Babylon South (10 page)

There was a knock on the door and Michael Broad put his head in. He was, as usual, immaculate. A fashion dummy right out of the John Pardoe windows, Zegna all the way down to his socks, where the Gucci shoes stuck out like those of an intruder behind a curtain. Not a hair out of place, thought Venetia and, suddenly feeling better, smiled at his bald head.

“I have Peter Polux here, Venetia. Perhaps we could have a word before this afternoon's meeting.”

He stood aside and Polux entered, his smile as usual chopping his red cheeks in half, his white shoes as bright as bandaged feet under his dark-blue suit. He must be the only white-shoe banker in the world, Venetia thought. She knew his history, as she knew the history of everyone who worked for her or with whom she did business. He had gone to Queensland twenty-five years ago from a small town in Victoria, and had made a fortune in real estate on the Gold Coast. Seven years ago he had gone into merchant banking and become one of banking's high-flyers, taking risks declined by more staid bankers and bringing them off. He had been a founder member of the “white shoe brigade,” the new rich of the
Gold
Coast, and he had continued, as a thumb to the nose at the amused contempt of the supposed sophisticates of Sydney and Melbourne, to wear his white shoes on every occasion. He was a prominent Catholic, a papal knight, and he was famous for his gold rosary beads, which he often wore wrapped round his wrist like a holy bracelet. Venetia sometimes had the feeling that Polux looked upon the Catholic Church as a venture capital client: he certainly had a good deal of its business.

“Venetia old girl—” His wife had once told him he had no charm and now he was working on it; it was as heavy and rough-edged as a cannibal's table manners. “Today's the big day, eh?”

When Venetia decided to buy out the Springfellow Corporation and turn it into a private company, she had been thinking of going to London or New York for the money she needed, but the devalued Australian dollar and the volatility of foreign currency had made her demur. Michael Broad had suggested that, instead, she call in Polux and Company. It would be Polux's biggest investment loan, they had the money and they offered good terms. After some thought, investigation and Broad's persuasion, she had agreed.

“Are we going to get any opposition from Intercapital?” Intercapital Insurance was the biggest outside shareholder in Springfellow. “They may want to hang on for us to offer more.”

Polux shook his handsomely waved head; it was somehow an insult to the gleaming bald head sitting beside it. “Intercapital are cautious, Venetia old girl. They don't think the bull market can last—they're expecting prices to go down after yesterday. They'll grab what they can while they can.”

“What do
you
think about the market?”

“Oh, it'll bounce back—I don't think it'll peak till just before Christmas. Friday's drop on Wall Street was just a hiccup, it happens all the time there. No worries there.” He took out his rosary beads, a gesture of habit, and ran them through his fingers.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
thought Venetia,
pray for us bankers now and at the hour of our bankruptcy . . .
He saw Venetia looking at the beads and he laughed and put them away in his pocket.

Venetia turned to Broad. “What about you, Michael? Are you bullish, too?”

She paid him 200,000 dollars a year, plus bonuses, and so far he had not failed her. He was
greedy
and ambitious, just as she was; she knew herself well enough to recognize her faults in other people. He was ruthless, too: something she only half-admitted to herself. It is not in human nature to be totally honest with ourselves; evolution still has a way to go.

“Of course. I shouldn't be recommending we go into this deal if I weren't. Now is the time to buy, when the rest of them are wondering when it's going to end.”

“We could wait till prices go down further.” She was only playing devil's advocate and both of them knew it; she was as eager as he to complete the buy-out of Springfellow. Tomorrow she would be as rich as Holmes à Court and Kerry Packer and Alan Bond, at least in assets, Boadicea up there amongst the warring men. The thought made her giddy. Feminists would write hymns (hers?) to her, Maggie Thatcher might send a message of congratulations, if she could remember where Australia was . . . She smiled inwardly at her fantasies. She had a sense of humour, something the more rabid feminists and Margaret T., too, would never forgive her for. “It's all hypothetical, anyway. We'll have everything wrapped up by five o'clock this afternoon.”

“Absolutely!”

Broad's bonily handsome face lit up. He was the Springfellow corporate finance director, in his early forties, a little old for a whiz-kid but still called one by the kid columnists on the financial pages. A clothes-horse from an expensive stable, he was determined to impress from the first impression; he had spent almost a whole year's salary on an Aston-Martin convertible when everyone else was buying a Porsche or a Ferrari; he let everyone know, with a sort of cultured vulgarity, that he was not run-of-the-mill. But he would never go too far. The sharp observer (and Venetia was one) could always see the invisible rein he kept on himself.

He had come out of Prague in 1968, when his name had been Mirek Brod and he had been a young idealist and patriot. He had told Venetia something, but far from all, of his early life in Czechoslovakia. He had told her of throwing rocks at the Russian tanks, of seeing them bounce off and realizing the futility of it all. He did not tell her of his father, a morbid sincere Communist who committed suicide when the Russians came in; nor did he tell her of his mother, an unstable woman who
went
mad after his father's suicide and died in a fit. He kept all that to himself, held in by the tight rein that now guided his ambition. He no longer threw rocks, was no longer a patriot of Czechoslovakia or his adopted country, was now an egoist if not an egotist. He loved no one but himself, but he harboured dreams that some day Venetia might turn to him for more than financial advice. Or if not her, then the boss's daughter: it didn't matter. But he was too shrewd to show it. What he didn't know was that Venetia knew it.

“By this evening we'll be sitting pretty. I can't wait to read it in the newspapers tomorrow.”

“You're gunna show „em, Venetia old girl!”

Venetia old girl showed her teeth; both men, blind with dreams of triumph, took it for a smile. “Let's go and have some lunch.”

As he stood aside to let her pass out of the room ahead of him, Broad said, “Oh, how did the inquest go?”

You cold son-of-a-bitch:
he might have been asking her how a visit to the dentist had gone. “Murder by person or persons unknown.”

“Eh?” He was startled and puzzled; it wasn't the sort of answer he'd been expecting. Up till now, Venetia's life before he had come into it had never interested him.

“The funeral will be tomorrow,” she said, went past him, crossed the outer office and went into the boardroom where a light lunch had been laid out. Behind her she heard Broad say to Polux, “An extraordinary woman!” and Polux grunt in agreement. You don't know the half of me, she told them silently. But then, she told herself, there is a percentage of myself that even I don't know.

The board meeting began an hour and a half later. The other board members filed in: Edwin and Emma, Justine, two directors from Intercapital and three outside directors representing the public shareholders. With them was a flock of legal eagles and financial advisers. Major wars, thought Venetia, have been started with smaller gatherings than this.

Edwin nodded politely at her and Justine, as he would have even if they were bringing him before a firing squad; which, in a way, this was. Emma gave Venetia a look as blank as that of the firing
squad
itself; she didn't look at Justine at all. The others crowding into the big room smiled or looked deadly serious, depending upon their experience of Venetia. Though none of them had had the experience of a two-billion-dollar takeover by a woman; for some of the more historically-minded she might have been the Empress Tz'u Hsi; they walked gingerly, as if their feet were tightly bound. Some of them, Venetia noticed, had their briefcases in front of their genitals, as if afraid of castration. She must look for a small scalpel, to wear from her gold bracelet.

The boardroom was all pale grey but for the pink upholstery on the chairs and a single Marie Laurencin painting on one wall. Some of the older men looked as if they would have preferred to be in a darker, panelled room, a men's club, which most boardrooms in Australia were. Even the more cultured of them thought the Laurencin was out of place, especially since it was a painting of pale, semi-nude women. If it had to be a nude, give „em a Norman Lindsay.

When they were all seated, one of the men, a newcomer, looked around for an ashtray and found none. “Do you mind if we smoke, Lady Springfellow?”

“Yes,” said Lady Springfellow and that was that. “Right, I don't think there is any need for preliminary remarks. My daughter will sum up why we are here and then I'll listen to what you have to say.”

Justine stood up. She was dressed in pink today, a silk dress that offset her mother's grey silk suit. They hadn't gone to the inquest wearing mourning, today was a day for battle colours, though knights who had ridden into combat under pink and grey banners might have been suspect. The younger, even the older, men looked at Justine with approval: a girl as beautiful as this had to have a soft side. She had recovered from the ordeal of the inquest; she had been upset at what had seemed to her the cold-blooded formality of it all, as if declaring a man legally dead meant no more than taking away his driving licence. Still, the ghost of her father, even though a gentle one, had at last been exorcized and now she was her mother's daughter completely.

“First, let me say when we take over the various elements—”

“When?”
said Emma, soberly dressed, even wearing a hat and gloves: old Mosman keeping up
standards.
“Nothing has been decided yet.”

“Yes,
when.”
Justine looked across the table at her aunt. The older men looked slightly embarrassed; women should not fight, at least not in the company of men. The younger ones sat up, hiding their grins by lowering their heads; this was going to be even better than they had anticipated. Then Justine went on: “The Springfellow name will be retained. We shall do that out of respect for tradition and for the value of the name. It's a name I'm proud to have myself.”

She looked across at Edwin, who visibly annoyed Emma by nodding.

“So—” Justine had learned a few tricks from her mother: the value of a pause, for instance. “So we are offering six dollars fifty for all Springfellow and Company shares beyond those my mother and I own, subject to the usual minimum acceptance conditions. On top of that we are offering nine dollars fifty a share for all those shares in Springfellow Bank beyond those owned by Springfellow and Company, again subject to the usual conditions.”

“Those should be two separate transactions,” said one of the Intercapital directors.

“They will be,” said Justine. “I am merely summarizing here. But we do not want any hiatus between the two deals. We want them wrapped up together. Payment will be in cash, payable within the usual thirty days. The corporation will then become a private one, though certain of you will be invited to join our board.” That was a carrot thrown in front of the horse drawing the tumbril and everyone recognized it as such.

Especially Emma. “Very generous. Do you expect us to respond to that sort of bribery?”

“Not you, Aunt. I wouldn't expect it of you,” said Justine coolly. Oh, I'm proud of you, thought Venetia and sat silent. “We are just hoping you will take the money and run.”

“I've never run away from anything in my life,” said Emma, peeling off her gloves, which were not kid but suggested chainmail. “We real Springfellows never do.”

Beside her Edwin tried to look like a man who wasn't already bending to the starting-blocks. Seemingly there was less fight in him than in his sister; it was as if he knew the battle was already lost and he wanted to retire, if not run, with dignity. In his secret heart, which he never opened, even to his wife,
he
knew that Venetia had taken over the Springfellow empire at least five years ago; indeed, almost from the day, long before that, when she had legally inherited Walter's estate. Also in his secret heart he had hoped that Walter might some day reappear and save them all. But tomorrow that hope would be buried for ever with Walter's bones.

“I am not selling,” said Emma, gloves now off, “no matter what you may offer. Nor is my brother.” She did not even look at Edwin; he was leaving all the fight to her. They
were
fighting, he knew that, but he had lost all heart for it. “We have the capital to buy up a major block of shares in Springfellow and Company and we are doing that at the moment.”

Justine looked up the table at her mother; Venetia looked at Michael Broad. He spread his hands in an almost Jewish gesture. “Unless it's happened in the last hour . . .”

“It has,” said Emma, bare-knuckled. “You should have kept track of the stock exchange board.”

As if on cue but a trifle late, like a wounded messenger from another part of the battlefield, there was a knock on the door and one of Venetia's secretaries came in and put a sheet of paper in front of her. Venetia looked at it, then sat up straight. Justine sat down at once, recognizing she had just lost her status. Her mother was not the sort of general who stayed in the background when the tide of battle went against her.

“Seven dollars a share is being offered for Springfellow and Company. Four million shares have been bought in the last half-hour—” She looked at the sheet of paper. “I don't know who the sellers are—”