And by the time Bernard Gradley left the site, smiling at the workers who had entertained him the day before and who would be losing their jobs within a matter of weeks, he swung in his briefcase a lengthy order for construction equipment not a single item of which did he possess.
The next stage was easier. The construction industry has always been one of boom and bust, and while one firm is so busy with orders that no customer is attended to properly, another firm only a short distance away may be laying workers off and leaving equipment idle for want of work. Gradley had a knack for finding companies of the second sort. For them it was a godsend to have Gradley appear off the street and offer to take their surplus gear for long enough to tide them over until the next burst of activity. The rates he offered were not great, of course, nothing in fact compared with what he charged his own customers, but anything was better than nothing.
The business did well. The sixties was a time of renewal and change, and nobody benefited more than the construction industry. Slums were cleared. New tower blocks and housing developments rose in their place. Go-go businesses heady with twenty years of unbroken peace and growth built glitzy new headquarters of glass and cement. Even Britain’s creaking manufacturers, like geriatrics in the sun, forgot their weaknesses and spent money on factories and warehouses. Gradley Plant Hire Limited, as the company was called, took on staff and expanded from Leeds out into Yorkshire, and from Yorkshire out into the counties beyond.
As the business grew and strengthened, Gradley found the time to marry, have kids, to divorce acrimoniously when the marriage went bad. He was a rich man now, worth thirty million by some accounts, forty or more by others. His business wasn’t just successful, it was one of the biggest of its kind in the country, so strong it no longer depended on him, its father, for its prosperity. Instead of making him happy, the fact left him discontented. He longed for the old days, back when it had been just him, no money, and ambition as big as the sky. A man of some leisure now, he experimented with buying racehorses but had no luck. He then discovered motoring and began to build up a collection of cars, all British.
The hobby killed him. One day in mid-July, he was driving at speed when he suffered a minor heart attack. The attack itself was not fatal but he briefly lost consciousness. At a bend in the road the car carried straight on. It bounced off a stone wall into a tree. Gradley died instantly.
All that remained now was to divide up his fortune.
1
The sweep of tyres, the jerk of a handbrake, a clatter of car doors, then a knock at the door. The family arrived, swept into his room and now waited, silently, eager for money.
‘Welcome,’ said Earle. ‘Welcome to you all.’
It was a poor welcome he had to give. There were five of them, of whom Earle recognised only the mother, Helen Gradley, a nervous, pale woman, mid-fifties but a decade older in appearance. As Bernard’s divorce solicitor, Earle had threatened her with every trick in the book to win a favourable settlement. In theory, Helen had been the party at fault. She’d had an affair and admitted as much. Hers wasn’t such a great crime, not when her husband’s relationship with his business was more passionate, more permanent and more exclusive than anything she had done. But Bernard hadn’t seen it like that, of course. He’d wanted to give her ‘what she deserves – nothing’. He threatened a custody battle, on grounds that Earle was obliged to fabricate, and the friendless woman gave way. She got the kids, he kept the money. She settled for a small London house and an allowance which would terminate once the youngest child, Josephine, reached eighteen.
In the years after the divorce, Gradley had thrown money at his kids, hoping to win them from their mother. They were to be indulged, she to be kept poor. The strategy had worked up to a point. The kids, especially the three sons, George, Zachary and Matthew, had taken the money and been spoiled by it. They had grown used to their life of fast cars, jet travel, nice flats in the right parts of London. Their mother’s house in Kilburn struck them as grotty, too embarrassing to show their friends. But if Gradley had wanted to win their love, he’d failed entirely. His sons loved the cheques, but despised the chequebook. They knew the gifts were motivated more by bitterness than by love, and Gradley himself couldn’t help but resent his own generosity. He reminded his kids of how useless they were, how indolent. He told them repeatedly how he had made his fortune, conjuring an empire from the desert sand.
And now the emperor was dead, what was left but to divide the empire? The five inheritors – the tense mother, the stony-faced sons, the grave and serious daughter – waited in silence.
‘Welcome,’ said Earle again, ‘though I can only regret the sad occasion which has brought us together.’ He felt the tension again, more strongly this time. Why? He alone knew what the will contained. He alone was unaffected. His voice rose a little as he continued. ‘You know, of course, why we’re here. The deceased, Bernard Gradley, told me that none of you had any knowledge of his will. Perhaps I should begin by confirming that this is indeed the case.’
He looked around, but he already knew the answer. The hungry faces of the three sons and their mother’s agitation told him. They knew nothing and wanted everything.
‘While it would be wrong of me to speak ill of the dead, especially when the deceased has been such an important client of this firm’s,’ Earle paused. His words sounded crass and for a moment he was stuck. He had a weak voice which became high, almost falsetto, when he was nervous. He fought to regain his control, to drop back an octave. ‘While, er, it would be wrong to do so, this will, I’m afraid, is not a document which, er, was a pleasant one to draft. And, er –’ He tailed off, his voice trailing into a squeak.
‘D’you want me to read it?’ drawled one of the sons, dark and lean, frightening somehow.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Earle sharply, and – thank goodness – deeply. The challenge got him restarted. ‘You may read the will yourself in due course and you may well wish to show it to your own legal advisers. In summary, however, the desires of the deceased are as follows. His mother, Mrs Victoria Gradley, will receive a sum of three hundred thousand pounds to be held in trust on her behalf by certain trustees. His brothers and sisters will each receive, on top of certain small personal bequests, the sum of one hundred thousand pounds.’
Earle’s listeners registered these facts tersely, hungering for what was to come. In their minds, their father’s company was already sold, the money counted and divided. A few hundred thousand quid to their granny, aunts and uncles wasn’t much to give up. They shifted forward. The punch line was drawing near.
‘The residual estate is hard to value,’ Earle continued. ‘The principal asset, of course, is the one hundred percent ownership of Gradley Plant Hire Limited, though there will naturally be a considerable liability in the form of inheritance tax. We have estimated the residual estate to be worth some thirty to thirty-five million pounds after payment of tax. Out of this sum, you, Mrs Gradley,’ and he nodded at Helen, whose nervousness had grown rounder and harder with each passing minute, ‘you will receive a sum of five thousand pounds per annum payable until your death. I am sorry, I am very sorry, that I was not able to prevail on my client to be more generous.’
Helen Gradley was white faced, but otherwise blank. There was shock, certainly, but Earle guessed that none of them had expected Gradley to be generous towards his ex-wife. The real issue was how the money was to be divided amongst the kids. Helen didn’t need the money herself, just so long as the kids were fairly treated. Nobody said anything, all of them willing Earle to continue.
‘And