Chapter One
Going … Going … Gone
“So, this is it.”
Susan cringes inwardly at her own words, which seem as flaccid and tasteless as raw squid. Before her stand over forty people now looking for work, and all she can say is “This is it”?
They deserve better. She wishes she could offer more, but there is no more. Elliot’s Regent Street, the jewel in the crown of Napier Hospitality, is going out of business, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And Susan certainly tried. She’d fought—dug her nails in, clung, clawed, pleaded, begged—but she’d been too late to save it or any of the other Napier restaurants, which had shuttered one by one over the past two years. She watched, alarmed, as it happened. As her grandfather’s hard work gave way to waste, disaster, and ultimately bankruptcy. She pleaded with her father to let her step in, as her grandfather had always intended. It was why she’d gotten a business degree. It was why she—
Well, best not to think about that. Not now, as a swarm of eyes stare her down. “I—we—my family—we want to thank you all for everything you’ve done,” she continues. “And to say that we’re so sorry it’s come to this. Believe me, if there was any other way …”
It’s no use. They’re getting restless. They want to be off to one of their favorite haunts—maybe that slightly grubby place “with character” in Camden Town—to commiserate and reminisce and talk about who’s hiring.
Susan wants to be off too. Put London, and all its failures and unhappy memories behind her. And she will—tomorrow. Tomorrow’s a new start for all of them. A last chance to save her grandfather’s legacy in the place it all began: Edinburgh.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “It’s been a great pleasure working with all of you, and you’ll be missed.”
She doubts she will be, despite having been on friendly terms with most of them. Now they look at her and only see the reason they’ll struggle to make rent for a while. The sense of misplaced failure weighs heavily on her.
They all stare for a few long seconds. Waiting for some sign of what to do. What should she do? Dismiss them? That seems so arrogant. Her grandfather probably would have gone around the room and hugged each and every person, and they would have hugged him back and probably wiped away a few tears. But then, everyone loved Elliot. And he could hardly be blamed for any of this: he and Emily, his equally talented and hard-working wife, had built a good business, a solid, well-respected one. Spent their whole lives at it and died thinking it would be in good hands. Susan’s hands. But she was too young when he died, and her life too complicated. And so it wound up going to her father’s old school chum instead.
“It makes no sense for me to manage things. You know I’ve never had a head for this business—even my father said so,” Bernard had pointed out when the question of who would run the business first came up. “It’s better this way. Sozzy can manage. Why, he was secretary of the Plimsopps for three years when we were at school, and he was brilliant at it.”
(Bernard Napier saw no difference between a school social club and a multimillion-pound restaurant empire because he was equally uninvolved in running both.)
But Sozzy hadn’t managed. All he had managed to do was escape at just the right time. He took early retirement (with full pension, of course) just as things went downhill. And now he’s living it up in a villa in the south of France, immune to the rot he planted in the business he’d been responsible for.
It’s Susan who faces the carnage now. Who tries to make this a dignified ending for their former employees. She isn’t the cause, but she’s the face of the failure, and their resentment creeps toward her like a chilly mist. It wraps around her, and she shivers.
The sommelier is the first to sense that there’s nothing more to be said, and he turns without a word, heading for the door. The others take their cue and follow. In five minutes, Susan is left alone.
The stillness of the place! She’s never been here when it’s been empty. There have always been people in Elliot’s. Loads of people! In the dining room, those who enjoyed looking down on their fellow man fought over tables on the grand mezzanine. In the kitchen, ambitious and talented comers pursued careers, knowing the cachet of the name would carry them far (“Oh, you trained at Elliot’s. Well, well, let’s see what we can do …”). They filled the place up with their clatter and their chatter.
But then, just like that, they were gone. A recession makes you think twice about paying more than two hundred pounds a head for dinner. Especially when what arrives on the plate is not at all what you expected.
Susan douses the lights, room by room. Farewell, gleaming kitchen, with your mirror-shine, stainless-steel tables and massive ovens, now unnaturally still and cold. Goodbye, dining room, the site of countless big-business deals, budding romances, and damaging affairs. So long, bar, where dozens of bankers gathered as the hammer came down, wondering if their employer—or they themselves—would go next. Praying they were too big to fail. But is anyone really too big to fail? Once upon a time, they’d thought Elliot’s was safe, nestled in its reputational cocoon. But it doesn’t take much to ruin a great thing, does it?
She pauses, taking one last look at the darkened dining room.
I’m sorry, Granddad, Susan thinks as, with a sigh, she locks the door and turns her back on Regent Street forever.
* * *
She walks home, avoiding the rush-hour Tube. People squeezed like sausage meat into a subterranean metal casing—she won’t miss that. There is no Underground in Edinburgh. And it’s a small city: you can walk just about anywhere. That suits her down to the ground—she prefers walking. Her father, on the other hand …
“I’m not selling the Aston Martin,” he informed her as she laid out the drastic plan necessary to save them from bankruptcy.
“Dad, we need to cut back,” she insisted, not for the first time. With each repetition, it became harder to keep her voice even. “We’ve talked about this—no unnecessary expenses.”
“A car is not unnecessary! How am I supposed to get around?”
Susan hadn’t even bothered bringing up public transport. The mere notion probably would have killed him on the spot.
At last, Kay intervened. “All right, Bernard, if it means that much to you, keep the Aston. But Julia’s car will have to go.”
Julia gaped at her aunt. “That’s not fair!” she screeched.
Bernard reached over and patted Julia’s hand. “Now, now, Julia, sacrifices must be made.”
He listens to Kay because she’s famous and beautiful. Susan is neither—and so is ignored. She’d almost given up asking to take some role in the business, having been rebuffed so many times, but after Sozzy left, she and Kay joined forces.
“Just think, Bernard, what a burden running the restaurant will be,” Kay coaxed. “Eighteen-hour days, all those decisions to make—you’ll get worry lines.”
Bernard’s hand fluttered to his forehead in alarm.
“Susan’s perfect for the job,” Kay continued. “She’s had years of management experience, and it was always the plan for her to take on the business. Let her take this load off your shoulders, Bernard. You’ve earned a good rest.”