Conflict of Interest

‘Thank you.’

As she made her way out she paused for a moment at a cupboard by the door. ‘Oh. There’s one last thing.’ She opened the cupboard to reveal a top-of-the-range Starwear tracksuit, Starwear trainers and a Starwear peaked cap, all assembled in pristine condition. ‘Starwear joining kit. If they don’t fit I’ll order replacements.’

Chris allowed himself a droll smile. ‘Very generous of them.’

‘Everyone in the agency gets a set,’ Charlotte told him. Then, returning his amused expression, ‘You’re on the team now.’

He watched her as she left the room, once again pondering on her intimidating mix of sexual appeal and ruthless efficiency. She was, no doubt, the kind of girl who could be relied upon to juggle a dozen urgent projects while taking dictation, printing out financial statements and answering the phone. A top-drawer PA who couldn’t be more different from his former assistant at MIRA with her haphazard secretarial skills.

In every respect, in fact, Lombard couldn’t be more different from MIRA, and as Chris sat for the first time in his large, black-leather, swivel desk-chair and glanced about his new office, he couldn’t help contrasting it with the one he’d left behind the week before. MIRA’s offices had been mostly open-plan – a nightmare for concentration – and even though he’d been given his own box in the corner, the partition walls were so thin they might as well not have existed. All the office furniture had been at least a decade old; scratched wooden desks supported ancient computers, grimy with the wear of many years, their wires dangling in untidy coils behind every desk. The strip lighting and wall posters now seemed even more shoddy and down market compared with the ambiance of rarefied sophistication that prevailed at Lombard.

But the overwhelming impression at MIRA had been that of paper; everywhere you looked there had been computer print-outs, research reports, lever-arch files and assorted stationery. From floor to ceiling, shelf after shelf had heaved with research documentation. Detailed scrutiny of his new office, however, revealed not a single clue to indicate what kind of activity occurred here. No doubt, it was all part of Lombard’s greatly valued secrecy. Was it the same with every other office in Lombard, he wondered, or only the executive floor? And what was with all these security levels?

He reached over for the client folders Charlotte had looked out for him, flicking through a list of blue-chip names until he came to the folder marked Starwear. Removing it from the others, he recalled his last conversation with Mike Cullen. It had been shortly before nine, the morning after his evening at HMS Queen Mary. He’d still been in bed.

‘I thought I should be in touch with you in light of last night’s developments.’ Cullen was calm and clear.

Chris had again felt the stunned disbelief he’d experienced when he’d watched the news broadcast about Nathan Strauss’s death.

‘It’s come as a deep shock to us all. Nathan wasn’t only one of our most valued clients, I also counted him as a close friend.’

‘Have the police said anything more?’

‘No. And until the inquest is held, there’s not a lot to say about it. But life goes on and we’ve had to make contingency plans.’ Cullen’s voice was serious. ‘Obviously, everything I’m telling you is confidential. There’ll be an emergency Starwear Board meeting tomorrow afternoon, the earliest the various members can fly in from different parts of the world. I’ve been in touch with every director and it seems certain that Nathan’s brother Jacob will step into the breach. We need to reassure shareholders on both sides of the Atlantic by the time trading starts on Monday that there’ll be continuity.’

‘Jacob?’ Chris thought a moment. ‘Do people over here know much about him?’

‘Not right now,’ replied Cullen. ‘It’s something we’ll work on.’

After a pause Cullen had got to the real point of his phone call. ‘Look, I know how much you wanted to work with Nathan. And I wouldn’t try to pretend to you that Jacob is another Nathan Strauss. But you’re still an important part of our plan – a very important part. If anything, we’ll be needing you even more. Nathan was a thinker. Jay is an action man. He’ll need you around to do a lot of thinking for him, and so will I – I want you to know that.’

‘Thanks.’ Chris was rubbing his eyes. ‘I must admit, I’m not sure what to think.’

There was a moment before Cullen said sympathetically, ‘We’re all a bit like that at the moment. But we have to keep going, taking the vision forward – it’s what Nathan would have wanted. And, you know, Jacob is very keen to take Nathan’s plans further; in some ways he’s even more radical. I’ll be introducing you to him at an early stage.’

Once again, Cullen’s inherent assumption didn’t pass Chris by, the PR man evidently looking for confirmation that Chris was still joining Lombard in spite of what had happened. Chris had been mulling over exactly that until the early hours of the morning, and he’d always come back to the same thing; he couldn’t go back to MIRA. Now, after a long pause he murmured, ‘I look forward to it.’

‘Good. You’ll like Jacob. He’s a real champ.’

It had been flattering to be called by Cullen personally. At home. And so soon after what had happened. Their conversation had left him feeling reassured, but also daunted. When Cullen had told him at their first meeting how important his job would be to Lombard, he’d assumed it was all part of the usual ‘talking up’ interview game to get him interested. Of course, Chris knew it was a big job, but he hadn’t guessed that his taking it was of such personal importance to Cullen. After that Saturday morning telephone call it was clear he was part of a much bigger game plan. And for the first time he found himself hoping that he’d be able to deliver whatever it was that was of such significance.

That same feeling returned now as he found himself behind his desk on the executive floor of Lombard, panoplied in mahogany and leather. ‘From those to whom much is given, much will be expected.’ The words returned unbidden from his childhood. So what was Cullen expecting? What did he have that was so important to Lombard that it merited an office two doors away from the Chairman?

Chris opened the ‘Starwear’ file. It contained press releases and newspaper coverage from the fortnight since Nathan’s death. The first release announced the appointment of Jacob Strauss as Chief Executive Officer. It noted that ever since Stefan Gregory Strauss had set up the textile business, first in Germany in 1927, then, after the family fled Nazi Germany, in America exactly ten years later, a Strauss family member had headed the company; Jacob’s appointment was in keeping with this tradition. Along with the press release, Chris found some biographical notes on Jacob Strauss, for the benefit of British journalists who had had no contact with him before.

Like his older brother, Jacob, forty-seven, was a Harvard graduate. But while Nathan had distinguished himself academically, the centre of Jay’s world had always been the sport

s field. An enthusiastic all-rounder, he had not only represented his university at distance running and gymnastics, he’d also been selected for the Harvard tennis team in his final year. On leaving university he hadn’t joined the family firm, which in those days had yet to break into sportswear. Instead, he’d worked for a variety of sports-related businesses and tournament organisers, before setting up two businesses of his own eight years ago. Reflecting his personal interests, Ultra-Sports retailed up-market sports equipment through four outlets in Manhattan, Miami, Palm Springs and Beverly Hills. The other business, Trimnasium Inc., manufactured home gym equipment designed for busy executives who didn’t always have time to go elsewhere for a workout.

His entrepreneurial genius, said the ‘Notes to Editors’, was widely recognised, and three years earlier he had been invited on to the board of Starwear to head its subsidiary, Starwear International, which manufactured sports garments throughout the world. Divesting himself of Ultra-Sports and Trimnasium Inc., he had focused all his energies on the leisure wear factories based in developing countries. After a year of intensive travel to India, Pakistan, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore, he’d unveiled his ‘Quantum Change’ programme, which had dramatically increased outputs of targeted factories through improved efficiencies. The result of Quantum Change was now widely known: from being Starwear’s biggest liability, Starwear International had become the company’s most profitable operating subsidiary, outstripping even its home operation, Starwear America, as well as the other main subsidiary, Starwear Europe.

Jacob’s impeccable credentials made him the clear successor to Nathan. Looking now at the press photograph of him, which had appeared frequently in the media over the past few weeks, Chris couldn’t help thinking, not for the first time, how very different he looked from Nathan. Instead of his brother’s ascetic angularity, Jacob, pictured in a tracksuit jogging through Central Park, had open, engaging features. While Nathan’s height had had a sparseness to it, Jacob was broad-shouldered and solidly built. But it was their eyes which revealed most; behind their spectacles,there was a certain shy distance to Nathan’s. Unencumbered by any lenses, Jacob’s were bright, perspicacious, confident. Chris didn’t doubt for a moment that Jacob Strauss would prove to be a PR dream.

Turning to another press release, he read the announcement that Starwear would not be moving its global headquarters from London. As a company with dual listings on both the New York and London stock exchanges, and operations which extended around the world, Starwear had mushroomed far beyond its original, modest roots in West Virginia. By far the majority of its production was now in south-east Asia, and while textiles sales for America and Europe were about even, the opening up of Eastern European markets meant that future growth prospects were more likely on the European side of the pond.

Looking at the press coverage, most of it had, of course, focused on the tragedy of Nathan’s death and the compelling mystery which still surrounded it. There had also been a lot of company news – the share price fall of eighteen per cent immediately after trading opened the Monday following Nathan’s death, then the announcement that Starwear strategy remained unchanged, pushing shares back up again by nine per cent. The announcement of Jacob’s appointment as CEO had been subject to little analysis so far, although news of his Quantum Change programme was widely and positively reported. The only negative commentary had been a piece in The Daily Telegraph, written by senior correspondent Jim Ritchie, which attributed the Quantum Change success to McKinsey, and which questioned the relevance to Jacob’s new position of his prior businesses selling sports gear and gym machines.

At nine sharp, there was a knock on his door and Chris looked up to see Kate Taylor. He’d met Kate on his second visit to the agency for drinks in the Boardroom and had taken to her immediately. Bright-eyed, dark-haired and the quintessential English rose, there was a vivacity about her – and yet a fragility too – which he had found instantly engaging. And, as the director in charge of financial PR at Lombard, she was also extremely shrewd. When she’d told him she was to be Chris’s ‘Personal Manager’, a role which required her to be his mentor while he found his feet at the agency, he’d been delighted.