by Jack Spain
Just then, there was a knock at the door. McManus jumped up to answer it. ‘That’ll be her,’ he said as he rushed to the door. ‘Make the coffee.’
When he opened the door, the sight of a middle-aged bearded man with a notepad and pen greeted him.
‘Where are the sandwiches?’ McManus asked.
‘Sandwiches?’ asked the man. ‘Do I look like a sandwich lady?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before. Who are you?’
‘Jack Randal,’ replied the man. ‘I work for the Wester—’
McManus slammed the door in his face, and turned to the engineer. ‘It’s the press!’ he said.
‘About the potato field?’ the engineer asked.
‘Of course, the potato field,’ he replied. ‘What did you think he wanted to talk about? Sandwiches?’
Jack knocked on the door again. McManus racked his brains to think of what to say before turning around and opening the door. ‘Who are you?’ he asked the man standing outside.
‘Jack Randal. Look, I was—’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m just following up on the rumour that there was a bit of—’
‘What? When?’
‘The other day. The potato field belonging to—’
‘Where did you find out about it?’
‘In the pub, I heard it from John Abb—’
‘How can I help you then?’
‘Well, I’d like an interview, to get the facts right. It’s for my column in the paper.’
‘Why? It hardly seems newsworthy to me.’
‘Listen a minute,’ Jack protested. ‘I’m the one who usually asks who, what, when, where, how and why.’
McManus just glared back for a moment. ‘Stay here and await further instructions,’ he said, slamming the door in Jack’s face for the second time.
Red-faced with anger, McManus looked at the engineer. ‘I hate giving interviews on an empty stomach,’ he complained.
‘Doesn’t your wife feed you?’ joked the engineer.
McManus glared back at him and waved an angry finger under the engineer’s nose before turning around and opening the door.
‘Come in, Mr Randal,’ he said, inviting the wary journalist inside.
Jack stepped up into the hut and was introduced to Declan, the young engineer, before being offered a seat. Jack, being an experienced journalist, quickly scanned the whole hut, taking mental notes about the drawings, the calendars, the layout, the books on the shelves, and lastly, but most importantly, the demeanour of Michael McManus, the owner of the company.
‘You’ll have a cup of tea?’ McManus asked as the two men sat at the desk.
‘No, thank you,’ Jack replied. He was used to a more potent form of refreshment.
‘Declan, make the man a cup of tea,’ he ordered, ignoring what Jack had said. This told Jack a lot about the man he was about to interview.
Declan, who did not consider himself a tea lady, nonetheless obliged. Given the previous day’s fiasco, he was keen to get back into his good favour, if only to keep him away from the site. He picked up the mugs from the table by grabbing the sides, instead of the handles. McManus watched him. There was something that he needed to remember, but he felt that it was unimportant.
Jack began the interview by asking for McManus’s version of the events.
‘There was an error of judgement,’ McManus explained, keen to keep things to himself.
‘It seems like a pretty big error,’ Jack remarked.
‘These things happen,’ McManus replied dismissively.
‘Oh, so this sort of thing happens a lot then?’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Accidentally ploughing up someone’s field.’
‘Whose field?’
‘John Abbott’s field. Your men accidentally ploughed up the field of John Abbott. He protested and called the Garda Síochána. Rumour has it that you stormed over here and, after a bit of a tiff, agreed to compensate him. You then ordered an investigation into the events and recommenced the construction of the road.’
McManus sat silently looking at Jack for a moment. ‘If you know what happened, why are you here asking me?’
‘Well, I just want your version of the events,’ Jack replied jovially, trying to break McManus’s guard.
‘Well,’ McManus began. ‘my men accidentally ploughed up the field of John Abbott. He protested and called the Garda Síochána. I drove over here and, after a bit of mutually constructive discussion, agreed to compensate him. I then ordered an investigation into the events, and recommenced the construction of the road.’
There was a knock at the door. ‘Thank God for that,’ McManus muttered as he jumped up and opened the door.
It was the sandwich lady. Jack waited as McManus selected several sandwiches from her tray and paid her with a fifty-euro note. She didn’t have enough change so he told her to bring it back to him the next day.
Declan poured the tea and carried it over to Jack and McManus, including a mug for himself. He sat down beside the desk and waited for the discussion to recommence.
McManus sat down and immediately began to open the sandwiches. He looked at the engineer. ‘Don’t you have something to do?’ he said.
The engineer sighed as he stood up and walked out of the hut. McManus began to eat a sandwich, obviously relishing every bite.
Jack looked at the mug of milky tea, and reluctantly decided to drink it, to make a better impression. He grabbed the handle and lifted it, but it snapped away, leaving the rest of the mug where it sat. Jack looked at the handle for a second before McManus, who hadn’t noticed, started again.
‘So, if you know what happened, what do you need from me?’
‘Ah, yes,’ replied Jack, putting the handle back down on the table. ‘I want to know if you have any comment to make.’
‘I do,’ McManus replied, before wiping his mouth with a napkin.
Jack was very surprised. ‘You do?’
‘Yes. Michael McManus Construction is a family business, and as a family business we are committed to the wellbeing of everyone who is impacted by any construction work that we commence. We are very considerate of the environ—’
Jack interrupted: ‘... environment and are sponsors of two major sports teams. We have the highest—’
‘How do you know that?’ McManus demanded.
Jack pointed to the mission statement on the poster behind McManus’s head.
McManus looked back and then told him to write that down instead.
Jack Randal was smart enough to know that he wasn’t going to get a story out of Michael McManus and decided to close on one final question.
‘Well, finally, how are you going to ensure that this sort of thing won’t happen again?’
‘We have put in place better processes and procedures to prevent it,’ McManus responded confidently in a loud voice, to indicate that the interview was over.
‘Are you sure that these processes and procedures will work?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
‘Absolutely sure?’ Jack asked to confirm the comment.
‘Absolutely sure!’ McManus replied even more confidently, before standing up and walking to the door.
Jack was happy with what he had. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. He stood up and walked to the door, where, nodding to McManus, he stepped outside. At that instant, there was a loud crashing noise from the far end of the site, followed by lots of shouting and screaming. McManus pushed his way past Jack and ran up the site to see what the commotion was. Jack followed.
They met the engineer running back to the hut. McManus grabbed him by the arm.
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.
‘There's been an accident,’ the engineer responded. ‘I have to call an ambulance.’
McManus let him go and ran as fast as he could towards the end of the site where most of the men had gathered. Jack was in hot pursuit, struggling to
keep up with the road builder. McManus pushed his way through the men to find them pulling a driver out of what looked like a big square hole. There was a horrible smell and the hole itself was full of water. The man was gasping for air, so McManus pushed some of the men back to let him breathe, before kneeling down beside him.
‘Are you all right? Is anything broken?’ he asked the smelly sodden man. There was a pause before the man indicated that he was fine.
‘What happened?’ McManus asked the men around him. Nobody was sure so he looked at the man, whom he now recognised as a bulldozer driver.
‘I was just bulldozing this field when the ground disappeared below me,’ he gasped.
‘What?’ McManus asked in disbelief, before looking into the square hole. It was obviously an old abandoned septic tank, the kind used for taking household waste away.
‘Where’s the bulldozer?’ McManus asked.
The driver just pointed back at the big hole. McManus looked but all he could see was a big square mass of deep swirling water with some bubbles popping on the surface. The bulldozer was obviously at the bottom of it. He looked up at Jack Randal who was busy writing, and quietly laughing to himself. McManus had no time for this so he checked that the man could walk and helped him up before sending him back to the hut to wait for the ambulance. He stood looking into the square hole for a minute and then looked over at Jack, who glanced back, closed his notebook and then chuckled to himself before turning away and walking back to the huts.
McManus ordered the rest of the men to stop work until he knew it was safe. Back at the hut, he gave the driver some clean clothes that he had, to bring to the hospital, and when the ambulance turned up, he told the man to call him and tell him if he needed anything. The engineers quickly went about trying to work out what had happened. McManus stopped them. Declan was quick to ask him why.
‘It’s getting too dangerous,’ McManus began. ‘It appears that someone has been sabotaging the site.’
‘Sabotage? Why?’ Declan asked.
‘I don’t know, but I intend to find out. See that hill over there?’ McManus pointed to a small hill in the distance.’
‘I do.’
‘That is where we are supposed to be headed. First we went off course to the left, and today we went off course to the right. I reckon the first diversion was a trial run. Today was more planned as they had to change the drawings. From now on, I want you to lock up your drawings and every morning check that we are headed for that hill. You don’t need binoculars to see it. That hill is our target. Let every man here know it.’
‘But why would somebody want to sabotage the road?’
‘I don’t know. But there are always crazy people. Maybe it’s this Ninja woman. Maybe somebody else.’
‘But this is the only work around here.’
‘I wasn’t able to hire everyone. Maybe somebody is bitter about it. Maybe it’s environmentalists. Whoever it is, we need to get this under control before the Health and Safety people get on to us.’
Declan nodded. McManus began to pace a short distance back and forth in deep thought. For the road to go off course once was a mistake, but for it to do so twice was something else. Both men were thinking the same thing.
‘It may be a competitor. If we don’t get to that hill on time we could lose the second phase of the contract. If we do I’m bankrupt,’ McManus said. ‘So before we come to that I’m going to find out who is messing with us, before somebody else gets hurt.’
‘If you find them, then what?’ Declan asked.
‘I’ll be hurting them back. Mark my words. They’ll learn what it is to cross me, and so will their families and their friends too.’
McManus turned and began to walk down the site but stopped and turned back to Declan.
‘What was the name of that person sending us the emails again?’
‘Miss Ninja Eco-Warrior.’
‘Miss Ninja Eco-Warrior?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Let’s keep an eye out then. There might be something in it.’
A Change of Plan
That night, Moriarty and Morphu poured superglue on every seat that they could find. Those interested in a morning cuppa were glued to the seats in the canteen. Those who went straight to their machines were glued to the machines. The engineers were glued to the seats in the office, and one poor man was glued to a shovel. When McManus turned up, he first accused everyone of being lazy and sitting on the job. Seeing the man with the shovel, he immediately gave him a pay rise for being the only one who seemed to be working.
The only way for the workmen to get off the seats was to take off their trousers. For dramatic effect, Grogan called the local newspaper from a payphone. In the following edition, the picture on the front page was of all the workmen from the site in a line, walking back to their cars, with no trousers. The press had a field day on the story and were quick to point out that this could be the work of the secretive Miss Ninja Eco-Warrior, although every other environmental group pointed out that there was no connection other than they also received the emails. From that day on, every single workman changed his underwear every day.
Moriarty and Balor were relentless in their sabotage. They sabotaged everything that they could find on the site. Michael McManus was quick to have the engineers take the road diagrams away with them at the end of every day and check everything early in the morning before anyone arrived. To Balor and Moriarty’s dismay he erected a big sign pointing to the hill and the date they had to reach it. Apart from compensation, McManus didn’t have to do anything about the superglue though as the workers, embarrassed by their front-page photograph in the local newspaper, went to pains to check every surface for traces of glue.
Balor turned his attention to the canteen. He concocted a natural laxative which he added to every single bottle and package of food that he could find on the site. The laxative was very potent and resulted in most of the workmen queuing for the toilets for the greater part of the day. The problem was further compounded by the fact that Balor and Moriarty had sabotaged the toilets and, by the end of the day, the building site was a very smelly place indeed.
This worked a few times until the owner of the canteen was forced to bring in fresh food every day. This didn’t improve his business though as the workmen began to bring their own lunch and flasks of tea.
Moriarty was also able to stop work for almost an entire day. In the engineer’s Portakabin, he found a notebook with the names and telephone numbers of every single workman, so while Balor and the King’s Guard were busy sabotaging the toilets, he used a phone in the hut to ring up all of the employees and tell them that they shouldn’t come into work the next day. Only a few actually turned up and the rest refused to come in when called. They said that the caller display on their phones indicated that the call had come from McManus Construction.
This plan paid dividends on a Friday. When everyone who hadn’t turned up for work wasn’t paid for that day, the entire site went on strike until McManus agreed to pay, under the threat of a call to the Health and Safety Executive.
The toilet sabotage trick worked again the day after the strike ended. Balor re-routed the pipes so that when a tap was turned on over the washbasin, water would flood up out of the toilet bowl, along with anything else that was there. It caused major chaos. Balor was so pleased with himself that he decided to sabotage the toilets every week.
Stuck for other ideas, they decided to try torture.
Balor found a roll of wire and decided to connect every metal surface he could find on the site to the electricity mains supply. The task took all night. Unfortunately for Balor, Morphu carelessly gave the signal to switch on the power too soon. Balor was holding a door handle at the time and let out the most horrendous scream. Moriarty switched off the power as quickly as he could and ran around to help his master. Balor survived the electrocution but he was completely black. The hair on the side of his head stuck out like two aeroplane wings and wa
s smouldering at the ends. Moriarty didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Neither did the King when they got back to the hill.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked Balor. Moriarty laughed while Balor drew a very stern face.
‘I was electrocuted by my no good apprentice,’ he replied.
‘I can see that,’ replied the King as he admired the smouldering wings of hair that were still sticking out either side of Balor’s head. ‘I want a word with you both in my chambers. When you have settled down your hair, of course.’
The King walked off and left Balor and Moriarty wondering what he wanted to talk about.
The King was reviewing some maps of the road progress when the Captain of the Guard opened the door and let Balor and Moriarty in. He didn’t look up but indicated to them to sit in front of him. He was reviewing a report that the Captain of the Guard had made on the operations being carried out at the roadworks. When he did look up, he was surprised to find Moriarty struggling not to laugh.
‘What is wrong with you?’ he asked Moriarty, and then looked at Balor. He was surprised to see that Balor’s hair had turned green. ‘What on earth happened to you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Balor replied calmly.
‘You have green hair. You look like a seventeen-hundred-year-old punk rocker in a monk’s habit.’
‘I had to pin my hair down.’
‘What did you pin it down with?’
‘Pesto.’
‘Pesto?’
‘It’s very useful.’
The King sighed and for a moment turned his attention to the report that he was reading, before looking back up.
‘I’m concerned,’ he began, ‘about our tactics.’
‘I think that our tactics have been very successful,’ Balor replied.
‘I cannot argue with that. What I have in front of me is the Captain’s report on the use of the King’s Guard for surveillance operations around the roadworks. I am concerned that people are getting hurt.’
