Jim smiled. He liked working with Dougie who, although frequently irascible was a man one could learn from. He didn’t pull his punches nor did he play games. You always knew where you stood.
Back in his office Jim toyed with the papers on his desk. His mind was elsewhere for a few minutes and he couldn’t get on with work. He checked his watch. Two hours to go before the secretaries went home. He studied the list of calls he had to make which he’d written into his Organiser. None of them were urgent.
He reached for the phone, got the number from directory enquiries and called Global Quality Assurance. They were polite and said their sales rep was around in London and would Mr. Beauregard like to call his mobile? He did.
“Colin Rance speaking,” a nasal Northern voice said after a few rings.
Jim explained his interest to the man.
“As it happens, sir. I was just having a cup of coffee not a stone’s throw from your office and have an hour spare in my schedule. Would you like me to pop over and drop off a few brochures?”
Jim smiled at his end of the phone. The man was sharp and aggressive. What he meant was, could he have a meeting right away while the iron appeared to be hot? Jim agreed.
He stood up and leaned on the door-jamb until the girl noticed his presence and swivelled slightly in her chair. “Doris, what happened over the week-end? I couldn’t get hold of you?” he said. His assistant pursed her lips and looked troubled. There was no one else within earshot.
“I’m sorry. You know,” she said.
“I know…”
“Family matters. I was busy.”
“Oh,” Jim replied, not wanting to pick a fight because what was the point?
“How about tonight? I’m ready to leave the office early. How about a nice quiet little dinner?”
“I can’t,” the girl said. She seemed bothered, unhappy to tell him that she wasn’t available. He studied her eyes, framed by the high cheekbones and surrounded by unblemished skin. It wasn’t yellow at all but more a pale beige-like colour. “I have to bring my mother to visit her cousin. I’ve promised her.”
Jim shrugged in resignation. “I understand. Maybe I’ll just put my feet up, watch some telly and go to bed early.”
“You look tired,” she said with some concern.
“There’s a guy coming in about twenty minutes. Show him right in would you, love?”
Doris regarded him with warm, sorrowful eyes and said quietly, “I’m sorry, you don’t mind do you?”
“It’s okay, it’s family,” he said evenly, feeling less irritated by now because of her apologetic manner. “I know that’s important for Chinese people.”
He turned and went back to his armchair.
Colin Rance arrived on time. Tall and thin with the easy grace of a born salesman, he sported a tiny moustache and a bright blue sports-coat that made him appear practically American.
“It’s a great pleasure to get a call from your company, Mr. Beauregard. We’ve been trying to get an appointment with your Director for quite some time.”
“Our Director?”
“Mr. Ferguson?”
“Oh, the Old Man,” Jim said. “Not the right person to talk to. Not for the day to day things.”
“His Secretary kept on blocking me so I assumed you weren’t interested,” Rance said, matter of fact.
“She blocks everyone. That’s what she thinks her job is. The Old Man just does lunches and dinners anyway. He’s not involved in the daily business. This is where the real action is.” Jim used his index finger to point around the room, implying that he was the right man when it came to quality assurance.
“Isn’t there another gentleman called Campbell working here as well?” Rance asked cautiously, pulling a big notebook from his briefcase.
“He’s the General Manager, my boss. He’s leaving for Hong Kong today. That’s where we’re having problems.”
“Ah-ha,” Rance encouraged him, pen poised.
“Quality problems,” Jim added.
“Ah-ha,” Rance prompted again.
Jim sighed, mostly to himself and went into a bowlderised version of what they’d been facing lately, which lasted ten minutes. “So what do you think your company might be able to do for us?” he concluded.
Rance pulled once or twice at his moustache and then launched into a low key sales pitch: “Well, Mr. Beauregard. You can consider a company like ours like a sort of policeman. If your factories are doing a great job, if everything is hunky-dory, if all the goods are perfect and arrive on time then you don’t need the services of GQA. But most companies who are making and buying goods in Asia or the Eastern Bloc…” he paused and raised his eyebrows to make his point, “well…they need our help to keep an eye on things. You’ve got an office in Hong Kong, maybe in a few other Asia countries, but who knows if they’re doing a good, honest job? What GQA does is keep an eye on the whole supply chain. You give us the vital information as to the goods, product specs, timings of shipments, locations of factories and we send a few of our inspectors along just before the containers are sealed and they check the key points, take digital photos and write up a report within twenty-four hours. If there are any problems you’ll know right away and are able to stop the shipment before it’s too late and the goods are on a vessel or at sea.”
Rance studied Jim intently for a few seconds. Jim nodded and allowed the salesman to go on.
“We are your eyes and ears. We are there to report to you what is going on down there before it’s too late. We are there to catch factories and suppliers from cheating on you, or simply getting their information wrong. We are there to catch problems before they become an expensive liability.”
The salesman knew when to stop. He waited for Jim to ask questions.
Jim said, “So how many people does your company have and what kind of qualifications do they need?”
“We have an office in nearly every manufacturing location in Asia. Not big operations. We like to remain small and manageable. Our biggest competitor has thirty-eight thousand people. How can you manage that kind of work force? We have about four hundred employees. In China for example, we have offices in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Xuhai, Xiamen, Shanghai, Ningpo, Tsing Tao, Dalian, Tianjin—the key locations, so to speak. Our men and women are well-trained, they have good English skills and understand the products they are handling. What products are your main concern?”
“Hardware, DIY items, outdoor furniture, textiles,” Jim replied.
“We have expertise in all of those.”
“I’m sure you do,” Jim said, wondering if his voice sounded slightly sarcastic because Rance seemed a notch too smooth in his delivery.
“So how does it work? You get a commission from whom?”
“We generally work on behalf of the buyer to keep an eye on the seller. That means, you or your office in Hong Kong might send us an inspection booking form telling us a certain shipment will be ready on a specific date. You also supply us with any other relevant information, what you want checked and a perfect sample of what the products should look like. Then we contact the factory, make an appointment and go ahead and do the inspection. Within twenty-four hours you get a report listing what we found.”
“And what do you look for?”
“Generally we categorise our findings into four groupings. Critical defects which are problems of safety or government regulations, Major defects which are problems of functionality, Minor defects which involve cosmetic or appearance issues and finally all the rest which are Remarks that the client should be aware of. We work according to an ISO standard, which gives us statistical guidelines as to how many pieces should be taken from a shipment lot in order to be indicative of the whole shipment. We can’t inspect every single piece so we agree with our clients on Acceptable Quality Levels—we call that AQL—and if it goes above these levels the assumption is that the entire lot may be suffering from the same defects, so the shipment is held and products may be re-worked or the order
even cancelled.”
As Rance went on in more detail, explaining the processes involved, Jim began to think that it may be an idea to use this kind of process to keep an eye on the work of McPherson Ferguson’s Hong Kong office. A company like GQA could count the number of boxes loaded in a container and even give each a little stamp, then send digital images by email to Jim so that there would be no doubt at which stage the boxes may have disappeared. Their meeting went on for an hour and at the end they discussed pricing. Ferguson McPherson charged their clients anything between five and ten per cent of the value of the goods as a commission. If Global Quality Assurance came into the picture they’d want somewhere around one per cent for their services. It wasn’t expensive but it cut into the profit margins.
Finally Jim gave Rance his card and told him to call a few weeks later after he’d discussed things with the General Manager. By the time the meeting was over, Doris had gone and the outside office was dark and quiet. Jim put his feet up on his desk, loosened his tie and let out a muted sigh.
After five minutes he shuffled his papers into one pile, tossed them into his In-Tray and brought up the “Shut Down” menu on his laptop. He killed the Windows software, waited until the screen had gone dark, then dropped the lid. He turned off the lights of his office, closed and locked the door.
Half an hour later Jim parked the Saab in a space down the road from his flat. He was beat and wanted simply to drink a Boddingtons, eat a bowl of corn flakes and crawl under the covers earlier than normal. It would have been nice if Doris had been around. They could have lounged on the sofa and watched telly.
Jim put the key into the lock and pushed open his apartment door. Instantly a smell of burning hit his nostrils. The living room was swathed in smoke, thick acrid stuff that made him cough. He ran through, stumbling on the carpet and reached the windows, which he threw wide open. Turning, he located the source of the fire. His metal bin stood on the dining room table and flames were lapping over the sides. He coughed, a long string of retching coughs, and made his way into the kitchen where he kept a bucket under the sink. He filled it with water and returned, dousing the flames until steam hissed and the fire died away.
Jim had another coughing fit then went back to the front door, opening it wide to get a draft going. As the air slowly cleared he began looking around the room to see what else had been done by the pyromaniac intruder.
“Bastard, you bastard,” he said. The TV had been smashed, the glass jagged, and its remnants littered the floor, and both the speakers of his stereo system had been slashed open with a knife or razor blade. The maliciousness of the attack hit him hard as if he’d been booted in the groin. They were his possessions. He moved around the room. This was no burglary. This was someone sending Jim a message.
A modern art painting by a young man who could one day become famous hung over the leather sofa. Now it was worthless as the canvas had been slashed.
A pile of his CD’s lay by the window. The discs had been taken from their boxes and snapped in half. It looked as if whoever had done this had become bored after doing twenty CD’s and decided to use some of Jim’s computer magazines to light a bonfire instead. They’d been smart enough to use the metal waste-basket otherwise the whole house might have burnt down by now and there could have been dead people. This was an act of personal aggression.
It didn’t take the police long to arrive. Nothing much happened in this area after nine pm. Most people were ensconced in their comfy sofas watching the latest TV tripe.
The uniformed constable said, “Criminal Intimidation, most like, sir.” He’d put his cap down on the coffee table and was making notes in a small black book.
“Arson?” Jim asked.
“No, nothing really burnt down. Could be argued. Have to ask the CID bods to make the decision. So you were saying, you got home around what time?”
Jim gave the short explanation. Another two constables arrived and stood staring disconsolately at the pile of CD’s, then back at Jim. Perhaps they found his taste of eighties music odd. He’d have to buy all the CD’s again.
“And Criminal Damage, of course,” the first constable was saying.
Jim asked them if they wanted some tea. They declined.
“Any other things damaged? How about stuff stolen? Could just be a regular burglar who gets his kicks from trashing a place.”
“I don’t think there’s anything stolen. My computer’s still there and I don’t keep any valuables around the house.”
“Maybe that’s what got him so pissed off. No money and stuff,” one of the other PC’s suggested.
“Know anyone who might be angry at you or wants to get even? Had some problems at the office lately? Are you involved in any dodgy deals that have gone wrong? Might as well tell us now as the CID boys will find out anyway.”
“No, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Any jealous husbands you might know? Are you knocking off someone else’s missus perhaps, sir?”
“No, I’m not,” Jim replied, testily.
“No offence, sir, but there’s usually a perfectly logical reason and a likely candidate. You probably know the fella who did this. If you really put your mind to it.”
“No, I don’t.” But of course Jim knew. He had a fairly solid idea who might have had the opportunity and the motive for getting into his flat and abusing it.
To Jim it felt as if he’d been forcibly assaulted from behind by a large black prison guard. This was an infringement on his inner sanctum. It was a revolting thought. A violation punctuated by the broken lock on his front door.
The CID constable arrived, slouching in with the air of a man who thought he had better things to do and most of them were to be done down at the local boozer. He was followed by a pimply-faced youth who carried a big pilot’s case from which he produced brushes and bottles of fingerprint dust. Jim watched impatiently as the youth covered his furniture with the contents of the bottles.
“Do fingerprints ever catch criminals?” he asked the first constable.
“Not often, but once we’ve caught the burglar we use them to establish more evidence. There’s millions of fingerprints out there and comparing any new print with the database even by high speed computer is a tough one. But you never know. It happens, sir, so you have to go through the stages of the investigation.”
Jim grunted grimly and stomped off to the bathroom to wash his hands. He found that someone had urinated in his toilet without flushing the bowl. That was the final insult. He slammed the cover shut and marched into his study to call Sawyers on his mobile phone.
There was much noise in the background, the clinking of glasses and murmur of well-oiled conversation implying that his colleague was in a pub.
“What’s up, boss?”
“You busy with some bird?” Jim asked.
“Nah, just having a beer with an old school chum of mine. He’s in the army and back in town for a year or so.”
“Whereabouts are you?”
Sawyers wasn’t far from the office. Jim gave him a brief outline of what had happened and what he intended to do. He needed some help to back him up.
Half an hour later, with all the coppers removed from his place, Jim left again and drove down to Soho. The anger had now crystallized into a firm resolve to get to the bottom of things.
He walked into the pub and found Sawyers and another guy hunched over a small table. Last orders had just been called but a pint was waiting for Jim.
“Burgled, eh?” the other guy said, then introduced himself as Anthony Hetherington-Blake. They shook hands.
“Nice to meet you, Tony. So you’re in the Army?”
“Green Jackets, just spent some time in Germany, now we’ve been posted back to UK.”
“Have you been in the Army long?” Jim asked in an attempt to be polite.
“Since I left school. Didn’t fancy being a stockbroker or a banker,” Hetherington-Blake said affably. He was tall and somewhat lean but had the ai
r of physical toughness about him that one might expect from a Regular Infantry Officer. “Sawyers here has been telling me you’re a demanding boss to work for.”
“He’s an idle bastard, that’s his problem.”
“He always was at school. So what’s the score with your burglary?”
They talked for a while and by then the landlord began hovering over them, clinking glasses and raising his eyebrows meaningfully. It didn’t take them long to walk to Soho. The streets were busy, as usual, mostly with tourists who were looking for adventures in London which couldn’t be found in their respective, less glamorous, home cities. Leicester Square bustled and watchful policemen kept an eye on street performers while groups of youths began making their way from the pubs that were closing their doors to the clubs that were just opening them.
The three men reached Chinatown and turned into a side-street that Jim had passed many times before but never explored. This was where the Flying Fists Video shop was located and it was open until midnight every day because not only did it sell a full range of Cantonese and Mandarin movies but it also did a lucrative side-line in pornographic VCD’s copied in some illicit backroom editing studio.
Jim paused outside the glass door and, gazing in between the posters of unknown Chinese movie stars who stared aggressively back at him, he saw two men in the shop. One was eating a bowl of noodles with chopsticks, while the other talked on the phone. Both had an eye on a kung-fu flick on the TV screen which was perched on the edge of the counter.
“We’re in luck. Looks like the bastard works nights.”
“And you’re sure it’s him?” Sawyers asked, putting a hand on Jim’s shoulder and leaning forward to check himself.
“I’m not sure if he’s the guy who vandalised my place but it’s definitely the guy who attacked me outside the take-away.”
“Let’s go and talk to him then,” Hetherington-Blake said firmly.
The door jingled as they came in and the two Chinese youths turned their heads to see who the customers were. The one feeding himself the noodles paused and lowered his chopsticks. The other one said something in a low voice. He recognised Jim and his eyes became hard and defensive.
Dragon Breath Page 11
