by D J Harrison
‘Look, Mrs er…’ he glances down, ‘…Parker. These are serious allegations. If there are minors at risk we need Social Services present. I understand your concern. We will do everything we can. Now please take a seat over there while I get on with it.’
I sit and fidget, and consider giving Mick a ring – perhaps it might be quicker to send him around with a few of the lads. A feeling of anger and helplessness grips me. How can this be happening? Mrs Mather’s flat has been trashed and used as a vice den and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. My mobile stirs, it’s Mick asking where I am.
‘I’m at the police station reporting the people in the flat. There’s child abuse going on, the police seem totally unconcerned, maybe you should go.’
‘Better not, especially if the police are involved. Have patience, they’ll sort it out.’
‘Thanks, Mick,’ I say with thick sarcasm. ‘Maybe your original idea would have been best. I’ll let you know what happens.’
Nothing happens. I sit in frustrated fury while the sergeant makes a series of unhurried phone calls. He sees me rise as he puts down the phone, but waves an admonishing hand to set me back in my seat. The policeman who arrives to take my statement looks about fifteen years old. He knows nothing about what’s going on, only that I have to write it all down myself and sign it several times. I look at my phone. Over an hour has passed. The sergeant deigns to speak to me at last.
‘Okay you can go now, Mrs Parker, leave it with us.’
‘Have you been round and rescued the girls?’ I ask.
‘Not yet, soon; we’re waiting for Social Services to get back to us.’ I decide to leave while I still have my liberty and the sergeant still has his teeth.
3
Mick squeezes into the chair opposite my desk. It’s been a busy few days, we’ve been short staffed. Several of the lads have had to work double shifts. When a single shift is twelve hours, I can see their point when they object to working two shifts in a row.
‘Well?’ I ask.
‘All except Trafford Trailers are covered for tonight. I’m still phoning round trying to get a casual in. Otherwise I’ll do it myself.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘If it comes to that, see how much overtime Alan can stand before you relieve him. I need you during the day, not sitting around watching trucks all night. Anyway, you’ve got Joan to think about, she needs you more than anyone while she’s not feeling well.’
At times like this I realise how much I miss Gary. Okay, it was a different world when he was alive. He was the boss and I was scared half to death and preoccupied with getting Toby back. I remember that familiar figure perched on the corner of my desk and a deep hurt is resurrected. It’s my fault he died. I feel as guilty about it today as I did that horrible night. Big Mick is the nearest thing I have to a manager. He is a huge, amiable ex-wrestler whose mere presence tends to diffuse any potentially violent situation. Although violence is something we try to avoid, it does form part of our business. GOD Security protects things that criminal elements covet, and sometimes they resort to brute force to try to get them. We have to be prepared to match that or preferably deter its use. No guns though. Gary was always adamant. No guns, not under any circumstances. Even though he was shot dead the general good sense of this policy stays with me – no guns. This is twenty-first century Manchester and there’s a lot of bad people around who don’t feel the same. When they turn up it’s a matter for the police alone. My lads are told to walk away.
Emma comes in with a broad grin on her face, not that this is unusual for her. This time she seems even more enthusiastic than usual.
‘Look,’ she says, ‘it’s come, I told you it would.’
‘What’s come?’
‘The tender. Remember you said it was pointless filling in all that paperwork? Well, now it’s come. We’re on the tender list.’
I look at this thick sheath of documents. She’s right. I didn’t think we had a chance with this one. A huge local government contract for Stretford Borough Council. Contracts like these are normally the exclusive province of the giant outsourcing firms that dominate the market. Now we’ve got a chance to compete with them. My heart leaps at the prospect.
‘Well done you,’ I say. ‘When does it have to be in?’
‘End of the month,’ Emma replies.
‘What? Three weeks to price it all up? That’s a bit tight, isn’t it?’
‘I’ll help,’ Emma says. ‘I can do costings, you know I can.’
‘Thanks, you’ve got yourself a job then.’
Emma grabs the tender documents and clasps them to her chest as if they were guinea pigs. I recruited her from Landers Hoffman, the accountancy practice that I once worked for. She used to sit opposite me and never failed to raise my spirits even during those dark times. Now she keeps up the good optimistic vibrations and keeps GOD Security’s accounts in order. A bit like I used to do for Gary but without the edge that a spell in prison brings. I’ve no doubt she’ll do a good job, but I know that we’ll have to do something very special if we’re to have a chance of landing this contract.
*
There is something about being leered at by a man that brings out the worst in me. Across the restaurant table, Stuart Donaldson’s eyes are tracing the outline of my breasts under my blouse rather than looking me in the eye. With difficulty, I repress the urge to embarrass him with a sharp comment or to hit him with a polite enquiry about the health of his wife and children. Instead I lean forward to give him a better look and press home the proposition I came to make. Security Group is the company who runs the Stretford contract this year. Stuart’s company is their accountancy firm, and he’s the man with the information I need if GOD are going to be running it next.
‘Look Stuart, I really need you to do me a favour. I know you’re bound by client confidentiality and I wouldn’t dream of compromising that. It’s just that I don’t have the time to put all the numbers together before the tender date. As for your clients, they’ve had the contract for five years now. They know everything about it. GOD Security has no chance of competing with such a massive business. All I want to do is make a credible bid, something that will keep me on the tender list, maybe get a chance to pick up some crumbs later.’
‘Oh. Look Jenny, I’d hoped you’d asked me out to lunch for a different reason.’
I laugh, flashing my eyes, pretending to be embarrassed. ‘Oh I see.’ His turn to look awkward.
‘No, not that. GOD Security, I’d hoped you wanted new auditors and that’s why you invited me here.’
‘Well, that’s always a possibility,’ I lie. Things are complicated enough without the likes of Stuart Donaldson getting his eyes on the kind of business I’m conducting.
‘Look, Stuart, here’s the details of my Dropbox account.’ I push across an envelope containing a single piece of white paper with a list of the information I want typed on it and two hundred and fifty others, purple with a portrait of the queen printed on them. ‘Bear in mind that everything I’m asking for is public information, it’s only that it’ll take me too long to derive it myself.’
We enjoy our meal, talking pleasantries, and I leave him to pay the bill. He’s the man after all, and not short of cash either. Mick is laughing when he picks me up on Deansgate.
‘You’ll never guess who called while you were out.’
‘The queen?’
‘No. Jim Almond from Security Group. Now what would he want that we might be prepared to give him?’
‘The Stretford contract, and you know darn well that’s what it’s about. At least he’s got the decency to come to me, rather than offer inducements to you.’
‘He knows how close you keep things.’ Mick smiles sideways at me as he negotiates Blackfriars Bridge.
‘How does he know that?’ I wonder.
‘I told him,’ Mick says. ‘I said I knew nothing about the tender and that he should speak to you.’
‘When was this?’ I ask.
‘Oh, about an hour ago.’ My breathing steadies, that’s much too early for Stuart to have rung Jim with the substance of our lunchtime chat. Now that would have been upsetting, Stuart doing the right thing by his client.
‘Good.’ I dial the number and accept Jim’s invitation for a cup of coffee tomorrow morning at his office. There’s no inconvenience involved. It’s half a mile away from my own Trafford Park base.
4
Now that the Stretford tender has arrived I’m feeling more and more convinced that GOD Security needs to win this job. It may even be a matter of survival. Since Gary’s death, new work has been hard to find. I have to face it, my talents do not include sales and marketing. Our client list is confined to O’Brian and other friends of Gary. O’Brian, now there’s another reason we need to get in more work. Lately he’s been busier than ever.
Jim Almond greets me with a smile and a firm handshake. I sit at a neat round table opposite his desk while he pours coffee into SG emblazoned mugs. The walls are adorned with framed certificates, proclaiming company successes and personal qualifications. He is a small man, busy, robust and charming. Having dispensed the drinks he sits down and begins to speak.
‘I’ll be brief,’ he says. ‘I know how busy you must be.’ The phone rings on his desk. He tries to ignore it at first but the compulsion is too great. ‘Hello, ah, yes. Look I’ll have to get back to you on that. No. Well that’s not good. No. Look, I’ll ring him and find out what he’s playing at. No. Actually I’m in a meeting. I’ll call you back.’
He replaces the phone and sits back down. ‘Sorry, Jenny.’ The phone starts ringing again. He visibly winces. His mobile sets off and he retrieves it from his pocket, looks at it, answers. ‘Good morning, how are you? Oh sorry. It’s a bit awkward, I’ve got someone with me. No not late. Of course I do. I will. Okay, talk to you later.’
He apologises again. ‘Sorry.’ The desk phone stops then starts again.
‘We should get out of here before one of us is driven mad,’ I stand up.
‘No, no.’ He waves me back to my seat. ‘All I want is to discuss the Stretford contract. You’re on the select tender list.’
‘Yes, I know we are. We got the documentation yesterday. I was surprised that we pre-qualified.’
‘Do you know why you were put on the list while half a dozen more established businesses were excluded?’
‘I presume they wanted us because we’re local, we operate in the borough.’
He smiles. ‘You’re on the list because I had you put on.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because you’re someone I know I can do business with, Jenny.’ The damned phone pipes up again. I feel like screaming, I also feel mortified by his patronising tone. Gary once told me that Jim Almond wouldn’t give you the time of day unless he’d finished with it. My stomach churns as I anticipate what is to come.
‘Times are hard for all of us,’ Jim continues above the shrill ringing. I have an urgent need to unplug the bloody thing, but I also need to hear what he’s about to say.
‘We’ve done all the hard work on this one. Stretford are a bugger to deal with. Their offices were very antagonistic to begin with. They accused us of taking local government jobs, that sort of thing. You would think a Tory authority would be all for private enterprise, but not these guys. Every penalty clause is invoked, every invoice dissected and scrutinised. Quite frankly, it’s a complete pain in the arse.’
‘But a four million pound a year pain in the arse,’ I say.
‘Another reason you’re well out of it. What’s your turnover now, Jenny, two million?’
‘Oh, considerably more than that,’ I say.
‘It would more than double your size. I doubt your management team would cope.’ He emphasises the words ‘management team’ as if he’s speaking about some mythological beast. He isn’t far wrong, he’s looking at the whole team right now.
‘Anyway.’ He pauses. The phone is mercifully quiet. ‘There’s no chance they would award it to you, believe me.’
I look into his eyes and I think I detect a miniscule of doubt but I’m not certain.
‘It would be best for us all if you put in a covering price. I’ll let you have a detailed bid; all you have to do is to submit it. Stretford will see you as a professional outfit and we might get to recoup some of the losses we made on the first contract.’
‘What about the others?’ I ask.
He smiles and winks. ‘All sorted, no worries.’
‘And why should I pass up this chance? What’s in it for me?’ At this point I half expect some personal inducement rather like the one I recently handed his accountant.
‘We’ll leave you alone, let you keep the business you already have. We won’t go after your work. If anyone asks us to quote I’ll let you decide what price I put in. Quid pro quo.’ His use of Latin irritates me in a way that even the nagging phone couldn’t. I know what he’s saying is complete bullshit. His reps are in and out of every one of our clients all the time. What damage he can do to our business he already has. All his efforts so far have failed to make a dent in our customer base, but he has made sure that our margins are cut to the bone. Getting price increases through with SG sniffing around has proved difficult. What Jim doesn’t know is that profit margins are not a concern for me. Gary and O’Brian have seen to that aspect.
The urge to shout defiance and storm out pleading mortification at such corrupt practices quickly subsides.
‘Sounds like a contract we wouldn’t be able to swallow,’ I say. ‘The forms were submitted in a burst of enthusiasm by one of my staff. I never seriously considered competing with you for it. Let me have your price, Jim, I’ll make sure we avoid any embarrassment. Mind you, I’ll be expecting some big favours in return, you’ll owe me big style after this, Jim.’
‘Don’t worry.’ He looks relieved. ‘I’m a man of my word, I’ll make sure it’s worth your while.’
No he’s not, no he won’t are the echoes in my thoughts as I take my leave.
5
I badger the police every day about the horrible situation I discovered at Mrs Mather’s flat. ‘Enquiries are ongoing,’ is all I ever get out of them. ‘We’ll ring you and let you know the outcome,’ they say and none of them ever does, until now.
A young voice is on the phone asking me to visit the police station at a time convenient to me.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask. ‘Did you arrest those men, are those poor girls safe?’
‘I’m not at liberty to comment,’ he replies coldly.
‘Why do I have to come then, is it to identify the man who attacked me?’
‘No, madam, we need a statement from you.’
‘But I already gave one.’
‘Yes I know, but we need to take one under caution now.’
‘Under caution? Are you arresting me?’
‘No, not at this stage. As I say, you are invited to make a statement at your own convenience. You’re entitled to have a lawyer present if that’s what you want.’
My heart is almost stopped. My breath certainly is. Almost mechanically I agree to attend at 3 p.m. tomorrow, a time not convenient to me, but entirely determined by him. I telephone Stephen right away. Stephen is my solicitor, the third one I have had.
The first one lost me my liberty. The second lost me custody of my son Toby. I’m hoping that Stephen is going to be third time lucky. One thing I have learned from my bitter experience is that solicitors are only as good as the instruction you give them. And sometimes they’re not much good at all. Every time I put my trust in them I seem to come out badly. The criminal justice system hasn’t been kind to me in the past.
‘The police want me to give another statement, this time under caution,’ I explain. ‘Three o’clock tomorrow, at Salford.’
‘What have you been up to, Jenny?’ he asks.
‘Nothing. I interrupted a child prostitution racket, reported it to the police, now th
ey seem to think I’m the guilty party.’ I quickly run through the situation I discovered at Mrs Mather’s flat.
‘Okay,’ Stephen says, ‘leave it with me, I’ll see what I can find out.’
I put down the phone to discover O’Brian, he with the wispy grey hair and twinkling eyes, perched on the corner of my desk. This is not a good time to be dealing with O’Brian. There’s actually never a good time, but this particular one is marginally worse than most. My heart sinks further when I see the fat briefcase he’s brought with him. He indicates it with a nod.
‘There’s a hundred in there, business has been brisk.’ He smirks as if he’s doing me a favour. I suppose most people might be over the moon to receive a hundred thousand pounds in cash: not me. It’s too much, following on too quickly from the fifty thousand he brought in only two weeks ago.
Before Gary was killed, he persuaded me to devise a scheme to accommodate O’Brian’s illegitimate cash dealings. Small amounts of cash, like the five grand I recently pressed into Stuart Donaldson’s palm, are easy enough to hide. Money like that can be put in a drawer, used in small amounts over the course of a year. Nobody is any the wiser. A bit of shopping here, some holiday currency there, not a problem. Nothing to alert the authorities. Anything bigger though and HM Revenue and Customs are very alert, in fact they have teams of specialists scrutinising businesses as well as personal transactions.
There is this draconian piece of legislation called the Proceeds of Crime Act, designed to confiscate the ill-gotten gains of drug dealers, terrorists and organised criminals. To please Gary and to repay some unknown obligations to O’Brian I devised the caravan park business. In simple terms, we buy a residential caravan park where people pay five hundred pounds per month for their vans and gradually convert it to a holiday park where they pay five hundred pounds a week, at least on paper. It’s all to do with the way it’s accounted, after all that’s what I am, an accountant.
