The Red Oak (The Searight Saga Book 3)

by Rupert Colley

  He got to work early. The presentation wasn’t until late afternoon, but there were still loose ends to tie up and Claudette wanted the team to do a couple of dummy runs. The office was in a state of heightened anxiety all day. Claudette buzzed around maniacally, shouting at her staff, barking orders, sending and receiving numerous emails and making countless telephone calls. As much as anything else, Claudette’s own reputation amongst the firm’s senior partners depended on getting this contract, not to mention the hefty bonus. Her department had invested a lot of time and effort in preparing for this brief and the firm would gain kudos and future business if they managed to land the deal.

  Before getting down to work, Tom quickly emailed Maria, confirming his time of arrival at St Omer, and telling her how much he was looking forward to meeting her – and her husband. He particularly mentioned her husband; he didn’t want her to think his motives were anything less than honourable. After logging off his email, Tom went through his Computer Aided Design presentation and quietly practised his patter. During his ten-minute delivery, he had twenty slides to show – giving him thirty seconds per slide. Between them, the slides would illustrate every conceivable angle of his proposed library, but he couldn’t help but think that something was wrong about it. Claudette checked on him at frequent intervals asking the same questions, checking the same information. Her nervousness permeated throughout the office and by the time they were ready to set out, Tom was a bag of nerves.

  Claudette had chosen what they called the Small Committee Room – not too large to be impersonal, but not too small to be claustrophobic. The firm’s IT team had set up a PC and overhead screen for the slides. Refreshments were at the ready with someone from the catering team at hand. Tom and the others got themselves set up and prepared. With an hour to spare before the council panel was due, everything was ready. They had nothing to do but wait, and so they trooped back to the main office.

  Claudette paced up and down, smoking furiously despite the ‘No Smoking’ signs placed at regular intervals on the walls. Her team sat together in silence; each lost in their own thoughts. Even Claudette remained silent, unable to think of any more orders to bark out. The atmosphere was what Tom imagined would be like in the dressing room on FA Cup Final day. He glanced at his watch every couple of minutes, standing up, sitting down, crossing and uncrossing his legs. They’d be here soon, he thought. The phone rang in Claudette’s office. She threw her cigarette into the polystyrene cup where it sizzled, leaving a small burnt hole in the side. She darted into her office and answered the phone, replacing the receiver with a quick ‘thank you’.

  ‘They’re here,’ she said coming out of the office. ‘I’ll go and fetch them. Go to your places and good luck to each and every one of you. I want you all to know I’ve been proud of the way you’ve all worked so hard towards this. Now, go in there and show them why we are the best!’ With her brief, football manager’s speech over, she turned and walked towards the lift, her corkscrew hair bouncing in time with her footsteps. She could be intolerable at times, thought Tom, but when she got going, she was something to behold. Tom, Clive and the other members of the presentation team made their way back to the Small Committee Room, where they found the IT guys and the catering woman ready at their places.

  Clive sidled up to Tom. ‘Claudette will be murder if we don’t get this and unbearable if we do,’ he whispered.

  ‘A rock and a hard place,’ agreed Tom.

  Five long minutes later, they heard the familiar sound of Claudette’s heels on the wooden-floored corridor approaching the room, followed by a series of quieter footsteps. ‘And this,’ she said opening the door, ‘is our Committee Room. Please, come in.’

  Tom and the others stood up as three men and two women entered the room, followed by Claudette. She motioned them to their seats behind a table decked with glasses and jugs of water and plates of biscuits. Tom’s heartbeat quickened at the prospect of talking in front of these rather dour-looking individuals. Claudette opened by welcoming them to Tooley & Hill, and introducing them to the five speakers. Then, the chairwoman from the council introduced her team and the departments they represented. Tom forgot their names instantly, except the chair herself, one Barbara Evans, a frighteningly thin, humourless looking sort with short grey hair and silver half-moon glasses.

  Introductions over and refreshments served, Claudette began. She spoke confidently and with an unusual calmness. She talked of how Tooley & Hill would take the council’s brief, run with it and transform their ideas and ideals into an innovative, attractive, community-focussed leisure complex, its foundation based on the traditional, its facilities ahead of its time. It would be the borough’s centrepiece, an awe-inspiring model, the benchmark for all other London councils, something the people of the borough could be proud of. What an opener, thought Tom. He felt like clapping; it deserved more than the half-hearted nods of approval it got from the panel.

  Clive did his bit first. After Claudette’s grand introduction, it was a bit of an anti-climax, plodding and workmanlike by comparison. But nevertheless, he got the job done without a hitch, hesitating only once when one of his slides seemed to take an age to load. Tom was on next. As Clive wound down, Tom took a deep breath and a sip of water. ‘Don’t talk too quickly,’ he told himself, ‘look them in the eye, pause occasionally for effect and don’t get flustered. It’s only ten minutes...’

  ‘And so,’ Clive was concluding, ‘I’d like to hand you over to my colleague, Tom Searight, who’s going to talk to you about our proposals for the library. Thank you.’ He sat down, clearly relieved it was over, and ran his short chunky fingers through his stubbly hair. Tom took his cue and immediately stood up and was about to open his mouth to speak, when one of the panel spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ it was the chairwoman, Barbara Evans, ‘but could I ask Mr Doherty a question?’

  A question, thought Tom. He quite forgot they might want to ask questions, he sort of assumed they wouldn’t. He sat down again, feeling somewhat foolish. Clive answered his question with unnecessary detail, prolonging Tom’s agony.

  With no further questions for Clive, Tom returned to his feet. This was it. He introduced himself and his position within the firm, and then clicked the mouse for the first slide which, to his relief, came up instantaneously. He talked the panel through the slide, and then clicked the second, the third, the fourth. It was going well. He spoke fluidly and with the confidence of someone having done their research. The nineteenth slide, the twentieth, finished. Quick conclusion. Done!

  ‘Any questions?’ he asked nervously, glancing over to Claudette. She caught his eye and winked at him. There seemed to be no questions. Thank God for that, he thought. ‘Well, in that case, I’d like to pass...’

  ‘Mr Seagrave,’ it was that Evans woman again, ‘but I do have a question, if I may.’

  ‘Certainly.’ Damn you, he thought.

  She looked at him over her silver glasses. ‘What you’ve said has been very interesting...’ Her fellow panellists nodded and made faint noises of approval, but, thought Tom, go on what’s the ‘but’?

  ‘But we’re concerned with the lack of provision for disabled access. You have made no mention, Mr Seagrave, of the requirements relating to the Disability Discrimination Act.’

  ‘Searight,’ muttered Tom. He turned his back momentarily to look at the blank overhead projector screen, just to be able to avert his eyes from the piercing stares of the panel.

  The Evans woman continued. ‘How do you propose to fit in the facilities in order for us to meet our commitment in complying with the DDA?’

  ‘As the requirements of the DDA affect the whole complex...’ said a familiar voice. Tom stepped back and in doing so walked into the table, which toppled over the half-full glass of water. ‘Damn, sorry,’ he muttered, unable to hide the panic in his voice.

  Ignoring Tom’s mishap, Claudette continued, ‘...I’ll be covering the subject myself at the end of our presentation. We
are, of course, very concerned that full disabled access is an integral and implicit part of the complex, and meeting the requirements of the Act is naturally a top priority in the work we do here at Tooley & Hill. And Mr Searight himself is well-versed with the Disability Discrimination Act, which is a subject close to his heart, having a young, disabled son himself. Are there any further questions for Mr Searight?’

  Flustered and red-faced, Tom couldn’t help but glare at the panel, as if daring them to try it again. But they didn’t. Tom thanked them and sat down, leaving behind a sodden table and a wet patch on the plain blue carpet where the water had dripped down.

  His colleague, Sara, another Claudette in the making, took the floor next to talk about the swimming pool facilities. Tom looked over at Claudette, but she kept her eyes fixed on Sara, her face etched with contained fury. A ‘young disabled son’ indeed. She knew how to manipulate a situation, slamming in the rebound from the missed penalty. But why had she misled him, had she done it on purpose? Why had Clive dismissed Tom’s concerns? Without being able to concentrate, Tom listened to Sara’s sparkling voice and willed her to go wrong, to stumble, for the computer to crash. Anything to deflect the blame away from him. But nothing happened and Sara finished her presentation with a flourish. The fourth and the fifth presentations came and went without a hitch, the speakers coping competently with the questions asked of them. But none of them referred to disabled access.

  Claudette finished the afternoon off. The confidence and naturalness of her opening speech were gone. She was having to do it off the cuff, and it showed, overcompensating for Tom’s mistake by referring to the DDA so often, that by the end, it sounded as if the only people ever likely to use the leisure complex would be the disabled. Finally, it was finished. There were no more questions, no further refreshments needed, nothing to add. The council panel gathered their papers, thanked Claudette and her team for their presentation.

  As she was putting on her coat amongst the post-presentation small talk, Barbara Evans approached Tom. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, Mr Seagrave, what sort of disability does your son suffer from?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Spina bifida,’ he replied hastily, remembering a friend he went to school with who suffered from it.

  ‘Oh, how sad, how old is he?’

  ‘Fourteen, but he copes; you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. He can’t do PE of course, but otherwise he’s fine really.’

  ‘He’s not in a wheelchair then?’

  Tom had only once seen his friend in a wheelchair. ‘No, only when he’s tired.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Er, Guy,’ he said.

  ‘Guy Seagrave,’ she said as if tossing the name around in her head to see how it sounded.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘He won a medal once,’ he added gushingly, and immediately regretted his childlike enthusiasm.

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Why did he have to say that? ‘For... for swimming,’ he said, contradicting his earlier comment about his fictional son’s inability to do PE.

  Barbara Evans smiled weakly and shook his hand limply before taking her leave to join her colleagues who were waiting with Claudette. Tom rolled his eyes; if she thought he was a bit of a fool, then making puerile comments like that would merely have confirmed it for her. Claudette showed their guests out and escorted them to the ground floor. The team packed up, chatting excitably in their post-ordeal relief.

  Tom looked at Clive. ‘I did try to talk to you about access.’

  ‘Did you?’ he replied blandly, without looking up from his papers which he bundled into his briefcase.

  Tom felt a surge of annoyance. Lowering his voice, he said, ‘You know I did, but you brushed me off, saying Claudette would deal with it. You never even talked to her about it, did you?’

  Clive closed his briefcase with a purposeful click and then looked at Tom directly. ‘Not my problem, chum. Wasn’t me who cocked up. I’m sure I remember telling you to include it.’

  Claudette burst through the door. ‘Shit, that was hard work. OK, thank you team. We’ll debrief on Tuesday once Tom gets back from his jaunt to France, but for now, go home, have a drink and forget about it.’

  The IT guys dismantled the PC and the catering woman cleared up. One by one, Tom’s colleagues bid each other goodbye and left. With briefcase in hand, Tom was also ready to leave, back to Enfield, back to the delights of another evening with his parents.

  ‘Tom,’ said Claudette, ‘before you go, a word in my office.’

  Damn, thought Tom, he thought he was getting away lightly.

  Tom entered Claudette’s office and Claudette followed, closing the door behind her. She pulled down the blinds, making sure they were properly closed. Tom sat down in the soft upright, brown chair in front of Claudette’s desk. Claudette perched herself on the edge of her desk at right angles from Tom, her legs crossed, her black skirt riding up to her knees. She reached down into the drawer behind her and grappled around. Tom noticed, on the top of her in-tray, a letter with Dunstone, Cutler & Maine’s logo clearly visible. Claudette pulled out a packet of cigarettes from the drawer, offered one to Tom who refused with a shake of the head, and lit herself one. She remained silent for a minute or two, drawing on her cigarette and idly staring at the year planner stretching on the wall within her gaze.

  Eventually, she spoke without turning her head, her voice purposely calm and even. ‘How do you think it went, then Tommy?’

  Tom never considered himself a “Tommy”, but occasionally Claudette called him it whenever she felt the need to assert her authority. ‘Bloody awful,’ he said.

  ‘She was a bit of an old bat that Barbara Evans, wasn’t she?’ One of her shoes dangled from her toes; Tom noticed the sharpness of the heel. ‘Probably in need of a good rogering, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know if I’d go as far as that,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘She was enough to put anybody off.’

  He eyed her carefully; did she really think he was that much of a fool? ‘I did try to talk to you about the disability access. When I tried to speak to Clive about it, he palmed me off, saying you were dealing with it.’

  Claudette returned her gaze to the year planner. ‘Typical of him. Always passing the buck. He told me you had it all under control.’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘Hmm, anyone would think he was playing us off each other. I think a quiet word in Mr Doherty’s ear is called for.’

  ‘He may be a sullen git but he’s not that devious. No, I think it was you who were playing people off each other.’

  She spun round and glowered at him. ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘I’m not implying anything... yet.’

  ‘Oh, come on, do you know what sort of bonus I’m up for if we get this contract? And what about yourself–’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Don’t you take any responsibility in this? OK, so the DDA stuff might’ve been a bit suspect, but the library brief was yours to run with, and rather than just worry about it, you could’ve showed some initiative.’

  ‘Well...’ He hated the way she sat on her desk, towering over him, dominating the situation.

  ‘I think you should search your own conscience first before you go around casting aspersions on others. Why is it always someone else’s fault? I mean, it’s fairly fundamental stuff, the DD bloody A. I reckon I covered for you fairly well. Neat trick, wasn’t it, saying you had a disabled son? Got the sympathy vote.’

  Tom guffawed. ‘Fairly unethical, if you ask me.’

  ‘But if it did the trick.’ Claudette swung around on her desk to face Tom, placing her stiletto shoes on the sides of Tom’s chair, either side of his legs. She stubbed her half-finished cigarette in a glass ashtray on her desk, blowing the last mouthful of smoke into Tom’s face. ‘So instead of trying to make me your scapegoat, I think you owe me one.’

  Tom recoiled and tried not to cough. In his peripheral vision, he could see the brigh
t lilac colour of Claudette’s underwear within a frighteningly close proximity. He concentrated on keeping his gaze fixed on her eyes as she loomed above him. ‘Yes, Claudette,’ he said. ‘Whatever you say.’ He realised he didn’t have enough evidence to threaten her with, he needed something else, something more concrete.

  ‘I mean, this is a big tender we have here,’ she said leaning forward, her arms folded tightly around her midriff, accentuating the shape of her breasts. ‘There’s a lot riding on it. Not to mention all the work we’ve put into it already, there’s the big pay-off, the magnificent advertisement for the firm, the kudos, and, lest we should forget, my bonus, a big fat bonus at that. Now why should I want to risk all that?’ She leant further forward, leaning her hands on the arms of Tom’s chair. Her face was now only inches away from Tom’s, her curly corkscrew hair falling forwards, almost touching Tom’s cheeks. He could smell the cigarette smoke on her breath, intermingling with the delicate scent of her perfume. The smell evoked the memory of his early days with Julie, in the days when she smoked, the mixture of tobacco and cheap perfume filling his nostrils as they made love. But this stuff wasn’t cheap, and he found the concoction of smells and the sharp memory intoxicating and, despite himself, arousing. Whether accidentally or purposefully, he didn’t know and didn’t dare think about, but Claudette widened her legs a fraction, exposing further the lilac triangle of her silken knickers. ‘Claudette, I – I don’t think...’

  She pulled away slightly. ‘What, Tom?’ she said softly, brushing a long wisp of hair away. ‘What don’t you think? Don’t you think those disabled folk need their access?’

  ‘It’s just not...’

  ‘Ethical?’ she said. Then she grabbed Tom’s tie and yanked it firmly towards her, pulling Tom nearer to her face, their noses almost touching. He gripped the armrest, astounded by the physicality of her gesture, which in a second, had moved their relationship from the professional to the personal. Determined not to look away, Tom held her gaze, concentrating on the black line of mascara and the convergence of the neatly plucked eyebrows. The space between them was an intimate as the space between lovers, but he knew she was searching for a hesitation, a hint of weakness. Erotic intimidation, sexually charged coercion. So close, her eyes began to lose shape, just a large pool of murky green liquid, the black soulless epicentre. He listened to her breathing, consciously steadied, and noticed the slight flaring of her nostrils. She blinked. Her eyes softened slightly, the hard focus retreated, the eyelids widened but still she remained rooted, her fingers gripped around his tie. Her intimidation had taken her this far, thought Tom, but now she had no idea where to take it next. ‘You owe me one,’ she mouthed. Tom narrowed his eyes and shook his head a fraction. ‘You know sod all,’ she added. She was so close, he could almost swallow her words and breathe them back at her.