âI couldnât abandon my own staff.â
âI donât think that would be a problem,â Rorke said, looking expectantly at Crowe.
âNo,â Crowe said, a little hesitantly. âIâm sure we could keep your key people.â
â
All
my staff are key people,â Bannerman said. âItâs damned hard getting work of the kind theyâre specialized in. Iâd want an assurance from you that there wouldnât be one single redundancy before I even considered any proposal. And Iâd want your assurance that my daughter could continue to work as my right hand.â
âIâm sure we could give such an undertaking,â Rorke said genially, ignoring the warning signal Crowe was trying to communicate with his eyes.
There would have to be some give and take over staff, Monty knew, but she was thrilled by the proposal, and encouraged that at least her father had not rejected it out of hand.
âCould you tell us exactly what budget would be available, and what remuneration weâd receive?â she asked, eager to have the details made concrete.
Crowe smiled and produced, seemingly from thin air, two identical documents, one of which he handed to Monty, the other to her father. They were the first actual pieces of paper Monty had seen in the building.
The bold wording at the top said: RESTRICTED CIRCULATION: MAIN BOARD DIRECTORS ONLY. FROM THE CHAIRMANâS OFFICE .Beneath was the heading: âProposals for the Acquisition of Bannerman Genetics Research Laboratories.â
âThey are buggers, these people, arenât they?â Dick Banner-man said as the lift sank rapidly down towards the ground floor.
Monty raised a finger to her lips, looking warily at the lens above the door. âThey might be listening,â she whispered.
He shrugged, but said nothing more until they were outside the building and walking towards the car.
âWhy did you say they are
buggers
, Daddy?â
âLaying on that fancy lunch â thinking Iâm going to be impressed by something like that.â
â
I
was impressed,â she said. âI was very impressed with the company and with them.â
âTheyâve got some decent kit,â he said. âA few gizmos we could do with.â
âA
few
?â
âI can see the plus points,â he said. âBut I can also see one hell of a lot of minuses.â
âI canât see any minuses,â she said. âNone at all.â
8
London. Saturday 22 October, 1994
DR BRUCE KATZ. MR DUNSTAN OGWAN. INTERNATIONAL FACTORS. MRS V. ALASSIO. MR JOHNSON â FORD MOTOR COMPANY. R. PATEL. A. COHN. CROSSGATES TRAVEL. MR OBERTELLI. MISS REDMAYNE .
Conor Molloy surveyed the battery of signs that greeted the passengers exiting from the customs channels into the arrivals concourse at Heathrow, then stopped when he couldnât see his own name amongst them. He leaned on the brake bar of his baggage cart, scanned the sea of faces and handwritten placards more carefully.
In his early thirties, at a shade over six feet tall, with his short black hair fashionably gelled and shovelled haphazardly backwards, even red-eyed with jet-lag he cut a striking figure, and several of the people waiting to greet passengers looked at him, wondering if he was a movie star they ought to recognize.
Both his outfit and his face shouted
Entertainment Industry:
he was dressed in an open-necked denim shirt over a white t-shirt, washed-out cotton chinos with rugged boots, and a suede bomber jacket. His face had elements of both Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins but was an improvement on each. Conor Molloy possessed, by almost any criteria, drop-dead good looks. Much of his charm came from the fact that he was unaware of this. In fact, in his chosen profession, looks did not matter at all; he would have made exactly the same progress if he had been born the Elephant Man.
His eye was eventually caught by a man pushing his
âI donât think that would be a problem,â Rorke said, looking expectantly at Crowe.
âNo,â Crowe said, a little hesitantly. âIâm sure we could keep your key people.â
â
All
my staff are key people,â Bannerman said. âItâs damned hard getting work of the kind theyâre specialized in. Iâd want an assurance from you that there wouldnât be one single redundancy before I even considered any proposal. And Iâd want your assurance that my daughter could continue to work as my right hand.â
âIâm sure we could give such an undertaking,â Rorke said genially, ignoring the warning signal Crowe was trying to communicate with his eyes.
There would have to be some give and take over staff, Monty knew, but she was thrilled by the proposal, and encouraged that at least her father had not rejected it out of hand.
âCould you tell us exactly what budget would be available, and what remuneration weâd receive?â she asked, eager to have the details made concrete.
Crowe smiled and produced, seemingly from thin air, two identical documents, one of which he handed to Monty, the other to her father. They were the first actual pieces of paper Monty had seen in the building.
The bold wording at the top said: RESTRICTED CIRCULATION: MAIN BOARD DIRECTORS ONLY. FROM THE CHAIRMANâS OFFICE .Beneath was the heading: âProposals for the Acquisition of Bannerman Genetics Research Laboratories.â
âThey are buggers, these people, arenât they?â Dick Banner-man said as the lift sank rapidly down towards the ground floor.
Monty raised a finger to her lips, looking warily at the lens above the door. âThey might be listening,â she whispered.
He shrugged, but said nothing more until they were outside the building and walking towards the car.
âWhy did you say they are
buggers
, Daddy?â
âLaying on that fancy lunch â thinking Iâm going to be impressed by something like that.â
â
I
was impressed,â she said. âI was very impressed with the company and with them.â
âTheyâve got some decent kit,â he said. âA few gizmos we could do with.â
âA
few
?â
âI can see the plus points,â he said. âBut I can also see one hell of a lot of minuses.â
âI canât see any minuses,â she said. âNone at all.â
8
London. Saturday 22 October, 1994
DR BRUCE KATZ. MR DUNSTAN OGWAN. INTERNATIONAL FACTORS. MRS V. ALASSIO. MR JOHNSON â FORD MOTOR COMPANY. R. PATEL. A. COHN. CROSSGATES TRAVEL. MR OBERTELLI. MISS REDMAYNE .
Conor Molloy surveyed the battery of signs that greeted the passengers exiting from the customs channels into the arrivals concourse at Heathrow, then stopped when he couldnât see his own name amongst them. He leaned on the brake bar of his baggage cart, scanned the sea of faces and handwritten placards more carefully.
In his early thirties, at a shade over six feet tall, with his short black hair fashionably gelled and shovelled haphazardly backwards, even red-eyed with jet-lag he cut a striking figure, and several of the people waiting to greet passengers looked at him, wondering if he was a movie star they ought to recognize.
Both his outfit and his face shouted
Entertainment Industry:
he was dressed in an open-necked denim shirt over a white t-shirt, washed-out cotton chinos with rugged boots, and a suede bomber jacket. His face had elements of both Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins but was an improvement on each. Conor Molloy possessed, by almost any criteria, drop-dead good looks. Much of his charm came from the fact that he was unaware of this. In fact, in his chosen profession, looks did not matter at all; he would have made exactly the same progress if he had been born the Elephant Man.
His eye was eventually caught by a man pushing his
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