“He’s got friends, Rosie.”
“Friends?”
“You know the way Neil works — buying drinks, whispering in ears, building up his own little gang of sycophants. Except that it’s not so little anymore.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” she asked.
“There’s a plot to oust Martin.”
“But he was elected chairman by majority decision.”
“That majority might not still be there,” said Rayment worriedly. “Neil has been busy. I’ve done a quick head count and I think the vote will be close — too close, for my liking. Neil wants to call an Extraordinary General Meeting to pass a vote of no confidence in Martin.”
“That’s downright cruel!”
“The awful thing is that it might succeed.”
“We can’t have Neil Woodville as chairman.”
“A lot of people think that we should.”
“He’s got to be stopped.”
“That won’t be easy,” he warned. “I just wanted to tip you the wink so that you can alert Martin. He can always rely on my vote.”
“Thank you, Peter. You’re a real friend.”
“Neil is so ambitious. He’ll stop at nothing.” He looked over his shoulder to make sure that nobody else was listening. “And that raises a strange possibility.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you heard the statements we gave to the police. Neil still wants to blame our barman for the mess in there. Martin is convinced that Crowford may be the villains of the piece, and neither he nor Neil has ruled out the gypsies on our doorstep.”
“We’ve had trouble with them before.”
“Quite. But suppose we add another name to the list of suspects.”
“And who’s that?” Rosie saw the look in his eye. “Neil?”
“Why not?”
She shook her head. “No, Peter. He’s got a lot of faults but I don’t think he’d stoop to this. Why cause damage to a club when he wants to be its chairman?”
“Because it undermines Martin’s position.”
“Martin was not responsible,” she retorted.
“Neil will make it look as if he is. You weren’t at the committee meeting when we discussed the idea of having security cameras. Neil was all for it. Martin was against because we’d already spent a fortune on a state-of-the-art burglar alarm. Honestly,” said Rayment, “I wouldn’t want to sit through another meeting like that. It was a real dogfight. Talk about ‘Nature red in tooth and claw.’ Martin finally won the day, so we have no cameras. As a result — Neil will claim — we have no film of someone breaking in here to trash our bar.”
“He’s got a point,” she conceded. “But hang on, Peter. Weren’t you and Neil the ones who discovered what had happened? You said that he was as upset as you.”
“He certainly seemed to be upset, Rosie. But that could have been an act. The simple fact is that this serves his purpose. Neil can kill two birds with one stone — he can blame Martin for not having security cameras installed and he can point the finger at the barman.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “What price Doug’s job if we have a new chairman? Neil would have him out of here in two seconds.”
It was at that precise moment that Lomas appeared, sweating profusely from his exertions but wearing a smile of triumph.
“I’ve moved the empty barrels out,” he said, “and connected three full ones. The lads will be able to have their booze, after all.”
Martin Hewlett had an unfailing capacity to look on the bright side. Not even the horrendous injury that he had suffered could dampen his spirits. He saw it as an opportunity to direct his life to worthier goals, getting heavily involved in church and charity work. It was the same with the damage at the clubhouse. Hewlett pointed out an advantage.
“We needed a new carpet in the bar,” he said airily. “I’ll screw every penny I can get out of the insurance company and we’ll be walking on luxury carpet up to our ankles.” He laughed merrily. “The rest of you will, anyway. My walking days are over.”
“How was the training session?”
“Good. Very good — once I lit a fire under them.”
“You always could inspire a team, Martin.”
“It’s not inspiration but naked fear. I frighten the buggers.”
Rosie was driving him home after the evening at the club. As usual, her husband had downed his fair share of beer and she knew that he would be asleep soon after she put him to bed. If she needed to raise a sensitive topic, now was the time.
“Peter had a quiet word with me earlier on,” she began.
“Oh?”
“He wanted to pass on a warning.”
“What about?”
“Neil Woodville.”
Hewlett cackled. “Dear old Peter. He’s been warning me about Neil for the last five years but I still haven’t felt a knife between my shoulder blades. What’s the latest scare?”
“It’s more than a scare, Martin,” she said. “There’s a move to unseat you as chairman by passing a vote of no confidence.”
“Bollocks!”
“And it’s no good swearing. I’m telling you the truth.”
“Nobody can unseat me. I was properly elected.”
“The result could be overturned.”
“Only if an Extraordinary General Meeting is called,” he said, “and that would require twenty signatures.”
“Neil has got them, apparently.”
“Never!”
“I’m only telling you what Peter said.”
Hewlett lapsed into a brooding silence. In the days when they had played on the same team, he and Woodville had been friends, but that had all changed. Woodville was now his implacable enemy, a man who was determined to take over the club and lift it to new heights. To that end, he had made generous donations to Shelton RFC, enabling them to buy auxiliary floodlights and to resurface the car park. In financial terms, Hewlett could never compete. Though he continued in his law firm, he was only there three days a week and was given a light workload. It was Rosie’s salary as a college lecturer that really kept them afloat.
She pulled the car up their drive and switched off the engine.
“There is another way of looking at this,” she said.
“Is there?”
“Maybe what happened at the club is a sort of sign.”
“You sound like Neil,” he said bitterly. “He reckons that it’s a sign that Doug must go and security cameras must be installed.”
“Being the chairman is such a strain on you, Martin.”
“Nonsense!”
“It is. You make light of it but I know how anxious you get. There’s always some new headache. Tonight’s is just the latest one.” She slipped an arm around him. “Perhaps it’s time to consider retirement.”
“And let that slimy Neil Woodville, take over? Oh, no!”
“You could spike his guns. If you were to announce that you’d resign at the end of the season, there’d be no need to call that EGM. You’d be spared any humiliation.”
“What would be more humiliating than seeing Neil replace me?”
“But that might not happen,” she reasoned. “If it was a straight fight between you and him, then he’s in with a real chance. But if you were to nominate someone else as your successor, Neil could have the rug pulled from under him.”
“Nominate someone else?” He shrugged expressively. “Who?”
“Simon Mifflin.”
The name made Hewlett blink. It was an interesting notion. A well-liked former player, Mifflin ran a profitable building company and had donated far more money to the club than anyone. When he built the new grandstand for Shelton RFC, he gave them a generous discount. He was older than either Hewlett or Woodville, but was as dedicated to the club as either of them. Mifflin commanded wide respect.