Betrayal (3 page)

‘Do you want something to eat?’ George asked when he had finished clearing up. ‘A sandwich? Biscuits?’

‘Thanks, no.’

He peered at me. ‘You look as though you need something. If you don’t mind my saying so.’

I shook my head and jumped to my feet. ‘We’d better go.’

As we made our way towards the factory floor George’s secretary hailed me from her office. ‘Mr Hugh, a message from Dr Wellesley. He’ll be free from twelve-thirty.’

‘Hugh or Mr Wellesley,’ I corrected her halfheartedly, having largely abandoned the hope that the long-serving staff would drop their archaic terms of address. ‘My brother will be at home, will he?’

‘Yes. And there was an enquiry from a Detective Inspector Henderson. No details. Just could you call him?’

She gave me a slip of paper with a number. The area code was Exeter. ‘Thank you.’

I glanced at the number again, then, stuffing it into my pocket, walked quickly away. George caught up and started singing the praises of some training scheme, but I was hardly listening. I was wondering what questions the police would ask me. I had no doubt it was Sylvie they wanted to talk to me about, it could hardly be anything else. We must have been seen together, on the pontoon perhaps, or the boat. Such things did not go unnoticed in a small community like Dittisham. Ever since Sylvie’s death I had been telling myself that this summons would come, yet now it had materialised I felt oddly shaken.

We reached the batching plant and I managed to ask the warehousemen some sensible questions about the new forklift and the revised storage bay layout. The route George and I took through the factory had been laid down since the beginning of time. After a circuit of the storage bay which took us past pallets of silica, lead oxide, litharge and potassium, we inspected the computerised batch mixer, then, after a few minutes with the batch quality control staff, we went through to the heat of the blowing room.

The dull roar of the furnaces still stirred me in some atavistic way. The transmutation of the dry amalgam into clear lava still seemed like some mysterious alchemy. The groups of schoolchildren and visitors who toured the factory on the overhead walkways lingered longest over the blowers as they ballooned and moulded the cooling lava into shape, or beside the cutters as they chased the designs into the glass, waiting in nervous delight for them to make an error and abandon the goblet, tumbler or bowl to the reprocessing bin with a crash of splintering glass. But for me the fascination had always lain here, in the unimaginable heat, in the impenetrable trembling magma that seemed incapable of any transformation, let alone the miraculous metamorphosis into a material both dense and transparent, both complex and flawless.

Bill, our senior master blower, raised his eyebrows in greeting. Many years ago when I had worked here in my university vacations, sweeping floors and wheeling bins, Bill had tried to teach me to blow the simplest shape. My best effort sat at home somewhere, a far-from-round object of uneven thickness with a trail of bubbles up one side.

The factory buzzer cut our tour short at the grinding and polishing area. Following George towards the canteen, the ideas for my speech, such as they were, seemed to scatter, and I wished I’d made more time to prepare.

As the staff gathered I greeted as many as I could by name. A few had been at Hartford for thirty years or more; some twenty; a good number for more than ten. There were two entire families – father, sons, daughters-in-law. We even had a grandmother and granddaughter on the payroll. A hundred and fifty employees in all, people whose lives were dependent on this factory, and – never had I needed less reminding – on my ability to restore its fortunes.

The moment came. George called for silence and I stepped forward, beset by strange emotions.

‘As soon as the takeover was agreed I promised to keep you in touch with developments,’ I began. ‘I also promised you that we were going to do everything in our power to get this management buyout off the ground.’ Voicing it, I felt a new weight of responsibility. ‘Well, the good news is that we’ve reached agreement with some venture capital people called Zircon. They’re going to put up about a quarter of the money. That still leaves a full half to be raised from the banks, and I won’t pretend that it’s proving to be easy, because it isn’t. We’re in the second round of talks with two banks, the Chartered and the West Country Mutual. We haven’t been turned down yet. That’s all I can tell you so far.’

I caught the eye of Madge, grader and glass washer, sitting solidly on a chair directly in front of me. She was glaring at me: a combative expression, an anxious one, or a combination of both.

‘Now, when Cumberland took us over I warned you that sentiment would play no part in their calculations. And though they’ve given us first call on buying Hartford, we still have to match the best price on offer. I have to tell you that according to our latest information they’re talking to Donington and maybe some other companies too.’

The feeling of disconnection hit me again. Without warning my brain did an abrupt shift, a sort of sideways jump, and I completely lost track. When I finally managed to speak, I stumbled, not sure if I was making sense. I heard myself say, ‘Now we’re very attractive . . .’ A lone titter rose up, and, glancing uncertainly towards the sound, I grappled for the thread of my argument. ‘Our name and reputation are the attractions,’ I said at last. ‘And of course our designs. But valuing a name and reputation is not the same as valuing a workforce.’

That had sounded all right, but my brain was functioning with agonising slowness. ‘People like Donington have the capacity to produce the Hartford range at their own plants so, if they outbid us, well – you can imagine. This factory will almost certainly close.’

I was back on track at last, my mind free of whatever had constrained it. I thrust some optimism back into my voice. ‘But we can make damned sure that doesn’t happen! We can make sure that our bid is bigger and better than anyone else’s!’ I paused, trying unsuccessfully to gauge their mood, before plunging on. ‘Now, we’ve already asked a lot from you, I know that. And you’ve responded one hundred per cent and that’s the entire reason we’ve managed to keep going as long as we have. But the venture capital people want one more undertaking, and that’s what I’ve come to ask you today. They want a formal undertaking that you’ll agree to a two-year period of wage restraint.’

I explained how this would work, how their share options and profit-sharing schemes would remain unaffected. I told them that if it had been left to me I wouldn’t have asked them for anything in writing, but venture capitalists were altogether more cautious animals.

I said a lot more of what I hoped were the right things before halting with a sense of relief. My brain was clear, but my momentary disorientation had shaken me and I didn’t want to risk it happening again. I had no intention of going on, I certainly didn’t mean to get onto emotional ground, but my judgement was all over the place and, without any idea of where it might lead, I found myself saying forcibly, ‘You know, some people believe tradition’s a bad thing, that it’s the enemy of change – the great modern god Change. But I believe that the traditions we’ve built up here really matter, that they actually
help
us to change in a productive way. We’ve been together so long that we think like a family, we take each other into account, we’re not just out for ourselves and to hell with the next man . . .’ I broke off, aware of how pretentious this must sound to people who, at the end of the day, just wanted a regular job like everyone else. ‘What I mean is – I believe that this company is worth fighting for. And not just for what comes off the end of the production line. But for the way we do things here.’

A voice piped up, ‘We certainly do it our way!’ and there was a ripple of laughter followed by a call of ‘You can say that again!’ and a smattering of applause.

Buoyed up by their irreverence, I laughed with them before delivering a few last words.

When I stepped down my shirt was damp with sweat and I pulled at my collar to loosen it. Madge brought me a glass of water. ‘No need to worry about us, Hugh.’ After twenty-five years at Hartford she used my name with a disarming familiarity. ‘We’re the least of your troubles.’

‘Madge . . . That’s good to know.’

‘We don’t mind the wages, we don’t mind being asked to do the overtime, what we
don’t
like is being second best to cheap glass and tableware.’

‘I never meant Hartford to be second best.’

‘Got your head turned, didn’t you?’ Madge prided herself on her blunt speaking. ‘Big ideas.’

I couldn’t deny it and I didn’t try.

Madge, who was a grandmother ten times over, gave me the sort of admonitory nod she probably reserved for her own middle-aged sons.

George and I lingered for a few minutes answering questions before walking back to the office.

‘Good speech,’ he exclaimed delightedly. ‘Just what we needed.’ He caught my expression. ‘You weren’t happy with it?’

I gestured inarticulately. ‘Take no notice of me. Too much on my mind.’

‘You really don’t look well. I noticed the moment you arrived. Are you sure you won’t have something to eat?’

‘I’m all right.’ I made a feeble attempt at humour. ‘Just a nervous breakdown. Well – if I could ever find the time.’ I looked at my watch and made for the door.

Before leaving, I found an empty office and phoned the Exeter number. Detective Inspector Henderson wasn’t available but I spoke to a Detective Sergeant Jones who asked if I could call in during the afternoon.

‘Will it take long?’

‘Can’t say, sir.’

‘I have to be back in London by seven. I could give you half an hour at two-thirty. If you wanted longer we’d have to make it another day.’

‘Very well, sir. We’ll see you at two-thirty then.’

‘Who should I ask for?’

‘Anyone on Detective Inspector Henderson’s team.’

I thought I knew where the police station was, but asked for directions just in case. It was only after I’d put the phone down that I realised that Sergeant Jones hadn’t offered to tell me what the matter was about and I hadn’t asked him.

George walked me to the car. ‘They’re right behind the buyout, you know,’ he said. ‘Everyone here, they’ll back us all the way.’

Behind my smile, I was beset by doubts. Having worked so single-mindedly towards the buyout, having pursued it to the point of obsession, it had suddenly lost focus and significance, like some all-consuming passion that inexplicably falls flat. I told myself that my loss of momentum was due to exhaustion, to the punishing pace I had forced on myself in recent weeks. I kept telling myself this because I didn’t want to think about my other problems and how they were eating into my confidence.

The road was clogged with the last of the summer caravans, there were roadworks in the town, and I didn’t turn onto the Dartmouth road until almost a quarter to one. I drove as fast as I dared and probably faster than I should have. I had the idea that if I was forced to concentrate on my driving then I wouldn’t have time to think.

It didn’t work, of course. My thoughts simply became less controllable, popping up like muggers in the night. I kept thinking of the last time I had travelled this road, heading not for my brother’s place, but for Dittisham and my old family home, standing empty on the dark river. It seemed incredible that I had driven along this road just five days ago, that I had travelled with longing still dragging at my heart, and that when I had arrived at the house and opened it up and drawn back the curtains and put on all the lights I had still half hoped that Sylvie would see my childish signal and come.

I turned off the road into David’s drive with relief. I couldn’t have faced Dittisham today.

Furze Lodge was an early-nineteenth-century rectory in the grand style, with eight bedrooms, a staff flat and stable block in grounds of five acres. Seeing the immaculate garden, the freshly painted doors and windows, I wondered how much the place cost David and Mary to run. It couldn’t be less than fifty thousand a year, not with a live-in couple and at least two horses. When you added the school fees – they had a boy and a girl, both teenagers, both at expensive boarding schools – the charity events Mary hosted and the rest of their community commitments, their expenditure must have exceeded David’s income as a GP by a very wide margin indeed. Like me, he had relied heavily on his HartWell dividends. Like me, I imagined he had been feeling the pinch.

I found David in the rather gloomy study which doubled as a consulting room for his private patients. He sat behind his ancient kneehole desk in a charcoal pinstripe suit complete with waistcoat and watch chain, and when he looked up he eyed me over gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles, so completely the doctor that he had taken the image almost to the point of parody.

‘You look terrible,’ he remarked immediately.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m glad I’m not one of your patients or I might get depressed.’

‘Have you seen anyone?’

‘What? No. I’m fine.’

He was shuffling paper as he talked. ‘You should see someone.’

‘I’ll be all right once this business is over. It’s just frantic at the moment, that’s all.’

‘Are you sleeping?’

‘Don’t find the time.’

‘What about those tablets I gave you? Have you been taking them?’

I vaguely remembered the tablets he was talking about, but couldn’t think where I’d put them. ‘Probably not.’

‘They don’t work unless you take them regularly.’

‘What are they meant to do anyway?’

David pulled open a drawer, took out a bottle of pills and chucked them across to me. ‘Don’t forget this time.’

It was easier to put them into my pocket than to argue. Until this summer David had rarely showed much interest in my health, and I had never expected him to. David was two years older than me, we had been close as children, but since growing up we had never been too involved in each other’s lives. If I’d ever stopped to consider our relationship, I suppose I would have described it as practical.