Читать книгу Sweet Talking Money - Harry Bingham - Страница 29

Starting in business is like jumping a ravine. Getting it right is terrific. Getting it nearly right is so bad, you’d better not have jumped at all.

Bryn knew that. He’d seen businesses take the run up, make the jump, lose their footing ever so slightly on take off – and then sail through the air, destined never to make the other side, destined to fall in appalled slow motion a thousand feet to the boulders and thorn bushes strewing the canyon floor.

He didn’t want to be like that. He took precautions, and one night he drew up a contract and brought it to Cameron, who was sitting in Bryn’s living-room-turned-laboratory.

‘Hey there, Money Man,’ she greeted him.

‘Hey there, Medicine Woman.’

‘Found me my money yet?’

‘Nope. Still looking. Found a cure for AIDS yet?’

‘Nope. Still looking.’

They laughed. Because he was laughing, Bryn spilled his coffee (Jamaican roast, double espresso, a hint of sugar). The coffee splurged out on to the sofa, staining the pale yellow silk. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said as Cameron leaped up, ready to mop it up. ‘Leave it.’

‘You don’t like the sofa? It’s kind of nice to spoil.’

‘It’s OK.’ Bryn shrugged. ‘But Cecily wants it back. As well as that,’ he said, pointing to a little Venetian chess table. ‘And that, that, that and that,’ he said, pointing to most of the other objects in the room.

‘She’s cleaning you out, huh?’

‘She’s helping herself to the contents of one pocket. The business is taking the contents of the other.’

‘So what does that leave you?’

Bryn laughed. ‘I don’t know. My trousers? Here. I’ve got a contract.’ He handed it over.

Before she took it, she held his gaze a little longer. ‘Don’t drive yourself too hard,’ she said. ‘You need to look after yourself.’

‘Don’t worry, I will. I am.’

She dropped her eyes and peered at the agreement. ‘I thought I already signed a contract.’

‘An employment contract, yes. This is an assignment of intellectual property rights. It transfers your research to the company. It’s required for insurance purposes. Doesn’t mean anything.’

‘If it doesn’t mean anything, why do it?’

‘Because it’s required for insurance purposes.’

‘I hand over everything I’ve worked on for the last five years, because some damn insurance company wants me to?’

‘Cameron, there’s no problem in signing this. I won’t stop you doing what you want with your research, absolutely anything that’s reasonable.’

‘I can still publish what I like?’

‘If you want to tell Corinth what’s going on, you can.’

‘But in principle. If I wanted, I could publish?’

Bryn shrugged. ‘If Corinth weren’t a factor, then as far as I’m concerned you could publish whatever the hell you wanted.’

Cameron peered again at the contract, hoping it would say something in plain English so she could understand it. It didn’t. Bryn had taken care to draft it that way. She shrugged and signed.

That was a mistake.

Bryn had lied.

The insurance company cared a lot about a lot of things. It cared about fire extinguisher maintenance records and whether there was going to be non-slip matting in the bathroom. The insurance company didn’t give a twopenny damn about Cameron’s research, but Bryn did. Since he had staked everything on Cameron’s genius, he’d decided he’d better make sure of her. An employment contract wouldn’t keep her from walking. Holding on to her research would.

It seemed like a minor deception. Bryn felt bad about it, but not too bad. How was he to know that everything, but everything; would one day be set at risk?