Adam Gold personally received about 5000 items of post a week. Gifts from clients, promotional items from companies keen to get the Midas Corporation using their goods or services, letters begging for money, letters begging for jobs, even crazed paternity demands from women Adam had never met. It was Erin’s job in her new role as Adam’s executive assistant to sift through this mountain and dig out the possible gold: speculative brochures and particulars of property for sale that Adam might be interested in looking at. In a single day she would come across lighthouses, stately homes, rows of terraces in inner-city slum areas, even billboards and telegraph poles, all up for sale, all wanting Adam Gold’s attention.
It had not taken Erin long to work out the sort of things Adam would be interested in. Acres of wasteland in strategic locations, interesting architecture, hotels with heritage. If it was struggling to gain planning permission, so much the better: Adam had the planners in his pocket. That particular morning, Erin was leafing through a high-end estate-agent’s brochure, flipping past more of the same – Edwardian terraces, new-build faux-farmhouses, bland country estates – when suddenly she stopped. It was gorgeous. A perfectly formed Georgian terrace. It instantly reminded her of Peony House, only a pocket-sized version. She quickly read the particulars. The location was hardly Belgravia: it was in a little pocket in Crystal Palace. Erin felt elated, excited. And slowly an idea began to germinate. She had spent the last four months sitting outside the office of one of the greatest property developers in the Western world. She had listened. She had learned. She had met scores of businessmen and-women who had started with next to nothing and had built up a development fortune. Property. It was the way to make money for people in a hurry. And Erin was starting to get itchy feet.
Jeremy Sergeant, head of auction sales at Rachman Estate Agents, had been having a bad day when Erin had called. His girlfriend of seven months, Miranda Coulston, was having a hissy fit because Jeremy was taking his mother instead of her to the Rachman annual party. This meant that Miranda would not get to meet – and, as she saw it, seduce and possibly marry – George Rachman, the super-loaded, very single owner of the business. Not that Miranda was expressing it in those terms. ‘You can forget about ever seeing that Myla lingerie you bought me,’ was how she put it. And she had already called him three times that morning to remind him. When Erin walked into his office, however, wearing a Marc Jacobs skirt so short that it made him swallow his morning latte rather too quickly, Jeremy’s day began to improve.
He had fixed the appointment immediately when she had called him, introducing herself as an executive from the Midas Corporation. Sergeant knew all about Adam Gold – who didn’t? Midas was one of the biggest players in London now and, to anyone with an interest in property, Adam Gold was a superstar. Jeremy was actually feeling a little nervous about meeting someone who worked alongside him.
‘Good of you to see me,’ smiled Erin with a confidence she didn’t feel, handing him one of the generic Midas Corporation business cards she kept in her top drawer. ‘Let me get straight to the point,’ she said, after he had shown her into his office. ‘I work very closely with Mr Gold but, as you can imagine, he delegates a lot of the smaller acquisitions.’
Jeremy Sergeant smiled to himself and nodded. She was awfully young, he thought, but terribly pretty. Typical of the Americans to surround themselves with gorgeous little ball-breakers like this one. He offered a cup of tea and then settled back in his Eames chair to admire the view. Erin snapped open her briefcase and took out the auction brochure.
‘So, how can I help you?’ he asked. ‘Will a representative of the Midas Corporation be attending the auction on the fifth? As I’m sure you’ve seen, there’s a lot of fabulous property with bags of potential. Longton Ness, for example …’
Longton Ness was the jewel in the crown of the auction, a Grade I listed, fifty-bedroom Palladian stately home in Oxfordshire. It was the ancestral home of the aristocratic Montague family, but they were being forced to sell it off in lots to meet crippling death duties. Jeremy had been running a sweepstake in the office on who would buy it. Jeremy had £100 on Gupta Roy, the Indian steel magnate said to be shopping around for a country estate. But you could never discount the stately home being bought up by a developer to turn into more luxury apartments.
‘Obviously, I can’t reveal all the Midas Corporation’s plans this early,’ said Erin smoothly, although inside her stomach was churning. ‘But there are certainly a number of lots that have taken Mr Gold’s fancy,’ she continued, taking a delicate sip of tea.
Jeremy smiled. With the Midas Corporation in the room, bidding on the properties could go crazy. Thirty, maybe even fifty per cent more than the guide price. He smiled at the amount of extra commission he could make for himself. Enough to take Miranda on that week to Reethi Rah in the Maldives that she was always banging on about. That’d get her lingerie out.
Erin picked up the brochure and opened it to the page marked with a Post-it note. ‘The property that had immediately caught our attention is this one,’ she said, pointing at the miniature Peony House. Jeremy looked puzzled.
‘Hmm, not a typical Midas acquisition then?’
Erin laughed politely. ‘No, this wouldn’t be for commercial development. Adam is keen to acquire a property to be used as company apartments for Midas junior personnel coming over from New York.’ She felt sick at telling the lie, but if there was one thing that she had learnt from her short time at Midas it was that you sometimes had to be economical with the truth to get what you wanted.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Jeremy, smiling. ‘And with the new East London line …’
‘Precisely,’ said Erin, filing the brochure back in her briefcase to stop her fingers from trembling.
‘The thing is this, Jeremy. We want this property quickly. We have the interns coming in October, and there is obviously considerable renovation needed on it to make it habitable.’
Jeremy nodded.
‘So what I am proposing is that you take it out of the auction, accept the guide price now and we can complete within, say, four weeks.’
Jeremy steepled his fingers in front of his lips. ‘Well, I was expecting this SE19 to go for considerably more than the guide price,’ he said cautiously. ‘The area is something of a hot spot, what with the improved transport links and so on. At auction it could go for—’
‘You would be doing the Midas Corporation a considerable favour,’ interrupted Erin. ‘In fact, we’re having a cocktail party at The Sanderson on the fifteenth. It would be lovely to see you down there; we can talk about how our two companies can work more closely together in future. I know Adam is looking for an agent for one of the Canary Wharf developments.’
Jeremy’s eyes lit up like a Roman candle. Some of the Midas developments were worth millions: hundreds of millions. If he could be responsible for brokering a deal like that, he’d be made partner in no time.
‘I suppose Belvedere Road is really a very inconsequential lot,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s a probate property; I’m sure I can persuade the vendors to take it off the market for a very quick sale.’
‘You understand that we’ll only pay the guide price?’ said Erin, holding her breath.
Jeremy waved a hand. ‘Fine. Let me make a few phone calls and we can get this ball rolling. And can I just ask? Could I bring a plus one to the party?’ he said. Miranda had always said how she’d love to meet Adam Gold.