The Money Makers (72 page)

‘What will you do with your money?’ he asked her. He liked talking about money.

She shrugged.

‘Haven’t thought about it. What about you? Are you going to give Zack and George their shares?’

Matthew was embarrassed by the question. He wouldn’t mind giving Josephine her share. She deserved it, if anyone did. But George and Zack? The way Matthew saw it, this had been a race. The prize was for the winner. If George and Zack had ever intended to slice the pie four ways if they came out on top, then they hadn’t bothered to mention the fact to Matthew.

Besides, if Matthew only kept his quarter, around ten million or so, he’d spend about four or five on houses and stuff and have five or six left to live off. That sounds a lot, but it’s not really. Say you invest five million pounds at eight percent. Knock off three percent for inflation, because you don’t want your capital to shrink over time. So you’ve got five million invested at five percent. That’s two hundred and fifty grand a year before tax. One hundred and fifty after tax. That’s nice, but not a fortune. That’s what you can earn as a top accountant, or a middling barrister, or an unsuccessful banker. Matthew hadn’t done all that he’d done just for that. He’d hand out some big presents, but he’d look after himself too. You could hardly call him stingy.

‘I’ll sort something out,’ he said. ‘But you’ll get your share, Josie, I promise.’

Helen Gradley was dribbling in her sleep, a consequence of poorly controlled facial muscles. A column of spit threatened to splash down on to the envelope with Matthew’s cheque still inside it. Josephine gently wiped away the spit and patted her mum’s hands. The frail woman tensed for a moment, then sighed. Somewhere inside her troubled head, she knew her daughter was with her.

Josephine waited until Helen was quiet. Then, softly, with her left hand, she reached for the envelope and tucked it away inside her trouser pocket.

Summer 2001

Who cares about the weather? Who cares about cricket? Who cares about the century that lies ahead?

It is 3 June 2001. For more than a thousand days,

Bernard Gradley’s fortune has hung in the balance, luscious, golden, and out of reach. For 40 more days, it will hang there still. On the fortieth day, on the stroke of midnight, it will fall, unstoppably, irrevocably.

Who will catch it?

1

David Thurston’s Strategy Committee didn’t hesitate long. It liked Gissings. It was low-cost and could be made lower-cost. It had good products. It had a national marketing effort. It would be a cheap bridgehead for Oregon’s conquest of Europe.

George’s unconventional negotiating strategy was a problem, of course. Oregon had a deep-rooted aversion to signing contracts which were fair to the seller, and they hated paying top dollar. But as Thurston and O’Shea argued, this was an exception, the first purchase on European soil. Once they knew their way around the market better, they could play their normal games, but Gissings was a small bite anyway. Oregon’s shareholders wouldn’t even notice the purchase price in the small change of their annual accounts. So it was agreed. Thurston called off the lawyers in the two thousand dollar suits and made a few changes to the contract to produce something genuinely fair to both parties.

And as for the price - well! Thurston wished more than once for a peek inside that white envelope of George’s. In the eight months since the rout of the Aspertons, Gissings had made a profit of two hundred thousand pounds before interest. Over the next twelve, they expected to make at least three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. More if they could expand their production facilities fast enough.

Oregon knew that this profit would take another leap forward if they got control. Even if they only cut ten jobs, and they were sure they could do much better than that, they should save a hundred and fifty grand a year. That would take Gissings to half a million profit in its first year in Oregon’s hands.

So what price was fair? Usually, Oregon got away with paying around six times profit, sometimes eight. On the other hand, Oregon’s own stockmarket value was more like fifteen times profit, so they could afford to pay more and still keep their shareholders happy. The committee argued to and fro. You couldn’t try to read George across the negotiating table, because there wasn’t a table and there wasn’t a negotiation.

Eventually, they settled on a number. They decided to offer ten times the profit that Oregon reckoned it would make. That made a nice round number: five million pounds. Normally they’d knock off something for the money Gissings owed to the bank. But this was exceptional: the first foot on European soil. So they offered a full price. Five million British pounds sterling. If George wanted more than that, he was being unrealistic. Thurston worried that they were overpaying, but there was no way to tell, and Oregon was keen to get started.

The Committee agreed. The Chief agreed. So Thurston and O’Shea wrote the number into the amended contract and sent it FedEx to George. Then they sat back and waited. How would he respond?

2

There was nothing else for it. Zack, the proud, the arrogant, was forced to beg.

One Saturday morning, just four weeks before the deadline, Zack and Sarah were lying together in bed. Zack needed to go into the office and Sarah had some chores to do in London, so neither of them was heading down to Ovenden House. They could have a lie-in and breakfast in bed, rare luxuries both.

They celebrated by making love, of course, not the urgent passionate love of their evenings, but the lazy, sleepy love of first waking. Zack was unusually attentive, Sarah more than ever in love.

‘You’re gorgeous,’ she told him. ‘We should have more mornings like this.’

Zack swung his legs out of bed and began to pull on his trousers.

‘You shower if you like, or just go right on lying. I’ll go and get some breakfast.’

His young wife nodded at him happily. She knew Zack still had a long hard streak of arrogance, even cruelty, in him, but since they had started going out again, years after their long college affair, he had never once hurt her with it. His hardness, it seemed, was reserved for the rest of the world. She was happily married and believed that he was too. She stretched out full length in the luxurious bed. She wouldn’t shower yet. She’d eat breakfast next to Zack, both naked, snuggled up against each other, sharing food and warmth and company.

Zack came back soon enough. He’d been to the cafe across the road and had a cardboard tray loaded with coffee, fresh orange juice, scrambled eggs and bacon, and two croissants, still warm from the oven. Sarah watched him unload it.

‘Did I remember to tell you that you’re gorgeous?’ she asked.

Zack smiled at her. ‘You’d say anything for a warm croissant.’

She bared her teeth, rolled on to all fours, and snatched a croissant from the tray with her mouth. She growled at him like a tiger, daring him to take it off her. Zack looked at the familiar face. Sarah’s chin was much broader than women’s chins are meant to be. It was broader than Zack’s own angular jaw by some distance. But it was typical of her. She was frank, open, forceful; as strong in her way as Zack was in his own more cunning way. He admired her. He growled back, threw off his clothes and climbed on to the bed.

Sarah taunted him with the croissant, waving it in front of his nose, then pulling back as Zack grabbed for it. They were both on all fours now, the bedclothes all in a heap. Sarah was much more athletic than Zack, and though he wouldn’t get the croissant off her by skill, he could by force. He leaped at her, threw both arms round her, bound her legs with his and ended up with his mouth closed over the croissant. She continued to growl and wouldn’t release it, so he began to gobble at it, trying to eat it faster than she could gulp it. Between them, they devoured the croissant in a few seconds flat, a shower of golden flakes falling all over Sarah’s naked body and the white sheet beneath.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she panted, laughing and choking with the same breath.

‘Easily fixed,’ said Zack, who began to pick each golden flake off her with his tongue. He took his time and was easily distracted with other local amusements. She let him wander and stray as he pleased. When he was done, she brushed the remaining crumbs from the sheet and restored some order to the bedclothes.

‘Where’s breakfast then? I’m starving.’

They ate happily, squeezed so tightly together that Zack, who lay on the left, could only use his left hand to eat with, Sarah only her right.

‘Darling,’ said Zack after a while, ‘I have a confession to make and a favour to ask.’

‘I love confessions. Will you be kneeling for it?’ Sarah’s words were joking, but she tucked her dark blonde hair behind her ears in readiness for a more serious conversation.

‘I’m serious, sweetheart. It’s quite a big confession and quite a big favour.’

‘OK, my love, I’m listening.’

So Zack told Sarah. Not the whole story, of course, he could hardly do that, but he told her enough. He told her about the terms of his father’s will, his efforts to make partner, his shattering disappointment that his bonus wasn’t enough to swing it. He told her of the deadline now only a month away. Sarah listened in serious silence, her face grave and attentive.

‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’ she asked when he was finished.

‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear it if you thought I might have married you for your money. I wanted to make my million by myself, release Dad’s cash from trust, then tell you everything. That way you couldn’t possibly doubt my motives.’

Sarah gazed at him. ‘I don’t think I’d have worried. They say that a man who marries a woman for money ends up earning it. But it was sweet of you.’

‘Well, whatever I’d wanted to do is beside the point now. The fact is I don’t have my million, and I’d like to ask your help.’

‘You want me to make up the few hundred thousand you still need?’

Zack nodded and put his hand to his wife’s cheek, softly stroking it.

‘And when you get the money, you’ll share it with your family, I guess? It’s not as though we need it.’ Zack nodded dumbly again. This was why he had racked his brains for weeks since hearing the bad news from Alan Carmichael. He knew that if he simply threw himself on Sarah’s mercy, she would calmly ensure an equal division of the money, assuming all the time that Zack’s intentions were equally generous.

‘Mmm, I see,’ continued Sarah. ‘If you divided your dad’s money into quarters, then everyone would be really well provided for.’

‘Yes, quarters, that’s right. A quarter each for George, Matthew, Josie and -’

‘- and your mum.’ Sarah finished Zack’s sentence for him. ‘That’s so sweet of you, darling. But you should keep something for yourself. Buy something to remember your dad by.’

Zack was gobsmacked. He hadn’t possibly imagined that Sarah would assume he’d give all the money away. He had thought that, by grovelling, he would get to keep at least a quarter of his dad’s wealth.

‘Well, I’m not sure. Mum’s not well enough to have money of her own. I was thinking of keeping a quarter of it for myself and obviously we’d all take care of Mum. That way you don’t need to worry about me financially.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ It was Sarah’s turn to stroke Zack’s cheek. ‘I don’t worry about you. There’s plenty of money to go round.’

‘But the prenuptial agreement . . .’

‘Don’t worry about the prenup. We’re married, aren’t we? It would be silly to hold on to money that your brothers or sister might have a better use for, just because of the prenup.’

‘Well, anyway, I’m sure we can sort something out,’ said Zack grumpily. He would not,
would not,
end up winning all the money out of his dad’s will just for his brothers and sister to benefit. And what if - or when - he and Sarah split up? It just wouldn’t be right that he should be the only one to lose out.

‘I’m sure we can,’ said Sarah, kissing him. ‘Anyway, how much do you still need?’

‘Three hundred and fifty grand.’ Zack added an extra hundred grand for luck. He wanted to make sure of beating Matthew.

‘Well, I’m not sure you’ve done anything to deserve it,’ she said, putting her breakfast things away and slipping down in bed again. Her hair had fallen free of her ears.

‘What would I need to do for it?’ said Zack, rolling on to his elbow.

‘Well, I’m not sure exactly. But I know I’d need to be in a good mood.’

‘Just how good exactly?’ Zack had moved his hand to her neck and rubbed slowly, moving his hand down in slow circles.

‘Oh, very good, I’d say. Very good indeed.’

Zack’s hand moved lower and Sarah’s mood improved and improved, until, three quarters of an hour later, they were both sitting up in bed again, drinking more coffee and discussing how to get the money into Zack’s bank account.

3

On that very same Saturday, one scant month before the deadline, Matthew rolled over in bed and gazed up at the ceiling, his arm around Fiona. Sunbeams poured through the little windows of the mews house, playing hide-and-seek among the broad yellow stripes of the wallpaper. Outside, the street was quiet except for a pair of pigeons cooing on the window ledge. And in one short month, Matthew stood to inherit a fortune.