A Model Mother

Chapter 8

Miles went straight to his London office from his mother’s house. As had been normal since he left Rose, he had found that burying himself in work had stopped him having to think about her. Always driven, he had become almost maniacal; the business had never been in such good order

At the office his PA, Paul, told him that Andrew Knowsley had been trying to get hold of him. Miles had recently appointed Andrew as an HR Executive, he had headhunted him from an international hospitality chain. He had seen him in action when Setons had been negotiating a takeover of the chain in the US. The takeover had fallen through but Miles had kept hold of Andrew.

“Hi Andrew, I hear you need to talk to me?”

“Mr. Seton thanks for getting back to me. I need to talk to you confidentially, about Mr. Whitlock.”

“Max? Does he know you’re calling me?”

“No, he doesn’t. Like I said, this is confidential and I appreciate the sensitivity of talking to you directly about him. I am very concerned about him as are some of the other staff and I thought it might be best to alert you to what’s going on.”

“Go ahead; just tell me straight.”

“ Mr. Whitlock has been keeping erratic hours at work and when he’s not at work his staff are regularly unable to get hold of him as he has his ‘phone switched off. Some clients are becoming frustrated and have started complaining to his team. I only heard about this a couple of days ago. His team, as you know, are very loyal to him and had been trying to cover up for him. It also seems that because they know his closeness to you, they were a little unsure of how to raise their concerns.”

“Did they tell you anything else?” Miles could tell that Andrew was not finding this conversation easy, but he needed to know everything.

“Yes. I went over to his office and had a chat with his PA, Jo, and his Deputy. It seems that both of them have smelled alcohol on Mr. Whitlock’s breath recently and they think that some of the clients must also be aware of it. Jo said that she has had to replace the drinks in his cabinet very frequently over the last few months and is also aware that he keeps bottles close to hand in the drawers of his desk. He has also on one occasion locked himself in his office, not answering his phone or responding to Jo’s knocks. She’s actually quite scared now about his health.”

Andrew paused. “There’s one more thing. Damian Chance from Finance told me that Mr. Whitlock has been getting heavily involved in the financial operations and has been demanding copies of financial transactions. Can I recommend that you contact Damian? He seems to have some real concerns but I’m not a financial expert, so I can’t be certain what, if anything, there is to be concerned about.”

“I’ll do that. Where is Max today, do you know?”

“Jo told me he’s in Vegas, he told her you knew all about it and would be able to contact him. He hasn’t left her any contact details. But he did tell her that he would be returning today and she thinks he had said he would be flying in to London.”

Miles was astonished. He had thought Max was in his office in New York. He knew nothing about him being in Vegas. He knew that Max had had some financial difficulties in the past and that someone, probably his mother, must have helped him out. Max had a weakness for gambling and the fact that he was AWOL in Vegas and had simultaneously been poking his nose into the financial operations of the company rang alarm bells with Miles.

Max’s mother, Alison, had been an alcoholic and it had been her alcoholism that had eventually killed her and her husband Francis. She had insisted on driving them both home from a party and in her drunken state had driven over the edge of the road, plunging down the side of a Californian mountain. Miles mused how strange it was that Alison’s alcoholism should display itself to such opposite extremes in her two children. Max, who could never resist a drink, and Francesca who had remained teetotal ever since her parents’ death.

“Oh, sorry, there is one last thing,” said Andrew. Again, he sounded uncomfortable. He had noted Mile’s absence of a confirmation that he knew that Max was in Vegas.

“Jo has found some letters addressed to you, stuffed into one of Mr. Whitlock’s filing cabinets. She said that some are addressed to your office and some to your home addresses. They’ve all been opened but appear to still have their contents inside. It’s possible you’ve already read them but she thought it was strange that they had been bundled and apparently hidden in his cabinet. She said that it looked like one of the envelopes contained some A4 photographs.”

“Oh God, “thought Miles to himself .He must get hold of those fast

“Where are the letters now?”

“I hope you think I made the right decision. I locked them up in one of the drawers in Max’s office and I have both the keys in my possession. His office is locked and Jo has the only spares. If you want them forwarded to you I can go back and organise it with Jo?”

Miles thought quickly, “You did the right thing, Andrew, thanks. I’m going to ask my lawyer, Bill Campbell to collect them all. I’ll tell him to contact you to arrange a time, I want him to have them ASAP, so please look out for an email or a call from him - Bill has my full authority.”

“Andrew, I need someone to be in Max’s office to start taking charge of the business. I’ll get hold of Max as soon as he arrives and sort things out this end. Please will you prioritise getting Max’s team back on track for the next week, and keep me informed. Work closely with Jo, she’s good.”

Miles ran some names of staff past Andrew, people he knew he could trust to take over from Max temporarily, they would be discreet and competent.