Chapter 66: The First Payment
Merevale’s first interest payment came due at 9:00 a.m., and Ashford Group did not have enough clean cash.
That was how Derek phrased it, because finance people used clean when dirty would have started shouting.
Julian stared at the schedule while the IPO preview banners were being loaded into a van downstairs.
The number was not impossible alone, and that made it crueller than a crisis large enough to excuse collapse in public.
A man could survive one interest payment, one client pause, one underwriter question, one regulator inquiry, or one mistress filming jewellery.
Together, they became a door that opened only into another locked room.
Derek placed the cash position beside the Merevale covenant notice and waited.
Julian did not like being waited for.
It made him feel observed, and observation had become a disease spreading through his company.
Use the operating account, he said.
Derek did not move. Payroll clears Friday, and the supplier guarantees depend on that same balance.
Delay a supplier.
Which one? The one already threatening credit hold, or the one Morley asked us to preserve?
Julian looked at him. You have become very comfortable saying no.
No is what remains when yes has been spent, Derek replied.
The sentence landed badly because it sounded like Serena without using her name.
Across town, Serena read the same interest schedule from Helena Cross and marked the due time in blue.
Merevale did not need to crush Julian yet, not while cameras and underwriters were gathering.
It only needed to make him explain why rescue money already required rescue.
Helena appeared on screen. He can pay if he strips working capital and delays two suppliers.
Then let him choose which limb to move, Serena said.
Martin looked at her. We should not push too hard before the event.
Serena turned a page. We are not pushing. The contract is breathing.
At Whitmore House, Ivy was choosing handbags in the blue sitting room while a stylist arranged the white suit for tomorrow.
Julian called and said, Stop all spending until after Thursday.
Ivy held up a crocodile handbag and frowned at the mirror, offended by timing more than cost.
Do you know how embarrassing it is to keep cancelling things?
Do you know how embarrassing a covenant breach is?
She paused. Is that expensive?
Julian closed his eyes. Yes, Ivy. It is expensive enough to make lenders read your captions.
She looked at the handbag again. Then win tomorrow.
That was her entire understanding of finance: men won, women received proof and posted the receipt.
At 11:12, Derek entered the boardroom with the updated cash bridge.
We can make the payment, he said.
Julian exhaled too soon.
If we defer two supplier settlements and use the contingency allocated to the preview event.
No, Julian said at once. The preview cannot look cheap.
It already looks dangerous, Derek said.
By noon, Julian chose the worst option.
He paid Merevale, delayed suppliers, preserved the preview, and told communications to keep the champagne order.
Derek recorded all four decisions in the board pack, because bad choices became safer when documented early.
At 12:36, one delayed supplier issued a credit warning.
At 12:52, Morley requested assurance that supplier continuity remained unaffected.
At 1:07, Merevale acknowledged receipt and requested enhanced weekly reporting, including discretionary expenditure.
Julian read the last line twice.
Weekly reporting meant the lender now wanted to watch every breath he took.
In Serena’s flat, Helena forwarded the acknowledgement with one note.
Leash shortened.
Serena saved it beside Ivy’s latest handbag screenshot.
Outside the hotel, workers began installing gold lettering for tomorrow’s celebration.
Inside Ashford Group, the first payment had cleared, but the account beneath it had begun showing bone.