Free Almost a Crime by Penny Vincenzi

‘nineties). Tom and Aubrey were financially stretched
    to the hilt; large personal overdrafts, houses remortgaged.
    They always said they couldn’t decide which were the
    worst in those early days; the days when the phone didn’t
    ring at all, or the ones when it rang and a smooth voice on
    the other end would tell them how impressed it had been
    by their operation, but nevertheless how sorry it was that it
    had been decided to take the business elsewhere this
    time …
    Then in the space of three days they won two key
    accounts: a radio station in search of further franchises; and a
    small grocery chain, both classically demanding in public
    affairs terms. They proved their mettle immediately; the
    radio station picked up an enormous amount of publicity by
    fighting off a takeover, Fleming Cotterill advising them
    with great success both to capitalise on the inevitable
    redundancies if it happened and to hire a highly controversial
    disc jockey, and the grocery chain by playing devil’s
    advocate and speaking against the Sunday trading lobby.
    The radio station won, and the grocery chain lost the battle
    but won their own personal war, emerging with their
    image enhanced as one of the good guys who cared about
    Sundays.
    After that Fleming Cotterill became well known very
    swiftly; they picked up a lot of new business and launched a
    campaign, through a cross-party group of MPs, to improve
    food labelling. Perhaps most importantly, not one of their
    original clients had left them; nothing could have provided
    a better testimony to their skills.
    In the heady post-election air of May 1997, when the
    whole country seemed to be celebrating, and a new age
    truly dawning, everything to do with politics was thrown into the air. Those lobby shops that had grown up in the long years of undisputed Tory rule were furiously hiring
    new young Turks who were in with the new in-crowd,
    and presenting themselves as politically non-partisan. It was
    not an entirely edifying spectacle.
    Fleming Cotterill was not among them; two of its five
    directors had held posts in the offices of Socialist cabinet
    ministers, and a third had worked famously on the Nolan
    Committee, with all its whiter-than-white associations of a
    new, less corrupt age. Tom Fleming had several longterm
    friends in the new government; his star and that of his
    company was very much in the ascendant.
     
    Today Tom was lunching with Bob Macintosh, and the
    problems under discussion were at least fifty per cent
    personal.
    The non-personal conversation had been about the
    interminable new regulations coming in from Brussels
    governing the food industry. ‘They’re going to drive us
    mad, Tom,’ said Bob, ‘and costs are going to soar. I really
    want to fight at least some of them, but a small voice like
    mine won’t be heard, will it?’
    ‘You need to get the big boys on board, form a coalition,
    which might be difficult initially. They can absorb these
    things much more easily. But if you can start making
    waves…”
    ‘Well, that’s your department. What do you suggest we
    do?’
    ‘The ideal thing would be an agreement to look at them
    very closely at government level. A parliamentary committee,
    even. That’s easier said than done, though, especially at
    the moment. There’s so much business for them to get
    through in this first few months, and whatever Blair says,
    he’s passionately pro-Europe, so no one’s going to give it
    very high priority We can do some lobbying, of course, and
    I can try and set up a meeting between you and the
    appropriate minister, but that won’t be easy either. I agree
    with you, these regulations are a nightmare. And the
    trouble is, being British, we will play by the rules. Places like Italy and Spain, they ignore half of them. Much more
    sensible.’
    The personal conversation, which had been much longer
    and more difficult, concerned Bob Macintosh’s marital
    difficulties, and his reluctance to go along with the