‘That’s true,’ I said.
‘I hope I’ve been some help,’ Anne said, looking at her watch. ‘Now I really must go upstairs to get ready for my meeting.’
I watched her march to the bank of lifts, her heels rapping her progress on the hard floor, and thought about what she had said.
It was looking increasingly unlikely that Guy could have killed his father. He didn’t have the time to do it himself, and Sergeant Spedding’s conviction that Tony’s death was not the work of a professional effectively ruled out the possibility that Guy had hired someone else to do it.
That, at least, was good to know. Or it should have been. But my feelings about Guy were becoming more confused, not less, especially after the way he had accused me of betraying him and tried to take my stake in Ninetyminutes away from me. Was he the friend I had always assumed he was? Or was he someone else entirely? Had I really wasted the last year of my life and ruined my career by following him?
And if neither Guy nor Owen had killed Tony Jourdan, who the hell had?
I was wary of letting Ingrid go back to Ninetyminutes now Owen had seen us together, but she was determined to do it. She wanted to see what was going on.
What was going on was that Guy was desperately trying to get Mercia Metro TV interested in Ninetyminutes. He took Ingrid, Gaz, Amy and Mel along with him to Birmingham on Wednesday. According to Ingrid, he put on a good performance and she had no doubt he caught Mercia Metro’s interest. He persuaded two of the senior people to come down to Britton Street the following day, although they weren’t confident that they would be able to put in an unconditional offer by the midnight deadline.
Nothing from Owen. Ingrid said he was in the office, but he gave no indication that he’d seen the two of us together the day before. Not that that meant anything. I was worried about her. Guy had his back to the wall. Whenever that had happened in the past, someone had got hurt. This time I prayed it wouldn’t be Ingrid.
I spent the next day, Thursday, the day of the deadline, at home climbing the walls. Ingrid called at eight o’clock that evening.
‘I’m leaving now.’
‘You’re what? I thought you’d be staying till midnight. Has Guy given up?’
‘No. But he’s sent us all home.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’ll explain.’
She did, when I saw her half an hour later.
‘The Mercia Metro TV team came down this morning: the Managing Director and the Finance Director. Guy showed them around the office and there’s no doubt they were keen. All kinds of talk about synergies, and internet space and all that mumbo-jumbo. But then we sat round the table to talk about the deal. They didn’t seem to think there was much chance of coming up with an unconditional offer. They’d have to do their own due diligence, get an accountant’s investigation, convene a board meeting and God knows what.
‘Guy argued with that for a while, and then Mel suggested that a conditional offer might work. After all, Champion Starsat’s offer is conditional on due diligence, so if Mercia Metro come up with a better deal with the same conditions, the Ninetyminutes board will have to consider it.’
‘What price are they talking?’
‘A valuation of twenty-two million pounds. But Mercia Metro wouldn’t buy the whole company. The idea is that they invest eight million of new money and become a minority shareholder. Guy will still run the show. The strategy will still be all-out growth.’
‘Will Mercia Metro bite?’
‘I don’t think there’s a chance, no. It’s true the Managing Director liked the business, but the Finance Director was sceptical about the practicalities, and he had some pretty good arguments. Also, I suspect they would need a board meeting of their own to authorize the offer, and there doesn’t seem much likelihood of them calling one in time.’
‘So it’s all over?’
‘Not according to Guy. He still thinks they might go for it. He organized a conference call with Clare Douglas and Derek Silverman to discuss accepting a conditional offer. I sat in on it.’
‘Were they receptive?’
‘In a word, no. Silverman said it would be a mistake to throw out a solid deal for a flaky one at this stage. And Clare was adamant that it was unconditional or nothing.’
‘Good for her.’
‘Yes. But she didn’t sound happy about it at all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know Clare. She always seems so cool and in control. Today she sounded tense. Very tense. Almost afraid.’
‘Really? Maybe something else is going wrong at Orchestra. I remember last time I went to see her there she looked stressed. Said something about putting out fires.’
‘Perhaps. Whatever it was, there’s no way she’s going to change her mind.’
‘And you? What did you say?’
‘I voted with Guy.’
‘For appearances’ sake?’
‘Partly. But I have to admit it would be nice if we could bring in Mercia Metro TV as a minority shareholder and Ninetyminutes could continue growing.’
‘It would be very nice,’ I said. ‘But it’s not going to happen. You said it yourself: the Internet doesn’t make money. This is our chance to get out whole. We won’t get another one.’
Ingrid sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. But I can’t help feeling sorry for Guy. He’s a brave man, you know. He’s fighting to the bitter end.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘We wait. Guy sent everyone home, he said there was no point in doing any work. People wanted to stay, but he insisted. It was as if he wanted to be by himself at Ninetyminutes at midnight.’
‘Strange.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s he like? Is he holding it together?’
‘In a manic kind of a way. While there’s still hope.’
‘But when the hope goes?’
Ingrid shuddered. ‘Who knows?’
The door buzzer rang. I opened it. It was Clare. A distraught Clare. Her hair was a mess, her grey eyes, usually so cool, were wild, her face was flushed.
I showed her into the living room. Her eyes widened when she saw Ingrid.
‘Don’t worry. Ingrid and I are together.’ I said this without thinking through the implications. It was simply the truth.
Clare’s eyes darted between us. Ingrid smiled reassuringly.
‘OK,’ Clare said, accepting the fact. ‘I need to talk to you.’ She was shaking.
‘Here, sit down. Do you want a drink? A cup of tea. A whisky?’
Clare sank into a sofa. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said. Then she smiled quickly. ‘Actually, a wee whisky might be a good idea.’
I got her one. Lots of whisky, not much water.
She took a gulp. ‘Thanks.’ She winced at its strength. Her hands were still shaking. ‘I need your help. Henry suggested I talk to you.’
‘Henry?’ I wondered what she could possibly want to talk to me about. Then I knew. ‘You’ve received a threat, haven’t you?’
Clare nodded. ‘Two.’
‘What happened?’
‘Yesterday I got this.’ She handed me a single sheet of A4 that had been folded three ways to fit into a standard office envelope. I read it:
As you know, Ninetyminutes has received an unsolicited offer from Champion Starsat to purchase the company. You should reject this offer in favour of pursuing discussions with other potential investors. In addition, you should make a one million pound bridge loan available to Ninetyminutes until another investor is found. If you don’t reject this offer by midnight on Thursday, you will die. Your colleague, Henry Broughton-Jones, received a similar threat in April. He took the right decision. You should too. By the way, if you contact the police, or anyone else for that matter, you will still die.