I had to put up with all sorts of nonsense – such as them shouting “Doris” out of the windows when I was arriving and leaving – over the following days and weeks. Much of it was childish. I came back from lunch one day to find a pile of papers I was working through had been separated into two piles and shuffled into a different order.
On another occasion, two cups of coffee had been placed next to each other, one on each pile of papers, so that the stains bore a striking resemblance to a pair of bosoms. Any doubts I might have had about this were quashed by the drawing of nipples in the middle of each circular brown ring. I made no comment regarding this, deciding instead to rise above such puerile antics.
(What worries me most about Adrian is that he is secretive and sneaky and underhand. There have been so many instances over the years where he has kept things hidden from me. A poor report at school. The reason why he stopped seeing his best friend, Christopher. The time I saw him in town with a sobbing, angry girl. Whatever it is that’s happening, I will have to go and find out about it.)
With FD and RP, I did prepare a few what might be called choice ‘ad libs’ so that, if or when more bosoms were to appear unexpectedly, I could make a light-hearted comment to show to the wider office that I was a ‘good sport’. These ad libs would seem jolly enough to my fellow workers but would have a hidden ‘sting in the tail’ for the perpetrators.
One, upon uncovering bosoms, would have me looking at the papers and then looking up and out of the window where I would say, “I’m a keen bird-watcher but I don’t see any great tits OUT THERE”, upon which the office would have a very nice chuckle while I would turn towards the two young men with a winning smile.
I have to say now that no more bosoms appeared and I was, in my own quiet way, a little disappointed by this as I had a number of quick-fire ripostes ready. For a few days, perhaps one week, the matter seemed to have resolved itself. Sadly, though, this was not the end of it. Almost inevitably, the bosoms were followed by the drawing of various penises, across several official documents, in assorted sizes and, shall we say, states; from flaccid to ejaculatory. I found these increasingly distasteful but nonetheless ignored them as best I could.
I did again prepare a few more spontaneous reactions with a little more of a cutting edge to them, a bite shall we say, but I only managed to start one of them, beginning with, “I see someone’s a little li… limp today”, before stumbling over my words somewhat to the amusement of the two men. I did, in fact, start to repeat the comment with a little more confidence – I was clearly under-rehearsed – but by that time everyone in the office had resumed what they were doing and my words tailed off to the smirks of the young men in question.
I have to stop again. To change my shirt. It is so hot. The shirt soaks in. Sticks to me. Absorbs cotton into skin. I peel it off. Dry myself down with a towel. Put on a fresh shirt. Return to my diary.
I have a fan. A desktop one. It is meant to be cooling. I cannot have it on and facing me while I write – the pages of the diary lift up, distract me, make it impossible to write. It is of little use anyway.
I have to have the windows closed to soften the noise outside. The fan just blows stale air round and round. It gives me a headache, but I will complete what I have set out to write. About how things turned more sinister.
MONDAY 24 JULY, 1.53PM
I have so much to worry about. It is not just the heat that exhausts me.
Adrian and what he is doing. Other things too. Things I don’t want to write about.
I have to focus my attention on what happened at HMRC.
Eventually, it all turned more serious at work, most likely because I did not react as FD and RP wanted me to do by getting visibly angry or upset. Much of this, of course, had to do with my training – to present a neutral face at all times, even when you feel like exploding inside!
I did not complain up the line either because I regretted the consequences of my earlier note and thought I could ‘ride things out’ rather than risk escalating matters. I did keep the pictures of bosoms and ejaculating penises as evidence of what happened. But, at some point, they vanished from my desk. That, I am sorry to say, was not the end of it.
What happened next was that, quite simply, some of the papers in the files I used when interviewing recalcitrant taxpayers began to, shall we say, ‘go missing’. This was a very serious matter indeed. Files would typically comprise taxpayers’ returns, information from different sources and taxpayers’ submissions such as accounts, invoices, receipts etc.; a cornucopia of information, some of vital significance to an investigator seeking to prove wrong-doing.
There can be, as you may imagine, a quietly satisfying moment in an interview when a taxpayer might deny, say, the existence of undeclared earnings and you open a file, pause for a moment while you (pretend to) look for something, and then take out and slide a piece of paper slowly across the desk with a slight cough and the words, “Would you like to explain this then, please?”
(To the right of the bungalow lives a sluttish middle-aged woman and her slob of a husband, who has been made redundant from his job according to my files. At times, there are shouts and rows and screams and effing-this and effing-that fights; mostly at night when they have been drinking.)
(I can hear them now in their back garden, him singing along to a Beatles CD and her joining in, drunkenly and out of tune, whenever a song takes her fancy. I’ve heard, and tried to ignore, Ringo Starr singing ‘Octopus’s Garden’ five times so far. I cannot bear it much longer. I have to wait until it finishes and they finally move on to another song before I can write more. I hope to God it is not ‘Yellow Submarine’ next. I doubt I could listen to that more than once without cracking.)
I should state here that most HMRC files would often be quite bulky and I might not need to refer to or cross-reference all of the papers in a particular file during an interview. This is why I may not have noticed at first that items were missing. There were then occasions, two or three perhaps, when, faced with an especially thick bundle of papers, I could not find what I was looking for and assumed I had temporarily misplaced it.
As a quick thinker, I would often put the taxpayer on the spot in a different way when this took place. “Do you,” I would ask, while flicking through the files as if searching for something… pause… stop… look up… make eye contact… “have an overseas bank account?” I would then smile. This would be a very interesting moment indeed. My smile was a very effective weapon – it unsettled them.
(There are times when I do not know if Adrian is the victim or the perpetrator of his damaged life. He has the manner and the voice of the victim; as though things happen to him, that it is not his fault he has ended up like this. That he has suffered.)
Inevitably, there was the one occasion when it suddenly dawned on me what FD and RP were doing – taking vital evidence out of files just prior to interviews – to embarrass me to the point of humiliation. I will speak frankly here, the absence of key documents at this one interview made a fool of me and, therefore, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. Indeed, it shamed Her Majesty herself since I represented her in my duties.
I was dealing with a man who had, in simple terms, been earning money that had been going, in cash, into an account that was not listed on his tax return. I had pressed and probed him and had papers at the top of the file, so I thought, that proved both the long-standing undeclared income stream and the savings account.
This man denied everything both categorically and vehemently over and again, no matter how many times I came back to it from different angles. As I opened the file, ready to produce the two key documents to present to him, I saw that they were not there. I floundered somewhat and, in my confusion, dropped the file on the floor, the papers scattering everywhere. As I picked them up and returned to the desk, I stuttered over my words, then saying, as I often did to unsettle someone, “We will have a l… l… little chat about that l… later.”
The man,
having watched this, laughed out loud at me long and hard in a braying, mocking tone. I felt my face reddening as I realised I had been made a complete fool of by FD and RP. My natural surge of sudden anger was directed at them but I can tell you now that it still took all of my training not to lean across and slap the taxpayer’s stupid pig face.
I kept my temper in check, as I have been trained to do, for the remaining minutes of the interview, cutting it a little short by scheduling a follow-up meeting at the taxpayer’s place of work a week later. Of course, the impetus of the interview would be lost by then and the break would give the taxpayer time to prepare himself and bring in, as these rogues so often do at this stage, a lawyer or some bleeding-heart charity do-gooder. He would, no doubt, wriggle his way out of a prosecution with the usual sob story of mental ill-health somehow leading to poor record-keeping and heaven knows what.
(The road, in front of the bungalow, is constantly busy during the day. For the most part, it is a relentless hum I can ignore but, being on a slight hill, there are crunching gear-changes and revving noises to live with at unexpected moments. The train track, at the bottom of the garden, is busy too, with so many containers rolling endlessly by throughout the day, as there are now. There are times when it seems busier at night and I sleep fitfully, what with the endless rumbling and the heat. I am exhausted before the day even begins.)
Livid, but with my emotions in check as always, I returned to the office to be confronted by the sight of these two morons on their own for once, lolling about in their chairs, silly smirks across their faces, as if waiting for me. One of them looked at me and sneered, “awwwight?” in a cocky manner. The other had his feet up on the desk and his chair tipped back at a sharp angle. He just laughed.
At this, I grabbed his feet with my left hand as I walked by, lifting them up high and fast so that he unbalanced and tipped back out of his chair, banging his head on the wall. He sat there for a moment, stunned. As he then rose to his feet, his friend – his ‘maaa-aaa-te’ – launched himself up out of his chair too, coming within inches of me, jostling me and knocking the file out of my right hand, the papers flying everywhere.
I responded by pressing him back firmly against the desk whereupon there was something of a pushing and shoving match between the three of us. It was only halted, with me sweating and blood from RP’s neck all over my fingernails and running down my fingers, by the arrival of our next-in-line manager Ms – Msssss – Thompson coming into the office.
(Adrian may be the perpetrator, though. He has a temper. I remember things from his childhood. The stampings. Complaints about him from friends’ parents after a sleepover. So many things that reveal his true self.)
There were a number of meetings the next morning followed by a rearrangement of desks on the third floor. I was, as I stressed with increasing emphasis time and time again, the innocent party in all of this but, without the (stolen-back) drawings and any recollection of ‘Doris’ comments from any (cowardly) colleagues who sat a little further away, plus the absence of missing papers from my interview, I did feel my defence was somewhat compromised. Things were ‘fudged’ over as they often are internally at HMRC, with all parties having to accept warnings to put the matter to bed.
I will leave matters there and write no more about this series of events other than to say that FD and RP both moved to other offices at the end of the month when, I believe, their probationary periods ended. I stayed on where I was, at least on the same floor, but I was moved into the main part of the office where everyone could see me at all times. This made me angry. It made me feel like a naughty schoolboy. But I did not say anything. No one would have noticed my fury. I have been well trained in disguising that at all times.
This has been, on and off, a long session and a stressful one, with the noise from all around and my thoughts on Adrian continually invading my mind.
I lie down, knowing I should really do something, maybe tidy the garden. But it is so hot and I am so tired and I do not think I will do that today. It can wait until tomorrow.
I will just lie here, ignoring everything, and wait until Adrian gets in and we can resume our awkward tea-time shuffles around each other. Him with his dreadful secrets. Me with my terrible suspicions.
MONDAY 24 JULY, 2.43PM
The noise – to either side of the house, the road in front and the railway line behind – makes it impossible for me to relax at all. To lie here. To think. To drift away.
I sit and wait and sweat and worry. My mind turns over and over. Round and round. Here, there and always, relentlessly, back to Adrian.
And then it occurs to me. All of a sudden. I have, if Adrian repeats his most recent patterns of behaviour, about two hours before he returns home.
Enough time.
To check his room.
To uncover the truth.
The business with the stolen underwear was not, I’m sorry to say, the end of the troubles with Adrian. A while later, he joined the local leisure centre. A free trial. Swim and sauna. A month, maybe two. Not that he lasted that long. Something took place. In the sauna. A mother and her 16-year-old daughter.
There was a knock on the door.
An older policewoman and a young policeman, a special, 20, 22 at most, who looked half-scared to death.
A word, she said, with Adrian, if you please.
He went outside and sat in the police car with them. I stood and watched from behind the blinds in the bedroom. I could see Adrian sitting in the passenger seat, next to the policewoman. The young policeman sat behind, taking notes I think. I could see Adrian shake his head, once, twice, three times. Watched him getting angry. Frustrated. Inarticulate in his rage.
He looked towards the bungalow. Saw me, I think, watching from the window. When he looked up and over, I stood still, not moving at all. The movement would give me away. Motionless, I don’t think he could be sure I was there, standing back, slightly in the shadows. Three, four times he looked across. Held his gaze steady. Looked away. I could see, or at least imagine, him trying to stop himself crying, to avoid making a fool of himself. He did not succeed.
After five, maybe ten, minutes, he got out of the car. Tearful. Ashamed. Cowed. She, the policewoman, said something to him before he pushed the door shut. He listened for a moment. Nodded. Once. Twice. The second more forcefully. Yes, yes. I heard you. I understand. He then walked up the pathway as the young policeman watched him before turning and saying something to the policewoman.
Adrian opened the front door. I was in the hallway.
I looked at him. “Well, Adrian…?” I said in a carefully measured tone. He glanced downwards.
Then shook his head, pushed by me angrily, slammed his bedroom door. A shameful conversation delayed until another day. Even then, brief and defiant, my cautiously phrased questions rebuffed.
Now, I stand in front of his bedroom door, ready to open it, while he is out, to search for clues; to uncover what it is he is doing. I put my fingers on the handle, push it down, open the door and step inside. It is a small room, maybe 10 feet by 12 feet, with one window that opens on to the driveway; the bins, my old Renault Megane and the garage just behind at the end of the driveway. The room has soft-grey painted walls, a dark-but-faded swirly carpet and off-white IKEA furniture. All old, 10, 15 years, but perfectly clean and presentable.
It looks like a hospital room and even smells faintly of the disinfectant Adrian uses to clean the furniture surfaces once a week. There is nothing on the walls: no posters, or photos; never have been. The surfaces of the units – a desk, a three-drawer-chest and a five-drawer chest – are empty. The wardrobe is shut. The waste-paper basket has scraps of paper in it; a screwed-up, out-of-date voucher for a new cereal bar, a small, colourful piece of cardboard, torn in two, advertising a nightclub opening in town. The foil and green wrapping of a packet of Polo mints. Scraps emptied from his coat pocket.
I move to the single bed, pull back his duvet, look at the sheet, run my hand under
the pillow, lift the mattress. Check below. There is nothing there.
One by one, I open the drawers of the five-drawer chest. Lift and run my fingers through sheets and towels and blankets and, lower down, I flick through old books and CDs, mementoes of school days and years gone by. I thumb each carefully, checking for something, I know not what.
I work my way down the three-drawer chest, his socks and underwear, pyjamas, rolled-up T-shirts, a dressing gown filling up the bottom drawer. I check, open, run my fingers over everything without success, not sure what I expect to find.
To the wardrobe, all neat and tidy, a few old paperbacks, Alistair MacLean and Desmond Bagley adventure stories mostly, on the shelf at the top. Hanging up, there are jackets, shirts and trousers from left to right, dark to light, with three pairs of shoes at the bottom. I slip fingers into pockets, pushing into corners, finding nothing.
Except one thing. Two really. Two, torn-in-half, pieces of a drawing.
A pencil sketch on a postcard-sized piece of stiffish paper.
In the pocket of a lightweight jacket he wore when going out last night.
It is a drawing of a small girl’s face. She is perhaps four or five. She is fair-skinned. Soft-featured. Lots of hair. Cute. She seems to be smiling. It is a head and shoulders drawing. And she is bare-shouldered, perhaps she is naked. Her smile is not quite right though, as if Adrian has struggled with it, first having her showing her teeth and then not; the change, several heavier-drawn lines and some shading-in, creating the effect of a mild disfigurement. A simple mistake but enough for him to tear the drawing in half in anger.
But he has not thrown it away.
He has kept it for some reason.
I don’t know why, but the keeping of it worries me.
Mr Todd's Reckoning Page 4