by Janet Neel
Michael sighed. ‘It’s her baby, that’s the trouble. All she can think about is making it better. She may insist on getting the place open again before I can get her to see sense.’
‘But you will? Get her to agree, you think? In some timescale I can live with.’
‘I’ll have to.’
John McLeish was also a man to make up his mind. ‘Not a lot we can do here, but I’m glad to have seen this.’
They were in the kitchen, standing in the middle of a wet, greyish floor, and he could hear Judith Delves on one phone and Tony Gallagher on another, talking to customers. It was the same speech each time, friendly, matter-of-fact apologies, followed by assurances that the restaurant would reopen ‘as quickly as possible’ and the offer of transferring the booking to Caff 2 with a complimentary bottle of wine per two people. A neat exercise in hanging on to a business; Caff 2 was not Café de la Paix geographically, but the offer of free wine was precisely calculated to sway those who had no particular reason for needing to be in Covent Garden. He waited till she was between calls and told her they would be back tomorrow and, on an impulse, wished her luck. She reminded him of Francesca, he realised, cross with himself for unprofessional behaviour. Well, he would get himself home and chase his wife’s family away and spend a peaceful evening with her and his son.
‘Judith? It’s time to go home. Tomorrow is another day.’
She lifted her head from the table where she had been briefly asleep and the whole depressing mess swam into her vision.
‘You’ll be ill if you go on like this. I need to get you out of this bloody place. No, don’t look like that, I mean tonight, for a rest. I know you’ve got Mac Troughton and his merry men tomorrow.’
‘And a few more booked customers for tomorrow night to warn off.’
He was urging her into a coat, but she stopped irresolute, looking for the list. ‘Judith, come on.’ His voice went up, raggedly, and she remembered that his weekend had been ruined and with it his hopes of getting her to concentrate on the house in the country. She let him help her into her jacket and smiled, wearily, on Tony Gallagher who was emerging from the kitchen, looking exhausted, hands grey shading to black under the fingernails.
‘I’ll get here for seven and let Mac’s people in, Judith. You have a bit of a lay-in.’
‘Thanks, Tony,’ she said, grateful for the thought rather than the reality. She was most definitely going to be in for seven herself, or there was no way of getting through the labours facing them all the next day. He nodded and went up to check the street door before vanishing into the kitchen on his way out.
‘Funny about disaster,’ Michael observed, surlily. ‘Put him in better temper than he’s been in for weeks, hasn’t it?’
She opened her mouth to tell him that the reason for Tony’s restored equanimity was nothing less than the removal of the threat to his life, but decided against it. There would have to be an explanation of what she had done, but not tonight, not when they were all so weary and on edge.
10
Francesca, juggling William on one arm, made tea one-handedly and irritably called to her husband to hurry if he was going to work at all today. The weekend had been the usual crowded rush, with family and, as often, conducted against the background of her husband missing for large parts of it. She was aware, however, that the legitimacy of her grievance was seriously undermined by the fact that she had involved herself in the latest development of his case, even if she had not meant to do so. And she wanted to go again to hear Tristram the next day and persuade John to come with her. She tried to put Will into his high-chair, but he resisted, clinging to her with all the strength of a solid, long-legged twenty-one-month-old. He must know there is a usurper on the way, she thought, wearily, bracing herself against the chair to ease the pull on her back muscles.
‘Will. Stop that.’ Blessedly, John was by her side, shaved and mostly dressed, his hair still damp from the shower. He prised Will off her and threaded him into his high-chair.
‘He had breakfast? Sit down, I’ll get it.’
She subsided into a chair; a second pregnancy at thirty-four was making her very tired, though she had, she reminded herself, nothing to complain about, no sickness, no blood pressure troubles, her own remaining some twenty-five per cent below the normal for her age, and none of her teeth giving trouble.
‘I’m not going in till lunch,’ her husband said. ‘Thought we’d have a morning together to make up for the weekend since it’s your day off.’
‘That’s very nice,’ she said, taken by surprise, then rallied. ‘They’ll all ring you up.’
‘No, they won’t. Unless someone else gets murdered there, or the place bursts into flames again. Anyway we’ll go out for a bit, take this one to the park.’
‘Park,’ William cried, hopefully, and splashed his spoon in the plate, depositing cereal in his mother’s hair. She opened her mouth to complain, but John had reached for a clean tea towel and was carefully removing cornflakes from her parting before she could formulate a grievance. He passed her a cup of tea, took the spoon from Will and got breakfast down him in double time, the child charmed by having his father’s attention. He then scooped him out of the chair and put him on the floor with a couple of saucepans and settled down with his own cup of tea to look at her carefully.
‘You’re looking tired.’
‘I’m pregnant,’ she reminded him. ‘And my husband doesn’t get home weekends.’
‘Except to babysit while you go out with your brothers,’ he pointed out, and they eyed each other, acknowledging a stand-off. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t missing long yesterday, but I had to go and look.’
‘I agree it would have been a bit casual not to. How bad was it? I mean, did the fire destroy anything you needed?’
‘Not unless there was some unexpected evidence lurking in the ventilation system. We did check and my chaps are there this morning to see there is nothing in the ventilation system but ventilation, as it were.’
‘Like another body?’
‘Anything’s possible in that place,’ McLeish agreed, sourly, then looked at her. ‘Damn, you’ve gone all pale. Here, quick, have some more tea.’ He came anxiously round to her side of the table to put an arm round her.
‘It’s the baby. Just like with Will. I can’t manage anything violent. I’ll be found giving up newspapers again. Sorry, go on. You didn’t find anything stuffed into the pipes?’
‘No, and I came away yesterday because the place was such chaos and everybody so busy trying to get straight they weren’t going to pay any attention to me. It’ll be the same this morning, so I’ve left Bruce in charge. I have to go in to the shop after lunch because I’ve got interviews set up. And I’ll drop by the Café on the way home, see how they’re getting on.’
‘Was it an awful mess?’ She watched, indulgently, as Will clawed his way up his father’s trousers and struggled to get on to his lap.
‘Yes. Looks terrible, and the insurance assessor apparently reckons they’ll be in for £100,000-odd.’
‘And of course the place will be closed. That’ll cost them.’
John looked at her carefully over their son’s dark head. ‘I needed someone to ask. How much profit do they make there?’
She closed her eyes, the better to recall what she had gleaned from Judith Delves. ‘About £100,000 a month, but they weren’t making that recently. Anyway, profit isn’t the point in an emergency. It’s cash that matters.’ She considered her statement. ‘Actually, with small companies it’s always cash what matters.’
‘Profit is a statement of opinion …’
‘Cash is for real,’ she confirmed. ‘So what they’re looking at, oop at that particular mill, is outgo of £100,000 on the conversion at least, and no income at all.’
‘What about the other site – Caff 2?’
‘Not doing better than break-even in profit terms and still swallowing cash. I bet they haven’t paid all the bills on that conversion, it
’s pretty recent.’
John McLeish thought about what he was being told. It was always worth consulting Francesca on any matters of business or accountancy, and identifying the financial pressure points would be particularly useful in this case. ‘So how are they going to find £100,000 plus to put Café de la Paix right? Does the insurance company pay as you go?’
‘More likely weeks after you needed ready cash. I mean, think of domestic insurance. When we had that plumbing leak we got the insurance months after the whole thing had been fixed and the kitchen ceiling put back up. Didn’t matter that much, because we both have steady incomes, arriving in our bank accounts every month. But one of the ways these people make money is to hang on to the cash for as long as possible.’
‘So not much joy there.’
‘Not a lot. And, actually, a restaurant must be in a much worse position than a factory-type business to withstand a disaster like this.’
‘Why?’
‘No debtors. A factory that went on fire would have supplied goods to people who haven’t yet paid for them, and could be called on to pay. A restaurant – or a shop – doesn’t have anyone owing money to it – oh, well, a bit on credit cards that they haven’t yet got from the credit card companies, but not a lot. But, and here’s the problem, they have lots of people they owe money to, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers who supplied on, what, thirty days’ credit, and who want paying as that thirtieth day arrives.’
‘Add what on to the conversion costs?’
‘Turnover is about £4m on that side, food costs say thirty-three per cent, so that’s £1.3m a year. £100,000 a month. So plus £100,000. Plus staff costs – you can’t fire all of them and expect to get them back a month later – plus rent, rates, lights, gas, heating. Plus another £100,000 a month, I guess. Will is eating one of your buttons, darling.’
‘It’s anchored to me, but I agree, better not. Pass a biscuit. So, if the place was closed for a month they’d have to find £200,000 for bills and running costs plus £100,000 for the conversion.’
She considered the point, reaching for a pencil. ‘Not quite as bad as that; you could postpone paying for some of the conversion until you get something from the insurance. But you’d need £250,000.’
‘Where would you go for that?’
‘Your bank. And if they won’t play, the shareholders.’
‘And if they won’t play?’
‘You go bust. Or you sell up.’
They stared at each other, the silence broken only by Will’s humming.
‘Well, most of the shareholders wanted to sell anyway,’ John McLeish said, slowly.
‘They did, didn’t they?’ She was gazing at him, shaken. ‘Surely people don’t go round burning down the main cash-generating asset of a business in order to force a sale?’
‘Depends how much they needed the money.’
‘You and any other policemen who come my way always remind me that most murders are domestics. Driven by living in families, not by money at all.’
‘Mrs Marsh-Hayden’s husband is in serious financial trouble, remember?’
‘I do, I do. But if you remember, Mr Rubin of Gemini is in serious need of a deal, or he may not be able to go on. He has at least got a business, it may not be that bad for him, but he’s under a financial cosh as well.’
So is Tony Gallagher, he thought, but it would be indiscreet and unprofessional to share this detail with his wife. Will, whose humming had been getting louder, took his father’s cheeks in both hands. ‘Dadda. Park.’
‘I agree. You come along with me, my boy, while I finish getting dressed, and let your Mum get ready.’
‘Michael. Have you time to have a word?’
It was the bastard Simon, and it would have made sense to say, immediately, that nothing would give greater pleasure, but it would, alas, have to be the day after tomorrow. But he had been taken by surprise, as Simon had intended, and there was nothing to do but indicate that he was available.
‘Terrific. I’ve got a meeting in an hour. Do you mind my office?’
Of course he did, rule one in merchant banking, as in war, was to choose your own ground, but Simon had not left him time to reply, and was already half-way back to his palatial corner office, the one Michael had been covertly looking forward to occupying.
‘Thought it was time we talked.’ The courtesies were being observed, Simon had motioned him to a seat at the large round table which took up much of the space not occupied by the oversized, overpriced desk which had been brought in especially for a new head of corporate finance. Jugs of coffee sat in a tray, with elegant bone china cups, so there would be no pauses while bank servants were summoned to fuss with trays and jugs and cups. Michael lowered himself into a seat, feeling his heart thump, and carefully relaxed his clenched hands.
‘Bad luck about Grindels.’
It had been all over the Financial Times that morning; his deal being done by bloody Lazards. The justifiably shamefaced finance director of Grindels had rung him at eight o’clock, claiming to have tried to get him on Friday. If the man had tried at all, it had been well after five o’clock when, indeed, he himself had given up hope of getting his call returned.
‘Bad faith, more like. We’d done all the thinking and half the work.’
‘You decided not to go for a fee arrangement, didn’t you? Pity.’
Two weeks ago, Simon Rutherford had urged him, in front of all his fellow directors, not even to consider doing more work without being sure the prospective client was signed up, at least to a drop-dead fee.
‘They wouldn’t have agreed.’
‘Perhaps. But that would have told us something.’
The bastard was right of course, and in his younger, more confident, more successful days he wouldn’t have moved to do that much work without having lured the prospective customer into a fee large enough to discourage him from doing the deal with anyone else’s help. He didn’t have anything else to say and if he had, Simon Rutherford would not have given him time; this meeting was being conducted to his agenda and at his pace.
‘I’m not going to be able to put you forward for a bonus this year, Mike. As you know, the department hasn’t made a lot this year and what there is to be split up has to go to the lads and their teams, who’ve brought in the fees.’
If this was all he had to say that was all right. ‘I understand that, Simon. I’ve not had a good year. Unlike last year, or the year before that.’ As well that this arrogant sod should be reminded that he had been the one of the highest fee earners any year in the five before this.
‘I know that, Mike. You’ve had a very good run. But the Plockton flotation was a disaster, wasn’t it? No matter how good a face you all put on it, not a lot seems to have gone right for you since.’ Michael opened his mouth to speak, but the other man waved him down. ‘I’ve got another six months to get this department really buzzing, as it should, and I need every one of my directors to bring in £3m of fees this year. And we’re six months into the year and you’ve managed just under £50K.’
‘I’ve had personal difficulties,’ he heard himself say, panicked. The bank was his home, he made £300,000 a year there and typically doubled it in bonus, it could not just be vanishing. He saw the other man hesitate, and got his mouth open. ‘I have taken my eye off the ball a bit, but I am cooking another deal. Be a £5m fee all on its own if I can bring it off,’ he adlibbed wildly, seeing the other man looking disbelieving.
‘I understand you’re having to spend time on a restaurant you apparently own. You did tell Compliance about it, did you?’
‘No. It was a passive shareholding – a tax deal. I wasn’t a director till a year ago. I just ate there. And I don’t own a majority.’
‘But you’re a director now? Yes? And you own thirty-two and a half per cent.’ He had a note, you could just see it, tucked under the newspaper.
‘Yes.’
‘You know the bank rules of course.’
&n
bsp; ‘I do. But the company is being sold – should have been completed by now, but it’s just taking rather a long time.’
‘One of the shareholders was found in a deep freeze, I understand. Are you going to be able to complete a sale? In those circumstances?’
‘Oh yes. And I’m not involved in the actual sale, I just sign bits of paper when I’m asked. You know.’
‘What I know is that private companies are buggers, things are always going wrong. Usually not, however, involving key workers stuffed into the deep freeze. You need to get rid of it, believe me, Mike.’
The bastard looked at him steadily, and he resisted an urge to salute; as if he was his commanding officer. ‘I hear you,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll do that. And I’ll come and talk later in the week about my deal, if I may, always glad of another view.’ He had managed to reach the door, but Simon Rutherford was watching him, unmoving.
‘Thursday, please. Ask Gloria to put you in after the Executive Committee.’
Judith had escaped to the office; Mac Troughton’s men had arrived at seven and unloaded at high speed for the best part of an hour, even with the whole of the front of the Caff removed to facilitate the entry of objects like twelve-foot lengths of ducting for the ventilation system, and a cooker hood. The morning traffic in St Martin’s Lane had had to snake past the two big vans, but as one of the drivers observed, there weren’t any policemen around that early. From eight o’clock onwards the big restaurant had become a hell, its size and emptiness converting it into an echo chamber for the operations being separately conducted, all of which involved steel, or large pieces of wood and hammers. No one had been able to hear themselves speak, but Mac Troughton’s men had not required much instruction. Tony Gallagher had rendered himself hoarse inside an hour, supervising the installation of a new grill and agreeing the siting of the new cooker hood, then they had gone off site for breakfast and to see young Matthew Sutherland in order to be taken through a draft of their agreement. It had, she reflected, been the only enjoyable bit of a catastrophic day, telling that cocky young lawyer exactly what she would and would not accept.