Conflict of Interest

‘And the India income figure in the latest Starwear Annual Report – that’s the product of your QC factory in Jaipur, is it?’

‘The Jaipur plant is our only operation in India,’ Dr John nodded.

Judith clicked in the catches of her briefcase, lifted it off the table, and paused, about to leave. ‘It’s just that I was reading a Forbes report about Quantum Change, and it said the maximum output of any QC production line is 1,200 units an hour, or 9,600 across all eight lines. But your annual report suggests an output nearly double that.’

Hunter didn’t hesitate. ‘Well the Jaipur plant has exceeded all expectations.’

Judith noted the furrowed brow of Dr John Eaglesham. She nodded. ‘So I understand. But double the output? Forbes must have got it badly wrong to have underestimated—’

‘Forbes’s forecasts weren’t that far off,’ Eaglesham interjected. Then, looking up at Hunter, ‘There were other factors which inflated the income figure for India in the latest report.’

‘Yeah,’ Hunter was nodding now, ‘proceeds of a disposal.’

‘Oh?’ Judith nodded for him to go on.

‘When we originally bought Hydrabull Textiles, to get into India, we acquired a whole load of stuff that was peripheral to our main business. Last year we sold off some property.’

Judith was heading towards the door. ‘Must have been quite a big sprawl.’

Hunter was running fingers through his hair. ‘I guess. It was some … office block in Delhi.’

Five minutes later, Dr John Eaglesham regarded his colleague across the room with a furious expression. ‘Why in Christ’s name did you say that?’

‘Don’t get heavy with me, John. You were doing the prompting.’

‘Prompting about a disposal, not stuff about an office block.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘I couldn’t just say “a disposal” and not tell her what it was.’

‘I thought the plan was that we’d say we’d get back to people—’

‘If I said I’d get back to her, she’d have got suspicious. Why wouldn’t I know about the disposal of a ten-million-pound asset?’

Eaglesham turned and stared out of a window overlooking Cavendish Square. After a pause he said, ‘We’d better tell Elliott North. Damage containment.’

‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’

‘Not for you, maybe.’

Mark Hunter’s position as Vice-President of Operations had been tenuous ever since the Forbes débâcle. The last thing he needed now was for Jacob Strauss to get wind of the fact that he’d mishandled the briefing of a potentially difficult investigative journalist.

Striding over to Eaglesham, Hunter seized his colleague by the shoulder and wrenched him round so that they were facing each other. ‘You listen,’ he seized him by both shoulders and shook him as he spoke in a furious, choked voice, ‘don’t even think of threatening me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be number-crunching at Deloitte’s. I put you where you are. I made you! And if I go down I’ll make fucking sure you come down with me.’

Eaglesham’s face had gone suddenly ashen as Hunter held him, like some quaking prey, in his powerful grip, before he threw him back against the boardroom wall with a thud.

After a few moments, Eaglesham pulled himself up from the wall with as much dignity as he could muster, straightening his skewed spectacles and fumbling with his tie. He looked aghast in the full force of Hunter’s fiery resentment.

‘Anyway,’ Hunter towered over him, ‘how’s she going to find out?’

To doctors and the nursing staff of The Monastery, Claude Bonning was a popular and much-admired figure. A regular visitor, every Wednesday, come rain or shine, to the private nursing home for the mentally ill, the President of Family First would come to spend time with his sister Jeannie who had been at The Monastery for longer than nearly all its serving staff. Claude had brought her over from Montreal more than twenty years earlier. The poor dear had completely lost her mind and her memory – except for brief glimpses of her early childhood in Montreal, which would appear as sharp images through the mists, she had no idea where she was or how long she’d been there.

That particular Wednesday in early October, he arrived at four p.m., as usual, driving his car past the sweeping lawns and rhododendron borders, towards the magnificent, mock-Gothic building, before making his way inside, and down the familiar passage to Jeannie’s ward. It was at the front of the building, overlooking the lawns and their magnificent flower borders, vibrant with autumn colour. Jeannie was sitting staring vacantly out of the window, a TV soap blaring in the background.

‘Hello, my dear.’ He kissed her on the cheek.

‘Oh, hello.’ She looked up at him. ‘Have you come to take me for my walk?’

‘Of course I have.’