Martin knew he held all the cards here: God was always on the side of the big battalions. ‘You shouldn’t be hinting at violence, Thomas. Most inadvisable, for a man with your record.’
Tom Ogden whirled from a contemplation of his land and his workers. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Beaumont tapped the side of his nose. ‘No names, no pack drill, eh, Thomas? Let’s just say that I have ways and means of finding out all I need to know about the people I do business with. And those ways and means tell me that you aren’t a man who can afford to threaten anyone with violence.’
‘Look, just get off my land, will you, before I treat you as a trespasser.’
‘Very complicated, the law of trespass, Thomas. A study of it would tell you my rights as a bona fide visitor. A visitor who comes here in a neighbourly spirit.’ He held up his hand as Ogden advanced towards him. ‘As that spirit clearly isn’t reciprocated by a man who seems to be under business pressures, I shall say what I came to say and depart. I wish you to know that my very generous offer for this small parcel of land still stands. No one else will match it, and it won’t last for ever. It won’t last longer than another month or two, I think. The best tactic for you — the only realistic tactic for you — is a prompt acceptance. I might even be prepared to cover your legal fees for the transfer, and set a date which allows you to have the takings from this year’s crop, if you sign by the end of June.’
‘I shan’t be signing anything, Beaumont. I’m sick to death of telling you that.’
Martin had his hand on the driver’s door of the Jaguar as he delivered his final thought. ‘Sick to death, eh? I do hope it doesn’t come to that, Thomas.’
‘I’ve been watching Dad closely. He doesn’t seem much different, as yet,’ said thirteen-year-old Luke Hook magisterially to his brother.
‘Maybe we shall have to wait until after this graduation ceremony we’re being forced to attend,’ said Jack gloomily. He took advantage of his two years of seniority to ask a more practical question across the family’s evening meal. ‘Will it mean promotion, Dad?’
‘No, it certainly will not!’ said Bert Hook.
‘Your father could have been an inspector years ago,’ said his mother sternly. ‘He had all the exams, but he turned down the chance because he enjoyed the job he was doing.’ Eleanor caught Bert’s sharp look of surprise. She probably shouldn’t have said that, but she was immensely proud of her husband’s integrity, and felt that it was only right that the boys should know about it. They were at an age when they should be learning that there were more important considerations in life than money and rank.
‘So we could be living in luxury, rather than leading a life of abject poverty,’ said Jack soulfully.
‘You two have never wanted for anything! Finish your dinner, if you want pudding.’ Eleanor began to gather in the plates. ‘Abject poverty, indeed!’
It was becoming almost too easy to wind up the old folks, especially Mum, reflected the precocious Luke. He dispatched the last of his roast potatoes with impressive speed and enquired innocently of his father, ‘Will you be learning to play the violin and smoking coke now that you’re an intellectual, Dad?’ An enthusiastic form-master had lately introduced his charges to Conan Doyle’s immortal creation. Luke pushed his empty plate towards his mother, leant back, and lit an imaginary pipe. ‘This is almost certainly a three-pipe problem,’ he informed his brother in an artificially deep voice.
‘The only crime I am likely to indulge in is infanticide,’ said Bert Hook as sternly as he could. ‘And you’re both very welcome to miss Friday’s graduation ceremony. I’d rather like to miss it myself.’
‘No chance, Dad, with Mum and Mr Lambert on the job,’ said Jack. ‘And Luke and I aren’t going to miss a day off school, are we?’ His eyes lit up delightedly as apple pie and custard arrived upon the table. ‘I expect you’ll get a more interesting succession of cases, now that you’re a graduate, Dad. When you have to pit your brains against the modern Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, I might agree to chronicle your exploits, if you ask me nicely. I quite fancy being your Watson.’
Martin Beaumont was elated by his latest encounter with Tom Ogden. He had seen fear in the man’s eyes. No one enjoyed the feeling that an enemy had the power to find out all about him, including those secrets he had kept hidden for years. It gave you a feeling of power over other people’s lives, and Martin knew enough about himself to know that nothing excited him more.
Today was a day for action; he felt that he was definitely on some sort of a roll. That was no doubt why he decided it was time to have a word with Jason Knight and Gerry Davies. The two were conferring outside the entrance to the shop as he drove back into Abbey Vineyards. Martin lowered the window of the Jaguar and called, ‘I’d like to see both of you for a short meeting. In ten minutes?’
He didn’t believe in giving people time for elaborate planning.
They came in nine minutes; he was still arranging the set-up of chairs he wanted in his room when he heard them talking to his PA in the outer office. He had pulled up the two armchairs in front of his desk, so that they would be looking into the light and lower than he would be on his seat behind the desk. Crude stuff, but it often worked, even now that more people were conscious of such things. If they realized that he had arranged things to give himself the advantage of position, that would be no bad thing. He decided against coffee.
He would sound them out, test whether they were moving to curb his power, as he suspected they might be. He wasn’t paranoid about such things, but it was as well to be perpetually aware of the way your senior executives’ minds were working. He would approach the matter obliquely, as was his way in these matters.
He said, ‘This shouldn’t take very long. I wanted your advice about something. Both of you have your fingers on the pulse of this place.’ A little flattery never came amiss, so long as you did not lay it on so thickly as to sound false. He might quite enjoy this, if it went as he hoped it would.
Neither of them spoke. He sensed that they wanted to look at each other, but the configuration of the furniture he had set up did not allow that without it being a sign of weakness. He asked each of them conventional questions. Gerry Davies reported that there was as yet no discernible decline of spending in the shop as a result of the recession which was hitting other Gloucestershire businesses hard. Jason Knight reminded him that there was usually a falling away in the number of restaurant bookings in spring and early summer, as the lighter evenings offered other options and the tourists were not yet around in great numbers. However, he had compared April bookings with those for the same month last year and found that they were marginally up.
It was all a little cautious and stilted, as if they were waiting for something more important. Martin cleared his throat and said, ‘We must continue to expand. I regard you two as the most forward-looking and experienced of my senior staff. That means I shall need your support.’
There was a pause before Jason Knight said, ‘Are you thinking about something which wasn’t discussed at our general meeting in March? If you are, perhaps we should convene-’
‘It’s nothing very radical. Merely a continuation of the expansion we have pursued successfully over the years.’
Gerry, feeling the unease of the man beside him and wanting to support him, said, ‘We’re only talking about a meeting of six people, Martin, with you in the chair as usual. It’s easy enough to arrange. Even if it was only an informal meeting, you would then be aware of everyone’s opinion.’
Martin Beaumont hadn’t expected opposition from this quarter: Davies had always been the most stalwart of his supporters. And this was opposition, despite the reasonable tone used to clothe it. It seemed that he was justified in his suspicions: Knight had been marshalling support. It was just as well he’d detected this now, whilst there was still time to nip it in the bud. He gave them what he hoped was a disarming smile. ‘As I said, there is no radical departure from previous policy involved. I am merely keeping you in the picture. I propose to buy out the strawberry farmer next door and incorporate his land into ours.’