Chapter 54
Before close of business that afternoon, Meredith had returned to his office and was ready to ‘light the blue touch paper and retire’ – Ridgefords would be told about the appeal which would start a chain-reaction.
After changing the ribbon on his typewriter (there was no secretary that day), he bashed out a curt, five-line letter : Plantation was appealing Hedley’s judgment and the papers would be with the court and Ridgefords on Monday. After faxing it off, he imagined the sensation it would cause.
The next day, Saturday, he went to Riordan’s chambers and saw Wells and Ashby there. Together, they spent until eight o’clock that evening, going over successive drafts of the appeal until nothing more could be squeezed into it. There were lots of alternative this or that’s and secondary and tertiary arguments going into why the judge had overlooked many of the important facts. Much was made of the fraud angle. At last, they’d gone through it for the final time. Meredith said it would be typed up first thing on Monday morning and filed with the court before lunchtime.
With the appeal out of the way, Riordan lit himself a cigarette and said “We’ll really be under the cosh, once it goes in on Monday. It won’t leave you much time, Robert, to get what we need.”
“How much time will I have ?” asked Ashby.
“Well, allowing for a safety margin, I would really say two weeks – and that’s it. If you can’t come up with the proof by then, the appeal will very probably be knocked back. Waring will come on board and Plantation will close its doors.”
“If I can’t get proof of the fraud, could the appeal still succeed ?”
Riordan never stuck his neck out to give a client even the faintest hope. Neither did any other solicitor or barrister he knew. The legal profession wasn’t known for its optimism.
“Between us, I don’t expect Ridgefords or Ransome or Garrick to lose a moment’s sleep about what we’ve said in the appeal papers. Essentially what we’re doing is buying time. Our prospects of succeeding on the appeal are.....I’d rate them at about five per cent.....but even if we did succeed, there would still be the Court of Appeal itself and....”
With a cursory wave of the hand, he left the sentence unfinished, meaning that there was almost no prospect of success.
“I appreciate the time you’ve put in,” said Ashby while noticing how late it was. “Don’t worry about getting paid while the injunction is in place. I’ll pay you out of my own money. My mother wasn’t exactly poor and neither was my father although most of his money was tied up in the company. There’s still some of it available to me.” And he gave Meredith a personal cheque for twenty thousand pounds.
The others had to go home to their families.
On the journey to Haslemere, Ashby felt as if he’d been driven to the edge of a precipice, repelling attacks from all sides.
The same question kept pestering him : “Why was it happening ?”
His life had been transformed a fortnight earlier. His father was suddenly gone and Plantation was on the point of going too. The six claims had almost fatally wounded it. Only his father had been fighting them off. As soon as he was gone, a liquidator was about to step in the door.
In the past few days, the first of the claims had landed a direct hit. Plantation’s bank accounts had been frozen and now the liquidator wanted control of the company.
The unseen forces which had sent his father to an early grave were now pursuing him. Only a small amount of time remained until they might subdue the company altogether. Even if the Stratos claim was beaten, there were five more claims which were just as large and dangerous as the first one. Despite that, he would never give up : it was not in his nature to surrender without a fight.
If he gave in, he’d be throwing away forty years of his father’s work. Since childhood, he’d always wanted to build on what his father had started – there was something of the old British merchant trader in him – like those who had founded Singapore, Hong Kong – and New York. If there was the prospect of expanding Plantation as his father had envisaged, he wouldn’t let go of it.
After he returned home, it was close to midnight and he wasn’t able to sleep. He went downstairs and sat at the piano in the living room. It was an old German upright with candleholders, out of tune and unplayed for a good five years or more. He remembered some Bach : it reminded him that life is difficult but one had to overcome adversity.
There was no-one to disturb at such a late hour ; he was alone in the house which had seven bedrooms and twenty acres around it ; the nearest neighbours were a mile away.
As he played, he was reminded how he’d studied at school for his A-levels. Upstairs, the room next to his bedroom had been a workplace for him. After he’d left home to go to university, his father had used it as a store-room for his business papers. Downstairs, there was a separate library and study which his father used for business.
Since he’d been back from Texas, he’d wanted to go through all of his father’s files but hadn’t found the time. His father usually kept everything and didn’t throw anything away ; his old records might explain why the disaster had happened and how it could be overturned. Thinking this, he ceased playing, went into his father’s study, turned on all the lights, then went and made himself a black coffee.
As soon as he felt more awake, he unlocked the drawers of the banker’s desk and every cupboard and bookcase in the room. Then he took out all of the boxes of papers and documents and stacked them in order so that he knew where they came from.
In all, there were eighteen boxes of documents, some original and some photocopied. Most of it concerned Plantation’s business dealings in the sixties and seventies. There was a mound of business cards from companies around the world, arranged by country together with audio cassette tapes, video cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, photographs of marketing events, magazines, advertising proofs, corporate identification and accounting spreadsheets. Everything else was paperwork – policy wordings, different types of contracts, correspondence with clients, accountants, lawyers, Inland Revenue – the list went on and on.
When the dawn chorus began at six o’clock, he’d finished going through everything but had found nothing of use. There were only old documents which his father had kept for future reference. Jim Ashby was a hoarder and disliked throwing things out ; it was a habit of the war years when even paper was scarce.
He decided to do a thorough job of it and went upstairs to the room next to his bedroom. After dragging everything out, there were another dozen boxes of documents. By nine o’clock on Sunday morning, he’d only discovered the same type of papers he’d found downstairs.
At the end of his search, there was nothing to help him.
He sat down at the piano again and played one or two passages he could remember. Before long, he was unconsciously thinking about everything he’d looked through and how varied Plantation’s business had become over the years.
There were some huge contracts his father had taken on, especially in the United States. Some of what he’d found, he couldn’t understand – letters in foreign languages, some, not all with translations.
Out of curiosity, he went back to the files and looked more carefully through them. There were one or two telexes with numbers, similar to the one he’d received at the office. He’d forgotten about it as he’d been occupied with the Stratos hearing. One telex had the same digits arranged in groups of four, double-spaced and nothing else. He scrutinised them closely. They had the same telex reference number or call sign.
For some reason, his mind was often more attuned to numbers than words. He recalled the same six digit number in a small black address book he’d found in his father’s desk at the office. He’d brought it home with him. After finding it and checking the entries, one of the listings matched the telex number. His father had written alongside it the word ‘Malory’. That was all. No telephone number, address, company or other name.
The name ‘Malory’
rang a bell but had nothing to do with Plantation or his father : it had been given to him by the British Consul in Houston in early 1982 before Ashby had set off on his tour of South America. Shortly after his return a month later, the Falklands War had started.
As things had turned out, ‘Malory’ had only briefly entered the picture. He’d completely forgotten about him.
Thinking this, the name in the address book seemed more than coincidental. To put it to the test, he decided to go into his office very early the next day, Monday to find out.
After he’d put everything away, he was able to sleep for a few hours. When he awoke, his mind went back to Houston. It was the end of January 1982. That’s when it happened.