by Mark Eklid
‘No. No relation at all.’
Andreas’s face sank a little in disappointment.
‘Ah, pity. Anyway, the only Graham Hasselhoff I could find was in Derby and I found a link to an article in the local paper which said you worked in the library. It was something about the launch of a new service, from five or six years ago, maybe.’
‘I remember the one.’ The council PR people had insisted that he give them a full briefing about how the new service worked and had then sent out a press release which gave out false information. He had to deal with the after-effects of that one for months.
‘So, on one of my trips back from Southampton, I decided to call in on Derby Library to try to find you. The people at the main library in the centre pointed me across the road to the other one – what was it? Local studies? Used to be a court building, by the look of it inside.’
‘That’s right. It’s the former magistrates’ courts.’
‘The lady there was very helpful when I told her I was looking for you. She said to say hello but I can’t remember her name. Mousy little lady. Funny teeth.’
‘Nadeen.’
‘That’s the one. She said you didn’t work there anymore and that she wasn’t allowed to give out your details, so I thought I’d hit a dead end. But then she said I should look on the electoral register for an address and that she would show me how to do it. I had to join your library, though. I have a card and everything. I found your address and the rest was easy.’
Thanks, Nadeen. He hadn’t been able to face going back to the library to say hello since he left. Maybe it was time he did.
‘So when did you decide to leave the library?’
Graham shuffled in his seat. It was still a sore subject.
‘I kind of had the decision made for me. I got made redundant. There was another round of cuts at the council and they decided I was expendable, I guess. I work at a DIY warehouse now.’
‘OK. You’re a manager?’
‘A mere minion, I’m afraid.’
‘OK.’ The furrows on Andreas’s brow became more pronounced as he appeared to struggle with the concept of why anyone would want to take on such a job.
‘Is it ...good?’
‘No. It’s awful.’ There was no point trying to pretend. ‘It’s tedious work and a little piece of me dies every time I walk through the doors to start my shift, but it’s the only job I could get. I applied for all sorts of roles after the library let me go but nobody seemed to want to know. I knew I was comfortably capable of doing just about all the jobs I went for and I did go for quite a few interviews but, for whatever reason, it seemed to me that when employers saw my age it was the end of the story. I don’t know if they assume you’re just aiming to see out the rest of your days to retirement when you get to your mid-fifties but I got the impression nobody wanted to take me seriously and couldn’t see what I have to give. I mean, doesn’t life experience count for anything anymore? I’d tell them about what it entailed to effectively run the library operation myself – the organisational skills, the communication skills, budget management, dealing with the public – but I didn’t seem able to get them past whatever pre-conceived ideas they had. Maybe they just saw me as a useless, unambitious older bloke who spent his days stamping cards and getting in a fluster whenever anybody put a book back on the shelf out of alphabetical order, but I got rejection after rejection until the redundancy money started to run out and I had to take whatever I could get. So that’s what I do now. I do a dreary job in a vast, soul-destroying warehouse, but it pays the bills so I grit my teeth and get on with it.’
He had never vented his feelings like that to anyone, apart from Janet, and he had not even let her know just how unhappy working at the DIY store made him. That would not have been fair. He was glad to have vocalised what had been building up within him for months, but it made him feel self-indulgent. Andreas may be his child but he hardly knew the man. He shouldn’t have been so forthright.
‘Sorry for the rant.’
Andreas stared back at him, impassively. There was silence between them. Graham’s discomfiture grew. It might be time to make an excuse and head home, but he was frozen in the scrutiny of that stare.
Andreas drew a deep sigh.
‘You must come to work for me.’ The tone left no room for discussion. It caught Graham totally off-guard.
‘That’s very kind but I wasn’t trying to ...’
‘No.’ Andreas held up the palm of his hand to silence the dissent. ‘You must come to work for me. I need a new transport administrator and you can do that role.’
‘Transport administrator? I really don’t know anything about your business. What would I have to do?’ Graham’s heart was thudding in his chest. He did not know whether to put that down to excitement or raw panic.
‘You will organise the drivers’ rotas, communicate with the customers to make sure the deliveries are made on time and to the right place, book driver cover through the agencies, keep the transport management system updated – we can teach you. It’s basically a communication and organisation job. You will be good at it. And your wife ...’ He paused for the necessary prompt.
‘Janet.’
‘Janet. She must come to work for me too. What can she do?’
Graham was caught in a whirlwind. It was irresistible.
‘Err, office work – secretarial, office management, that sort of thing.’
Andreas clapped his hands, startling all four of the other customers on the upper level of the coffee shop.
‘Perfect! I need someone I can rely on to work on the administration side. Janet can work with the finance manager and with me. The business is going to grow and soon we will need more assistance. It is done. I own several properties in the area and you can live in one of them, rent-free, of course. This is perfect!’
Graham was incapable of raising an objection, even if he had wanted to. It had escalated so quickly that it had swept him away like a storm surge.
‘Andreas, really, this is ...I’ll have to talk to Janet before I could ...’
‘Of course, of course!’ With an exaggerated flourish of his arm, Andreas took a stern look at his watch and gulped down another mouthful of coffee.
‘Talk to her. Think it through and then get back to me to let me know when you can both start. I will see to the rest. I have to go now.’
He shot to his feet.
‘This is perfect. You and Janet will come to work for me and we will be a family business again.’
Graham stirred from his dazed state and rose, lifting his arm in anticipation of a handshake, but suddenly found himself grasped in a bear hug which squeezed the air from his lungs and knocked his glasses crooked.
Andreas released him, utterly unapologetic for the unannounced physical intervention, and beamed, holding the bemused figure in front of him with large paws clasping his upper arms.
‘Perfect!’ he said and spun on his heels to head for the stairs.
6
The yard was much more brightly lit than last time. No doubt about that. He spotted cameras where there hadn’t been any last time too. At least he had caught their attention enough to make them feel the need to step up their security, but they hadn’t heeded the warning.
That was stupid of them. They would have to pay for that. They will have to take us seriously sometime soon or they’ll regret it.
They had a security guard on permanent watch now as well. That made it more of a challenge but he was not concerned. One fat security man was not going to stop him.
Even if the guard did happen to look up from his grubby porno magazine to the monitor at the precise moment the attack came, by the time the police were alerted it would be too late. He would have already disappeared into the night.
The security guard was out in the yard now. He had just completed a circuit of the perimeter fence, occasionally shining his torch in the direction of a rustle in the trees or a perceived movement in the shadows, an
d was rewarding himself for his vigilance by sneaking a cigarette.
He stood, nonchalantly blowing plumes of smoke up towards the inky black of the night sky. The only light above them came from the pin-prick of stars and the pale slither of a crescent moon, so that looking out from where the security guard had chosen to have his cigarette he must have been able to see nothing beyond the artificial bright illumination of the arc lights. The perimeter fence might as well be marking the edge of the world.
There was no way he could detect the danger which lurked a few yards past the fence and into the void. No way.
The figure in black leaned against the thick trunk of a tree, patiently watching and waiting, as the security guard made the most of his last moments in the sultry summer night air, taking a final drag and tossing the stub to the ground before extinguishing it with a twist of his boot, then meandering slowly back towards the back door of the main block.
This is it. Time to move. At the pace that guy is moving, it will be all over by the time he reaches his screens.
The figure in black squatted to open the bag by his side and pulled out two bottles three-quarters full of pale yellow liquid. He unscrewed the caps on both and pushed in the rolled-up rags to soak up the liquid, placing them carefully on the ground as he took out the lighter from his coat pocket.
He picked up the first bottle and carefully held the ignited lighter underneath the exposed portion of rag still sticking out of the neck until it caught alight and wisps of black smoke snaked from the bright yellow-orange of the flame. He then hurled it over the fence towards the lone trailer closest to his corner of the yard.
The lit bottle flickered through the air and splintered with a bright flash and a bang only a foot or so short of the trailer, the pool of flaming liquid instantly spreading underneath and over its target.
Quickly, he picked up and lit the rag of the second bottle and then cast it towards the other end of the trailer. It too exploded just where he wanted it to.
The fire was already catching and spreading up the fabric of the trailer side where the first bottle had landed. Soon, the tyres at the rear of the trailer were circles of flame.
Only one more thing to do.
He reached into the bag again and took out a large stone with a folded sheet of paper wrapped around it, fixed by thick grey tape. He threw that, too, over the perimeter fence but further than the blazing trailer; into the centre of the yard where it might be easily seen.
It was meant to be found.
They had better take us seriously now.
7
‘What happened there, then?’
Graham shielded his eyes from the sun and was peering towards the charred skeleton of a trailer, the concrete ground blackened beneath it, in the corner of a depot yard on an industrial estate just off the main road connecting the M1 and the centre of Sheffield.
It had been just over a week since he had walked away from the coffee shop meeting with Andreas as disorientated as if he had been forced into an oil drum and rolled down an exceptionally steep hill.
The walk back to the bus stop was nowhere near long enough for him to process either the life-changing offer made, apparently on a moment of whim, or the decidedly erratic behaviour of the man he had, in part, been responsible for bringing into the world. If he had no idea what to make of either development, what chance was there of adequately explaining what went on to Janet?
Having almost missed his stop and dismissed a fleeting notion, when he reached the end of Seathwaite Street, to walk on and buy a little more time instead of heading straight home, Graham resolved to limit his report of the meeting to the life-changing offer and to save telling her about his son’s strange foibles for another day.
He reckoned putting the notion that they might want to consider giving up their jobs and move to a different city on the promise of a man who was, only a few days earlier, completely unknown to either of them was enough for Janet to think about for now.
It was.
Janet was less than enthusiastic. Initially, at least. Not unreasonably, Graham readily conceded, she was reluctant to consider leaving her home in the city where she had lived all her life, putting distance between herself, family and friends and giving up a job that, for all its occasional frustrations, was one that she was very good at and actually quite enjoyed, on the whole.
Sacrifice all that for what? Working at a truck company? What do either of us know about truck companies? What do either of us know about Andreas? These jobs might not even exist. I mean, I know he says he’s your son, but what do we know about him really? Nothing. No, Graham, it’s a ridiculous idea. I might have been more willing to take this kind of gamble 20 years ago, but not now. Not at our time of life.
He allowed her to say her piece without interruption. That was not difficult because she was merely vocalising the nagging doubts that had been rattling around his own mind for the last hour or so, but their view did differ on one important point.
Janet could not see beyond what she had to lose. Graham could already see the possibilities for gain. He had less to lose.
Sure, he loved their home, he was perfectly content in Derby, he got on fine with the in-laws and he quite liked most of their mutual friends.
But his job. He hated his job. He hated how it made him feel unvalued and unfulfilled. He hated how the balance of his life had been tipped uncomfortably closer to the realisation that he was stumbling towards its last phase without any great purpose. He hated the fear that he had been stripped of his usefulness.
He liked the prospect of taking on a new role that would challenge him again. Make him feel alive again.
So after readily accepting that Janet would be giving up the most, if the offer proved legitimate and if they decided to give it a go, he felt it not too overwhelmingly selfish to remind his wife that he had craved an opportunity such as this ever since the council made him redundant and that the apparent reluctance of employers to consider him worthy of such an opportunity elsewhere had led to a pretty bleak few months. For both of them.
Janet was well aware of that, of course. Her indignation abated. She fell quiet.
Graham suggested they take a little time to find out more. Think it over. She nodded.
As a first step, he suggested they both meet Andreas. Go for a meal, maybe. She thought that would be a good idea.
Graham was actually less convinced it was a good idea, though he knew it was absolutely the right thing to do, as a first step.
What if Andreas put on as eccentric a display as he had in the coffee shop? Janet would not like that. It would put her completely off the idea of working with him. Or having anything at all to do with him, for that matter. He knew what she was like. She didn’t like volatility.
He needn’t have worried.
They went out for a Thai meal. Andreas was charm personified. He told them about the business and the roles he had in mind for the two of them. He offered salaries that were better than either of them were currently on. He insisted on picking up the bill and would hear nothing of their protests that they should split it. Janet took to him straight away. What a lovely man, she said later.
Graham was bemused. Pleasantly so, but bemused. Andreas was nothing like as odd as he had been at the coffee place.
Perhaps that was a one-off. Perhaps they had both been a little on edge. Maybe, in his over-sensitive edgy state, he had read too much into Andreas’s behaviour. Maybe.
Either way, Janet was sufficiently encouraged to suggest that Graham take up an offer to go and have a look around the depot when he next had a day off. So he did.
Andreas peered towards the burnt-out trailer and scowled. ‘We were attacked.’ Bitterness pierced his tone.
‘It is the second time. Someone has a grudge against us.’
‘Christ!’ Graham stared at the wrecked trailer again, in a different light now. ‘Do you know who did it?’
Andreas reached into his back pocket for his wallet. ‘I hav
e a good idea.’ He took out a folded, crumpled piece of paper bearing a printed message in large bold type and handed it over.
YOU KNEW THERE WOULD BE CONSEQUENCES
STOP IMMEDIATELY
THIS IS A FINAL WARNING
Graham re-read it, though the message was plain enough first time.
‘Christ! What do they mean? What do they want you to stop doing?’
Andreas took back the sheet, refolded it and put it back into his wallet.
‘There is another transport company operating not far from here. It is run by a bastard called Doug Bentley. He and my pappa were great competitors, though his company has never been anything like as successful as ours. He is a very jealous man and now he realises that I intend to take business away from him by expanding into the areas my pappa used to allow him to control. I don’t intend to be as kind as my pappa and now this Bentley is trying to scare me but I do not scare easily. If he wants a fight, I will give him a fight.’
The menace in his words unnerved Graham. It was clearly already a serious situation and he did not like the thought that it might get worse.
‘Surely this is a matter for the police to handle.’
Andreas’s expression registered his disapproval at the suggestion.
‘I don’t trust the police. They interfere. The police are involved only to satisfy the insurance people but this is not a matter for them to resolve. You see, when you are confronted by a playground bully, what do you do? If you go running to tell the teacher you are only making it worse for the next time. No. The only way to deal with a playground bully is to stand up to him, face to face, make him back down and, if necessary, trade blows. Make him realise you cannot be intimidated. This is what I will do with Bentley.’
He read the alarm in the face opposite him.
‘But do not worry.’ He clapped his large hand on Graham’s shoulder. ‘I will not do anything foolish but I will settle this business, man to man, and Bentley will pay for the damage he has done. Enough of this! Let us continue with the tour. Have you ever been in the cab of one of these excellent trucks?’