by Penny Avis
Alfred looked at her in surprise. ‘When did you speak to him? I thought that they only arrived last night?’
‘Oh, um, he rang me last night. Just to check everything was okay and to tell me about today’s meeting.’ She had to stop thinking aloud.
Alfred said nothing.
‘Right, there’s nothing for it. You’ll just have to go back to the office and run it all again. I’ll carry on to the meeting and stall for time.’
‘If they ask, tell them the new valuation will be around forty-four million. I’m pretty sure that’s where it will come out. And I’m really sorry, Meredith. I should have explained about the currencies when I talked you through the model,’ said Alfred, looking completely crestfallen.
‘It’s not your fault. It’s mine. You’re right, what you’ve done is completely standard. I just rushed it, that’s all. Damn Lars! If he hadn’t deleted our bloody file, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’
Alfred looked at Meredith in horror. ‘Lars deleted our file?’
Meredith had forgotten that she hadn’t told Alfred about her conversation with Lars. ‘I don’t know for certain, but you should’ve seen the look on his face when he was asking me how our preparations were going. He could hardly contain himself, the smug bastard.’
‘I can’t believe he would do that!’
‘I can, but we’ll never be able to prove it.’
‘Yes, we will. IT can tell if it was him. They can look at every key stoke from every computer if they need to,’ said Alfred.
‘Can they? That’s quite scary.’
Alfred nodded. ‘I’ll get onto them as soon as I’ve done the valuation again.’
‘We can’t accuse Lars of anything,’ said Meredith.
‘I’ll just make a general enquiry; tell them that we think it might have been accidently deleted.’
Meredith tapped on the glass partition that separated them from the taxi driver. ‘Could you just pull over a second so that my colleague can get out?’
The vehicle stopped and Meredith opened the door for Alfred. ‘Call me as soon as you’re done.’
Alfred nodded and scuttled off in search of another cab to take him back to the office.
Meredith lay back in her seat and closed her eyes as the cab carried on its journey to The Brook Hotel. How embarrassing to have to tell Ryan that she’d got the valuation wrong.
The reception area of the hotel was quiet when Meredith arrived. She was ten minutes early for her meeting with Ryan and the rest of the team, so she sat down on one of the large sofas and ordered a cup of coffee. As she sipped her drink, she noticed the security guard standing by the main doors looking at her suspiciously. It was the same guy from the night when they’d mistaken her for a prostitute. Meredith glared at him, still half-wishing she’d made a complaint, and then busied herself checking her emails on her phone.
A few minutes later she heard the loud chatter of American accents as Ryan, Lawson Green and the two lawyers, Brenda Martinez and Warren Wickens, made their way out of the lift. Meredith got up and went over to greet them. As she approached the group, a smartly dressed man cut across in front of her and stood in her path.
‘I am the hotel manager and I suggest you leave,’ he said in a quiet voice.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Meredith.
‘I will not have you approaching our guests. My security officer reported you as soon as you arrived in reception. He never forgets a face.’
‘I knew I should have filed a formal complaint against those idiots! I’ll have you know that I am an investment banker and they are my clients.’ Meredith nodded angrily towards the approaching group. ‘We’re about to have a very important meeting, so please get out of my way.’
Ryan heard the raised voices and hurried over. Lawson and the other two followed him.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Do you know this woman?’ said the hotel manager haughtily.
‘Yes, she’s our banking adviser,’ said Ryan.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Lawson as he approached the group. What he lacked in height he made up for with his rounded frame and booming voice. ‘And who are you?’
‘The hotel manager, sir. I was just checking that this lady wasn’t bothering you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Why would she be bothering us?’ asked Lawson, who seemed determined to take charge of the situation.
The hotel manager shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, we had reason to believe that she might not be who she says she is, and it is my job to protect our guests’ interests.’
Lawson looked at the hotel manager in confusion. ‘What does that mean? Stop talking in riddles, man.’
‘I’ve already told him that I am here for a meeting with you,’ said Meredith.
‘A meeting that we would very much like to get on with,’ said Lawson, looking at the manager impatiently. ‘Well?’
There was an uncomfortable silence as the four Americans stared at the hotel manager, waiting for an explanation.
‘Look, it seems there has been some sort of mistake,’ said the hotel manager, backing away, clearly not prepared to spell it out. ‘I do apologise for disturbing you,’ he said to Meredith. ‘My team must have mistaken you for somebody else.’
‘There certainly has been a mistake,’ said Meredith, glaring at him, ‘and you’ll be hearing from me about it.’
‘Now, no need for that,’ said Lawson cheerfully. ‘All a simple mix-up, right…’ – he peered at the hotel manager’s badge – ‘right, Alan? Why don’t you go back to your office and we’ll carry on with our meeting. Could you kindly point us in the direction of the Churchill Room?’
‘I’ll take you there, sir,’ said the manager, and the five of them trooped behind him as he led them up a single flight of stairs and into a large, ornately decorated meeting room.
‘What was that all about?’ Ryan whispered to Meredith as they walked.
‘Nothing. Just forget about it,’ said Meredith, throwing him a fierce ‘shut up’ look.
Once the manager had shut the door behind him, Lawson turned to Meredith and held out his hand. ‘Well, it’s good to finally meet you.’
‘Yes and you, and I’m so sorry about all of that. I’ve no idea what they were thinking,’ said Meredith.
‘May I introduce you to Warren Wickens, our lawyer from Beckmann, Grossberg, Fitzpatrick and Hale. And this is Brenda Martinez, our in-house counsel. And Ryan you know, obviously,’ said Lawson.
Warren Wickens was of a similar height to Lawson, but considerably slimmer. He was dressed in a very expensive-looking suit with all the trimmings and had a suave, dark complexion. By contrast, Brenda Martinez was tall and dressed in a plain navy dress. She wasn’t wearing any jewellery and had on hardly any makeup, and her face was creased around the edges as though she’d been sucking a lemon sherbet when the wind last changed. They made a formidable team.
Meredith smiled nervously at them. ‘Morning. I’ve seen both your names on the email traffic, obviously. But it’s nice to put names to faces at last.’
‘Right, shall we kick off?’ said Ryan. ‘We’ve got quite a bit to get through before we head out to Beau Street. We’ve got presentations from the lawyers and accountants first; they’ll be taking us through their findings, which should be interesting. Then we’ll split into separate teams. Warren, you and I will be negotiating on the legal documents. Lawson and Brenda will start the discussions with Charles Sutton on valuation.’
‘I’m still not happy about this whole Lloyd Cassidy affair,’ said Lawson, frowning. ‘Where are we on valuation?’
‘Meredith’s team have re-run the numbers for us, excluding his results, and the new valuation comes out at forty-six million pounds,’ said Ryan.
‘Sorry, actually the new valuation is forty-four million,’ said Meredith quickly.
Ryan looked at her sharply. ‘I thought you said forty-six?’
‘Well, which is it?’ Lawson asked impatiently. ‘That�
��s two million pounds of the company’s money that you’re talking about.’
‘It’s definitely forty-four,’ said Meredith, praying that Alfred’s mental calculator wasn’t going to let her down. After the start they’d had this morning, changing the valuation again was just going to make her look even more stupid. She was so going to get even with Lars, not to mention the roasting she was planning to give the hotel manager.
‘We did initially indicate that the valuation might be nearer forty-six, but we still had some currency adjustments to make,’ said Meredith, relying on the fact that very few people understood exchange differences.
It seemed to work.
‘Okay, forty-four million then,’ said Ryan. ‘I think Beau Street accept that the number’s coming down. They’ll just need to sort out how to adjust the share that they each get.’
‘Well, Lloyd Cassidy shouldn’t be getting anything,’ said Brenda sharply.
‘I agree, but that’s for them to work out. Legally we can’t insist on it,’ said Warren.
Brenda shook her head in frustration. ‘If we’d had someone like that in our business, well, I tell you… ’
‘We need to be certain that we’re one hundred percent protected from any issues that arise from the whole affair,’ said Lawson.
‘You won’t be signing anything until I’m happy about that.’ Warren’s eyes glinted as he spoke and Meredith could see that he was just itching to do battle with the other side.
‘We also need to make sure that they agree to our management plan,’ said Lawson. ‘That’s a deal breaker for us.’
‘Yes, got that too,’ said Warren. He looked at Ryan. ‘Do you have a new job title in mind for when you move?’
Meredith looked up in surprise. What were they talking about?
Lawson saw her surprised expression. ‘Meredith, I’m sorry, we haven’t brought you up to date with our thinking here, have we? In order to make sure that we don’t have any problems with the practice going forward, we want one of our guys over here running the place. And Ryan’s very kindly agreed to do it. He’ll relocate to London as soon as the deal is done.’
Meredith desperately tried to hide the look of horror on her face. Ryan move here?
‘That’s, that’s a huge commitment,’ she stammered eventually. ‘Are you sure about that?’
Ryan gave her a knowing smile and nodded. ‘It’s a great opportunity and I love London. I always have such a great time here,’ he added pointedly.
She knew that she should be flattered that Ryan was prepared to move continents to be with her, but she really wasn’t sure it was what she wanted. And how could he not have even discussed it with her?
‘We should go,’ said Brenda, looking at her watch.
As they made their way out of the hotel, Ryan dropped back to walk next to Meredith.
‘Isn’t that great news,’ he whispered. It was more of a statement than a question.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Lawson’s only just agreed to the package I wanted. It’s all happened so quickly.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘Come to my room later and we can talk about it then.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll see what time we finish up today.’
She needed time to think.
Chapter 21
The rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur. Alfred arrived at the Beau Street office a few minutes after she did with the revised valuation, which fortunately had come out where he’d predicted. As they sat through the presentations from the lawyers and the accountants, Meredith struggled to focus on what they were saying, until one of the accountants from Payne Stanley managed to knock a glass of water into her colleague’s lap, which brought a welcome break in the proceedings. Meredith watched with a mixture of amusement and pity as they did their best to mop up the mess. But she was also glad of a few minutes in which to try to clear her mind. She really needed to pay attention, but she had so many thoughts racing around in her head that there didn’t seem to be room for anything else. Part of her just wanted to hand the whole deal over to someone else. But that would mean declaring herself as conflicted and then all hell would break loose. But what other reason could she give? Meredith racked her brains for other ideas but none came.
After a few minutes’ break, the accountants carried on with their presentation. Fortunately they had done a very thorough job and there didn’t seem to be any more major issues beyond the Lloyd Cassidy drama, which they had already adjusted for. The lawyers from MacArthur Warren presented next and had some very plausible suggestions for filling the revenue gap created by Lloyd’s departure. They’d unearthed an opportunity for Beau Street surgeons to appear in a cosmetic surgery makeover TV show, which, much to Meredith’s surprise, was an idea that the Equinox team seemed to love. She thought it sounded a bit tacky, but apparently they’d already done something similar very successfully in the US a few years ago.
After the presentations finished, Meredith went for a walk to clear her head. Fred, the security guard, smiled kindly at her as she left the building.
‘Lovely day,’ he said. ‘Bit of a breeze, mind, so I’d keep that scarf on if I were you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Meredith, tugging her scarf a little tighter round her neck.
The fresh air and the surprisingly peaceful drone of the traffic helped her collect her thoughts. She had to take things one step at a time. There was no way she could let Ryan relocate to London under false pretences. She had to tell him that she wasn’t sure how their relationship was going to work out. If he wanted to move for work reasons then that was his decision. But she couldn’t let him move just to be with her. Meredith rehearsed the conversation over and over in her head. She knew that he would try to talk her round, persuade her that everything would be great between them. But the cold, hard truth was that they hardly knew each other. Their time together had been spent in the suspended reality of hotel rooms and secret liaisons. Meredith knew that wasn’t a proper basis for a long-term relationship and she had to make sure Ryan did too, however difficult the conversation might be.
After their meetings for the day concluded, the Equinox team gathered briefly to round up and plan for the next day of negotiation meetings.
‘A very promising start,’ said Lawson once each of them had updated him on their progress. ‘Sounds like there’s a deal to be done here. So what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?’
As the meeting broke up, Meredith mouthed ‘See you later’ at Ryan, who nodded briefly in acknowledgement, and they made their way into separate taxis.
An hour later, Meredith was on her way to The Brook Hotel. She’d showered, changed, had a quick gin and tonic to steady her nerves and then phoned a cab. There was no point putting it off: she had to talk to Ryan. She was also determined to talk to the hotel manager. Being mistaken for a prostitute once had been bad enough, but this morning’s intervention had been a step too far.
When she arrived she found a different security guard on duty. He just smiled at her as she marched past him in her very formal black suit. This time she was taking no chances. She went up to the reception desk.
‘Good evening. Is Alan, the hotel manager, in?’ she asked the receptionist.
‘Yes, he is. May I say what it’s regarding?’
‘I wish to make a complaint,’ said Meredith.
‘Oh, I see. Just a minute, I’ll see if he’s free.’ The receptionist scuttled off through a door behind the desk in search of Alan. She returned a minute later with him in tow.
‘This lady wishes to make a complaint,’ she said, nervously nodding in Meredith’s direction.
‘Hello again,’ said Alan. ‘Please, come this way.’ He gestured for Meredith to follow him back into his office.
They both sat down and Alan reached for a notebook and pen.
‘Now, what is the nature of your complaint?’ he asked in his best ‘customer training’ voice.
‘I thin
k you know what the nature of my complaint is. Your security guards have been jumping to totally unfounded conclusions about my, my… profession,’ said Meredith. ‘And as I result I was utterly humiliated by you in front of my client this morning.’
‘I am really very sorry about that,’ said Alan. ‘But you must understand that we have a responsibility to our customers to keep up the high standards of this hotel. And unfortunately that does mean we need to be vigilant for, how shall I put it, unwelcome visitors.’
‘The fact that you might have a problem with prostitutes in this hotel does not give you the right to start harassing perfectly legitimate guests.’
‘We do not have a “problem with prostitutes”, as you put it,’ said Alan sharply.
Meredith looked at him quizzically. ‘So on what basis are your security guards stopping people then? What is it you’ve asked them to look out for exactly? Women in short skirts, women who wear too much makeup? That sort of thing? I’m not sure I know much about prostitute spotting. Perhaps you can enlighten me.’
Alan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Look, we don’t have any sort of formal policy. We just rely on the experience of our staff to spot something out of the ordinary, that’s all.’
‘Well, your “experienced staff” seem to have made a mistake this time,’ said Meredith in a more conciliatory tone; there was no point shooting the messenger.
‘Yes, it was a mistake, and we’re truly sorry for the inconvenience and embarrassment caused. Perhaps we could give you a complimentary stay with us, by way of compensation? In return for not taking the matter any further,’ he added quickly. ‘Perhaps a night in one of our suites?’
Meredith thought about it for a moment. ‘Try two nights, with dinner, and we’ll say no more about it.’
He nodded with relief. ‘Alright, if you write down your address, I’ll have one of my team send you a voucher.’
Meredith left the manager’s office feeling rather pleased with herself. She didn’t really want to make a written complaint; that would mean answering too many questions about who she was staying with. A free weekend at the hotel seemed like a pretty good outcome. She found Ryan’s room on the twenty-fourth floor and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again, slightly louder, but still there was no response. She listened carefully at the door and could just make out the sound of the shower running. She took out the key-card he had given her and opened the door and listened again. She could hear him moving about in the shower, so she came in and shut the door behind her.