As the weeks went by I began to think that maybe Sir Graeme Fisher wasn't as smart as he thought, either. Susie gave me blow-by-blow accounts of her meetings with him, and of the board meetings to which I'd given up access. The overall impression that I formed of the guy was that he was efficient, but maybe, just maybe… listen to me, criticising a guy who's made a billion from scratch… not quite as comfortable in the construction industry as he had been in the world of insurance and finance. All the initiatives still seemed to be coming from Susie, but, that said, we both had to concede that with him in the chair, the share price hit an all-time high, around one sixty-five a share, and stayed there.
As Gerry Meek had feared, he did secure the appointment of another accountant to the board, but only on a non-executive basis, and only after Susie had given her approval and her vote. The nominee, Philip Culshaw, had been, until his retirement, Scottish managing partner of one of the big three accountancy firms. Since then he had been collecting directorships and playing golf. By a coincidence he did the latter at my new club, and I had met him there, having drawn him in a Sunday medal. When Fisher offered him a directorship of the Gantry Group… without consulting the board first, incidentally… he had been shrewd enough to call me before accepting, to ask how Susie would view it.
"As long as you're not in Fisher's pocket, Phil," I told him, 'she'll welcome you."
Culshaw's appointment turned out to be the best move Fisher made. Far from being a Trojan horse, introduced by the chairman as a first step to axing Gerry Meek, he had been nothing but supportive of the finance director. His presence, even more than Fisher's, seemed to add to the bank's confidence in the business, so much so that for the first time since her appointment, Gillian Harvey missed a board meeting to take a holiday.
There were other benefits too. Where Graeme Fisher has contacts at the very top of British industry, and in Government too, Phil Culshaw is a mover and shaker who operates and has contacts at all levels. I didn't appreciate this, though, until one Saturday on the golf course… that was all I had available by that time. The extended location work on Mathew s Tale was coming to an end, finally, and we were approaching the point where the team would transfer to a sound stage in the south of England. I hadn't expected to play at all, but he had called me a couple of days before, to invite me to share his tee time at Loch Lomond.
We were approaching the turn and I was two down; Phil's a consistently tidy twelve-handicapper, and my lack of recent practice, even on my small private course, was showing as I struggled to play to single figures. On the ninth green he applauded silently as I rolled in an eight-footer for a half, then fell into step beside me as we headed for our buggy and the tenth tee.
"Have you been hearing any whispers, Oz?" he asked me. I I looked at him, puzzled. "What? Like voices in my head, you mean? I can't say that I have."
"I'll bet you have," he chuckled. "You're a deep one, Mr. Blackstone."
I let that pass. "No, what I meant was have you heard any rumours about the business?"
I thought about it as we rolled along towards the tee; the course was busy and there were two games waiting in front of us. "No," I told him, as we took our place in the queue. "I can't say that I have. But I wouldn't expect to, Phil. I don't move among the chatterers any more; at least I don't at the moment, with this movie I'm on. Why?
What have you heard?"
"Nothing specific," he said, quietly. "Nothing I can put my finger on.
But there's something up."
"What makes you think that? It can't be pub talk. I don't see the affairs of the Gantry Group being common conversation pieces in the Horseshoe Bar."
"No, it's not that." He hesitated. "The thing is, Oz, my old firm has acted for people in the past who've been a bit schizoid in business terms. By that I mean their core companies have been solid and entirely above board, but there's been other stuff behind them."
"That sounds familiar," I told him. "You could have been talking about the Gantry Group, in the old days."
"You get my drift. Well, a few days ago, a whisper floated back to me from one of my former partners that the subject of the company had come up in casual conversation with one of these gentlemen. Nothing specific was said, but my former colleague was left with the impression that his client knew something."
"Why?"
"Because the man said, casually, that he wouldn't be buying any shares in it any time soon."
With a struggle, I began to paint a mental picture of what he was saying to me. "You mean that the Group may be a target for gangsters?"
"That's an implication that could be put on it."
"Well it's one that won't wash. You're a director, man. You must know that we've never been asked for protection in connection with any of our jobs. We've never been approached by phoney security firms offering their services, or else. When Susie took over she cut off all the dirty bits of the group. It's pristine."
"I can see that from inside," he admitted. "But wasn't there an incident, not long before I joined the board? Something involving a small fire in the office."
"So what?" I frowned at him, looking more than a bit defensive, I suspected.
"So, the word was that it might not have been accidental."
"But it was. Read the Herald if you don't believe me."
"Since when did one believe everything one reads in the press? The suggestion's been made that it wasn't, and isn't it true that there were anonymous calls to the press and the police alleging as much?"
"A stupid staff member."
"That won't wash with me, my young friend. Nobody was sacked after it, or disciplined in any way."
"Nobody was traced."
"Did anybody ever try?" he asked, dryly.
"Leave that aside, though, Phil. There have been no incidents since that one."
"None that you know of."
"But I would, and so would you."
"Maybe yes, maybe no." He glanced across, we were next up on the tee.
"My concern is this, Oz. If anybody wanted to have a go at the group, mount a hostile takeover, say, they'd have little or no chance given the share price. The underwriters wouldn't support a bid much above the existing levels and the board would be quite justified in recommending rejection. But if the share price was to be seriously undermined…"
I got his drift. Actually I'd had it for a while; I'd simply wanted to make him spell it out. "And who the hell would do that?"
"The Torrent Group has been credited recently with an interest in acquiring Gantry."
"Come on, Phil. I know Nat Morgan. She's an aggressive character and I don't like her much, but you will not make me believe for one second that she'd conspire with criminals to undermine the share price of a public company."
Culshaw tapped his big hooked nose. "You're assuming something there, my friend."
"And that is?" I asked patiently.
"That Ms Morgan is the only player in Torrent, and that she makes all of her own decisions."
"You mean she isn't? I've had a check done on her. I know who's on her board, I know who all her major financial backers are. She's the boss, Phil."
He laughed. "You, of all people, can't be that naive. You don't have to be a director, or a major shareholder in a business, to have a fundamental influence on the way it's run. Oz, you're walking proof of that."
As I took in what he was saying, a name seemed to burn itself into my forehead. It didn't help. If anything it made me more confused than ever. Why the hell would Ewan Capperauld want to undermine the Gantry Group?
I didn't have time to dwell on it, though. "Come on," said Culshaw.
"The tee's clear at last."