A Good Man
Copyright© 2011 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 41: Home Truths
“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
I looked at Clarissa with raised eyebrows and, after swallowing the mouthful of bacon, egg and beans I was chewing, said, “You’re going to have to narrow it down, Riss, ‘cause I’ve said a lot of things.”
She rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed that I didn’t instantly know what she was talking about. “About deciding not to sell the company without at least listening to what Mr Williams has to say. I mean, you’re right, Daddy hired him to advise on running the place, so he must be worth listening to. Why would Daddy have paid him if he weren’t? I know now that they were friends and everything, but you don’t pay someone for nothing just because you’re friends with them, do you? Daddy must have trusted him. The same way he trusted Mr Brown.”
I shrugged. Then I put down my knife and fork. “How much do you know about their friendship?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t even know they were friends.”
I took a breath. “Neither did I. Not until Will told me about it. He told me that he was friends with my dad on my birthday, but didn’t find out how close the four of them, my dad, your dad, Pete and Will, were until that afternoon when...”
“When I found out Mum had been lying to me and manipulating me.”
“Yeah, then. But Will’s told me more about them since. The four of them really were best friends. And they trusted each other completely. So, yeah, if your dad hired him, it wasn’t because they were friends, it was because he trusted him to do a good job and to tell him the truth about what needed to be done.”
Clarissa nodded. “So, you’ll come with me?”
“Where?”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “To speak to Mr Williams, of course! It can’t hurt to listen to him, can it?”
I paused, then said, “Riss, is this anything to do with last night? That business with Jake?”
She looked away from me.
“Riss?”
Still looking away, she said, “No.” Then she looked at me and added, “Not really.” Then, looking down at the table, she said, “Sort of.”
“Riss, you shouldn’t let—”
Her face shot up so that her eyes met mine. I recognised the steel in them—it was the look she’d used when telling her mum she was going to carry on seeing me no matter what she thought.
“I’m not. This isn’t about him. I don’t care about him.” She paused. “But he’s not the only one, is he? Other shareholders might not get as much money as Jake, but what they do get might be enough to make life a bit easier for them. Look, when I decided not to sell, I was thinking about myself, about what I wanted. Last night reminded me that my decisions also affect other people, that’s all.”
I nodded. “It’s a big responsibility.”
“It is.”
“And it’s not fair that they’ve left this to you. That they’ve put this on you.”
“No, it’s not fair. But it is my responsibility. Like it or not, and I don’t, but it’s how it is.”
“Okay.” She raised her eyebrows, and I nodded again. “Okay, I’ll come with you. But if I do, don’t get all defensive and accuse us of ganging up on you if I happen to agree with him. Which I do.”
“You said you didn’t want to sell.” Her eyes narrowed and carried the accusation of betrayal even more than her words.
“No, I didn’t. I said I wasn’t so desperate for the money that I’d talk you into something you didn’t want to do.” I sighed. “I talked to Pete and Will a lot when they came around on your birthday, after you’d gone upstairs, and what they said made a lot of sense.”
She huffed. Then her demeanour softened, and she nodded. “Okay. Hurry up and finish your breakfast. I want to get this over with.”
“Riss?” I asked as we walked through Blackthorpe to Pete Williams’ house on the other side of the village. “Can I ask, why did you decide about not selling the company so quickly?”
She stared ahead of her for a moment, then looked at me, sighed, and said, “Because.”
“Because of what? I mean, I’m not trying to pry or anything, it’s just that since we’ve got to know each other, I’ve never seen you rush into a decision that quickly. It was as if you’d made your mind up before Pete and Will had even finished explaining things.”
She shrugged, staring at the horizon again. After a few minutes, she looked at me, took a deep breath and said, “Because it’s all I have left of him. And I don’t want to lose it.”
“You mean your dad?”
She nodded.
“But ... Surely, you’ve got other things to remember him by? Photos and things like that?”
She nodded. “Of course. But he loved that company. It was what he lived for. What he died for as well, I suppose. Selling it feels like selling a part of him, you know?”
I didn’t know, but I didn’t say that. We walked in silence for another hundred yards or so before I said, “Riss, you do know he’d planned to sell the company before ... Well, before, right? That’s why he brought Pete in. He’d already started negotiations with the Germans.”
Clarissa stopped walking. I’d gone on another couple of paces and had to double back to her. She looked at me. No, she looked into me. I was sure this had been mentioned to her before, but I got the impression that it was the first she had known of that fact. Perhaps she hadn’t been listening. Or just hadn’t taken it in.
“Is that true?” Her eyes were wide and her voice soft. “You’re not lying to me? Daddy had already started to sell the company?”
I nodded. “That’s what Pete said.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t ... But, I mean, what would...? Why...?” She blinked. “Is that really true?”
I nodded. “Come on. Pete will explain.”
Blackthorpe was a fairly small village—probably not even a mile square—so it wasn’t long before we got to the Williams’ house. I rang the bell and Lily quickly answered.
“Paul? Clarissa? What are you doing here? Not that it’s not nice to see you, just unexpected, that’s all.”
“Lils, is your dad in?”
“Yeah.” She turned into the house and called, “Daddy! Visitors!”
After a few seconds, Pete appeared behind his daughter. “Clarissa! Paul! What brings ... No, I think I can guess.” He winked at me.
“This was my idea,” Clarissa said. “I haven’t changed my mind. At least not yet. But I think Paul does have a point when he says I should at least listen to what you have to say.” Her tone was hard, cold and already defensive. I could see on Pete’s face that he’d picked up on that too. I suddenly thought this might not be such a good idea.
Pete offered a tight smile and addressed Lily. “Sweetheart, could you prepare some coffee for us, please?” He turned to face me and Clarissa. “You both like coffee, right?” I nodded. So did Clarissa. He turned to Lily again. “And some biscuits? Bring them through into the study.”
“Sure.” Lily went off to the kitchen, and Pete led us to his study, where a large mahogany desk was covered with files. He took a seat and gestured for Clarissa to do the same. There were only two chairs in the room, so I stood beside her.
“There’s a spare chair in the kitchen,” he said to me.
“I’m fine.”
“You sure? It’s no trouble.”
“Can we just get straight to it, please?” Clarissa said.
He shrugged, sighed and said, “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Clarissa. I only want what’s best for the company. You have to believe that.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why? What’s in it for you? Do you get a commission if we sell? Is that it?”
He sighed and shook his head. After a few moments, he said, “No, I don’t get a commission. Actually, I’m almost a third of the way through a fixed two-year contract, with the option to renew if the board think I’ve been making progress with the efficiency savings. If the sale were to go ahead, I’d expect the Germans to honour whatever time’s left on the contract to help with the transition, but there’s no guarantee of that. And I certainly wouldn’t expect them to renew the contract. So, I don’t stand to gain financially at all. In fact, I might even lose out.”
“So why then?”
He shrugged. “I made a promise.”
She tilted her head and frowned. “A promise?”
He nodded. “To your father. To Andy.” There was a knock at the door, and Lily entered with a tray. She set it on the desk next to her father and smiled at me as she left. Pete handed a cup of coffee to me, then to Clarissa, and finally took his own. He sat back in his seat, crossed his legs, and continued.
“After the first heart attack, Andy asked to see me and Will.” He looked at me and said, “He had two massive heart attacks, three days apart. The first one put him in the hospital, the second killed him. Nothing the doctors could do.”
I nodded my understanding. I hadn’t known the exact circumstances of Andy Liddington’s death, only the rumours that went around the school at the time.
Pete addressed Clarissa again.
“I think he knew what was happening. Knew it was inevitable.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then took a deep breath. “He insisted on seeing us together. Me and Will. It was just the three of us. And he made us promise three things.”
He held up his hand with three fingers extended and counted off the promises, one by one.
“First, he made us promise to look after Christine—he didn’t trust her to stay out of trouble. I think Will covered that when he got that moron Rogers to sign the pre-nup agreement. Good job, too. I hear she slung him out last night, that right?”
Clarissa smiled and nodded.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish. Of course, if she wasn’t so stubborn and had listened to me and Will and Charlotte in the first place...” He shrugged. “The second promise was to look after you. And I’d say that Will’s done a pretty good job of that as well. You probably haven’t noticed, but he’s had a big influence on making sure both of you were well treated and looked after ever since Ben, Millie and Andy passed.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know that now.”
Clarissa said nothing, and I did wonder if Will had played as big a part in her life as Pete suggested. Or as big a part as he had in my life. I mean, he was still very much ‘Mr Brown’ to Clarissa, not ‘Will.’
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