by Brian Smith
Ben glanced sharply at Mike, who was unsure whether Ben was irritated by the ‘father’ tag or his sudden change of topic.
‘The operation went well. They wanted him to go into rehab but he flatly refused and is home now with an army of people coming in to look after him and help out.’
Mike grinned. ‘We should see him pretty soon, then. When he had the first hip done, he was stomping around our sites as soon as he’d mastered the crutches.’
Ben did not return his smile. ‘That was five years ago, before I came on board. I’m in charge now. All of you need to get used to seeing a lot less of Jim. The likes of you and your mentor, Vern, need to wake up to yourselves and understand the world has changed. We can’t get by any longer doing what we’ve always done. Look where it’s got us on this job.’ Having begun down this path, Ben seemed unable to stop, becoming more agitated the further he went, his voice rising along with the colour in his face. ‘You’re simply not up to it: I should have seen that before I allowed you to be appointed. Make no mistake. If you don’t lift your game I’ll replace you and you won’t be able to call on Vern to save you.’
Mike pushed back his chair, his face flushed.
‘Let’s be clear,’ he said. ‘Vern gave me a chance to show what I could do, but I’ve earned every promotion I’ve had in this company. I’ve come up the hard way – unlike some.’
‘Come up the hard way? Don’t make me laugh. Never worked outside this cosy, little second-rate firm that hadn’t had a new idea for years until I came aboard. You were put through uni at the company’s expense and, because of Vern’s indulgence, fast-tracked beyond your level of competence.’
‘Leave Vern out of this,’ Mike demanded.
‘Vern will never forgive Jim for bringing me in as MD over the top of him.’
Mike pushed himself away from the desk and stood looking down on Ben.
‘Don’t talk crap. They’ve had their disagreements, but Vern has always been fiercely loyal to Jim. Nothing will change that. And, despite the way you run him down to anyone silly enough to listen, he’s been loyal to you.’
Ben also rose and they stood across the desk from one another. ‘Don’t speak like that to me,’ he said. ‘Both of you think you can’t run a building project unless you’ve had the dirt from a site under your fingernails. You’ve dragged your feet in taking up the new ideas Jeff Richards has brought to this project and when I told you to get on with doing what he asks, you go your own way.’
‘Dragged my feet? Whenever I point out how impractical some of Jeff ’s ideas are, he just waves his hands and tells me he’s sure I can find a way. I’ve had to bust a gut to keep the project on schedule, with no help from Jeff and nothing but useless interference from you.’
‘But it isn’t on schedule any longer and you’re leaking cash.’
‘If you want to fire me for having a bad run over a few weeks, then go ahead, but don’t think it will be easy to find someone who can come in and do better.’
There was a rumble of thunder and rain began to beat on the roof. ‘Maybe you need to abandon your ride home.’
Ben looked away and his voice dropped, almost as if he were speaking to himself.
‘Perhaps I should take over the running of this project directly and get it sorted out. That’d silence the doubters inside and outside the company. It would be a load to carry but I could do it.’ He turned his head back to eyeball Mike and said, ‘Triathletes aren’t put off by the weather. A ride in the rain will give me a chance to think things through. But don’t be surprised if I move you out tomorrow.’
He turned on his heel and began to don his helmet. The wind threw a spray of rain at him as he opened the door.
‘Why would I want to abandon my ride? I’ll nip down Lorimer Street and Todd Road on to the bike path along the beach and be home while you’re still sitting in that VW of yours inching your way through the peak hour traffic.’
After Ben had gone, Mike remained at his desk, fuming. He had been foolish to allow Ben to get under his skin, but some kind of confrontation had been brewing for months. It was ironic he had finally snapped when Ben had been contemptuous of Vern. It was Vern who had listened to Mike’s complaints about Jeff and Ben and told him to work his way around them without causing any fuss.
‘We need to give Ben time to settle,’ Vern had said. ‘He’s different from the rest of us and that can be a good thing.’
When Mike objected, Vern had tried to reassure him. ‘He did very well as marketing manager at Cunnards and had a major role in making them the largest supplier of equipment to the building industry in Australia. Marketing has always been a weakness of ours. What he lacks we can teach him. Teaching your boss without upsetting him is a skill we all need. And it’s up to you and me to make sure the company continues to flourish now Jim’s not actively involved. We owe it to him.’
Perhaps, like the storm outside, their clash would clear the air. On the other hand, Ben might be stupid and arrogant enough to take on the job himself. Mike would find out tomorrow. Meanwhile he had to fend off this other storm. He used his jacket as inadequate cover for his head and shoulders as he ran to his car through the driving rain. When he started the car, one of his Miles Davis discs began to play, but the drumming of the rain on the roof and the thump of his wipers on their highest setting made listening to music impossible.
The low cloud and rain had aged the day prematurely and he needed to switch on his sidelights. Ben had been right: the most direct route home would be filled with traffic, slowed to a crawl by the storm. Like Ben, he should circle round via Todd Road and then back up to South Melbourne. The traffic along Lorimer Street was relatively light, although the water on the road meant every car created its own bow wave and visibility was poor. He had reached the blank stretch beside Webb dock, needing to be careful through the water-filled dips in the road, when he saw Ben, working hard to make progress against the wind blowing the rain directly into his face. Perhaps he sensed the presence of a car behind him, because he glanced back before resuming his battle with the elements. Mike was still hesitating over whether it was safe to overtake when a black four-wheel-drive came past him at speed, sending a deluge over the windscreen and blinding him for a moment. When the water cleared he could see the black car had pulled in directly beside Ben who was about to enter another dip in the road. As he did so, the car swerved so that a wall of water engulfed him. Ben was thrown into the air, falling in a crumpled heap across the kerb lining the road. Whether it was the wave alone or the front wing of the car that hit him, Mike could not tell. The black car continued to accelerate, either unaware of the harm it had caused or unwilling to admit it. Mike pulled up beside Ben and jumped from his car. Water cascaded down his face and his clothes were already sodden. Ben was on his side gasping for breath. Mike pulled off his jacket and draped it across him.
‘Lie still,’ he said unnecessarily. Ben was in no position to move, trapped in the mangled frame of the bike.
‘There’s something wrong with my chest,’ he panted. ‘Can’t breathe.’
He gave a yelp of pain as Mike began to disentangle him from the clutch of the bike.
‘Sorry, you’ve got some deep cuts on your legs but I don’t think anything’s broken.’
‘Surely you saw me,’ Ben gasped.
‘What?’
‘You drove into me as though you hadn’t seen me.’
‘No, that wasn’t me. There was a black SUV.’
Ben looked at Mike doubtfully. ‘I didn’t see any other car. I looked back and saw your VW coming up behind me. Then I was sent flying. A four-wheel drive? How could it get between us? You were close.’
‘It cut in between and sideswiped you. I couldn’t tell whether it hit you directly or caught you with the wave it threw up. It all happened so fast.’ Mike shook his head. ‘I didn’t get their number either.’
For the second time that day he took out his mobile to call an ambulance.
As M
ike watched the paramedics loading Ben’s stretcher into the ambulance, a patrol car arrived, carrying two young policemen.
‘Are you the driver of this vehicle?’ one of them asked.
‘Hang on a moment.’
Mike poked his head into the back of the ambulance and called to Ben, ‘I’ll phone your wife and let her know what’s happened.’
Briefly he was blinded by the flashing lights of the patrol car reflecting off the many wet surfaces surrounding it and stumbled into the policeman who had come behind him. The cop entered the ambulance and spoke briefly with Ben before he climbed out, the door swung shut and the ambulance turned to go back up Lorimer Street.
The policeman indicated the departing ambulance with a tilt of his head.
‘He was known to you?’
‘He’s my boss.’
‘And you ran into him?’
‘Hey, no.’ Mike gave a short laugh. ‘It was a hit-run.’
What was it about the police? The tone they used always suggested you were the one who needed to explain yourself.
‘If I could get a few details.’ The policeman inclined his head towards the overhang at the entrance to the nearby warehouse. ‘We’ll be drier over there.’
It wasn’t true – the cop was swathed in yellow waterproofs and Mike could get no wetter. It must be the paperwork he was keen to protect and, sure enough, when they were standing out of the rain, the cop produced a notebook. ‘Your name and address please, sir.’
‘Mike Georgiou, 14 Martin Street, South Melbourne.’
The policeman flipped back a page. ‘And the victim was a Mr Ben Findlay?’
He made it sound as though Ben had been murdered.
‘Yes, he lives in Brighton. I don’t have his exact address but I can give you his phone number.’
The policeman was uninterested in his offer. ‘Tell me what you saw.’
Mike embarked on a description of the accident, conscious of how fragmentary and incomplete his account must sound.
When he finished, the policeman, who had written very little of Mike’s statement in his book, said, ‘An SUV, you say, swerved towards the victim? Get a number?’
‘No.’
‘Odd route for you to take. Were you following your boss?’
‘No, trying to avoid the traffic during the storm.’
‘You knew your boss was coming this way, though?’
Mike looked into the bland face of the policeman. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘Better take a look at your vehicle.’
‘Look, I didn’t hit him. I keep telling you,’ Mike said, exasperation sharpening his voice.
The policeman was already walking back to where the VW stood, the other cop waiting beside it. ‘Some old scars but nothing current I can see,’ this man said to his partner, who completed his own survey of the wheels and bodywork of the car before turning to Mike.
‘Thank you, sir. We will now follow the ambulance to the hospital and endeavour to obtain a full statement from the victim.’
He opened the passenger door of the police car and looked carefully at Mike before entering. ‘The victim recalls seeing only your car behind him before the incident occurred.’
Mike took a step towards him. For a moment it entered his mind to tell the cop about the possibility of this ‘incident’, as he had called it, being part of the deliberate sabotage of Findlay’s that he and Bob Kennedy suspected was occurring, but he thought better of it. Instead, he watched the car depart, the twisted bicycle lying beside the road as his only company.
The storm had passed by the time Mike reached home, but the darkness had deepened into night. As he pulled into the kerb outside his cream weatherboard house, he saw his sister’s battered, red Barina in front of him. Had Shane been into her again? He squelched his way unhappily on to the front veranda and paused to look into the small strip of garden that lay in front of the house. The rain would be good for the parched grass but too late for the dead blooms on the climbing roses that clung to each of the veranda posts. It was strange Lissa hadn’t already dead-headed them. She used to be meticulous about how the front garden presented itself to the outside world.
Drawing in a deep breath, he entered the front door. He had taken only a few paces down the passageway when she appeared from the kitchen.
‘Where have you been? And look at you, leaking all over the carpet. Go into the bathroom and take all your sodden gear off before you go any further.’
She shook her head and called over her shoulder, ‘Mary, you should see the state your brother comes home in.’
Before Mike could do as he had been told, Mary came behind Lissa. ‘My, you are a drowned rat.’ Her face changed and she stopped her laughter. ‘It was just the storm? You are OK?’
Mike sighed. ‘One way and another it’s been quite a day.’
‘Well, get changed and you can explain to us why it’s taken you so long to come home,’ Lissa said. ‘I’m used to you never wanting to leave the site, but we’d had no word from you, you weren’t answering your mobile and the kids were giving us hell, so I packed them off to their rooms.’
Mike counted three accusations in the one sentence.
He pulled his mobile from his pocket and scrutinised it. ‘After I called Jacqui Findlay, I tried to ring you, but my phone was dead. The battery shouldn’t have been flat – perhaps the rain got to it.’
‘Ben Findlay’s wife? Why were you calling her?’
‘I’ll tell you all about it after I dry myself off.’
After he had stripped, towelled himself dry and dressed in a clean T-shirt and jeans, he mounted the stairs to the children’s bedrooms. Leila and Jacinta were across from one another in the bedroom they shared. Jacinta was already asleep and he bent to kiss her on the forehead. She did not move, the faint rise and fall of her chest a comforting indication she was still breathing. Surely she was old enough that he need no longer have that fear. He turned to Leila, who had looked up from the book she was reading when he entered but did not return his smile and continued to eye him anxiously.
‘What have you kids been up to this time?’ he asked.
‘It was Chris’s fault,’ she whined. ‘He was mean to Jac and Mum wouldn’t listen to us, too busy talking with Mary.’
‘Jac doesn’t seem to be suffering now. Time you were getting to sleep as well.’
‘Aw, Dad.’
Christos was sprawled on his bed with the plugs of his iPod – a recent birthday present – in each ear. ‘Hi, Dad,’ he said in a loud voice and grinned. ‘You in trouble with Mum again?’
‘No homework tonight?’
‘Finished it,’ he replied complacently. When Mike showed his surprise, Christos added, ‘Don’t have much that has to be in tomorrow.’
‘Why were you picking on Jac?’
‘I wasn’t picking on her. She’s a pest who thinks because she’s the littlest she should get whatever she wants. It’s not fair.’
‘A good chance for you to get ahead with your work. It’s not as if you’re top of the class.’
‘Mum says you weren’t much of a student either.’
Mike resisted the temptation to tell his son that Lissa had paid even less attention in class, more concerned with how she looked and what she would do after school, something Mike had no objection to in those days. He returned down the stairs. Lissa was working in the kitchen. Across the divide of the kitchen bench, he could see Mary on the leather couch in the family room, sipping a glass of wine.
‘Now big brother it’s time to tell us what you’ve been up to.’
Mike collected a beer from the refrigerator, enjoyed a mouthful and began by describing the ferocity of the downpour as he drove down Lorimer Street to come up behind Ben.
‘Is Ben Findlay having a mid-life crisis?’ Lissa asked scornfully. ‘Taking on that triathlete stuff and riding to work in his rainbow Lycra.’
‘Nothing wrong with keeping fit,’ Mary disagreed. ‘My Shane works
out a lot and looks great. Would do you no harm, brother, to join him at the gym after work. It’s not far over the river from where you work.’
Mike ignored her and continued with his account.
‘Did you get the number of the four-wheel-drive?’ Lissa asked.
‘Couldn’t see it in all the water thrown up from the road.’
‘Pity.’
‘You can say that again,’ Mike agreed. ‘Ben didn’t see the SUV and thought it was me who hit him. I reckon the police have the same idea.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Lissa interjected. ‘Why would you make up a silly story like that, even if you did hit him?’
‘You think I did?’ Mike asked angrily.
‘No, of course she doesn’t,’ Mary interceded.
‘I had a good motive.’ Mike watched them carefully as their eyes widened. ‘Before he went off on his bike, I had a spat with Ben and he as good as told me I was fired.’
‘As good as?’
‘He was going to think about it overnight. He has this crazy idea he should replace me himself and prove to the doubters he has what it takes to be the MD of Findlay’s and not just the owner’s son.’
‘There you are. I said he was having a mid-life crisis,’ Lissa chirped.
Mary was more thoughtful. ‘Apart from having an argument with him, did he have any reason for wanting you gone?’
‘We’ve been having a bad run at the site for a few weeks. Today two of the guys were seriously injured when the load from a crane fell on them.’
‘Yeah. Shane told me there were some troubles at the CityView site.’
‘Shane? How did he know? What did he say?’
‘Nothing specific,’ Mary replied, screwing up her face as she tried to recall her conversation with her partner. ‘Just you were having problems. I guess he picked up a rumour or something. He is still across the road from you at Riverside most of his time, although his new job takes him all over the place.’
‘New job? What’s he doing now?’ Mike asked.
Mary dropped her eyes.
‘Not sure. He doesn’t talk about it much.’