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Mack nodded. ‘Maybe. But only if that happens. Not if Marla goes for it. And I think she might, especially if she sees that Tony is on my side, which he will be.’

Ben made a note on the page in front of him. ‘So,’ he said. ‘That’s it? We go this option?’

‘It’s up to you, Mack,’ Mary said.

Mack nodded and got to his feet. ‘I’ll talk to Tony,’ he said. ‘And when he agrees I’ll get back to you.’

Ben gestured to the door and followed him through it. He turned to Mary. ‘I’ll see him out,’ he said, unable – or unwilling – to hide the glow of triumph in his expression.

Mary watched them walk out. She felt unsettled, off-balance, but it was hard to know whether it was more at Ben blindsiding her or for drifting off during the meeting. He was playing games, but that was par for the course. She should not have given him the opportunity.

Through the window she could see Mack and Ben talking; after a few minutes they shook hands and Ben headed back into the building.

She intercepted him by the reception.

‘A word?’ She gestured towards her office. She preferred to do this on home ground.

‘Sure.’ He followed her in and stood by the door. She sat behind her desk and nodded for him to close the door.

‘I know what you want to talk to me about,’ he said, a rueful smile on his lips. ‘I should have said something. I know we talked about it earlier, but I was thinking more about it this afternoon and I thought my approach could work. You weren’t here so I didn’t have a chance to take you through it, but I decided to try it out anyway.’

She studied him. She got a strong impression he was lying, but she could hardly accuse him of that.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘That’s fine. It was a good idea.’

‘Maybe. If it works.’ He shrugged. ‘By the way – is everything OK?’

The rueful smile had been replaced by a look of concern. It was no more convincing.

‘Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘You seemed a little – distracted.’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not at all.’

He nodded slowly. ‘You know, if it helps I’d be happy to take on more work with Mack.’

So here it was. He wanted in on Mack’s account, and making her look bad was a great way to achieve his aim.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working with Mack a long time.’

‘Are you sure?’ he said.

‘I am.’

‘It’s just that I know Mack’s son, Jed, quite well. We coach soccer together. And over time he’ll become more involved in the business, so it could be useful to leverage our connection.’

She could almost see the ambition oozing from his pores, but she had no intention of giving in to his land grab. And this was no surprise. She had been expecting something along these lines for a while. Ben wasn’t happy to do a good job and be part of a successful team; he had to be the captain, had to get the recognition, whether he deserved it or not. He tried to hide it – it was an unattractive character trait, even he had learned that along the way – but he was intensely competitive. It didn’t matter what: the car he drove, his kids’ place in the soccer team, the cases he had at work. He had to believe he was winning, at all times.

His wife, Sue, was no different. They had moved to Barrow a decade earlier when their first son was a baby and she had quickly found her way – pushed would be the ungenerous choice of word – onto the school board and then the town council. If there was a civic success, she was front and centre, whether she had played any part in it or not; a failure and she was most notable by her distance from it. Her record was impeccable. No failure stained her escutcheon. One of Mary’s high-school friends, Judy, had a son whose lacrosse team had won the state championship six or seven years earlier. When they paraded through the downtown, Sue was prominent on the float, despite her having no connection to the team other than her place on the school board.

They were attention-seekers, and it was tiresome. It wasn’t only Mary who felt it. She had been asked to join a committee raising funds for a library addition and the committee chair had asked if she knew of others who might be interested.

Not the Coxs, though, they had said. We’re trying to keep them away. Get it up and running before they can poke their noses in.

And here was Ben, with his connection to Mack’s son. It made it sound like it wasn’t a land grab; it was just a reasonable suggestion, a way of leveraging a personal relationship to add value to their mutual business.

Yeah, right.