Cruel Legacy (18 page)

'Yes?' he invited when she paused.

She took a deep breath and told him levelly, 'If you aren't, I'd rather you found someone else to handle the liquidation. I can understand that having backed my promotion you're anxious that I don't foul up, but if you can't trust me to make a basic character judgement...'

'It isn't that I don't trust you,' Ryan told her smoothly. 'It's simply that I suspect that because of your own nature you aren't always aware of quite how devious others can be. Your honesty and openness are traits I greatly admire in you, Deborah, but when it comes to judging other people...'

'You think I'm too naive to know when I'm being lied to...'

'Well, let's say that I think you could be inclined to err on the side of compassion.*

'Because we're both members of the same sex?'

'Well, there is that, although in my experience your sex is more inclined to be enemies than allies... Have you arranged another meeting with the widow?'

Deborah shook her head. He hadn't taken her up on her challenge, but he hadn't backed down either. Typical Ryan, and unless she wanted to be branded as 'emotional' she suspected she would have to let the matter drop.

'Well, it might be an idea if you did.'

'If you think I should. Perhaps you'd like to be included in the meeting so that you can make your own assessment of her?'

'If you feel that you need me there, then of course I'd be delighted to help.'

This time Deborah did grind her teeth.

'What about the factory? How did you get on there?' Ryan asked her, deftly changing the subject.

'I explained the situation to the workforce and advised them that they'd all be issued with redundancy notices. I also explained to them their position as preferred creditors.'

'Mmm... Did you tell them that we're only expecting a low dividend and that they'll be lucky to get as much as fifty pence in the pound of what they're owed?'

'No, I didn't,' Deborah told him evenly. 'After all, we don't know yet that that will be the case.'

'Mmm—I forgot to warn you this morning: it might be an idea to get a security firm in to guard the place. We don't want anyone taking it into their head to stage a sit-in. We want to get everything sold off and the liquidation completed as quickly as possible.'

He frowned as his intercom buzzed and his secretary announced that a client was waiting to see him. 'Look, I haven't got any more time now, but there are still a few points I need to go over with you. This client is going to take up the rest of the afternoon, but we can take care of what's left after he's gone. We'll go to the wine bar at six.'

He was already standing up, dismissing her, not allowing her to refuse the suggestion.

Irritably Deborah went back to her own office. She should have thought about that point he'd raised about security for the factory herself and it galled her that she hadn't done. She could do it now, though.

'Sorry,' the office manager told her when she got through to the firm they always used. 'But we can't get anyone there until Wednesday now. Would you believe we're short-staffed?'

When she had put the receiver down she picked it up again, punching in Mark's extension number, but it was one of his colleagues who answered the phone, telling her that Mark was having a case meeting with their head of department.

She would have to get hold of him later to warn him that she was going to be working late. Briefly she wondered what his meeting was about, and hoped that it might be some new business.

He had become very reticent recently about discussing his work with her. She frowned, reflecting on this. It wasn't like him to be so edgy and irritable, and she had felt hurt by the way he seemed to be shutting her out of his professional life, as well as by the attitude he had taken to her promotion.

His obvious disapproval had taken the edge off her pleasure and sense of achievement, and today's events had underlined the fact that her promotion had come about through another person's downfall. She didn't feel particularly sorry for Andrew—in her opinion he had been a weak and very egotistical man—but his wife, his family, and those who had been unfortunate enough to be employed by him... She tensed a little, wondering how she would feel if Mark had been one of those men who would be going home today to break the news to their partners that they were out of work.

Of course she and Mark were in a very different situation; they were both professionals with separate careers, neither of them financially dependent on the other.

How many other lives besides his own had Andrew ruined with his reckless refusal to listen to anyone else's advice, his egotistical belief that he was immune to the dangers and risks inherent in his narrow-viewed way of running a business?

She wished now that she hadn't agreed to meet Ryan after work. In her present mood it was Mark she wanted to talk to, to confide in and share her emotions with.

Mark waited tensely as Peter Biddulph, his boss, finished studying the list he had in front of him.

Peter was about ten years older than Ryan, but a very, very different type of man. He was quiet, solid and not the type to put himself at risk in any way, but the clients trusted him and felt that their business affairs were safe with him. He was a calm, pragmatic man who seldom became irritated no matter what the provocation; a man whom others, including Mark, liked and admired.

Mark knew from the office grapevine that over the years there had been several attempts to entice him away from the practice, but he was not ambitious in the sense of wanting the prestige of a high-profile lifestyle or the material benefits that went with it.

The good name of the practice, though, meant a good deal to him, as did the success of his side of the business, and it was no secret within the firm that beneath his outward calm he was becoming increasingly concerned about the way in which the liquidation and receivership side of the practice's business was beginning to overtake their own.

'Ah, Mark,' he said now as he put down the list he was studying, steepling his fingers together and frowning as he studied them. 'I've got a list here of the accounts you took over when you joined us.' His frown deepened. 'Originally there were fifty names on that list. Now there are under forty.'

Mark could feel his tension increasing, his skin growing tight and hot across his facial bones as he fought down his instinctive need to defend himself and let Peter finish speaking.

'We all know, of course, that these are difficult times for industry. The recession and its aftermath are going to be felt for some years to come. Any business portfolio containing, as yours does, so many small industrial concerns is bound to mirror those effects. It isn't, after all, mere coincidence that the liquidation and receivership side of the practice is increasing in almost exactly the same numbers as ours is decreasing, no matter how much Ryan might choose to pretend that such an increase is hard-won and the result of energetic personal endeavour. The senior partners are not, of course, oblivious to the effect of market forces, but Ryan does tend..He paused, frowning, and Mark knew that it was a sign of how disturbed he was by their falling business that he was actually discussing Ryan in such terms with him.

It was obvious there was no love lost between the two men; they were complete opposites in every way after all, and there was even some gossip—never substantiated—that before Ryan had come on the scene Peter had been dating Alice. If it was true Mark wondered if she ever regretted having married Ryan instead. Peter was a devoted and faithful husband and a doting father to his three daughters, while Ryan...

'When you originally came to us, Mark, the expectation was that with projected business growth you would ultimately become head of your own department, overseeing our industrial accounts, with your own qualified staff beneath you. However, obviously now.,.'

He looked up at Mark and told him quietly, 'At our last board meeting Ryan suggested that, in view of the loss of business in the industrial sector, instead of being expanded it be combined with our shop-business accounts, which have also been heavily depleted because of the recession.

'Needless to say I pointed o„t to the senior partners that all the signs are that the worst of the recession is over, and that history indicates that in its aftermath new businesses will flourish and that again, historically, such new businesses will in their early stages have to make heavy calls on our expertise and time, something we shall not be able to give them if our own staff resources have been depleted.'

He was frowning again, and Mark wondered bitterly what else Ryan had had to say; the man was a chancer, an aggressor, a privateer who fed off the weakness of others. He wouldn't just enjoy the opportunity to boost his side of the business and rate its importance over theirs, he would also have great personal satisfaction in putting Peter himself down... Peter or any other man. Ryan wasn't the sort who could ever accept anyone else as his equal, and he could certainly never be subservient to anyone.

"The partners saw my point, of course,' Peter was saying, 'but nevertheless...'

Mark guessed what was coming. He had sensed weeks ago now that the promotion he had originally been promised when he'd joined the practice was not going to be forthcoming.

'I'm sorry, Mark, but it won't be for very long. Charles will be retiring at the end of next year, and then of course naturally you will be in charge of the two combined sections, and in the meantime with both sections under his overall supervision that at least will free you to have more time to search actively for new business...'

Mark stared at him. His heart was pounding heavily and sickly; he could feel the pressure building up inside his stomach, the nausea and tension. His skin felt hot and cold at the same time, burning one second and then clammy with the ice-cold sweat of dread the next.

'Are you saying that my section is going to be amalgamated with Charles Sawyer's?' he managed to ask.

Peter was avoiding looking directly at him. "The senior partners felt it would be for the best. As I said, it will at least free you to '

'I'm an accountant, not a salesman!' Mark exploded.

This was far, far worse than he'd expected. He had come into Peter's office prepared to hear that the promotion he had been promised would not be forthcoming, but to learn as well that he was effectively being demoted, control of his own section taken away from him, and to be told that he had to go out and get new business... He could feel his face, his whole body burning with the humiliation of it. No wonder Peter couldn't look him in the eye. He felt like a pariah...a leper...a failure...and it was all Ryan's doing. Ryan, who... He had to get out of Peter's office. If he stayed any longer he would only say something he might later regret.

Like telling him to tell Ryan what he could do with his job? Was that perhaps what they... Peter, Ryan, the senior partners... actually wanted? Did they—were they deliberately trying to humiliate him so much professionally that he did leave? After all, with his section combined with Charles's, what real need did they have of him?

More time to get new business... and just how the hell was he supposed to do that?

'I really am sorry, Mark,' Peter was saying. 'But, as I said, Charles will be retiring soon, and of course there's no question of your having to take any reduction in salary... It's just as well Deborah didn't join you on this side of the business. I believe she's doing very well, by the way. Ryan was singing her praises to the senior partners. They weren't too happy about his intended promotion of her to take charge of this liquidation, but he assured them that she's up to handling it.'

It was five o'clock when Mark left Peter's office. The room he shared with the others was empty; after all, what need was there for any of them to work late? He frowned as he read the message on his desk. 'Deborah rang 4:00.'

He picked up his telephone receiver and then put it down again. It would be just as easy to walk over to her office.

The door was open and she was speaking to someone on the phone when he walked in. As he waited for her to finish he mentally compared the office she shared with her colleagues with his: it seemed lighter, brighter; the very air seemed to breathe energy and enthusiasm. There were flowers on her desk and half a dozen fat files.

He could feel something painful and bitter twist in his stomach. It wasn't jealousy, he told himself as she replaced the receiver and smiled at him. How could he be jealous of Debs? He loved her...

'Mark...'

She stopped speaking, her attention switching from him to Ryan as he strode into the room, pushing back the door with arrogant disregard for anyone standing close to it.

'Sorry, Mark,' he apologised insincerely. 'Didn't see you standing there.'

'I just came to see if you were ready to leave yet,' Mark told Deborah curtly, ignoring Ryan.

'Sony, Mark,' Ryan repeated before Deborah could speak. 'You're too late; Debbie already has a date at the wine bar—with me..

Debbie... since when had Ryan been calling her Debbie? She hated anyone calling her that. Mark could feel his hackles rising and his face starting to flush with anger and resentment. He knew that Ryan was deliberately trying to rile him and make him feel small and that the last thing he should do was to let him see that he was getting to him, but, coming on top of the humiliation of his interview with Peter, it was too much for his self-control.

'Ryan wants to go over a few points with me about this liquidation,' he could hear Deborah saying, but he wasn't really listening to her or focusing on her; instead he was watching Ryan, watching the wolfish pleased-with-himself smile curling on the other man's face. He was enjoying this, Mark knew; enjoying putting him down, making him look small, and Deborah was helping him do it... Couldn't she
see
that? Couldn't she
see
what Ryan was doing? Was she totally blind?

Abruptly his emotions changed shape, anger suddenly dominating them—anger against Deborah for the way she was letting Ryan manipulate her...use her...to get to him.

'Don't keep her up too late, will you?' he heard Ryan laughing as he turned to leave the office. 'She's going to have a very busy day ahead of her with this case.'

As he turned into the corridor Deborah followed him.