Strike for Death Read online

  “Listen,” he said gruffly, “there is a time and a place for everything, and this isn’t the time or place for you to call me ‘sir’. When the others are about, and that only for the time being, we have to put up with it. But when we’re alone it’s Tessa and Malcolm.”

  He broke off, and stood up abruptly.

  “My day for saying the wrong thing,” he said jerkily. “It has now occurred to me that you may no longer wish to call the junior director by his first name.”

  “Malcolm,” Tessa said, very quietly, “even if you did mishandle the situation out there, it isn’t the end of the world, and it isn’t the first time a mistake’s been made. If that boy hadn’t started to throw oranges it would never have happened.”

  “If I hadn’t been wearing the tie which you gave me for my birthday it might never have happened, either,” he said, “so that way it’s your fault. This is the time for facing blunt facts. I made a bloody fool of myself. I did it because I lost my temper, and when a Munro loses his temper, it’s hell to pay. Do you know what Michael Grannett said? He said that he had waited a long time to see a Munro make a fool of himself, and it had been worth waiting. He’s probably right.” When Tessa didn’t speak, Malcolm went on in a hard voice: “This is the very time when we cannot afford a strike. The Board knows it, even I know it, and Grannett and the other shop stewards and the workers know it. Bless their little hearts, that’s why they’ve chosen this moment to put in the demand for a ten per cent increase, and that’s why they’ll get it. And that’s why the fact that the boy started the fight will be glossed over, and why the junior director will be expected to apologise for hitting a worthy working man who was also an insolent young pup. Like me. This is also where the junior director will have lost all respect that the factory staff and workers ever had for him, and where he writes finis to his promising career as the great industrial baron. How was I, while I lasted?”

  “Don’t talk for the sake of talking,” Tessa said. “It isn’t anything like as bad as that.”

  “It is, you know,” said Malcolm. “I wonder who paid for those oranges.” He moved towards the door to his office, opened it, and went on: “I can’t change, I’ll have to face the Board in battledress. At least I’ll know I’ve one friend in court, you’ll be on duty, as Topsy’s away with that heaven-sent ‘flu. When drawing up the minutes, go easy on the actual phrasing of the condemnation of the folly of Malcolm Munro, won’t you? “

  “They’ll send me out of the room, and discuss it privately,” Tessa said.

  “Not if I know my father,” Malcolm declared, and went in and closed his office door.

  He was probably right.

  He was also showing a new side to himself, one which Tessa hadn’t really suspected to be present: the courage to face up to a situation and to admit that he had been wrong. A kind of bitter humility. It wasn’t surprising that he blamed himself so much, and it didn’t greatly matter. He was talking nonsense about resigning, of course, it wouldn’t come to that.

  Would it?

  Tessa could not put the possibility out of her mind as she busied herself getting the agenda ready, then going to the board room across the passage, and placing the blotting-paper, the pens, pencils, pads, agenda sheet, and other documents in front of each director’s chair.

  There were four directors, named on the agenda:

  Sir Ian Munro, Chairman

  Mr Robert Amory, Managing Director

  Mr Malcolm Munro

  Mr A. C. Cobb, Secretary

  But the agenda did not say that Sir Ian owned forty-nine per cent of the shares, and was the virtual dictator of Munro’s. Yet he could be out-voted on the Board, and occasionally was.

  Tessa would sit at Cobb’s side, with the chairman on her other side, because he often wanted her to take notes for him, and he liked to supervise her work; in fact, everyone’s work. She finished the preparations and went back to her office, and as she did so the bell from Malcolm’s room rang. She picked up her pencil and pad and hurried in, but he stopped her at the door.

  “Check on young Grannett, sweet, and find out how he is, will you?”

  “Who?” she asked, in surprise.

  “Young Grannett. Michael Grannett’s brother. My victim.”

  “Is that who it was?” Tessa was genuinely aghast.

  “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” said Malcolm wryly. “If I’d done the right thing I would have made it Michael Grannett, that would really have fried the bacon. Let me know how the victim is, will you?”

  “Yes, of course,” Tessa said, then saw the handle of the outer door turn. A moment later Sir Ian Munro, the Munro, the only surviving founder member of the Board of Munro & Company Limited, Makers of Quality Cars, entered Malcolm’s office. At the best of times he had an aggressive manner and a hostile expression, and as far as Tessa could judge now, he was in a much worse mood than usual. Probably he had been told what had happened.

  She heard him say: “What’s this I hear?” in his deepest, roughest voice.

  She closed the door.

  Before telephoning the works hospital, where all injuries both major and minor were treated, she went to the board room again and made sure that everything was ready; the water had to be taken in at the last minute, Mr Amory had an obsession about fresh water. There were a few specks of dust at A. C Cobb’s place, and she blew these off, then went back to her desk and lifted the telephone.

  “The hospital, please.”

  “Yes, Miss Lee.” There was a moment’s pause; then: “I’m sorry, Miss Lee, it’s engaged. Shall I call you?”

  “Yes, please.” Tessa rang off, took her handbag from a desk drawer and the mirror out of her handbag, and studied her reflection. She looked all right; right enough to attract Malcolm, right enough to have made him say, only two nights ago, that she was so beautiful she was driving him crazy. She was the crazy one, for wanting to believe him.

  There were a few letters from the morning’s dictation still to be done. She rattled them off, knowing what to say almost by heart, and able to imagine Malcolm’s quiet voice as he dictated, able to remember the way he looked at her. At least he played fair, didn’t squeeze her or kiss her in the office, didn’t make the affaire even remotely sordid. Affaire? She remembered the day she had first met him, only a year ago. His uncle, whose place he had taken on the Board, had been her boss then: Mr Paul Munro. Even at the time, she had known that the old man was ill and likely to retire, although she hadn’t suspected that he would die so suddenly.

  She remembered the glint and smile in Malcolm’s eyes at that meeting, and the unfeigned admiration in them. His father had said, in hearty jest, that when he took over the directorship his luckiest break would be taking over the director’s secretary with it,

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Malcolm had said.

  They’d all laughed.

  If only Paul were alive to face this situation, instead of Sir Ian …

  Tessa finished the letters and put them in the folder for signing; now there was only filing that she need do until a summons from the directors. It was three o’clock. Odd that she hadn’t yet been put through to the hospital. She was tempted to ring again, but a messenger from the accounts department came in with some files and figures for the meeting, so she didn’t. She found herself thinking more about Malcolm. He had been abroad much of his life, and had never intended to come into the business. A year ago, when he’d been persuaded by his father to succeed Paul Munro, it had been intended that Malcolm should spend a few months in the different departments before joining the Board, but Paul’s sudden death had brought him on the Board at once. If he’d had the experience, perhaps this afternoon’s bother would not have happened. The odd thing was that Malcolm had nothing of his father’s impatience or intolerance. The workers were ‘the chaps’ to him; several had fought in his unit with him in Korea and later served in Germany with him. The internal telephone bell rang.

  “Mr Malcolm�
�s office … Oh, yes, please, put me through.” They had an internal exchange, not an automatic system, one of the things Malcolm had said that he would like to put right soon. “Hallo, is Sister Marsh there? … Oh, Eileen, it’s Tessa. Do you know how the man Grannett is, the one who was in a fight? “

  “Yes, I do,” said Sister Marsh in a rather abrupt way; she wasn’t usually abrupt, least of all with her friends. “He’s on his way to the town hospital now, he’s much more seriously injured than we’d realised.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “I think you’ll have to find a way of making sure that boss of yours keeps his fists to himself,” Eileen said, almost angrily. “And his temper, too. He must have gone mad.”

  “Eileen, young Grannett isn’t really badly hurt, is he?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me, but I shan’t know until they’ve taken the X-ray,” Eileen said. “It fooled me, I didn’t realise how nasty it was.” Her manner softened, and she went on: “No need for you to worry about it, though, but I’m afraid it’s going to cause a lot of trouble in the factory. Several people have—” Her voice became brisk again. “I mustn’t stop to gossip, Tessa, there are two girls outside who’ve cut their fingers badly, and a man’s fallen down some steps, I think he’s broken his collarbone. See you later.”

  “Yes, all right,” said Tessa. “Thanks.”

  She felt frightened, for Malcolm.

  Then the members of the Board began to arrive, looking in to announce themselves, and Tessa had no chance to tell Malcolm what she had heard. She wasn’t sure that it would be wise to yet, anyhow. When she saw him next, he was very pale. There was a glitter in his eyes which she didn’t like; the kind which suggested that he would soon lose his temper. His vicious temper! There must have been a scene between him and Sir Ian. She fully expected to be told that she wasn’t wanted for the beginning of the meeting, but she was wrong.

  Sir Ian, short, stocky, balding, had the look of a hard spirits drinker, but that was misleading. In his habits he was temperate, and he put on weight with a rapidity which made dieting necessary; his regular concessions to this problem were to take saccharin instead of sugar, and brown bread instead of white.

  There had been a time, many years ago, when he had gone among the workers, knowing many by their Christian names. But as Munro Motors had grown, and the payroll had increased, that had become impossible. Now he knew very few of the men personally. In those old days he had been a generous and benevolent employer. Today, he seemed to see the employees as a kind of enemy, ready at all times to attack, demanding more than the plant could afford.

  Robert Amory, tall, always a little tentative, successfully hiding the fact that he was an able managing director, was a particularly good public-relations man; undoubtedly it was Amory who had managed to keep relationship between the management and workers reasonably sweet in days when tensions had been increasingly taut in the industrial world.

  A. C. Cobb was a kind of walking accounting machine, who handled not only the accounts but all the firm’s statistics. He would be a little impatient with Tessa, probably, because his own secretary was away; he was always happier when Topsy Wareham was present to take notes; Topsy was the world’s best note taker.

  A.C. was human, though; as he’d already shown today.

  There was not a great deal of ordinary business. Minutes were read, a few formal matters were discussed, and then came the main purpose of the meeting, the wage demand for a ten per cent increase; that was really why the meeting had been called. As the previous items were crossed off the agenda and the way cleared for this one, Tessa felt her own tension rising.

  They would surely send her out now.

  “Miss Lee, don’t make any notes until I tell you,” Sir Ian ordered. He sat erect in his chair, rather like the painting of him in the main entrance hall downstairs. He coughed; a nervous habit “No need to waste words. We know that the situation has been seriously aggravated by what happened at lunchtime.” He looked challengingly at Cobb and Amory, but not at Malcolm; probably he had said all that he intended to say to his son. No one spoke. “Situation as I see it has changed,” Sir Ian said. “We’ve had one of the workers deliberately throw missiles at a director, seen others protect that worker. Sharp disciplinary action must be taken if we are to preserve the position of and respect for the Board. Time has come to make it clear that we do own the plant, and are not prepared to be dictated to by any section of the employees. My recommendation is that we reject the wage increase demand outright. Any other course will be construed as weakness, and we cannot afford to be considered weak.”

  He stopped, breathing heavily through his wide nostrils.

  Cobb, with his little pale face and rather tired eyes, looked nervous and worried. Malcolm sat almost as erect as his father, one hand resting on the big, shiny board room table. The challenge, if it came, would come from Amory, who always gave the impression that he was going to evade an issue, and always surprised Tessa by facing it with remarkable calm.

  “I don’t think we can do it, Mr Chairman,” he said mildly.

  “Nonsense. Can and will.”

  “If we reject it absolutely, they’ll be out tomorrow.”

  “They’ll come back fast enough.”

  Sir Ian must have expected this opposition, but didn’t find it palatable. He was glaring at Amory’s round, tentatively smiling face; Amory’s expression seemed half apologetic. “Things in the labour market aren’t so rosy as they were. Had to happen sooner or later. We can’t be dictated to. It’s well known that we are bursting with export orders for the Mark 9 model, and that we’ve cut export prices to the bone to reach it. Even a five per cent wage increase would pare profits down to next to nothing, ten per cent would cause a loss. Got to be realists. Got to realise that we are doing a public service. We’ve been working for two years on the Mark 9, we’ve now got something that will sweep the Continent and America. Put a year’s output behind us, add the production economies we can make in a year and we can listen to demands. To hell with their demands, anyhow! What right have they to demand anything? Their request for a rise. We can’t afford it now. We must tell them so. Their representative wants his reply by five o’clock, doesn’t he, Bob?”

  “Yes,” said Amory, and looked even more apologetic “Mr Chairman, we won’t sweep any market with Mark 9 if we aren’t making them.”

  “Strike’ll be over in a week.”

  “I don’t think you’re right,” argued Amory. He looked at Cobb, whose small chin seemed to shrink inside his stiff collar. “What do you think, A.C.?”

  Cobb shot a worried glance at the Chairman.

  “Determined mood,” he said. “Distinct impression, very determined.” He glanced almost fearfully at Malcolm. “Even before this afternoon’s incident”

  “Exactly,” said Sir Ian, and banged the table, but surprisingly lightly. “They’ve been intractable for a long time. The moment we get our heads above water, they try to drag us down again. We’ve got to face this challenge. The attitude of the men towards a director proves conclusively that they are in an antagonistic and hostile mood, but they won’t be so hostile when they’re not getting any pay packets. I know they’ll strike, I don’t need telling that, but I say it will soon be over, and that the atmosphere will be much clearer. And cleaner. You’ve used the velvet glove too long, Bob. You’ve let the man Grannett twist you round his little finger. This proves beyond doubt that he’s a dangerous man, without the interests of the company at heart. I see no alternative but to reject the de—the request. We must. If you want to sugar the pill, tell ’em we’ll consider it again in six months’ time. Tell ’em if Mark 9 is a success—”

  “That won’t help, you know,” Amory said.

  “It’ll look good in the newspapers.”

  Unexpectedly, Amory laughed.

  “Our export sales figures in a year’s time would look better, Mr Chairman! Do you mind if I say that I think you’re making a mistake in confusing t
wo issues? The incident outside is one thing, the wage application quite another.”

  “Inextricably mixed up,” Sir Ian declared, with very great emphasis.

  When he stopped, no one spoke.

  Malcolm hadn’t yet uttered a word. He was still as pale as when he had come in, and Tessa knew that he was afraid that if he spoke he would lose his temper. She did not know whether to hope that he would keep silent, or whether he should say what he thought: what did he think, anyhow?

  Then Amory looked at him, and said: “It looks as if you have the deciding vote, Malcolm. I shall vote for offering seven and a half per cent increase, on the proposal I’ve already put in, and the Chairman will vote against it. What do you intend to do?”

  Tessa felt as if she could not breathe; the others felt the tension, too. But it was not long-lived.

  Malcolm said briefly: “I shall vote for your proposal.”

  His father swung towards him, angry and incredulous.

  “I thought I told you—”

  “Mr Chairman, you may have my resignation any time you like after this meeting, but while I remain a member of this Board I shall vote as I think right, and not because I get instructions from you or anyone else,” Malcolm said formally. “I shall vote for an offer of seven and a half per cent.”

  “I tell you to offer any increase now will be a sign of abject weakness,” Sir Ian cried. “I utterly refuse to agree!”

  The ringing of the telephone bell startled him so much that he broke off and glared at the instrument, which was in front of Tessa. In the momentary hesitation which followed, all of them looked at it, and so seemed to be looking at her. An interruption at a Board meeting was one of the rare things, and could only herald news of exceptional importance.

  “Well, see who it is,” Sir Ian said at last, staring back at his son.

  Tessa took off the receiver.

  “The board room,” she announced.

  A man said: “Is that Miss Lee? … This is Colonel Harrison, Miss Lee, let me speak to Mr Amory, please.”