“Major Fisher.”
“Major Fisher?”
“I shall vote for myself, as is my right,” said Fisher, smiling across the table at Emma.
How many times had Sebastian begged his mother not to abstain, as he had been certain that there was absolutely no chance that Fisher would behave like a gentleman.
“Mrs. Fisher?”
Susan looked up at the chairman, hesitated a moment then whispered nervously, “Mrs. Clifton.”
Alex swung around and stared at his wife in disbelief. But this time Susan didn’t bow her head. Instead, she glanced across at Emma and smiled. Emma, looking equally surprised, put a tick by Susan’s name.
“Mr. Knowles?”
“Major Fisher,” he said without hesitation.
“Mr. Maynard?”
“Major Fisher.”
Emma checked the ticks and crosses on her pad. Fisher led by six to five.
“Admiral Summers?” said the company secretary. There was a silence that felt interminable to Emma, but was in fact only a few seconds.
“Mrs. Clifton,” he eventually said. Emma gasped. The old man leaned across and whispered, “I’ve never been sure about Fisher, and when he voted for himself, I knew I’d been right all along.”
Emma wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to kiss him, but the company secretary interrupted her thoughts. “Mr. Hardcastle?” Once again, everyone in the room turned their attention to the one man no one knew anything about. “Would you be kind enough to let us know your decision, sir?” Fisher scowled. Six all. If Susan had voted for him, Hardcastle’s vote would have been irrelevant, but he still felt confident the Yorkshireman would back him.
Cedric Hardcastle took a handkerchief out of his top pocket, removed his glasses and polished them before he spoke. “I shall abstain, and allow the chairman, who knows both candidates far better than I do, to decide who is the right person to succeed him.”
* * *
Susan Fisher pushed back her chair and slipped quietly out of the boardroom as the newly elected chairman took her place at the top of the table.
Everything had gone well so far. However, Susan knew that the next hour would be vital if she hoped to complete the rest of her plan. Alex hadn’t even commented when
she’d offered to drive him to the board meeting that morning so he could concentrate on his speech. What she hadn’t told him was that she wouldn’t be driving him back.
For some time, Susan had accepted that their marriage was a sham, and she couldn’t even remember when they’d last made love. She often wondered why she’d agreed to marry him in the first place. Her mother’s constant reminder, ‘If you’re not careful, my girl, you’ll be left on the shelf,’ hadn’t helped. Still, she now intended to clear everything off the shelves.
* * *
Alex Fisher was unable to concentrate on Emma’s acceptance speech, as he was still trying to work out how he would explain to Don Pedro that his wife had voted against him.
Martinez had originally proposed that Diego and Luis represent him on the board, but Alex had persuaded him that if there was one thing that would frighten the directors more than the thought of a female chairman, it would be the thought of a foreigner taking over the company.
He decided that he would simply tell Don Pedro that Emma had won the vote, and not mention the fact that his wife hadn’t supported him. He didn’t care to think about what would happen if Don Pedro ever read the minutes.
* * *
Susan Fisher parked the car outside Arcadia Mansions, opened the front door with her latch key, took the lift to the third floor and let herself into the flat. She walked quickly through to the bedroom, dropped on her knees and pulled two suitcases out from under the bed. She then began to empty one of the wardrobes of six dresses, two suits, several skirts and a ball gown, which she wondered if she’d ever wear again. Next she pulled open the chest of drawers one drawer at a time, and took out her stockings, underwear, blouses and jumpers, which almost filled the first suitcase.
When she got off her knees, her eyes settled on a watercolor of the Lake District that Alex had paid a little too much for when they were on their honeymoon. She was delighted to find that it fitted neatly into the bottom of the second case. She then walked through to the bathroom and gathered up all her toiletries, a dressing gown and several towels, cramming them into every available space left in the second suitcase.
There wasn’t a lot she wanted in the kitchen, other than the Wedgwood dinner service, a wedding present from Alex’s mother. She wrapped each piece carefully in pages from the Daily Telegraph, and placed them in two shopping bags she found under the sink.
She left the plain green tea set that she’d never really liked, not least because it had so many chips, and there was no room left in the second case. “Help,” she said out loud, once she realized there was still a lot more she intended to remove but both suitcases were already full.