Cherry Picking

by Tim Heath

  He’d told his assistant Terry what he was doing and he was to let him know anything new that emerged. Simon spent all afternoon camped out in Starbucks, papers all over the small table, a pile of used mugs now starting to stack up. At that moment they got too much so that one toppled to the ground making a large crash, pieces going all over the floor. A girl came running across to help clear things up just as his mobile phone rang.

  “Hello, Terry, anything?”

  “Nothing new at this end. How are you getting on? What are you making of things?”

  “It’s as I thought yesterday. Something is very strange, maybe even very wrong. It looks at face value as if they only take on new cases that aren’t going to have a claim — thereby taking a nice premium for zero risk. Quite how this is worked out I don’t know. But this however is what the figures say. Why they want to cover them up I don’t know. I can’t see that there is any pressure put on firms not to claim though. I decided to call a few and they’ve had nothing but positives to say about them, some of their clients didn’t even remember the name of their insurance provider, it was just the large annual bill that their finance department had to pay.”

  “Have you got this in writing?”

  “It’s just scribbled notes on napkins at the moment. I haven’t typed them on the laptop yet. As I like doing all reports on paper, I’ve been doing it the old way.”

  “Have you let Mary know what you’ve found yet? I’m seeing her in a minute so can let her know a little if you’d like”

  “Could you Terry, great, that would be good. I’ve not had a chance to speak to her yet and she definitely needs to see this. Something isn’t right. We might need to bring the police into this, I’m not sure. I’ve not come across anything like this before.”

  **********

  Robert Sandle had woken early that day and had gone out for a run. He liked to try and keep fit and the fresh air in the country at that time of the morning, before the world was awake, was wonderful. Having said that, with it being the country, there were plenty of signs of life even at that hour, as the area was mainly farmland. They used the early hours of sunlight as much as they could.

  Getting back inside, he took the calendar off the wall and laid it on the table next to his large white notepad. Confirming that day’s date, he opened up his pad and scanned through it, hundreds of messy entries that only he’d make sense of, with dates next to most of them. Not seeing anything that was pressing he closed it and put it to one side. Picking up his tea, he walked to the kitchen. There he reached up on the kitchen cupboards and found a large key, which opened the door down to the cellar. Walking over to the door and pushing the key into the large lock that sat just under the handle, he turned it slowly, the sound of metal working on metal only too clear. It creaked open like only an old, underused rotting wooden door could. A staircase sat beyond in the darkness leading down into the cellar. Robert reached for the light switch behind the door, light now flooding the stairwell from the bulb hanging loose about a foot above his head.

  Getting to the bottom of the fifteen steps he turned on another light, which illuminated the one main room. Being an old house it had deep cellars, the head height being at least seven feet. The room was cold and damp, boxes stacked up all over the place in an untidy fashion. On the far right corner, reaching to the ceiling and partly hidden behind a stack of four cardboard boxes, stood a tall covered object, the draped sheets, which were once white, covering it completely, the damp and dirt now turning them grey. The covered object cleared the ceiling by only two inches and was about three feet wide.

  Robert walked over to it, moving away the boxes that stood in front. Taking a hold of the giant sheets, he pulled down hard, bringing both sheets free from the object as they fell to the floor, landing in a pile. The revealed bronze sparkled in the light, though most of the metal was now rather tarnished, an indication that it was nearly as old as the house in which it stood. The sight of the large bronze doorway-shaped structure always brought a buzz to Robert’s heart, a rush of fresh energy running through his veins once again.

  Robert touched the right side of the door frame, the metal feeling very cold to his skin. Two inches wide on either side and one foot deep, he often marvelled at its creation, especially given its age and the obvious work that must have gone into it. Much of the object’s wonder lay hidden within the semi-hollow towers of the doorway, which supported the equally chunky top section. This bore the name WENTWORTH in raised letters clear to see, the name of the family that had first lived in the house.

  **********

  Terry Goldman had been Simon Allen’s assistant for three years. He was a slightly chubby young man, who knew his way round a computer, as well as having a head for numbers and statistics. In public he would not often stray from talking about just these two subjects. This made him quite hard work in social settings and together with his personal hygiene issues he was not a hit with the ladies.

  Before working at the Department of Trade and Industry he’d been an analyst at HICL, where in the last few months of his employment there he’d spent more and more of his time, too much, looking at indecent sites on the internet from his desktop computer. It wasn’t long before this was brought to the attention of Brendan Charles, who being aware of the issues, said that he’d take things on from there and would personally start watching Terry, building an idea of the guy before waiting for the right moment to strike. Not long after that, far more offensive images appeared on both his office and home computers, as Terry started getting into more obscene material, his mind became sick with lust, each time trying to outdo his last fix.

  Terry’s time had come and Brendan made a big show of calling him into his office; Terry’s own desktop computer had been moved and was now set up and sitting there on Brendan’s desk. Terrified at being caught, Terry fell to his knees and just wept. He pleaded with him not to tell anyone about it.

  Brendan played things out a little, having already thought through how he wanted to handle it, though none of it ever sat pleasantly in his memory, so troubled had he been by what Terry had been looking into. With Terry still on his knees but now in silence and just looking up at him, Brendan tried to remain calm though tension showed on his face.

  “Do you have any idea what the other prisoners would do to someone like you, a pervert, at Strangeways?” he’d said. “Because that’s where you’re going to be serving your fifteen or twenty years.” He shook his head slowly, momentarily lost for words, which only added to the tension in the room as Terry looked on in horror. “I have to say that people like you disgust me. The thought that you can see anything good in those kinds of sites really turns my stomach. It makes me sick! I’m a father too, you know.” Brendan turned away for a minute in order not to say the wrong thing, wanting instead to remain focused, as Nigel had asked him to be, already having agreed to yet again carry out his boss’s wishes. In this case though, Brendan did not agree with him in regard to Terry. Brendan took a breath before continuing the performance.

  Turning the screen to Terry he revealed the worst of the material now on his computer. Terry looked sick with fear, like a rabbit in the headlights of a car about to be run over, physically shaking now from what was happening.

  “I don’t...,” he said, but Brendan didn’t want to hear any of it.

  “Please, save it for the judge, if it goes that far. They might just decide to pass sentence and lock you up for good. You are a sick, sick man!”

  Terry was shaking more and more, large beads of sweat now pouring down his face, his shirt wet with perspiration. Brendan only played things out for a little while more, but then getting concerned that Terry’s unhealthy heart would give out on him right there in the office, Brendan changed tack and offered him a ray of hope, something he’d been asked to do all along.

  “You know, I could just make all this go away, as long as you do what I say.”

  The break in the tension was dramatic as Terry just looked up, hop
e now starting to appear for the first time.

  “I’ll do anything you say, just make this go away! Make it all go away. Please don’t report me. I can’t go to prison, I just can’t...,” and he’d broken down again, staying on the floor weeping like a baby.

  So on he went, within a week taking a new role within the Department of Trade and Industry which Brendan had worked for him. He was his ‘sleeper’ there, as Brendan had called him. Terry just had to get his act together, put his past behind him and listen out for anything that could threaten Brendan by passing the information along. And in return Brendan would forget about those photos and save him. Of course the threat always remained so Terry didn’t have any escape. In time he grew to like the job, though, and finally after a few years he had something important to pass on to Brendan.

  Leaving a message on a special voice mail service that Brendan had set up, Terry told him everything about what Simon Allen had been looking into. It wouldn’t be long before Brendan would be made aware of the fact that he had a message. Terry just felt glad that he’d been able to help at last.

  **********

  Business aside, Brendan Charles valued nothing greater than his family and the time he was able to spend together with them. Having stayed at home that morning in order to keep some distance between himself and any unwanted press attention following the Forest takeover, Brendan relaxed with a large freshly squeezed glass of orange juice, just sitting in the conservatory at their Cheshire residence. His wife Catherine was pulling up weeds from the flower beds in their beautifully landscaped garden. His three children were possibly around somewhere, though it was getting to the stage when it was impossible to know where they were exactly at any one moment. In their twenty-two years of marriage, the thing Catherine had valued most was the way Brendan had always separated business from home life, almost protecting them from what he faced but also honouring them enough to be interested in what they’d done each day.

  Brendan had a really good relationship with all three teenage children and even though he would have bouts of unexplained moodiness and would occasionally raise his voice in temper — once throwing a dinner plate across the room — Catherine always knew that he loved her and valued her more than anything. The children did too, helped by the fact that he truly enjoyed spending time with each of them. There was a sense that he wanted to protect them a little, especially the two girls, and he knew that by being there for them as they grew up, they’d always know he was available to help them later on in life if they ever needed it.

  Brendan was the strongest enforcer of all regarding family time, probably due to the fact of the potentially all consuming business life he lived. Very rarely had there ever been a conflict between his work and home life but his one big fallout with Nigel Gamble had been on the eve of a family vacation to America when Nigel had suddenly announced the purchase of another major company and he’d expected Brendan to drop everything he was doing over the coming week, including the holiday, in order to make it happen. Brendan was furious and stood his ground, risking everything, and went away as planned. Nigel had been taken aback at the time, feeling threatened that such a key figure could opt for his family over major business plans. In time, though, he logged that piece of information, waiting for the moment that he could turn the tables back on Brendan by holding to ransom the one thing he seemed to value above all else.

  Finishing in the garden, Catherine came in and washed her hands in the sink, drying them on the towel hanging on the front of the oven. Since Brendan had nearly finished his juice, she picked up the jug from the side and proceeded to go over and top up his drink.

  Brendan looked up at her, smiled and stood to embrace her. He held her for a moment, arms loosely draped around her waist, and then he pulled her into him tightly and kissed her gently on the lips. Catherine stood silently for a minute, enjoying the moment, before she took him by the hand and led him to the stairs.

  “Catherine you have that look in your eye!”

  “Well, you know what I want then!” They climbed the stairs and went into the bedroom.

  “Be quiet and close the door,” she said, entering the bedroom. Having closed the door, Brendan turned to find Catherine already half naked.

  “You know you get more beautiful every day,” he said.

  She came forward, grabbed him passionately and they fell back onto the bed together in each other’s arms, spending the next forty minutes as if they were newly weds.

  Having fallen into a restful sleep, Brendan was awoken by the bleeping coming from his pager and he gently freed himself from the entangled arms of Catherine. Pulling up his trousers, he stood and walked over to the pager, picked it up and walked into the bathroom. It was a notification that he had a voice mail message. Grabbing his mobile he called it, entering the security code when prompted and heard the message that Terry had left earlier that morning. Catherine called from the bed.

  “Anything important, darling?”

  “You know me, nothing is more important than you and the children. It’s not anything that can’t wait until first thing tomorrow.”

  Now in the bedroom again he kissed her gently on the forehead. And it was indeed true: as ruthless as he’d been in business carrying out mainly Nigel’s plans, he’d always drawn the line at the front gate. Always protective of them all, he hadn’t even let them know much, if anything, about the man he worked for, though Catherine, as most wives do, had picked up quite a bit over the years by what he didn’t say. Still she learned not to ask much about it, grateful for the obvious distance there was between her husband’s working life and his home life. And she loved him all the more for that, as did his children.

  **********

  The following morning Simon Allen had just about pulled his notes together, though they were still in quite a mess and certainly only readable to him, such was his tilted handwriting, the letters bending so far to the right that they were almost horizontal. Still, he’d always preferred to work things out on paper instead of computers, a habit going way back to his college days and those mathematics lessons he’d so enjoyed.

  Simon lived alone and had been alone most of his life. Not a young man any more, he’d grown to enjoy his own company which ultimately became the stumbling block to the few women he on occasion got to know a little better. When it came to the crunch, Simon preferred his own space and off the women went. Of course this had always been hard at the time. Maybe he’d just never met the right person — which is how he would convince himself as he tried to deal with it all before moving on, continuing as normal, becoming more and more a loner. Work gave him the opportunity for interaction within a safe and set perimeter. He therefore really enjoyed the company within these boundaries before being able to retreat to his own space again. Picking his bag up he headed off to another coffee shop, planning to scan through things to get them clear in his head before reporting back his findings and seeing what further investigation would be needed.

  **********

  Terry Goldman jumped out of bed as the phone rang loudly. It was still early and he’d had a late night. Frustrated he went over and picked it up.

  “Who the hell is...”

  “Terry, it’s me!” Brendan said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I’ve been getting lots of junk callers, I just thought it’d be one of them but.” Brendan had grown a very short fuse with Terry over the years since he’d been told to employ him; he was still at a loss to understand why he was of any use anyway. That anger came to the surface once again, cutting in quickly before Terry could get going.

  “Shut up and listen!” Brendan paused, aware he was shouting a little too loudly. Composing himself, he continued: “I have a friend of mine who’ll be able to help Mr Allen with those figures he was looking at. He’s from the company and should be able to answer some of those questions, you know, straighten things out.”

  “Oh, great, I see. I thought you’d be angry at what he was doing?”

 
“Angry, why? He’s just not understood correctly. I need you to arrange a meeting with him, please.”

  “Certainly, as soon as I get into the office I’ll...”

  “Now, please!” Again that anger was there, his voice showing all his frustration, before he calmed to continue. “Call him straight away and tell him you’ll come and get him. I have a taxi on its way to you at this moment.”

  “Oh yes, of course, sir. I’ll call him straight away.”

  “Good. This will make me very happy and quite forgiving, you know,” he said ending the call, trying to sound as believable as he could.

  Terry got dressed as quickly as he could, but still the doorbell rang while he was doing his tie up. Grabbing his phone and bag, he raced downstairs as the driver was just about to get back in the cab and leave.

  “Hold on,” he said, getting in the back seat, his ear to the phone. “The Coffee House please on Kings Street,” he said to the driver. Having got hold of Simon as he raced downstairs, Simon had told him where he was. Briefly explaining that he had something that would help, Terry said he’d come and get him and then hung up. Pulling up at the café ten minutes later Terry slipped the driver some cash and asked him to wait a moment while he went in and got his friend. Getting out of the car, Terry walked over to the doors and went inside, spotting Simon on the far wall, already well through a large cup of coffee.