OK Ch. 19-22

Chapter Nineteen

Sunday 25 November Heathrow Airport.

How John hated Heathrow Airport! Normally the crowds were unbearable, but at five in the morning on a Sunday in Winter life was relatively quiet and the arrival process brief. He had expected the intense security at Johannesburg airport, compared with which his arrival at Heathrow Passport control had indeed been trouble free.

He had become used to high temperatures, and had left South Africa in early Summer which was considerably warmer than so-called high summer in Britain. Now he had arrived in early Winter, and the plane had landed in pouring rain and in the dark after an eleven hour flight from Johannesburg. Thankfully John had travelled Upper Class and had managed a night's sleep, though he felt far from rested.

He picked up his baggage with little delay and walked through customs unmolested. From there a taxi ride to the company flat saw him eating a breakfast of muesli and scrambled egg on toast with wonderful tea by eight, and feeling warmed as the central heating made its presence felt.

The rain continued to fall steadily from heavy dark grey clouds. He blessed Maurice, or, he suspected Paula more likely, for organising the flat for him and providing a full fridge to welcome him home after nearly four months away, thus saving him getting drenched searching for supplies in local shops on a Sunday.

--

He settled into an armchair and as he revelled in the comfort of the heated flat, feeling relieved the ordeal was over, his thoughts ran idly over the previous four months.

Had it been a success? What had been gained? He had uncovered a clever fraud and caught the two fraudsters who had been cheating FHD for five years while exploiting a Philippine company almost to bankruptcy.

The fraudsters were both senior executives in FHD, Fredericks and Curran, Fredericks being responsible for liaison and tendering with the far eastern companies with whom FHD traded, while Curran was accounts executive at home.

Further, Fredericks and Curran were responsible to Steven Matterson, who had the overall brief for trade with Pacific Rim companies among others. He was effectively second in command to Sir Maurice.

As a result, for the first time in FHD's history as far as he knew, the two senior executives had been sacked for criminal fraud and had been arrested, along with a number of others in their offices.

Further, Steven Matterson had resigned and was also being investigated. That event had rocked the company and John knew it had called into question Sir Maurice Callaghan's position as CEO. The share price had fallen dramatically for a short time before climbing again as traders stopped panicking.

There followed John's measures to rescue the Philippine company that Fredericks had been bleeding, which took another two months, and involved bringing in specialist advisors from London.

While this was in progress, John was able to begin the task of looking for suitable companies in South Africa which FHD could develop as suppliers. As executive officer, he needed to return to Manilla from time to time to monitor progress and authorise decisions in the Philippines.

What still intrigued John was how the pair had succeeded for so long unchecked. Though they were senior executives they were still responsible to Steven Matterson. Did Matterson never personally contact the companies with whom FHD traded? From the enquiries he had made while there, the answer was no.

It struck John that Sir Maurice Callaghan had ensured that no one, not even Matterson had been privy to John's investigation. Did Sir Maurice have suspicions about his second in command? John realised that no one in the company, apart from Paula, Maurice's secretary, knew about his task.

John reflected that It had been a mixture of greed and arrogance that had caught Fredericks and Curran. If they had been content with a minimal markup, say half a percent, the tame Philippine company would have been able to make reliable units and the fraud may well have gone undetected for years more. The fraudsters would still have raked in sizeable sums, probably eventually into millions, but they wanted more and quickly.

--

Outside the flat, the rain continued to patter on the window, so he made himself some coffee and settled down to review the rest of the assignment, to reconnoitre sites in South Africa as another source of bespoke items. By contrast that task was simple. He smiled.

He shivered as he recalled the gruelling journeys between Manilla and South Africa. They seldom took less than fifteen hours. He rapidly came to hate those long, long plane journeys and the inevitable jet-lag. He seemed to be jet-lagged most of the time, and he never got used to it. Now, he was still jet-lagged, but felt comfortable and relaxed at home in the company flat.

--

All in all, he thought, it had been a successful mission, but not one he would want to repeat. He had already implied pretty strongly in his final report that the serious flaw in management structure and oversight that allowed Fredericks and Curran to defraud the company for so long, needed deep forensic investigation and urgent remedial action.

He looked forward to seeing Sir Maurice. Then his thoughts moved on to returning home to the North, and immediately Carol came to mind. She had been 'coming to mind' regularly the whole time he had been away, and had been repeatedly and firmly banished as unattainable every time. He looked forward to seeing Tracy, and wondered how she had fared over the months.

Looking back on his time away, he now regretted cutting off all communication while in the field so to speak. Initially it was a necessary condition of success in investigating FHD's suspicions, and keeping Fredericks and Curran in the dark about his investigation until the hammer could fall.

However, once the arrests had been made, there was no further need for secrecy, but he maintained silence the whole time. He knew his excuse was that it allowed him to concentrate more fully on his work, but he also knew that it was weariness bordering on exhaustion which led to his inertia. Now, faced with his imminent return, he wondered what had been happening while he had been away.

He faced the question whether Carol had by now become engaged to her lover, or even married. Then he wondered whether Tracy had found someone to shack up with: he knew she would not stay lonely for long!

He toyed with the idea of ringing Tom, or perhaps Tracy, but felt lethargy creep over him: he suspected he would not like what they told him about Carol and so he put it off. He was tired and wrung out having worked all daylight hours for nearly four months without any appreciable break. He would see Maurice tomorrow and beg an extended break for a long holiday.

If he felt better tomorrow, he thought, he might phone - or not. He sighed and felt a sense of loss, of what he did not know. Anticlimax after all the intensity perhaps.

He settled into an armchair and fell asleep until midday, and awoke to find that the rain had stopped but the day was still cold, dark, grey and damp. He had fancied a walk round central London, but the weather was not welcoming, so he got out his laptop, connected the ethernet cable and spent some time surfing and catching up on emails. Then he got up his final report and re-read it, suspecting there would be a post-mortem with Sir Maurice the next day.

Early next morning, in fact at 7.30am, and quite dark still, John came to conscious thought, realised his bladder was most uncomfortable and then that the phone in the flat was ringing. He switched on the light and crawled out of bed.

"Yes?" he groaned.

"Good morning John," came Paula's cheerful voice. "Been catching up on the booze?"

"Paula, what are you doing in the office at this ungodly hour?"

"Flexitime, dear heart," she chuckled. "Seriously though, you sound rough."

"Four months of stress caught up with me," he said, "to say nothing of jet-lag. I've just woken up, and I'm, shall we say, uncomfortable and needing relief?"

"Oh, sorry John, Sir Maurice will see you at ten, OK?"

"Paula!" His reproof came as a strangled cry.

"Sorry, sorry, you've been away so long I've fallen into bad ways. He will see you at ten if that's all right with you?" She giggled and then gave an exaggerated sigh of exasperation.

"Much better," he laughed, "and yes, I think I can stagger there by then."

"Off you go then, relief will soon be yours." She giggled again and disconnected. He wondered how she could be so unremittingly cheerful in such dismal weather.

Fortunately the rain had stopped by the time he was ready to walk the mile or so to the offices, though the sky remained overcast and dark grey, and given that day was milder he still felt it cold after the early summer warmth of South Africa, and walked more briskly to keep warm. He arrived in Sir Maurice's office ten minutes early.

"Good morning, John, welcome back," Paula smiled then looked worried. "John! You look terrible! Tanned but terrible! You need a rest. Tell him! Go straight in, there's no one with him."

"Thanks Paula," he said, knocked at the door and entered.

"Welcome back," said Sir Maurice, extending a hand.

"Thanks," said John, shaking it. "I have to say I'm glad it's over."

"There's a board meeting on Thursday," said Sir Maurice. "One of the agenda items: your final report. You didn't mince your words, did you? You are 'required' to attend."

"I would have thought, after the various go aheads I was given, they already knew what it would say. They agreed your action on my interim missives, and they did give the go ahead for supporting that company while we established the back-dated payments we originally thought we were sending to them."

"True, but I think the meeting is to formalise everything and to look ahead. And John, they really want to show their appreciation for your brilliance in discovering the fraud."

"Again, I would have thought you've already made some decisions about future action to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again, or anywhere else. I can't think how those two guys got away with it for so long. Five years! And before that, the way Fredericks manipulated the tenders! There's a gaping hole in our surveillance system somewhere."

Maurice said nothing but nodded. Then into the silence he said, "Those two have gone as you know, and the criminal investigation for fraud is well under way. Plenty of evidence and the police are on it.

"We acted very quickly when you revealed how they altered the invoices and payments: those two were out of the place that day and all their files remained intact. The police got their laptops and other stuff from their houses. They had no time to destroy anything. They'd got complacent."

"It's not just that they defrauded us," said John with feeling. "That company was going under, and all those workers would have been out of a job." He continued to give his boss a vivid description of the conditions in which many of the workers were living.

Maurice looked shocked, and John realised he'd been ranting to his boss. On Maurice's part, while he had read the reports, John's more graphic description of the poverty among the workers, denied to the Board, now made it real for him.

"John," he said, "the Board will want to discuss all that with you. Let's face it, they are more concerned with the fraud and losing dividends than justice for the workers. I didn't say that, you understand. Lay it on the line."

Maurice paused as if wondering what to say next.

"Steven Matterson has resigned," he said at last.

"That shocked me," John said. "He covered the West and South of the Pacific Rim, didn't he?"

"Fredericks was on his watch, John. He was either sloppy or getting back-handers. That's being investigated. He admitted that he thought something was amiss months ago, but he did nothing. He's approaching retirement anyway. It's suspicious that he didn't mention his misgivings to me..."

John nodded. It was the first time Sir Maurice had confided in him that someone senior to John had gone as a result of John's report. He wondered again how safe Sir Maurice's job had been, but obviously said nothing. Then he sagged in his chair.

"Maurice," John said, "I need a break. I needed a break after Holland and this little game followed on before I could catch my breath. You gave me the North West and I only got six months to play with it before I was off to the sunshine. I really enjoyed those six months, but I need a holiday before getting back to it, after all that's my real job. I've had eleven months without a break. I do have a holiday entitlement, you know, and this year's is largely unused and running out of time."

Sir Maurice was silent. He stared at John then spoke. "Yes, I can see that. You've accomplished an amazing amount. Attend the Board meeting on Thursday, when we'll agree on an extended break for you."

John wondered at that. There was something in the offing and as usual Maurice was not talking, but looked uneasy. It was worrying.

Back at the flat, John relaxed, really relaxed, with a Cragganmore Malt from duty-free. He consumed three or four doubles (or were they trebles?). Thereupon he slept, though he had no memory of going to bed. He slept for fourteen hours and lay abed for another hour.

So John found himself with two days to kill and nothing to do. It was a situation to which he was not accustomed. He went out for breakfast, found a bookshop and bought a number of novels he had been promising himself to read, and a couple of travel books. Thus equipped he returned to the flat and settled in to read. That evening he called his brother and they went for a meal together.

On Wednesday there was sunshine. He read some more, had a long walk in Hyde Park, then went to a pub he knew was frequented by people from headquarters, and spent the evening with a group there.

The board meeting was typical. They had read his report and there were some questions, not so much for clarification as asking his advice. He was thanked officially and the Chairman stated that John's recommendation for tightening surveillance was taken very seriously. It was clear there was major embarrassment about the failure in the Far East. Maurice brought up John's holiday entitlement, and the Chairman agreed it should be generous, after which Maurice would discuss 'future plans' with John.

"You heard, John: the board gave me carte blanche about your leave of absence. I think three months would be appropriate," said Maurice Callaghan, as they returned from the boardroom to his office, "but unless you're thinking of going back to the southern hemisphere, this is not the time to take it all. You might consider adding part of it to next year's holiday entitlement in the spring or summer."

"I'll take two months now," said John. "I'd like at least some time back home in my own house, before going back to work."

Sir Maurice did not comment but John saw a shadow cross his face. Then it seemed he was struggling with himself. Another first: he was always decisively in control and secretive. John wondered again about Maurice's position after the fraud. It was as if two aspects of his character were struggling with each other. Then he spoke. It was another enigmatic statement.

"In spite of your repeated absences, you seem to have settled well in the North West. I know you've bought a house."

He stopped but John knew he had not finished, but was wondering what he could say. He wondered why his buying a house was relevant to Maurice.

"John," he said, hesitated, then said, "You know me, I'm finding this difficult. All I'll say is you're in very good odour with the board. You may not be in the North very long, that's all I can say. We may need you here; I have no one responsible for the Pacific rim, but in any case there's to be a reorganisation of all the sectors after the breach. Further, we will be increasingly looking at China: that's a big market. I may have said too much." Then he seemed to change the subject.

"Tracy's still in residence."

"I think so," said John. "She was supposed to be house-sitting until I returned. She'll be there at least two months more if I'm on holiday. I suspect she's running sales by now."

Sir Maurice made no comment, but then he smiled and offered, "From Tom's reports I think she may want to make that job permanent, I suspect as Sales and Marketing Manager."

"She certainly deserves it," said John, "and she's more than capable. She should go far."

Sir Maurice smiled again and nodded.

Back in the flat, John did the remainder of his washing and booked his train home for the next day. The train would leave at eleven and arrive at thirteen twenty-five. He texted Tracy.

Hi Tracy I'm back. Should be home pm Fri. X John

He sat and waited for a reply, but none came, and he realised she would be at work. He was unsettled by Maurice's change of character. It was worrying. What did he actually say?

John put together all the pieces of that fateful conversation, and it started to become clear, or at least less muddy. Maurice dropped that there was a vacancy for a someone who would be second in command in all but name. Then Tracy being permanent sales manager - that meant Tom would be staying as Managing Director. John 'might be needed in London'. He now realised that it was more than likely he would not be going back to his old job.

Then there was the enigmatic comment by the Chairman that Maurice would 'discuss future plans' with him. The future of the company, or his own future?

If it were his future what would John's future be? His feelings dropped as he began to suspect he would be on a roving brief monitoring the activities of the revised sectors and the divisions which comprised them at home and across the world, perhaps as a deputy CEO.

A future living in hotels and eating hotel food stretched before him and did not fill him with delighted anticipation. He wondered whether he could accept that rôle, or if he would be looking for a new job with another company so he could settle down a little.

He spent the afternoon reading and catching up on home news, then had a final meal with his brother. He shared the transactions he'd had with Maurice. Philip, who was in the same sort of job, agreed with him that his suspicions were well founded.

"You're getting near the top of the tree, little brother," Philip remarked.

At seven he received a text from Tracy.

Welcome home! See you tomorrow pm. T. XXX

He had expected a long series of questions, and looked at his emails when he returned to the flat, but there was no message from her. It surprised him.

At two o'clock on Friday afternoon he let himself into his house. At first he wondered if he was in the right house, then realised that Tracy had been as good as her word. The house looked beautiful. Carpets had appeared, prints, and he suspected some originals, hung from the walls. The dining room had a table seating eight, or ten if extended, a display cabinet to match in which was a range of glassware for every type of wine, spirit and liqueur, and a sideboard in which he found a ten piece complete china dinner and matching tea service.

He climbed the now carpeted stairs, found all the bedrooms were fully furnished, and was relieved to notice that none of them was decorated in a 'girly' way, though they did not shout 'masculine' either.

He dumped his bags in his master bedroom, noting the addition of a dressing table and a linen chest to the existing furniture. He unpacked and stowed his clean things in the various drawers, and moved some items from the chest of drawers in the walk-in wardrobe to the dressing table.