Cherry Picking

by Tim Heath

  “Hey there you are. What’s the rush?” said Simon.

  “Sorry, I’d had a message late last night about a representative from HICL who’d be happy to chat with you. I’d arranged a meeting for this morning but totally forgot to tell you last night, falling asleep, before waking this morning and calling you. I’m sorry but I know that it’ll be worthwhile.”

  “Terry, you get more disorganised by the day. The way I see you gazing at that computer of yours anyone would think you’d be on top of things.” There was an edge and undertone to Simon’s words that made Terry feel uncomfortable. Shifting a little awkwardly on the spot he moved things on again.

  “We need to go now, Simon. I have a cab waiting outside. We’re running late.”

  “Really?” Simon looked up in surprise, checking that it wasn’t a joke. “You are such an idiot! Wait until I get into the office — this’ll go on your record! You really should get more organised and leave the dirty sites for home!”

  Simon looked at him more menacingly now in the face as he turned, surprised that he’d let it slip out through his mouth. Slight panic hit Terry who battled to ignore it and tried to pretend nothing had been said. How did he know, he kept asking himself? Maybe it was just a comment, but there had been something in the way he looked at him. His mind racing, they walked towards the door.

  Quickly leaving the café and walking across to the still waiting taxi, they got in and it pulled away. Being the senior person, Simon made a point of speaking to the driver before Terry could say anything.

  “The offices of the Department of Trade and Industry please on Trent Street.”

  “Actually no,” Terry said, jumping in and correcting Simon. “We need to go to the HICL building instead, do you know where it is?” The driver nodded and turned left at the end of the road.

  “Excuse me, Terry? Do you mind telling me what you are doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Simon, I’ve just been in a bit of a mess today.”

  “You need to sort yourself out, Terry. You really do!”

  Terry turned to look out of the window, letting the comment ride. Why he was helping Simon find these answers he didn’t know. After all, he knew that Simon would be the one who came out looking good — he always did. He’d get all the credit and this was really starting to get to Terry.

  The driver, aware of the heated words being exchanged, could see in Terry’s eyes that he was wound up so he just kept quiet, doing his job before pulling up on the road fifty metres from the entrance to HICL, the road already crammed with parked cars. The two men got out, with not another word spoken.

  Walking up the road as the taxi disappeared around the corner, they pressed the intercom on the main door. The doors opened without the need to say who they were, clearly the camera mounted on the wall confirming it was them.

  Both men walked up to the front desk. As he’d been instructed, Terry said, much to Simon’s bemusement:

  “We have a meeting here at nine thirty. We’re expected. The name’s Simon Allen and Terry Gold...”

  “Take a seat over there please, I will just call through,” said the lady on reception. Terry looked at her for a moment, his mind already diseased with lustful thoughts groomed by his hours on the internet. Having looked for just a bit too long, she glanced up and didn’t look happy. Terry turned away and ushered Simon over to a couple of sofas on the far side.

  Five minutes later, the receptionist called Simon over. “If you’d be so kind as to go through those doors on the far side, he’ll see you now. You can send the other guy away.”

  “With pleasure,” he said, being as charming as he could, wanting to re-exert some power and authority back into things.

  “That’ll be all, Terry. Off you go.”

  Terry looked up a little put out. After all, he’d been the link for this to happen. But he got up and slowly left, trudging off down the road looking for another cab to take him to the office.

  Simon Allen turned and walked as directed, through a tall door leading off from the reception area on the left hand side into a stone floored hallway, where there were a number of conference rooms. They seemed to be a little more basic than he would have expected. Surely the main ones were on higher floors, carpeted and warm. These were nice but a lot simpler, with easy-clean cheap vinyl floor tiles everywhere. It was all clean and new though and Simon just waited in the corridor area, not knowing exactly where he should be.

  After two minutes a door opened, Simon turning to greet the man who appeared.

  “Hello, I’m Simon Allen from the Department of Trade and Industry. And you are?”

  “I’m Mr Hague, Head of Claims here at HICL. I believe that I will be able to help you with your investigation by giving you some answers I’m sure you’ve been dying to know.” He walked on in, taking the hand of Ted Hague, who had a strong grip as he shook hands with Simon. Clearly he hadn’t been Head of Claims all of his life, but he seemed friendly enough now and with the chance to get to the bottom of things, Simon was glad for the meeting.

  Chapter 8

  Nigel Gamble sat reading in his lounge, a jazz CD playing quietly in the background. Putting the book down on the small table next to his chair, he stood up and stretched. His desk, which sat in the corner of the room, was covered in papers and reports. Nigel had for a long time now been in the practice of drawing up time lines and detailing in which order things needed to progress and he’d been reading through most of them until late last night and again earlier that morning.

  He knew some more research was needed and that might mean another return home, though having not long been back he didn’t really fancy the prospect and went as little as he could because it wasn’t safe. He walked back over to the desk and looked at a folder that detailed most of the firms that he owned. In his earlier days he’d been far less careful and had made multiple purchases making many mistakes in the process. Most of these had been cleared up though and much of the early success had been sold on or closed down in order not to arouse any suspicions.

  Nowadays his wealth came from a broad range of industries. The companies he owned were so big that they ran themselves most of the time, bringing in, in some cases, millions of pounds in profits every single day. Energy and renewable fuels had been a big area of growth in business in general and the Gamble Holdings Group had been at the forefront of all of this, having the sole rights now for all the main energy providers. They now held all the aces as it was Nigel Gamble’s researchers that had made the major breakthroughs needed to satisfy the world’s growing energy requirements by developing the successors to petrol and gas.

  Weaponry had been another massive area and the Gamble Holdings Group led the way in this field and continued to dominate the market. Their technicians, under Nigel’s guidance, created whole new defence and fighting systems that revolutionised combat equipment and of course offered great wealth when sold to the highest bidder. The Gamble Holdings Group weapons had therefore gone around the world, but Nigel would only sell to countries where his interests would not be affected.

  In health care, the Gamble Holdings Group scientists, who were the best that money could buy, advanced research ten fold following several key breakthroughs and they now held all the major patents in every field of medicine. These were the more obvious visible sides to the Gamble Holdings Group, but there were many more much smaller parts that to Nigel were just as vital. One team, for example, were head hunters and specifically worked for Nigel to bring the right people, the people he wanted, into the group right across the board. Their tactics were sometimes unusual, and often illegal. The results were always the same though — they got their man or woman, who continued to do their usual job but was better paid and now was working for Nigel. In his eyes, everyone was a winner.

  Another team just looked at security issues and his personal safety, not just the guards at his home, but an active team that followed orders and went out to track people and stop them. Nigel often used them to clean th
ings up and to eliminate people that shouldn’t be around. Of course, though, they were really just people that Nigel didn’t want around and in most cases they hadn’t actually done anything wrong, yet.

  Dropping the folder back on the desk, Nigel closed the curtains and walked back to the bookshelf, removing the books from the second shelf and undoing all the locks. He slid the large bookshelf to one side, closing access from the kitchen and opened the door that was revealed.

  Walking into his secret room, he turned the light on. Standing there, he always had that sense of excitement mixed with fear. Pain and pleasure, this room and those feelings always walking hand in hand. And with the light on, standing as tall as ever, just fifteen feet in front of him, stood his own WENTWORTH door, the bronze well-polished and sparkling in the light.

  **********

  Simon Allen and Ted Hague had been talking for twenty minutes. Simon had gone through things and Ted had been listening intently, a recording device in his inside pocket also catching everything for analysis later.

  “So as I see things, Mr Allen, and correct me if I’m wrong, it is that you’ve somehow got some figures that you assume to be accurate and have used them to come up with some half cocked solution that fits.”

  “No, excuse me, I haven’t...,” Simon said, a little taken aback by the tone of the question. Ted cut in rudely. “And then you come here expecting an explanation. What you are potentially saying would make you liable. I presume you’ve already told some journalist?”

  “No, I haven’t, what do you take me for?” Simon was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, suddenly sensing battle lines were now being drawn between them.

  “So you’ve not reported these inaccuracies then?”

  “No, not yet, I wanted to get things straight in my head first.”

  “But things aren’t straight, are they?”

  “Look, I don’t like the tone of your voice. I work for a Government organisation and have done a thorough job — don’t try and tell me I’ve made a mistake!” Simon didn’t appreciate the intimidation nor the implication that he’d made a mistake in his research, something he doubted very strongly. Ted seemed unperturbed as he continued.

  “Oh, but you have. You’ve made a very big mistake and that’s going to cost you dearly.”

  Shaking his head, Simon started to stand up, having had enough of the verbal abuse that was coming his way. Ted reached inside his pocket and pulled out a gun, its long silencer making it even more menacing.

  “Not so fast, Mr Allen,” Ted said, Simon turning and suddenly noticing the gun pointed at him.

  “Wait a minute, what is this? Who are you people? I knew you weren’t...”

  Two rounds were fired quickly, accurately and of course silently into the chest of Simon and he fell to the floor with a crash, dead before he hit the ground. Collecting up all his papers, Ted threw them in a bag ready to be destroyed later. Two men came into the room, having been waiting outside and now called in by Ted, and they wrapped the body up and carried it out through a fire escape on the far side. Ted took the silencer off the gun, wiped it all down and then proceeded to pull two strips of tape from his pocket which, once a small film had been removed, he stuck onto the handle of the gun leaving someone else’s finger prints on and then he followed the two men out to a van that was parked outside. They drove just a short way along the street and reversed into a passage way, unloading the body and laying him against the side of a wall, behind a bin. Taking the gun out he threw it over a fence. This way it wouldn’t be obvious and would look as if the culprit had flung it there before leaving, but the police would soon find it, as it was one of the obvious places to look.

  They got back in the van and drove off. Ted turned to the driver and said:

  “Did everything go smoothly this morning?”

  “Yes, sir, as soon as he ran out and got into the taxi we went in and worked in his apartment. Plenty of evidence there now as well as the computer records to really screw him up. Why didn’t we just put a bullet in him and make it look like suicide?”

  “Well, the boss wants it this way. But from experience a suicide leads to further investigations. This way there’s a murder and there’s a culprit. Case closed. We can soon silence him once he’s sentenced. A perverted man like him wouldn’t last long inside anyway...all sorts of trouble there!” Ted said.

  **********

  Tommy Lawrence drove into work with a massive grin on his face, he’d woken up with it and it hadn’t left him. The last few days had been like a dream and yet there he was, late thirties and on his way to work — but not the old office job, now he was a football manager.

  And today would be a big day as he would get to meet the players of whom he was the boss. With all the press attention when things were first announced and then the radical changes in his home life that meant he spent a day buying up most of a local designer shop’s clothing range, he hadn’t actually been able to see his new employees face to face. As a football fan he was of course aware of the names and some of the bigger personalities, but now he’d get to meet the man whereas before he’d just known the player. Yesterday he’d finished his spending by trading in his modest Vauxhall Vectra for a Jaguar XK8 which was his new pride and joy. He felt important just driving it, which he enjoyed doing immensely. This was all financed by a healthy new contract that Brendan had made him sign just after the press conference. Quite low by even the most average manager’s wages, for him (and with zero experience in the professional game) this pay jump was over six times that of his previous level and was now a three year contract so even if they sacked him he’d still be a very wealthy man for a long time to come.

  But within himself he knew he could do this. It seemed his destiny that he’d be a football manager, ever since he’d played the game at sixteen and got into computer management games. He’d really enjoyed his former life, as he referred to it, such was the change either side of first laying eyes on Jessica on that now fateful Sunday morning. He could have seen himself getting more involved then. Opportunities had been presenting themselves and he’d always slightly regretted not having pursued some of them sooner. But then, he knew, he might not have met Jessica. And as much as he’d tried to say she didn’t mean anything to him he just couldn’t do it. He never stopped thinking about her and every woman he’d met and dated since, each was compared back to her and none of them came close. Bitterly regretting that night at the Academy weekend when he slept with Sophie, or more to the point was caught for doing so, there was an empty void in his heart that no one had filled since then. Slowing down as he drove through the large but rather decaying looking main gates, he pulled the car into an empty spot before realising that as manager he had his own place right by the door. Hoping that no one had seen his little mistake he quickly pulled into his own space and jumped out eager to get on with things. There were one or two other cars in the car park that would have belonged to players but by the look of the rest of the cars it was just the back room staff that were in at that time, just after nine. The rest would follow soon, he hoped. He had no idea of course when they were due in but he’d soon get on top of things. Walking in through the main doors everyone who saw him gave warm smiles and polite greetings. He walked over to one of the girls in the office.

  “Who would you need to speak to in order to get those main gates sorted? I want this place to look like a palace and they make it look more like a run down cemetery.”

  “I’ll be right on it, sir. I’ll get some quotes,” she said.

  “Please, call me Tommy. What’s your name?”

  “Sarah, sir.” Tommy smiled, catching her eyes and nodding his head. He always had a way with people, getting them on board so that they’d do what he wanted — but not under compulsion, it was as if they’d suggested the idea in the first place. This left them feeling empowered and valued and helped Tommy get on with other things while earning the trust and respect of those around him.

  Tommy bounded
up the steps to his first floor office two at a time. It was still quiet up there and he turned the hall light on himself. The rooms, walls, doors and ceilings, he’d noticed, all had the same feel as those gates — past their best. Just like the team which had to look back a long time to remember the glory it once had. Well, he was now there to change all that, he said to himself. Getting to his office door, which swung open sluggishly with an all too characteristic squeak, he stopped and stood there, his name already displayed prominently on the edge of the desk.

  “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy,” he said, chuckling away to himself. He sat down proudly in his big leather swivel chair, spinning around three times just like any young boy would when let loose in a grown-up’s office. And yet this was his office. He was the manager. Come Saturday he’d be on the sidelines — he’d be calling the shots. The thought gave him a rush of excitement, a buzz of natural ecstasy followed all too quickly by life’s natural defence mechanism. ‘What if I fail?’ he thought to himself. ‘What if I make a mess of it and the players don’t perform for me? Everyone must be waiting for me to fail. I have so much to do!’

  He sat up a lot straighter and started to look through the papers that Brendan had discussed with him the other day, but with the events of that day being all too absorbing, he had hardly taken in a word that Brendan had said.

  **********

  Simon Allen’s body was found by a passer-by about three hours after it was dumped in the passageway and the police were on the scene within ten minutes. The whole area had been sectioned off and the crime scene investigators had got to work. The body was then loaded into a black transit and taken to the morgue for the post-mortem. No reporters had made it to the scene before the body had been taken so that the ones who did arrive were only told that a crime had been committed and that a criminal investigation was now under way.