and urine; the ground squelched underfoot. On the wall above, a scarred sign advertised the Rosenberg Automation Company.
Delicately, as if she were handling medieval parchments and not the refuse in a back alley behind a factory, she peeled the boxes apart to find the names written on them. She wrote them down on a pad of paper. Some had telephone numbers or web addresses, and she wrote those down too with shivering, sticky fingers.
When she was done, she clambered out of the skip and went round to the café across the street from the factory entrance. AChinese woman brought her greasy eggs and coffee while she watched the morning shift arrive. Some of the workers came in to get breakfast or a cup of tea, and she listened carefully to their conversation. If any of them had seen her the day before, they didn’t connect her with the young woman who’d arrived in the Bentley and the thousand-pound suit. That morning, Ellie had scraped her hair back into the tightest ponytail she could manage, and put on an old tracksuit she hadn’t touched since she left Newport. She wore no make-up. She wondered if this was how she’d have looked if she’d never left home, never gone to Oxford, never written an essay for the Spenser Prize and never come to the attention of Vivien Blanchard.
All I need is the baby
, she thought.
She sat there most of the morning, pretending to read the
Sun
and observing the delivery vans come and go. At eleven o’clock she drained her last cup of coffee and found a bus to take her west. She showered at her flat and tried to scrub the dirt from under her fingernails. She looked longingly at the new clothes from the day before: would it be wrong to wear them two days in a row? She was sure Blanchard would notice.
‘I wondered if you would join us this morning,’ he said, when she finally reached the office. It was half-past twelve and he looked angry. Ellie didn’t care.
‘I’ve got it,’ she announced. ‘Rosenberg.
We have consolidated our supply chain
, he said, remember? They went too far. There’s a component in their products, a logic board, and they only have one supplier. They’re completely dependent on them.’
Blanchard leaned back in his chair and drew on his cigar. Ellie already recognised the trick: to lure you on withindifference, ready to snap back at a moment’s notice. ‘How do you know this?’
‘The accounts. Last year they spent a quarter less on components than the year before, but their sales stayed constant. I went down to the factory and looked around. There are only two companies in the world that make these logic boards, and only one of them has boxes going into that factory.’
Blanchard stared at the painting on the wall, at the helpless damsel tied to the tree.
‘They can insure against supply-chain disruption.’
‘Their premiums haven’t changed.’ Ellie could hardly control her excitement. ‘The old man hasn’t told them. He’s driving without insurance and praying he doesn’t get in an accident. I made a few phone calls.’ Pretending to be a buyer from a rival firm, trembling with the deceit and the fear of getting caught. ‘It would take him six months to arrange a new supplier, and the business doesn’t have the cash to survive that long.’
She stopped talking and realised she was shaking. For the first time, she began to understand the energy that drove Blanchard.
‘And you propose
…
?’
‘Buy the supplier as well. It’s owned by a private equity firm who are sitting on a lot of losses. They’d bite your hand off. Then merge the two companies and make the business properly viable.’
Blanchard knitted his fingers together and stared at her, as if she were a work of art he was slowly coming to appreciate. His cigar burned untouched in the ashtray.
‘Ellie, this is good. Very good indeed. Our client will be delighted when I tell him.’
When
I
tell him
. Ellie tried not to look disappointed. Blanchard saw it anyway.
‘I am
Delicately, as if she were handling medieval parchments and not the refuse in a back alley behind a factory, she peeled the boxes apart to find the names written on them. She wrote them down on a pad of paper. Some had telephone numbers or web addresses, and she wrote those down too with shivering, sticky fingers.
When she was done, she clambered out of the skip and went round to the café across the street from the factory entrance. AChinese woman brought her greasy eggs and coffee while she watched the morning shift arrive. Some of the workers came in to get breakfast or a cup of tea, and she listened carefully to their conversation. If any of them had seen her the day before, they didn’t connect her with the young woman who’d arrived in the Bentley and the thousand-pound suit. That morning, Ellie had scraped her hair back into the tightest ponytail she could manage, and put on an old tracksuit she hadn’t touched since she left Newport. She wore no make-up. She wondered if this was how she’d have looked if she’d never left home, never gone to Oxford, never written an essay for the Spenser Prize and never come to the attention of Vivien Blanchard.
All I need is the baby
, she thought.
She sat there most of the morning, pretending to read the
Sun
and observing the delivery vans come and go. At eleven o’clock she drained her last cup of coffee and found a bus to take her west. She showered at her flat and tried to scrub the dirt from under her fingernails. She looked longingly at the new clothes from the day before: would it be wrong to wear them two days in a row? She was sure Blanchard would notice.
‘I wondered if you would join us this morning,’ he said, when she finally reached the office. It was half-past twelve and he looked angry. Ellie didn’t care.
‘I’ve got it,’ she announced. ‘Rosenberg.
We have consolidated our supply chain
, he said, remember? They went too far. There’s a component in their products, a logic board, and they only have one supplier. They’re completely dependent on them.’
Blanchard leaned back in his chair and drew on his cigar. Ellie already recognised the trick: to lure you on withindifference, ready to snap back at a moment’s notice. ‘How do you know this?’
‘The accounts. Last year they spent a quarter less on components than the year before, but their sales stayed constant. I went down to the factory and looked around. There are only two companies in the world that make these logic boards, and only one of them has boxes going into that factory.’
Blanchard stared at the painting on the wall, at the helpless damsel tied to the tree.
‘They can insure against supply-chain disruption.’
‘Their premiums haven’t changed.’ Ellie could hardly control her excitement. ‘The old man hasn’t told them. He’s driving without insurance and praying he doesn’t get in an accident. I made a few phone calls.’ Pretending to be a buyer from a rival firm, trembling with the deceit and the fear of getting caught. ‘It would take him six months to arrange a new supplier, and the business doesn’t have the cash to survive that long.’
She stopped talking and realised she was shaking. For the first time, she began to understand the energy that drove Blanchard.
‘And you propose
…
?’
‘Buy the supplier as well. It’s owned by a private equity firm who are sitting on a lot of losses. They’d bite your hand off. Then merge the two companies and make the business properly viable.’
Blanchard knitted his fingers together and stared at her, as if she were a work of art he was slowly coming to appreciate. His cigar burned untouched in the ashtray.
‘Ellie, this is good. Very good indeed. Our client will be delighted when I tell him.’
When
I
tell him
. Ellie tried not to look disappointed. Blanchard saw it anyway.
‘I am
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