Highland Fling (8 page)

‘What exactly have you told your mother, Philip? I
thought she wasn’t supposed to know there was trouble at t’mill.’

Philip acknowledged this feeble joke with a raised eyebrow. ‘She obviously knows more than I’ve let on. I’ve tried to keep things from her so she won’t worry, but of course Papa ran the mill for years, and he wasn’t that good at it, either.’

‘Well, I’ll try not to tell her anything bad – if there is anything bad, of course.’ Jenny smiled. ‘It’s very kind of her to have me to stay, in the circumstances. I could easily have stayed in a B&B near the mill.’

Philip shook his head. ‘My mother likes having people to stay, believe it or not. And it gives both Felicity and her someone new to talk to. Besides,’ he shot her a glance, ‘if she suspects there are problems, she wouldn’t want people to gossip. If you stay with us, there’s less chance of people finding out there’s anything wrong.’

‘I see.’ Jenny wondered if she offered to take a vow of silence she would be allowed to stay somewhere warmer, but decided probably not. She changed the subject. ‘And what about you? Does living at home cramp your style?’

‘Not really. I have a bit more freedom than Fliss has, of course, but no, I like the old place.’

Jenny sat back and looked at the mountains, layer upon layer of them, rising up to the sky. Now, the lower slopes were bright with heather, but in winter, when the heather was over, would they loom gloomily, or inspire the lifting of one’s eyes? She sighed. Perhaps she was tired, but this job was already depressing her.

‘Oh! Would you mind stopping? There’s something
in that shop I need.’ They were passing a filling station that had a shop selling woollens and souvenirs attached to it. It was having an end-of-season sale. ‘If you could just park somewhere, I’ll be in and out in a brace of shakes.’

It wasn’t quite a brace of shakes, but when she did emerge, she felt a lot happier. She was wearing a pair of tartan trews and an Aran sweater. Under it she had on a silk polo-necked top. She was carrying a bag containing several lambswool jumpers, a cardigan and a couple of tartan skirts.

‘My credit card will need a while to recover from that, but now I think I’ve got the right clothes.’

Philip looked into the plastic carriers. ‘Mmm. All made by the competition, I’m afraid. We just can’t compete on price.’

Jenny’s brief uplift in spirits faded, but at least she was warm.

‘That’s so beautiful!’ declared Jenny. They came round the corner and there it was, Tombuie, nestling at the base of the hills where two rivers met. ‘Ihad no idea Tombuie was so pretty! And is that the mill?’

She pointed to a group of long, grey buildings, about four storeys high, with regular rows of windows and slate roofs. There was a huge mill wheel at the side of the biggest building. A second glance showed her this was no longer functional, but the whole was extremely picturesque.

‘The buildings look fascinating, and I wasn’t expecting anything half so attractive. With the mountains going up behind like that, it’s delightful!’

‘It’s all pretty enough, I suppose.’ Philip seemed
unmoved by the sight of his heritage but Jenny looked in delight at the millrace, the wide flower borders, stone troughs planted with flowers, and hanging baskets. It was a pretty site for a factory, and someone obviously cared enough about their surroundings to make it even prettier.

Philip ignored the signs to the car park and pulled up outside the entrance to the building. ‘Do you mind if I leave you to look at the books this morning?’ He got out and came round and opened Jenny’s door. I’ve got some things to do.’

Jenny heaved herself up out of the car. ‘Well, don’t you want to be there with me?’ She didn’t stand on her dignity, but her visit was important to the company. He should have been taking it all a little more seriously.

He held the swing door open and let her pass. ‘To be honest, I know you’re going to find things in a bad way, and I know some of it is my fault. But have a good look at the books and you’ll be able to tell which is my fault and which is market forces.’

‘Market forces’ sounded like a good, fat, coverall excuse and Jenny was surprised he’d chosen to use it. Personally she would have liked to make quite sure that anyone scrutinising the figures was absolutely clear on what was what.

Philip signed her in and got her a security badge.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked as he clipped it on. ‘You’re not offended?’

She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him the bad impression his attitude had given her. She decided there was no point. She shook her head. ‘No. You just show me to the office and introduce me to the staff; I’ll have my guided tour later.’

‘Oh, you don’t want a guided tour, do you? It’s only some machines, and not really relevant. It’s the books you want to see.’

She didn’t point out to him that the figures could have been got to her without her actually driving seven hundred miles to see them. She had been sent so she could get the feel of the place, meet the workforce and recommend decisions based on facts, not on balance sheets.

‘Yes, but I’d like to get an idea of the whole business, so that the paperwork relates to something.’

He shrugged. ‘Jenny, my whole humble factory is yours to inspect whenever you want but, I’m afraid, today I can’t be your guide.’

‘Well, whenever. I’ll stick with the accounts for now.’

His lack of interest bothered her. It wasn’t only his livelihood that was at stake, and that of his mother and sister, but also that of the entire workforce. If Dalmain’s went into liquidation, dozens of families would be affected. But maybe Philip felt that somehow he personally would be all right, and so wasn’t worrying about anybody else.

As they walked through the building together it occurred to Jenny that her client hadn’t expressed a lot of interest in the workers, either. Grant-Dempsey’s last email had just asked her to look at profits and losses. He specialised in really short emails, but this one had been even curter than usual. ‘Give me the bottom line.’ It had annoyed Jenny at the time. Now she was here, and was beginning to see the human side of the business, it seemed even more heartless. Perhaps she shouldn’t work for such a blatant capitalist. The
trouble was, he was a blatant capitalist who gave her a lot of work and paid her well and promptly, which couldn’t be said about all her clients. Henry might tell her that her Mr Grant-Dempsey was using her, but she’d be mad to give him up – he was her route to a bit of independence from Henry, something Jenny wanted badly.

‘Come and meet Miss McIntyre, my right-hand woman,’ said Philip, opening the door to an office without knocking. ‘Kirsty’s worked here all her life.’

Late middle-aged, and smartly dressed, from her iron-grey hair to her sensible, leather-shod feet, Philip’s ‘right-hand woman’ was hostile. She was wearing the kind of well-cut tweed that was both warm and smart, if formal. She made Jenny terribly aware of her Aran sweater, her tartan trews and her loafers. If it hadn’t already been too late, Jenny felt she would have suffered frostbite rather than have appeared before this woman so eccentrically dressed.

Completely unaware of any tension, Philip breezed on. ‘Kirsty, this is Jenny Porter, who’s here to sort us all out.’

‘Good morning, Miss Porter,’ said Kirsty, making her position on the use of Christian names on brief acquaintance quite clear. She had the kind of Scottish accent that made Miss Jean Brodie seem lacking in refinement.

‘Good morning, Miss McIntyre,’ said Jenny, taking the hint.

Philip turned to Jenny. ‘Anything you want, just ask Kirsty. She’ll make sure you have everything you need. Now, I’ll be off. I’ve got a lot on.’

Without Philip, Jenny felt the chill of Miss McIntyre’s dislike. She looked as if she would make sure Jenny had everything she needed only if it included strychnine.

Jenny swallowed. ‘I hope you won’t find my visit too much of an intrusion.’ It was a hope doomed to die before it had been uttered. Seeing the other woman raise a disapproving eyebrow at her clothes, Jenny felt obliged to explain. ‘I brought all the wrong things for Scotland. I had to buy some others. It was either trews or a kilt, and I didn’t know which tartan I should have.’ Jenny smiled, although she knew she would get no woman-to-woman understanding about sartorial cock-ups from Kirsty McIntyre.

There was not even a twitch. ‘Mr Dalmain said you must be allowed to see everything you ask for.’ Her scepticism was blatant.

‘Yes.’ Jenny was emphatic. ‘I’m here to help, but I can’t unless I know everything.’

‘Are you here to help? I had the impression that you were here to prove the company was unviable, and to close us down as soon as possible.’

Jenny suddenly felt too hot in her Aran sweater. It could have been the central heating, but she knew that, really, it was the rush of guilt, because what Miss McIntyre said was probably true.

‘I’m to find out what is going wrong with the company. If there’s something that can be done to make it go better, well, that is what I’ll tell my client and he will act accordingly.’

‘Your client?’

‘Yes. I’m what is known as a virtual assistant. I work for several clients. Mr Grant-Dempsey and his syndicate
are just one of them. We communicate mostly by email.’

Miss McIntyre nodded so slightly it was hardly noticeable. This tiny movement conveyed every negative emotion from disbelief to disgust, barely stopping short of hatred.

Jenny’s smile felt artificial, even to her. Fleetingly she wondered if her client stayed in California to avoid actually meeting the people he put out of work, but she rejected the idea. He probably wouldn’t be bothered at all. After this job was over, Jenny resolved to dump him, whether she needed his business or not. Without him, she would have to work harder to build up her client base, but there was more to life than money. (She waved her thoughts of a place of her own a reluctant goodbye.)

‘What would you like to see?’ asked Miss McIntyre, possibly wondering why Jenny had gone silent.

‘All the books, and the spreadsheets. And’ – for a moment she considered admitting to her need for caffeine, but lost her nerve – ‘please could you show me where I could get a cup of coffee, later?’

Chapter Five

It did not take Jenny’s postgraduate course in basic accounting to see that the company was not making a profit, nor was it difficult to see why. They were spending far too much on materials and selling finished items far too cheaply. They had financed this expense with a massive loan from M. R. Grant-Dempsey and his syndicate. With this they rented machinery, the payments for which were more than what was coming in most months.

Jenny felt a little warmer towards her capitalist client. He didn’t need to have sent her to know what the problem was, and he could have just forced Dalmain’s into liquidation without the courtesy of a personal visit from her. Perhaps he did want her to find a way forward for the company, although, if so, why didn’t he say?

A little late in the day, she started to wonder about her client. In the eighteen months she had worked for him, he hadn’t done any obvious (to her, anyway) asset stripping. But she knew he had an office somewhere in Europe, and kept her for his UK business. It was possible that the European office dealt with his really shady deals.

She chewed her pen, then realised it wasn’t hers and put it down quickly. If M. R. Grant-Dempsey had an
office already, why did he use her? The whole point of virtual assistants from the client’s point of view was that you could have the services of an office and secretary, but not the overheads. Of course, it might have been difficult to send someone from Central Europe to do what she was doing, and if he was abroad he couldn’t do it himself. She just had a nagging suspicion that she might have been there as a gesture to correct behaviour when, really, he meant to asset-strip all along. Otherwise, why had he invested in a company that was going nowhere good?

Jenny had been scrutinising the computer screen all morning, trying to find something positive and she had a headache. She was rubbing her forehead with her palms when Miss McIntyre came in. Jenny looked up and saw that although she was holding a cup of coffee, it was not a peace offering.

She put it down firmly. ‘Well, Miss Porter, have you managed to pin the blame on anyone?’

Jenny found Miss McIntyre’s hostility intensely irritating and unhelpful. Making allowances for the older woman’s position, she dredged up her last drop of human kindness and forced a smile. ‘Please call me Jenny, or Genevieve, if you prefer. If we are going to work together it would help if …’ She’d been about to add ‘if you weren’t so openly unfriendly,’ but realised that, of course, she couldn’t.

Miss McIntyre wasn’t so squeamish. ‘I prefer to keep a proper distance between us. I’m sorry, but I’m quite incapable of trying to ingratiate myself with someone who is jeopardising not only my job, but the jobs of many others, people with families to support.’

Jenny took a breath, too angry to count to ten, but
trying for some control. ‘Miss McIntyre, I am not asking you to be my friend, I am only asking for a little co-operation. I’m not entirely stupid. I know perfectly well how communities are affected when the main employer goes. But it would be a lot easier for me to find something constructive to say about this company if I had someone to answer a few questions! For example – why do you appear to have a shed full of wool when it says here that only a few bales a week are being used?’