AGATHA (TAGGIE)
O’HARA
His elder daughter.
CAITLIN O’HARA
His younger daughter.
ORTRUD
Yet another of the Verekers’ comely nannies.
CYRIL PEACOCK
Lord Baddingham’s PA and sometime Press Officer, Corinium Television.
THE VERY REVEREND
FERGUS PENNEY
An ex-Prebendary of the Church of England, and a member of the IBA.
PERCY
Lord Baddingham’s chauffeur.
PASCOE RAWLINGS
The most powerful theatrical agent in London.
BARTON SINCLAIR
Director of
SKIP
A beautiful American lawyer.
LORD SMITH
An ex-Secretary of the TGWU.
DAME ENID SPINK
A distinguished composer and Professor of Music at Cotchester University.
PAUL STRATTON
Tory MP for Cotchester. An ex-Cabinet Minister.
SARAH STRATTON
His ravishing second wife and ex-secretary.
SYDNEY
Rupert’s driver.
URSULA
Declan O’Hara’s secretary.
JAMES VEREKER
Anchorman of ‘Cotswold Round-Up’, Corinium Television.
LIZZIE VEREKER
His wife, a novelist.
ELEANOR VEREKER
His daughter.
SEBASTIAN VEREKER
His son.
HAROLD WHITE
Director of Programmes, London Weekend Television.
MAURICE WOOTON
A bent Gloucestershire property millionaire.
1
Sitting in the Concorde departure lounge at Heathrow on a perfect blue June morning, Anthony, second Baron Baddingham, Chairman and Managing Director of Corinium Television, should have been perfectly happy. He was blessed with great wealth, a title, a brilliant career, a beautiful flat in Kensington, houses in Gloucestershire and Tuscany, a loyal, much-admired wife, three charming children and a somewhat demanding mistress, to whom he had just bidden a long farewell on the free telephone beside him.
He was about to fly on his favourite aeroplane, Concorde, to his favourite city, New York, to indulge in his favourite pastime — selling Corinium’s programmes to American television and raising American money to make more programmes. Tony Baddingham was a great believer in using Other People’s Money, or OPM as he called it; then if a project bombed, someone else picked up the bill.
As a final bonus, neatly folded beside him were the morning papers, which he’d already read in the Post House Hotel, and which all contained glowing reports of Corinium’s past six months’ results, announced yesterday.
Just as he had been checking out of the Post House an hour earlier, however, Tony’s perfect pleasure had been ruined by the sight of his near neighbour and long-term rival, Rupert Campbell-Black, checking in. He was scribbling his signature with one hand and holding firmly on to a rather grubby but none-the-less ravishing girl with the other.
The girl, who had chipped nail polish, wildly tangled blonde hair, mascara smudges under her eyes, and a deep suntan, had obviously just been pulled out of some other bed and was giggling hysterically.
‘Ru-pert,’ she wailed, ‘there simply isn’t time; you’ll miss the plane.’
‘It’ll wait,’ said Rupert, and, gathering up his keys, started to drag her towards the lift. As the doors closed, like curtains coming down on the first act of a play, Tony could see the two of them glued together in a passionate embrace.
A deeply competitive man, Tony had felt dizzy with jealousy. He had seldom, particularly since he had inherited the title and become Chief Executive of Corinium, had any difficulty attracting women, but he’d never attracted anything so wantonly desirable and desiring as that grubby, vaguely familiar blonde.
‘More coffee, Lord Baddingham?’ One of the beautiful attendants in the Concorde Lounge interrupted Tony’s brooding. He shook his head, comforted by the obvious admiration in her voice.
‘Shouldn’t we be boarding?’ he asked.
‘We’ll be a few minutes late. There was a slight engineering problem. They’re just doing a last-minute check.’
Tony glanced round the departure lounge, filled with businessmen and American tourists, and noticed a pale, redheaded young man in a grey pinstripe suit, who had stopped his steady flow of writing notes on a foolscap pad and was looking apprehensively at his watch.
Boarding the plane twenty minutes later, Tony found himself sitting up at the front on an inside seat with a Jap immersed in a portable computer on his right. Across the gangway next to the window sat the young man in the pinstripe suit. He was even paler now and looking distinctly put out.
‘Good morning, Lord Baddingham,’ said a stewardess, handing Tony that day’s newly-flown-in copy of the
‘Engineering fault sorted out?’ asked Tony, as the engines started revving up.
Not quite meeting his eyes, the girl nodded brightly; then, looking out of the window, she seemed to relax as a black car raced across the tarmac. Next there was a commotion, as a light, flat, familiar drawl could be heard down the gangway:
‘Frightfully sorry to hold you all up; traffic was diabolical.’
All the stewardesses seemed to converge on the new arrival, fighting to carry his newspaper and put his hand luggage up in the locker.
