The Elephant Girl(105)
They sat like this for a while, then Charlie, ever restless, began pacing the room. ‘So, what happens now? What does this mean for the company? And you? Your gran was a major shareholder, wasn’t she? Where do her shares go?’
Helen shrugged. ‘I don’t know. To her daughters, I suppose. Or all three of us. It doesn’t really matter now, does it?’
‘Of course it matters. You’re just as much part of this as they are. You’re the founder’s granddaughter. Are you just going to stand by and let Letitia do whatever she pleases? I bloody well wouldn’t.’
Even Charlie had been bitten by the company bug. Like a parasite, it got into your blood. It wasn’t healthy.
‘Letitia works in the company’s interests. Always has done. My grandmother only ever interfered on the board, never in the day-to-day.’ Helen sent her a sour look. ‘How come you know so much about it, anyway?’
‘I keep my eyes and ears open. And use Google. You need to check your legal position. Did your gran die very suddenly?’
‘Not really. I mean, she was overweight and had diabetes. I expect her heart gave out.’
‘Just like that?’
‘She was old.’
‘How old?’
Helen rubbed her face with her hands. ‘Somewhere in her eighties. Why? What are you saying?’ Charlie had stopped pacing, and the sudden stillness brought a chill to the room.
‘It’s very convenient, isn’t it? The lost granddaughter returns. Granny makes a big fuss. The aunties’ noses are out of joint. Then she pops her clogs.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ protested Helen, but suspicion had started gnawing. When she’d overheard that distasteful confrontation in Ruth’s office, she’d learned that Letitia was itching to get full control of the company. But to do away with her own mother? It was the stuff of soap operas.
Still, it could do no harm to ask Sweetman about the legal implications, and there seemed to be no one else Helen could turn to who’d genuinely liked her grandmother.
She accepted the offer of taking the rest of the day off and sought out Sweetman. She found him bent over a bullet-proof filing cabinet, rummaging through a row of green hanging folders that had been squeezed in tight in the drawer. He held another file between his teeth.
‘Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a tick. Aha,’ he added triumphantly a moment later. ‘Thought I got the date right.’
‘The date?’
‘I file things chronologically, not alphabetically.’
‘Doesn’t that get rather confusing?’
‘Not for me. I’ve got it all up here.’
‘And what if you secretary – your wife – has to find something?’
‘Oh, we’re two of a kind.’
That explained Mrs Sweetman’s permanently harassed air. ‘Obviously.’
Small raisin-coloured eyes bored into hers. ‘It worked for your grandmother too. By the way, my sincere condolences. I shall miss her.’
‘Me too.’ Helen cleared her throat.
‘One day,’ Sweetman said, ‘you and I will sit down over a cup of my wife’s most excellent coffee and have a good old chat about Mrs Ransome. Right now, we must get down to business.’
She nodded.
‘It worked for your grandmother that I do things differently,’ he repeated. ‘For instance that I use a filing system which isn’t immediately transparent. If anyone, say, without the proper authority decides to look for a file in my office, it’s pot luck whether he actually manages to find it or not.’
Helen glanced at the filing cabinets. Built to withstand fire and more, they probably wouldn’t keep out a determined intruder with a lock pick. However, the eccentric filing system would defy anyone.
‘Was someone interested in my grandmother’s papers?’
‘That’s why she moved from her old firm of solicitors. She didn’t feel that her interests were being safe-guarded. Literally.’
‘Against who?’
‘Your aunts, of course. Or one of them. In the name of client confidentiality – their client confidentiality – I never found out which one, but my money is on your aunt Letitia.’
‘Isn’t that unethical?’
‘Very. But what do you expect from a city company?’ He sniffed. ‘Personally I wouldn’t trust them further than I could spit.’
‘And you helped her draw up a new will?’
‘Yes, but she changed it again, you know. Only a week ago.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s in your favour,’ he continued. ‘You now own thirty-three per cent of the shares in the company, which is more than your aunts combined. It makes you the most influential shareholder.’