by David Szalay
‘All right.’
Paul wants to unzip the bag and inspect the equipment. Watt is staring at him, with exhausted-looking eyes. The situation seems to be wearing him down. He has had to lie to his wife and daughters about where he is. Nor do they know that he has started smoking again – he has to hide his cigarettes and suck mints and tell them that he has been in smoky pubs with boring men. None of which is positive for his self-esteem. He peers into his glass, empty except for a few shrunken ice cubes. When he speaks, his voice is scratchy. ‘So who’s this “Andy” then?’ he asks.
Unhurriedly, Paul puts down his pint. The tablecloth is a filthy ivory, with lumpy lace edges. He had waited until Watt phoned him on Friday – in a terrible, feverish state – to tell him that he had found someone. Andy. On Thursday, at his wit’s end, he had tried Andy’s mobile number, hoping that it would still be the same. It was. And it was not the only thing. Andy – it was almost incredible – was still at Park Lane Publications. Everything just went on, Paul thought. It just went on. He had joined Tony Peters’ team. Paul said that he had a job proposal for him. He explained, loosely, what was involved – two days in Brighton, pretend to be a fruit seller, two hundred quid. Andy had not taken much persuading. The whole thing lasted only a few minutes, though it might have lasted longer had Paul been more expansive when Andy asked him what he was doing. ‘This and that,’ he said quickly.
‘With Murray?’ It was the only mention – oblique – of what had happened last winter.
‘No. Um. In Brighton. So …’
So he would meet Andy at Brighton station on Monday morning. ‘Oh, and bring a suit,’ he said.
‘No problemo.’
And that was that. Andy had not asked a single question.
‘Just a bloke I used to work with,’ Paul says. ‘A salesman.’
‘You were a salesman?’
‘Yeah.’
Watt looks surprised for a second. ‘Presentable, is he?’
‘Very.’
‘How old?’
‘Mid, late twenties.’
‘Hope he’s not too young.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
Watt is worried though. He looks miserable, threadbare with stress. He leans his ugly face over the low table, and says, ‘Does he understand how serious this is?’
Paul shrugs. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I’m sure he does.’
‘Tell him,’ Watt says, with a cigarette in his mouth, making a mess of lighting his lighter, ‘tell him he’ll get no money if he doesn’t get any evidence.’
Mildly outraged, Paul looks at him for a moment. ‘That’s not what we said.’ Watt sighs, frustrated. ‘I’ll be able to see of course,’ he says, squinting through the cigarette smoke. ‘I’ll be able to see if he’s not trying. On the tape.’
‘Yeah, you will.’
He pulls some printed sheets from his briefcase. They are neatly stapled together in two sets, and he hands one to Paul. The first page is headed ‘The Strawberry Market’. Watt starts to go through the text, explaining, quickly, how the fresh-produce market works. It is a frenetic, fast-moving world. Fruit, vegetables, cut flowers. Prices hugely up and down. The strawberry price, for instance, might swing from a high of five hundred pence a kilo to a low of a fifth of that, and then up again, in a matter of weeks. Thus early season the prices are usually high, falling precipitously over the summer, then shooting up in September time. The supermarkets, with a price horizon of a month or two, try to manage their stock in line with this. Men like Martin watch the five principal wholesale markets – Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, and the London markets, New Covent Garden and New Spitalfields. They pore over the fine statistics of DEFRA’s weekly Agricultural Market Report; for Martin, it is the most important document in the world. They watch the weather, subscribe to special Met Office data services. They need an encyclopedic knowledge of seasonality, of the natural processes of horticulture.
Maximising profits means fully exploiting the volatility of the market. But since the produce is highly perishable, and everyone is trying to do the same thing, margins are squeezed, sometimes to zero. To outperform the market, therefore, it is necessary to snatch hold of opportunities the moment they present themselves. ‘Your mate should call the supermarket and ask to speak to the fresh-produce manager,’ Watt says quietly. He has turned to the second page. Paul has done the same.
‘All right.’
‘He should say he’s from a strawberry grower, based in Kent.’
‘Strawb’rries.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Okay.’
‘Morlam Garden Fruits. It’s all here.’ Watt indicates the printed sheet. ‘He should say he wants to meet. That’s routine. It’s normal.’
‘Sure.’
From his pocket Watt takes a small stack of business cards – he had them made that afternoon. ‘MORLAM GARDEN FRUITS’ is written across the top, next to a stylised image of a tree. ‘Andrew Smith’ is the name; ‘Sales Manager’ the post. There are some telephone numbers, and an email address – [email protected]. When he holds them out to Paul, his hand is shaking slightly. ‘These look good,’ Paul says, taking them. He spends a few seconds in polite inspection – Watt has evidently put some time in. ‘The numbers …?’
‘I just made them up.’
‘Well … All right. What if Martin phones them?’
‘He’ll know something’s up. But he’s not going to phone during the meeting, is he?’
‘No.’
‘And afterwards it’ll be too late.’
‘Yeah.’
Watt says that the strawberry price is very high – the early-season crop has been poor. There is especially a shortage of quality classone fruit. On the wholesale markets the most usual price is well in excess of four hundred pence a kilo. ‘A spike,’ he says, summing up.
‘Strawb’rry price spike,’ Paul murmurs.
Watt shoots him a nervous, irritable look. ‘Yes. That’s why I went for strawb’rries.’
‘M-hm.’
‘Your mate should say he has a crop of early-season Elsantas, ripened in polytunnels, and ready for shipping. He should say an agreed sale has fallen through, leaving him in immediate need of a new purchaser – for which reason he is willing to offer the whole crop for a very low price. It’s all here.’ He presses on from the text: ‘The fruit will be supplied in 227-gram punnets, unlabelled, with twenty punnets to a tray. A tonne of produce in total, which he should offer at two hundred pence a kilo.’ Martin, Watt says, will find it impossible to withstand such an offer. Strawberries will sell. It is early in the season, supplies are scarce, there will be a powerful sense of post-winter novelty, of the first red berries of summer – and several thousand pounds’ profit. What’s more – Watt points out – Tesco’s are promoting their own strawberries, imported from Spain, and pulling in the punters with summery images in their ads.
All of which, he says, is important – Andy will have to know it inside out to persuade Martin that he is not an impostor. More important, however, is what follows.
They turn to the next page.
Martin’s initial response, Watt says (lighting a new cigarette with the end of his old one), will undoubtedly be to suggest that Morlam Garden Fruits join the list of approved suppliers and submit to an inspection. Andy should say, first off, that even if the inspection were in forty-eight hours, it would be too late – he needs to shift the fruit within forty-eight hours. And then he should say, ‘Anyway, to tell you the truth, there might be problems with an inspection.’ When Martin asks him what sort of problems, he should say, ‘Oh nothing serious.’ And then mention the fact that some of his pickers might not yet have secured their work visas, that the firm might not be BRC audited, or a member of the Assured Production Scheme. Having mentioned these things, he should ask, ‘Would that be a problem for you?’
‘And if Short says no,’ Watt says, smiling toothsomely, though with fear in his eyes, ‘we’ve got the bugger
.’
‘What if he says yes? What if he says it would be a problem?’
‘Well. Then your mate says –’ Watt puts his fingertip to the words – ‘Would it be a problem for you in principle?’
And if Martin were to say no to that (which Watt seems to think very likely if he uses unlisted suppliers) then they had him too. It would not even be necessary to follow through and make the sale, though of course Andy should do so if possible. When Paul wonders aloud whether selling non-existent strawberries to someone might fall within the legal limits of fraud, Watt says that no money will move, and no papers will be signed – one-off fresh-produce transactions, he says, are always settled COD.
‘Still …’ Paul says.
Watt starts to shuffle papers, to stuff them into his briefcase. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’m not entirely sure. It’s another reason I wanted my name kept out of it.’ Andy should be dressed in a suit, he says, and arrive with two unmarked punnets of excellent, extremely fresh Elsanta strawberries. ‘Extremely fresh. That means bought the same day.’
They leave the hotel. Watt will not stop talking. He says the same things over and over. ‘Extremely fresh,’ he says. ‘That means bought the same day.’
‘I understand.’
‘And he has to ask, Would it be a problem for you in principle?’
‘I know.’
‘And test the equipment before you use it. I’ve tested it myself and it works.’
‘I will.’
‘I’ve booked a room for him at the Queensbury guest house.’
‘Yes, you said.’
‘And I will need a receipt …’
They part in front of the illuminated hotel. Watt is about to hurry off when Paul says, ‘The money. The two hundred quid. Plus you owe me about forty quid for expenses as well.’
Watt frowns. ‘Afterwards,’ he says. ‘I’ll give it to you afterwards.’
‘No. Why? I’ll need it to pay Andy.’
‘Pay him. I’ll give you the money.’ Watt laughs. ‘Look … I haven’t got it on me.’
‘Let’s get it then …’
‘Why? I’ll pay you. Don’t worry.’
They eye each other without much trust. Paul sighs. ‘If I don’t get that money,’ he says, ‘you won’t get the tape.’ Watt stares at him for a moment. Smiling slightly, he looks innocent. Perplexed. Even offended. The threat seems to have upset him. He says, ‘Fine. I’ll pay you. Don’t worry.’
Paul is worried though. There is something that he did not tell Watt, something important. Two nights earlier he had once more spoken to Gerald in the frore shadows of the warehouse. When he mentioned Martin, Gerald seemed not to know what he was talking about. Then he said, ‘Oh yeah that. That’s all shit.’
‘What?’ Paul said.
‘It’s shit.’
Paul laughed. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s some other bloke. It’s not Martin Short. Over in Soufampton. Terry told me, yeah?’
‘Terry? Who’s Terry?’
‘Terry. The lorry driver.’
‘What did he tell you?’ Paul had turned pale, though in the ghostly light of the warehouse it did not show.
‘He told me all that stuff. It was some manager over in Soufampton. Fresh-produce manager over there. Not Martin Short.’
‘So Martin doesn’t use …’
‘No,’ Gerald said.
It was a shock to hear this. In the non-foods aisle, Paul’s hands had trembled as he packed the shelves with soap-filled pads. And he had intended to tell Watt. To tell him when they spoke on the phone on Friday; then he thought he would wait until they met face to face on Saturday. And he had been about to tell him – to say, ‘Listen, there’s something …’ – when Watt produced the equipment. He had already paid for the equipment. If Paul then told him that the whole thing was a mix-up … Well, he would surely tell Macfarlane, and Martin, everything. This way, Paul thought, it was possible – possible – that he might not. It would be Andy’s performance on the tape that would settle it one way or the other – a thought which did little to soothe him as he waited in Eastbourne station.
The Queensbury is one of several guest houses on Russell Square, a small rectangle of Regency terraces slowly discolouring in the shadow of the Churchill shopping centre. One end of the square is open, and there Cannon Place sends the traffic down to the seafront, past the unobtrusive patch of green and its somnolent, grubby B&Bs. The Queensbury is in the corner of the square furthest from the road. There, the decay seems worst. The house-fronts are nothing but flaking brown paint, weeds grow thickly in the corroded railings and the windows are dark grey with dirt. Even the Gothic lettering of the sign –
Tea and coffee in all rooms
Contractors welcome
– is mottled, faded, and losing pieces of itself into the damp of the sunless area below. A plastic tablet, yellow-edged like a smoker’s fingers, in one of the ground-floor windows says VACANCIES. Next to it is an ancient decal promoting the tourist industry of the south-east. The door is held open by a rubber wedge. Inside – a narrow corridor with a torn carpet and a payphone on the wall.
Watt found this place. His search for low room rates led him here.
Mounting the three chequer-tiled steps (black and beige) up to the unpromising corridor, Paul looks over his shoulder. Andy is following a few metres behind with his overnight bag and suit carrier, looking up and down the quiet square with mild, bloodshot interest. He is obviously stoned. Paul is stoned himself. They were passing through the neighbouring square – Clarence, very similar – when Andy said, ‘Should we have a quick doob?’ The doob had a particularly pungent, skunky odour, and they smoked it quickly, under the uninterested eyes of some scaffolders. Now Paul is sliding in slow motion into the guest house, slowly immersing himself in its stale smell. ‘Oi, mate!’ Andy’s plummy voice. Paul turns. One wall of the corridor is covered with mirror tiles, each an inch square. Pixellated, Andy stands motionless in them. The opposite wall is puffy with old wallpaper. From outside, the sad sound of gulls. ‘What?’ Paul says.
‘Is this where I’m staying?’
‘What do you think?’
Since Paul met him at the station, Andy has maintained an irritating prima donna fussiness. ‘This is where you’re staying,’ Paul says. ‘Yes.’ It is a strange situation. Not having seen each other for so many months, and now here, in Brighton, neither of them wearing a suit. When the late-running ten-oh-six from Victoria finally pulled in, Paul had left his post, and was inspecting croissants under illuminated glass – most of them had lost their pep, they looked soft and greasy under the heat lamps. A voice at his shoulder said, ‘All right, mate?’ Startled, his speech of welcome vanishing from his mind, all he had said was, ‘Oh, all right.’ And then purchased a cheese and ham croissant – he was hungry, had not had supper – while Andy waited with his luggage. ‘How are you?’
‘Yeah. Well …’
‘Oh – d’you want something?’
‘No thanks.’
What Andy did want was to take a taxi to the hotel – his word – but when Paul said, ‘All right, if you pay for it,’ he spent a long time sighing and whining and looking longingly at the green-and-white taxis pulling up outside the station like motorised mints, and then finally said, ‘It better not be far.’
‘It’s not.’
They walked down Queen’s Road. In the distance, the sea glittered like static on an untuned TV screen. The pavement was strewn with rubbish, the businesses were tawdry. Paul ate his croissant from its greasy paper bag while Andy pestered him to take the suit carrier. Andy was wearing jeans and a rugby shirt with wide lateral stripes and brogues. (The only previous occasion on which they had seen each other outside of work was one Saturday in the autumn when they went to the rugby – Murray had been there too.) They passed the clock tower and pushed their way through the Churchill Square shoppers and then, in the quiet of Clarence Square, where the houses were discoloured like old n
ewspaper, Andy stopped and said, ‘Should we have a quick doob?’
Under the stairs – painted black, with a worn blue runner – there is a sort of booth, made of unfinished tongue-and-groove material. There is someone in this booth, a fat woman. Paul does not notice her, however. He is peering into what seems to be a dingy dining room – he sees a toaster on a sideboard – when her voice makes him jump. She laughs – a tinkly, high-pitched laugh – and says, ‘I am sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ Paul says, shock sluicing away as he turns, and smiles himself. His voice is slightly slurred. Still smiling, the woman stares at him from her plywood booth. Seconds pass. ‘Do you want a room?’ she asks.
‘Um … I’ve got … A reservation.’
‘All right. What’s the name?’
‘Well, it’s under … Watt.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Watt.’
‘What’s the name?’
‘The name’s Watt. W-A-T-T.’
She laughs again. ‘Oh, I see.’ She turns the page of a desk diary; her hands seem small at the end of her stout, rosy arms. ‘I suppose you get that a lot.’
‘I’m not Mr Watt.’
‘That’s all right,’ she says, patiently. ‘Just the one night?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Fine …’
‘Actually it’s for this gentleman.’
And Andy steps forward.
The room is on the top floor. It is small and low-ceilinged. The window, hung with a foul lace curtain, overlooks the end of the square. The floor is loud and lumpy, and when Andy sits on the single bed his buttocks sink almost to the level of the cloth-like carpet. There is a tiny sink, heavily infected with limescale, a wardrobe with a single wire hanger, and a kettle – also limescaled – on a sloping side table, the only other piece of furniture in the room. Next to the kettle are a tannin-blackened mug, two tea bags and a doily. The paper shade on the ceiling bulb is tawny with cigarette smoke and speckled with the excrement of generations of flies. ‘It’s not too bad,’ Paul says. ‘Quiet …’