For The Love Of Money, Brian Doswell [books for students to read .txt] 📗

to share some time together. Silently, they both thought it best to take things a step at a time.
Jane’s mother had a kettle boiling when they arrived at the cottage and Harry produced a packet of Hobnob biscuits from his bag, as a joke based on a comment from one of their earlier phone calls. Harry had asked about things that Jane missed most in France. “Nothing at all”, she had answered, “except Hobnobs.”

§§§§§

Sue Padworth stretched naked on a sun lounger beside the pool, enjoying the warmth of the summer sun on her already golden tanned body. Six months ago, a good lawyer had managed to convince the Coroner that George’s tragic, fatal accident had been the result of him being distracted due to the pressure of work and that the unwarranted hounding by the audit team from the Financial Services Authority had undoubtedly contributed to the balance of his mind being disturbed.
Sue spent a full day in the West End putting together an all black ensemble for the funeral. It amused her to think that the hat, a large brimmed lace trimmed creation in a sort of Audrey Hepburn, My Fair Lady style, would do very well for Ascot next year. She chose a backless halter-neck ‘little-black-dress’ which she wore under a knee length black lace coat, good cocktail party wear, and shoes, who else but Jimmy Choo?
There was a brief ceremony in the Methodist Chapel in Sunningdale followed by a cremation in the Slough Crematorium. Sue was not the least surprised that in the end, George had very few friends. A dead man, no matter who he is or was, can no longer be called upon for favours. George had done his last favour, to Sue.
Reluctantly George’s life assurance company paid out in full, having spitefully deducted fifteen hundred pounds for, so called, administrative expenses. The cheque for seven million pounds arrived by post to the Sunningdale house, among a dozen or so, similarly anonymous buff envelopes. Sue had not rushed to open it, she recognised the company logo on the automatic franking stamp, she knew what it contained.
Sue had avoided the neighbours since the accident; their reaction had been mixed to say the least. Privately, most of them suspected that George’s death had been suicide especially as the rumours about the various insider deals at Wilkinson’s grew daily, filling the gossip columns of the financial papers. The new head of European Investment Funds had take over from George for a short while until it became obvious that he was also implicated in an inquiry by the Italian stock exchange. For the lack of another suitable candidate, the baton passed to Gary Whitaker who had managed to find a compromise with the various regulators offices and presently kept Wilkinson’s afloat, just.
Sue reflected on the wisdom of her decision to stay out of the financial business. She could have earned every bit as much as George had she chosen, but that would have involved her in actually working when George, bless him, provided as much money as she needed.
She watched the sunlight reflect off the rippling surface of the water in the pool. A shadow moved through the water, a familiar shape, swimming breast-stroke along the mosaic floor tiles. The shape changed direction and burst upwards to the surface, emerging dripping from the water and slithering onto the tiled edge-stones in super-fluid movement.
Lucy McAllister wrapped a towel around her equally naked and tanned body.
“What time are we teeing off at Gloriette this afternoon?”

§§§§§

Chrissie and James sat on the swing seat in the garden of their home in the New Forest. James Junior and Naomi played on a trampoline, Naomi doing her best to accommodate the exuberance of her younger brother.
Au pair, Stephanie brought a tray of glasses and jug of lemonade from the kitchen, and Chrissie called the children to stop playing and come and get a drink.
“So, what happens to McAllister now?” James asked, pouring lemonade into a glass and holding it out towards Naomi.
Chrissie took the jug from him and poured a second glass for James Junior.
“I believe he has a job as a consultant for an insurance company. He’s not exactly broke but I doubt he will get another job in the City for a while, if ever.”
“Is Lucy still in France with Sue?”
“How would I know James, am I my boss’s keeper?”
“I did wonder for a while, with all those extra hours in the office - weekends and all.”
Chrissie ignored the comment. She knew that she had come very close to making a complete fool of herself with Andrew McAllister. The trip to Italy had been a huge vote of confidence in her ability to handle a potentially sensitive deal. Her ego had been stroked, flattered and then some. Luckily for her, Gary had taken the time to point out that she was already under the eye of the regulators with regard to the BASF report and the Pirate Website and she had had the sense to hand everything over to Andrew.
True, she had let Andrew make love to her in the hotel at Runnymede but never again after that. It had been so good, so spontaneous, so mind-bendingly intimate. They had spent the whole afternoon in bed together and afterwards, when she had showered, he had refused to let her wear her underwear, scrunching the delicate lace into his jacket pocket and forcing her to leave the hotel and drive home in a sensually vulnerable state.
By pure chance she had switched the car radio on while cruising along the motorway and caught a late-afternoon sports report recounting, at great length, the winners and losers in a contest for an international football trophy. A blinding flash of light in her mind lit up a mental image of her undressed body as a trophy. She envisaged Andrew nailing her best lace underwear to the wall of his study alongside a dozen other similar sets and the image stayed with her until she turned the BMW into her drive. She kicked off her driving shoes and leaned forward to put them in their usual place in the passenger foot-well. Her breasts fell forward beneath her blouse. Suddenly she heard a rapping sound on the car window and looked up to see James Junior with his palms and the tip of his nose pressed to the glass. James Junior pushed out his tongue and licked the glass, obliging Chrissie to return the gesture sticking her tongue out at him. She thanked her lucky stars that it had not been James Senior who had been at the window with an unencumbered view down to her navel.

§§§§§

Sally sat in Harry’s chair patiently transferring information from the pastiche of post-it notes on the wall, into her computer. Harry’ desk shone with the first polish it had seen in close to forty years and she was slowly but surely working her way through the piles of brochures and golf magazines that filled the remaining shelf space, spilling over onto the floor in ten different places. Seven bin liners of waste paper sat in the short passageway outside the office door, for removal if there was ever a van free to go to the tip.
There had been a party when Harry left. All the crew had wished him a fond farewell and no one had even thought to question the fact that Sally had taken over the firm. By and large, they were glad to still have a job. Sally decided not to change the name; ‘Joyce & Son’ was a well established name in the town and why bother changing the existing advertising material or the headed stationery. Harry had left her three months wages in the bank as a float and the deal with Sir William included the relocation of the removal business in the final planning scheme so, while she was sad to see Harry go, she was also alive with excitement being the owner of her very own removal business.
The phone rang and Sally lifted the handset.
“Joyce & Son Removals, how can I help you?”
“Hello, this is David Morris; could you give me an estimate for moving two houses worth of furniture into one, with the possibility of storing the left over stuff for a while, until we sort ourselves out?”

§§§§§

The Dublin flight, carrying Sir William Williams, landed at Heathrow shortly before mid-day. He trailed his cabin bag through the EU Citizen gate, silently cursing the need for such elaborate security systems and the single class seating on the shuttle service in equal measure, especially for someone as important as himself. Forced to wait in line with other equally impatient passengers, Sir William spent another twenty minutes getting to the car park and into the relative seclusion of his much loved Bentley.
He had enjoyed a splendid dinner on the previous evening with an old Masonic friend in Dublin and spent the first hour of the morning finally agreeing a comprehensive package of funding services with the Bank of Ireland; now he was eager to get back to his office but, lunch at the golf club would not go amiss along the way. He had already telephoned to his office and authorised the final payment to that wretched removal man, now he needed to set the wheels in motion to submit the draft planning application for the £100,000,000, 27 acre development that would bear his name. A new community and the Irish schools project, he could feel the sword resting on his shoulder already. Sir William felt he had earned a very large whisky.
Patrick O’Donnell had been summoned to the NGC bar and was duly waiting when Sir William swung the Bentley into the space reserved for the club Captain.
“Full steam ahead Pat.” Sir William steered Patrick immediately into his office frantically waving to the barman to follow and “Bring your order pad, I want to order lunch.”
“I’d rather we did not talk too much about this in the office until we get the local projects back on track.” Sir William leaned forward as if to share a close secret, “Never mind the cost Pat, the Bank of Ireland will be picking up the tab. Just let them see that we are busy people and getting on with their programme.”
Two days later Patrick O’Donnell was on the shuttle to Dublin to begin the recruitment of a local workforce as a visible gesture of the start on the new schools programme.
Coincidentally, as Patrick O’Donnell had left the office on his way to the waiting taxi, he held open the engraved glass door of WFH plc, for a very attractive young Asian girl who strode confidently to the reception desk announcing her appointment to see Sir William.
Lia Patel had made it her business to follow the progress of the deal that had slipped through her fingers and sensed there might be a chance to get back into the action. She had noted the payment to Harry Joyce and realised that it was way under the value of the entire plot. She also knew that Sir William had been desperately chasing funds and while she couldn’t help him with the really big numbers, she was determined to find some crumbs from the great man’s table.
Sir William’s PA held open the panelled mahogany door and Lia walked up to his desk holding out her business card.
“Please call me Lia. It’s the bank that insists on this back to front ‘PATEL Lia’ thing.” She deliberately did not add her usual flippant comment about it being an old school thing, realising that Sir William was exactly that.
Sir William lifted his head from the papers on his desk and gazed into Lia’s jet black