Chapter 73

73

Corrine

Corrine awoke groggy the morning after the party. The prescription sleeping patches and her alcohol consumption had left her with a pounding in her skull. She didn’t need to open the App and read her Smart blanket’s evaluation of her sleep pattern to know it had been miserable. As she removed one patch and replaced it with another for pain relief, she couldn’t decide if the raised but muffled voices were part of the hangover or coming from elsewhere in the house.

Suddenly her bedroom door opened wide. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, squinting bleary-eyed at her son Spencer.

‘There’s something wrong with Dad,’ he replied and, for a moment, Corrine hoped Mitchell was lying on the floor in the midst of a major aneurysm. ‘He’s going, like, proper nuts. He keeps arguing and screaming at people on the phone.’

‘That’s nothing new. What’s he on his soapbox about this time?’

‘I don’t know. Can you go and talk to him?’

‘I don’t think I care enough to find out.’

‘Please, Mum. This isn’t his usual kind of angry. He sounds . . . I dunno . . . a bit scared too?’

‘Okay.’ Corrine sighed. Resentfully, she climbed out of bed, slipped on her dressing gown and trudged to the end of the landing. The closer she came to Mitchell’s office, the more she realized Spencer’s description wasn’t inaccurate.

A blurred object flew across the room and shattered against the wall as she opened the door.

‘Mitchell!’ she yelled, startling him. His face was puce, breaths sharp and fast and his eyes wired. He paced around the room with pods in his ears, stepping over remnants of ornaments he had already hurled before she arrived. Spencer was correct. Beneath today’s rage, she sensed fear in her husband.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Corrine asked.

‘I’ve been cancelled,’ he said in disbelief.

‘What do you mean you’ve been cancelled?’

‘What the hell do you think it means?’

Now it was Corrine’s turn to look to the Audite and then back at him.

‘Fuck that,’ he snapped, and moved towards it, yanking it from the wall and stamping on it with the heel of his trainer until the bamboo casing split. Corrine took a step back. ‘Every one of my Government contracts has been revoked with immediate effect,’ he continued. ‘Even the ones we were in the middle of negotiating have been cancelled.’

‘Why?’

‘They’re claiming there are dozens of safety issues with the Phoenix estate we built in New Swindon . . . poor workmanship, sink hole risks, cracked concrete foundations and weakened steel. They’re suing us for breach of contract if we don’t rebuild and use a higher percentage of renewable resources like wood. And they’re refusing to buy the land they’d agreed in principle to purchase from us if we don’t.’

‘Can’t you do as they ask?’

‘No, because their claims are all bullshit! We don’t have the means to build an entire estate from scratch.’

‘So what does that mean?’

‘It means everything we’ve invested in is now worthless. We’re left with thousands of acres of land that no one wants.’

‘Are you just being stubborn and don’t want to admit there are problems?’

‘How can I admit anything when these problems don’t exist? They’re all fabricated. I’ve been through every one of them with my team and none of them have any merit.’

‘Can you take legal action against them?’

‘A counterclaim will take years and I can’t afford the legal bills. We’ll have to consider liquidation if they don’t change their minds. We’ll be broke.’

‘You mean the business will be?’

‘No, us. I’ve ploughed all our savings into it.’

‘Oh my God, Mitchell! How could you have done something so stupid?’

‘I don’t need a lecture. For years it’s been a sure thing. Predict where to buy next, shell out for the land, get the contracts for the developments, build and then sell it to the Government. It’s what we did in New Halifax then New Portsmouth and we made millions. Invest, earn, invest, earn and so on. Once we go into liquidation, they’ll probably be able to buy the land more cheaply from the liquidator.’

Corrine rubbed at her eyes. ‘Well, at least we still have the house.’

Mitchell turned away.

‘Mitchell?’

‘The business owns the house,’ he said quietly.

‘Since when?’

‘Since we bought it. I told you we could afford it but, at the time, we couldn’t. So it became company property and we paid a nominal annual rent. And when the business took off, I didn’t see the point in buying it back.’

‘There must be something you can do?’

‘I’ve been making calls all morning but no one is budging. It’s as if they’ve targeted me and are deliberately trying to destroy me.’

Eleanor Harrison’s face appeared in Corrine’s head with such speed it almost knocked her over. She was responsible for this. It was why her request to put pressure on Mitchell had taken so long. She wasn’t only going to destroy Mitchell, she was going to take down Corrine with him too.