The past year had been more successful than that preceding it, opened Grant. There had been a 20 per cent increase in after-tax profits, which he was later that month going to announce to the stockholders, with a recommendation for an overall salary increase. The excellence of the research division gave every expectation of new or improved drugs being introduced into the marketplace: medical breakthroughs even. They could not, however, relax. Competition was intense and would remain so: increase even. Turning to acknowledge one of the men assembled behind him, Grant said there had been, from their French subsidiary, a suggestion how to thwart reverse-analyses of their more successful drugs. It was essential to guard against that, from their competitors, as it was against their products being pirated by such analyses, particularly by Third World countries pleading poverty as an excuse for manufacturing their own cheaper versions from published formulae, denying companies like themselves the profits essential to recover their huge and continuing research expenditure. During the past year Dubette had initiated twenty-three patent and copyright infringement actions in ten countries, and so far had succeeded in fifteen, with every confidence of the remaining eight being adjudged in their favour. Although too large and too diverse properly to fit the description, Grant nevertheless considered Dubette a family structure, people working together, pulling together, according to a strictly observed set of understandings, like a united, cohesive household. Parnell went through the motions of clapping, along with everyone else, and thought that the individual presentations from chief executives of Dubette’s foreign-based divisions that followed sounded exactly like an end-of-term report to the headmaster.
They funnelled into a lounge of easy chairs and potted plants that adjoined the commissary. Today the furniture had been rearranged to create an open communal space. Premixed drinks were already laid out on a bartended table that ran the full length of the glassed wall overlooking the grassed park and its artificial lake. Parnell noted the concentration of people helping themselves was around the mineral-water selection. He saved himself the search by asking one of the barmen for gin and tonic.
He’d separated from Rebecca Lang at the entrance to the conference room and not seen where she’d sat. He saw her now, though, among the mineral-water group. She saw him when she turned, hesitated and then made her way towards him.
Parnell said: ‘We got a cure for leprosy among what we make?’
She smiled and said: ‘That bad?’
He grinned back. ‘You’re risking infection, just talking to me.’
‘I’ll check our stock list, see what there is that I can take.’ She had to tilt her head to look up at him. ‘You sure grew up big when you were small.’
‘I worked out and ate up all my greens.’
‘Dubette should patent the formula.’
‘You didn’t tell me what you won.’
‘You don’t want to know.’
There was a shift throughout the room at the arrival of the president with a retinue of division and overseas directors, a general turning in their direction. Parnell said: ‘It’s your last chance to escape.’
From where he stood, and with his height, Parnell could see better than Rebecca the approaching dignitaries in their carefully stage-managed procession through the room. He said: ‘They’re getting closer. Time for you to distance yourself.’
‘Don’t mock me. You wanna bet upon their picking on us?’
‘You’d have lost,’ said Parnell, at the group’s arrival.
‘We haven’t met,’ announced the Dubette president. ‘I’m Edward C. Grant.’
‘I’m…’ started Parnell, but the burly, white-haired man said: ‘I know who you are, Richard. And you, Rebecca.’ To the woman, he gave an odd, head-jerking bow. Coming back to Parnell he said: ‘Welcome to the Dubette family.’
‘Thank you,’ said Parnell. Dwight Newton was amidst the retinue, which explained how he had been identified, and the Christian-name familiarity was an Americanism he was already used to.
‘Think you’re going to like it here?’ demanded Grant. He had a short, staccato delivery that made everything he said sound urgent. There was no offered hand.
‘Too early to tell yet.’ Rebecca had slightly withdrawn and Parnell was conscious of the concentration from everyone in the room upon him and the smaller man, who had to strain up even more than Rebecca to look at him, which Parnell guessed would be an annoyance.
‘Got everything you want?’
‘I think I have, now.’ Parnell was aware of Newton’s features tightening behind the president.
‘When are you going to start recruitment?’
Parnell wondered what excuse had been made for the delay, about which Grant obviously knew. ‘Virtually at once.’
‘We’re expecting great things from you, Richard.’
‘I’m expecting great things from myself.’
There was an over-the-shoulder head jerk. ‘I’ve asked Dwight to keep me up to speed. Like to be able to talk about something at the next seminar.’
But he hadn’t mentioned the creation of the new division in his keynote speech at this one, Parnell thought. ‘I’ve got some ideas but I don’t expect things to move that fast.’
‘I’d be disappointed if you didn’t have ideas,’ said Grant, positive sharpness in his voice. ‘That’s why we made you our offer. Why we’re setting up the division and have given you the budget we have.’
‘And that’s why I accepted it, expecting to be able to develop them through a company as large and extensive as this.’
‘So, we’re both rowing in the same direction.’
Was that a casual remark or a very direct reference to how close he’d been to getting a rowing blue at Cambridge University, before his graduation? Parnell said: ‘Let’s hope we don’t miss a stroke.’
‘Let’s both of us very much hope you don’t miss a stroke,’ echoed the other man.
‘Am I also expected to apologize?’
‘For what?’ frowned Grant.
‘Being improperly dressed.’
The smile was as tight as the manner in which the man spoke. ‘You’ll know next time.’
Parnell was tempted to respond but didn’t. It wasn’t, after all, a verbal contest.
As he led the group away, Grant said: ‘Don’t forget my expectations.’
Parnell decided not to reply to that, either.
Rebecca waited until the presidential party was beyond hearing before closing the gap between them. Parnell said: ‘I warned you to go under the wire when you still had a chance.’
‘At least he knows my name now.’
‘Maybe not for the right reason.’
‘I’ve thought about our stock list,’ Rebecca shrugged. ‘We don’t do a leprosy treatment.’
‘We wouldn’t, would we?’ invited Parnell, refusing to pick up on their earlier lightness. ‘It’s largely eradicated except in underdeveloped countries. And we’ve just been lectured that there’s no profit trying to sell to the Third World.’
‘Ouch!’ grimaced Rebecca.
‘You want to risk having dinner?’
‘What time?’
Rebecca chose the restaurant, Italian just up Wisconsin Avenue from M Street, and said she’d meet him there instead of his going all the way out to Bethesda to pick her up. Parnell arrived intentionally early, which gave him time to study the menu, which looked good, and get through most of a martini before she arrived.
She laughed the moment she saw him and said: ‘We’ve got to start getting this dress code right!’ She wore jeans and a suede shirt: he’d changed into a blazer – with the Cambridge University breast-pocket motif – and grey trousers.
Parnell said: ‘Let’s keep surprising each other.’
Rebecca nodded to a matching martini and Parnell ordered a second. He offered the menu but she said: ‘I know what I’m going to have. I worked through college as a waitress here. I get special treatment.’
She did. The owner, Giorgio Falcone, genuinely Italian-born, personally returned with the drinks and kissed her and shook Parnell’s hand effusively and recommended the veal, which Parnell accepted. Rebecca and the owner conversed in Italian and the moustached chef, who was introduced only as Ciro, was brought from the kitchen to be introduced as well.