The Deal (19 page)

PART TWO

Delivery

Chapter Seven

Charles was amazed by the reception he received as he walked into the offices of Harriman Agnew Capital on the Monday morning following Tabitha’s return. Several of his colleagues applauded and two of the girls had tears in their eyes.

He spoke a few words of gratitude before shutting himself away in a meeting room with Andrew, who immediately asked about his family.

“Thanks for all your support,” Charles started by saying. “Please thank everybody. Tabitha is fine. The hospital cleared her on Saturday morning. There was nothing physical to concern us and she’d been well fed. As far as we can tell there’s no mental damage. They didn’t do anything intentionally to upset her.”

“Is she talking about it?” Andrew asked.

“Mostly to Scarlett. She’s simply overjoyed to have her back.”

“What about Lucy?”

“She’s exhausted. She spent the whole of Saturday with the three children. Scarlett understood everything and wouldn’t let Tabitha out of her sight. Lily was Lily, just letting the world go by. The police came on both Saturday and Sunday – and, of course, we had several local newspapers wanting interviews.” Charles drank some more coffee and then put the cup down.

“It’s Lucy I’m more worried about, to be honest,” he said. “She was horribly affected by the Madeleine McCann headline. In fact, the national papers hardly used it and within twenty-four hours we were history. The fault lay with the nursery school in allowing Tabitha to wander out of the gates. The teachers are blaming each other. The local reporter simply decided he had a scoop.”

Andrew remained silent and watched as Charles seemed to wrestle with his thoughts.

“Andrew, I need a favour,” he said at last.

“Just ask, Charles.”

“I’m taking us all away for two weeks. I’ve hired a boat in the Sporades. We’re going to sail the Greek waters. We fly out of Heathrow tomorrow.”

“Good idea. Take as long as you wish.”

“What about here? Shall we have a management meeting?”

“We had that at seven o’clock this morning. Just go.”

Charles looked relieved and turned to leave the office. As he did so the door opened and Sara walked in.

“Oh, excuse me. I have this room booked,” she said.

“Sara. You met Charles when you brought in your research report. It was Charles and I who agreed that you should join us.”

Sara looked at the chairman.

“How is Tabitha?” she asked

“That’s kind of you to ask, Sara. She’s recovering well.”

“You shouldn’t have left her alone.”

Charles looked at Sara. His forehead was creased with anxiety.

“Don’t you think we don’t know that, Sara? We have Tabitha back. At night I lie in bed thinking the unthinkable.”

“I’ll come back, Andrew,” said Sara, before leaving the room.

A few minutes later, Charles left the office and walked slowly to Monument tube station, where he caught the District Line train to Ealing Broadway. He didn’t feel particularly well. He wanted a drink.

Sara returned to the office ten minutes later. She’d taken to the daily work in the new business department of Harriman Agnew Capital with an impressive energy and commitment, and was slowly becoming quite popular. It was South African Martin Daboute with whom she really connected. He was seriously bright and could laugh at himself. He questioned everything Sara said. She teased him mercilessly about his weight.

The first points of the day went to Sara, who started the management meeting by announcing that Martin, over the weekend, had invested in some talking scales. They were actually for users with poor eyesight, as they spoke your weight.

“The first time Martin stood on them,” announced Sara, “the voice said ‘one at a time please’!”

But, jokes aside, it was Sara and Martin who led the way in helping Abbi create the investor story for City Fiction. And now Jody had joined the meeting to give what Sara thought was a superb analysis of the financial position of the company.

“I’ve prepared two pro-forma balance sheets,” Jody declared.

Sara looked at Martin. “Pro-forma?” she mouthed. “Tell you later,” he whispered back.

“We are basing the prospectus on a minimum subscription of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Below that amount and we fail. We must return any subscriptions back to the investors. So my two pro-forma balance sheets are based on a fund-raising of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds and the second one covers two million pounds, which is the amount we hope to raise. For those of you who are interested, the cash-flows follow a similar path. We have to show that City Fiction has enough money for at least a year if only the minimum amount is raised. They do, of course, because we accountants make sure that they do. But it’s a useful exercise. We’re finding David Singleton easy to work with and we like him.”

“Thanks Jody,” said Oliver. “Just to remind you that Abbi is away today, Gavin has taken his wife to hospital and Duncan is attending a Securities’ Institute course. Martin, you’re preparing the document. What progress and why have we not seen a first draft?”

“Good progress, boss. The lawyers are adding their section as we speak. You’ll have a first edition later today. It’s not a difficult document. City Fiction is an easy story to tell.”

“Thanks, Martin. Let’s talk about the investor proposition, please. My job, of course, but Ian Bridges will be leading the salesmen. As you all know, Ian works with Gavin and Duncan and runs the private client sales desk. Ian, the floor is yours.”

Ian was six foot three, dark and handsome. He was ready to impress.

“Can I begin, Oliver, by thanking Sara and Martin for their help. As you know, we all have a copy of Sara’s executive summary and it’s a good place to start. Sara says it’s a gamble and normally the FSA will shut us down if they think we’re offering high risk investments. But what Sara’s saying is that City Fiction are building up their annual sales and so, each January, they know they can pay the overheads for the next twelve months. I don’t want to use the phrase ‘annuity income’. That is for clever people like Jody here.”

There was polite applause and Jody and Sara smiled at each other. “We’ll refer to ‘annual sales’,” continued Ian. “Sara’s point is the gamble element – so, if City Fiction are to repay their investors with big profits, they must find some winners. Here again Sara helps us. In her full report she has covered Bloomsbury Publishing at some length. There’s the carrot. Will City Fiction be next? Don’t forget it has the tax incentives for qualifying investors, which is always good news.” Ian reached for his glass of water.

“What we must now decide is, what’s the investor profile? To whom are we going to sell the shares? Melanie is going to tell us what we can do.”

“Good news, guys and dolls.” (Sara groaned inwardly.) “There is a full document which means it can go to any investor. But my suggestion is that our files will cover risk and, in view of what Sara has reported, I think we should make this institutional and high net worth investors only. Put it another way. I think this is too high risk as an investment to offer to private shareholders. It can only go to those investors who are very experienced in assessing potential and the possible loss of their money, and to professional fund managers.”

“Thanks Melanie,” said Oliver. “I talked to Alistair about this. He doesn’t want any one significant investor. We’re valuing the company at ten million pounds, assuming a full fund-raising.” (Sara’s eyes widened and again Martin mouthed that he would explain this to her later.) “So we are offering shares that will represent twenty percent of the company. Alistair doesn’t want any one institution to have more than eight percent.” (Martin looked at Sara and nodded again.)

“The next stage is for Abbi, when she returns tomorrow, and Ian, to write a draft investor presentation. This covers what we can say over the telephone to the clients. Melanie has to approve our script for regulatory purposes, so let her have it, Ian, as soon as you and Abbi have it done, and we’ll review it up later this week.”

The meeting was adjourned.

Amanda was ready to return to London. She had an unanswered text from Oliver. She had to sit down with Alistair and explain the situation. She hoped that he would understand about Oliver. There must be other candidates – she knew she could not accept the position of chief operating officer if Oliver was the chairman.

As she let the hot shower water run over her, she began to relax. She knew that Alistair would understand. They had always had a superb working relationship, despite being brother and sister.

She sent a message to Oliver:

“Sorry. Been busy. Leaving shortly. Longing to see you. x.”

The newspaper reporter realised that by the time he had left his car the police officer would be in his path. The supermarket car-park was full and he had no escape route.

“Sarah!” he exclaimed. “Many congratulations on your...”

“It’s Detective Chief Inspector Rudd when you speak to me. In future you’ll always use my correct title.” She made no comment about the bruising on his face.

“Sar...er...DCI Rudd. Come on. I was following the facts. And we did get you maximum publicity.”

Sarah moved so that she was standing directly in front of him. She looked the reporter squarely in the eyes.

“You’re a shitty little toad. You messed with a life. A mother who had lost her daughter.”

“Just doing my job, DCI Rudd.”

“As I am mine. Your tax disc is a month out of date, your front left tyre is bald and I can smell alcohol on your breath.”

Jody had double-locked the front door of her Docklands flat, showered and put on a track suit. She tuned in to Capital Radio and poured herself a large vodka, to which she added a splash of tonic water, an ice cube and a slice of lemon. She sighed as the alcohol trickled down the back of her throat.

Her dining-room table was covered with credit card statements. The mortgage on the flat was the subject of a series of letters from the Building Society. Her bank statement was in front of her and she had called off a later statement from the machine on her way home.

Jody was financially astute and that was her problem. She knew how the system worked and, initially, had used it to her advantage.

In the spring of 2005 she had met Xavier Selous. At the time she was well over a separation from a partner of five years and was finding her feet with Andrew in the corporate finance world. She was in her early thirties and thought she looked pretty good for her age. But she wanted children before too long.

She met Xavier at the Barbican Theatre. During the interval, as they all waited for the second part of the Mahler concert, she found herself sitting by a handsome Frenchman. They started talking and went to bed together two weeks later.

Xavier was charming. He wrote music articles for French magazines, and was spending six months in London for work. Jody fell in love and decided to buy a flat. Mortgages were easy to obtain and she completed a self-certified application. It wasn’t even checked at the Building Society. They simply validated her personal details and credit record and granted her a one hundred percent mortgage on a four hundred thousand pound flat on the third floor of a block of flats in St. Katherine’s Dock. It had a beautiful view of the Tower of London.

Within weeks, the value, as indicated by current selling prices, had increased by thirty thousand pounds. Jody and Xavier would travel, by weekend, to Stratford-upon-Avon to watch Shakespeare plays. Everything seemed rosy.

Michelle Selous, Xavier’s daughter, arrived one evening in the late winter of 2006. She appeared to think that the flat was her London home and, initially, Jody tried hard to accommodate her. But, after three months, Jody realised that Michelle was stealing money from her purse. She tried to discuss it with Xavier but he was dismissive. He had no money either.

Meanwhile, the interest rate on the mortgage was increasing as the markets reflected the oncoming financial crisis. Jody found herself paying five hundred pounds more each month. She had a bank overdraft of eighteen thousand pounds which she kept as her rainy day reserve, since her outgoings could suddenly be affected by extra medical bills.

She started using the cheques being offered by the credit card companies. Their ‘interest-only’ offers (despite the three percent cheque transfer charge) were alluring. Jody was certain things would work out. She found it easy simply to write out a cheque and pay it into her bank account. The usual ten to twelve month’s interest free period would never be a problem. She would repay the amounts well within that period by using her Christmas bonus, which Andrew was suggesting could be over one hundred thousand pounds.

But, as finance director, Jody realised that the revenues of the business were falling. A major transaction was lost and the final bonus, the last she was to receive, totalled only sixteen thousand pounds. She used it to pay some bills and to pay off part of her bank overdraft.

When Michelle was arrested in April 2007 for drugs offences, Jody gave Xavier three thousand pounds for legal costs, then a further five thousand, and then said there would be no more money until she could speak to Michelle’s defence lawyer. Xavier moved out of the flat and she only saw him again a handful of times.

As the recession took effect she faced two serious issues. In 2009 the Bank of England reduced rates of interest in a series of measures which eventually reduced her mortgage payments to a manageable level. She then spoke to the local estate agents but there was simply no chance of selling the flat without offering perhaps a twenty percent discount on the price she had paid.

It was the credit cards where her problems really emerged. She had six cards from six different companies. As the interest free periods expired, the rates applied at normal levels. That was bad enough, but several of the American providers had started a campaign of dirty tricks. They would stuff their envelopes with leaflets, several of which, if you bothered to search for the information, referred to circumstances where the credit card company had the right to increase the rate of interest. One company had a clause, in small print, giving it the right, in eleven different cases, to raise their rates. One referred to economic conditions. The individual could refuse the increase and repay the balance. Many, like Jody, didn’t have the funds to consider repayment. She reached a crisis point with the American credit card where the rate of interest had been put up in stages to over thirty percent. She went to see her bank and they gave her a personal loan. That night she cried with relief. The bank told her they were used to seeing clients with the same problem. She borrowed ten thousand pounds from Andrew, interest free, for ten years. She met with her parents and her father gave her five thousand pounds. She cashed in a life policy for eighteen thousand pounds.