"Archer, Jeffrey - twelve red herrings)txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Archer Jeffrey)

him fully aware of our anxieties. I remember being struck by his use
of the word 'our'.

After we had turned the last page of the contract, I realised that
everyone else in the building had left for the weekend, so I suggested
to Jeremy that he might like to join Rosemary and me for dinner. He
checked his watch, considered the offer for a moment, and then said,
"Thank you, that's very kind of you.

Could you drop me back at the Queen's Hotel so I can get changed
?" Rosemary, however, was not pleased to be told at the last minute
that I had invited a complete stranger to dinner without warning her,
even though I assured her that she would like him.

Jeremy rang our front doorbell a few minutes after eight.

When I introduced him to Rosemary, he bowed slightly and
kissed her hand. After that, they didn't take their eyes
off each other all evening. Only a blind man could have missed what
was likely to happen next, and although I might not have been blind, I
certainly turned a blind eye.

Jeremy was soon finding excuses to spend more and more time in
Leeds, and I am bound to admit that his sudden enthusiasm for the north
of England enabled me to advance my ambitions for Cooper's far more
quickly than I had originally dreamed possible. I had felt for some
time that the company needed an in-house lawyer, and within a year of
our first meeting I offered Jeremy a place on the board, with the remit
to prepare the company for going public.

During that period I spent a great deal of my time in Madrid,
Amsterdam and Brussels drumming up new contracts, and Rosemary
certainly didn't discourage me. Meanwhile Jeremy skilfully guided the
company through a thicket of legal and financial problems caused by our
expansion. Thanks to his diligence and expertise, we were able to
announce on x2 February x98o that Cooper's would be applying for a
listing on the Stock Exchange later that year. It was then that I made
my first mistake: I invited Jeremy to become Deputy Chairman of the
company.

Under the terms of the flotation, fifty-one per cent of the shares
would be retained by Rosemary and myself. Jeremy explained to me that
for tax reasons they should be divided equally between us. My
accountants agreed, and at the time I didn't give it a second thought.
The remaining 4,900,000 one pound shares were quickly taken up by
institutions and the general public, and within days of the company
being listed on the Stock Exchange their value had risen to 2.80.

My father, who had died the previous year, would never have
accepted that it was possible to become worth several million pounds