“Then I’ll take his key,” I told him. “Mr. Alexander has booked himself in somewhere else for the night.” My father would have been proud of such thrifty use of the company’s resources.
I lay on the hotel bed, quite unable to sleep, my anger rising as each hour passed. Although I no longer had a great deal of feeling for Rosemary, and even accepted that perhaps I never had, I now loathed Jeremy. But it wasn’t until the next day that I discovered just how much I loathed him.
The following morning I rang my secretary and told her I would be driving to the office straight from London. She reminded me that there was a board meeting scheduled for two o’clock, which Mr. Alexander was penciled in to chair. I was glad she couldn’t see the smile of satisfaction that spread across my face. A quick glance at the agenda over breakfast and it had become abundantly clear why Jeremy had wanted to chair this particular meeting. But his plans didn’t matter anymore. I had already decided to let my fellow directors know exactly what he was up to, and to make sure that he was dismissed from the board as soon as was practicable.
I arrived at Cooper’s just after 1:30 and parked in the space marked “Chairman.” By the time the board meeting was scheduled to begin, I’d had just enough time to check over my files, and became painfully aware of how many of the company’s shares were now controlled by Jeremy, and of what he and Rosemary must have been planning for some time.
Jeremy vacated the chairman’s place without comment the moment I entered the boardroom, and showed no particular interest in the proceedings until we reached an item concerning a future share issue. It was at this point that he tried to push through a seemingly innocuous motion that could ultimately have resulted in Rosemary and myself losing overall control of the company and therefore being unable to resist any future takeover bid. I might have fallen for it if I hadn’t traveled up to Leeds the previous evening and found his car parked in my driveway, and the bedroom light on. Just when he thought he had succeeded in having the motion agreed without a vote, I asked the company accountants to prepare a full report for the next board meeting before we came to any decision. Jeremy showed no sign of emotion. He simply looked down at his notes and began drumming his fingers on the boardroom table. I was determined that the report would prove to be his downfall. If only it hadn’t been for my short temper, I might, given time, have worked out a more sensible way of ridding myself of him.
As no one had “any other business” to raise, I closed the meeting at 5:40 and suggested to Jeremy that he join Rosemary and me for dinner. I wanted to see them together. Jeremy didn’t seem too keen, but after some bluffing from me about not fully understanding his new share proposal, and feeling that my wife ought to be brought in on it at some stage, he agreed. When I rang Rosemary to let her know that Jeremy would be coming to dinner, she seemed even less enthusiastic about the idea than he had been.
“Perhaps the two of you should go off to a restaurant together,” she suggested. “Then Jeremy can bring you up to date on what’s been going on while you’ve been away.” I tried not to laugh. “We haven’t got much food in at the moment,” she added. I told her that it wasn’t the food I was worried about.
Jeremy was uncharacteristically late, but I had his usual whiskey and soda ready the moment he walked through the door. I must say, he put up a brilliant performance over dinner, though Rosemary was less convincing.
Over coffee in the sitting room, I managed to provoke the confrontation that Jeremy had so skillfully avoided at the board meeting.
“Why are you so keen to rush through this new share allocation?” I asked once he was on his second brandy. “Surely you realize that it will take control of the company out of the hands of Rosemary and me. Can’t you see that we could be taken over in no time?”
He tried a few well-rehearsed phrases. “In the best interests of the company, Richard. You must realize how quickly Cooper’s is expanding. It’s no longer a family firm. In the long term it has to be the most prudent course for both of you, not to mention the shareholders.” I wondered which particular shareholders he had in mind.
I was a little surprised to find Rosemary not only backing him up, but showing a remarkable grasp of the finer details of the share allocation, even after Jeremy had scowled rather too obviously at her. She seemed extremely well-versed in the
arguments he had been putting forward, given the fact that she had never shown any interest in the company’s transactions in the past. It was when she turned to me and said, “We must consider our future, darling,” that I finally lost my temper.
Yorkshiremen are well known for being blunt, and my next question lived up to our county’s reputation.
“Are you two having an affair, by any chance?”
Rosemary turned scarlet. Jeremy laughed a little too loudly, and then said, “I think you’ve had one drink too many, Richard.”
“Not a drop,” I assured him. “Sober as a judge. As I was when I came home late last night, and found your car parked in the driveway and the light on in the bedroom.”
For the first time since I’d met him, I had completely wrongfooted Jeremy, even if it was only for a moment. He began drumming his fingers on the glass table in front of him.
“I was simply explaining to Rosemary how the new share issue would affect her,” he said, hardly missing a beat. “Which is no more than is required under stock exchange regulations.”
“And is there a stock exchange regulation requiring that such explanations should take place in bed?”
“Oh, don’t be absurd,” said Jeremy. “I spent the night at the Queen’s Hotel. Call the manager,” he added, picking up the telephone and offering it to me. “He’ll confirm that I was booked in to my usual room.”
“I’m sure he will,” I said. “But he’ll also confirm that it was I who spent the night in your usual bed.”
In the silence that followed, I removed the hotel bedroom key from my jacket pocket and dangled it in front of him. Jeremy immediately jumped to his feet.
I rose from my chair, rather more slowly, and faced him, wondering what his next line could possibly be.
“It’s your own fault, you bloody fool,” he eventually stammered out. “You should have taken more interest in Rosemary in the first place, and not gone off gallivanting around Europe all the time. It’s no wonder you’re in danger of losing the company.”
Funny, it wasn’t the fact that Jeremy had been sleeping with my wife that caused me to snap, but that he had the arrogance to think he could take over my company as well. I didn’t reply, but just took a pace forward and threw a punch at his clean-shaven jaw. I may have been a couple of inches shorter than he was, but after twenty years of hanging around with truck drivers, I could still land a decent blow. Jeremy staggered first backward and then forward, before crumpling in front of me. As he fell, he cracked his right temple on the corner of the glass table, knocking his brandy all over the floor. He lay motionless in front of me, blood dripping onto the carpet.
I must admit I felt rather pleased with myself, especially when Rosemary rushed to his side and started screaming obscenities at me.
“Save your breath for the ex-Deputy Chairman,” I told her. “And when he comes round, tell him not to bother with the Queen’s Hotel, because I’ll be sleeping in his bed again tonight.”
I strode out of the house and drove back into the city center, leaving my Jaguar in the hotel parking lot. When I walked into the Queen’s, the lobby was deserted, and I took the elevator straight up to Jeremy’s room. I lay on top of the bed but was far too agitated to sleep.
I was just dozing off when four policemen burst into the room and pulled me off the bed. One of them told me that I was under arrest and read me my rights. Without further explanation I was marched out of the hotel and driven to Millgarth Police Station. A few minutes after five A.M., I was signed in by the duty officer and my personal possessions were taken from me and dropped into a bulky brown envelope. I was told that I had the right to make one telephone call, so I rang Joe Ramsbottom, woke his wife, and asked if Joe could join me at the station as quickly as possible. Then I was locked in a small cell and left alone.