there’s altogether too much trust and too little ruthlessness. It shows in the company accounts eventually.’ He sat back, crossed his legs, linked his fingers together on his lap, and fixed them with what was, for him, a relatively serene stare.
‘The fact of the matter is that the company has been left jointly to you both, but it would be madness to continue running it keeping on some of the management who are currently employed there. In no time at all it would cease to be a going concern, and then if you did decide to sell it would fetch you next to nothing. It would become the victim of a predator looking for a dying company to dissect. Simple as that.’
Isobel looked at her mother and said gently, ‘You go, Mum. You look tired.’
Mrs Chandler forced a smile on to her face. ‘No, of course not, darling. After all, this affects me as well.’ She made a small, despairing gesture with her hands and lapsed back into silence.
‘I have a prospective buyer already,’ Mr Clark said bluntly, ‘and I suggest that you give very serious thought to selling to him. He has offered an absurdly generous price. You and your mother could retire millionaires.’
That was not a well-chosen remark. Mrs Chandler looked away with tear-filled eyes and said in a choked voice, ‘The money means nothing at all to me, to us. It won’t bring David back, will it? Or…’ She couldn’t go on. She began to sob quietly, resting her forehead in her hands, and Isobel hurried over to her side and wrapped her arms around her. She had hardly had time herself to grieve. She had had to carry her mother through her grief; she had had to be strong for her.
She made a silent, brushing gesture over her mother’s head to Mr Clark, who awkwardly rose to his feet, cleared his throat and muttered a belated, red-faced apology.
‘Wait in the hall for me, Mr Clark,’ Isobel said briefly, and he nodded and left noiselessly through the drawing-room door.
‘I’m sorry, my darling,’ Mrs Chandler said, ‘I know I should be pulling myself together.’ She raised her red eyes to Isobel, who tried to maintain a strong, reassuring face when she felt like breaking up inside. ‘You poor love.’ She managed a watery smile which made Isobel feel worse. ‘I’ve been no comfort to you, have I?’
‘You always are. Whatever you do.’
‘Your loss has been double,’ she sighed, and then said finally, ‘Run along, darling, see what Mr Clark suggests. I’ll leave it all to you.’
Isobel hesitated, but only for a moment. Things needed to be sorted out. The issues which Mr Clark had raised left no time for grief. Life continued to march on, demanding involvement. It had no respect for death.
Mr Clark was waiting patiently in the hall when Isobel went out to join him. She ushered him through to the kitchen, poured him some coffee, which he accepted with alacrity, and then took the chair facing him across the kitchen table.
‘Who is the buyer, Mr Clark?’ she asked, coming to the point, and he relaxed. Displays of emotion, she suspected, made him uneasy. He was only at home when discussing work.
‘I have been dealing with a Mr Squires from London,’ he said, sipping his coffee. ‘There have, in fact, been several poachers waiting on the sidelines. Your father’s business may have been mismanaged, but it still has considerable potential and an impressive client portfolio.’
‘That being the case, what is there to stop me from running the business myself?’
‘Knowledge.’ He carefully placed the cup on the saucer, fixed her with those quick eyes, and said with clipped certainty, ‘Good intentions won’t make a success out of a business. Most of the hierarchy in your father’s firm will have to be sacked. Many of them are friends of the family. Could you do that? Your training, if you don’t mind my pointing it out, is not financial. Of course, I can only advise, but keeping the company going under your own auspices, merely for sentimental reasons, is not going to do much good. In the end, if it dissolves, you will see the loss of a great many more jobs than those which will be lost should you sell now.’
Isobel thought about that. What he said made sense. Everything he had said over the past few weeks made sense. Mr Clark, it had to be faced, was an eminently sensible man.
‘When,’ she asked, ‘will you need my answer?’
‘The sooner the better.’
She nodded and stood up, and he followed suit, collecting his various files and stacking them into his briefcase. He had come well-prepared. Statistics had been shown her, profit and loss columns had been methodically pointed out, budgets analysed, and he had been right: she knew very little about finance. In time, she was sure, she could get to grips with it, but ‘in time’ might not be soon enough, and she knew that it would have broken her father’s heart to witness the dissolution of his beloved company. Better for it to carry on in a different form. Wasn’t it?
She showed Mr Clark out, looked in on her mother, who had fallen into a fitful sleep on the chair, and then retreated to the library to think.
It was so hard being strong, she thought wearily. Decisions had to be made and her mother, she knew, was in no fit state to make them.
Isobel sat back in the leather swivel chair and closed her eyes. Memories were the worst. Her father sitting her on his knee when she was a child, going for walks with her, patiently telling her about the various plants and trees in the garden.
She didn’t sob like her mother. The tears squeezed themselves out, but she didn’t brush them away. They fell on to her hands, on her lap, her dress.
That dreamlike feeling of unreality which had first dogged her had gone. Now she could think of the policeman at the door, breaking the news to them that there had been a car accident, that both occupants had been killed outright, without trying to convince herself that she would wake up at any moment and find that it had only been a terrible nightmare.
Jeremy had been at the wheel of the Jaguar. He had been overtaking another car and had been hit by an oncoming lorry. He had been over the limit.
She had tried very hard, but bitterness towards him had overlaid any pain she might have felt. He had ruined her life.
The following morning she telephoned Mr Clark and told him to go ahead with the sale of the company.
‘You have my trust in this matter, Mr Clark,’ she said down the line. ‘I will sign whatever needs signing, but I want no involvement beyond that.’
Her mother was out for the day, taken under wing by Jeremy’s mother, who had been distraught at the funeral but over the past weeks had been a source of strength to Mrs Chandler. They were going to have tea in one of the coffee-shops in the village.
That left Isobel on her own, and she made her way back to her own house. Ever since the accident she had been living with her mother, and it had been something of a relief.
The house she had shared with Jeremy, even after four years of marriage, had never felt like a home. She had looked after the gardens, arranged flowers in vases, hung paintings, but it had still remained a stiff, empty shell. A house could never become a home without love to fill it, and love was something that had been conspicuous by its absence.
She pushed open the front door, stooped down to collect the dribs and drabs of mail, and then, unemotionally, she resumed
