by Chris Simms
'All right, Tom. This is how we'll play it. Jim's wiped all the offending material from the computer system. Under no circumstances can we afford for this to get out. You just have a quiet word with this George character, tell him that if he goes without a fuss, we won't create one either.'
'So it's OK for us to sack him, but not for us to tell the police?'
'Tom, we've got a company to look after here. What he gets up to in his own time isn't our concern.'
'And what about Julie Bowers? Just because George no longer works here, doesn't mean he's not a threat to her.'
'We'll move her back down to London; I assume you can do without her?'
Tom wanted to laugh. 'Oh yeah, we've never been quieter. She's just twiddling her thumbs most days. Just like the rest of us.'
'She can carry on helping you from down here. It's the only way to play it.'
Just a few more days of this shit and I'm out, thought Tom. He suppressed the urge to giggle because he knew if he did, he might not be able to stop. He imagined the reaction if waves of hysterical laughter suddenly started flooding out of the director's earpiece. 'OK, but you have the conversation with Julie. I'm not dealing with them both.'
'Done. I'll call her now.' Tom hung up, reached for his powder and headed straight for the toilets again.
He emerged a couple of minutes later, got a cup of water from the cooler and as he slowly sipped it, worked out what to say to George. Feeling slightly better, he rang upstairs to George's desk.
'Hello,' came the reply, sounding faintly hostile, as if no one was meant to know his extension number.
'George, it's Tom. Could you pop down to Ian's old office? I need a word.'
As he waited for George to appear he imagined how the conversation would go, picturing George's abject embarrassment. He guessed hardly any eye contact would be made – certainly not after he revealed what he knew.
There was a knock at the door, the top of George's bushy haircut appearing first as he looked round the door.
'Come in, George. Sit down,' said Tom, now adding a note of formality to his voice.
George did as he was asked, dead eyes staring across the desk dividing them. 'George, I've just had a call from the London office about some material the IT department has found on the system up here.'
'Material?'
'Certain locked files on your system. You know what I'm talking about?'
George leaned back and folded his arms. 'No,' he said warily.
'George, the IT guy has gained access to them. You've got a...' he searched for the right word, '... glut of offensive images stored on your computer. Or you did; the lot has been deleted.'
He waited for George to start squirming, eyes fixed to the floor, but to Tom's astonishment he sat up in his seat, genuine fury in his face.
'Someone's destroyed my personal files? Without my permission?' He glared directly at Tom. 'That's bloody outrageous! An invasion of my human rights.'
Thinking about the human rights of the women in the photos, Tom raised himself up slightly too. 'George, the only outrageous things in all of this are the images on your computer.' He had to bolster his argument, turn the emphasis back on George. He resorted to a lie. 'I've seen them. I've seen the images you've created of Julie upstairs.'
Still George was indignant. 'You ... you bloody snipe! You've got no right, no right at all.'
His anger was beginning to antagonize Tom, who pointed a finger across the desk. 'Listen. You've been using company property to access sites of a sadistic nature. If we turned that stuff over to the police, what do you think would happen?'
He paused to let the comment sink in.
Finally George broke eye contact, looking to the side and quietly saying, 'Sadistic, am I?'
Tom didn't know how to answer that comment, so he carried on in a more conciliatory tone. 'Look, George, we're not going to pass it on to the police. But I'm going to have to let you go.'
George stared at him, hatred in his face. 'You've destroyed my personal property and now you're sacking me?' He brooded for a second. 'What if I'm not prepared to go?'
Tom stood up. 'I'm not discussing this. Go upstairs and clear your desk or the police are getting involved.'
George didn't move. Tom knew he couldn't break eye contact, but the intensity of suppressed emotion emanating from the other man was unsettling him.
Suddenly George looked down and pressed a fist to his lips. Registering the anguish in the gesture, Tom knew he had won. 'Come on, I'll help you.'
Still avoiding eye contact, George got up. Silently they climbed the stairs. The solemn way they entered the room caused everyone to look up and watch. Tom stood awkwardly to one side as George unlocked his cabinet and removed his briefcase, jacket and tie. Next he pulled a plastic bag from his bottom drawer and began emptying the contents of his drawers into it.
Finally Ges stood up. 'George, Tom, what's happening?'
George kept his head down and Tom waved a silencing hand at Ges. 'If there's any other stuff we can come in at the weekend and sort it out,' said Tom quietly. He walked George back down the stairs and through to reception. As George went to leave, Tom steeled himself for the last thing he had to do. 'George, I'll need your key to the office.'
George stopped and remained still as if contemplating the comment. Tom could see tears in the corner of the other man's eyes as he slid a keyring from his pocket, extricated a key from the metal loop, then hurled it to the floor.
Tom was trawling through overhead variances on the monthly Purchase and Ledger analysis when he heard multiple footsteps coming down the stairs. Guessing what was going on, he kept the files open on his desk.
Julie knocked on the door a second later. Ges, Ed and Gemma were visible behind her.
'Tom,' Julie began hesitantly. 'We're going for a drink at The Church. A leaving drink actually...'
'Yes, I heard, 'Tom interrupted. 'Sorry I didn't have time to pop upstairs earlier.'
'Oh,' she replied, sounding disappointed. 'Some new account they've won down in London.' She looked at him to confirm the story.
'They didn't give me any details,' said Tom. 'Just said we're going to lose you. When is it that you...'
'Straight away. Well, tomorrow. My last night in that soulless hotel, thank God.'
Tom smiled. 'We'll miss you. Look.' He stood up and went over to her. 'I'll try and make it over, but I've got loads on, so if I don't ...'
He gave her a big hug and she used the opportunity to whisper in his ear, 'No job is worth your health, Tom. You take care of yourself.'
The comment left him at a loss for words. Was it that obvious he was under so much strain? Self-conscious now, he searched for an answer but she saved him the trouble. 'You know what? I enjoyed it here – the North isn't quite so grim as everyone makes out.'
Tom laughed. 'You take care.'
There was an awkward silence and Tom knew they were all waiting for him to explain what had happened earlier.
'By the way, George has left the company.'
Everyone stared at him, waiting for more information.
'He had been using work computers for his own business. Head office found some files and that was it, they wanted him out. Immediately.'
Ges let out a low whistle. 'What sort of files?'
'I don't know, to be honest,' Tom answered, making sure his glance missed Julie.
After they had all trooped out Tom waited for five minutes, then checked Sarah in reception had gone, too. Grabbing the keys to the works van from the cabinet behind her desk, he opened up the back door of the office and loaded the boxes of X-treme gum into the rear of the van. He had just opened the gates to the courtyard when he heard a footstep in the alleyway behind him. Turning round he saw George fixing him with a malevolent stare.
'You've got rid of Julie,' he announced flatly, all his plans ruined.
Needing time to think, Tom walked back to the storage room and wheeled a Cooper's Barrow into the back of the v
an. 'George, it doesn't concern you, but I haven't got rid of her. She's been called back down to London. They need her there.'
'Really?' he sneered. 'That's not just a ploy?'
A ploy. By using that word George was indicating he knew they were removing Julie from the equation before anything happened. Unable to believe the man's audacity, Tom said, 'I hate to think what you're getting at with that comment.' He shut the rear of the van and started walking round to the driver's door. 'Now, if you could step out of the way.'
'Why? Where are you taking that lot?'
'To the promotions company, 'Tom answered impatiently, hoping his tone would deter any further questions.
'At six forty in the evening?' George's eyes narrowed.
'Yes,' said Tom, unlocking the driver's door.
He had started the engine and put it into first gear when George knocked on the van's window. He wound it down halfway and George spoke quickly, barely audible over the chug of the diesel engine. 'Tell your wife she should draw the curtains when she's ironing at night. I can see straight in.'
Tom replayed the sinister implications of the comment in his head. By the time he'd got the van in neutral and jumped out, the man had vanished. 'You sick bastard,' he announced weakly to the empty alleyway.
By the time Tom had stacked all the boxes at the end of his garage and covered them with a large tarpaulin, it was after eight o'clock. Charlotte was out with some friends from her gym, not due back until late. He let himself into the house, opened a bottle of wine and went through to the living room.
Slumped on the sofa, he kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the coffee table, a glass of wine resting on his stomach. He had gone beyond exhausted to a state where he just felt hollowed out and zombie-like. He so desperately wanted to sleep but there was too much going round his head, too much going round his bloodstream.
Draining the glass, he poured another and then remembered that the work van was parked on the driveway and his Porsche was outside the office. Bollocks to it, he thought, deciding that he would return it early the next morning and no one apart from that twisted bastard George would be any the wiser. Creepy George. What was going on in that man's head? He'd seemed genuinely devastated by the news that Julie was going, as if he'd developed a real crush on her. He snorted. A crush was something teenagers or giddy adults experienced. Men like George didn't have crushes: they had obsessions. Dark and frightening ones.
Gulping down the second glass of wine, his thoughts turned to George's last comment. The bastard had been outside his house at some stage. He must have got his address from a computer file at work. Tom climbed the stairs and slid the shoebox out from under the bed. The man who delivered the gun didn't say a lot, other than to ask for his four hundred quid then show him how the safety catch worked. It looked like a small air pistol, almost toy-like in size.
George lurked in the shadows of the car park at The Church. He couldn't stand pubs. The smoke, the music, and worst of all, the women. Obscene in their make-up and short skirts, laughing loudly as they got more drunk. More confident. Looking at men, chatting with them, playing their flirtatious games. But never with him. Never with him.
Hands thrust deep into his anorak pockets, he crossed the car park and peered in through the window, fingers turning the packet of pills round and round. Julie was there, at a table with the rest of them. Red lips smiling, she got to her feet, circled a finger above everyone's glass, then set off for the bar.
He willed himself to go inside, knowing that it was his last chance. Maybe the others would get too drunk and go home. He constructed the scenario in his head; him and Julie the last to leave. Slipping the pill into her final bottle of beer, then – because he didn't drink – offering to drive her to the Ibis hotel. Her speech getting awkward, clever comments no longer on the tip of her tongue. Her losing control as she got out of the car. His car, with the briefcase in the boot. Helping her into the lift and up to her room. Getting her on to the bed and then waiting for her to pass out completely. The hours of fun he'd have with her.
Mere photographic images were leaving him less and less satisfied. And now he had the pills that would allow his fantasies to take place. But he couldn't go inside. A pub wasn't the place to put his plans into action. He would have to find another situation.
He thought about the women who allowed him to photograph them in their houses. In their bedrooms. It would be easy to drug the ones who posed on their own.
But even as the thought occurred to him, the image of Tom's wife teased him. Curtains open as she did the ironing in those tight vest tops. Urgently now, his fingers probed at the pills. She was a far more attractive prospect than the little strumpets who posed for cash.
Shivering with outrage at the ordeal he'd suffered at the hands of her husband, he knew something in his mind had altered for ever.
Chapter 17
July 2002
As soon as the alarm started beeping Tom hauled himself to a sitting position, legs over the side of the bed.
'Turn it off,' moaned Charlotte, pulling the duvet up around her head. He had no idea when she'd got in. Head all over the place, he blinked stupidly a few times before reaching over and pressing the off button.
Peeling his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he trudged like a sleepwalker through the archway and into their en-suite bathroom. He needed water. After gulping at the tap for a while, he filled the sink with cold water and plunged his head in, letting the iciness cut through the warm fog clogging his brain. Feeling slightly more awake, he rubbed a towel through his hair and went downstairs.
Two bottles of wine stood on the sideboard in the kitchen; one empty, one with a few inches left in the bottom. He stared at them, barely able to remember opening the second. Then he shuffled across the room and swigged the last of it down, to take the edge off his headache.
Forty minutes later he'd showered, scrubbed his teeth and forced a bowl of cornflakes down. At his front door he reached up to take his Porsche keys off the hook and saw an unfamiliar set hanging there. It took him a couple of seconds to remember that he'd driven home in the work van. With Charlotte still asleep, he let himself out of the front door without saying goodbye.
Immediately he noticed that his garage door was slightly open. 'I don't believe it,' he whispered, walking over and lifting it up.
'Thieving little bastards,' he cursed, staring at the tarpaulin. It had been half pulled off the stack of chewing gum boxes and he could see several were missing. After rearranging it, he went back into the house and called up the stairs. 'Charlotte! Those little shits have broken into the garage again. I'll phone the police from the office.'
There was no reply, so he said to himself, 'OK, well done Tom. See you later. I love you.'
At the end of the afternoon he checked with Sarah that his evening meal with the marketing people from Manchester airport was still on. 'OK, I'll need to pop home and change. Can you phone them and say I'll meet them at The Living Room at seven forty-five?'
'Fine,' answered Sarah. Before Tom got out of the door she added, 'Austen Rogers from X-treme called again, sounding very pissed off. He wants to know which promotions company is going to be handing out the X-treme gum at Piccadilly station. Shall I call him back?'
'No,' said Tom more forcefully than he meant to. 'I'll take care of it.'
The digital display on the side of Portland Tower had changed again. Now the countdown was complete, the lettering above the screen read, 'Bruntwood Welcomes All. 'The number on the screen had changed to '72' and the lettering below it read 'Commonwealth Nations.'
The pavement was alive with colour and activity as hundreds of people mingled through the city, many with plastic squares around their necks identifying them as Games officials. Sitting in his Porsche and taking long sips from a double espresso, Tom watched the crowds from behind his dark glasses. He took in the strange fashions and unfamiliar clothes: African men in loose-fitting shirts with green and gold patterns like the
ones favoured by Nelson Mandela, women with elaborate headdresses and long, flowing shawls. Young white women, hair tied back in sensible ponytails, red Maple leaf badges sewn onto their Jansport backpacks. Squarely built South Sea Islanders ambling along in American T-shirts. Men in yellow and green rugby tops, hair looking like it had been bleached by the sun.
Tom examined their happy, excited expressions and thought about the days he had to drag himself through.
Passing the official Commonwealth Games shop, he looked at the queue of people waiting for customers to come out so they could get in, and he thought about the sales projections the taxi driver had mentioned all those weeks ago. It looked like they would be comfortably met.
Once he had got past Sarah, he shut the door to Ian's old office behind him, gulped down the last of his coffee, then took a pinch of powder. Staring at his computer screen, he cursed the cleaner for fiddling with the monitor's brightness control. Turning the knob had little effect and it was only when he went to rub a hand over his face in frustration did he realize that his sunglasses were still on. Shaking his head, he took them off and the room suddenly brightened.
By late morning he was feeling a lot better. The last of the building wraps had gone up the day before and he'd even received a couple of emails from clients thanking him for all his work.
He was turning his attention to lunch when his phone went. It was Sarah. Although she was trying to sound cheery, he could detect a slightly strained note in her voice. 'Hi there, Tom. I have Austen Rogers from X-treme chewing gum in reception. He's just arrived at Piccadilly station but can't find the promotion there.'
Tom looked fearfully towards the door. 'He's in reception right now?'
'That's right.'
'OK, just give me two minutes. Get him a coffee or something.'
He hung up, waves of trepidation suddenly making him feel queasy. Darting through to the toilets, he fumbled for his little bag of powder while checking his reflection in the mirror. Not too bad