The Betrayal of Trust by Susan Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

we begin, I know I’m speaking for everyone when I say that you have all our sympathy and our prayers today. It’s very courageous of you to be here. And it goes without saying that if we, together or individually, can do anything for you, you know you’ve only to ask.’
    There was a murmurround the table.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I do know that and your words mean more than I can say. Thank you. Now, we should make a start and get through a few small matters before turning to the main item on the agenda, which I’m afraid, is financial. We shall need to discuss it at length so may I just approve and sign the minutes of the last meeting and move on?’
    The early business was out ofthe way and tea had come in. John Lowther’s chairing of the meeting was no different from usual. He was courteous, businesslike, well organised. The best chairman they had had, Cat thought, and they were lucky to get him.
    ‘Finances,’ he said now, glancing down at his agenda paper. ‘To put it bluntly, the hospice is in a very poor financial state. It’s a combination of things, as always – expenditureis up considerably, income is down considerably. We have a large deficit. We have been dipping into our reserves and living beyond our means, though not in any sense of being profligate. But however justified every penny of our spending may be, the fact is that we can’t continue to lay out more than is coming in, so we must either cut our costs or bring in more money, or both, preferably both.’

    The meeting gathered energy and determination, proposals flew round the table, suggestions were discussed, strategies examined. After listening and noting, Lowther asked them to consider appointing a fund-raising committee – not, as he put it, to discuss coffee mornings but to find ways of accessing serious financial support from major donors, trusts and grant-making bodies.
    ‘Don’t we need aprofessional fund-raiser?’ someone asked. ‘This is a competitive area. Funding is big business.’
    ‘Fund-raisers command high salaries. I do dislike the idea of paying over a lot to someone before we even start.’
    ‘We can’t make an appointment of that kind,’ John Lowther said. ‘We simply don’t have the money.’
    ‘This isn’t something for amateurs – as you say, it’s competitive and it’s time-consuming.A new committee would be drawn from where? Some of us? It’s difficult enough to find time to attend trustees’ meetings every month.’
    Everyone spoke, everyone had an opinion, but there were no positive suggestions.
    ‘Perhaps you’d allow me to reiterate what a really desperate financial situation we find ourselves in.’
    Lowther looked round at them all slowly.
    ‘It ought to focus our minds. Ittook the effort and will and strength of so many people to build Imogen House – and money. Without that, I doubt if we would be here at all.’
    ‘We absolutely need to be here,’ Cat said. ‘To lose the services of the hospice is unimaginable. The calls on us are increasing month on month.’
    The meeting continued for an hour and a half longer, until everyone was exhausted. They broke up with the decisionhaving been made to establish a separate working party with the sole remit to come up with ways of bringing in money.
    Cat was leaving to do a quick ward round before going home when John Lowther beckoned to her.
    ‘May I have a word? I want to ask your advice.’
    She wondered if it had to do with the discovery of Harriet’s body.
    ‘Have you by any chance met Leo Fison?’
    ‘I don’t think so. The namedoesn’t ring a bell.’
    ‘Leo is someone I knew years ago. He was a doctor but retired when he had a spell of ill health in his fifties – a cancer but all clear for some time now – and he has been wanting to find a way back into working again, though not in ordinary practice. He inherited some money and he has come down this way – his wife has family in the county. He’s setting up a small care