Switch by Charlie Brooks

Author:Charlie Brooks [Charlie Brooks]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

15

Amsterdam, six months earlier

Wielart had been at his desk for an hour when Francisca knocked on his side door at exactly eleven o’clock. The bells were chiming as he smiled at her and closed the door behind her. He knew no one could see her entering. And he had a clear vision of his two objectives, and the order in which he would achieve them.

Francisca started by outlining the problems in detail, as far as she knew them, from what her father had said when he’d broken down in front of her and her mother. Then Wielart got her to copy each document as he read it and absorbed the contents.

After two hours, Wielart stopped reading and told Francisca to leave the photocopier.

‘I can help,’ he said slowly and unhappily. ‘But it will be at considerable risk to myself.’

Francisca didn’t know how to react. She was both relieved and uncertain.

‘We’ll do anything for you,’ she said, desperation in her voice.

‘Will your father?’

‘Yes, yes. He’ll do anything.’

‘Very well. You are sure of that?’

Francisca nodded. The stress had made her face look more interesting, he thought. He wanted her, but he’d have to wait until he’d secured his first objective.

After a pause, Wielart continued: ‘The only way this situation can be saved is if Deetman Shipping is amalgamated into one of my companies. That way I can alter the figures, call in a few favours and cover up what your father has been up to. As I said, it will involve a substantial risk for me.’

‘Would my father lose his company?’

‘Francisca, at the moment your father is facing the prospect of losing everything and going to prison. If I help, he’ll still own half of his company and he won’t go to prison.’

The penny dropped straight away. Francisca got it. But there was nothing she could do about it. She would have to persuade her father this was the only way out.

‘I will draw up an agreement for your father. If he accepts, I can get to work right away and make this disappear. He can still run the company, but I will be his partner. Life will be good for him, again, Francisca, and he’ll have you to thank.’

Francisca really didn’t know how to feel as she listened to this. Her white knight, the father of her best friend, was using this situation to steal half her father’s life’s work from them. And there was nothing she could do about it.

‘In addition, Francisca, you and your family will never breathe a word of my involvement and help to your family. You have never been to my office. Does anyone know you have come to see me?’

‘No,’ Francisca replied truthfully, wanting to be sick when he used the word help.

‘Do you understand that? It is for your own sake.’

She nodded again. She wanted to kill him.

Wielart set to work immediately drawing up a simple contract that would give him control of fifty-one per cent of Deetman Shipping. Fifty-one per cent that Jorgan Stam would never know about.

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