Dales Dotcom

Dales Dotcom

by Brian Cook

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Brian Cook

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Cover painting by Katrin Offner Ferris.

Cover graphics by Cathy Cox.

‘They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.’ - Confucius

Prologue

The last rays of a faltering sun dipped below the bluff on the far side of the dale. The gnarled hand of a working man reached out for the switch of a shadeless table lamp. The lifeless eyes squinted once again at the small print.

Sleepy from an uncommonly large feed, the old sheepdog sighed and shifted position at his master’s feet. The hand reached down to reassure him with a rub behind the ear. The paper was returned to the pile and the hand cupped to receive the pills.

A chipped mug of whisky, a series of swallows and the light was clicked off.

Chapter 1

London, Friday 6th April 2001

Tom Keardon, fashionably dressed down in expensive black, clicked on his mouse and waited for his company’s share price to appear on the screen. Friday afternoons sometimes produced unexpected shifts in the market as the city throttled back for the weekend.

Not so today. Tiger.com was holding steady. The company Tom had founded barely three years ago appeared to be weathering the squalls of the new economy. Supplying internet-based information about Far Eastern investment was never going to make Tiger a global player. But neither was it likely to go the way of the hope and a prayer and a large marketing budget dot coms who had gambled on fooling all of the people all of the time. Most of them had crashed and burned when the bubble burst a year ago.

At 33, Tom was, if anything, a little long in the tooth to be the Managing Director of a dot com company. In a business where youth and enthusiasm were celebrated, experience was often viewed with nonchalance. But it was a measure of Tom’s ability that as well as commanding the respect of the suits in the City of London who provided financial backing, he could also hold his own with the brightest young Turks among his staff.

A large open plan office stretched in front of him. Minimalist design. Desks artfully arranged in clusters, ensuring that specialists were grouped together. Economist with economist. Marketer with his or her own kind. Web page designers close by the systems engineers. When Tiger.com expanded into the newly refurbished building in Fenchurch Street at the beginning of the year the layout had been planned with the assistance of a Feng Shui expert. It had been the idea of the public relations consultants they retained, eager to fashion a story which would be picked up by financial diarists. Tom had played along willingly, happy to be described as a firm believer in all things Eastern. Which to an extent he was. Leaving university with a yen to be a journalist, he had intended to see the world before knuckling down to a career. Six months travelling through the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia had left him with a dickey tummy and a severe shortage of funds. Hong Kong offered the means to repair both conditions. A temporary job with an English language newspaper might have been just that if it had not been for So Lin, the delicate beauty who worked there as an interpreter. Within months Tom had caught the bug for a regular wage, a steady job and girlfriend, Chinese culture and the high-octane lifestyle of the roving reporter he rapidly became.

For a while all was well. Tom had originally been accepted, if a little formally, by his girlfriend’s extended Chinese family. But once married, tensions began to surface. So Lin had given up her job and now moved mostly in Tom’s ex-pat circles. It led to murmurings that she was forsaking her background and turning into a ‘banana’ – yellow on the outside, white in the middle. The accusation stung, and Lin seemed to become more distant from Tom. This, plus Tom’s frequent and increasingly lengthy absences on assignment for the paper cast dark shadows over their mixed and mixed-up marriage.

Tom couldn’t help musing, when sitting in another nameless hotel bar over one too many whiskies, that it was mirrored by the situation Hong Kong found itself in. Acquired by Britain in 1898 under a 99-year lease, the time was rapidly approaching when the colony would revert to the Chinese. Maybe he’d only leased Lin’s affections, not acquired them for good.

Out of a firm resolution to put his life back on an even keel grew the germ that was to become Tiger.com. With Britain pulling out of Hong Kong in 1997 and the Chinese growing increasingly ambivalent about their denunciation of capitalism, commercial intelligence about South East Asia would be at a premium. It was discussing these ideas with Lin which brought them together again, professionally if not personally. They both agreed that the marriage had been a mistake but that the business idea was a winner. They managed to fit in an amicable divorce while setting up the Hong Kong offices of Tiger.com which Lin would continue to manage after the handover. Tom then flew back to the UK with a list of venture capitalists provided by his ex-pat friends.

‘And now look at it,’ murmured Tom, surveying the quiet frenzy of activity at a score of terminals and telephones within his immediate field of vision.

‘Look at what?’ It was Angie, his Business Development Director who spoke as she sank into a long, low sofa beside Tom’s desk. The action caused her Jasper Conran frock to ride up to the limits of decency over her slim legs. She stretched her arms along the top of the sofa and regarded Tom with a knowing expression in her coolly beautiful eyes.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ Tom jolted back from his reverie.

That Tom and Angie were something of an item was an open secret in the company. Open, because Tom took the view that office romances, or in this case flings, were less likely to lead to unprofessional behaviour if they were not hidden. At least that’s what he hoped. Privately he regretted having succumbed to her subtle advances. They made a handsome couple of that there was no doubt, but bed and boardroom he was increasingly discovering did not mix.

‘Yes, what is it?’ There was coldness in his voice. Angie sat up straight and morphed into efficient businesswoman mode, a mode which Tom couldn’t stop himself thinking rang somewhat more true.

‘Tom, it’s just that I know you won’t want to talk shop over dinner tonight so I wanted to find out what you thought about my strategy document.’ Tom tensed at the loaded question and searched for a suitably neutral phrase.

‘It’s very thought-provoking. But why are you bringing this up again when we’ve already had it out. You know it’s for discussion at next week’s board meeting and not before.’

‘Yes, but I thought you might tell me whether I can count on your support.’

‘Support?’ Tom’s eyebrows arched. ‘It’s not an election, Angie. We’ll be making critical judgments about the future direction of this company. I’ve already made it clear that any decisions will be made in the best interests of the shareholders, the staff and our clients.’

‘Don’t patronize me with platitudes,’ Angie flashed, ‘particularly ones which you could do well to remember. You may have started this company but it’s not your baby any more. Agreeing to a takeover would serve everyone’s interests. I just can’t see why you’re holding out against it.’

The temptation to engage in the argument was strong but Tom was aware that it would have been an own goal. After a long pause, he spoke evenly.

‘Angie, at the risk of repeating myself, the discussion will take place at the board meeting and I will thank you not to try to build this up into a confrontation by bending my ear or those of any other directors before next Tuesday. And here’s another platitude. We work as a team. Teams have no room for prima donnas who try to circumvent normal company procedures. Now can we leave it there, please?’

Tom waited for the explosion, wondering if he had been altogether too harsh in trying to bring the exchange to an abrupt end. But to his surprise, if not relief, Angie merely smiled sweetly, brightly chirped ‘OK, see you later’, and sashayed out of the office.

Tom’s relief was short-lived, soon to be replaced by a nagging sense of unease. There was no doubt that his fling with Angie - no let’s downgrade that to a dalliance, Tom decided – had been ill-advised. Sharply intelligent, relentlessly efficient, overtly ambitious, she had been quite a catch for the company when Tom had poached her from the marketing department of a major Japanese bank in the City. Tom had not been the only red-blooded male on the staff to speculate about what lurked beneath the ice queen exterior but he had been the only one allowed a glimpse. First over business lunches, then over purportedly business dinners. Finally, on a shared sales trip to Tokyo, there was the sake, the interconnecting hotel rooms and … stop fooling yourself, Tom rebuked himself. You’ve got nothing to blame but yourself for giving in to raw sexual attraction and hanging the consequences.

Now, three months later, the relationship – Tom baulked at the word – was on an edge, both personally and professionally. On the personal front, increasingly frequent rows were less frequently made up before the next. Professionally – well, Tom reached into his in-tray to look again at the document which had brought matters to a head.

It had begun as casual pillow talk. Tiger.com’s emerging rivals in providing information about the Far East were the international news agencies and management consultancies. They had been slow to take to the information highway but were now throwing all of their not inconsiderable weight behind it. What Tiger lacked in resources it could make up in customized services for its clients, but the choice was clear: survive and hopefully prosper by remaining small, quick-witted and nimble, or cash in by selling-out to the big boys. Angie had pushed for Tom to allow her to use her banking contacts to make discreet enquiries about possible interest in a take-over. Tom had, as far as he recalled, agreed that it might be an idea, but that he would have to speak to the Chairman about it. It had then slipped his mind.

Two weeks later, when said Chairman, Sir Giles Clark, asked for any other business at the conclusion of the fortnightly board meeting, Angie flourished copies of a report. She announced that she believed the board should be considering the possibility of acceding to a takeover in view of the information contained in the document.

Sir Giles had turned to Tom and lowered his half-moon spectacles. ‘I was not aware that this report was being prepared. Were you?’

Tom shot a glance at Angie. She remained impassive. Tom rapidly weighed up the implications of saying yes or no, and realized that an honest answer was the only option.

‘Angie and I had discussed it informally but I was not aware that a report was being prepared.’

‘I see.’ The words spoke volumes. Sir Giles picked up his copy of the report and slipping it into his briefcase declared, ‘Then we all better read it. In the strictest confidence please, ladies and gentlemen. Let me have your views at the next board meeting. We’ll discuss it then, not before. Tom, join me for lunch.’

The meal turned out to be far less of an ordeal than Tom had feared. Sir Giles had served in the diplomat corps throughout Asia, culminating in an ambassadorship in China before putting his wealth of Far Eastern experience to great and lucrative use in the City with a clutch of directorships. Sir Giles knew the value of a soft touch.

‘I do hope that rather attractive young thing hasn’t got you on a bit of a sticky wicket!’ was his mild opener.

Tom was relieved to be able to confide his misgivings about becoming involved with Angie. As Sir Giles listened, nodding frequently and offering the odd word of encouragement, Tom went on to question whether he wasn’t beginning to lose his judgment about the running of the company and his objectivity about its future.

When Tom had run out of words Sir Giles lent back in his chair and spoke softly but briskly. ‘Well my boy, you’re not the first to mix business with pleasure. As far as I can see it seems to be all the rage these days. Always was come to think of it. You’ve made a rod for your own back, and only you can work out the best way to extricate yourself from the relationship – if that’s what you want. As for questioning your judgment, well, thank the lord that you are. It’s the moment that you stop being alert to the dangers of bad decision-making that the trouble starts. Which brings us to the little matter of this report. Damned if I know what the girl’s playing at. She knows perfectly well what the correct channels are. Perhaps you’ve talked to her about your passion for the business and she’s assumed that you would block any move to let your bird fly the coop. Let’s put it all down to a misunderstanding shall we? A misunderstanding which I’m sure you’ll discuss with her. In the meantime we’ll consider what she has to say and keep an open mind. Now, which pudding takes your fancy?’

‘It’s playtime!’

Tom looked up to see Ben Simpson, his Director of Technology, slouching against the door jamb of his office. Pushing 30 in reality, Ben still looked like an overgrown teenager, baseball hat askance, baggy trousers at half-mast. Ben had the knack of taking dressing down to new depths. Long-haired and constantly smiling, he was that rarest of creatures, a brilliant computer technician with an engaging personality.

‘Not still fretting over that report, are we?’ said Ben, seeing the document clutched in Tom’s hands. ‘Tom, join me for lunch!’ he mimicked in Sir Giles’ cut glass drawl. ‘Did you get a grilling from the headmaster?’

Tom quickly closed the report and returned it to his in tray, taking care to insert it halfway down the pile of papers. ‘Piss off, Ben. There’s no need to make an awkward situation worse.’

‘No. Sorry, mate. I just couldn’t resist it. You looked so glum’

Ben had the ability to breeze through life without ever giving offence, however irreverent he could be and usually was. Tom couldn’t help but smile at the valued colleague who had grown to be a good friend. Whenever Tom had a difficult decision to make he found Ben to be an excellent sounding board. He could think both laterally and logically and knew when to apply which technique.

‘Did I hear playtime mentioned?’

‘You did, oh great leader. Six o’clock on a Friday night approaches, and your grateful and devoted staff look forward to your presence at the wine bar to stand the first round, not to mention the second, and the third, and …’

‘OK, point taken. I sometimes wish I’d never started the tradition. It was fine with only three or four on the payroll but now…’

‘Stop moaning, oh thee of deep pockets and short arms. The wallet moths have waited long enough for liberation.’ And with the spin of a heel he was gone.

Tom quickly tidied his desk, powered down his notebook and resolved to put the week’s trials behind him with the help of a drink or two. Or maybe three.

Music from Jamiroquai played on the speakers of the packed basement wine bar, but it might as well have been the Dagenham Girl Pipers for all the attention the gathered drinkers were paying. Conversation was the order of the day. Animated, anecdotal, argumentative, conspiratorial, it came in all flavours, talkers and listeners high on the adrenalin of release from a week’s work and a weekend’s promise.

Tucked away in a corner, early arrivals from Tiger.com had staked out a large area and were vigorously repelling would-be boarders. Tom fought his way from the bar clutching chilled bottles of house white by the neck, two in each hand. Ben followed with as many glasses as could safely be inserted between his fingers. Tom plonked down in his usual seat at the far end of the table which had the advantage of making it difficult to make a return visit to the bar. Ben, ever the life and soul, began to fill the glasses, chattering away in the manner of an obsequious wine waiter in a cod French accent.

And so the Friday night ritual began. The number of Tiger staff swelled to around twenty. Angie was among the last to arrive. She ordered her own cocktail at the bar and fell into deep conversation with Ben. As usual the seat to Tom’s right remained free for a while. No-one wanted to be seen to be too eager to talk to the MD. To Tom’s left was Charles Wright, Tiger’s Director of Finance and Administration, formal, old beyond his years, whose idea of dressing down was to remove his suit jacket.

They spent a few minutes discussing the prospects for survival of a retail dot.com whose share price had collapsed following disastrous half-yearly figures. Then a recent recruit, a studious Cambridge economics graduate, took advantage of a lull in the conversation to settle beside Tom and ask him about the possibility of a secondment to Tiger’s Hong Kong branch.

He was followed by one of the team of political analysts. She wanted to know if he had any contacts in North Korea, newly opening its borders to the South. Tom was able to point her in the direction of an Australian foreign correspondent he’d known in his newspaper days who specialised in gleaning what little information could be gathered from the strict Communist regime. But as usual, the quality of the discussion decreased in proportion to the consumption of alcohol. It suited Tom well because he himself was not holding back. By 7.30, as some of the drinkers had begun to drift away, a pimple-faced web designer who looked all of fifteen, and judging by the slurring of his words had been a very early arrival in the wine bar, started to badger Tom about buying him a new piece of software. Tom confessed that he hadn’t the foggiest idea what the software was or did and suggested that he speak to Ben on Monday about it.

Gesturing at Ben as he did so, he was perplexed to see that Angie was still talking animatedly to him. Excusing himself from the pimpled one, who carried on extolling the virtues of his coveted software oblivious to the lack of an audience, Tom squeezed past chairs to level with Ben and Angie.

‘There you are. Can I get you two a drink? Usual?’ And without waiting for a reply, ‘Give me a hand, Ben’.

The crowd was thinning out and he was able to order without delay. Seconds later Ben appeared at his side. Ever astute to a situation however carefree his manner, Ben asked ‘What’s up then?’

Tom glanced over his shoulder. Angie was eyeing the pair of them.

‘Just interested to know what you an Angie were having a heart to heart about.’

‘Two words,’ replied Ben. ‘Over and take, but not necessarily in that order. She’s really got a bee in her bonnet. Hasn’t stopped banging on about it for a good half hour.’

The drinks were placed in front of them and Tom fished in his pocket to pay. Ben moved to pick up the glasses, but Tom halted him with a touch of the hand. Inwardly, he was churning. What the hell was Angie doing, flouting his instruction not to canvass support and choosing to do so in front of half the company? God knows what snippets of information those close to her might have overheard. And now what? Confrontation? In public? Less than sober? Or wait until later, over their planned dinner. Some dinner that would be. Tom stared fixedly at the optics behind the bar and ground his teeth. Ben fidgeted beside him, for once sensing that a chirpy remark would not ease the obvious tension.

Reflected in the bar mirror, Tom saw Angie’s approach. ‘Where’s my drink, boys?

Tom snapped, whirling round. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

‘Playing at? This is not a game, you know, this is the real world. The chance to make real money.’

‘I thought it had been made absolutely clear that the report should remain confidential and that all discussion should be deferred until the board meeting.’ Even in his anger, Tom couldn’t help noticing that he was sounding rather pompous. Angie must have sensed an opening, a faltering of purpose. She seized on the most base of weapons. Ridicule.

‘Frightened that people might have different opinions to those of our great founder? Tiger? More like a pussy cat!’

Around them the conversation level had dipped. Wine-fuelled banter was straggling to a halt as the gathered drinkers sensed a situation. Ben waded in before Tom could react.

‘Look, guys, there’s a time and a place and it’s not now and it’s not here. OK?’ Angie and Tom locked unblinking eyes long enough for the noise level to stutter to life again.

When Tom spoke, it was soft, seething and staccato. ‘I will not have my company treated like a commodity to be traded to the highest bidder.’

‘My company?’ Angie pounced. ‘My company? It’s not your company any more, Tom Keardon.’

And with that she was gone.

‘What the hell was that all about?’ Ben asked after what he felt was a suitable pause.

‘Why’s she doing this?’ Tom appealed. ‘Forget the personal stuff. That’s not been good. But it doesn’t explain why all of a sudden she seems intent on provoking me into some kind of disciplinary action. What am I going to do?’

Ben considered a serious response to the question and quickly decided against it. ‘What you’re going to do, my friend, is knock back that drink, allow me to buy you several more, and then join us at the club we’re going to. This time on a Friday night is no time to be fathoming the whys of women and the wherefores of business. By Monday you’ll know what to do.’

It might have been the pounding music, or the pulsating lights, or the many bottles of iced lager but that laughing blonde with the great body and the estuary accent was looking more desirable by the minute. Shouldn’t. But face it, Keardon, when have you ever done the sensible thing where women were concerned. Why start now?

Chapter 2

The first rays of a gathering sun had long since risen above the office complex on the far bank of the Thames. In Tom’s converted loft apartment shards of milky light streamed between the blinds, illuminating motes of dust hovering above the stripped pine floor. From outside came the dull wash of traffic. In the bedroom the snoring was abruptly curtailed by the urgent trill of a telephone.

A hand groped from beneath the covers and began a fingertip search of the bedside table. Finding the phone, the hand lifted the handset from its cradle and balanced it on its side. With a Herculean effort, Tom raised himself to a sitting position, lolled against the headboard and clasped his head in his hands. From the corner of his eye Tom spied a splash of bottle blonde hair splayed across the adjoining pillow. He winced and moved the hands down to cover his eyes in a fruitless attempt to evade the returning memory. From the phone he became aware of the distant scratch of a voice. He grasped the handset and tried to say hello. A croak emerged. Clearing his throat, he tried again and was successful.

Tom sat up straight. His brow furrowed. ‘He’s what?’

The voice continued.

‘What did he do that for?’

Tom’s head nodded as he listened, occasionally punctuating the flow of the voice with a curt ‘Yes’.

‘Of course I will. I should be there.’ He paused to glance at the bedside clock showing past noon. He gathered his thoughts and calculated. ‘I‘ll be with you late afternoon, early evening … OK.’

Tom replaced the handset and stared into the middle distance. He breathed long and hard, and then with a passion which came from deep within, he exploded. ‘Stupid bugger!’

Leaping from the bed in a whirlwind of activity, he pulled on his discarded boxer shorts, opened the Venetian blinds to flood the room with light and bounced back on to the bed to shake his nocturnal sparring partner. He waited until she showed some semblance of consciousness. ‘Sorry, love, I’ve got to go and so have you. Soon as possible, please.’

Four hours and two hundred and fifty miles later, Tom Keardon swung his black Audi TT off the A1 and on to the narrow road signposted to Richmond in North Yorkshire.

Mentally, the journey had proceeded in stages. In his fragile state, safely negotiating the heavy Saturday morning traffic through the tortured twists and turns of the City and then North London had required his full attention. But as he swung on to the M1 motorway his mental fog began to lift and the memory of his previous night’s debacle returned to haunt him. Each flashback caused further pain. Angie apparently on a mission to undermine his authority. Ben embarrassed for him. Angie insulting him and walking out. Making a fool of himself in front of his staff at the night club. Treating the pneumatic blonde like a prostitute.

But as the miles slipped away he made a conscious effort to concentrate on the reason for his journey. His thoughts turned to his destination and his childhood. Middle Farm in Upper Swaledale had been the home, and the living, of generations of Keardons. Perched midway between the lush river meadows of the remote dale and the rock-strewn heights of the vertiginous hills, it was a location which could be idyllic on sunny summer days. But for much of the year, the elements conspired to create conditions so unforgiving that only the most hardy of farmers and their animals could survive. Being snowed under in Winter, inundated in Spring and blown away in Autumn was the circle of life in the Dales.

Tom’s grandfather had been called up to fight in the Second World War leaving the running of the sheep farm to his grandmother and their ten year old son Bill, Tom’s father. As was the way in the Dales, education took second place to the necessity of farming and Bill became the man of the house at his tender age, replacing his father who was never to return. Only when Tom’s grandmother succumbed to a fatal illness brought on by a lifetime of hardship did Bill, by then in his early forties, feel the need to find a wife to help him run the farm and to provide a son and heir.

Jean was an unlikely catch for him. She had seen life at university and in London before the acrimonious breakdown of a long-term relationship had led her to seek a new existence in rural isolation. She took a teaching post in an infant’s school in the Dales and met Bill at a village dance. Against all the odds, the unsophisticated sheep farmer and the well-educated but unambitious schoolmistress cemented a solid if unromantic marriage.

Tom was that son and heir. An only child, it was a given that he would one day inherit the farm and therefore had to be schooled in the ways of hill sheep farming. Accordingly, as soon as he could toddle, he was helping to tend to the sheep, learning how to mend fences, taking the controls of the tractor. But unlike the many generations of Keardon sons before him, education didn’t take second place. The compulsory school leaving age was now 16, and through the wishes and transferred ambitions of his mother, Tom was able to take full advantage of his schooling.

As Tom drove into the cobbled streets of the little Georgian town of Richmond, memories of his teenage years flooded back. The secondary school where inspiring teachers had opened his eyes to a world beyond the daily drudge of sheep farming. Fellow pupils with ambitions to escape to big city universities and experience life to the full. The feeling of being an outsider because, whenever school friends discussed plans for underage pub visits, parent-free parties and casual get-togethers to listen to the latest albums, Tom knew that he would be getting on the school bus at the end of each day to return to his lonely and remote farmhouse home. Just in time to help with the evening chores.

Leaving Richmond, following the all too familiar route of that school bus, he powered past the metal sign at the entrance to the Yorkshire Dales National Park set inevitably in a dry stone wall. The logo of a stylised Swaledale sheep had always seemed to taunt him on the thousand occasions he had been driven past it as a schoolboy. Goodbye civilisation, hello sheep. Tom remembered one occasion only too well. It was the end of the summer term in his sixteenth year. With good results predicted in the 10 ‘O’ levels he had taken, his teachers were encouraging him to return to the sixth form – university material they’d all agreed. Maybe even Oxbridge.

His father had other ideas. Approaching 60 he had for many years been looking forward to the time that his son could share the burden of running the farm full time. Not leaving school, he made abundantly clear, was simply not an option. Torn between what Bill described as his ancestral duty and a life beyond which his mother tacitly supported, Tom had been in turmoil. It had been the taunting horned sheep logo that had firmed up his intentions. Goodbye sheep, hello civilisation.

As his car emerged from the trees which thickly lined the road, Tom couldn’t help but be stirred by the majestic panorama of lower Swaledale rolled out before him. The meadows