Chapter 2

<Away>

Belle looked tiny in the big passenger seat. Poppy had to adjust the seatbelt to stop it running across her face. Once she was safely buckled in, Amy pushed the starter and the engine roared into life, soon settling down to a throaty growl.

Once the gate rolled fully back, Amy gunned the engine a couple of times for Alex’s benefit then carefully reversed out onto the road.

“What did you say when you found out you were a billionaire?” Katie asked after Amy had negotiated the morning traffic and reached the M4.

“I fainted,” Amy replied, “really, I did. Jackie was showing me all the assets that were now mine, and how much they were worth, and how much I’d be earning. It was all too much for me and I fainted. Gary carried me up to bed and I woke up later with a damp flannel on my forehead.”

“I still don’t understand why he gave you everything. Is Geoff dying or something?” Lia asked.

“Gosh, I hope not.” Amy replied, “He was still fit and healthy last time I saw him. I think the Texas sun is doing him good. He explained it this way; he has no close family, no kids, obviously, just a few distant cousins. He didn’t want to see the company he’d built up being torn apart after he’d died. He told me he’d spent a few years looking for an heir, he’d even thought about having a child with someone, but the idea horrified him. It seems all the women he’d dated were auditioning for the role of heir, and I won the audition. And before you ask, I’ve no idea what he saw in me. His idea was, and this word has really bad connotations nowadays, he was going to groom me as his heir. He would have brought me, and Gary, into the business, we’d work from his headquarters in Texas and learn all aspects of running a large, multinational company.”

“So, why did he change his mind,” Lia asked.

“OK, I’ll step back a bit,” Amy answered after pausing a moment to overtake a couple of lorries, “Gary proposed to me, and I proposed to Gary, at the same time. We were at Geoff’s ranch in Texas. His pilot had just dropped us off by a lake about 20 miles from the house...”

“20 miles! How big is the ranch?” Belle asked.

“Oh my god, it’s fucking huge, like, hundreds of square miles. He has his own runway, because he needs a plane to get to the nearest city. Anyway, Gary and I had just had the most amazing sex and we both produced rings and proposed at the same time, it was funny, and romantic, and we told Geoff. I think that’s when he made his decision but didn’t say anything. I know he’d made his decision months before he told me, because Jackie told me he’d completely reorganised the companies and investments before he handed it over. He also sent me a black Amex, one of those cards without a limit. His accountant made him do it to test me, because his accountant reckoned I’d go mad and spend a fortune.”

“What was the first thing you bought on the card?” Poppy asked.

“Our weekly shop, and a bottle of champagne.” Amy replied, laughing, “Then we picked up Pixie and went to Glasgow for pampering weekend.”

“So, you proved Geoff was right, you didn’t go mad with his card.”

“Well, I did buy a £15,000 Omega watch, but it is beautiful, and it matched my wedding dress.”

“You can spend £15,000 on a credit card?” Lia asked.

“That’s nothing, I bought this car with the Amex, literally the only limit is how much money you’ve got in the bank.”

“How much was this car?” Belle asked.

“Gary went a bit mad with the spec, the hi-fi added about £20k to the price...”

“What!” Lia exclaimed, “that’s the price of a new car.”

“I know, it really wasn’t necessary. Anyway, I think this was about £200,000 all in.”

“And you put it on a credit card?”

“Yep, and it feels really nice doing it. The first time I bought a car on it, the man in the dealership thought I was wasting his time, but there was nobody else in the shop, so he played along as I added stuff to the car like sports seats, carbon brakes, carbon fibre bodywork and stuff. He was like, ‘so dear, that will be £120,000, how will you be paying?’, he nearly fell off his seat when I slid the card across.”

“What’s your favourite car?” Katie asked.

“Favourite that I own, or favourite ever car?”

“That you own.”

“Ahh, I love my Aston Martin DB11, it’s a wonderful car to drive fast, but it only really holds two people, so I couldn’t bring it today. My McLaren Senna is awesome, but not much fun to drive on the road, it’s totally brutal, so I usually get it trailered somewhere nice then bomb around for a couple of hours. Ahh, the joys of having more money than you know what to do with. Anyway, we were talking about why I’ve got all this money.

“Geoff took over my wedding, he planned the ceremony and reception, it was at this stately home, owned by one of his friends. The day was so much fun, we had a bouncy castle, that was great, although I did get a few bruises when Pixie landed on me, she’s such a big girl. He also planned the honeymoon and wouldn’t tell any of us where we were going, just to pack for somewhere sunny.”

“Any of you?” Belle asked, “didn’t you just go with Gary?”

“Ahh, no. Pixie went, and our friend Tina, who became Pixie’s girlfriend while we were away, they’re married now as well. And Geoff came, and the twins, Julie and Jackie.”

“Where did you go?” Lia asked.

“Have you heard of Necker Island?”

“No, where is it?”

“It’s a tiny island in the Caribbean, part of the British Virgin Islands. It belongs to Richard Branson, and he rents the whole island, with all the staff. I’ll not tell you how much it costs, because it’s an obscene amount per night, but it’s definitely an experience. You can order literally anything you like to eat or drink, and they’ll get it, even if they have to fly it in next day. Geoff arranged the menus before we arrived; and this was so touching, he’d remembered all the foods I like, and all the things I don’t like, to make the menus perfect for me for the whole fortnight.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet.”

“I know, he’d made a mental note of everything I pushed to one side at all the fancy restaurants and hotels we’d visited. He really is the perfect gentleman.”

Amy paused again as she put her foot down to blast past a queue of traffic at the next junction, Poppy peered at the speedo, “she’s doing 120mph!” she whispered to Lia.

“Holy shit, I can hear you whisper when we’re doing that speed. Do you think we can persuade Alex to buy one of these.”

“I already asked him a few weeks ago,” Belle interrupted from the front, “he said it wouldn’t fit at the front of the house. I think Amy just proved him wrong.”

“I was a bit worried the gate would scratch the car when it closed, but it was fine. This is a silly car for London though, you’ll be better with a Mini, the Countryman seats four easily enough.”

“Yes, we’ll have a Mini, and Poppy can chauffeur me around,” Belle replied.

“Anyway, on the last day of our honeymoon, Geoff called me back to the main house and sat me down, he wanted to know if I’d picked a wedding present. He’d been pestering me for weeks, demanding to know what I wanted. He kept telling me ‘Anything you want, absolutely anything, my dear, and it’s yours.’ And I kept telling him I didn’t need anything, he’d already given me a house and a couple of cars, so what more could I possibly need.

“So, on the last day of the honeymoon he sat me down and showed me exactly what he’d given me, explaining that it was better to give it me know, while I was young, rather than waiting until he’d died.”

“Isn’t that what they call a living will?” Katie asked.

“Mmm, yes, I think that’s what Jackie said. After I woke from my fainting fit, Geoff and Jackie outlined the deal. I was scared because I couldn’t even run a house properly, never mind a multi-million-dollar corporation. They told me that the day to day running of each company was managed by that company. Amy Foster Investments Ltd has oversight of all the company accounts, so at any point I can dig into any of my companies and check the books and stuff. I’ve only done it once when Gary noticed something odd with a small company I own in Germany. They’re a metal working company and at first, I wondered why Geoff had bought them. After checking them out online I realised they made the metal bits for saddles and stuff. The leather parts are made by another company I own in Argentina.

“Anyway, Gary had been running all the accounts from all my companies through some new app he’d written, and something flashed up about this German company. By all accounts they should be making about €30m a year profit, but instead they barely break even. I used my access to pull all the company’s finances and Gary spent a weekend looking through everything. He never slept the whole weekend while he read through every line of their accounts.

“I’ve no idea how he does it, all those numbers confuse me, but he seemed to be having a great time, jotting down notes on piles of legal pads.

“Eventually he woke me up at about 5 o’clock on Monday morning, he was all stubbly and smelly from sitting at the boardroom table in my office since Saturday morning. ‘I’ve found it, love,’ he said as he shook me awake, ‘what did you lose?’ I asked, because it was fucking five in the morning, two hours before I was supposed to be awake. ‘The accountant in Germany, he’s ripping you off.’

“I sent Gary for a shower while I made coffee, then he stepped me through his notes. I have no idea how he managed it, but he’d tracked a single purchase of iron ore as it passed through six different companies, all six companies belonged to Dr Horst Schmidt, the accountant employed by Metallscheiße GmbH. Gary had gone back five years and estimated Dr Schmidt had stolen €50m, his thefts growing year by year as he realised nobody had discovered his elaborate scheme.”