Beggars Banquet

‘Eight hundred?’

Beattie nodded, then reconsidered. ‘Seven-fifty,’ he said, heading out of the car park.

A small engineering works on a purpose-built estate.

A helpful sign at the site entrance told him he was looking for Unit 32, Cooke Engineering Ltd. He drove his rented Fiesta slowly through the narrow winding roads, giving way to lorries and delivery vans. Half a dozen cars were parked outside Unit 32 in tightly marked bays. The building was grey corrugated steel, shared by two companies. Unit 31 manufactured frozen foods. Driving past it, he sized up Unit 32. There was a door which would lead to the reception area or offices, and a loading-bay door near it. Both were closed. Parked in the loading bay was a sporty Ford Sierra, one of the custom jobs. In the driver’s seat, a man was talking on a car phone. In the back seat were two more large pasty-faced men. They looked like reporters. Well, if a dolt like Duniec knew about Cooke, the professionals would know too. And though Cooke himself wasn’t here, though he was sweating and dog-tired in one of Castle Lane’s interview rooms, a team had been sent to stake the place out.

He gnawed at his bottom lip, and decided to take a calculated risk. He drove to the next lot of units, parked, and walked back towards Cooke Engineering. The door he was approaching, having ignored the carful of staring eyes, had OFFICE printed on it. He knocked and entered, closing the door behind him. He’d expected noise: after all, only a partition wall separated this part of the unit from the actual production line. But there was silence, punctuated by the slow clack of fingers on a computer keyboard.

‘Can I help you?’ She sat behind a desk, but also behind huge red-rimmed spectacles, which magnified her already large eyes. Her tone was hardly welcoming.

‘Mr Cooke?’ He said nervously. ‘Wondered if I could have a-’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, well I…’

‘Are you a reporter?’ She examined him, hunched over as he was, shuffling and twitching and awkward. ‘You don’t look like one.’ She sighed. ‘No cold calling, reps by appointment only. I take it you are a rep?’

‘Well, as it happens I-’

‘Sorry,’ she said, seeming to take pity on this particularly pitiful example of an unlovely breed. ‘Mr Cooke’s not here anyway.’

He looked around. ‘Place looks dead.’

‘Dead about sums it up.’

‘Business bad.’

‘Let’s just say you shouldn’t look for too many orders.’

‘Ah…’ He seemed to think of something. ‘But the cars outside…?’

‘We let the guys from the frozen-food place park their excess cars there.’

‘Oh dear.’ He nodded towards where he assumed the production line would be, just through the wall. ‘Then you’re not…?’

‘We’re not producing. So unless you’re selling jobs in the light engineering sector, I shouldn’t bother.’

He smiled. ‘But you’re still here.’

‘Only till the weekend. No pay by Friday, I’m off.’ She went back to her typing, her fingers hammering the keys.

He turned to leave, his back and shoulders more hunched than ever. Then he stopped and half turned. ‘What made you think I was a reporter?’

‘You’ll read about it.’

Only after he’d gone did she pause in her work. She’d seen them all in her time, all the types of rep you could imagine. But she’d never come across one who didn’t even bother to bring samples with him…

Across from the industrial estate was a recently built pub, doubtless put there by a ca

‘That was the idea anyway,’ the barman admitted, pouring a pint of beer, ‘before times got hard. What gets me is that none of these financial projections ’ – he said the words with distaste – ‘ever projected hard times ahead. And let me tell you, there’s no money-back guarantee with these things.’ He had handed over the drink, received a five-pound note, and now pressed a key on the till.

‘Accountants aren’t all bad,’ said the customer.

As the barman handed over the change, the customer asked a question.

‘Does a man called Bernard Cooke drink in here?’

There was a snort from further down the bar, where a man on a stool was doing the crossword in the local paper.

‘Why do you ask?’ asked the barman.

‘I was supposed to be seeing him today. Drove all the way down from bloody Lancaster.’ The barman didn’t seem about to doubt his north-west accent. ‘Only there’s no bugger about except some right rough types in a car parked outside.’

‘Reporters,’ said the crossword solver.

‘Oh aye?’

‘You won’t be seeing Cooke for a while.’ The crossword solver tipped back the dregs of a half-pint.

‘We don’t know that,’ snapped the barman. ‘Don’t go jumping to bloody conclusions, Arthur.’

Arthur merely shrugged in compliance, staring down at his paper.

‘He’s in trouble, is he?’ asked the traveller.

‘Maybe.’

‘Bang goes my bloody contract.’

‘You’re lucky, then,’ said Arthur.’

‘How do you mean?’ He nodded towards the empty glass. ’Get you another?’

‘Thanks, I will.’

The barman refilled the glass, but wouldn’t take one himself. Arthur sipped and swallowed. ‘I mean,’ he said at last, ‘Bernie’s been in trouble for yonks, money trouble. Chances are, if you were buying from him, you wouldn’t have got what you ordered, and if you were selling, you wouldn’t have seen the money.’

‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘I’ve known for months he was in trouble. Used to be, he’d nip in here Friday lunchtime for something to eat and a couple of brandies. Then it got to be twice a week and four brandies, and three times a week and six. Somebody drinks like that, it’s not because they’re flush, it’s that they’re worried.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘All I know,’ chipped in the barman, ‘is that he always paid… and that’s more than some.’

Arthur winked at Beattie. ‘That’s a dig at me.’

Beattie finished his drink and eased himself off the bar stool.

‘Back to Lancaster?’

He shook his head. ‘Couple more calls first.’

After he’d gone, the bar was silent a few moments, then Arthur cleared his throat.

‘What do you think?’

‘Well,’ said the barman, ‘he wasn’t a reporter. I’m not even sure he’s in business.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘No expense account – didn’t ask for a receipt for the drinks.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t need receipts, Sherlock.’

‘Maybe.’ The barman lifted away the empty glass and washed it, placing it on the rack to dry. Then he wiped the bartop where the man had been sitting, and put down a fresh beermat. Now there was no sign anyone had ever been there.

‘Just be a second,’ the barman told Arthur. Then he disappeared into the alcove where the telephone was kept.

At three-forty, the journalists slouched out of the press room carrying the latest news release. They were talkative, if they weren’t too busy drawing in cigarette smoke. Some were making calls on their telephones, or going off to their cars to make calls. They squeezed from the police station’s double doors and fa

Stefan Duniec walked slowly across the car park, not heading towards his car – he did not have a car – but just keeping moving, so he looked as busy and important as the other reporters. He was staring down at his notebook and didn’t notice the figure blocking his way until he’d practically bumped into it.

‘Hello, Mr Beattie, you missed the conference.’

‘Couldn’t be helped, Stef. Anything to report?’

‘I got you a copy of the press release.’