by Simon Brooke
“Evening, Ray,” Warren called cheerily from his open window as he drove past to his own bay two further on. Jones stood and watched the younger man with a mixture of contempt and annoyance.
He waited until Warren was getting out of the car and was caught in that awkward position with the door open, one leg out on the ground and one still in the well in front of the seat – the momentary pause before the driver summons the extra ounce of energy to rise to his feet.
“Christian names are for Christians,” Jones remarked bluntly, “and horns are for warning other road users, not for greeting all and sundry.”
Warren gave just a hint of being put out by this rebuke, then he sprang to his feet with a forced laugh. He was 30 years younger, tall, fit, well built and still tanned from a late summer holiday.
“What an old fusspot you are, Ray,” he returned, deliberately using the familiar tone of address that he knew irked Jones. “What do they teach you at church on a Sunday night? Hate thy neighbour? Don’t be so stuffy. It’s all first names now.”
Yet for all his bluster, Warren was clearly the lesser of the two men and both knew it.
There is a thin line between smugness and charisma and Jones was on the right side of it. He had a presence that Warren would never have, especially now Warren was struggling to fabricate the natural air that had come so readily when he and Jones had first met.
Warren ran one of those newfangled high tech operations that Jones fervently believed would never really catch on: his own small video recording company. Despite his reservations, Jones had backed it personally, hoping for a quick profit before the fad inevitably died a natural death.
Warren had shown a bit more respect then, when he needed the money. All that equipment was expensive and Jones had slowly turned the screw until Warren was finally reduced to grovelling for it.
Still, the operation had started to make its mark. Warren had contacts in London, from where most of the work emanated – work that could be done anywhere in the country, whizzed down high speed telephone wires or delivered in bubble wrapped packages by express couriers. The investment was beginning to come good and Jones had finally got a small dividend. It was a start, but not enough and not quickly enough.
The two men walked together nearly to the lift, side by side but a good yard apart. The awkwardness was broken when Jones spotted a third vehicle approaching down Killiney Road. As the car turned into the drive, the barrier swung up, nicely timed so that the Ford Mondeo eased through without having to change speed. The guard was getting the hang of it.
Joanna Stevens was a tall, handsome woman in her early 30s, as was readily apparent when she stepped from her car, which she parked on the opposite side from the two men. Warren hesitated and watched as Jones strode across to her.
Warren disliked the woman intensely but viewed her with trepidation. She was a jumped up little brat who interfered too much, who thought she knew it all but who hadn’t the guts to drive a sports car. She dressed old for her age, too. Yet he almost feared her, for her command of figures was quite awesome and he was obliged to put his books at her mercy because Jones insisted on it as a condition of his investment.
Jones, on the other hand, held Stevens in great respect. She had saved him from one or two dubious investments and brought into line those company owners who thought they could take his money and do what they liked with it. Jones admired her choice of car, too: like him, she drove a less expensive vehicle than she could afford, avoiding attention by not flaunting her status.
Warren strained to hear what was being said but Jones spoke in low tones until the heathen videoman, as Jones called him behind his back, gave up and took the lift that had stood open and waiting for him for several seconds. The conversation between Jones and Stevens was, though, as Warren feared.
“Next week I want you to crawl through Warren’s books,” Jones said quietly but deliberately. “I think he is concealing something serious.”
“You think he is hiding profits from you?” Stevens replied, more as a statement than a question.
“That, or he is in big trouble and manufactured this year’s profit to appease me. I suspect the latter.”
Steven nodded her agreement as they walked towards the lift that Warren had taken up. It had returned already. Warren must have considerately pressed the ground floor button as he vacated it, probably hoping that the lift’s reappearance would cut short the conversation. Stevens and Jones moved towards it in silence. Foster leaned on his brush and watched. The security guard was heading back towards the sweeper.
It was the last time that anyone was prepared to admit to having seen the victim alive.