Would You Believe Him?

by Jack Hollinson

  When he returned to the office, Charles went over to him.

  ‘How was the meal -- pleasant company?’

  ‘Oh yes, it was fine,’ said Barry unemotionally. ‘Just fine.’

  ‘And was Helen there?’

  ‘Yes. She looked quite good - I suppose she wanted to impress her boss!’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’

  Charles was pleased that Barry had noticed Helen, but he realised that he would have to continue with his plan - a little while longer.

  December arrived and again Barry began to experience that dull, tired feeling. He just couldn’t understand it so he tried to push it out of his mind.

  Christmas was coming up and he decided to stay at home this year, mainly because of feeling worn out after driving the 140 miles before. He had no grumbles from Shu about this because she preferred to stay at home with him and she was jealous because she couldn’t experience the joy of seeing her relatives at any time like he could.

  Barry continued with his work and was sent up to the client, where Helen worked, at least twice a week. In the week before Christmas, the last time that he would see Helen that year because both companies stopped work until January 2nd, he travelled to the City, as usual, went into the client’s building and got into the lift. As he alighted on the second floor, the offices seemed quite silent and dark.

  He took the proof of the advertisement along to Mr Brady’s office and saw Helen, on her own, in her office

  ‘Hello, Barry. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, pretty good - yeah.’

  ‘Um, Barry,’ she said, as she got up from her chair, walked around her desk and stood facing him.

  ‘I don’t think we will see each other again before Christmas so, err. I would like to wish you a very merry Christmas.’

  Barry was caught unawares. Clutching the proof, he realised that she was about to plant a big kiss on his lips. It just so happened that Barry was faithful to Shu and the AIDS story had only just broken so he wasn’t sure whether the virus could be passed through saliva when kissing.

  Helen moved her open mouth towards his and, at the last moment, Barry puckered his lips, turned his mouth away and kissed her on the cheek. Helen was embarrassed at planting a wet kiss on Barry’s cheek, but she tried to look happy and unperturbed.

  ‘And an extremely happy Christmas to you, too, Helen!’

  Barry dodged out of her way and went into Mr Brady’s office to show him the proof, his presence being another reason for Barry’s reticence in kissing Helen.

  Mr Brady was his usual sullen self.

  ‘It’s nice and quiet here today Mr Brady,’ remarked Barry. ‘Are there many people away?’ Mr Brady didn’t comment but looked at the proof. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Barry that it was the Company’s party and he had arranged with Charles to get Barry up to a quiet office for a Christmas kiss with Helen - and whatever followed.

  He looked at the advertisement, made some alterations and sent Barry on his way. Barry said goodbye to Helen, who looked a little downcast, and rushed away to get the artwork corrected. Helen got up and walked to the ladies’ cloakroom to have a small cry and to look closely at herself. Am I that ugly or is he gay? she thought. What more can I do - rape him? She went back to her office and Mr Brady came out.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll come around. Now, let’s go to that party.’

  The reason Mr Brady was trying so hard to get Helen and Barry together was that it had been obvious since she had first seen him that she had fancied him and as she was related to the family who owned the company. Mr Brady thought it would he a feather in his cap if he could help the relationship along.

  Christmas came and went and still there was no luck in the mating game. Shu was getting really frustrated and she began pleading with Barry for a baby. All he could do was to try and soothe her worries and tell her that the hospital would solve the problem, sooner or later.

  Barry was still feeling tired so he began to take vitamin pills to try and wake himself up. These did seem to work, partially, and so he continued to take them. He offered them to Shu, thinking it might help her to ovulate, but she refused to take them, saying that she got enough vitamins from her food and only older people needed them.

  It was at about this time that things started to change at Barry’s work, Charles had employed Ian, a smoothie new director, who was full of himself and said he could bring lots of new business into the company. He had also employed a new telephonist/typist, Miranda, who lived in the locality and had become pregnant soon after starting. This didn’t worry Charles because she was good at her job and he didn’t want the expense of finding another person so soon.

  Len had not quite retired then and Barry was still helping to run his accounts. One day, Barry was going to see a client in the City when Ian came over.

  ‘Say, Barry, can I come with you today to see the feline people?’

  ‘Well that’s okay but I’m just going for a short meeting to show them a design.’

  The ‘feline people’ as Ian referred to them, were a company producing cat food and Ian had already discussed this with Charles as Barry dealt with conflicting cat food accounts and didn’t want them to know about each other.

  ‘I think you had better take Ian up there,’ said Charles. ‘He is part of the agency now.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right Charles,’ said Ian. ‘When are you going, Barry?’

  Barry had been caught out. He couldn’t disobey the Managing Director but he knew very well that if Ian went with him, he would charm the sweet old ladies who ran the London office and could take the account away from Barry.

  ‘I’m going out now,’ said Barry, in an attempt to catch Ian out if he was doing something.

  ‘Oh, fine come on then.’ Ian seemed difficult to get rid of.

  They travelled to the client’s with Barry driving all around the back roads to try to fool Ian into thinking that it was a long way to go, but Ian could read the map. The meeting went by and Ian was charming all the time and making Barry feel quite sick.

  On the way home, Ian was pleased with himself and started outlining ideas of new ways to suggest new designs for the client. Barry could see that these wouldn’t work or be accepted by the client and tried to show his superior knowledge by stating how Ian’s ideas would falter. He didn’t realise that Ian was just getting the background of the client to make it easier to take, if he wanted to.

  Then they returned to the office. Ian left Barry alone to do all the work for he had achieved his aim. At least Barry was pleased about that and it wasn’t long before he got his own back on Ian when he borrowed his sports car to visit a client. He ran low on petrol but just couldn’t remove the filler cap so he left it very low on juice for Ian to pick up that night. Barry learnt the next day, that Ian hadn’t bothered to fill the car before going out to play badminton that evening and ran out of petrol in the middle of the countryside and it took an hour to get some more. Barry did chortle!

  It was in April when Barry first began to get a serious idea that someone was putting something in his coffee at work. Miranda made the morning coffee at eleven. Barry drank it rapidly and went out to see the artist soon after. As he approached the end of the road in the car, he suddenly had flashes of light behind his eyes and a pain in his head. He stopped the car, blinked repeatedly, then drove around the corner and stopped by the kerb wondering what on earth it could be. It had never happened like that before then he suddenly remembered the coffee - it must have been that.

  The pain died away and the flashes went, so he continued his journey to the artist’s and back. He didn’t really want to shout and scream at Miranda - who was six and a half months pregnant - in case something happened to her, so he went and had a word with Charles.

  ‘Say, Charles, I don’t think you should let Miranda make the coffee!
Do you know that I’ve just had a blinding pain which could have caused an accident, right after drinking her coffee. She must have put something in it!’

  ‘Oh no, I’m sure she didn’t,’ gasped Charles ‘Maybe it was just something in the jar from the manufacturers’.

  ‘It’s never happened before,’ said Barry.

  ‘All right, I’ll have a word with her - it won’t happen again.’

  Barry didn’t like the way Charles was handling this.

  He continued, ‘Can’t you just chuck her out?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got a problem there. Now I haven’t told you this before but the company lent Miranda £500 and she hasn’t paid it back yet.’

  ‘What for? She’s a new employee!’

  ‘Well, never you mind.’ Charles was getting angry ‘Just leave it to me.’

  This left Barry feeling very insecure but if it was Miranda, what could he do? He decided to make his own coffee in the mornings for at least then she couldn’t spike it!

  Barry told Shu about the incident that evening but she just dismissed it with a shake of her head.

  ‘Don’t you believe me, then?’ stormed Barry.

  ‘Oh, it’s probably just an impurity in the coffee,’ she said.

  Barry would have liked to have discussed it in depth but he felt shunned. It almost seemed as though Shu thought everyone was good and nice and anything that disturbed that idea was to be ignored - even her husband. However, Barry, wasn’t the type to get too worried about things like that - he would sort the problem out for himself and didn’t worry about what other people thought of his actions. It might have benefited him if he had gained more trust from Shu at this stage, because of events that unfolded later.

  Summer was coming up and Barry was busy practising on the local nine-hole golf course at weekends because his firm held a competition every year for all clients who wanted to compete.

  Barry had seen a classified advertisement for a set of golf clubs for £50 and, as he wasn’t keen enough on the game to spend that kind of money, Charles had bought new clubs and given Barry his old ones. Barry had three of the woods lengthened, because of his height, and had to try to get a reasonable swing to his game. The nine-hole course was a public one and every weekend, when Barry went to practise it was crowded but he didn’t mind and continued to go, week after week and did improve his game quite a lot.

  Shu and Barry had booked a holiday in Portugal, just before the golf competition, and Barry thought that it would be a good rest beforehand. They had a ‘late booking’ holiday and didn’t know where they were going to stay until they got there, but they were lucky and found themselves in a brand new block of flats, close to some marvellous beaches.

  They had a good holiday, watching a bullfight - where the animal wasn’t killed - sunbathing and taking cheap bus rides in Faro. One thing that slightly spoiled their holiday was the large timeshare block of flats next to one beach, for they were pestered continually by young salespeople offering them incentives like vouchers for drinks or meals if they went to a sales presentation.

  Barry, who was strong-willed and never going to waste money on a timeshare flat, took advantage of several of these offers and went to the presentations. He adamantly refused to buy one every time he went but ended up with free meals and drinks. After a few days, the salespeople got wise and just didn’t bother them again.

  They returned to England nicely suntanned and Barry was looking forward to the golf. They were back on the Tuesday and the competition was on Thursday. Barry had been feeling very fit after the holiday but, as he left his house on Thursday, he felt quite tired.

  The golf course was out in the country and every hole was surrounded by trees. Barry was playing with two people. One was a client, Harold, who was close to retiring and Len, who had retired but was still in touch with Charles.

  Barry thought that he might do well against Harold but Harold’s swing was very good - very good indeed whereas Barry’s was utter rubbish. He lost so many balls in the woods that he had to borrow some to finish the game. He was lucky to win one hole and he felt very tired, for some reason.

  Barry just couldn’t understand it. All that practice and look what had happened - no concentration. One day’s work couldn’t have made him this tired! Why on earth did all his shots go astray? At the dinner afterwards, he tried to work it out, but he couldn’t and he knew that he should try to forget about it and not get too despondent, but he couldn’t.

  As he drove home, he was still thinking about it. Was it Miranda again? Why had Charles scotched any ideas about her poisoning the coffee so quickly? Suddenly, the mist started to clear. Charles - is it him who is putting something in my drink? As Barry drove, it became clear what he had to do - catch him!

  He spent the next few weeks creeping about the office trying to see what was happening - especially in the kitchen - but he could find nothing. He was at his desk, one day, with Charles sitting opposite, when he decided to go downstairs and as he went down, he heard the floor creaking as Charles walked over to his desk.

  Barry always took a packed lunch to work and it dawned on him that Charles could be tampering with that. He dashed upstairs and rushed into the office, but with it being open-plan, Charles heard him and was on his way back to his own desk. Barry’s eyes focused on Charles’ hands and he saw that he was carrying a small, brown envelope.

  Barry didn’t know what to do for he had wanted to catch him looking through or tampering with his packed lunch. He just couldn’t go accusing him for carrying an envelope because he didn’t know what was in it. He didn’t want to jeopardise his job when Shu was trying to get pregnant, so he let the situation pass and said nothing.

  Barry didn’t mention anything to Shu this time because he had no real proof. She might dismiss it again as ‘stupid’ and Barry didn’t want to get into any heated arguments because one of the side effects of his brain damage was being very short-tempered - if he let it go. He wasn’t as bad as some sufferers but when he lost his rag, he could not stop himself shouting and swearing as though there was an erupting volcano inside him. Immediately after an argument, he cooled down and felt sorry for Shu and tried to apologise but she wouldn’t speak to him for hours. He didn’t want that.

  Barry continued with his work but was very careful to lock his suitcase, never leave his keys in the office and to watch people, carefully. Even though he did all this, he suddenly started to feel pains in his testes. These pains lasted for about two weeks and reduced the pleasure when he was making love. Where were they coming from? How could he stop them?

  He knew that nobody would believe him so he began to hatch another plan. If he could put the coffee into a jam jar and take it to the doctors for analysis, that would tell him if there was any foreign substance in it, wouldn’t they? The only trouble was not knowing which coffee was poisoned so Barry decided to take pot luck.

  One day, Charles made his rare offer of making the morning coffee. Barry accepted and waited for the drink to arrive. He did not drink the coffee, waited until Charles was out of the room and he poured his coffee into a jam jar and locked it in his case. He made an appointment with his doctor and went to see her two days later. Barry was feeling like one of those TV detectives when he was called in to see the doctor, and to his horror, found that a young locum had taken his doctor’s place. He tried to explain his reasons for suspicion but here was another one who just didn’t believe him. She was sure that everything would he okay and she wouldn’t take steps to help him so Barry left the doctor’s feeling like Inspector Clouseau.

  ‘Bitch!’ he murmured to himself. Okay, he thought, what’s next? If he couldn’t get them to test the coffee, he’d get it done privately, so he went home and looked in the Yellow Pages. There he found the phone number of a laboratory in the City and when he spoke with them, they told him that they would test anything for any
one. He made an appointment to pop in at lunch-time the next day.

  Suddenly, things started to go according to plan, again. He found the laboratory in the back streets of the City, south of the river, and went in. A junior lab technician came to see him.

  ‘What can I do for you, Sir?’

  ‘I believe that this coffee has been poisoned and I would like you to find out what’s in it.’

  ‘Do you know what type of poison? You see, I could be looking for a vast range of things which would take a lot of time - and be very expensive.’

  ‘Err, well, no. It’s just something that isn’t coffee - can you see if anything’s there?’

  ‘We can have a look but you’ll have to pay £400 first.’ Barry had that amount in the bank so he quickly wrote out a cheque. ‘I can start next week, so please call me on Thursday and I’ll tell you the progress I am making.’

  At last, something is happening; thought Barry - but had he chosen the right coffee? Was it poisoned? Four hundred of his pounds hoped so!

  Barry continued with his detective theories and he decided to go to the police to try to get them to look into the matter. He first went to see a policeman he knew through Neighbourhood Watch - a scheme that involved the local community in keeping an eye out for burglars - at his local police station but the officer told him that as the suspect worked six miles away, Barry would have to go to a police station in that area. Barry had no choice so he went to see them in his lunch hour.

  He told a bored detective his story and his suspicions but instead of doing some investigation work, he immediately proposed interviewing Charles to solve the case without trying too much. Barry hoped that the shock would be enough to make Charles really worried and he hoped that he would find it too difficult to lie. That was on the Thursday and the interrogation was planned for the following Monday.