Chapter 23
Captain Hill contacted Mrs Borne before he did anything irreparable about First Officer Carter, and she was verily pleased that he did. Stephanie Borne quickly rang her financial advisors, stock broker, solicitor, and finally me that very same day, ‘Andrew, will it be convenient for me to call on you again sometime very soon?’ quickly followed by ‘I promise you there will be no funny business’. Her husband had died five years previously, and if she was going to go in for any of ‘that’ it would be with Captain Colin Hill - unless she had a better offer, but the only day that was suitable to us both was unfortunately the same day that the three golf course architects were visiting, still it couldn’t be helped as she was off on the ‘Chairman’s Grand Cruise the following day. She hated the title Chairperson (I was starting to like her more and more) so I agreed to squeeze her in - was that an ‘ooh!’ that I heard down the phone? ‘Oh, by the way Stephanie, do you know anything about golf?’
‘Anything about golf?’ she retorted, ‘I am a demon, every spare minute I get is spent on the golf course’. It even turned out that she was the President of her local very high profile golf club, and she readily agreed to help me with my plan. She arrived early, and after a quick chat with Paul and Eddie, she was ‘up to speed’, she used that phrase a lot (going off of her again), apparently she had dealt with course designers many times before and enjoyed taking them apart. Before they arrived the architects had all done their homework well; they had received the aerial photos and Geological Survey report from Paul, and an in-depth breakdown of Andrew Michaels, his wealth, his demeanour and golfing ability from professional investigators. They then drew their plans and thought that it was going to be like taking candy from a baby; but they hadn’t factored Stephanie Borne into their equations. They arrived at lunch-time, of course expecting one, but as everyone knows there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’. We sent two of them off on walkabouts with Eddie, and invited the remaining one into my office; it was like leading a lamb into the lion’s den. It didn’t take long – a quarter of an hour later and he was out again, in total shock, and swiftly back off to his drawing board, and the same thing happened to the other two, they would all have another two weeks to come up with very much improved designs, and forget the silly money.
Following the slaughter of the architects I took Stephanie for a well-deserved free lunch at my favourite restaurant (as I was forever paying the tab there I now claimed it as my own) and over a lazy meal Steph (getting more informal by the minute) came to the point of the visit, and it wasn’t Carol, well not directly. She explained that she only held forty-five percent of the shares in the Company, her late husband had been a great sailor but unfortunately a lousy businessman, and as I owned an awful lot (but not quite enough to carry out a hostile takeover bid) she wondered if (eyelids batting) I would let her have some of mine, not all of them, just enough to give her a fifty-one percent controlling interest in the company. Whilst some unscrupulous people might hike the price up a bit, Steph wondered if ‘as I didn’t really need the extra money’ I would let her have them at the current market price - and as a thank you she would waive Carol’s contract. If I was ever stupid enough to let her go, not having a blot on her records would improve Carol’s chances of obtaining another position immensely, so after confirming that I would still be eligible for the owner’s suites I readily agreed: although hopefully I would soon be having my own owner’s suite.
After bidding Steph a fond farewell (too fond for my liking, I was ever so slightly tempted to have that extra bottle of wine) I returned to my ‘thought of the day’, what to call YN 246? Numbers were definitely out, and so was any name with Sheila in it, I knew that I had to move on, but the ‘Lady S’ had a nice ring to it; after all, the ‘S’ could stand for any number of names.
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