*Another double header – starting with Dave and alternating with Debbie (This is probably a lot easier to follow in the html version ....)
OK, so Saturday turned out to be a complete disaster – I try not to think about it, even now – what with Niusha and Debbie falling out so spectacularly, after the latter had turned up at the flat unannounced and leapt to entirely the wrong conclusions about why the two of us happened to be more than half naked in my bedroom, my various attempts through the day to contact the woman, explain things ... not that she was answering her phones or e-mails ... and then my taking the idiots way out and getting blind drunk – very much on my own – and finally damn' near setting fire to the flat with a misplaced cigarette.
Sunday wasn't a lot better – I missed a few calls, I know, simply through being too ill to find my bloody mobile in the wreckage, my post-op scars hurt like hell after the previous days ill judged exertions and ... well, I was ill, OK. It was a fair way through the afternoon before I crawled out of bed, at last, started to get stuff together. Like food and coffee as an immediate priority, simultaneously logging into the network more from force of habit than any actual desire to connect with the world.
And maybe I should have resisted the impulse, I thought, as the kettle boiled neglected and eggs burnt into the pan ... while I looked at the few new e-mails I'd picked up, some incomprehensibly cheerful ones from friends and associates, a couple of professional newsletters and advice notes, the normal guff from various government policy wonks. And a cryptic one from Carla – she'd phone me, basically, probably one of the calls I'd missed – and, of course, one from Debbie. Not the world's most affectionate or effusive communication, just a note to say that she'd arranged a Sunday morning meeting with Gareth in our offices, that if I was at all interested in the future of the company I might like to participate – either in person or by phone if I couldn't make it in. 
I sat and stared at the thing for so long that my late breakfast went its unfortunate way. I could understand the anger that she felt – even if I knew it was completely misplaced – but even I could see that rather more of an immediate problem was that it was now quite late on Sunday afternoon and ... well, the meeting had presumably achieved whatever it might have achieved without any sort of input from me. I felt like smashing my head against the wall a few times, contented myself, instead, with cursing bitterly – and aloud – for a while. Then I tried phoning her back, of course, got her voice mail, equally of course, tried phoning Gareth – ditto. Left messages for both of them, then took some time to check with Seff if she'd heard anything – she hadn't but was at least back in London, would be at the big meeting – and then sort of sat there and found myself wishing I had a cat, once again. Only this time so I could kick the bloody thing.
I was still sitting there – obsessing with the state of my phone's batteries, since you ask – when it rang, caller ID showing an unknown, international number. So I answered and found myself talking to Carla for the first time in ages. She sounded cheerful enough and certainly no longer seemed to be at death's door. In the end, we spent over an hour on the phone – I half expected her to give me a hard time for not being entirely up to speed with whatever tricks Debbie was planning to pull at The Meeting but quickly realised that she was a bit out on a limb at her end, too, not yet having taken back full control of her own business. So in the end it was a slightly inconsequential conversation, however nice it was to be in contact with her again, which didn't really help much – except that I now knew that Bronstein Associates (US) would be represented by two 'bright young things' (her words) from their New York office and that her new-ish husband, Hal, was also planning to be there – except that he'd had problems with flights from San Francisco and probably wouldn't get to the venue much before lunchtime. If things lasted that long, I thought.
It was only after I put the phone down that I realised that I hadn't got anything all that specific from Carla as to what her plans actually were. Blame the hangover, but – I still didn't know whether she'd be backing us totally or in part, whether, given the information that Debbie had received about there being financial worries at her end, too, she could actually afford to keep to her previous commitments. That said, she'd bothered to phone – and had been friendly enough while we'd been talking – but it was all worryingly vague. And quite what was the husband's role in all this? I'd never met the guy, only had a single, rather unfortunate conversation with him, and I didn't know whether he had any authority in Carla's organisation or whether he was somehow going to be there as an observer, maybe even only to report back on the performance of the BYTs. 
So, I thought ... a few more imponderables to add to the mix – and then I noticed that while I'd been on the phone I'd managed to miss three calls – two from Debbie and one from Gareth. With a deep sigh, I called the voice mail service, picked up the messages they'd left. 
> >> >>> >>>> >>>>> Debbie 
Dave didn't show up for the meeting I'd arranged with Gareth, which wasn't really a surprise, given that he'd failed to answer any of my calls. Actually, in some ways it was a bit of a relief – I didn't feel quite as angry, now, as I had when I first walked in on him and Niusha cavorting on his bed, but I still had a few things I needed to say to him and they would probably not be helpful in terms of resolving our corporate issues. So Gareth and I sat and did the business, corralling figures into vaguely respectable projections, rehearsing our various contractual points, generally agreeing that the only way to approach the argument was to remind PCW and the Americans as forcefully as possible just how much money they had anticipated making out of this venture and, thus, by implication, how much they would stand to lose if they canned the project. 
Which might have been something of a counsel of despair: We both had more faith in the contract arguments than the financials, but then we realised that our chances of successfully suing the likes of PCW for breach of contract were non-existent, given the disparity in our resources. Actually it was quite a pleasant morning. Gareth was good company again, even though focused entirely on the work in hand, and we got what seemed like a lot done, my mind wandering hardly at all.
In fact, it was gone about three in the afternoon when we finally locked the place up and said goodbye – me heading home to have another go at the Californian end, him to, as he put it, blow some of the dust off some legal texts, remind himself of some of the minutiae of relevant statutes. It was only as he was walking away that I realised that I'd had my phone buried in my bag the whole time, pulled the thing out to check for messages. There was only one – from Dave – sounding distinctly frazzled but also apologetic, perhaps even sincerely apologetic – about not having made it in to join our discussion, something about his having been indisposed.
I had another flash of anger, imaging just what – or who – his 'indisposition' had involved, but I shrugged it off and gave him a call back. Except that his number was busy, so I went and got onto the tube home, called him again when I resurfaced – still busy. Quite a long call, then, perhaps. So I left him a message.
It was quite a curt message, to be honest – just that we should meet at our offices at 8:30 next morning, have an hour with the team prior to heading over to the hotel conference room that we'd eventually agreed as a venue. Then I bought myself a bottle of decent wine and, home, began to chase up our American friends ... and review yet again tactics for the coming encounter ...
Dave <<<<< <<<< <<< << < 
Monday morning I felt a lot better, the enforced day of rest having done my physical scars no end of good, while the complete lack of alcohol meant I had a relatively clear head. What I didn't have, I discovered on rising, was a wearable suit – the two that I owned were irretrievably crumpled and/or in need of cleaning – so, needs must, I just pulled on my standard jeans and sweatshirt combination and headed into town for the office pre-meet Debbie had organised.
Being the boss, I made sure of getting in first to ensure that coffee was on the go when the others arrived, and, this being a special day, stopped off at a Bloomsbury deli for a pile of croissants and pastries and other corporate breakfast essentials. I think that there may have been a subconscious irony in that decision – today was the day when our corporate days might well come to an abrupt halt, after all – but on another level it was simply a gesture to the team that I, at least, appreciated them.
Once I was in the office on my own, though, something of my good mood began to evaporate. Even by my standards I felt woefully under-prepared for the meeting to come – the fact that I wasn't even dressed 'properly' simply rubbed that in – and the fact that I was ultimately responsible for everyone involved being involved began to weigh on me. Hell, I thought – I never chose to get into all of this, I just answered the wrong e-mail, got seduced (in more ways than one) by a lovely young woman with a Big Idea. Probably it would have been better if I'd just stayed grubbing around as a freelance, responsible to and for no-one but myself.
Then again, there had been moments of genuine fun in the past few months, the proposed Lake District development could have been literally life changing – for me and others – and, well, generally, maybe it had all been worth a try. Also, of course, I'd met a whole load of new people, made more than a few new friends – not least in Cumbria, but principally in the office. I wondered whether those contacts would survive the potential destruction of the project – frankly, I'd never really have a lot in common with Naz and Seff, however much I liked them as people, and Debbie ... well, what the fuck was going on there?
On cue, of course, the woman herself arrived, carrying a largish cardboard box and, I noticed, dressed rather more casually than I'd have expected – a jade green silk shirt under a suit jacket, but hair loose and make up somewhat relaxed. She didn't see me, at first, standing as I was in the recess we kept the coffee machine in, and I could see the tension on her face, the worry haunting her eyes. I realised that I wasn't the only one who had doubts about the immediate future ...
When I stepped out to say, hello, however, I can't say she seemed all that pleased to see me – actually a look of some scorn passed over her face, if only for a moment, followed by a slightly belated nod of recognition. Oh, well, I thought, things to sort out here ... things which should have been easy to sort, too, if only I knew what precisely the problem was. Jealousy? Well, maybe – hardly Debbie-standard behaviour, though, and actually there was nothing for her to be jealous about ... though convincing her of that would require a degree of trust on her part and, if she trusted me, she wouldn't be jealous, so ... Or maybe the problem was with one of my many other inadequacies, or possibly not entirely to do with me at all...
I think we could have spent the rest of the morning looking at each other in a passively hostile, suspicious and guarded sort of way – well, at least until the others arrived – if I hadn't finally remembered my manners. When I did, I finally pushed a mug of coffee in her direction, followed by a conciliatory tray of croissants and stuff. She looked really nonplussed by the latter, almost jumped in surprise when she saw them. Which I thought odd, given that they were fairly innocuous sorts of edibles, and then she started to laugh. 
Which I found very odd indeed.
> >> >>> >>>> >>>>> Debbie 
To be honest, I'd hoped to get into the office first, grab some time to compose myself before the others – well, before Dave – arrived. Needless to say, I was just putting my stuff down – hadn't even powered up the technology, taken my coat off, done anything at all, really, except quickly take in the office I'd grown quite fond off, where so many things had happened ... when Dave himself emerged from the corner. 
I'm fairly sure I didn't look at all pleased to see him which was ... sad, because I was, really, in a lot of ways, really pleased – after all the last time I'd seen him upright was before Phil died ... well, aside from his sitting up on the bed with the lovely Niusha, of course ... Nonetheless, a lot of doubts and fears – about the business, about him, about me ... about us ... sort of took over the facial muscles and I must have glared at the poor bloke.
Not that he reacted, much – didn't say anything, make explanations, try an apology or whatever. He just stared right back at me. God knows what was going through his mind – he looked nervous, I thought, as if a lot was riding on this morning ... or on this moment. And then he looked away, suddenly, stepped back towards the coffee machine and handed me a cup. Followed by a selection of cakes and stuff ... remarkably similar to the selection I had in the box I'd just brought in. This seemed amazingly silly, to me, even as I knew that this was just the sort of gesture I should have expected from the guy. And then I found it really hilarious, started to laugh out loud.
When I got myself slightly more together I saw that he was looking at me with a sort of quizzical half smile, so I pushed my box over towards him, watched as comprehension dawned and he, too, started to laugh. I had the overwhelming urge to pull him into a really tight hug, make it all OK between us in the most direct way possible and ... Gareth arrived. 
God knows what he thought when he saw the pair of us standing facing each other about a metre apart and laughing uproariously at nothing very obvious but he didn't seem to let it bother him. Instead, he threw his coat over a chair, put a box of his own down on one of the desks and commented, as Dave handed him a coffee that he'd bought along a few bacon rolls ... as the deli had been sold out of croissants. 
He looked more than slightly perplexed when we both collapsed into hysterics, again...
Dave <<<<< <<<< <<< << < 
By the time Seff and Naz arrived – the latter also carrying a big cardboard box – things had settled down a bit and we were in work mode. Gareth had accepted my explanation – and Debbie's apology – for our earlier behaviour and, while I think it was the first time that he'd doubted the wisdom of coming to work with us, he took the whole thing in good part. Possibly not least because the bacon rolls went down rather better with the assembled team than the rest of the stuff. I think we ended up donating it all to the architects upstairs ...
There followed a brief updating session – Debbie and Gareth went through the work they'd done on Sunday morning, Naz &Seff talked through the possibilities they'd uncovered in Germany and I recounted, for what it was worth, my conversation with Carla. I apologised for not getting names and details about the Bright Young Things who would be representing her but Seffi immediately got on the case – Bronstein Associates' New York office was no big affair, apparently – and came up with a list of possible names in short order. Not that it made any great difference, knowing names, but it gave us all, I think, just a slight feeling of being in control. More so when Seff went on to print out their various public CVs – corporate clones, the bunch of them. So at least we knew what we were dealing with on that level.
Other than that, we discussed tactics for a while – go in there and answer their questions, basically, with the slight spin that Debbie and Gareth were keen on us concentrating on the financials rather than legal stuff ... and Debbie suggested that we got over to the venue we'd arranged well before the 10am start, establish ourselves in the room, make it clear that they were meeting with us, not the other way round. Which made sense, so we traipsed off in a straggle, a few hundred metres down the road to the Hertford Classic Hotel.
Which turned out to be everything you'd expect of business class accommodation – efficient, clean and utterly soulless. The conference room – actually a suite, there were a couple of breakout rooms in case anyone felt the need to go into private session – was set out as a boardroom, twenty or so chairs arranged around a long rosewood table. There were bottles of water all around, little bowls of those inedible mints and, yes, they'd even provided pens and paper on the off chance that we were too disorganised to have brought our own
And, over in the far corner, there was a tray or three of croissants on one of the side tables ... 
> >> >>> >>>> >>>>> Debbie 
We got to the Hotel, found its Buckingham Suite – our venue – without troubling any of the staff and basically sat and waited for our 'guests' to arrive. There was some discussion about seating arrangements – Naz was all for spreading ourselves around the place, hoping to disrupt any potential blocs on their side, but eventually we occupied the strategic end of the room nearest the coffee supplies and dispersed ourselves so that Dave and I were facing each other, excellent eye contact guaranteed, with Gareth between us at the head of the table, Naz and Seff serving as buffers between us and the Great and the Good come in judgement. 
About 9:45 people started to come in – hotel people, mainly, looking a bit put out that we were already in residence – but then a succession of suits. Some of the PCW people I knew but none of them appeared to know us, given that some of the senior honchos made a point of introducing themselves to Gareth, assuming that he was in charge on the basis of where he was sitting and that he was wearing a suit. Also, come to think of it, he wasn't out for a smoke at crucial moments.
Eventually, though, everyone was gathered around the long, polished table, the PCW guys arrayed in a group at the opposite end from the five of us, the Californian pair – looking clean, efficient and very slightly scared – stranded midway between the two camps.
It was only when Dave formally kicked off proceedings that I realised that Seffi and I were the only women in the room ...
Dave <<<<< <<<< <<< << < 
Come lunchtime, well, we were still talking and no-one had simply walked out, so things could have been worse. Not that we'd actually made any real progress. The guy Debbie had identified as the probable decision maker, PCW wise, had spent an inordinate amount of time playing with various mobile devices – and I don't think he was checking background information or anything – while even the Americans looked like they'd been close to pulling the whole thing on a couple of occasions. Luckily, the first time Gareth had resolved what turned out to be a misunderstanding by revealing a hitherto unremarked familiarity with US contract law, while on the second Debbie had come quite close to flirting with one of the guys – which wasn't quite as elegant but did distract him long enough to allow me to move the conversation onto less contentious issues.
Sadly, that left us still in need of some sort of miracle. While everyone on our side remained positive, at least ostensibly, we all knew that nothing that had been said or proposed had been in any way new, that whatever had led to our guests arriving at their current negative opinion of us had not been addressed, let alone overcome. So it was not a huge disappointment when our scheduled lunch break arrived and our interlocutors promptly withdrew into a side room to go into conclave. They even left us all the pizza slices and samosa-ish things that hotels seem bound to provide on such occasions.
Still, I didn't think it was all that evil of Naz to wander into their 'private' conference with a tray or two of food. I mean, he could have taken them some of the coffee. And, anyway, he didn't learn anything. Sadly.
So we all – more or less – ended up standing just outside the hotel lobby so that the smokers could have a drag or two. In such a public place, we kept the conversation quite general, the more so when it started pissing down and we had to compress ourselves under the rather small canopy. Even so, suggestions were made, encouragement offered and teamwork, generally, continued.
Around the time we were due to restart, Gareth changed the tone.
"Dave," he said, directly to me, "You know, talking out here, or back in the office earlier on, its brilliant being around you people. Back in the room, though, when we're talking with those guys, its not the same, in fact it feels like just another job. Actually, it feel like its not going anywhere."
I nodded, waited for him to go on, watching a small and hassled looking black guy get out of a cab just to the side of us. Gareth noticed my distraction, got a bit more assertive.
"I mean,", he said, as the black guy trundled his case towards us, "why not stop fucking around with the corporate stuff – stop pretending to work on their terms, why not play it our way – humour, initiative ..."
He had to pause at that point as the new arrival had walked right up to me, fixed me with a penetrating gaze and asked me, pleasantly enough, to confirm the name of the hotel. Which I did. Then he threw me.
"You're Dave, I think I heard?" he said. I nodded. "Well, just call me Sori."
And then he shuffled off again, towards reception. Odd sort of bloke, I thought, and an odd sort of name. Then I turned my attention back to Gareth.
"OK. Explain. Do it our way. What exactly does that mean?"
> >> >>> >>>> >>>>> Debbie 
I'm not sure what made such an immediate difference. We all resumed our previous seats, only this time the 'suits' did do lethargically – even the ever optimistic yanks looked downbeat after their lunchtime discussions – while we all more or less bounced in, Seff and Naz flicking mints at each other across the table while the opposition assembled. 
I was prepared to disapprove of such behaviour – being relaxed is one thing, being offensively casual is quite another – but Dave had seen that one of the other guys was preparing to announce the results of their prandial purdah and moved quickly to head him off. Specifically, he more or less drawled the single word "OK ..."
Immediately, everyone in the room was focused on him. God knows how he pulled it off ... maybe it was, the body language, the tone of voice, the timing, but ... suddenly the most jaded accountant in the room was hanging on his every word, the two Americans in particular looking startled but somehow stimulated. Even I – and I thought I knew Dave – felt a strange surge of elation, lost control of myself long enough to flick a mint of my own down the table towards a corporate VP who'd given me hassle in the past.
What he actually said was, I think, pretty much irrelevant. It was the tone – he, we, really, simply shifted from trying to give our funders whatever information and clarification they might require – as we had been doing all morning – to explaining, with a peculiar clarity and fluency, exactly what we needed from them. You could see the effect it was having by the range of expressions that flicked across the faces at the other end of the table. The guy who had been about to make their announcement had actually crumpled the papers he'd been holding in a suddenly clenched fist, Mr Head Suit was almost literally reeling, various underlings were open-mouthed and clearly enthralled.
And when Dave reached some sort of conclusion, Gareth took over almost seamlessly, explaining how we would be willing to forego some of our contractual entitlements, future funding wise, in return for operational clarity, would assume responsibility for the Cumbrian property et al immediately, provided that they agreed to offset the costs involved against future returns on their investment. In fact, he went so far beyond the agreements we'd had on the legal arguments to use that it left me almost speechless – he was basically implying that they hadn't got a leg to stand on, that we would graciously let them off the most onerous of their obligations to us because we were ... well, because we were such nice people, basically.
So they were reeling – you just don't pull this sort of stunt in serious negotiations – but I knew that sanity would take hold soon enough, so put in my own tuppence worth as soon as Gareth had finished his fusillade.
"You will appreciate," I said, with my best disarming smile, "that the lack of complete support from our principal funders has, to date, significantly impaired the development of the enterprise?" I let the thought of putative claims for compensation hang in the air for a moment, before continuing, quite sweetly, I thought, "So you will also appreciate that we need a positive decision from you within the context of this meeting?"
I left it at that, the room now in a stunned silence, as Naz stared at me admiringly and Dave gave me a broad grin. I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry, it was all I could do to stop myself shaking like a bloody leaf. It was one hell of a moment.
And it wouldn't have stood a cat in hells chance of succeeding if the moment hadn't been broken before the Big Guys had had a chance to get a coherent response together.
Dave <<<<< <<<< <<< << < 
So. Gareth picked up on my cues, then Debbie followed on like we'd been rehearsing for months. That, or we had some sort of team telepathy on the go.
OK, so it probably wouldn't save the day – however much we had startled the opposition with our sudden change of tack – volte face, really – everyone in the room knew just how weak our position really was. Which didn't remotely stop me feeling like giving Gareth and Debbie a really big hug but I limited myself to giving Debbie a big smile – she looked like she wanted to either laugh or scream, one of the two – and tried to get my head round the problem of dealing with whatever response they eventually came up with.
At which point, the black guy we'd met earlier – Sori? - shuffled into the room, without his bag but with the same slightly confused, slightly distracted expression. I was wondering whether I should offer to help the bloke when one of the PCW crew regained enough composure to notice him too. And, presumably without pausing for thought, peremptorily instructed him to remove all the lunch stuff and then bugger off – this was a private meeting.
The effect was remarkable. Mr Sori – Mr Sori? – looked like he'd gained about 50cm in height and more than a few kilos in bulk. His facial expression went from affably confused to steely anger in about a microsecond. Someone, I felt, enthralled as everyone else by the impromptu drama, had just made a Big Mistake. And a bit of my subconscious kept jumping up and down and yelling 'Sori! Sori! Mr fucking Sori!' ... Or should that, I realised, be Snorey?
It was, indeed, Him. Professor Hal Benton, PhD, economics guru and successful serial entrepreneur. Also, Mr Carla Davis. And he was really pissed off.
In fact, brusque and – to some – chilling introductions out of the way, he sat down at the table, directly across the table from his visibly cowering compatriots, and effectively took over the meeting. Well, the PCW guys were still reeling our pyrotechnics and their colleague's faux pas and our lot were simply at sea. Well, I could tell that Debbie was on top of the situation – she was grinning like a cat with a cornered dormouse – while Gareth and Seff seemed to know that something good had just happened, if not quite what. Naz just looked completely confused.
So. No change there, then.
> >> >>> >>>> >>>>> Debbie 
OK, so we had our miracle. Well, actually, we had a guy who just happened to have been mistaken for a hotel busboy on the basis of being on the basis of being black – had had problems getting a taxi for the same reason, we learnt later – and who was mightily annoyed. Then again, he was who he was, too – academically brilliant, well versed in the theory and practice of start ups and Carla's bloody husband. So he would probably have been well disposed towards us, anyway – and maybe all our earlier bravura performance had achieved was to buy a moment or two of time. Vital moments, though.
In effect, PCW never recovered from the fatal indiscretion – not that they'd learn from the experience. Hal took over control, took in information, took decisions. Of course, the fact that he also represented a significant chunk of money – Carla had, as she was entitled to do – stashed away a fair chunk of her operation's profits in its glory days – didn't exactly hinder his ability to do any of it.
So we basically sat there and watched him demolish the information. Dave, Gareth and I contributed relevant stuff as and when required but clearly the tide of the debate had fundamentally shifted. We were, in fact, pretty much en route to realising all of Gareth's wilder fantasies – them giving us lots of money and then leaving us alone, essentially – when a small voice kind of put a brake on proceedings. 
One of the more junior PCW types pointed out – directly to Hal, such was the state of play – that for all our fancy projections and lofty ambitions – not to mention our extensive liabilities – we didn't actually have an income stream ... or any immediate prospect of one.
It was an Emperor's New Clothes type of moment – the tide had so totally turned that we'd pretty much forgotten that we'd actually been arguing against the odds. I saw Dave tense, felt Gareth, beside me go through a tremor of – what? - frustration. Oh, shit, I thought ... so near and yet so far.
Except that Seffi looked up from her laptop and said, rather too quietly for my liking, "Actually that's not true. We received a contract proposal from ZytPharma Gmbh this morning. If our directors accept it – which I would expect them to do – it should bring in € 100k over the next two months. Additionally, other parts of the ZytTech conglomerate will be using this initial work to evaluate the process and may be expected to commission work of their own if the pilot is successful."
Dave <<<<< <<<< <<< << < 
PCW and the by now totally irrelevant Bright Young Things gave in with surprisingly good grace, after that. And I do mean gave in – we got the lot. OK, we couldn't expect any additional funding from them but then we only had to pay off the debt as an operational cost which considered opinion – well, Gareth and Debbie – thought we could probably lose in accountancy. Crucially, too, they would continue to act as corporate guarantors for as long as we still owed them money.
All of which we clarified when we were all back in Hertford Square. Leaving the hotel was kind of strange – we'd been on the rack for hours, had one moment of collective brilliance, then Hal had pitched up and done his deus ex machina shit ... and suddenly we were all back out in the street, watching the opposition slink away in search of taxis. We walked back. No traipsing, this time – we were all, fairly, elated. We had just won. Naz had his arm round Seff – both arms, actually, it was impressive that they both stayed upright – while Gareth and Debbie were practically skipping. I found myself walking beside Hal – it hadn't seemed very fair to just leave him in the bloody hotel – and trying not to be too ingratiatingly grateful.
Actually, he was pretty sanguine about the whole thing – merely pointing out that he had immense faith in Carla's judgement and, even if we did look like a bunch of complete losers, if she thought we were worth a vast quantity of their money, then ... By that stage, we'd found out what had been in Naz's box – champagne, – and were collectively attempting some sort of record for its rapid consumption. Colin the architect and one of his partners had joined us – reassured that they would now be getting paid – and Debbie was on the phone to Cumbria, trying to get hold of Rosie, to tell her the good news and to, as she put it, 'push the big green button'.
I found myself talking to Hal, again, this time about more personal stuff – I'd asked him about Carla and how she – and they – were after all that had gone on, health wise, and he shrugged. The worst of it was over, he said and in a few months she'd be back on her feet again. And then he told me that Carla had suggested coming to the UK as a sort of late honeymoon, specifically including visiting us at our new home in the Lakes. 
Just as Debbie concluded her call and came over to join us, he asked me, "I gather you're converting some of the new building into flats for you and the team – do you think you could put us up in one of them for a while? I know Carla's utterly sick of hotels."
I was about to point out that we were hardly likely to say no when Debbie interjected, quietly.
"Well, there are four flats, Seff and Naz will have one, Gareth another and ..." She paused, moved closer to me and put her arm round me, rested her head on my shoulder, briefly, and said ...
"So, yes ... one of them will be spare ..."

