Maxine was alone the Reigate House. Adrian and Cliff were away in Sheffield looking at a prospective deal. She was dealing with paperwork and the accounts. This was the one part of being in business that she hated but it needed to be done on a regular basis. All the businesses that Lorelei had invested in made regular financial reports. These needed to be collated and various profit and loss projections made. This, along with the expenditure of the business allowed them to see a picture of how things were doing with the business.

Adrian had been very patient with her when he introduced her to the intricacies of doing the books for the many different companies that she and Adrian controlled. What was hard for her at the start was getting to grips with the different requirements of other countries had for business accounting and reporting.

More than once she had proclaimed,

“Why don’t you get a bookkeeper to do all this?”

His reply would invariably be,

“I do it this way so that I always have an accurate view of what state the finances are in at my fingertips. My Father did it this way and it works for me so why change eh?”

Maxine knew that he had a good reason for keeping things the same but the sheer amount of time it took her every month to make everything balance was testing her patience to the limit. She knew that one day it would have to change. She had already investigated a computer-based accounting and modelling package but that would have to wait for another time. Until then it was all to be done by hand.

When the phone rang, she smiled. The phone call would provide some temporary relief from trying to find a missing £26.43 from the local business accounts.

“Hello, Lorelei Investments and Consulting?” said Maxine in her best ‘receptionist’ voice.

“I’m sorry, Mr Forsythe is not available today.”

“Not tomorrow either. He is away on business and won’t be back until Thursday. May I ask who is calling?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed when she heard the name.

“I will be sure to let him know that you called and will be calling again on Thursday.”

“Thank you, Mr Sansom.”

“Sorry Mr Sansom. I should have introduced myself. My name is Maxine Saunders. I’m his number two.”

“No, I fully understand that some things are best not discussed on the phone. I’ll tell Adrian that you called when I speak to him later today.”

“Thank you for the call Mr Sansom. Goodbye.”

She put the phone down and sat still. She was visibly shaking. She had just spoken to an American multi-billionaire. Furthermore, this man had wanted to speak to Adrian. For some strange reason, balancing the books was just not that important anymore. Maxine’s inquisitive mode kicked in and she set to work with a level of enthusiasm that had been totally absent before the phone had rang. To be honest, doing anything other than balancing the books seemed more important to her at that moment.

By late afternoon, she’d produced a two thousand-word report on Garth Sansom, the American multi-billionaire who had called them totally out of the blue. This included a timeline of all his major purchases and disposals, references to articles and profiles of him and a whole host of quotes about this normally secretive man. Direct quotes from him were almost as rare as hen’s teeth. She was in a bit in awe of him for getting to where he was without a lot of public speaking was an admirable achievement.

What she didn’t like was some of his more well documented habits after he took over a company. He invariably cleaned the house of senior executives. She understood why he did this. Most of the time, it was pretty obvious that it was their cockups and inability to take key decisions that had caused the problems in the first place. Then he’d appoint a new management team from outside his organisation. Almost always this resulted in a huge change in fortune for the company. As a result, he became very, very rich. In the few cases where this didn’t happen, the result was very messy. Those events had given him a fearsome reputation which made the call even more surprising.

The Caller ID that had appeared on her phone told her that the call had either been number spoofed or had originated from around twenty miles away in Farnborough, Hampshire. A reverse number lookup soon found that the call came from the Aviator Hotel which is adjacent to Farnborough Airport.

With her interest piqued even more, she checked the flight tracking sites and found that a Lear Jet that was registered to one of Mr Sansom’s companies had flown from an airport on Long Island close to New York to Farnborough the previous day landing at Farnborough just before the airport closed for international business for the night at 23:00.

The mystery deepened but nevertheless, she added all this extra information to her report. If truth were to be told, she enjoyed this side of the business far more than actually dealing with people and problems. She thought back to those heady summer days in Chichester and her first faltering steps in becoming a woman. All that seemed to have happened a million years ago.

There were some things that needed to be tied up but she felt satisfied with her work. She’d been so engrossed in the work that she’d totally missed getting something to eat for Lunch. It was too late for that now and too early for an evening meal so Maxine went out for a walk.

The route she took was one that she and Adrian had done many times before. It went up onto the North Downs and followed the route of the ancient ‘Pilgrims Way’. This was the route that people took when making a pilgrimage from Winchester to Canterbury. Now, much of the route was a long-distance footpath called the North Downs way. The views from the top of Reigate Hill on a clear day were stunning.

But, to her annoyance, the cloud base was low, very low. Even, the top of the TV relay tower was lost in the mist but the physical exercise was allowing Maxine to clear her mind.

As she reached the bridge that crosses the A217 at the top of the hill, she chuckled as she remembered the first time she’d gone walking after her breasts had healed. She winced at the pain of a badly fitting bra and how she’d literally fled home to her mother in tears.

Naturally, her mother did what good mothers do and sorted everything out. She’d taken Maxine to get her properly measured for a bra. The difference once she was wearing a good bra had made was as different as chalk is from cheese.

By the time Maxine returned home, she was feeling hungry. After a quick shower, she prepared some food. Once again, she gave thanks to the cooking lessons that her mother had given her and Dawn as children. The memory of her and Dawn throwing flour over each other as they were being taught how to make pastry made her smile but it soon disappeared as she wondered what Dawn was doing now. More than once she had considered hiring a Private Detective to find her but had chickened out. This was another of those times and that it might be better to let ‘sleeping dogs lie’.

---

As her food was cooking, she sent her report on Garth Sansom to Adrian along with the gist of his phone call.

It didn’t take long for Adrian to call back. Immediately she regretted not sending it until she had finished eating.

She saw his number on her phone.

“Lorelei Detective Agency!”

“Perhaps I should leave and do just that eh?”

This was a little game that they played with each other.

“Yes darling. I really do think it was him. He’s staying at the Aviator. That is the Hotel right next to Farnborough Airport.”

“What if he uses a phone that uses CDMA in the USA. That won’t work here as we use GSM technology?”

“Yes, I did tell him that you would be away until Thursday. What time will you be back on Wednesday?”

“That late?”

“No, I won’t wait up so just be quiet when you come to bed.”

“Yes,” sighed Maxine.

“The books are all done. Only a small discrepancy.”

“Small, less than thirty quid. I was looking for it when he called. I’ll get back on it tomorrow don’t worry.”

“Yes, I’m sure I’ll find it.”

“How’s your trip going? Have they said yes yet?”

“Oh, I see. Still more work to do. That is what you said might happen isn’t it?”

“Good luck for tomorrow. See you soon,”

“Bye.”

Maxine put the phone down and dashed into the kitchen. The potatoes were nearly about to turn into mush so she mashed them and added lots of butter and black pepper and her pork chop was overdone but still going to be eatable even though it was a bit tough.

While it rested, she fried some onions and garlic. Adrian was not a fan of garlic so when he was away, she could indulge to her hearts content just as long as she wasn’t meeting clients or worse, Adrian if he was due back that day.

---

[Thursday]

“Time to get up sleepy. You don’t want to still be in bed when Mr Sansom calls!” said Maxine as she shook Adrian awake. It had been almost one in the morning by the time he arrived home.

“Five more minutes,” muttered Adrian.

Maxine shook him again.

“That’s the last five more minutes you will get. Next time I’m tipping you out onto the floor.”

Adrian responded by pulling the duvet tighter around his body. All without opening his eyes.

Maxine turned back to applying her makeup. She was due at ‘Bea Beautiful’ just after nine that morning. A new set of nails and eyelashes were the order of the day for her as well as a touch-up of her ‘roots’ should Bea decided that it was the right time.

Ever since Jasmine had arrived for dinner with her and their mothers in Trowbridge with the longest lashes you could ever imagine and calmly told her mother that they were individual lashes and that they were staying for at least a month, Maxine had been a convert to fake lashes even if it meant regular trips to the salon to get them done again. She had struggled with applying traditional false lashes so these were a godsend to her. All they needed was a few strokes with the mascara brush and she was done. No more waiting for glue to dry or hoping that the ends of the false lashes stay put.

She thought about applying another coat of mascara but decided against it so she did her lipstick.

As she did so, she looked for any sign of Thomas in the mirror. This was not unusual. Ever since she’d had what little beard he had possessed, lasered away and a little bit of work done around the eyes Thomas was nowhere to be seen. When she was satisfied with the results, she stood up.

She returned to Adrian’s room. He had not moved an inch.

“Right, you asked for it,” she said defiantly as she gripped the duvet and pulled it off of Adrian’s naked body. He always slept naked. His reaction was just not quite fast enough and she won.

He opened his eyes.

“Did you have to do that?”

Maxine stood in front of him with hands on her hips.

“It is nearly half-eight. I’m due at the Salon at nine. Unless you get going now you won’t be downstairs before nine. What if he calls then eh?

How will that look?”

“So?” responded Adrian.

“His reputation in business is not pretty. Not pretty indeed. I’m not sure that I want to get mixed up with him.”

“Until you know what he wants, you can’t decide one way or the other. How many times have you said to me about rushing to conclusions and repenting at leisure eh?”

Adrian returned a look that told Maxine, ‘ok, I know, I know. Now stop nagging and get me some tea!’.

Maxine smiled.

“I’ll put the kettle on! You can make you own tea. I need to get going.”

Adrian grumbled something unintelligible but Maxine was able to guess what it was about.

As she left the house she called out,

“The kettle is boiling!”

Then she walked out the door and came straight back in.

She laughed. That had to be her ‘Doh!’ moment for the day. She was still wearing her bedroom mules.

The second time she left home she was wearing some proper shoes and was totally ready to face the world.

---

Three hours later, she returned with a new set of lashes to see through and a nice new set of nails topped by some dark blue polish. The colour had silver and gold flashes in it which had sold it to Maxine in a flash. For someone who normally eschewed bling this was as close as she wanted to go at being daring.

She found Adrian sitting in his part of the Office just looking out the window at the garden.

“What’s up? Did he call?”

Slowly, Adrian nodded.

“Well, what did he say? Does he want to buy you out?”

“No… Nothing like that at all.”

Maxine took off her coat and after hanging it up, she sat down next to him.

“Right then Adrian, spill the beans. What did he say?”

“That’s it. That’s the thing I don’t understand. It just does not make sense at all…”

“What does not make sense? At the moment, all you are saying is total gibberish.”

Adrian sat back. Then he smiled.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

“Expecting what?”

“He wants my or rather our help!”

“What?” replied Maxine trying to stop herself from bursting out laughing.

“Is that all?”

Adrian looked at Maxine and then realised that she was joking.

“Ok, you got me. How do you do that?”

“I don’t know. It, sort of comes naturally. I was always able to do that to my sister.”

Adrian thought for a moment.

“He said that he heard about us in relation to Frederick Mangan.”

Maxine thought for several seconds.

“Oh, the guy behind Geo-Stay Inc?”

“That’s him. Apparently, Mangan is a business rival of his and has been for years.”

“So, what has that to do with us?”

“He heard what we did to Mangan and loved it. He thinks that Mangan took a hit of around fifty million dollars on the deal. According to the limited figures the Hotel Chain has to file at companies house, he’s loading up the company with debt and will more than likely bail out in a year to eighteen months. There won’t be much left. Oh, and he’s already sold all the land that the hotels sit on a lease back deal. That’s covered the losses he made on the take-over. Now he’s preparing the thing for a sale. I’d expect some ‘vulture capitalists’ will step in, load even more debit and exit leaving a shell that will more than likely go straight into liquidation.”

Neither of them said anything for a while.

“I feel sorry for the staff. They’ll all be out of a job when it folds. Who will buy such an ‘up the spout business’ eh?”

“That’s where Garth comes in,” said Adrian.

“Garth? What happened to Mr Sansom?”

“He asked me to call him Garth. That’s all.”

“Ok, so what is he going to do and how does that implicate us?”

Adrian smiled.
“Always right on top of it.”

“Naturally. And who trained me to be like that then?”

“Ok, ok.”

“So?”

“He wants us to front a company that buys what is left after Mangan bails out in order to rescue it and save the jobs.”
Maxine thought for a moment.

“That’s risky. That’s an awful lot of money to stump up.”

“It is indeed. There is a lot to do before this all happens.”

“But why does he want our help?”

“That’s what I thought. He said that it is a long and complicated explanation but he saw my next question coming a mile off. He’s sending me an email with some of the background. I was wondering…?”

Maxine smiled.

“You were wondering if I’d do a research job to see if he is telling porkies? Am I right?”

“Exactly. And he’s giving us a week. If what we find tallies up with what he told me then he wants to meet. He’ll be back in the UK on the eighth.

He’ll be flying into Farnborough from the States.”

“What did he say was the history?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. How about I don’t tell you and you do your job and then we can see how the stories match?”

“Do I get a gold star if I get the right answer?”

Adrian grinned.

“We’ll see.”

Maxine leaned over and gave him a kiss.

“You say the nicest things… sometimes!”

---

[one week later]

“That’s it, I’m done,” said Maxine as the laser printer burst into life.

“How many pages?” asked Adrian.

Maxine grinned and looked at the screen on her computer.
“Forty-Nine Pages and another ten in a spreadsheet.”

“You have been busy.”

“Frederick Mangan and the rest of the Mangan clan are very active bunnies indeed. If you thought that Garth Sansom was the bad guy, that lot are off the scale. Financial rape and pillage are the name of the game for them.”

Adrian didn’t react so Maxine said,

“Have you heard of the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s?”

“Yes? Don’t say that the Mangan’s and the Sansom’s are bitter enemies?”

“You bet. I can find public records going back to 1825 of their feuding. Back then, they lived on opposite sides of the same Valley in Kentucky. They have been knocking each other off for generations. That stopped after the Mangan’s turned in the Sansom’s during Prohibition. The Sansom’s took down six feds in a fire fight. The rest of the family escaped into the woods. The feds spent two months searching for them but like a magician, they’d all gone.

When the feds had gone and things had quietened down a lot, the Sansom’s returned they blew up the Mangan homestead and all the outbuilding and killed most of their livestock. After that they seem to have called a truce at least from violence but they both went into business in a big way and became business rivals who love at getting one over on the other side… Even if it costs a few million dollars.”

Adrian was by now grinning from ear to ear.

“Read this…”

He handed Maxine a printout.

“This is what was in the email that Garth sent me.”

Maxine read it and laughed.

“So, I get a gold star then?”

“You do. Two actually.”

“There is a lot more.”

Maxine stood up.

“I’m going for a long soak. I’ve been hunched over these screens for far too long. Why don’t you read what I have produced and we can take this up again in the morning?”

Adrian smiled.

“Glass of Wine?”

“Red and large, very large please. A bottle of very nice Paulliac would be ideal.”

---

[the next day]

Adrian had worked long into the night going through the facts and figures of her report and spreadsheets. The level of detail in her analysis was amazing. It was the sort of report that companies like IDC and Gartner charge their clients thousands of dollars for. Maxine had learned a lot of those skills from the team on Chichester.

The spreadsheets listed all the myriad of companies that both families owned. Some of the acquisitions had hardly warranted more than a couple of lines in the WSJ[1] yet, Maxine had got most if not all of them recorded including references, previous SEC filings and links to long since defunct websites that were archived somewhere on the internet.

Most members of both families were strictly small time in both business and criminality. The declared incomes and expenditures just didn’t add up. Maxine had surmised that Garth Sansom and Frederick Mangan were supporting their families to the tune of one and a half million dollars each per year sometimes a lot, lot more.

Adrian sat back and smiled. This report was pure dynamite. In the hands of the right law enforcement agencies, a lot of people would get their collars felt and could even face jail time. How she’d gleaned all of this from sitting at a computer more than three thousand miles from where their operations were based was truly amazing. He did wonder if Maxine might well have access to sources of information that might not be truly legal. It didn’t matter to Adrian. The picture she painted was really vivid.

Then he turned his attention to Frankie aka Frederick Mangan and Garth Sansom’s business dealings past and present.

Maxine had even highlighted the instances when their business dealings had crossed. Most of the time they did not but it seemed that every few years, Frankie Mangan deliberately tried to interfere in a deal that Garth Sansom was involved in. He usually failed but in at least eight cases, the price of the deal had gone up considerably. Maxine’s estimate was that these activities had cost Garth some sixty to seventy million dollars extra to purchase these companies.

Then he smiled as he looked at the corresponding list of disposals and found that Garth had more than covered that extra expense incurred in purchasing a company when it was sold on. One of those companies had been recently bought by a huge multi-national at ten times the price that Garth had sold it for five years before.

Both men were billionaires and were feeding large sums of money to their families. Not huge but sufficient to keep their families solvent at least on the surface.

The final section of the report detailed how Garth went about business. As he suspected he was ruthless. For years he went about wheeling and dealing and taking no prisoners. He acquired a reputation for firing almost all of the ‘B’ and ‘C’ level management of any company he gained control of. The report also made it clear that his reputation for ‘slash and burn’ did not hold up if you took a 3 to 5-year view. As Wall Street works on 90 day forecasts and figures the long-term turnaround of the companies was largely missed by the market especially as the deals were mostly between privately held companies.

Maxine’s analysis also showed that five years after the takeover these companies were almost always in far better shape than before and with minimal long-term debt which surprised Adrian. These companies often employed more people than before and the profits swelled Garth’s already fat coffers. None of this was ever reported in the press, of that Adrian was very sure. Her report contained lots of cuttings about what happened when Garth took over a company but little about what happened one, two or more years later. Good news was not news.

He tried to put himself into Garth’s shoes. Keeping the bad-guy image would be to his advantage as long as the turnaround of the company he’d bought and cleaned house was kept out of the public eye. He assumed that a very strong NDA was put in place with all the executives of his companies. The costs of cleaning house were mostly well hidden

Adrian looked at the clock. It said 03:52. The night was almost over and he was tired yet elated. Maxine had done a tremendous job. Once she had got the bit between the teeth she had ran with it and the result was beyond his wildest expectations.

His problem was what was he going to do next. Garth was not due to call until Monday. It was Thursday already.

---

Adrian let Maxine sleep in that morning. He even treated her to breakfast in bed.

“I take it that you liked what I put together then?”

“I did. What you did was fantastic. No brilliant. Well done.”

“What’s next?” asked Maxine between mouthfuls of a toasted Cinnamon and Raisin Bagel.

“As you have worked so hard, I thought that we might go away for the weekend.”

“Where? Will it be hot? What am I going to wear?”

Adrian laughed.

“I’m just pulling your leg.”

“Good. I’ve booked us two tickets on the Eurostar to Lille and then by TGV to Tours. I’ve booked us into a Hotel that sits on an island in the middle of the Loire. A change of scenery will do both of us the world of good.”

“Relaxation, wine and food then?”

“Perfect. When do we leave?”

“In about an hour and a half. That ok with you?”

“Fine. How dressy do I have to be?”

Adrian smiled.

“I thought it might be nice to dress up tomorrow night. I’ve booked us into a very nice place in Samur?”

“How nice is very nice?”

“Two stars nice.”

“Oh. Then I’d better look extra good then. Are you taking your DJ?”

“That’s the plan.”

As Maxine drank some more of her coffee she smiled.

“Do you think that outfit you bought for my birthday would be nice enough?”

Adrian laughed.

“What they can’t see can’t do them any harm now can it?”

Maxine gave Adrian a kiss.

“Now get lost. I need to start getting ready.”

Adrian picked up the breakfast things and ‘got lost’.

Ninety minutes later, Adrian was anxiously looking at his watch when Maxine came downstairs carrying two large suitcases.

“All that for three nights?”

“Pack for every eventuality. Isn’t that what you do?”

He sighed. She had him there.

“Time to go then?”

The short break away proved very beneficial to both of them. Maxine slept a lot and Adrian for once was not reading reports and articles on business. Instead he had read most of War and Peace by the time they returned home. He was a speed reader after all but once he’d gotten into it, he slowed down and really began to enjoy the story although it was a bit bloody in places.

Both of them felt ready to meet Garth Sansom the day after their return from France.

---

Maxine was back in the groove before Adrian.

“Garth is flying in from Galway. His plane landed in Ireland yesterday morning and it has just taken off and from the map, it could well be heading for Farnborough.”

“We’d better get going then…” replied Adrian as he rapidly finishing his coffee.”

Cliff took them to Reigate Station where they were just in time to get the Reading train. This one was the fast service from Gatwick to Reading. They should reach North Camp in time to get a Taxi to the Hotel that was close to the airport and where they’d hired a meeting room for the day. Even so, they were cutting it fine.

---

“Hi Y’all!” said Garth as he was shown into the meeting room.

“You must be Adrian and you must be Maxine?”

He shook Adrian’s hand and gave Maxine a light kiss on the cheek. Neither of them reacted as this was his well-known way of greeting people for the first time in business meetings. Some women had complained but Garth responded by saying, “If you want to be a man then great. Dress like one and I’ll treat you like one. I’m complimenting you by giving you a light kiss. In some parts of the world it would be two or three kisses.”

That was just one of his ways that was not going to change.

“Please… Take a seat Mr Sansom,” said Maxine.

“Darlin! Call me Garth. None of this Mr Sansom PC crap. I prefer first name terms at people I want to do business with.”

That set the tone for the day.

At the end of the day, Garth said to Maxine.

“Maxine, if you ever want to stop working for Adrian here, just give me a call. I’ll have you on my top team in a flash. I really would not like to come up against you in business. You are far too well briefed.”

He picked up a copy of Maxine’s report from the desk in front of him.

“My enemies would pay dearly for what is in this. Yet you clearly got it all from available sources. If I was wearing a hat, I’d tip it to you. There are not many people who could have put that together on their own in such a short time. I can only think of one other person who could come close to your undoubted skill and she’s no longer with us.”

Maxine felt like that she was walking on ‘cloud 99’ let alone ‘cloud 9’.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence Garth. It is much appreciated,” said Adrian.

“No Adrian. Thank you. All the comments I heard about you have been confirmed today. You two make a formidable team. I’m glad that we are on the same side.”

For the first time that day, Adrian let his guard down and smiled.

“Now I’m taking you two out to dinner. None of this Hotel crap. I fancy a pub meal out in the country. Do you know anywhere good?”

Adrian thought for a few seconds.

“I know of a place that is about ten miles away. It fronts onto a Village Green where they play Cricket. It is in a village called Tilford. I nearly bought a house there a few years back.”

Garth grinned.

“That’s the sort of place I’m taking about.”

The meal was a great success. Garth even drank the local bitter. At the end of the evening, Garth said,

“Are you ready to help me put one over on my arch nemesis?”

Adrian looked at Maxine who smiled.

“I think so. We are willing to go with the plan that we agreed.”

“Good. I’ll set the wheels in motion at my end when I get back home. You know what you need to do?”

“We do and we’ll got on it in the morning. In the meantime, we have to hope that Frankie Mangan does not get wind of what is going on…” said Adrian.

Garth shook his head.

“As I said, he’s a bit busy in Minneapolis dealing with a Union problem at a place he owns. Well, if he will try to impose a ten percent pay cut just to make the books look good for a sale then there is little wonder that the Teamsters are angry. My sources tell me that he flew in there last night and will have to sit down with the Union by the end of the week. The blockade that they have put on shipping any cargo going to or from all Mangan owned companies is starting to hurt and, hurt real bad if you get my meaning.”

“Oh, and before you ask, this is none of my doing at all. He’s brought this all on himself. The world knows that the Unions back home and I generally don’t see eye-to-eye on a whole range of things, but I’d never impose a unilateral pay cut on any of the Union members who work for me. That is just asking for trouble.”

Then he stepped up to Maxine and gave her a kiss on both cheeks. She went a bit red in the face.

“Don’t forget little lady. If you get tired of Adrian and want a new challenge then give me a call. I’d be honoured to have you at my side when doing business.”

Maxine was quiet for much of the following day. Her mind was still on the meeting with Garth. Adrian let her be and got on with setting up the company that they were going to use as a vehicle to buy the Hotel Chain for Garth.

[to be continued in ‘Business is not all plain sailing’]

[Authors Note]
Garth Sansom will be a major character in a forthcoming tale called “What Story?”

[1] WSJ = The Wall Street journal.