Out of control (24 page)

Duff was now beginning his explanation of the projections for the next two years. Mister Edinburgh was hanging on every word and scribbling furiously. Helen was chipping in with the odd comment. Dugain was staring at the wall, obviously bored and trying to hold in his impatience.

Eventually his natural instincts took over. He wanted to take control.

“Look, do we have to go over all this in so much detail?” His tense voice gave away his frustration.

I answered him drily. “Of course we do. We don’t want you coming back later and suing these two people here for supplying false financial statements, do we?”

That shut him up…. But only for about fifteen minutes.

“Look, we’ve gone through all the historical numbers. I’ve seen the projections. I’m quite happy with them. As for the future, Mrs. Mackie will carry on running the company so she’s the one who will be responsible for these numbers.”

I intervened again. “Will she?” looking him straight in the eye.

He looked a bit taken aback and bristled a little. “Of course she will. I’ve agreed to that.”

“Where is her contract?”

“We don’t need that just now. We can draft one up later.”

“Oh no, I’m afraid we can’t,” I retorted firmly. “Mrs. Mackie needs a signed contract now before any transfer of shares takes place. Mr. Cameron has drawn one up on my instructions and it needs to be gone through now and signed.”

While Cameron pulled out a five page document from his papers Dugain turned to me. He was now at the at the crossover point from impatience to anger.

“I have assured Mrs. Mackie of her continued employment running the company and promised her that we would finalise her employment contract later.”

“You may have agreed that with Mrs. Mackie but I, as her advisor, have told her that we need to settle this first, before she signs over her shares. And also we need to agree the terms of employment of Richard as well.”

“You are not prepared to take my word that we will put in place everything that we agreed?”

“Nope,” I said curtly. “And I’d be an idiot if I did.”

That got him riled. He didn’t like that one bit.

“What do you mean by that?” he barked at me.

I smiled back at him.

“Simply this. Where would they be if anything happened to you so that you were no longer the CEO of LyonPharma? If you met with an accident, for example – a plane crash, a car crash or whatever. There is no guarantee that your successor would respect your word. Then where would that leave them? Mr. Cameron, what do you think?” I asked, turning to the lawyer.

“I entirely agree with you.” He leant forward. “Mr. Dugain, here’s a contract I have drawn up based on my understanding of what was agreed between you.” and passed the papers across the table to him. Dugain was visibly put out. He made an effort to control himself, pulled his chair in to the table and picked them up. He scanned the document quickly and signed it. Mr. Cameron then handed over the contract for Richard and he sighed in exasperation, picked it up and did the same, almost throwing them across the table.

“Just a minute, Helen,” I said. “Could I see these please? I can’t think that Mr. Dugain was able to take everything in in so short a time.”

I picked up the first one and started to read it through slowly. I read out loud a few of the clauses asking him if he was sure that he agreed. Each time he agreed with a terse ‘Yes’.

“And you are quite happy with a two years notice period?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “It’s as we agreed.”

By the time I had finished we had been at the table for about an hour and a half. I suggested a break for coffee. That didn’t go down well.

“Can’t we just get on with things? I don’t have time for a coffee beak. I’ve a plane to catch this evening.”

That was when I started to show a bit of aggression, putting on a bit more pressure.

“Mr. Dugain, this may be just a small business transaction to you but to Helen and Richard it is more than that. They are about to give up the control of a company they created and nurtured over four years and which has been their whole life over that time. I think you could show a little more respect to the proceedings here and if you have to stay overnight then so be it. My guess is we’ll be here for at least another two or three hours.”

I then intentionally turned my head away from him and asked Helen if there was any way she could organise coffee. She picked up the phone and did the necessary. When it arrived it had to be passed round the table one by one - Milk? Milk and sugar? Just sugar? Meanwhile Dugain had got up and was pacing up and down the length of the room in front of the windows, hands forced down into his pockets, scowling.

I was watching for the signs. I was going to get the bastard. Although Helen knew what my game plan was, even if she didn’t know the details, the others were going to be in for a surprise. This was not going to be a normal meeting.

I wanted rage – an explosion of uncontrolled rage. But to get there I had had to make this man go through several stages.

By now he was impatient and starting to get angry. Then, hopefully, I could find the right fuse that would convert that anger into sheer fury. I had done a bit of reading to find out what I could learn about the external characteristics of anger so that I could anticipate the flashpoint.

The muscles tighten up and this can be seen most readily in the face. The face becomes flushed, the brow muscles move inwards and downwards, the nostrils flare and the person clenches his jaw, presumably trying to control himself.

Muscle tension gives a sense of strength and self assurance. If the subject manages to control his instincts to strike out at what is causing his anger then the situation can be saved. If, however, he can’t then the anger will convert itself to rage and he will lose control. This is what must have happened when Brian had challenged him in public.

The final detonator is different for different people. I would just have to try a few things, but first I wanted him nice and angry. When he got close to the point of going over the top I was sure I would recognize the signs and figured that I had the ammunition. I wanted him totally out of control.

After coffee we resumed our meeting and I had decided it was time I took charge of things. Aggression breeds aggression so I was going to have to step out of my normal behaviour pattern and become aggressive.

“Mr. Cameron, can you give us each a copy of the shareholders’ agreement you’ve drafted?”

“The what?” Dugain was surprised and became even angrier. “What shareholders’ agreement?  
Why in the hell do we need a shareholders’ agreement?” 

“The shareholders’ agreement regulates the rules for shareholders who may, in the future, wish to sell their shares. We need a formula for calculating the value and we need to agree whether the others should have a right of preference.”

I tried to let a little sneer into my tone of voice. I was stoking the fire. Knowing full well that he was a person who would not like to be ignored, I did precisely that and addressed myself to Mr. Cameron.

“Would you please read out what you have proposed?”

“Certainly,” and he started to go through the various points. The question of creating a formula for attributing a value to the shares was a wonderful opportunity for discussion and nit-picking which I spun out for as long as I could. Helen had to do a lot of explaining to Richard who wasn’t so hot on numbers.

Dugain was showing more and more signs of exasperation and anger as the discussion seemed to go on and on. His face was becoming redder. I noticed the knuckles on the back of his hands had become white as he clutched at the arms of his chair more and more tightly.

Eventually he could hold it back no longer. He raised his voice and shouted at me. I had been explaining something quietly to Richard. I turned my head towards him. He was staring at me with his beady gray eyes as if I was his prey.

“What did you say?” I retorted sharply.

There was silence for a moment everyone stopped talking and looked at me. This was clearly the tip over point - the moment I had been waiting for.

“Are you trying to screw up this deal, Mr. Bruce?” he screamed at me. Right, I thought. Let’s go for him. I heaved myself half out of my chair and banged my hands on the table.

“You’re damned right I am, Dugain,” I yelled back at him. “Why in the hell do you think that these two people here would ever want to sell their shares to the man who used my grandson to unwittingly disclose a scientific secret which is potentially worth a fortune? You’re a thief Dugain and I’m going to make sure that everybody knows it.

“If you had thought for a minute, you would realise that they are not in the least bit interested in selling out to the man who stole a multi- million dollar product from them.”

I was still on my feet glaring at him. The others round the table looked totally shocked. There was a deathly silence…. and then it happened. He completely exploded, just as I had hoped.

His eyes bulged. Blood rushed into his face. He leapt up, banging his fist down on the table and yelled at me.

“What are you talking about?” he screamed.

Then it became a shouting match. He clearly wasn’t used to being shouted at and I stoked him up even more.

“Do you deny it? Do you deny using a young girl called Irina Vasilescu to extract information from my grandson Liam Bruce? Do you deny that she passed this information back to you through Mr. Macek who works for your company in Edinburgh?”

I didn’t let up. I machine gunned him with accusations. He fired back denials just as quickly, all the time standing there quivering with fury. Helen tried to intervene.

“Keep out of it,” I told her.” This bastard is going to pay for what he’s done.”

I turned back to him.

“Do you deny that she was on drugs supplied to her by your brothers?” I shouted. Although Antoine hadn’t known the significance of it this was the key information that he had supplied me with.

“It’s all lies,” he screamed at me. He was totally out of control. 
“I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. Irina Vasilescu is dead. You can’t prove a word of what you’re talking about.”

“Is she now? And how would you know that?” I fired back.

“Because I ……” he stopped, suddenly realising what he had said.

I sat down grimly without a word.

His piggy little eyes glared at me. “Get out,” he shouted, “Get out of this room.”

“No. I won’t. This is not your office. I’m not your employee. You are in no position to give me orders. I’m sitting right here until you tell me how you know that Irina Vasilescu is dead – someone whom you should have no reason to know even existed.”

He was shaking uncontrollably. He looked around furiously, grabbed his chair and hurled it at me and stormed towards the door.

I was caught unawares and was not quite fast enough to duck completely. The arm of the chair caught my forehead before crashing into the wall behind me. Helen screamed.

By now Dugain was at the door and he wrenched it open. But he didn’t get any further than that. He came face to face with the imposing presence of Sergeant MacLean and, standing beside him, a very serious looking Inspector Ross.

Helen, who had half risen when the chair went flying, collapsed back down into her seat with a distinctly unladylike cry of “Shit!”

Ross stepped forward into the room.

We’ll take over from here,” he said, holding up his badge so that all could see it. “Mr. Dugain, I would like you to accompany us to the police station if you don’t mind. There are some questions I would like to ask you. We have a car waiting outside.”

Dugain had no choice. He was still furious and even Sergeant Maclean had trouble controlling him. As he was unceremoniously hauled away he managed to look back at me over his shoulder.

“You’ve made a big mistake crossing me, Bruce. You’ll see,” he hissed, with a fanatical look emanating from his bulging eyes.

I didn’t react. I was too busy holding a bloody handkerchief to my head.

“Are you alright Mr. Bruce?” asked Ross. I signalled that no particular harm had been done - although I did discover later, when Helen took me down to the hospital to have it treated, that my wound required four stitches.

“I don’t know if we’ve got enough but at least you should be able to get him for GBH,” I said ruefully, still holding my handkerchief to my head. “Oh, and by the way, make sure you call the man in Lyon to raid their premises. It’s important that he does it while you’ve got him in custody.”

“Don’t worry. It’s all arranged.”

I collapsed back into my chair and looked round at the others in the room. “Helen, Gentlemen, I apologise for that scene but I think you will understand what it was all about if I let Helen explain. And could someone give me a cup of coffee, please?”

Dugain’s Edinburgh MD had somehow disappeared. Nobody had seen him go and nobody missed him.

Pierre and Mike came through from next door. Pierre informed me that they had it all recorded and after making sure that I was more or less alright they went back to dismantle the equipment.

I was totally drained. I just sat there recovering. The stress of the encounter, added to the blow to my head, had left me exhausted. Helen came over and gave me a wee hug.

“You were brilliant,” she said, “but thank God you didn’t warn me in advance of exactly what you thought would happen.”

I tried to grin. “I just hope it was worth it.”

I hoped we had won. I’d forced Dugain into revealing a piece of information that he had no reason for knowing. How could he deny all knowledge of the existence of Irina Vasilescu yet know she was dead? Duff and Potts had clearly been shaken by the whole business and soon scuttled off. Ian Cameron, the lawyer, stayed on because he was interested in hearing the whole story.

“Is that the girl I read about recently in the newspaper?” he asked. “He’s responsible for that?”

I filled in some of the bits that Helen had missed in her explanation and told him all about the girl trafficking. He was a bit surprised when I told him that the whole meeting had been filmed.