Authors: Tony Drury
Sara did not take her eyes off Andrew.
“You’ll not read my report,” she said. “People like you never do. You’re like MPs. Half page summaries are your limit.”
Charles and Andrew looked at each other in amazement.
“The third envelope is what you really want.”
Andrew sliced the packet open and took out a single piece of paper. He read it aloud.
“
Strictly Confidential
To: Andrew Agnew
From: Sara Flemming
Date: 9 June 2011
Subject: Should you accept City Fiction (CF) as a client and raise them two million pounds.
1. CF is a gamble.
2. CF is building up its annuity income very well indeed. They will have one hundred and ten titles in 2012. They are currently generating 34% of their revenues from this source. It will exceed 40% next year.
3. That pays the overheads. It leaves nothing for shareholders.
4. CF has a great staff. Young, enthusiastic, committed. They worship Alistair Wavering (see below).
5. Amanda Wavering is important. She holds Alistair together and is calculating, clever and charming.
6. CF will do well. BUT it
is
a gamble because it is desperately difficult to find the bestsellers. CF has some excellent authors but try as he might Alistair Wavering has yet to find the bestseller that will turn his fortunes.
7. Alistair told me something I did not know. Bestsellers come from word of mouth. Existing authors, as an example Wilbur Smith, find success and simply keep writing books which have guaranteed sales. But to succeed, the CFs of this world must find their bestseller. Somebody needs to read a book and recommend it to others and tweet about it. Book clubs need to pick it up. Reviews help.
8. Therefore to justify your investors’ money you must be certain that CF will, someday, find its bestseller(s).
Recommendation
Alistair Wavering is as good as they come.
I have an instinct that one day he will find his Holy Grail and repay investors many, many times over.
Go for it, Andrew.
Sara Flemming
London.”
The two executives remained silent. They exchanged glances.
“There’s a fourth envelope,” said Andrew.
“You don’t necessarily need to open that one,” suggested Sara.
“Why?” asked Charles.
Sara continued to look at Andrew.
“If you decide to appoint me as head of your research department, those are my terms.”
Sara turned and walked out of the offices of Harriman Agnew Capital.
Charles groaned inwardly. He knew he should have discussed the latest Simon Cowell controversy or their newest computer game. But he’d chosen to tell Lucy, Scarlett, Lily and Tabitha about the events, earlier in the day, at Harriman Agnew Capital.
It was a glorious June day and the late afternoon barbecue was in full swing. Lucy had taken ever greater care washing the salad items because of the E.coli scare sweeping across Europe from Germany. She had washed every item several times and although, as a doctor, she knew it was simple scaremongering, she had discarded the cucumber. She encouraged her family to stay off the red meats and had selected chicken, tuna steak and vegetarian burgers.
Lucy’s senior partner at the surgery bounded up, breaking through her reverie. He seemed in an ebullient mood.
“Lucy,” he had said the previous day, “these Lansley reforms are fantastic. We had a meeting yesterday of the local practitioners and our early calculations are that GP salaries will go up by a basic thirty thousand pounds a year.”
“For doing what?” Lucy had asked.
“We’ll have budget responsibilities.”
“Which we’ll exercise in surgery time…”
“Yes, of course, we all work too hard as it is. But think, Lucy, of the stress of trying to balance the allocation of hospital services.”
“John, I read that the health minister said that the rationalisation of the structure your committee are working on will cost one billion and save five billion.”
“Well,” Dr. Templeman had responded, “he’s certainly got one of the figures right. I was looking at the costs of dismantling the local PCTs alone. There are one hundred and fifty of them. It will be at least one billion nationally, we think, and some of us suspect it will be near two billion.”
“And the savings?”
“We think Mr Lansley is rather visionary.”
Lucy was brought back to reality as her daughter continued with her questions.
“So, Daddy,” demanded Scarlett. “Her name is Sara. How tall is she?”
Her father had described the events which had taken place earlier in the day at Harriman Agnew Capital. All four female members of the Harriman tribe had latched on to the Sara character. Tabitha was spilling coleslaw down her front but nobody noticed.
“How tall? Five foot five. Just a little shorter than your mother.”
“Her hair,” said Lily. “How was she wearing it?”
“Er... well it was fair, on top of her head.”
“It normally is, Charles,” said Lucy. “It does sound quite a performance. Did you like her?”
“Did I like her?” pondered Charles. “Did I like her?” He drank some fresh orange juice. “I agreed with Andrew that we should employ her. The report she did was remarkable. Several of the team have partly read her full document. Ninety pages. But her summary to Andrew hit every nail on the head. Brilliant.”
“What was she wearing?” asked Scarlett.
“Jeans and a blazer,” said Charles. “Most unusual for business, but somehow it worked. She’s not what I might call good looking. She has a vitality though. Her face is her personality.”
“Is she thin?” asked Scarlett.
“Trim,” replied her father.
“How old is she?” asked Lucy.
“Twenty-four.”
Sara read the text message again.
“Terms agreed. Start Monday. Andrew.”
She rolled over and on top of the warm body beside her in the bed.
“I’m horny,” she whispered into Alex’s ear.
“Lisbeth Salander triumphs again,” Alex replied.
“Actually, it’s Sara Flemming who has a new job. Anyway Lisbeth rarely talked about herself. You know everything about me.”
“Everything?”
Sara giggled in anticipation as Alex ducked beneath the bed covers.
Oliver and Amanda met on Saturday morning and went together to her gym. They then left London and drove west along the Thames Valley and found a river bank. She had prepared a picnic which she spread out between them. He was dazzled by the fare. His eyes focused on a trio of melon pieces, goat’s cheese and red pepper tartlets, a Caesar salad with barbecued chicken, prawns in a sweet chilli sauce and some crusty French bread. He opened the wine and vowed to keep to two glasses.
He began to tell Amanda again about the piece of music he could not identify. She was watching the river traffic and a couple arguing in a motor boat.
“Russian,” repeated Amanda. “You’re sure?”
“I went through all this with my brother-in-law. I heard the name. It sounded Russian. If it had been Chopin...”
“But not Rachmaninov, nor Shostakovich nor Medtner?”
“There were drums and violins and trumpets.”
“Oliver, there are drums, violins and trumpets in lots of compositions!”
“Let me tell you about it. It started with the piano, da-de-da with the emphasis on the first da. Got it? Da-de-da and again, da-de-da, and then the violins raced away up the scales. This produced trumpets and drums. It was stirring music. Then it started again.”
“Why Russian definitely?”
He explained the accident involving the taxi and the cyclist. “I was trying to listen at the end. I caught the ‘ascent’ and I thought I heard something about a mountain. The DJ said the composer’s name but I was being distracted by her… er… the police arriving.”
She looked a little quizzical. “So you missed the name completely?”
“Definitely Russian.”
“Long or short?” she asked. She leant across him and picked up the bottle of wine. She filled their glasses and raised her own to her lips.
“Long or short?” she repeated.
“Long or short what?” he asked.
“The name of the composer. Was it a long name?”
“Er. Longish. Quite long. Hell, Amanda, I can only remember the sound. I was dealing with a road accident.”
“Involving, no doubt, a pretty girl,” she laughed.
“Well… er.” He stopped at that moment as he decided that admitting he had been watching the rider with her skirt riding up might not create quite the right impression.
Oliver knew that his thoughts were drifting. Amanda was wearing a simple pink blouse and skirt and not much else. She had tanned to perfection in the early summer sun and her daily regime in the gym had toned her muscles perfectly. Her hair was natural. Her face was relaxed and her smile was gentle. She put her hand on his lower thigh.
“Thank you, Oliver, for your work so far,” she said as her thoughts returned to City Fiction. She kissed him on his cheek.
The contract was going to be signed on Monday and Oliver knew what was awaiting him when the two million pounds were raised. He lay back on the grass and felt Amanda by his side. She undid the buttons of his shirt and began to run her fingers across his stomach.
“There’s not much doubt that you’ll raise the money now is there?”
“None at all,” he spluttered, as he felt her fingers probing down towards his groin. He brushed his hand against her midriff. It was sensational. She made no move as his fingers reached her left breast. He squeezed her gently through the silk material.
“Mmm,” she moaned softly.
“A down payment,” laughed Oliver.
“Yes, of course. Our deal,” said Amanda. “I never, ever, change my mind. You must understand that, Oliver.”
He had now moved his fingers inside the edge of her panties and discovered that she’d had a Brazilian wax. He wondered if he dare go further.
Amanda turned towards him, wrapped herself around him, reached his lips, thrust her tongue inside his mouth and left his hand exactly where it was. He moved his hand a little further down. She froze and pulled away. Oliver was utterly perplexed. And worse was to follow. Amanda went quiet and refused to answer his gently whispered questions. Within thirty minutes they were driving back to London in silence.
Andrew Agnew met his partner, Rachel, outside the Prince Edward Theatre. They were going to see Jersey Boys. Within five minutes they were joined by Charles and Lucy Harriman. They were too late for a pre-theatre drink and were shown to their box almost immediately.
Towards the end of the first half of the show, the four players broke into hit songs from the past, and they clapped along with the rest of the audience. It was truly electric.
During the interval, Rachel and Lucy chatted happily. Rachel was full of enthusiasm for the flourishing corporate finance business.
“Andrew is coming home a different man,” she said to Lucy. “What about Charles?”
Lucy hesitated before replying. “He is, what can I say, happier… than I can remember for some time. He’s really pleased with the way people have merged together.”
“I see he’s not drinking tonight,” said Rachel.
Lucy hesitated. She surely must know. “He’s driving,” she said.
The five minutes bell rang.
“I’m so pleased the men suggested we should meet, Lucy. I just feel, well, excited about what’s happening.”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “the signs are propitious. But – actually, you may not know – I’m a doctor and we’re taught to be cautious. It goes with the job, I suppose.”
“But still, I want you to have a good time tonight,” said Rachel.
“Yes, of course, and I am,” said Lucy, smiling. “We’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow,” and they both laughed as they headed back to their box.
During the second half the hits just kept coming: ‘Beggin’, ‘Bye Bye Baby, Baby Goodbye’, ‘Can’t take My Eyes Off You’ and ‘Rag Doll’. They all left the theatre in an exhilarated mood.
But, in the coming week, Lucy would have cause to remember her ominous words – for her daughter, Tabitha, was to vanish off the face of the earth.
Oliver did his best to impose himself on the meeting between City Fiction and Harriman Agnew Capital. He also tried to avoid eye contact with Amanda. He was still puzzled by the turn of events on Saturday afternoon. Her sudden request that they return back to London. Her rather dismissive attitude as he left her outside her flat. Oliver had watched his mobile for the rest of the weekend but there was no text from her.
She was wearing a business suit and white blouse. She smiled at everybody and when Alistair signed the contract on behalf of City Fiction she clapped her hands together. She seemed her usual, radiant self.
Melanie Reid then painfully instructed everybody on the regulatory processes that would follow. There was much more interest in the draft timetable which Gavin and his team, together with Martin Daboute, who was to play an increasingly significant role in the deal, and Abbi, had prepared.
Oliver focused on one item. “Completion: funds to company: w/b 25 July 2011.”
He had six weeks to wait. He completed the formalities, said some pleasant words about the client and then walked out of the room with Amanda. The smile never left her lips – until they entered the lift together. Oliver pressed the ground floor button. Once they had both left the building he asked Amanda to stop. She turned and faced him.
“I’d rather you didn’t say anything please, Oliver.”
“But, Amanda. On Saturday we were...”
“That seems a long time ago. Today is business. It’s an important day for Alistair. I’m so grateful to be working with you. I know you’ll bring us the success we need.”
“So, what happens over the next six weeks?”
“You’ll raise the money. What else?”
They had to move to one side as a street cleaning machine clambered past them.
He put his hands on her shoulders.
“You know what I’m talking about. What happened on Saturday… I didn’t plan that.”
“Things happen, Oliver.”