The boardroom was so enormous, Cate felt as if she was looking at it through a fish-eye lens. A large oval walnut table dominated the centre of the room, around which sat a dozen sombre faces, each painted with differing levels of hostility, boredom, impatience or ‘come-on-impress-me’ arrogance. Only Lesley Abbott, an elegant-looking women in her mid-forties who had made a fortune from selling her market research agency, looked faintly welcoming. Cate decided she would be her focus point.
David Goldman stood at one end of the table and cleared his throat. He had the swagger of a car salesman and the confidence of a presidential candidate.
‘We all know why we’re here,’ he began. ‘This is a venture that I think has great potential. It’s well-researched, has a fantastic management team and, as they will explain, they have spotted a real niche in this market.’
Cate felt her stomach lurch and she realized it was her time to talk. Nick flashed her a look that was a mixture of reassurance and anxiety. She stood up and pressed the return key on her white PowerBook. A big image of Sand magazine appeared on the projection screen behind her.
‘Ladies and gentleman, thank you for coming. I would like to take a minute to introduce myself and our travel and style magazine Sand …’
Damn, thought David Goldman watching Cate in full flow. She’s incredible.
What’s your marketing expenditure?
Is it enough?
Who wants to advertise?
Do you think anyone cares that much about travel?
What are the brand extension opportunities?
Questions, questions, questions. Cate and Nick expertly handled each one with passion and authority. They surprised themselves with their ability to address every objection. But it was hard. Cate had fudged a couple of the trickier points and she was sure she’d missed too many of the crucial selling points.
Cate glanced at her watch. Christ, had they only been talking for forty-five minutes? She was physically exhausted, her throat hurt, her mouth was parched and her head was pounding. She needed a large glass of wine and a lie-down.
‘Can I just ask Cate, why do you think your magazine will succeed, when hundreds of magazines supported by greater investment and bigger publishing companies fold every year?’
Nigel Hammond took a sip of his Evian water, placing it quietly in front of him. His tone was mildly sarcastic, his expression sceptical.
Nick opened his mouth to speak but Cate got there first.
‘Mr Hammond,’ she began calmly, ‘you don’t need me to tell you that there are safer, more lucrative investments out there to spend your money on.’
Nick Douglas flashed a look at David Goldman. He had gone the colour of fresh white paint.
‘But this isn’t a vanity publishing project,’ she said, placing her palms on the surface of the table. ‘It’s not a Me-too magazine. This is filling a genuine niche in a lucrative market and we have the talent, the vision and the contacts to exploit it. Yes, to be brutally honest, this is a punt: magazines are very high risk. But for the person who has the balls to invest in it, they will not just be buying a potentially valuable business, but buying into a slice of publishing history. Don’t you wish you could have bought Rolling Stone or Wallpaper magazines when they were started on somebody’s kitchen table?’
She looked at Nigel Hammond who stared back, giving nothing away. ‘Perhaps, yes,’ he replied, ‘but why should I be persuaded that you’re the woman to make that happen, particularly when you were fired, very recently, from your last job?’
Cate swallowed, her hands clammy. She knew she had a very important choice to make. She could be apologetic or she could fight.
‘I was fired in February, that’s true,’ she said evenly. ‘But, Mr Hammond, out of the dozen very successful people sitting in this room today, I would wager that nearly every one of us has been fired at some point. Achievers often are.’
She glanced around the room and noticed Lesley Abbott smile.
Nigel Hammond looked back and scribbled some notes on the book in front of him. Then he closed it with a thud, his face completely impassive.
‘Cate. Cate! Where are you going?’ Cate was fleeing the building as fast as her Manolo Blahniks would carry her and Nick, in his flat black loafers, was struggling to keep up. She stopped and turned to face him with tears in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘the thing about me being fired. I’m sorry – I’ve spoilt it for both of us. I’m going to see my father. Maybe he’ll want to invest or perhaps he could call his friend Philip Watchorn who’s very connected and wealthy and …’ The words tumbled out of her mouth until they became tangled up and she just let her arms flop at her sides.
Nick just wanted to reach out and give her a hug: this beautiful, dynamic career woman who at this moment looked like a disappointed child.
‘Slow down, Cate. Slow down,’ he said softly. ‘I thought you did brilliantly. I’ve been fired too, remember? It just so happens that you’re better known than I am, so people have heard about it.’ He put his hand on her arm but she snatched it away, pulling on her trench coat.
‘I bet no one in that room had been fired,’ she said miserably, fiddling with the belt.
Nick shrugged. ‘You impressed me. I’d have given you the money.’
Cate looked at Nick and she could have sworn his cheeks had gone slightly red. ‘Do you wanna go and get a drink?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘I’m going into Mayfair. I’ll get us the money, Nick. I will,’ she said quietly, determinedly.
He watched her go down the street and gave a slow smile at the brave girl hailing a taxi. It was getting dark and the streetlights were just winking on. In his heart of hearts, Nick didn’t think it had gone very well either. They had answered all the questions with passion and authority, but Cate had been right. It was a punt. If he had a million quid, would he really want to put it into a magazine run by a start-up company that might very well fold within six months? He seriously doubted it.
The Balcon Gallery was tucked away on a tiny side-street off Mount Street, a quiet, rarefied pocket of London, full of society hairdressing salons and upmarket art dealerships. Its proud red-brick frontage had a crisp white canopy, a sombre blue door and a large window full of expensive eighteenth- and nineteenth-century masterpieces. The gallery was a world away from the trendy Brit-Art spaces of London’s East End, where men in mullets painted swastikas in blood to sell to millionaire admen and rock stars. The Balcon Gallery pitched itself at the other end of the art-lovers’ spectrum; quiet, old-school money who preferred more traditional pieces to sit in their old-school Belgravia and Kensington homes. Known as a specialist in nineteenth-century Dutch artists, the gallery had recently begun to move with the times and branched out into late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French bronzes and, as Cate approached, she could see a dainty Degas ballet dancer in the window.
Cate pushed open the door and a tinkling bell rang over her head. Sitting at a table at the end of the room, Mark Robertson, the gallery’s office manager, was drawing up an invoice for an immaculately groomed middle-aged couple, while Oswald perched on the edge of the desk talking to them.
Oswald looked up and flashed Cate one of his most charming smiles.
‘Ah, here’s my daughter,’ he beamed to the customers. The woman, with her honey-blonde highlighted hair, Hermès ostrich Kelly bag and Ferragamo shoes, recognized Cate from Class magazine and smiled a little more broadly.
‘Do you want to go upstairs to the office, darling? I’ll be up shortly,’ Oswald said cheerily. Cate nodded and walked up the tiny spiral staircase at the end of the room. As she went,