Amos was not as affected as Pete Bathurst. ‘Given the increased risk factor the company has no choice but adjust the amount of the royalty. However, it wishes to be fair.’
‘How much does the company have in mind?’ Bella asked.
‘Fifty per cent. Some board members thought that was too much but the majority favoured generosity.’
‘Fifty per cent?’ Bella repeated sadly. ‘Is that all?’
‘That is fifty per cent of your personal share. Your late husband’s share naturally falls away altogether.’
‘Five million instead of twenty,’ Bella said.
‘It’s still a useful piece of change,’ Pete said consolingly.
His expression said he felt her pain as keenly as she did. Poor little widow, out of her depth and alone in the world.
‘Yes,’ Bella said. ‘I see…’
‘Anything I can do to help,’ he said sincerely. ‘You have only to ask.’ Such helplessness! Hey, Pete thought, we should have made it twenty-five per cent. Maybe it’s not too late…
And Bella smiled. ‘Let’s nail one assumption straight away. On this side of the table we’re not here to talk about the rate of royalty but the agreement itself.’
Watching them, Bella saw their expressions change, although Smythe still clung to his sub-clauses like a drowning man.
‘In terms of our joint understanding –’
Pete Bathurst cut him off. ‘What you got in mind, Bella?’
‘Mr Smythe has said the agreement must be renegotiated but we are not sure we want to continue with it at all.’
Shoulders like a Patton tank, Pete Bathurst hunched forward in his chair. ‘I don’t get you.’
And Bella thought, I can do this. I really can do it. Euphoria threatened but she controlled it; for the moment, euphoria was the enemy. ‘Let me spell it out,’ she said quietly. ‘The present arrangement is unsatisfactory –’
‘In what way?’
She looked sideways at Martin Dexter. ‘Tell him.’
‘Because it says that no royalty is to be paid until the ore is produced,’ Dexter said.
‘And development has not yet started,’ Bella said.
‘The agreement does not specify a timetable,’ Pete Bathurst said.
‘But Mr Smythe has reminded us that Clause 11, sub-section 3 (b),’ – such a whimsical smile! – ‘requires us to renegotiate the terms, and that is what we intend to do.’
Pete’s scowl had terrified many in his time but if it terrified Bella she did a fine job of hiding it.
‘You’re saying that instead of royalties you want a management agreement?’
‘Depending on what you can offer us.’
Pete’s look of concern was as convincing as the rest of the charade. ‘It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t warn you of the risks. All development costs will be down to you, Bella. Every last penny. Frankly,’ he said, ‘I would be failing in my duty as Garth’s friend if I allowed you to go ahead, risk losing everything. Know what I mean?’
‘You are saying BradMin is not prepared to enter into a management contract for the development of the Carlisle Mine?’
‘I’ll put it to the board but quite frankly –’
‘You’re saying it’s royalties or nothing?’
‘It’s you I’m thinking of,’ he said.
Bella worked to reinstate her worried look. It was hard to believe she could get away with it twice but given Pete’s attitude to women in business she thought it was worth a try.
I can do it, I really can… ‘I’ll let you know,’ she said.
‘Don’t take too long,’ he said. ‘We got other irons in the fire, even if you don’t.’
‘He wants the profit,’ Martin Dexter said.
‘Don’t we all,’ Bella said.
‘All the same, you have to accept,’ Owen Freeth told her. ‘What choice do you have?’
‘Leave it with me,’ Bella said. She had the Hoblyn, Smith letter with her. Now she handed it to him. ‘In the meantime, do what you have to do with that.’
He glanced at it quickly, then nodded. ‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ said Owen, no friend of Billy Gould.
Bella nodded at the both. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’
Martin said: ‘You want me to –?’
‘Thank you, Martin.’ She walked back into her office and closed the door behind her. She sat at her desk, lifted the phone and asked Deborah to come in.
‘I am going back to Miranda Downs,’ Bella said.
‘So soon?’
‘Something’s come up.’
‘Must be important.’
‘Could be,’ Bella said. ‘I want you to get this number for me.’
It took an hour; long-distance calls were always a problem. When at last she got through it was a horrible line – that, too, was no surprise – but through the interference she was just able to make out the voice of the individual she had wanted.
‘Sounds like someone’s frying bacon and eggs on the line,’ she said. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Just about. How can I help you?’
‘I’d like to invite you to lunch,’ Bella said. ‘I have something I need to talk to you about.’
‘Invite me? You astound me. Where are you?’
‘In Perth.’
‘Long way to come for lunch.’
‘It’s also not private enough,’ she said. ‘Miranda Downs is a better bet.’
‘What do you want to talk about?’
At this stage Bella was unwilling to say more; if there were no interest in hearing what she had to say, there would be no meeting. However, if there were…
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
She could almost hear the thoughts clicking one after the other as she waited. But eventually:
‘When would you like us to meet?’
‘Shall we say twelve o’clock next Tuesday?’
She took great care over the preparations. She had her visitor down as a no-nonsense, practical person. That was what she was hoping, anyway, with flowers and silverware unlikely to be priorities. At the same time she wanted to send a message that Bella Tucker was a person worthy of trust and respect. That was fundamental; without it, no one could be expected to put themselves on the line in pursuit of a dream, and that was what Bella needed.
Bella got old Maisie to help her fire up the barbecue pit first thing in the morning and rig the wind-up spit over it. She’d ridden out with a rifle the previous evening. There were wild pig in the hills and she had bagged one as night came down over the forest. It was the right size: big enough to be worth eating but not a shoe-leather-tough giant. She’d lugged it back strapped behind her saddle, the mare all white eyes and snorting at the blood smell.
She was out of bed first thing and, as twelve o’clock approached, the smell of roasting pig, basted at regular intervals with honey, was enough to bring saliva into the mouth of the most fastidious. She’d brought red wine, beer and malt whisky, with some Coke on ice just in case. There was a mixed salad with spicy hoisin sauce, fresh crusty rolls with real butter, and huge potatoes roasting in the fire.
All she needed was her guest, who arrived precisely at the time they’d agreed, the ute bumping and bucking down the rutted track.
Bella was by the door as the vehicle braked to a halt. ‘Welcome to Miranda Downs,’ she said.
‘Nice place you got here,’ Rory McNab said as he climbed out.
‘It suits me,’ she said.
They shook hands and Bella liked the open way his eyes met hers. Insofar as it was possible to trust anyone in this life, she thought she could trust this man. It gave her a good feeling after all the nonsense she’d had from Pete Bathurst and the rest of his shabby crew.
She took Rory into the house and pointed him at the new bathroom that had been one of the last improvements they’d made before Garth’s death.
‘I’ll have a cold beer waiting when you’ve freshened up,’ she said.
‘Sounds good.’
By the time he rejoined her she had cracked the tops off a couple of Amstels. ‘Here’s to us,’ she said.
‘Cheers.’
They drank straight from the bottle.
‘You want wine with your lunch?’
Rory said he’d stick with the beer and did so, tipping down the first after his long and dusty drive but taking his time over the second.
He looked at his plate piled high with pork, well cooked but still juicy. ‘This is what I call living,’ said Rory.
After that neither of them had time for conversation; Bella had never known good food improved by chatter and was glad her visitor apparently thought the same.
Finally they were done. Rory leant back in his chair, squinted at the sunlight-paddled yard beyond the window, then turned to look at Bella across the table. ‘So, why am I here?’
Bella drew a deep breath and explained what she wanted and why she thought he was the man for the job.
He heard her out without interrupting, then said: ‘I have a senior position with one of the major players in the mining industry. You, on the other hand, are just starting up. You don’t know, nor do I, whether you’ll make a go of it or not. Explain to me why I should give up everything I have for a gamble like that?’
Bella said: ‘Because it gives you the chance to do what you have always wanted but never done.’
‘And that is?’
‘To be in charge. To run your own show from the very beginning. To bring in a brand new mine.’
Silence, while he looked thoughtfully at her. ‘You hardly know me, yet you read me like a book.’
‘Because we are both alike. Because, like me, you’re a number-one person, and nothing less will do.’
‘If I work for you, I shall never be number one.’
‘In the company, no. But at the mine, you will be in charge.’
‘Solely?’
‘My word on it,’ Bella said.
‘Would you do it, if you were me?’
‘I’d kill for the chance,’ she said.
‘So would I,’ he said.
Bella’s heart skipped a beat. ‘So you’ll do it.’
‘To develop my own mine? That I will, and gladly. And I swear to you, Mrs Tucker, you’ll have no cause –’
She held up a hand. ‘If I needed your oath you would not be the right man. But explain one thing to me. You have not mentioned money, or how I am going to raise the finance for the development. Pete Bathurst warned me the costs would be huge –’
‘He was right. But I am sure you’ll find a way round it.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Because you’re willing to take on Pete Bathurst, something no one else I know would dare. Not only take him on; woman or not, I believe you are the only person I know with the balls to make it work. Pardon me for speaking so plainly.’
‘I expect you always to speak plainly to me,’ Bella said. ‘And I shall do the same to you.’
‘There’s another reason, too,’ Rory said. ‘You’re canny. I like that.’
‘In what way am I canny?’
‘Access to the BradMin railway. If you hadn’t arranged that, Bathurst could have choked you before you’d even started.’
‘It’s only until 1984. But it seemed a sensible precaution. Without it, we were helpless.’ She looked at him candidly. ‘I am very glad we met each other. I think we’ll do all right together.’
He nodded. ‘Trusting each other is half the battle.’
‘I believe it is,’ Bella said.
‘Pete won’t take it lying down,’ he warned. ‘He’ll do whatever it takes to destroy you. And a more ruthless bastard never walked.’
‘Then we’ll just have to be smarter than he is, shan’t we?’
‘Damn right.’
Back in Perth, Bella told Owen Freeth and Martin Dexter of her meeting with Rory McNab and how it had gone.
Owen was astonished.
‘You mean he’ll come to work for us? How did you manage that?’
‘I offered something he’s always wanted and he said yes.’
‘How much will we have to pay him?’ Martin asked.
‘That wasn’t discussed.’
Owen clearly thought this the most extraordinary thing of all. ‘What kind of lunatic would agree to such a thing?’
‘A lunatic of great ambition,’ Bella said. ‘And faith. In himself and in me.’
‘You really propose to develop the mine independently from BradMin?’ Owen asked.
‘I do.’
‘And what do you plan to use for money?’
‘That is the next challenge,’ Bella told him and laughed at his expression. ‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ She turned to Martin Dexter. ‘You have a valid passport?’
‘Where are we going?’
‘London,’ she said. ‘Tonight.’
She spoke to Deborah, who arranged two first-class return tickets and would spend the rest of that day and the next on the phone to the list of London bankers that Bella gave her.
‘I don’t care how you do it,’ Bella told her. ‘Make sure they’re willing to see us when we get there. When it’s all fixed, send me a telegram at the Ritz Hotel. And let me have a copy of the geological report that Saul Rich prepared when he did the initial survey.’
Rory McNab had told Bella he was sure she would find a way to raise the money. She had thought so, too, but the London bankers were an eye-opener. She had never met a group of people more courteous in their manners or ruthless in handling the stiletto with which, one after the other, they dispatched Bella Tucker and her as yet undeveloped mine to the Hades of broken dreams.
‘I would not have believed it,’ she told Martin in her suite overlooking Green Park. ‘How can they be so blind?’
Yet they both knew why; none of them believed a woman capable of developing an iron ore mine in the Australian Outback. It was a fantastic notion and the bankers, serious men all, were not keen on fantasy.
‘So what do we do now?’ Martin Dexter wondered.
‘I have one string left to my bow,’ Bella told him. ‘And we had both better hope it works.’
She gave instructions to the hotel switchboard. They were having lunch – smoked salmon sandwiches, a green salad on the side, Vichy water to drink – when the call came through.
‘Helmut,’ Bella said. ‘Wie geht’s?’
‘Thank you. I am very well. And you, too, I hope. It is a great pleasure to hear from you.’ The German accent was as faint as she remembered, but Helmut Muller’s voice was so clear that he might have been in the same room. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I would like to come and talk to you.’
‘You are in Frankfurt?’
‘In London. But I am flying over.’
‘When do you arrive?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘One moment.’ She could hear him turning the pages of his appointment book. ‘Why don’t you come to the office at twelve? We can have lunch in the directors’ dining room and you can tell me what this is all about.’
‘I look forward to it,’ Bella said.
‘Your husband is with you?’
‘Unfortunately my husband died a few months ago.’
‘I am sorry to hear it. Please accept my condolences. And I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.’
They booked into the Méridien Parkhotel. Bella dressed with especial care; Helmut Muller had made no secret of his admiration back in Perth and Bella was prepared to trade on that, at least to a point, if it would get her what she wanted.
‘Restrained but sexy,’ Martin said. ‘I like it. I gather you won’t be wanting me to chaperone you?’
‘Not this time.’
She rang reception to organise a cab. By the time she was downstairs it was waiting; one of the many benefits of a five-star hotel. She gave the driver the address and a few minutes later he dropped her off in front of what might have been the door of a private house, had it no
t been for the bronze plaque set in the wall beside it.
She pressed the doorbell and a minute later was admitted to a hallway with a black and white tiled floor and a variety of dark oil paintings on the walls. The man who had admitted her looked at her enquiringly.
‘Mrs Arabella Tucker for Herr Doktor Helmut Muller,’ Bella said.
She could not remember the last time she had used her full name but instinct said it might come in useful now.
The man murmured discreetly into a phone. He hung up and in very fair English said:
‘The Herr Doktor’s assistant will be with you very shortly.’
The assistant was young, blonde and classy-looking. Bella was unsurprised; no one who worked for Helmut Muller would be anything else.
She escorted Bella to a lift with an old-fashioned grille gate which took them swiftly to the fifth floor. Helmut was waiting at the door of his office and came at once to greet her as the lift gate clanged open.
‘This is a most delightful surprise,’ he said and led her into his office.
Bella looked around the room. Everything was understated but of top quality: mahogany desk and fitted bookshelves, quality prints upon the walls, lined silk curtains at the windows. Herr Doktor Muller fitted his background perfectly. He was as personable as Bella remembered and was wearing a light-grey woollen suit, white shirt and silver tie, with highly polished burgundy leather brogues on his feet. His fingernails were clean and well shaped and he wore no jewellery of any kind.
‘You had a good flight?’
‘You are staying at the Méridien Park? The historic wing, no doubt? Just so. An excellent choice.’
Inconsequential observations, while Bella was aware of his eyes studying her. Aware, too, that this was not only a formidable but a highly attractive man. It was the first time since Garth’s death that she had been conscious of herself as a woman in the presence of a man.
‘Shall we have luncheon?’ Helmut said.
The directors’ dining room had a series of screened alcoves around the walls with individual tables in each, where it was possible to talk without being overheard. The table linen was immaculate, the cutlery real silver.
Bella ordered a fillet of sole and a green salad, with a glass of Gerolsteiner to go with it. Helmut joined her with the Gerolsteiner but ordered a breaded veal cutlet.
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