Chloe's Rescue Mission (3 page)

As I entered my friend’s office, Owen Shaw swivelled round in his chair. His desk was somewhere under a heap of magazines and empty biscuit packets. ‘Hi Chlo. Thought you looked great on TV, this morning.’

I looked him in the eye. ‘Yeah, yeah. Bet you didn’t even see it. I know you never get out of bed before nine.’

‘True. But I saw it on catch-up. How did your meeting go with Duncan J. Thorsen, then?’

‘You know him?’

‘Course I do. He’s a real hot-shot. Rags to riches in ten years. And he made it really big in the last year – especially with his TV programme.’

‘Really? Doing what?’

Owen wandered over to the scale-encrusted kettle that stood on an old chest of drawers, filled it from a bottle of water and flicked the switch. ‘One of those business make-over programmes; ‘Guinea-Pigs’ or something like that. Takes a company just starting out, offers the owners his pearls of wisdom, then stands back to watch ’em sink or swim.’ He grinned at me through his shaggy fringe and adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose. ‘Great concept.’

‘Oh.’ I had a sinking feeling.

‘So, did he offer you money?’

‘Not yet.’ I lifted a box of cables from a chair, and sat down. ‘I suddenly have a sneaking suspicion he might be lining me up for his TV show.’

‘Cool. Any publicity’s good publicity. Coffee?’

I nodded. ‘Mind if I look him up?’ I asked, heading for his computer.

‘Whoa! Let me save that before you start mucking about in cyber-space.’ He clicked a few keys before typing Thorsen Leisure into the search engine. ‘I think you’ll find he’s worth a few quid.’

I scrolled through the website: hotels in London, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Miami and Mauritius – an impressive portfolio. I stopped on the page about the company’s founder – Duncan J. Thorsen. It was a very good picture; he was leaning against a marble balustrade, which overlooked a vast, aquamarine, infinity pool, beyond which lay the sea. I looked carefully – had someone doctored the picture to make his eyes as blue as the pool?

The blurb said he was thirty-six, born in Edinburgh of a Swedish father, and was a junior athletics champion. No mention of a wife and family. I returned to the search engine as Owen placed a chipped mug beside me. I found several news articles about Thorsen Leisure’s acquisitions and a summary of last year’s TV hit – Business Angel – which had hurled him into the media spotlight and been so successful, he’d actually bought the production company that had made the programme. I looked up at Owen. ‘How did you get from Business Angel to Guinea Pigs?’

‘Same difference. Whatever happens, they’ll edit it so he ends up looking like the dog’s doo-dahs.’

‘Hmm.’ I sipped my coffee and scanned a number of other entries on the search engine. ‘Especially since he owns the company.’

When I selected images, I found several press photos of him accompanied by beautiful women, including a couple of celebrities I recognised. None appeared to be the red-head I’d seen in the photo on his desk. Interesting.

‘Ooh!’ I exclaimed, homing in on a gossip site and an article entitled: Dunc Juan and Bridie Nash in sudden split. I clicked to read it.

‘Bridie, former girlfriend of footballer, Garth Finch, and recent squeeze of hotel tycoon Duncan Thorsen, merely said, ‘No comment’ when approached on the subject of their recent split. Speculation is rife as to the real reason, with playboy Duncan remaining tight-lipped. Has he perhaps been up to old tricks – changing his dates as often as most guys change their boxers? Old habits die hard, eh, Dunc?’

Intrigued, I searched for more on Bridie – a waif-like creature with massive, charcoaled eyes, who was accessorized within an inch of her life. She was carrying a different but conspicuous designer handbag in every picture.

‘D’you wanna see your website, then?’ Owen rolled his chair alongside mine.

‘Absolutely,’ I answered, guiltily closing the webpage.

He took control of the keyboard. ‘It’s looking good. D’you wanna add your meeting with Thorsen Leisure to the News page?’

I chewed my bottom lip. Well, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Even if Duncan didn’t take me on – at least it demonstrated we had some serious interest in the theatre. I tapped a tattoo on the coffee mug with my fingernails. ‘Okay. Let me write something – but I won’t mention any names. Don’t want to upset him before he’s even drawn up a contract.’

Owen shrugged. ‘Up to you. By the way…’ he paused.

‘By the way, what?’

‘Seen anything of Warren, since you got back?’

A small, invisible mule kicked me in the guts. ‘No. Why, what have you heard?’

‘Nothing. But I’m guessing it won’t be long before he hears you’re back. Just wondering if he’s…well…got used to the idea, yet.’

‘I hope so. Mum heard from him at Christmas, and that’s it.’

‘Yeah. Me too.’

‘What’s that old song? Fifty ways to leave your lover – and I tried every one of them.’

‘Costa Rica was a classic, though,’ Owen winked. ‘Got the message then, didn’t he?’

I began chewing on the side of my thumb. ‘I dunno. I haven’t been in touch since I left. He’s so paranoid, I’m surprised he didn’t report Mum to the police for killing me off and turning me into meat pies.’

Owen nodded and grinned. ‘Well, she is a great cook.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Come on, I’ll write this news item.’

‘Go for it!’ Owen wheeled his chair back and took a digestive biscuit from an open packet. ‘I like what you’re wearing, by the way. But then, you’ve always had style, Chlo.’

Which, coming from Owen, who only ever wore jeans and baggy t-shirts, clinched it – the outfit was going to the charity shop.

As soon as I got home, I checked the theatre’s Facebook page. The
Wake-Up!
programme had certainly generated interest – though not all of it useful. We had a slew of congratulatory messages and a couple of requests from opportunists asking to use the theatre – for free – for which they’d be willing to hand over a share of their profits. Hmmm. I switched over to the emails that came in from the website. There were three messages of support from aging Joshua Steele fans and a few offers to donate money. One, in particular, caught my eye. It was from King Lloyd Holdings – and read:

Dear Chloe

I watched your interview on
Wake-Up!
with interest. It is our company’s policy to invest, each year, in a worthwhile construction project. I wondered whether perhaps yours might fit the profile.

I have a meeting in Gloucestershire, on Tuesday, and would be happy to meet up if you are available.

Please email or call my mobile (number below) to make arrangements.

Best regards,

Ray Marsden

Financial Controller

I checked the company’s website. It was a holding company for a number of specialist engineering companies, with profits of thirty-two million in the previous year. Comfortably solvent, then.

I replied immediately and, later in the day, heard back that he would be happy to meet at the theatre on Tuesday evening but added, ‘I trust there will be no television cameras present until and unless we agree to move forward.’

‘Of course,’ I replied.

This was good. This was very good. It was only a few hours since my TV appearance and we already had two appointments with interested parties. Who knew what else might come in, over the following days?

Days later, sun was streaming through the glass doors of the theatre’s foyer, as I paced from box office to staircase and back again. I was waiting for my Business Angel to arrive. If this didn’t go well, I still had King Lloyd Holdings up my sleeve. Although I doubted they had the Wow! Factor that Thorsen Leisure offered or, rather, Dunc Juan. We had recently been bombarded with calls from VPW Construction – the predatory housing company – and worse, we’d received a local authority letter warning there were moves afoot to close and condemn the theatre.

‘Ghastly, snivelling civil servants!’ Mum had spat, after reading it. ‘What’s the betting they’re in the pocket of the developers?’

‘They can’t be. It’s not ethical,’ I’d argued.

‘Darling, since when did ethics get in the way of greed? I remember The Old Rectory mysteriously went up in flames, only days before the campaigners were going to Downing Street with their petition to save it.’

The clock in the foyer ticked over to two minutes past twelve. What if, one morning, we woke up to discover our lovely theatre had been burnt to the ground in the middle of the night? It wouldn’t be difficult to sneak round the back and set off a few small fires. I shuddered.

A sleek, silver Mercedes pulled into the car-park. My stomach clenched. This was it – probably the most significant meeting of my life, to date. I must not blow it with inappropriate jokes, verbal diarrhoea or begging.

I checked my appearance in one of the mirrors that ran the length of the stairwell; I’d chosen an Aztec print dress which I’d bought in San José. It was in my favourite colours of turquoise and orange. I had a pearl and turquoise pendant with matching earrings that Grandee Joshua had given me on my sixteenth birthday, and I’d tamed my hair at the back of my head with fine, navy rope. Not bad, I thought. Smart without being too formal. It was Sunday, after all.

Moving out onto the theatre steps, I watched as Duncan blipped the car lock and sauntered over. He was wearing cream chinos and a blue polo shirt, which made him look more athletic than his office suit had. I swallowed, stood tall and walked down the steps, a bright smile on my face and my hand held out in greeting. ‘Good morning, Duncan. Welcome to the Joshua Steele Theatre.’ I hadn’t spent half my life on stage without learning a thing or two about how to deliver an opening speech.

He took off his sunglasses and returned my smile with one less enthusiastic. He shook my hand. ‘Good morning, Chloe. Not a bad location.’

No small talk today, then. But I wasn’t about to have my pitch undermined; location, services, nearby restaurants – all of them considerations for the success of the theatre – were covered in slide five of my presentation. ‘How was your journey?’ I asked brightly.

‘Good, thanks.’

‘Come on in.’ I headed towards the steps.

Duncan, however, held back. I turned to see him looking up at the front of the theatre. His eyes were narrowed, possibly against the sunlight or, more likely, scrutinising the fabric of the old building for reasons not to invest. Then he scanned the small car-park. Eventually, he said, ‘Okay, show me round.’

I hoisted the frown from my face and opened one of the large, glass doors. I’d met his type before – control freak. I grabbed my folder from the box-office hatch, about to begin our tour but stopped when I saw him studying the gallery of photos lining the foyer walls.

‘This is you?’ he asked, pointing to a black and white shot of me in a gingham dress and plaited hair. I was seated between the Friendly Lion and the Tin Man. I was fifteen at the time.

‘Yes. And the Tin Man is Morgan Ash.’

‘Really?’ He peered more closely at it before looking along the line to an even earlier picture of me in Hansel and Gretel, taken when I was eleven – all gangly arms and legs.

‘Do you still perform?’ he asked.

‘Not so much, these days. “Been there, done that,” as they say.’ I nodded my head as if to convince him I really did feel that way. No point going into detail about my rampant stage fright.

He didn’t comment but stepped back, looked at me and said, ‘Ready when you are.’

‘Great. This way.’ I pulled the door open to the stalls. Owen had come over to help me set up the presentation, and was now lurking up in the control room to hear what was being said.

Not much, as it happened. Duncan started by tapping walls and testing seats. As I watched him run his hand over the threadbare corner of a seat cushion, I gushed, ‘Ideally, we’d refurbish the seats, but I don’t see them as essential at this stage. When they get very tatty, we tend to swap the ones in the popular areas for those in the corners and at the back.’

‘So I noticed. What about the dressing rooms? You said they need rebuilding. Can you show me?’

‘Yes. Hang on a sec. I’d really like you to hear the acoustics.’ I stepped forward and waved to Owen in the control room. As I did so, he dimmed the lights and turned up the sound system to play a short track by a local band. I watched Duncan’s face. In the gloom, I could make out a deep, unnerving frown. When the track ended, he merely nodded and waited for me to progress.

In the first dressing room, where I’d personally replaced every dead light-bulb with a new one, Duncan asked to see the surveyor’s report. Fully prepared, I opened the folder at the right page and handed it over. He glanced through the paragraphs and turned to the builders’ estimates – of which there were two. The frown hadn’t budged. In fact, it seemed even more entrenched. Maybe it would lift when I showed him the presentation Owen and I had spent hours putting together. I was praying it would demonstrate our commitment and professionalism.

He closed the folder and looked at me. ‘Can I have a copy of this?’