Family Business

by Mark Eklid

  Lena Christopoulos. What might have been?

  ‘That was taken only three years ago. It’s how I will always remember her.’

  The pain of separation was plain in Andreas’s voice and his gaze drifted to the place elsewhere, where fond memories are still alive.

  ‘She looks so different to how I had her in my mind’s eye and yet I still think I would have recognised her. She looks like she had a very happy life,’ Graham offered, still staring deeply at the picture. He passed it back to Andreas, breaking the spell.

  ‘She was the heart of our family.’ Andreas accepted the picture back and put it carefully in its place. ‘Pappa adored her. I adored her. I take comfort from knowing that they were together right at the end.’

  Graham remained reverently quiet as the words lingered in the air. It would not have been right to say anything more.

  ‘Anyway, I owe you an explanation. Please sit down.’ Andreas gestured towards the chair again, less extravagantly this time.

  ‘I spoke to the letting agent about the man who had the Unstone property before you.’

  Graham sat. He was keen to know what had been learned.

  ‘Anthony Verity.’ As he repeated the name Graham felt the shuddering impact of the words again - as they had been barked into his face earlier that morning by the policeman.

  ‘I never met the man myself, but the lady who handles my properties says his credentials checked out fine, he paid on time and never caused an issue. He took out a one-year lease, which he decided not to renew, and left the property in the condition it was in when he first moved in. She said he was a model tenant. Now, whether or not his credentials were fake is up to our friends in the police to establish but I don’t think we will be seeing Mr Verity again. It will be interesting to find out what sort of business he was involved in to justify breaking down the door to get him, but enough of that. How are you now?’

  It was not the explanation Graham was hoping for. He imagined Andreas must have had some sort of personal contact with Verity and would have been able to offer more of an insight into who he was. His curiosity had not been satisfied, but that was the way it was sometimes. He knew that very well. The full picture is not always clear right at the start.

  ‘We were both fine by the time we had a cup of tea and the chance to take a breath. It was just the initial shock, you know? We’re fine now.’

  ‘I’ve just been through to see Janet,’ Andreas added. ‘She’s being shown around and told where everything is by Ken Arnold, our finance manager. He’s a good guy, Ken. He’s been with the company since before my pappa took over and he knows this business inside out but, actually, it looked as if Janet was showing him how everything was done!’

  Graham laughed. That did sound like Janet.

  ‘She’s very efficient and she picks things up quickly. I didn’t think it would take her long.’

  ‘Marvellous!’ Andreas clapped his hands joyfully and with such a slap that the noise reverberated around the office.

  ‘I told Janet that I insist both of you come for a meal with me on Friday night, so we can get to know each other a little better and so I can show you how grateful I am for being so understanding after the unfortunate business this morning.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you but ...’

  ‘I insist!’ There was no room for negotiation in the tone. ‘I have to go to Southampton for a few days from tomorrow, but I will be back on Thursday. I will make the arrangements.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Further resistance would plainly have been wasted.

  ‘But I have kept you from your duties for long enough. I will be getting you in trouble. Tell me, how are you finding my Rottweiler?’

  Graham was confused for a moment but swiftly realised he must be referring to Rebecca. He thought it might not be a good idea to show that he had understood the reference too quickly so he held his tongue.

  ‘That’s what the drivers call her, you know. She can be a little formidable but, let me tell you, she is an excellent depot manager. I wish I had another like her in Southampton.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll get along fine.’ He judged that a reasonably neutral response.

  ‘But the best of it is that she makes me look like I am the good guy!’ Andreas threw himself back in his seat and clapped his hands together again, laughing far too enthusiastically at his own joke.

  ‘I’ll get back then. Have a good trip.’

  Graham smiled and rose to go, leaving Andreas still marvelling at his own wit.

  10

  Janet flicked over another page. He wasn’t keeping an accurate tally but that was probably the third or fourth occasion she had turned over a page of her crime novel in the time he had spent staring at the same page of his biography. It was no reflection on the merit or demerits of either book.

  Graham had been bothered by it all afternoon, churning over the information in his mind and trying not to leap to conclusions, but it was hard to stay away from his darker assessment. Something was just not right. It was far from a fully formed theory and the evidence was much less than compelling but neither could the worst be dismissed. He was concerned. He had to talk it through with her.

  ‘You know that thing with the police at work this morning?’ he asked, tentatively.

  She stopped reading and put the novel down on her lap, open but pages down to make sure she did not lose her place, then took off her reading glasses.

  ‘Yes – what was all that about? They came to see me in the office and wanted to know where we were on Friday, who was there, what time we got there, what time we left – I thought it was going to be about that business with the man who had the house before us, but they never even mentioned that.’

  He nodded. The police had put the same questions to him and no doubt they left with the same answers from both he and Janet. The three of them went to a restaurant called the Bengal Tiger in the centre of Sheffield for the meal Andreas had insisted he would treat them to. They got there about 7.15 and Andreas turned up five minutes later. They had a very nice chat and a really good meal, popped next door to the Frog and Parrott for another pint afterwards, started to feel a bit full and irritated by how lary the gang of lads at the bar were getting, ordered taxis and left separately at around 10.15.

  Why do you ask?

  I’m afraid we cannot discuss that with you at the moment, sir, but thank you for your time.

  But he had to know, so, half an hour after the police left, he found an excuse to go to see Andreas, to ask what it was about.

  ‘Agh!’ he responded with a dismissive wave of his hand and contempt in his tone. ‘They have nothing better to do with their time and our money.’

  ‘But what did they want?’

  He pulled a face and tossed his pen down on the desk, making plain his irritation with their intrusion and his reluctance to discuss it further, but Graham stood his ground.

  ‘It was about that bastard Bentley,’ he said at last.

  Graham had to think who Bentley was at first, but then he remembered. The rival Andreas blamed for the arson attack on the depot.

  ‘Apparently, somebody assaulted him on Friday night and he told the police that I had been to see him and had threatened him.’

  Graham hoped his eyes had not physically widened but, internally, he was certainly alarmed.

  ‘And did you? Threaten him, I mean.’

  ‘Noooo,’ Andreas answered emphatically. ‘Not really, anyway,’ he added, a little less emphatically.

  ‘I went to see him to see if he would be man enough to admit that he was behind the two fires at the depot and to demand that he pays for the damage. He denied all knowledge – of course he did – but I didn’t expect any different with a snake like that. Then I might have suggested that this would not be the end of the matter. That’s all. But how could I have assaulted him when I spent a delightful Friday in the company of you and Janet? It’s ridiculous to suggest I would soil my hands on that maggot.’

&n
bsp; Graham tried to appear as if he had accepted the explanation and made noises to support the supposed ridiculousness of any suggestion that Andreas had carried out the assault but something did not sit right. For sure, no-one can be in two places at once but still there was that nagging thought.

  He told Janet about what Andreas had said to him and she listened intently.

  ‘But he was with us all night. He couldn’t possibly have beaten up this man.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘And if the police have been told that this Bentley might be behind the fires at the depot, shouldn’t they be investigating him? Sounds to me like he got his comeuppance.’

  Graham sighed and retrieved his bookmark from the bedside cabinet. He was not going to read any more tonight.

  ’I’m not certain Andreas has even told the police about who he thinks was behind the fires.’

  He told her about the note in the wallet. Important evidence, surely, if the police were to be able to do their job properly.

  ‘I get the impression he doesn’t trust the police. I get a nasty feeling that Andreas is the type who would prefer to take the law into his own hands.’

  ‘Oh!’ Janet considered the point. ‘But if this Bentley ...’

  ‘And that’s another thing. As far as I’m aware, Andreas hasn’t got any evidence to suggest it was Bentley, apart from a hunch. There was nothing on the note to say who was responsible. Look, I don’t know who Bentley is and I don’t know if he’s the type that would do such a thing as order an arson attack on a rival, but he says it wasn’t him. I know you can argue that he’s hardly likely to admit it, but if there is a dispute between them and it means that much to him why would he not want to confront Andreas about it when they are face to face? It just feels to me like Andreas is leaping to conclusions and I’m concerned that he’s spoiling for some sort of war with Bentley when he can’t be sure Bentley was behind the fires.’

  ‘But he was with us on Friday night.’

  ‘I know – but doesn’t that strike you as a bit convenient? This may be an unfair thing to suggest, but did he ask us out for a meal so that he would have an alibi in place?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Gray!’

  ‘Just hear me out. It can’t have been him who assaulted Bentley but could he have fixed up somebody to do it for him? Think about the guy who lived here before us. As you said yourself, the police don’t do dawn raids to nab traffic offenders, so lord knows what he was mixed up in. Andreas said he had no personal dealings with this Verity, but what if he did know him? At the end of the day, we know nothing about Andreas and the sort of company he keeps.’

  Janet wore her best look of disapproval. He knew it well.

  ‘How can you say such a thing about your own son? He’s not like that. I don’t know how you can say such a thing.’

  He shrugged. ‘You’re right. I’m probably being really unfair because he’s done so much for us in the short time we’ve known him and I don’t want to sound ungrateful but I’ve got to get this off my chest. You’ve not really seen him as I’ve seen him. He always turns on the charm when he’s with you, but some of the things he says and does disturb me sometimes. I couldn’t say what it is. I can’t put my finger on it but there’s something about Andreas that’s not right. It’s like there’s a side to his personality that he doesn’t want anyone to see, but glimpses of it come to the surface every now and again and then he pushes it back into the shadows. I’d like to believe that he’s not capable of something like ordering this assault but I can’t be certain.’

  There was doubt now in her mind. She knew her husband’s instincts didn’t often betray him.

  ‘Was he badly hurt, Bentley – in the attack?’

  ‘I went online this afternoon and it was in The Star. He was out walking his dog, apparently. The police are calling it an unprovoked attack and are appealing for witnesses, that sort of thing. They said nothing was taken but couldn’t rule out robbery as the motive. But yes, it sounded like he took a bit of a beating. Enough to have to spend a night in hospital anyway.’

  ‘Oh my god!’

  ‘I know. Nasty.’

  Janet pulled the duvet to her chest, as if feeling a sudden chill.

  ‘So what is it that you’ve seen to make you say those things about Andreas?’

  Graham contemplated for a moment, trying to compose his response properly.

  ‘It’s mostly little things,’ he said. ‘He can be a bit erratic, impetuous, in what he says and how he behaves, like he’s a bit of a loose cannon. I get the impression he’s capable of great generosity, like he’s shown us since we first met, but I just feel like he’s a man who experiences huge emotional swings and I wonder what he’s capable of at the other end of the spectrum. I’m not saying he’s a psychopath or anything but I do wonder if he’s got it in him to be a little bit ...dangerous. That might be going too far.

  ‘There are other bits I’ve picked up on. Zoe told me him and his dad used to have blazing rows, regularly, for a few months before the car accident. Well, she said it was only Andreas they could hear from down the corridor, yelling about how the old man was stuck in the past, holding the company back, couldn’t see what needed to be done – that sort of thing – and then he would storm out of the depot with a face like thunder and not be seen for a few days. She said it could be quite frightening to see and hear him like that but then he’d come back and it’d be as if nothing had happened. She reckoned Lena was the one who always got him back on the straight and narrow. She was his calming influence. Zoe said they thought it would really hit him hard, the car accident, especially losing his mother, but she said he was in the office every day after it happened. He even came in later in the afternoon on the day of the funeral.

  ‘This week as well.’ Graham shuffled to sit more upright in the bed. It felt good to be getting this out into the open. ‘Did you hear that he sacked Chris Yates?’

  ‘Who’s Chris Yates?’

  ‘One of the drivers. Been with the company for years. I’ve not seen much of him myself because he’s one of the trampers.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘A tramper. It’s what they call a driver who does the long-distance runs and more or less lives in the cab. I don’t think it’s a very complimentary term, but the drivers who do those runs seem to love it, for whatever reason. Chris Yates did some of the continentals, you know, going over to mainland Europe, and Sparky said he was very reliable – hardly ever missed a drop time, seemed very happy with the lifestyle. Anyway, word came through that Andreas had sacked him. Rebecca looked like she knew what was going on when she came in to tell us why we suddenly needed to fix up agency cover for his shifts, but it shocked everybody else. I don’t know if he was on the fiddle or what but nobody saw it coming.’

  ‘How odd. Is that going to leave you short of drivers?’

  ‘Well, as it turns out, your boss might have come to the rescue there.’

  ‘Ken Arnold?’

  ‘Yeah. Apparently he knows somebody – friend of his son-in-law or something like that – who’s got the full HGV class one and has been doing some freelance driving and is looking for something more secure. He’s coming in to see Rebecca next week.’

  ‘That sounds like a good solution.’

  ‘Hope so – but getting rid of Chris Yates like that, it’s strange. All these little signs start to add up.’

  Janet picked up the book off her lap and marked her page with the bookmark to her side.

  ‘I get what you’re saying, Gray, but I think you might be looking into all this too deeply. Maybe Andreas is just a bit different. We can’t all be the same and just because he’s a bit more up and down than most it doesn’t make him dangerous or the type of man who would hire a thug to beat someone up. We hardly know the guy yet. You’ll get to know his ways and then you’ll start to understand that how he acts might not be normal but it’ll be normal for Andreas. We can’t all be as sturdy and reliable as you, you know.’
r />   She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘I’m going to get some sleep, love. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.’

  She turned over to switch off the bedside lamp and settled beneath the duvet.

  Graham took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  Maybe she’s right. She usually was.

  He was glad he told her. Keeping his thoughts to himself had merely amplified them in his mind but their power now dissipated into the air like gases in a pressurised jar once the seal of the lid had been broken.

  He set down the glasses on the bedside cabinet and turned off his light, staying upright in the darkness for a short while yet, as if to allow his rational brain to fully regain control.

  She was probably right.

  **********

  The rain had been pounding down all day but there was no more putting it off. Graham was needed out in the depot yard and that was that.

  The wind bent his borrowed umbrella so fiercely, as soon as he stepped through the door, that it practically swallowed him like a carnivorous plant consuming an unwary fly and it lashed cold rain against his legs, wetting his trousers as suddenly as if a passing bus had splashed through a huge puddle.

  He swore under his breath and leaned forward, driving himself into the gusts, short step by short step. The sound of the bullet drops of rain battering the overwhelmed umbrella canopy filled his ears, drowning out even the howl of the wind, but there was one other sound.

  It was a voice.

  ‘Hey!’

  Graham was so consumed by the task of trying to keep his cover intact for long enough to get him to where he needed to be that the voice did not register in his consciousness at first but there it was again.

  ‘Hey, you!’

  He looked up, as much as he dare. The rain had managed to find a way under, over or through the umbrella enough to spatter against his glasses but he could make out a vague figure, standing beside the open gate which led out to the industrial estate.