Both she and Adam left the meeting. Out in the lobby, he turned his concerned features towards her. “Are we having ourselves on?”
Amelia's response was open and immediate. “Another six months and we would have been. We may have just caught it in time.”
“You really think we can put it back together?” Adam’s tone was sceptical.
She nodded. “As long as we can get ourselves out of the Brazil, and worst case, we’re almost at the end of the contracts there. We’re not working much as a stock service anymore, there aren’t warehouses and wharves full of that junk.” She regarded him dispassionately. “You and Richard can do this.”
Looking up at the steadily decreasing floor indicator, his response was dismissive. “It’s not that easy, Amelia. This isn’t about pulling a few levers.”
“That’s right, and it’s going to come down to what we do next. We have to come up with a product line that sets us right quickly, and it can’t afford to have any quality or logistical hiccups.” She edged past him as the doors silently parted. “If it does, we’re history.”
He kept pace with her as they walked through the dimly lit car park. “That’s you.” Adam reached for her shoulder and stopped. “We’ve all been taking it easy for the past few years, but it’s up to us now. Can you do this?”
Her expression became thoughtful. “I don’t know. All that I can tell you is that I don’t feel beaten.” At his dubious expression she continued quickly, “You know that feeling you get when what’s before you is vital and seems impossible, that emotionally sick feeling you get?”
“Of course.”
Amelia gave him a smile. “I don’t feel it, and I haven’t from the moment we found out what James was up to, even though I knew we were going to be the ones to fix it.”
Unlocking his car, Adam stared over the roof at her as he threw his jacket and briefcase onto the back seat. “Of course I’m glad you have some confidence, but I’m also hoping you have the ability.”
Keeping her expression open, she gave no sense of disquiet as she responded. “You just make sure all those buyers keep talking to us and those supply contracts don’t kill us.”
Adam paused at the driver’s door. “We may have caught this just in time, but only one piece of this frail little puzzle has to not fit and things could get dire.”
Without further comment he pursed his lips and then dropped into the depths of the large black sedan. Amelia stood quietly next to her car as he pulled away, the crisp smell of exhaust fumes and reverberating engine noises bouncing around her. When all was silent again she absently reached into her bag and pressed the button on the remote. As if that motion of stepping into her car was symbolic of having made a decision, she settled on a course of action for her part in this troubled venture.
Chapter 2
Concealment
This was a hard industrial area of the city, just as she remembered it. There were few trees, and those that forlornly persisted struggled through collars of binding concrete. They were all stunted, frail and weak. It was a grubby, grimy, shunned area. Everything was unkempt. A maze of wires criss crossed the street, caging the miasma of urban decay to the surface and forcefully keeping the blue sky beyond at bay.
Tiny rows of tiny terrace houses were crammed between bullying warehouses and factories, their fragile tenure on the street seemingly doomed, as the massive structures around them looked balefully down. She had the comical image of a warehouse shuffling sideways to gobble up the little dwellings.
Amelia dragged her eyes from the surrounds and came to a slow halt in front of the old familiar factory, turning off the engine. This brick building was particularly old, and unlike most of the others around that dated back to the '40s and '50s and were free of any form of decoration, the Havesheld factory had some rudimentary decoration to its imposing façade. Mostly it consisted of expressed brickwork forming a series of shallow arches at the top of the parapet and large corner piers, but there was also changes from the bluestone base, the reddish tan wall body and the rendered parapet.
A series of tiny windows dotted the lower level, starting at just under two metres in height, and extending up another two metres. All were protected by heavy metal bars and mesh fencing wire, adding to the jail-like qualities of its presence. All around there was the sense of age and decay; from the cracked masonry lintels above the windows to the crumbling render and eroded mortar around the bricks, but it was well built and amazingly solid. This wasn’t a charming or entreating edifice, not the sort of place to attract the attention of an entrepreneurial developer.
Pursing her lips, Amelia acknowledged that part of the reason she didn’t know much about the inner workings of the company's oldest establishment was that it was a depressing building of ill aspect. It didn’t surprise her that their head office was in a much more welcoming part of the city, and that they’d departed this place as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
Stepping out of the car she glanced down at her watch and noted she was fifteen minutes early for her appointment with the enigmatic Ted Warwick. From their brief conversation on the phone she wasn’t particularly enamoured of him; while he had been cordial enough, there was something very garrulous and overbearing about his manner. For the moment she chose to ignore her first impressions. She didn’t need to like him if he was good at what he did and could help their plight.
Amelia hadn’t exactly decided how she was going to employ this man, but she had ideas. There were one or two of James’s design group that could be harnessed with a firm leash. She was a strong believer that there was nothing new under the sun, and that Havesheld’s brand was not about gratuitous trailblazing. In any event it was unlikely the buyers would respond to a dramatic about-face in their lines and they weren’t in the position, on any level, to embark on that course. But she did need a point of difference in the lines and in Coremade she saw options.
Smiling, Amelia walked towards the nondescript front door at the south-east corner of the building. His arrogance could be his greatest attribute. “As long as you're just a little commercial and don’t want to oversee every pair personally,” she whispered under her breath.
Before reaching for the rickety glazed aluminium framed double doors - that appeared to be a brutal '70s addition - she looked back along the street. Though it was 8:45am, and it was a brisk July morning, there was no sign of movement anywhere; no birds, no cars, no pedestrians. Only the hum of cars on the nearby overpass suggested this moment wasn’t frozen in time. There was something very sullen and dejected about the entire scene, as if it had been rejected by the rest of the world.
The front door opened onto a long corridor. With a high ceiling lit by fluorescent lights, it was extremely canyon-like. She stood for a moment trying to remember if she’d ever been in here before but couldn’t exactly place this room. The walls were an off-white colour, discoloured by years of cigarette smoke and pollution; the green patterned carpet on the floor was similarly faded and worn. It had an extremely musty aroma, one of old materials enclosed for ages.
A door opened next to her and a woman appeared holding a steaming cup of coffee. She glanced up at the sight of the person standing in the corridor and started slightly. “Goodness. I didn’t hear you come in.” A portly woman of late middle years, her florid features showed no recognition of the newcomer. “Can I help you?”
“My name’s Amelia Wightman, I’m here to see Ted.”
She may not have recognised her, but the surname struck a chord. “Oh.” She frowned. “Does he know you’re coming? We don’t have many visitors here.”
Amelia smiled. “He should, I spoke to him on Friday.”
The