and earn a fee – and you are too pompous, too arrogant, too fucking stupid to even hear it. I don’t know why I bothered.’
Zack turned to go, but Hanbury flew to the door and flung it shut. Hanbury put his face a couple of inches away from Zack’s and hissed at him.
‘How dare you say that? How dare you? If you want to continue another day in this bank, you will put a letter of apology on my desk by nine o’clock tomorrow morning. A full and complete apology. If I am satisfied – if I am – then we will talk with personnel about getting you transferred to an area where you won’t come into contact with clients, because I’m damned if I’ll ever trust you with a client again. Is that perfectly clear?’
If Zack had been able to think clearly, he would have been best advised to apologise profusely, to beg forgiveness on his knees if he had to. Piers St George Hanbury was Coburg’s most successful dealmaker, and whatever he wanted, the bank would give him. But, as Sarah Havercoombe for one could testify, Zack wasn’t the sort to think clearly when he was angry. He leaped to Hanbury’s desk.
‘I’ll give you a letter of apology, right here and right now.’
He grabbed pen and paper, and wrote in capitals: ‘DEAR MR HANBURY, I AM VERY SORRY THAT YOU ARE SUCH A POMPOUS DICKHEAD. YOURS MOST SINCERELY, ZACK GRADLEY.’
Leaving the letter on Hanbury’s desk and shaking with anger, Zack sped from the room.
He left the bank in a foul mood. The row seemed pretty much fatal. If Hanbury carried out his threat to prevent him from seeing clients – to move him to the so-called back office – then Zack’s career would be killed stone dead. At first the gap in pay was small, the difference in responsibility hardly noticeable. But as time moved on, and the front office staff made it to associate director and then just director, their peers in the back office were wondering if they would ever make it beyond manager. A well-regarded thirty-year-old in the front office would be deeply upset if his end-of-year bonus was less than his already generous annual salary. His back office colleague took home a thousand pounds extra at Christmas and was grateful.
Zack left the building, eyes on the ground, collar raised against a thin December sleet, and stepped blindly out on to the zebra crossing leading to Bank tube station. A silver-green Jaguar, which had been driving too fast along the little street, squealed to a halt, skidding in the wet.
‘Screw you, you goddamn idiot. Look where you’re going.’ A distinguished-looking man with swept-back silver hair stuck his head out of the car window, the better to yell at Zack.
‘Screw you yourself, you geriatric shit-for-brains,’ yelled Zack, pleased to have an opportunity to vent his feelings.
‘Next time I won’t apply the brakes, you jerk.’
The man in the car was really shouting. His silver hair had come away from his head and shook like an angry mane. His accent was mid-Atlantic. Zack couldn’t tell if he was a Brit who had just come back from a long stay in the States, or a Yank who’d been in London too long. Either way, he looked like a viscount and swore like a trooper. Zack couldn’t help liking him. Zack yelled something obscene and stomped off.
He felt better for the row. Sod Hanbury. Zack would never apologise. Besides, he’d had a better idea.
3
David Ballard slowed his black BMW. Meeting a herd of sheep on the road up to Sawley Bridge, he had been forced to squeeze up on to a muddy verge, and one side of the car was spattered with heavy clay. It was a freezing afternoon, and by the time Ballard got home, the mud would be frozen solid. The car took a bigger bite out of his salary than he could justify, but he drove twenty-five thousand miles a year visiting clients, and the BMW gave pleasure with every one. He’d wash the paintwork down that evening.
Ballard drove slowly into the factory yard. Armed with ladders and paintpots, a couple of workmen, swearing at the cold, were getting ready to paint over the sign above the gates. Ballard was angry. Very angry.
He brought the car to a stop in the yard, next to the only other vehicle, a Transit van marked ‘Gissings Modern Furniture’. They’d be painting over that next, thought Ballard and marched angrily upstairs to George’s office.
George was at his desk, immersed in paperwork.
‘Hello, there,’ he said on seeing his visitor. ‘You should have let me know you were coming and I’d have got that five hundred grand ready. As it is, you’ll need to wait a little longer.’
Ballard was in no mood for jokes.
‘What the bloody hell is this I hear about you changing the name of the company?’
George was taken aback. Ballard was a shrewd but genial man, with twinkling eyes and a chuckle never far from his lips. He usually looked and acted like everyone’s favourite uncle. Not now. George responded coldly.
‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with you, as long as we comply with the terms of our loan.’
‘Don’t give me that shit. Is it true or isn’t it?’
‘For your information, yes, it is true.’
Ballard was seething. The red of his face contrasted oddly with the iron grey of his hair. His voice was furious, but controlled.
‘I saw Tom Gissing last night at the Rotary Christmas shindig. He told me you were changing the company’s name. It was the only thing that still mattered to him and you knew it. I honestly think he wouldn’t have minded the insulting way you bought the company, if you had brought it back to life with his name on it. In fact, he’d have been the first to thank you. As it was, he spent the whole damn evening crying on my shoulder. I called him this morning to check he was OK. No answer. I went round to see him and found him dead. Heart attack.’ Ballard paused, before delivering the final accusation. ‘That attack was your fault and God damn you for it.’
White-faced, George rose, went to a filing cabinet and drew out a piece of paper. He tossed it across the table to Ballard.
‘Here’s our application to change the company name. We’re changing the name from The Gissings Modern Furniture Company (Limited) to Gissings Furniture Limited. The original name is hopelessly out-of date, but I’ve never even dreamt of getting rid of the founder’s name. Nor will I now he’s dead.’
‘And what about the sign above the gates? That just says Gissings Furniture as it is.’
George shook his head.
‘I cut everybody’s wages by fifteen percent and said if anyone gave up more than that, I’d write their names in gold up above the gates. My secretary gave up thirty percent, so her name’s going up, just like I said. The Gissings Furniture bit is staying put.’
Ballard breathed out heavily and stroked his moustache with his hand. His face changed back from red to pink.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have accused you until I knew the facts. I take it back and I apologise.’
He extended a hand, which George accepted. ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t blame you for being upset. I’m sorry to hear about Tom Gissing. I still hope to make him proud.’
‘Yes.
