John Eider - Late of the Payroll

With that the three men left, leaving only the manager, a broken man, reputation soon to be stripped from him, behind to lock up, while pondering the calamity apparent before him.

Grey himself pondered as he walked: How long do you feed the goose before you decide it isn’t going to lay a golden egg? Foy had kept feeding and feeding, and no gold was glimmering amongst the hay on that barnyard floor. Whether or not he lost his job over such a bad investment — would his bosses even judge he had done anything wrong? — the man Grey had seen that evening would never manage another bank. He had early retirement written all over him. And how much tougher would it be for any enterprise dealing with what was bound to be a younger, harder replacement? Grey could only be thankful he weren’t himself a businessperson in these straightened times.

It was still not time for turning in though, thought Graham Rase, hot footing it, at getting on for eight thirty in the now, to the one building bar the twenty-four hour garage on the edge of town that had a light burning any time of day or night. The face he nodded to behind the desk in the foyer had changed with the starting of the night shift, as had most of those in the office, as he let himself through the security doors and along to the mess room, where the officers and support staff his Sergeant and he worked with were based.

He was greeted though by one face still there from earlier, that of their administrative support officer Sarah Cobb. She had headphones on and was typing furiously as she smiled across at him,

‘Just transcribing the interview with Mrs Long,’ she said, reminding Grey he really ought to get around to reading that tomorrow, not that there could be very much of interest that Cori hadn’t already summarised for him.

Sarah turned to her notes, and quickly ran through the few developments there had been since he was last here: how they had tried Thomas Long’s mobile number, but that it seemed to be ringing out unanswered; meanwhile there were still no signs of life at Larry Dunn’s house, nor any sightings of his Land Rover, despite all officers being on the lookout; and finally, that a televised press conference, and an interview with the Inspector for the local news network, had been arranged for first thing in the morning.

Grey pondered these not particularly inspiring facts at the same time as admiring Sarah’s dedication in staying behind to help, what with so much happening today on top of her usual duties,

‘Thank you for this, I hope you didn’t have anything exciting planned for this evening,’ he asked with genuine concern for her young social life.

‘Oh, nothing special, just a drink with a girlfriend. I can still get there for nine.’ He had noticed this before, the young not even getting ready to go out until his evening would be half over; especially on a Friday, they arriving in town at ten and even eleven o’clock. He blamed the licensing laws and the surfeit of energy you carry at that age — just wait till you hit thirty, he thought, when you’ll hardly want to get up of the sofa after coming home from work. But then he felt sad, for he remembered something else, for hadn’t she recently been..?

‘Oh, yes,’ she answered as he asked, ‘I was seeing someone, but we broke up.’ Again she startled him, this time by smiling at such sad news. How did women do that, he asked himself, talk of death and illness and break-ups with beaming faces? There was some instinct in them, he decided, wanting even at their unhappiest moments to reassure the world they were okay, and not leave anyone obliged to have to feel pity for them. Men wouldn’t do this, he reflected, they would want the pity, want the world mourning their bad luck. The poet was right, he thought, women are really much nicer than men.

‘He has an offer of a job in Cambridge,’ she continued momentarily. ‘And, well I don’t know, but I felt he took it a bit too much for granted that where he led I would follow.’

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Grey found himself speaking before thinking. ‘Just go with him, don’t worry about this place.’

The young woman was taken aback; but her quick-returning smile let Grey know he hadn’t overstepped any mark, ‘Sir, you’re my boss. You’re not supposed to tell me things like that!’

‘I’m not your boss, Rose is all of our’s boss, and he’d be out of here himself tomorrow if they’d give him early retirement. But don’t tell anyone I told you that.’

Sarah smiled at the shared confidence,

‘Heard from Cori?’ asked Grey, the answer not greatly important perhaps, but good to keep tabs.

‘She was here herself until an hour ago, writing up her notes on the man you were interviewing at the factory.’

‘Yes, yes of course.

‘And then she said she’d pop over to see the Longs on her way home.’

‘Right, well that was good of her,’ he knowing it was well out of her way to do so. ‘Well, I’ll be off too then, if you don’t need me?’

‘That’s fine, Sir. I won’t be long here,’ answered Sarah readjusting her headset.

‘As long as you aren’t. That’s wonderful, and thank you too for doing this tonight.’

‘No problem, Sir. Goodnight.’

The letters issued briskly from her fingers as she darted through the dialogue of the interview, the sooner it was transcribed the sooner she could get on from here and on to her night of feminine conversation and alcoholic enjoyments, and if she were lucky, perhaps a fumble with someone not-intolerable-looking on the dancefloor of Bleachers, the town’s current hot spot.

‘The lucky young,’ he mumbled.

‘What was that, sir?’ she asked brightly, lifting her headphones slightly.

‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, embarrassed to have the words heard out loud. ‘Well, goodnight,’ and with that he was off.

He didn’t fancy a nightcap himself, for he found drink’s appeal relied on there having been a sufficient gap since the resulting grogginess of the last time. He liked to visualise a pint as fresh, cool, and clean going down; and not tainted by remembrances of dry throat, odd dreams, and on the really bad occasions that awful seasickness where his bed felt like a life-raft. Yet it was to the Prince Hal public house where he was headed,

‘Drink, Grey?’

‘Not tonight, Bill. Just showing my face. How’s your sister?’

The wellbeing of the landlord’s family assured, and the time of day passed, talk turned to the encounter of two nights before,

‘Whatever’s happening at that plant, it’s got to be bad to get ‘em in that kind of a state on a Monday night!’ Bill shook his head slowly. ‘They were in here yesterday too.’

‘Oh, I didn’t see them.’

‘No, Janice said you’d been in earlier. It was just the two of them though, Larry and Chris. That loudmouth Larry was chundering on again apparently, as aggrieved as if someone has just slapped his wife.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Grey, the job taking over.

‘Oh, we had it all again on Tuesday, Janice was telling me, how “If Aubrey takes this place down then I’m taking him down with it”. Nothing very original, I’m afraid.’

‘An unhappy man.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘They didn’t give her any trouble?’

Bill gave Grey a look of disbelief, as if any mere man could trouble his combative barmaid,

‘She told that chap Dunn that if he didn’t button his lip that instant, then she’d call Alex Aubrey to come over here and button it for him. I tell you, it may not bother her none, but I was getting a bit sick of hearing what she’d had to put up with.

‘His mate Chris will be back here in a bit actually; but he’ll be with his other mates, thank God.’

‘What other mates?’