Betrayal by Clare Francis

laughed too, awkwardly. This deal was the hardest thing I had ever attempted. In the six weeks since the Cumberland takeover, I had been cut loose from the new parent company to run Hartford Crystal on a nil-salary basis, while simultaneously planning to buy it out. Raising the three million pounds of leverage from the banks, keeping all the financial and legal balls in the air, pulling together all the strands of what was an amazingly complex deal, was a Herculean task which, even on an eighteen-hour day, was stretching me to my limits. Much of the time I was suffused with a wild conviction that we would pull it off, and then I flew on adrenalin. At other times, faced by endless setbacks, I settled into something more mechanical, a mindless persistence fuelled by the determination to save what I had so foolishly jeopardised.
    There was no mystery about my motives. For me this buyout was about restitution. My father had worked hard for twenty years to build up the company and pass it on to me in good shape, while I had worked hard for ten to achieve nothing more, it seemed, than to let it slip away and threaten the livelihoods of all the people who worked for us. I wanted it back, I wanted to show what I could do with it now that I was free of Howard and his remorseless drive for diversification. I wanted to make a success of it for my own sake, certainly, b ut more than that I wanted to feel I could look the employees in the eye again.
    George and I talked our way through the monthly sales figures and were just starting on the cash flow analysis when a woman’s voice sounded in the outer office. There was something about it, the suggestion of a lazy laugh, of dark overtones, that caught at my memory and chilled my heart.
    ‘You all right?’ George asked.
    ‘Fine.’ Reaching for my coffee, I promptly knocked it over. Trying to retrieve the cup, I got that wrong too and sent it flying across the table.
    I muttered ‘Jesus!’ Then as I picked the cup off the floor: ‘What an idiot!’ I gave a disbelieving laugh. But as soon as George had gone in search of a cloth I sat in silence, wondering what on earth was happening to me and whether this was just frayed nerves or a form of delayed shock. Whatever, the loss of control frightened me, and I was unnerved by the thought that it might happen again.
    By the time George returned with a roll of kitchen paper, I was staring bleakly at the pool of coffee, trying to suppress visions of dark water and Sylvie’s flesh, mutilated and cold.
    ‘Do you want something to eat?’ George asked when he had finished clearing up. ‘A sandwich? Biscuits?’
    ‘Thanks, no.’
    He peered at me. ‘You look as though you need something. If you don’t mind my saying so.’
    I shook my head and jumped to my feet. ‘We’d better go.’
    As we made our way towards the factory floor George’s secretary hailed me from her office. ‘Mr Hugh, a message from Dr Wellesley. He’ll be free from twelve-thirty.’
    ‘Hugh or Mr Wellesley,’ I corrected her halfheartedly, having largely abandoned the hope that the long-serving staff would drop their archaic terms of address. ‘My brother will be at home, will he?’
    ‘Yes. And there was an enquiry from a Detective Inspector Henderson. No details. Just could you call him?’
    She gave me a slip of paper with a number. The area code was Exeter. ‘Thank you.’
    I glanced at the number again, then, stuffing it into my pocket, walked quickly away. George caught up and started singing the praises of some training scheme, but I was hardly listening. I was wondering what questions the police would ask me. I had no doubt it was Sylvie they wanted to talk to me about, it could hardly be anything else. We must have been seen together, on the pontoon perhaps, or the boat. Such things did not go unnoticed in a small community like Dittisham. Ever since Sylvie’s death I had been telling myself that this summons would come, yet now it had materialised I