The Legacy by Craig Lawrence

pleasure Richard,’ replied Highworth. He wasn’t sure why Knowles wanted to see him but he was on his guard. They’d known each other for over twenty years. They had clashed a few times over the years but, whilst they weren’t friends, they had a healthy respect for each other’s talents.
    â€˜What is so serious Richard that we needed to meet on a Sunday morning?’ asked Highworth, sitting in one of two leather armchairs that were arranged around a coffee table.
    Knowles sat down in the other chair and looked Highworth squarely in the eye. ‘Last year,’ he began, ‘I started taking an interest in Tokifora. I had my people dig into the company and, after several months’ of research, it was clear to me that the company was going to fail, not immediately but certainly within the next twelve months or so. It was carrying far too much debt and its bankers were getting twitchy about whether they would be able to get their money back. Its product line was lacklustre. The computer processors it manufactured were being outperformed by its competitors and its research and development programme was in disorder and in no shape to deliver anything that would revolutionise the market and restore the company’s fortunes. Or so I thought.’ Knowles paused to take a sip of water.
    â€˜Do keep going Richard,’ said Highworth. Highworth thought he knew where this was going but he was confident that he could handle whatever Knowles threw at him.
    Knowles continued. ‘When I thought the company was going to fail, I developed a plan to buy a significant proportion of the company’s shares in order that I could mount a takeover bid.’
    â€˜Which would no doubt have been hostile given your reputation,’ interjected Highworth.
    â€˜Quite,’ replied Knowles. ‘I made certain promises to people to raise the money I thought I would need. As you would expect, these included selling off some of Tokifora’s assets at very competitive rates to some of my investors. The problem is that, against all expectation, the company’s fortunes started to improve. In an incredibly short period of time it developed a revolutionary chip that, quite literally, has blown away the competition. The share price has soared beyond anything anyone could have predicted. Anyone, that is, except you Charles.’
    Highworth fixed Knowles with a hard stare. ‘Richard, you know as well as I do that my job is to spot the under-developed potential that others have missed and then invest the resources necessary to unlock it. You’ve said yourself that what Tokifora lacked was a credible R&D organisation. Well that’s not quite true. One of their development teams had the germ of a brilliant idea but it required other experts to join the team to bring it to life. So that’s what I did. I provided the money and the organisational structures necessary to bring the team together and the rest, as they say, is history.’
    â€˜I know what you did Charles,’ said Knowles. ‘I’d looked at this possibility when I did my initial research but, at the time, there was no way that the required experts could be persuaded to relocate to Japan and work with Tokifora to unlock the design’s potential. They were all making huge amounts of money in their existing jobs and wouldn’t move.’
    The two men stared at each other. ‘So what are you saying Richard?’ asked Highworth.
    Knowles continued. ‘When the share price started to head North, I had my people try and work out what we had missed. How had we got it so completely wrong in terms of the company’s prospects? We were about to invest millions of pounds based on an analysis that was clearly deeply flawed and, as you can imagine, this concerned me. They came back with a single word: coercion. It seems the brilliant engineers who joined the team, leaving their well paid jobs and, in some cases