Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

I tried to remain calm, but inside alarm bells were ringing. What had I said wrong? What had I missed? Why was Tony so warm to his son and so cold to me? Did this still have something to do with Dominique?

Eventually Guy cut in. ‘Thank you, David. As you can see, we are being prudent with our cash, and we’re keeping within budget.’

‘We might be within budget, but we’re not making any money. Are we, David?’ There was an edge to Tony’s voice.

‘Not yet, no,’ I admitted. ‘But at this stage in Ninetyminutes’ life we should be investing in the business.’

‘We’re making losses, with no prospect of that changing. I don’t call that “investing in the business”. I call that spending more than we earn.’

Anger flashed inside me. My professional pride was hurt. I was the accountant, what did he mean by lecturing me? ‘This is a start-up,’ I snapped. ‘What do you expect?’

Tony raised his eyebrows. He slowly moved his gaze to Guy and then back to me.

‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘Till next month. I’m glad the site is going so well. Congratulations.’ This was aimed more towards Guy than me. ‘Perhaps at our next meeting we can go a little bit further into our financial strategy.’

That sounded ominous, but I wasn’t as concerned as perhaps I should have been. It had been an uncomfortable meeting, and I had let Tony get to me for a brief moment, but I had survived. I had received a cooling rather than a roasting. That I could learn to handle, I thought. It was just a question of attitude.

We soon forgot about our chairman. Ninetyminutes was buzzing, and the loudest buzzing came from Guy. He was everywhere. If he didn’t have the ideas himself he encouraged the other people in the team to have them. He truly was inspirational. Decisions were made in a matter of seconds, all by Guy. His yardstick was, would a certain idea get us closer to being the number-one site in Europe? If it did, we went ahead with it. If it didn’t, we forgot it and moved on to the next thing.

Despite the site’s initial success, Guy was unhappy with it. Gaz’s ideas were good, his stories were brilliant and Mandrill’s design was better than anything else out there. But in Guy’s view the site lacked something, although it was difficult to get him to pin down exactly what. After long discussions into the night we decided that what we needed was someone to pull all these elements together and organize them. But what kind of person? And where could we find them?

We didn’t have the time to advertise and we didn’t have the money for a headhunter. Then I thought of Ingrid. Neither of us had seen her for seven years, but she had been working in magazine publishing then. If she didn’t know anyone herself, she might at least help us identify the kind of person we should be looking for and suggest where we might find them. If she’d talk to us.

I dug out her number from an old address book and called her up. She was surprised to hear from me, but she agreed to have lunch with us the next day.

We met at a small pizza place near her office on the South Bank. She was cool, composed and confident. She looked a little older, lines were beginning to show around her mouth and pale-blue eyes, smile lines. Her chestnut-brown hair was cut shorter, and she wore an elegant but informal trouser suit. Jade earrings dangled from her ears. She looked poised and in control. And amused.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘You two joining up to become dot-commers. A dissolute actor and a buttoned-up chartered accountant.’

‘Killer combination,’ said Guy with a smile. ‘And unique.’

I wasn’t sure I quite liked the description of myself as a ‘buttoned-up accountant’, but I didn’t quibble. Suave merchant banker, perhaps? But of course one of the reasons I was doing this was to lose the accountant label.

‘I almost didn’t recognize you. Guy has no signs of a hangover and you seem to have lost your suit, David. And your hair.’

‘Well, we recognized you,’ said Guy.

‘It’s lucky you had the same phone number,’ I said. ‘Seven years on.’

‘Same number. Same flat. Same job, I’m afraid.’

‘That dull, huh?’ said Guy. And then, in response to Ingrid’s sharp look, ‘Just getting my own back.’

She smiled.

We ordered our pizzas, and caught up on what we each had been doing. Then Guy asked the question. ‘What do you think?’

‘Of your site?’

‘Yes.’

Ingrid put down her knife and fork, pondering the question for a few moments. ‘It’s good. I’m impressed. The design is excellent. I know nothing about football, but you’ve got some very good writers. Easy to load. No bugs that I could find. Not bad at all.’

Guy looked disappointed. ‘Nothing wrong with it, then?’

‘No. For an amateur site, it’s really first class.’

‘But it’s not an amateur site!’ Guy said, with too much vehemence.

‘Oops,’ Ingrid said. ‘I didn’t mean amateur. But you can tell it hasn’t been done by a professional media company.’

‘Why? The design’s OK, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. As I said, it’s very good. But the whole thing doesn’t quite hang together properly. It lacks coherence. It’s inconsistent in places, some things are a little difficult to find, everything is given equal weight.’

‘What do you mean, equal weight?’

‘Well, in a magazine it’s up to the editor to tell the reader what the really interesting stories are and make them easy to see. You can do that on the web, too, although most people don’t. But if you look at some of the good newspaper sites, they are carefully edited. If you know what you want, you can find it. If you just want to browse, the interesting stuff will be there for you.’

‘That’s it!’ said Guy, glancing at me in triumph. ‘That’s exactly what I was saying! So what can we do about it?’

‘You need someone to coordinate everything. Editor, publisher, call it what you like.’

‘Well? Is there anyone you know who might be able to help us? Or who would want to help us?’

Ingrid paused, as though flicking through a Rolodex in her head. ‘Maybe.’

‘Oh, yes?’

But Ingrid didn’t give us a name. At least not yet. ‘I still can’t get over you two teaming up. Despite my crack about chartered accountants, I’m not really surprised about David. But you, Guy? What about the late nights? The women? The drink?’

Guy took a sip of the sparkling water in front of him. ‘All in the past,’ he said with a grin. ‘Just ask Davo.’

Ingrid glanced at me. I nodded.

‘Seriously,’ Guy said. ‘I’ve changed since the last time you saw me. I’ve come to that point in my life where I want to prove that I’m not a loser, that I can create something worthwhile. I’ve worked hard at this. Fourteen-hour days, weekends, I haven’t had a holiday since I started this thing. And this is just the beginning. But I’m prepared to do whatever it takes. I really badly want this to work, Ingrid. And when I want something, I generally get it.’

Ingrid raised her eyebrows.

‘So who are you thinking of?’ I asked. ‘And do you think they’d do it?’

‘I think I do know the right person,’ said Ingrid. ‘But I’m not sure whether they’d do it or not.’

‘Tell them to spend a day with us,’ said Guy. ‘If they can’t get away from their job, there’s always Saturday. We’ll be in the office all day: Chelsea are playing away.’

‘All right.’

‘So who is it?’ Guy asked.

Ingrid smiled. ‘Me.’

Guy returned her smile. ‘In that case we’ll see you on Saturday.’

Ingrid came in that weekend. She clicked. Gaz liked her. Neil liked her. Even Owen liked her. At midday, Guy and I talked it over. After our lunch with her we’d both taken a look at the on-line magazine she had developed. It was aimed at professional women in their thirties, not exactly our target market. But it was smooth, sophisticated, interesting, seamless. It worked.