R.J. Lynch's Blog, page 16
November 13, 2014
Kevin Daly Talks to the Police
Kevin Daly had never done an honest day’s work in his twenty-two years of life. If you asked why, he’d say he’d never got the taste for it. His father hadn’t, either. Neither of them saw any reason to be a wage slave for somebody with more brains, more education or just more luck when the DSS was prepared to keep them in bread and butter and a little dishonesty would put all the jam you could want on top. But, then, his father hadn’t offended Regus Hunt, which was why – unlike Kevin – his father had never even thought about giving himself up to the police.
Regus was known for many things, but forgiveness and charity were not among them. He had once broken all the fingers of a man who stole the handbag of a woman he was interested in. Kevin Daly knew that. When Antony Baker had helped himself to the drugs money Billy MacErlane was holding for Regus, Regus had beaten him to death with his bare hands and left under-age Billy to take the rap. Kevin Daly knew that, too.
So, when Kevin learned that the Beemer he had broken into and driven away belonged not, as he had thought, to some middle class tosser but to Regus Hunt, he did not shrug it off. He experienced a terror that left him for a moment unable to speak or move, and then sent him howling down the street, wailing as he had not since he was nine years old and his teenage sister had caught him trying on her underwear and beaten him so savagely he was left with only fifty percent hearing in one ear.
It was three-thirty on the afternoon of Sunday, the twenty-fourth of May, 2009 when Kevin stepped into the police station. The date was significant. Sunday afternoons would normally have been quiet, or at least as quiet as big city police stations ever get, with villains, deadbeats and honest citizens alike sleeping off the big meal of the week.
This, though, was not just any Sunday. At three on the dot, Newcastle United had kicked off against Aston Villa in the last game of the season and, if they didn’t get at least a draw, Newcastle United were going to be relegated from English football’s top flight. Even with a draw, other results might still send them down, but without the bare minimum of a single point they were gone no matter what happened elsewhere.
Desk Sergeant Toni Straker was listening to the match on a little radio. Newcastle’s fate would not much trouble Straker, and for two reasons. One was that the sergeant thought that only men obsessed about sport, and inadequate men at that. The other was that Toni came from Sunderland, and no Mackem of either sex can ever be completely unamused by the travails of the Toon Army. Nevertheless, however happy she might be on civic grounds to see Newcastle relegated, Sergeant Straker knew it would bring the police nothing but trouble. Pub and shop windows would be going in from North Shields to Fenham. Wives and children across the region would take a battering as distraught drunks lashed out at the softest targets available. The cells would overflow with drink-filled wife-beaters. Police would be so stretched responding to domestics that muggers, rapists, burglars and murderers would have a free run.
And all for nothing because, a few days later, every charge by every wife would be dropped.
Shortly after three-thirty and to Toni Straker’s relief, Villa’s Gareth Barry completely mis-hit a shot at Newcastle’s goal. Reprieve was short-lived. Any decent full back would have cleared the threat with hardly a moment’s thought, but Newcastle didn’t have a full back. What they had where a full back might have been was Damien Duff. As an attacking winger, Duff was international class with more than sixty Irish caps to his name, but he was no defender. Back-pedalling furiously, he met Barry’s shot and, instead of steering it safely out of the danger zone as a real full back would have done, he knocked it away from goalie Steve Harper’s waiting arms and into the back of his own net.
Straker laid her head on her arms. Armageddon had just moved a whole lot closer.
It was into this scene of resignation and despair that Kevin Daly brought the carefully prepared but transparent set of lies he thought of as his statement.
Straker raised her head and examined her visitor. ‘I know you,’ she said. ‘Don’t I know you?’
‘Kevin Daly, Missus Straker.’
Straker sighed. ‘Of course. What do you want?’
Daly placed a car key on the counter. Straker looked at it without touching. ‘What’s that?’
Daly’s face expressed puzzlement. ‘It’s a car key.’
Straker’s eyes came up to meet Daly’s. She allowed herself a moment of silence. Then she said, ‘I can see it’s a car key, Daly. Can you manage a little more? Starting with whose car it fits?’
‘I don’t know, Missus Straker.’
‘You don’t know. Do you know how you came to be in possession of it?’
‘Eh?’
'How did you get the key, you little cretin?’
‘Oh. Well, that’s the thing. See, I was standing there and somebody gave it to me.’
'Standing there.’
‘Yes.’
‘Minding your own business.’
‘I was, Missus Straker.’
‘And somebody gave you a car key. Handed it to you and said, “This is for you.” Is that what happened? Christmas came early for the Daly family?’
‘No, no.’ Daly laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have taken it, would I?’
‘So?’
‘This BMW comes racing up to the kerb and this guy jumps out and throws us the key and runs away.’ He peered at the sergeant. ‘What’s funny, Missus Straker?’
‘This BMW comes racing up to the kerb and this guy jumps out and throws you the key and runs away. That right?’
Daly nodded.
‘I bet you can’t describe this guy?’
‘He was going too fast.’
‘Of course he was. But I’ll also bet you did write down the car’s registration number.’
Daly pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, but Straker held up a hand to stop him. ‘No, Daly. I’ll tell you.’ She read a series of letters and numbers from a pad on her desk. ‘Is that right?’
Daly nodded. ‘That’s amazing. How did you know?’
‘Of course, you’ve no idea who the car belongs to.’
‘Umm...no. I don’t. Haven’t.’
‘Well, never mind. You’ve done your civic duty, Daly. I’m sure the owner will be delighted when we tell him. Might even come round yours to thank you personally, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘You won’t give him my name?’
‘Why on earth not? There might be a reward in it for you.’
‘Please, Missus Straker. Don’t give him my name.’
‘Wipe all your fingerprints off the wheel, did you? When you found out whose car it was you’d nicked?’
‘This isn’t funny, Missus Straker.’
‘Not to you, I can see that. Hunt reported the car stolen an hour ago and he is steaming.’ The sergeant leaned across the counter. ‘Do you think you’d better speak to CID?’
‘CID? What for?’‘To try again? With a new story?’
Daly stared at this woman who smiled as she tormented him. Then he stepped back from the counter, turned and made for the door. As he left he broke into a run, but the two approaching constables had seen Straker’s signal and had no difficulty in seizing Daly’s arms, turning him round and frogmarching him back into the police station.
‘Well done, lads,’ said Straker. ‘Kevin Daly, I’m arresting you on suspicion of taking a conveyance without the owner’s consent. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in Court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Get him printed and stick him in a cell till someone from the top floor has time to talk to him.’
On her radio, the half time whistle blew. One of the constables nodded his head towards it. ‘How are they doing?’
‘They’re losing. Like Mister Daly here.’
Two hours later, Newcastle had been relegated and the mayhem foreseen by Sergeant Straker was indeed breaking out, but a Detective Inspector still found time to visit Regus Hunt’s lawyer and say they’d like him to arrange for Hunt to come in for questioning.
‘About…?’
‘Mister Hunt reported his BMW stolen. We’ve charged a young waster called Kevin Daly with TDA. It’s not called that any more, but that’s what it is.’
‘I’m sure Mister Daly will be pleased to have his car back, Inspector. But why does he need to be questioned?’
‘We’d like him to explain the presence of a quantity of drugs we found in the car.’
Mister Henry stared at the Inspector. A smile played around the edges of his full mouth. ‘Is it really likely,’ he asked, ‘that Mister Hunt would have reported his car stolen as quickly as he did if he knew there were drugs in it?’
‘Well, the drugs exist. I’ve seen them.’
‘Yes. I see. Were you actually there when they were discovered?’
‘Not at the time, no.’
‘They were shown to you afterwards.’
‘They were.’
Mister Henry picked up a cigar and pushed the box across the coffee table in front of him. ‘Cohiba Esplendidos,’ he said, snipping the end with a cutter. ‘They’ll set you back more than seven hundred pounds for a box of twenty-five. Possibly the best cigar there is. Try one?’
The Inspector took a cigar and pushed it into his inside pocket. ‘I’ll keep it for later.’
‘One of your colleagues,’ said Mister Henry, ‘always reminds me of a vulture. Keeps his head tucked under his wing. Except when he wants to ask a personal question. Is he the one running this case?’
‘If you mean who I think you mean, then yes, he is.’
‘He’s never been a friend of Mister Hunt’s. I suppose he refused police bail?’
‘He wanted to. The Super said he couldn’t.’
‘So Daly’s at home?’
‘Right at this moment, I believe he’s on a bus to Middlesbrough. He has a sister there. He has to return at ten on Tuesday.’
‘But of course you haven’t told me that.’
‘I’m not even here. The official invitation will come by phone.’
‘Well, thank you for the courtesy visit, Inspector. I’ll wait for the phone call and I’ll bring Mister Hunt in immediately after lunch tomorrow.’
Four years is a long time, and a great deal can change. In October 2013, Newcastle United were back in the Premiership and now it was Sunderland who sat on the bottom rung, fearing the drop. Toon Army tempers were as sweet as they are ever likely to get. With no witness to confirm that the drugs belonged to Regus Hunt (which in fact they did not, having been placed in his car by the policeman who looked like a vulture), the case against him was abandoned. The Inspector who called on Mister Henry had received a box of Cohibas together with ten thousand pounds in cash. Police regulations required him to return the gift and report it to his superiors, but the donor was anonymous and he preferred to follow an alternative set of rules which, though unofficial, were more generally recognised: he smoked the cigars and used the money to clear his credit card debts. Another box of cigars reached the Superintendent, who dealt with them in the same way.
And Kevin Daly was never seen again. Somewhere on the mile walk from Newport Road in Middlesbrough, where the bus dropped him, to his sister’s home, he vanished. His sister thought about reporting his disappearance, but why? She didn’t care where he was, and she was pretty sure the Police wouldn’t.
In any case, their father had drummed a simple rule into them both from earliest childhood. Never tell the Police anything. It can lead to nothing but pain.
Zappa' Mam's a Slapper is available here in paperback (the price includes postage and packing, no matter where in the world you may be): http://tinyurl.com/mw2dpsw
The last word (at least for now) on Sharon
This is my third post introducing Sharon, the eponymous hero of Sharon Wright: Butterfly. We’ve already seen the background Sharon comes from and what sort of person she is and I’ve hinted that her wooing of the graduate but naïf Jackie Gough has something of the praying mantis about it. Now we’ll take one more look at Sharon as she starts to put her plan into action and then we’ll leave it. That’s a promise. At least for the time being.
‘You’re not really planning to visit those three lockups?’
‘That’s the plan, Sharon. Then I get Monty Green to buy what’s in them.’
Sharon shook her head. ‘Jackie. The police know about those lockups. You told them where they are. You even gave them the keys. What do you think’s going to happen when you show up there?’
‘It won’t be like that. I’m DI Prutton’s snout. She won’t let them pick me up.’
‘Put that in writing, has she?’
Gough looked uncertain. ‘Well, how are we supposed to get the money? You’re the one wants to go straight. You’re the one wants a B&B in Cornwall. You’re the one wants to change our name to Renton, disappear for ever. How are we supposed to do that if I don’t get the money?’
‘Jackie. How many lockups did you give the DI and Cameron? Three. How many lockups did I have keys for?’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh is right. Now I wonder which one of the four has about one and a half million quid’s worth of nicked drink and cigarettes in it that would be a piece of piss to get rid of in a day? And which three are full of knock-off videos and jewellery and crap like that?’
‘But we don’t know what’s in them.’ He watched her face carefully. ‘We do know what’s in them.’
Sharon smiled.
‘So the thing to do…the thing to do is to get Monty Green to buy the fags and booze and get Muammar to put the money in an account.’
Sharon went on smiling.
Gough’s eyes lit up. ‘John Renton’s account, maybe?’
‘John and Sharon Renton’s would be better.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it?’
‘Not quite. Suppose we need the money in a hurry…’
‘…which we will…’
‘…and you can’t get away without making Cameron suspicious.’
‘John and Sharon Renton, then.’
‘Either to sign.’
‘Either to sign. Bloody hell, Sharon. That’s like two hundred and seventy and half of two hundred and seventy…that’s four hundred thousand quid.’
‘B&B in Cornwall. We’ll need all of that.’
‘I suppose. Sharon.’
‘Yes, my petal.’
‘How did you know that was the key to hold back?’ He stared at her. ‘I mean…how long have you…’
Sharon was still smiling.
‘Sharon. When I came looking for the keys? Were you waiting for me to ask? Have you planned this all along?’
She moved forward and smoothed the collar of his shirt. She kissed him gently on the lips. ‘Jackie. You know what I’ve learned? Started learning when I first went to school, and went on learning? Men need to think I’m dumb. Because I’m a woman, and I’m blonde, well, men think I’m blonde, and I like to spend a lot of time on my back with my legs in the air, and I like men for what they have that makes them men, I have to be dumb. Well, I’m not dumb.’
Gough shook his head. ‘You’re not, are you?’
‘I pretend to be, if that’s the game the man needs me to play. You know, like we played the game where you ripped my knickers off and did me? I needed to play that game. If a man needs me to play the game where I’m dumb, I’ll play that game for him.
‘But what I really want is to play the game where we’re both smart and we both know we’re both smart. Think you can play that game with me, Jackie? Please?’
Gough nodded.
‘I hope you can, Jackie. ‘Cos we make a good team, you and me. There’s stuff you can do that I can’t do. Getting those passports, for example. And there’s stuff I can do that you can’t do.’ She smiled. ‘There’s one very special thing I’m doing that you can never do, Jackie. I’m having your little boy. He’s going to grow up to be just like his daddy. And he’ll go to university, just like his daddy, but he’ll be even smarter than his mummy and his daddy because he’ll have gone to a private school first. And if I have a little girl, we’ll do exactly the same thing. ‘Cos girls can be as smart as boys, any day. Even blonde girls. You with me on this, Jackie?’
Gough nodded again. ‘I am, Sharon. I really am.’
‘I’m glad.’ She took a key from her pocket and a sheet of paper from a drawer in the kitchen table. ‘So now you’re going to go see Monty Green and arrange to get rid of the booze and ciggies. You’ll need this list, because Monty’s going to want to know what’s in there, isn’t he? And I love you and I couldn’t bear to lose you now, so you won’t go anywhere near the other lockups. Will you?’
Gough shook his head. ‘I won’t.’
‘Good. Jackie? Your copy of that PACE tape? The one that says you grassed up Dan Ablett? Where is it?’
‘In my pocket.’
‘Do you think it’s a good idea to carry it around? Why don’t you leave it with me? I’ll find somewhere really safe for it.
Sharon Wright:Butterfly is available here for Kindle, or you can buy it in paperback here (the price includes post and packing, no matter where in the world you may be):
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Getting better acquainted with Sharon
Yesterday in my Goodreads blog I posted a sort of introduction to Sharon Wright, heroine (if that’s the right word) of Sharon Wright: Butterfly. I’d like to show one or two more aspects of Sharon to help people decide whether or not the book is for them. I’ll post the final example tomorrow, but here is the one I want to show today. Sharon, who was recently widowed when Buggy, her husband, got on the wrong side of two hitmen, is with her friend from school days, Jackie Gough. They have just fulfilled one of Sharon’s long-held fantasies. Jackie is falling for Sharon which – at least from his point of view – is unwise because Sharon’s advances are in fact the kind a praying mantis might make. Here’s the extract:
Jackie Gough lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and thinking that now he’d seen everything. Sharon nuzzled his side. The tattered remains of her torn knickers clung to one thigh. Neither of them had a stitch on otherwise. ‘That was lovely, Jackie.’
‘Yeah. Yeah it was.’
‘Did you really like it?’
‘The best, Sharon. The best I’ve ever had.’
‘You don’t think I’m funny?’
‘I know you’re funny, Sharon. That was still the best sex I’ve ever had.’
‘You know what I liked best?’
‘I daren’t ask.’
‘The way you’d gone to the bathroom and washed yourself. You know. Before you came in. Most men don’t think about how they taste in a girl’s mouth. You’ve gone red. Do I embarrass you?’
‘You’d embarrass the Pope, sometimes.’
‘You don’t belong round here, Jackie. You’re a gentleman.’ She kissed him. ‘Aren’t you glad I’m not a lady?’
‘You are a lady, Shazza. In your own way.’
‘Funny, isn’t it? How playing games makes it better.’
‘Yeah.’
‘We could play one of your games next time.’
‘I don’t know if I’ve got any games, Sharon. Of my own, I mean.’
‘I’m sure you could think of one.’ She doodled one-finger patterns on his shoulder. ‘Jackie.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You know I’m a widow now?’
‘Bloody hell. Yeah, I suppose you are. Bit of a merry widow, aren’t you?’
‘Jackie! I do care about Buggy being dead you know.’
‘I know you do, petal.’
That’s why I’ve been wearing black knickers since he died.’
‘He’d be deeply touched.’
‘I loved Buggy.’
‘Let’s be fair, Sharon. You love a lot of people. Often at the same time.’
‘Yes, well. That’s because I loved Buggy, but I didn’t respect him.’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, you couldn’t, really, could you?’
‘Couldn’t you?’
‘I respect you, Jackie.’
Gough raised himself on one elbow. ‘Where are you going with this, Sharon? Shazza? Are you...why are you crying?’
‘If I hadn’t...if me and Buggy hadn’t been...you know...do you think it might ever have been me and you instead?’
‘Bloody hell, Sharon.’
‘I always fancied you. But Buggy was Top Cat back then, wasn’t he? And then, when I realised, we were married and it was too late. That’s what happens. You realise something, and it’s too late.’
‘Life can only be understood backwards,’ said Gough. ‘But it has to be lived forwards.’
Sharon sat up, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, Jackie,’ she breathed. ‘That’s brilliant. Oh, I wish I’d gone to college, Jackie.’
‘Yeah. Well. It’ll be too late for me pretty soon. And then it won’t matter whether it might ever have been me and you. Because there won’t be any me to be part of it.’
‘Jackie. Whatever do you mean?’
‘I’m in the crap, Sharon. I’ve got the police on one side, Jim Cameron on another, and Mad Dan Ablett on the third.’
‘Like a triangle. Why’s Mad Dan cross with you?’
‘He doesn’t know he is, yet.’
She put her finger on his brow and ran it down his nose. ‘It was you grassed him up.’
‘Grass is a nasty word, Sharon. Don’t use it. Even in fun.’
‘Buggy said it was you.’
‘Bloody hell. Who else did he tell?’
‘No-one I shouldn’t think. Buggy wouldn’t shop a mate. Even one he thought was seeing to his wife.’
‘He what?’
She sat cross-legged on the bed. ‘Why don’t you tell me the whole story? And don’t look at me down there. You’ll only get excited again.’
Sharon Wright: Butterfly is available for Kindle Sharon Wright: Butterflyhere and as a paperback (the price includes post and packing wherever in the world you are) here: http://tinyurl.com/ncgz696
November 11, 2014
Getting better acquainted with Sharon
Yesterday in my Goodreads blog I posted a sort of introduction to Sharon Wright, heroine (if that’s the right word) of Sharon Wright: Butterfly. I’d like to show one or two more aspects of Sharon to help people decide whether or not the book is for them. I’ll post the final example tomorrow, but here is the one I want to show today. Sharon, who was recently widowed when Buggy, her husband, got on the wrong side of two hitmen, is with her friend from school days, Jackie Gough. They have just fulfilled one of Sharon’s long-held fantasies. Jackie is falling for Sharon which – at least from his point of view – is unwise because Sharon’s advances are in fact the kind a praying mantis might make. Here’s the extract:
Jackie Gough lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and thinking that now he’d seen everything. Sharon nuzzled his side. The tattered remains of her torn knickers clung to one thigh. Neither of them had a stitch on otherwise. ‘That was lovely, Jackie.’
‘Yeah. Yeah it was.’
‘Did you really like it?’
‘The best, Sharon. The best I’ve ever had.’
‘You don’t think I’m funny?’
‘I know you’re funny, Sharon. That was still the best sex I’ve ever had.’
‘You know what I liked best?’
‘I daren’t ask.’
‘The way you’d gone to the bathroom and washed yourself. You know. Before you came in. Most men don’t think about how they taste in a girl’s mouth. You’ve gone red. Do I embarrass you?’
‘You’d embarrass the Pope, sometimes.’
‘You don’t belong round here, Jackie. You’re a gentleman.’ She kissed him. ‘Aren’t you glad I’m not a lady?’
‘You are a lady, Shazza. In your own way.’
‘Funny, isn’t it? How playing games makes it better.’
‘Yeah.’
‘We could play one of your games next time.’
‘I don’t know if I’ve got any games, Sharon. Of my own, I mean.’
‘I’m sure you could think of one.’ She doodled one-finger patterns on his shoulder. ‘Jackie.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You know I’m a widow now?’
‘Bloody hell. Yeah, I suppose you are. Bit of a merry widow, aren’t you?’
‘Jackie! I do care about Buggy being dead you know.’
‘I know you do, petal.’
That’s why I’ve been wearing black knickers since he died.’
‘He’d be deeply touched.’
‘I loved Buggy.’
‘Let’s be fair, Sharon. You love a lot of people. Often at the same time.’
‘Yes, well. That’s because I loved Buggy, but I didn’t respect him.’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, you couldn’t, really, could you?’
‘Couldn’t you?’
‘I respect you, Jackie.’
Gough raised himself on one elbow. ‘Where are you going with this, Sharon? Shazza? Are you…why are you crying?’
‘If I hadn’t…if me and Buggy hadn’t been…you know…do you think it might ever have been me and you instead?’
‘Bloody hell, Sharon.’
‘I always fancied you. But Buggy was Top Cat back then, wasn’t he? And then, when I realised, we were married and it was too late. That’s what happens. You realise something, and it’s too late.’
‘Life can only be understood backwards,’ said Gough. ‘But it has to be lived forwards.’
Sharon sat up, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, Jackie,’ she breathed. ‘That’s brilliant. Oh, I wish I’d gone to college, Jackie.’
‘Yeah. Well. It’ll be too late for me pretty soon. And then it won’t matter whether it might ever have been me and you. Because there won’t be any me to be part of it.’
‘Jackie. Whatever do you mean?’
‘I’m in the crap, Sharon. I’ve got the police on one side, Jim Cameron on another, and Mad Dan Ablett on the third.’
‘Like a triangle. Why’s Mad Dan cross with you?’
‘He doesn’t know he is, yet.’
She put her finger on his brow and ran it down his nose. ‘It was you grassed him up.’
‘Grass is a nasty word, Sharon. Don’t use it. Even in fun.’
‘Buggy said it was you.’
‘Bloody hell. Who else did he tell?’
‘No-one I shouldn’t think. Buggy wouldn’t shop a mate. Even one he thought was seeing to his wife.’
‘He what?’
She sat cross-legged on the bed. ‘Why don’t you tell me the whole story? And don’t look at me down there. You’ll only get excited again.’
Sharon Wright: Butterfly is available for Kindle here and as a paperback (the price includes post and packing wherever in the world you are) here:
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Introducing Sharon
Until yesterday, Sharon Wright: Butterfly was available only for Kindle. Now that I've added the paperback version, I thought it would be a good idea to give an idea of who (and what) Sharon is--a glimpse, if you like, of the real person beneath the sometimes excessive make-up. She first comes into her own story on Page 3--and here she is:
‘As people remember it, the Beat movement was a male preserve. Kerouac, Ginsberg, the little catamite Neal Cassady. Women didn’t count, except to cook and sleep with. Joyce Johnson’s a woman, and if we think of her today at all, it’s as Kerouac’s lover. But Joyce Johnson could write the arse off the lot of them.’
The speaker, a young bearded man with better clothes than students usually wore, looked round the table. It had been a prepared utterance, all of them knew that, but worth a smile nonetheless. The bearded man drained his coffee and stood up. ‘Shall we go?’
Sharon Wright watched the little group gather their things together and leave. What must it be like to be able to say things like that? What must it be like even to be the sort of person people said things like that to?
Turning an unlit cigarette over and over in her hands, lost in a dream world of knowledge and café conversation, Sharon became aware that someone beyond the now empty table was smiling at her. With an effort she brought the face into focus. ‘Yoxer!’
‘’Lo, Sharon.’ He stood up and shambled over to her table, carrying his coffee. ‘Mind if I join you?’
It had often amused Sharon, back in the days when she and Yoxer were a secret, illicit item, to think how they might appear to other people. Anyone looking at the pair of them would have thought: father and daughter; uncle and niece; older and younger neighbours. She, short skirt, heels, dyed hair, knowing eyes. He, thirty years older, give or take a decade, the pasty complexion that came from a life lived indoors in smoky halls and bars, a touch of resignation. What would be would be. Anyone looking at the pair of them would have been wrong.
‘How’s it going, girl?’
‘Mustn’t grumble, Yoxer. How about you?’
He shrugged. ‘Same. Buggy keeping you happy?’
She smiled, but didn’t answer.
‘You deserve better, girl.’
‘I know, Yoxer. I know. Thought I had it, once.’ She turned her soft gaze on him. ‘When you were champion of the world. And I was your naughty little girl.’
‘I was always too old for you, Sharon.’
‘A naughty little girl needs an older man to keep her in order.’
‘You haven’t got Buggy playing, then?’
‘Buggy’s a meat and potatoes man when it comes to sex, Yoxer.’
‘Slam, Bam, thank you, ma’am? Roll over, fart and fall asleep?’
‘Something like that.’
‘We had some good times.’
‘We did, Yoxer. You opened a whole world for me.’ She put the cigarette back in the packet. ‘Wish I could light one of these. What’s a catamite?’
‘Dunno, girl. Bet it isn’t a nice thing to be, though.’
‘What happened to all the money, Yoxer?’
‘Beats me. I had it, I spent it. Pissed it up against the wall, I suppose. Pissed off the Inland Revenue, too.’
‘I’ll never forget that day. Pitching up and finding you gone.’
She’d been fifteen when it started. Spotted him, driving around in his Bentley. And he’d spotted her, coming out of a corner shop where she’d been buying cigarettes. All the kids knew Yoxer. Local boy made good. Face all over the telly. One or two of the older girls would smirk quietly when his name came up, but no-one ever said why. He’d never taken much notice of Sharon. Ignored her, in fact.
But not that day.
He’d stopped the car and stared, pretended not to notice the fuck-you look of disdain she gave anyone who wasn’t Buggy, or maybe Jackie Gough. He held up a twenty pound note. Seeing a slight reaction, but no movement, he added a second twenty to it. Sharon crossed the pavement and slipped into the passenger seat. Simple as that.
Looking back, she knew she must have been mad, but the kind fairies had been looking after her. Yoxer was a funny bugger, but he didn’t hurt people.
He had a big house out towards Ashford. She knew it would take a while to get home and she’d have some explaining to do, but she had the forty pounds in her hand and, frankly, she didn’t give a toss. It wasn’t as though she had parents like Veronica Payne’s. Parents who cared.
She was no stranger to sex. Her mother knew all about early sexual activity, having had Sharon when she herself was seventeen. She put Sharon on the pill when Sharon and Buggy became an item.
But Buggy had never put her over his knee and ripped off her knickers. Buggy had never spanked her till her bottom was as red as his bulging-eyeballed face.
What first stopped her from protesting, throwing Yoxer off and telling him to get lost, disgusting pervert that he was, was the thought of the money she was earning. What stopped her after that was more basic. She was enjoying herself as she had never enjoyed herself in her life before.
He picked her up every week after that. When her mother asked where she went every Saturday, Sharon told her she was earning ten pounds a week for tidying in the People’s Theatre. She handed over a fiver—half her earnings, as her mother proudly told everyone. What a good girl Sharon was, so generous to her mother. Not like some of these stuck-up little madams. That Payne girl, for example, nose always in a book, never think of a Saturday job, earn the money to buy her mother a packet of fags. Not that the stuck-up Mrs Payne smoked, of course. Her husband used a pipe, which was all right because Prince Philip had smoked one, too, when he was a naval officer. But smoking wasn’t something ladies did.
Any other venue—a fast food place, Woolworth’s, a supermarket—her mother might have dropped in to see her. But a theatre? Never.
Apart from which, Sharon had had a sneaking unadmitted interest in the theatre ever since they’d read What the Butler Saw in school, and then been to the People’s to see it performed. Sharon had walked home from there in a daze wishing Buggy would, just this once, stop feeling her up and let her think. Wishing there was someone she could discuss the play with without looking like a swot.
Jackie Gough would have been just the person, of course. But Buggy would have gone berserk if she’d talked to Jackie about a stupid play instead of letting him inflict horrible great love bites on her throat. And Jackie knew that, so he was never going to oblige.
It went on for three months and then, suddenly, Yoxer failed to arrive at the pick-up point. Sharon went home and told her mother the theatre was closed for renovation. He wasn’t there the next week, either.
With some difficulty, Sharon worked out how to get to Yoxer’s house by bus. Three busses, in fact. And three back, which was why she felt so unhappy knocking on the door of an obviously empty house with a For Sale sign at the end of the drive.
You can find the Kindle version of Sharon Wright: Butterfly here: Sharon Wright: Butterfly. The paperback is at http://tinyurl.com/ncgz696 and the price includes postage and packing, no matter where in the world you are.
Chorleywood Literary Festival
November 4, 2014
Censorship by traditional publishers
One of the reasons for publishing your own book is to avoid censorship. I don’t mean keeping out of the Lord Chamberlain’s way; I’m talking about the kind of PC control that leads to this kind of conversation with a publisher:
‘You can’t say that.’
‘But it’s true.’
‘I know it’s true but you still can’t say it.’
Twenty-nine years ago I published Managing the High-Tech Salesforce. The only form of independent publishing in those days amounted to vanity publishing. While my best friend would not say I was free of conceit I had no wish to take delivery of a batch of paperbacks of dubious print quality delivered at exorbitant prices to moulder in my garage because my regular job took up 100 hours a week and let me no time to go out and try to sell them. A traditional publisher was happy to take my book and I was equally happy with the results.
When I started on The International Sales Handbook early in 2014 I sent a synopsis and sample chapter to publishers of business books and I had an offer of publication within weeks. The problem became clear when we met to sign the contract. The way the commissioning editor looked at it was that I needed to modify my approach in order to make sure that the book offended no-one. As I saw it, I was being told that I could not say what I wanted to say.
The International Sales Handbook is non-fiction. Its purpose – its raison d’être – is to say to people who want to build an export business, This is what you do; This is how you do it; and This is what can happen if you don’t. In other words, it’s a book of facts learned in forty years of sales experience across the globe. Facts don’t change. Facts cannot be modified because some people might be offended by them. If I was going to be prevented from telling would-be exporters the things they needed to know there would be no point in anyone buying the book and therefore no point in writing it.
The commissioning editor’s nervousness began on the very first page, when she read this:
Some of what I say can, if the reader is so minded, be interpreted as racism. Don’t expect an apology. The purpose of this book is not to talk about how we’d like things to be, or how the vicar or the social worker tells us they are; the object is to warn you of the traps and pitfalls that lie in wait when you do business in someone else’s country, and pretending they don’t exist will not be helpful.
What provoked her nervousness was, of course, that word “racism”. So: am I a racist, and is The International Sales Handbook a racist book?
I don’t think so. All those years in other countries on other continents has taught me that there are indeed differences in outlook and temperament between different peoples but also that any claim of superiority by one race over another is entirely spurious. There are, however, differences in the way people do business and my job was to say: ‘If you want to do business in this place, you need to be aware of this; and if that place is your target market then that is what you have to know. The traditional publisher didn’t want me to point those differences out because they feared that doing so would – as I had suggested – be interpreted as racist.
I solved the problem by bringing out the book myself. You can buy it here for Kindle or, if you prefer the paperback, that is available here:
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October 9, 2014
What can go wrong in export sales?
Chapter 9 of The International Sales Handbook is called What Can Go Wrong? It contains details of some of the things I have experienced in my 40+ years of exporting: scams; communication failure; incorrect packaging and/or documentation; failure to get paid; and kidnap. I couldn’t cover in that chapter every single disaster I’ve ever seen because that would have trebled the length of the book. Yesterday, however, I was giving a seminar on The Perils of Exporting and when I told the story I’m about to tell you, the delegates were unanimous that this should have been in the book. I’ll consider it for the second edition; in the meantime, here it is.
This happened in a country in West Africa in 2011. We were invited to tender for supply of construction materials by the Ministry of Housing. Those invitations came in quite regularly but we had never succeeded in selling to that country because (see Chapter 3, Corruption, in The International Sales Handbook) we could not see our way to meeting the PFA (Personal Financial Aspirations) of officials within the Ministry. In short, we don’t pay bribes and competitors do. We put in our bid because you should always put in your bid – it’s a mistake to say, “We won’t win so let’s not bother”. If anyone is going to rule you out, let it be the customer and not you. One of our customers, a contractor in that country, had contacts in the Ministry and told us after a couple of weeks that we were low bidder by quite a margin. That made sense; if you have to build in enough to pay off greedy Government officers then you end up with a high price but since it’s those same Government officers who award the contract the fact that you’re dearer than the competition shouldn’t matter.
This time, however, there was a complication. The project was being paid for by a Development Bank with interests in Africa and they were taking a close interest in how the contract was awarded. The German company that bribed Government officials as a matter of course and always won official tenders at a price some 40% above ours was said to be in furious discussion with the officials they had bought but who now could not deliver the contract. Our customer found the situation hilarious: “The Germans want their money back and the Government guys’ wives have spent it.”
The deadline for the tender was extended and we were asked to confirm that our terms were still good. We did so. We received an email full of dire warnings about penalty clauses and what would happen to us if we failed to meet any part of the contract for which we were bidding. Sensible people might have considered backing out at this point because the message we were getting could be very easily translated: “You weren’t supposed to win this tender and, if you do, we’ll make you pay.” Perhaps we’re not sensible but we knew that there was nothing in the contract that had accompanied the invitation to tender that might cause us trouble. We left the tender on the table. Another four weeks went by and, the day before the extended tender was due to close, we were officially advised that we had been awarded the contract. And that is when the fun started.
As I said, when we received the invitation to tender it had an attachment showing the wording that would be required to be in the final contract. That is normal. What is not normal is that the terms of the sale were to be Incoterms DDP (Delivered Duty Paid). If you’re not familiar with this you’ll find a full description of all Incoterms in Chapter 5 of The International Sales Handbook, headed Incoterms and Terms of Payment. If you look there, you’ll see that I say (a) that DDP is unusual and (b) that you need to be very clear on the customer’s creditworthiness to use DDP because you are going to deliver the goods direct into his hands and if he can’t pay you (or decides not to) you’re in a very difficult position. I also warn in that section that “someone has to clear the goods through Customs, get them on a truck or other suitable conveyance and deliver them to the customer. Do you have an agent locally who can do that? If not, it could be terribly expensive.”
We had examined carefully the credit-worthiness of the Ministry of Housing and decided they were good for the money. We had an agent in the country who we had used many times before and in whom we had confidence. We had therefore agreed to the DDP terms. But the Ministry pulled a fast one and we let it happen; they said they wanted to use their own agent to handle the import and not ours. We didn’t have to agree but we did and it was a mistake. I’m telling you about it so that you don’t repeat our error. The agent put every possible obstacle in our way. We would hear nothing from them for days and then they would tell us of some new regulation that had to be met or document that had to be provided before the goods could be cleared. The International Sales Handbook warns you about demurrage and storage costs and how quickly they can add up. It was sixteen weeks before we were allowed to clear the goods, by which time those demurrage and storage costs amounted to more than the profit we had built into our bid. When I suggested in a phone conversation with one of the Ministry officials that they had set out to teach us a lesson (leave Government tenders to the Germans because they pay bribes and you don’t) he laughed and brushed off the idea. I was right, though.
The moral. (All of the anecdotes in Chapter 9 end with a moral). The lesson to be taken away here is not something simple like “Be careful to avoid corruption in West Africa” because that would be ridiculous; if you’re going to do business in West Africa (and why wouldn’t you? There’s a lot of money in some of those countries – but see Chapter 7 of The International Sales Handbook headed Continents and Countries: Specific Issues to see which ones to do business in and which to avoid) then you’re going to encounter corruption and the idea of avoiding it is simply silly. No; the real lessons are: (a) Make sure that you really do understand all of the implications of the Incoterms deal you are making; and (b) When a customer wants to use their own agent and not yours agree happily – so long as your sale is CFR, CIF or any other arrangement that means that, once the goods arrive at the consignee port, all further costs are for the consignee and not for you. Otherwise, stick with your own.
October 3, 2014
A Just and Upright Man in paperback. Buy it now, p&p free
You can buy A Just and Upright Man here–now–in paperback. The price includes postage and packing, wherever in the world you happen to be:
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The International Sales Handbook–buy it here in paperback
The paperback version of The International Sales Handbook is now available to buy directly here:
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The price includes postage and packing–wherever in the world you happen to be.
