"Absolutely no problem," I said and glanced at Joe, who smiled and said, "no hurry, please take as long as you need."
They stood up and left and I looked out of the window and saw them appear around the corner of the building. Michael was chattering away on his mobile; David was messing around with his, whisking to the right and whisking to the left as they do.
I turned to Joe. "Well, Joe, how do you think it's going?"
"Interesting for me, Peter. Interesting to see how you go about it." He had a crafty smile on his face. "The nebulous understanding that we will continue to buy from them even if they give us nothing, which I don't think they believe but they daren't say so of course, is a good ploy. And the direct request for help shows honesty and makes it clear that we are requesting and not demanding. Mentioning the other supplier visits makes them think about how they will compare. And telling them our target is 10% instead of 8% is also a good device."
"Well, Joe, it's just one way to do it. We all have our own methods and this is not necessarily the best one. You may have a different style which is as good as or better than mine. In any case, depending on the different suppliers' reactions, you sometimes have to change tack in the middle of it all. Press harder or start backpedalling, as the case may be."
We were pouring ourselves more coffee when Michael and his sidekick came back into the room. They sat down, and put on their thoughtful looks.
"Joe, Peter, we have decided we can go to 8%. We can't do the 10%, no way. And this arrangement would need to be subject to re-discussion in one year's time. That would be a condition. I hope you understand."
Re-discuss in a year's time? But of course, old chap. Re-discussing has never hurt anybody, particularly when it’s the only thing you are committing to.
I put on a serious, worried look. I allowed myself to look fairly troubled. I looked at Joe. He had also adopted a harassed expression. But we'd made our target on this one and it was pretty clear that we weren't going to be able to get a penny more. So we were both happy enough little fellows.
I let the silence stand for maybe thirty seconds and then I put on my 'courage in the face of adversity' tone.
"Very well, Michael, David. It seems reasonably clear that we will have to run with that in this case. As I have already said, you continue to be a greatly valued business partner and we intend to continue our commercial relationships as before, no change, no change at all.”
“Joe and I,” I continued, “would like to thank you both very much for finding the time to visit us today, and for your efforts to assist us. We appreciate it very much. And now, if there are any other matters from your end that you would like to discuss, please fire away."
There were a couple of other subjects, product details, and Joe dealt with them easily, he has the technical expertise. And then they were gone, we were all still friends. That was an easy one, I thought to myself.
* * * * *
Joe and I had a quick meal in the factory canteen. I politely listened to a mountain of trivial details concerning the uninteresting activities of his developing offspring. It reminded me to sincerely savor my status as an unfettered single male, one unhampered by the incarcerating restrictions of those who have gone down the reproduction route.
The second meeting was at one o'clock and was a very different kettle of fish—weird expression, who puts fish in a kettle—when compared to the one this morning. There were three of them and they were all boring. So boring, in fact, as to not only be dull themselves, but to be the cause of dullness in others. You have met the type, I’m sure. And they offered only 2% and they wouldn't budge an inch from that. So I said cheerio, we shook hands with them all, and it felt like grasping three dead fish before they had had time to stiffen.
"Joe," I said after they had left, "you know what we are going to do with this lot?"
"Not really," he said, "you were rattling away again about continuing the long-term relationship, irrespective of pricing."
"Quite right. And we will continue to carry on a long-term relationship with them. We will talk to them on the phone a couple of times a year. But we won't be ordering anything for a while, we will be buying from one of their competitors. And as a new customer we probably won't have any difficulty in negotiating a lower price. But even if we can't, we'll buy from the competitor anyway. I don't like doing that—according to your summary here we've been getting top quality and faultless delivery performance from the current guys, and you can never tell how a new supplier is going to work out. If there are problems, the cheaper price just wouldn't be worth it. But we're going to go ahead and do it anyway."
"Right you are," said good old Joe. What an agreeable guy he is.
"What will happen, Joe," I said, "is that today's guys will contact you in a month or two, asking why we're not ordering. You will just tell them that we're overstocked at the moment, tell them our sales are down on the products we use their materials for, tell them our customers are indicating our products are too expensive and they're asking for lower prices. Whatever, just make them sweat a bit. Do not, of course, tell them we've stopped buying from them because they wouldn't give us what we wanted. I'll make a bet with you, Joe, that they come along after another couple of months with a 5% offer. And when that happens, we will merely politely repeat our 10% target requirement. And when they eventually offer us 8%, we will, with a mixture of fortitude and resignation, yield. And thank them very much for their cooperation. O.K.? Of course it might not work, Joe. I might lose my bet. Time, as time is wont to do, will provide us with the answer."
I went back with Joe to his office and he gave me the four supplier details for tomorrow's sessions. The first one is at nine o'clock. Before leaving, I dropped in to see Fred. He had just finished his meeting with the works council and they intended organizing a workforce assembly for the Friday afternoon. "Unpleasant times, Peter," he said. "Just think of the gains," I replied, "and what a hero you're going to be next year. Roger will give you a knighthood."
There was no blue Nissan parked in the road and, so far as I could tell, there were no blue Nissans or Nissans of any kind following me on my way back into London. I went up to my room and checked my messages. Nothing. This was really bad news. I didn't understand it. I would have to send her a message. But what kind of a message? Whatever had happened between us, we still hadn't known each other for a full twenty four hours. A lighthearted message would be best perhaps. I typed it out and sent it.
Darling Céline, please let me know when you are arriving in London. I really am not as weird as that poem I sent you. Please bring it with you and I will tear it up, then I will shred it and then I will set fire to it and then I will throw the ashes into the River Thames. I am missing you very badly. Please email or call. Your Peter. Yes, I know, overblown drivel, and impossible for me to be 'Your Peter', no further comment.
It was still afternoon. I thought I would trot along to the 'En Passant' and play some blitz. I was not in the mood to enjoy the good weather, Céline was weighing on my mind. And a major side-benefit of chess is that it takes your mind off other things. The need to concentrate does it, no problem at all.
I decided to walk it, too much sitting on my ass in offices and in the car. Little Miss Ugly was at the desk again today. She was wearing a dark blouse which was more than successful in showing her breasts to be of a higher standard than her face, poor girl. I gave her another intense O'Donoghue smile and a friendly wave, and made her day again. I lit up a cigarette, took off down the street and turned the corner into Piccadilly. And there he was. The morose-looking bastard, peering interestedly into the window of a clothing shop. Not that this kind of guy could afford Piccadilly prices judging by the look of him, but I guess window-shopping is as plausible an activity as any other if your prey is not aware of you. Or if you think he isn't.
I went straight up to him. Morose-looking was definitely an accurate description for this guy. Maybe he had a ghastly wife. Maybe he couldn't afford a divorce
. Maybe he had a whore as a mistress. And maybe he had gone heavily into debt financing expensive gifts to ensure she prolonged her pretense of liking morose-looking guys. Whatever, I suppose that having to trek around following somebody all day long is enough to make anyone morose. Or maybe he was just morose by nature. Or maybe he wasn't morose at all, maybe he just looked that way. Irrespective, it made you want to ask him why he didn't solve everything by stepping out in front of one of those London buses. There are plenty of buses in London, no planning required.
"Excuse me," I said.
"Yes?" he asked, removing his gaze from a pair of hideous jeans, the design, in my view, as nauseating as the price tag.
He had a pockmarked face, one of those skin diseases you can get when you're young and you can't do anything about for the rest of your life. Well, as we know, we all have our crosses to bear, some more than others of course. He looked a bit older than me, his dark hair was already going grey, not unkempt exactly but it could do with a haircut. He had thin lips, I have never liked thin lips, and his left eyelid had started to take over part of the eye, making him look as if he were permanently halfway through a wink. He was wearing a suit which didn't fit around the shoulders, an off-the-peg item. And he was sporting a blue and white striped tie which reached only half-way to his waist, accentuating a passable amount of beer-induced corpulence. And also accentuating the fact that nobody had ever educated him to ensure his tie reached the level of his belt, no more however, and also no less. But it complemented the shirt, one of those with a collar that can never be ironed properly.
For all of that, he was a clean-shaven fellow, and he had a fairly clean appearance overall.
"Why are you following me?" I asked. No beating about the bushes for me today, thank you very much.
"Following you?"
"No, that wasn't my query. My query was 'why'."
He studied me for a moment and came to a decision.
"Perhaps we could find a place for a coffee," he said, "and I will explain."
"Perhaps we could. And hopefully you will."
We headed in the direction of Leicester Square and found ourselves a place to have a coffee.
"It has to do with Obrix Consultancy Partners," he said after we had ordered. "A Mr. Jeremy Parker."
I said nothing, looked at him.
"May I ask what your connection to Mr. Parker is?" he asked.
"No, you may not. You are the one who was going to do some explaining. Kindly proceed."
"Well, as I said, it has to do with a certain Mr. Jeremy Parker. We are interested in certain of his activities and consequently in anyone who has contact with him, other than bona fide employees of his own companies needless to say."
"We? Who are 'we'?"
"We are a police department."
"A police department? What police department?"
"We are attached to New Scotland Yard."
"Attached? What does that mean?"
"Well, we are a special services unit. We tend to operate on unusual cases, ones that cannot necessarily be pursued in the normal manner. We cooperate with various departments including the Serious Organized Crime Agency, the Counter Terrorism Command, the Serious Fraud Office and even MI5 and MI6 on occasion. A 'man-of-all-trades' department, if you like, let's put it like that."
"Put it any way you wish," I said, "but I need to see some identification and I also need to make a note of your name and your superior's name as well."
"My name and identification is not a problem," he replied, pulling out what I believe is referred to as a warrant card from his inside pocket and showing it to me. "But I am not at liberty to divulge my superior's name. And any enquiries you might wish to make regarding myself would have to be made through the normal channels. Although," he continued with a slight cough, "I wouldn't recommend that."
"You wouldn't? Why not?"
"Well, such things are confidential and subject to a complicated process, involving, among other things, ratification of the person or persons making the enquiry. It tends to take a long time."
"It tends to take a long time, does it? Well, now that is a very interesting piece of information. So…and you are Tom Delsey, assuming your identification is not a fake. It looks fairly genuine though, not that I have the tiniest idea of how to judge these things. And you work for a special services unit."
"Correct."
"Well, I don't think much of your special services training. As a sleuth, you are close to useless. For a subject who has no reason to suspect he is being followed to notice you, you would have to be deficient to quite a degree. Inept would be a more precise word, wouldn't you agree? And in any case, why use only one person? Extremely unprofessional I would have thought. And was it you driving the blue Nissan?"
"Your comments are understandable, Mr. O'Donoghue, but are based on a false premise. First of all, this is not a matter of high priority for us—not at present anyway. And secondly, I wasn't too concerned about your noticing me. Believe me, if that had been a concern, there is no way you would have been able to observe us at all. We are merely interested in watching you to find out which other people you contact. Eventually we would have wanted to have a conversation with you, but that is happening now, so not a problem. And yes, it was me driving the blue Nissan."
"How do you know my name? And why would you want to know who I am visiting? And why would you want to have a conversation with me? For your information, I am a perfectly typical, honorable, law-abiding member of the general public, not someone you could classify as one of your criminal elements."
"Well, checking up on somebody's name is not exactly an onerous task for the police, obviously. Nor is there anything illegal about it either. And as for your other two questions, Mr. O'Donoghue, the simple answer is because of Mr. Parker on the one hand, and on the other because you are a new acquaintance of his. A foreign resident one at that."
"Why because of Mr. Parker?"
"Well, Mr. O'Donoghue…what exactly is the nature of your acquaintanceship with Mr. Parker?"
"I am not sitting here in order to be interrogated, Mr. Delsey. Please get that straight. I am highly pissed off, to put it mildly, at being followed in the first place. I resent the intrusion into my personal life. And I specifically resent the fact that the intrusion into my personal life has been a concealed one. It still would be in fact, were it not for your inadequate methods. So…what about Mr. Parker?"
"Yes. Well…we received a visit from a young lady."
"You received a visit from a young lady?"
Yes. She had some specific comments to make about a certain Mr. Jeremy Parker. He apparently accosted her outside of a pub one evening and invited her to a meeting in his offices the next day. A meeting which, apparently, would be a particularly lucrative one for her. She did in fact attend the meeting and he paid her an advance of €100,000. Without a contract even. We know that for a fact, she allowed us to check her bank account. A most unusual event."
"Sounds like it," I said.
"Yes…well it turned out not to be the most unusual event in that meeting."
"No?"
"No. What was more unusual was that he offered her a further €400,000. And all she had to do to earn it was attend a few more meetings. Not your normal daily occurrence. A highly unnatural proposition. Difficult to believe."
"Pretty weird, yes."
"Yes. But that was also not the most unusual part of that meeting. The most unusual part was that he claimed to be an alien."
"An alien? What's so unusual about that? There are thousands, maybe millions of aliens in this country."
"Not that kind of alien, Mr. O'Donoghue," he said. "An alien from outer space."
"Outer space? An extraterrestrial lifeform? Oh…so he's some kind of lunatic?"
"Well, what does it sound like to you, Mr. O'Donoghue? You should be able to judge that better than I can. After all, you are acquainted with him."
Yes I was. But I was also thinking of tha
t additional €400,000 and the rest. It was of course clear to me that this interest on the part of the authorities could blow up any chances I might have of collecting more money from Jeremy. But it wasn't a foregone conclusion by any means. Not yet. So I decided my best plan was to continue playing dumb.
"He seems perfectly sane to me," I said.
Yes…well…hmm. Anyway, the young lady certainly believed he was a lunatic and was convinced that he might even be a dangerous one. She didn't go back for the next meeting. She went to the police instead. And after the usual bureaucratic convolutions, the matter ended up on our plate. And we did two things initially. We documented her statement and we asked her to sign it. And we checked up on Jeremy Parker."
"And?"
"And he is indeed a lunatic. Or rather, he was. He made a miraculous recovery and was eventually released back into the world inhabited by you and I. And successful in business since then, all legal and above board."
"Well now…" I said.
"There is not much we can do at this stage. He could simply deny the alien part and defend the money side of it as a warrantable business transaction, perhaps a more justifiable transaction than the one explained by the young lady. The point is, he has done nothing wrong yet. Nothing provably wrong."
"So why your interest?"
"As I said, it is not a priority for us. On the other hand, we share the young lady's views that something very strange is going on. The payment, for a start. And he was a certified lunatic, and therefore he might still be one. Or it could be some kind of a fraud. Or he could be dangerous. Perhaps violently so. Or it could even be some kind of perverse sexual entrapment, with, given the amount of money on offer to the young lady, some particularly nasty and perilous elements involved."
"I suppose," I said.
"Yes…well. We don't know. We haven't the faintest idea. We simply decided to observe him for a while and see what cropped up. And what cropped up was you, and I was assigned to watch you. Not something I have been taking too much trouble over, as you have explicitly and succinctly pointed out."
The 2084 Precept Page 23