‘But I don’t get this. How did £10 million become £108 million?’

Harry shrugged. ‘Deepak lied to us. He has actually mortgaged all our premises and property, the entire EoS portfolio. Initially he spent £10 million, but in recent weeks got excited by the rising share price, and piled in more and more money. I only realised when I eventually got access to the loan account last week.’

‘So what will happen tomorrow morning, when this news gets out?’

Harry shrugged. ‘Nosh4U shares will collapse. By how much depends on just how bad the accounting problems are.’

‘What will the banks do?’

‘Nothing immediately, so long as the mortgages can be serviced and interest paid.’

‘How much interest?’

‘Well, it exceeds £100,000 a week.’

‘A week!’

‘There is worse news. The auditors are already here. There are loan covenants, legal agreements which allow the banks to demand their money back, and if we fail the audit that will trigger them. Deepak’s subsidiary is running an overdraft too, of about £1.5 million.’

‘How much does the company have in cash?’

‘Not a whole lot.’ He went back to his office, looked again at the spreadsheets on his laptop. Morag looked over his shoulder. ‘Pure cash, £1.25 million and change. We’ve got other resources, probably double that, that we could turn into cash within a week. But the payroll for the month goes through on Thursday, and—’

‘There’s nowhere near enough, is there?’ Morag said.

Harry shook his head. ‘I don’t think we have any choice. We’ll have to accept Johnny’s offer.’

‘But that would be a disaster. The first thing Lam would do is to close the factories and move production abroad. That’s what he always does. Harry, forget the money, what about all our staff? All those people who have been with us for years and years and years?’

‘Yes, it’s very sad.’

She shook him by the shoulders. ‘Don’t just accept it! Do something.’

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ he said, wearily.

‘Yes there bloody is! This is your family’s company, damn well fight for it.’ Morag took out her phone. ‘I’m ringing Deepak. There must be a way out of this.’

‘He won’t answer. I’ve tried him dozens of times.’

‘But what about the family? Have you spoken to the uncles and cousins? There is a lot of money there. You know better than I do.’

Harry looked up at her. ‘Oh Morag, I’m afraid Deepak has already poisoned that well. Every time I spoke to one of our cousins or uncles in the last few days, they said all their spare money was in Nosh2U shares. They had heard Deepak boasting about the money he’d made, and most wanted a part of it.’

‘So you have known about this for more than a week?’

‘Yes, though not the scale of the borrowing. And of course it wouldn’t have been such a disaster if the shares were in a less risky venture. Oh God, I wished I had just forced him to sell last week, but he wouldn’t.’