6

There was something odd about Elliott North, decided Chris. More than just odd. As the Lombard lift doors slid shut in front of him, and he descended from the fourth floor to the basement garage at the end of another fifteen-hour day, he searched for the right word for Elliott North. ‘Sinister’ was maybe overdoing it, ‘eccentric’ altogether too tame. He had to mull it over a few moments before he knew he had it; the word was ‘unsavoury’.

He hadn’t noticed so much that first time they’d met in Mike Cullen’s office. North had seemed rougher around the edges than most other Lombard consultants, but Chris hadn’t seen any great significance in that. During subsequent encounters, though, he’d picked up something more. Working flat out on Project Silo, he’d been using every trick in the book, and calling in all the favours he was owed from MIRA days to obtain all the information he could on Sportex and Active Red. So far he’d uncovered no sign that either company was, as North had suggested, waging a dirty tricks campaign against Starwear. What he had found, however, was evidence of cash-flow problems at Sportex, and distribution failures at Active Red – information that would be invaluable in planning Starwear’s future strategy.

In the course of his research during the past three weeks Elliott North had visited him several times. Each time he’d used the same phrase: ‘Are you digging up the dirt?’ Chris hadn’t been sure how to react at first: the competitor research was revealing, but he didn’t see himself as being in the business of digging up dirt. Maybe that was just North’s way of putting things. So this evening when North had stepped into his office, Chris had told him about the findings on Sportex’s liquidity problems and Active Red’s failure to secure several major distributors. North had seemed interested – but not that interested. Instead he’d asked about Bob Reid and Ed Snyder – the respective CEOs of Sportex and Active Red. How had the two of them screwed up, he’d wanted to know. What skeletons were rattling in their cupboards?

North was missing the point. The personalities of Jacob Strauss’s counterparts might be titillating, but what really mattered was coming up with ways that Starwear could exploit the operational weaknesses of its rivals, and flex its brand to maximum effect. Mike Cullen had said as much himself.

It was as if Elliott North was out of sync with the rest of the agency and had his own agenda for Starwear which was different from the one everyone else was following. One of the first things Kate Taylor had told Chris about Starwear was that the agency was committed to a Four-Point Communications Strategy. She’d shown him a summary consisting of four goals highlighted with bullet points:

• To establish Jacob Strauss’s credentials among Starwear’s key audiences.
• To ensure the Textile Bill, about to be debated in Parliament, was amended to protect Starwear’s interests.
• To achieve recognition for Starwear’s human resources management in developing countries.
• To generate maximum benefit from Starwear’s annual results, to be released in a few weeks, which would show record profits.

All of that made sense to Chris, even though he didn’t understand the rationale behind every point. So where was Elliott North coming from with all this talk about skeletons in cupboards?

The lift doors opened and he stepped into the basement garage. Walking over to his car, he heard footsteps on the concrete behind him and turned to find Kate emerging from the stairwell. ‘Came down the lazy way,’ he smiled.

‘You’re a few floors up from me.’ She approached him, looking in her handbag for her keys. ‘Things going OK?’ She glanced up.

It was a couple of days since they’d last spoken.

‘Very well,’ he confirmed. Then, lowering his voice, ‘Pulled in some great stuff on the project whose name I dare not speak.’

‘Excellent!’ She knew he was working on something confidential for Mike.

They were walking together towards where their cars were parked, just a few yards away.

‘And otherwise – things OK?’ she asked.

He nodded, although she detected a hesitancy in his expression.

‘But?’ she prompted.

They carried on walking till they had reached her car, a midnight-blue Saab convertible. Kate was looking up at him now with an intensity that made him wonder if he should have left this alone. Although, even on his first day she’d signalled her own reservations about Elliott North.

‘Well I – I don’t want to make a big deal out of this …’

‘Just say it.’ She was insistent.

‘It’s Elliott. Maybe it’s just me but he seems somehow different …’

She was shaking her head with a smile. ‘In a few weeks you won’t be quite so diplomatic’ Then, catching his embarrassment, she reached out to touch his arm. ‘It’s not just you.’ She glanced about the basement garage to make sure they were alone. ‘I haven’t felt comfortable about him ever since he arrived.’

Kate evidently wanted to confide. He was flattered. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well you know what everyone in the City thought about Nathan? That didn’t just happen by accident. That happened because we managed his relationships. We made sure he was out there, pressing the flesh with analysts and reporters. They got to know him well and respect his views. So when they needed an angle on an industry story, Nathan was the head honcho they turned to.’

Stepping closer, she told him, ‘A couple of weeks ago I wrote to Jacob, suggesting an analyst briefing. Nothing formal. More an evening drinks meeting, with Jacob making a ten-minute presentation, you know, “different man, same strategy”, the kind of thing the City wants to hear. Next thing I know, Elliott North is marching into my office wanting to know what I’d been thinking of, writing the letter, why Jacob needed to meet analysts out of results season, etc., etc.’

Chris raised his eyebrows.

‘I couldn’t believe it at first.’ Kate was animated before checking her voice and glancing about them again. ‘I explained what the idea was. North said he thought it was a waste of time. I told him Jacob had to meet and greet if he wanted to build up the kind of rapport that Nathan had had. He stormed off. Then I started thinking – why the hell do I need to justify myself to Elliott North? I’m in charge of Starwear’s financial PR.

‘But things get worse.’ Kate paused for a moment to take breath. ‘Two days ago I took a call from Steve Evans at the FT requesting an interview with Jacob. Steve has always been a friend of Starwear’s – very on-side. I phoned Jacob recommending we go ahead with the interview, but he wasn’t in, so I left a message with his PA. This time I get an e-mail from Mr North. He’s heard about the interview and wants to restrict the area of questioning. I e-mail him right back, saying that’s crap. Telling someone of Steve’s stature there are no-go areas is like waving a red flag to a bull.

‘The interview was yesterday afternoon, and I went to Cavendish Square to meet Steve and take him upstairs to the CEO’s office. The drill is, after a few minutes of polite banter, I leave them to it, then call both parties later in the day to see how it was for them. So, I take Steve upstairs, and who should be sitting there with Jacob, but Elliott North. What’s more, when I signal it’s time to leave, he sits tight.’

‘Did he stay—’

‘The entire duration.’

‘And what did Steve make of it?’

Kate rolled her eyes. ‘He just thought it was bizarre. He liked Jacob – liked him a lot. He’s particularly impressed with all the Quantum Change stuff. But he said North just sat there in silence, wringing his hands like some dyspeptic Ayatollah.’

‘Was that the phrase he used?’ Chris chuckled.

‘It was.’ But her amusement soon faded. ‘I can’t operate with a control freak double-guessing me.’

‘You’ve spoken to Mike?’

She nodded. ‘He said “patience”. North’s not used to working in a structured operation. Mike says he’s got to learn to let go.’ She pulled a face. ‘He’s also got to get right off my back.’

Chris was contemplative for a moment before he asked, ‘Insecurity?’

She shrugged. ‘Could be.’ Then, consciously adopting Personal Manager mode, she said, ‘I don’t want you feeling uneasy about Elliott. He’s a displaced person right now, but he’ll sort himself out.’

Chris took a step towards his car.

‘He’s new to London. Probably just needs a good … social life.’ Kate made light of it, delivering a meaningful smile which intended more than she said.

Chris grinned. ‘I guess.’

He was still grinning as he drove his car up the ramp of the basement garage and into the street. ‘Social life’ indeed! He hadn’t had one of those for a while. His last girlfriend, Sophie, had been an on-off affair which had finally fizzled out six months before. It had been more his fault than hers that things hadn’t worked out – she’d got tired of always being the one to make the running.

Reflecting on his love life, his thoughts inevitably turned to Judith. Judith, Judith, Judith, his grande passion. The reason, he knew, his subsequent relationships with other women had never lasted very long; Judith had spoiled him for them. There were times, in his darker moments, when he wondered if he’d ever feel about anyone else the way he had about Judith. There had been such intensity, such passion, he sometimes doubted anyone could expect to have that more than once in their lives.

They had met at Oxford – he in his final year, she in her first, but both visiting the same professor for weekly discussions on American literature. Judith, with her lithe, petite frame and dark, tousled hair, caught his eye, but it hadn’t been love at first sight. The emotion came later, when they’d both gone to listen to a debate on the future of the novel, and found themselves, afterwards, continuing the discussion late into the night. It was her passion he was drawn to more than anything. With Judith, there were no half measures. What she felt, she felt and expressed strongly – something which Chris, who’d been brought up in a culture of reserve, found utterly captivating. Later, they’d laugh about how intensely they’d discussed Hollywood, the Internet and literacy standards. They’d circled round each other for several weeks, each wishing something would happen, but fearing the possibility of rejection – unexpressed emotion rising ever greater each time they met.

Then at the end of Michaelmas term, shortly before they were due to leave for Christmas, they found each other at the same carol service at St John’s, followed by a glühwein party in Tom Allwood’s rooms. It remained in Chris’s memory as an evening of ultimate enchantment, beginning with the candlelit ritual in the chapel, enjoyed for the first time with someone who provoked feelings in him he hadn’t known he possessed, and carrying on through an evening’s festivities suffused with promise. At the party, he and Judith stood in one corner, so absorbed in each other they could scarcely break away to refill their glasses. Until it was time to leave, then they’d slipped into their coats and walked the frosted, cobbled streets, aglow with good feeling, willing on the moment they were alone in his room, inhibitions dissolved.

The next six months had been the most intense and ecstatic of Chris’s life. Somehow he managed to do enough work to pass his exams. Then came the summer vacation when the two of them travelled to France together on what had felt, at the time, like a glorious, extended honeymoon. On their return, Judith had helped him choose and decorate the flat in Islington. Once she’d finished at Oxford in two years’ time, they decided, she would join him in London.

For a while the arrangement had worked well, as they weekended together, either at Oxford, which Chris loved, or in London, where together the two of them made the city their own. But Judith, who had been a supporter of environmental causes since before she arrived at university, became more and more involved in green issues. There were so many of them: energy emissions and the ozone layer, rainforests, passive smoking, food additives, whaling, child labour, nuclear waste. Fundraising and campaigning became an increasingly important part of her life; Chris found himself with the choice between seeing less of her, or joining in.

To begin with he’d hoped that by his holding back, Judith would come to find a balance between campaigning, and the time she spent with him. But as their weekends together grew fewer and less easy, he began to realise that he’d misjudged: environmental issues had become too important to her to compromise. Instead of seeking balance, she sought instead complete immersion in her cause. When she told him, on their last weekend together, that she had started seeing Clive Slater, a Greenpeace activist who’d formed a protest group at Oxford, Chris had been devastated.

Now, as he headed towards Fulham, he thought about how, for the first time in years, he could let go completely of unwanted ties to the past. His new home had nothing to do with Judith. Unlike Islington, where there hadn’t been a corner of the place that didn’t hold some memory of Judith, the Fulham house offered a completely fresh start. There was no reason why Judith should ever set foot in the place.

Of course, seeing her wasn’t something he could completely avoid – they had Oxford friends in common and would find themselves at the same parties. He’d probably see her in a few weeks’ time at Bernie’s birthday bash. And, as always, he had strongly mixed feelings about the prospect. He couldn’t deny a decided frisson of excitement at the prospect of seeing her again. She still made his heart beat faster when she stepped into a room and, crazy though it seemed seven years after their break-up, he supposed that deep down he still held on to the enduring hope that maybe …

But on the other hand, what if she arrived with some ardent suitor in tow? What kind of a mood would she be in, and how would she act around him? There had been several times, in the past couple of years, late at night, and after a lot of alcohol had been consumed, when her behaviour had been very much less than loving towards him. In fact, at one New Year’s Eve party she’d raged at him, memorably, for being an ‘anally retentive pillock’.

Hostility, he’d reassured himself afterwards, was supposed to be better than indifference. But even so, he knew he had to find a way to let go. His feelings for Judith were still unresolved, and the best way to resolve them was to find someone else to take her place in his life. But who?

At the end of the Boardroom table, Elliott North doodled in the margin of his notepad while Kate Taylor discussed what she’d been doing on Starwear’s behalf in the previous week. The regular Starwear Traffic Meetings were a total pain in the ass as far as he was concerned. Maybe it was important for all the others at Lombard to make sure they didn’t tread on each other’s toes – ‘communications synergy’ was the phrase they used in front of clients. But when it came to his own operations, the less they knew about them, the better.

In New York, the agency he’d worked for had given him a completely free hand to do whatever needed doing to keep Jacob Strauss happy. Nobody questioned where he went, what he did or why he did it. But early on, Cullen had told him that approach wouldn’t wash at Lombard. Even though Starwear was by far and away the biggest PR client in the country, and Lombard’s prize account, people in London, said Cullen, expected accountability. Transparency. They wanted to be in the loop.

Which was why he would find himself sitting round a table and going along with the game, in the company of Kate Taylor, in charge of Starwear’s financial PR, Nicholas King from lobbying, Marilyn Rhodes, consumer affairs, and Tim Wylie, corporate. And of course, Mike Cullen in the Chair. His own remit had been labelled, after much deliberation, ‘Special Projects’. It was suitably vague and all-encompassing. It meant he could still get involved in anything he wanted. And he liked it, because as far as he could see, what he did was special; all the rest was mere housekeeping.

Now the Taylor woman was reporting back on the results of an Analyst Audit that had been carried out. All the initial impressions of Jacob Strauss were favourable, she was saying now. Little did she know, she had him to thank for that. Had de Vere been allowed to busy himself at J. P. Morgan for much longer he would have produced a report that torpedoed Starwear below the waterline; the damage would have been impossible to repair.

Next on was Nicholas King, who’d been trying to persuade MPs that the new Textile Bill, soon to be debated in parliament, needed an amendment. In the past, the Government had offered a range of financial incentives to foreign companies investing in Britain, incentives that gave them a financial advantage over their local competitors. The new Textile Bill was intended to level the playing field, removing the incentives to foreign-owned companies like Starwear. It would have a big impact on Starwear’s bottom line – and share price.

‘What we’re telling Members,’ King said now, ‘is that without an amendment protecting sportswear manufacturers, this Bill is bad for Britain, and bad for the industry. We need to encourage responsible management.’

He looked round the table over his half-moon spectacles, clearly relishing his role as the architect of Starwear’s parliamentary defence.

‘The Bill is bad for Britain because existing incentives have resulted in over £8 billion of investment in the past decade, and 30,000 jobs in the sportswear industry. Take the incentives away and companies like Starwear will simply relocate to other countries who are only too happy to provide financial inducements.

‘It’s bad for the industry because, contrary to popular belief, not all Starwear profits go in their shareholders’ trousers. Starwear spends an average of £40 million a year in Research and Development, creating products which their competitors instantly copy. Take away the R&D and stagnation hits not only Starwear, but the industry as a whole.’ He delivered a perverse smile.

‘What level of support are you getting for the arguments?’ asked Cullen.

Across the table, King’s smile froze over. ‘Well, Mike, we’re up against numbers. The Government’s got a Whip on this and want to be seen as champions of free competition.’

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’d say our chances are very much less than fifty-fifty.’

Cullen nodded seriously, making a note in the margin of his Agenda. ‘You’ll keep up the pressure?’

‘Rest assured, by the time the Bill is debated, there won’t be an MP who isn’t familiar with our line.’

‘Responsible management,’ muttered Elliott North.

King glanced over at him with an expression of mild surprise. ‘Indeed.’

Now Cullen turned to North with an enquiring glance. He was always last on. After a slug of black coffee he began. ‘Just one thing. Some new think-tank, GlobeWatch, is about to be launched. Claude Bonning, President of Family First, is assembling a high-powered council to run the operation. Their main thrust is to monitor the activities of global businesses in labour relations, with a close eye on the manufacturing activities in third-world countries.’

Around the table, the others were following him intently. Then Marilyn Rhodes asked, ‘Who’s behind it?’

‘Interesting you should ask.’ North shot her a glance. ‘Independent. I guess they’ll be out with the begging bowl soon, looking for sponsorship. And I’m proposing we make a healthy donation.’

‘Whose budget?’ Tim Wylie flinched.

Mike Cullen cut in before North could reply. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’ He continued calmly, ‘But we wouldn’t, obviously, put our existing obligations at risk.’

Now Mike glanced around the table. ‘Anything else?’ he queried.

After a moment’s silence, Wylie mentioned, ‘On my way down to this meeting, Monitoring Services handed me a note. A journalist has been calling all over the Starwear operation, here, the States, even Jaipur, with questions about the Quantum Change programme.’

Having returned to the margins of his notebook, North abruptly stopped doodling. ‘What’s his name?’ he demanded.

‘It’s a her, actually,’ said Wylie, ‘Judith Laing. Herald.’

‘One of Carter’s. What do we know about her?’

‘She used to be at The Guardian.’ Kate Taylor glanced around the table at everyone except North. ‘Specialises in investigative stuff. She’s done a couple of big corporate stories at The Herald, but she’s only been there about six months.’

‘Shall I arrange the usual briefings?’

Wylie had a well-worn routine for Quantum Change journalist briefings. It involved a video presentation and handsome information satchel containing glossy reports on how Quantum Change had transformed Starwear’s fortunes.

Cullen paused for a moment before he said, ‘If she’s an investigative type, the usual treatment might backfire.’

North was nodding.

‘Get her over to Cavendish Place. Set up for her to meet the top brass in International Division – Hunter and Eaglesham. Tell them to give her an in-depth briefing. We need full co-operation.’ He glanced across at North as he said it.

‘Absolutely,’ agreed North.

At the bottom of his list of action points North wrote the name ‘Judith

Laing’ in capitals, before underlining it. Twice. He didn’t like the sound of this at all. Whoever this Judith Laing was, he needed to find out all about her, pronto – where she came from; what she was on to. And make sure she got stopped in her tracks.