves.’
‘Well, you can forget it. I’m not telling you anything. And if you weren’t involved in what Doctor Cassidy was up to then you’ve no need to worry.’
Meredith was furious. What a vile woman.
‘We both know it doesn’t always work like that, and you can help me keep my job,’ said Audrey.
‘No, I can’t! It’ll be for the two management teams to decide who they need.’
‘Oh, I think you have far more influence than you give yourself c
redit for.’
‘This conversation is over,’ said Meredith, storming towards the door.
‘Think about it,’ said Audrey, smiling sweetly. ‘I’m sure you’ll work out what the right answer is.’
Meredith threw open the door and marched towards the lift without a backward glance. As the lift doors closed behind her, she realised that she was shaking with a mixture of shock and rage. She needed to get out of this place.
Did Audrey really mean it; would the nurse really make sure Meredith’s records were found unless she helped her? She certainly seemed as though she would. What on earth was she going to do now?
Chapter 19
Meredith dragged herself out of bed as the alarm went off, feeling dreadful. She’d hardly slept a wink as Audrey’s words had played round in her head over and over again. She didn’t want to even contemplate helping her, but by the same token she couldn’t face the humiliation of everyone finding out that she’d had a nose job and her boobs done. Not now, not this far into the process. Maybe if she’d told everyone on day one that would be different. Now it would look like she’d deliberately covered it up and that was bound to raise questions.
As she arrived on her floor, Alfred was already at his desk.
‘Did you get the revised numbers?’
Meredith nodded. ‘Tom says he’s been very conservative, but there are a lot of adjustments we’ll need to get comfortable with.’
Jackie got up from her desk to join them. ‘The project room is ready over in the training centre. Shall we head over?’
‘Yes, just let me dump my stuff,’ said Meredith. ‘How did you get on with the notes I left you?’
‘Good. All the information those students gave you checks out, as far as we can see,’ said Jackie.
The three of them looked up as the voices of Nick and Lars wafted down the floor. The two men came into sight, and saw Meredith, Alfred and Jackie standing together.