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I’m still wet enough behind the ears to find it quite flattering when people think my opinion is worth having.’
    â€˜Really? Well, a pal of mine has a problem, actually. He’s an important person in the firm, a key to its success, and he feels he should have more say in how the business is being run.’
    â€˜Which is understandable. Unfortunately, the fact that he’s central to the firm’s success doesn’t give him any legal standing. Is he any more than a salaried employee?’
    â€˜No. He would like to be.’
    Tom shook his head, transformed for a second or two into the dullest of family solicitors. ‘Is it a public company? Could he buy shares?’
    â€˜No. It’s a private limited company. There’s just the owner and one very junior partner involved. In effect, it’s a one-man band, with the owner making all the important decisions.’
    Each of them was well aware by now that Knight was talking about himself, but it suited both to preserve the fiction of the mysterious friend, so as to keep the exchange at a less personal level. Tom Bowles said, ‘Is there any chance of your friend becoming a partner?’
    â€˜How would he do that?’
    Tom pursed his lips, shook his head sadly, and again looked for a moment like a much older man. ‘Difficult, without the willing acceptance of the big cheese. He could offer to put up capital, when he sees the firm is short.’
    Jason shook his head decisively. ‘He couldn’t do that. The firm is in perpetual need of capital, but he isn’t in a position to provide it.’
    â€˜Then his only option seems to be to persuade the owner that he is so integral to the firm’s development that he deserves greater recognition, in the form of a partnership.’
    â€˜And if that doesn’t work?’
    Tom Bowles grinned. ‘He could try twisting his employer’s arm. Tell the boss that he’d take his valuable labour elsewhere unless he got more recognition, in the shape of a share of the ownership. But he’d need to be very confident he was indispensable before he risked that. A friend of mine tried it and was looking for a new job the next day.’
    â€˜I’ll pass on what you say,’ said Jason glumly.
    â€˜I must be on my way,’ said Tom Bowles with a glance at his watch. ‘All the best in the next round of the knockout.’
    â€˜Thanks, Tom. And all the best in the new job and at Sunningdale.’
    The bar was quiet at this time. Jason Knight bought himself another drink and sat quietly for a while, digesting the results of their discussion. He told himself not to be disappointed – this was surely what he had expected to hear. He had already known in his heart of hearts what the harsh facts of the situation were.
    Martin Beaumont wasn’t an owner prepared to listen to reason, to share his power with the man who was steadily building it up for him. If Jason was going to get the share of the business he wanted, he was going to have to use more than mere reason. Something much harsher would be needed.

FOUR
    T om Ogden’s family had farmed this land for almost four hundred years – since the area had been rent by the civil war which had resulted in the death of Charles I and the brief rule of Lord Protector Cromwell.
    Tom had watched the spread of Abbey Vineyards beside him with interest – farmers are conservative folk, and a completely new use of land always seems more risky to them than to anyone else. That interest changed first into a vague feeling of unease; this was rapidly followed by the outright apprehension which a small landowner always feels with the spread of a bigger and more prosperous neighbour. Yet Ogden had been glad to sell the highest and least productive part of his land to Martin Beaumont in the early days of the vineyard. The money had enabled Tom to convert the fertile lowland area of his farm to intensive