Suitable Vengeance

SUITABLE VENGEANCE

Anthony Holmes

Copyright © 2013 by Anthony Holmes

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 9781301071227

Suitable Vengeance

The story of a man driven by injustice to seek revenge in the most appropriate way his imagination can devise. His quest for retribution takes the form of a vendetta against the corporate world in general, a target he considers to be legitimate in the light of what the corporate world did to him and his family. He exacts his reprisal, not caring on which side of the law he operates.

INDEX

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Accident

Chapter 2 The Family

Chapter 3 Wheeler Dealer

Chapter 4 A Ghost Story

Chapter 5 The Bronze Medal

Chapter 6 In Your Own Interest

Chapter 7 The One That Got Away

Chapter 8 Rest Assured

Chapter 9 The Wheel Turns

Chapter 10 The Final Act

Foreword

‘Suitable Vengeance’ is the story of the fictional character Colin Harris who was a highly imaginative white-collar criminal in the early years of the 21st Century. His success in monetary terms did not approach the magnitude of some high profile corporative thieves whose ‘take’ was measured in billions, but the motivation and sheer variety of Harris’s schemes make his story both intriguing and plausible.

It is an anecdote of the single-minded driving force generated by a life-changing event in Colin Harris’s youth. The tragic event that motivated him and more particularly the callous way it was handled by others drove him to embark on a mission of retribution. He did not retaliate in the heat of the moment, but only after careful reflection and planning. He then embarked on his mission of reprisal; exacting his revenge in what he decided was the most suitable way.

This book does not set out to either justify or to censure the main character’s criminal activity and anti-social behaviour, neither does it try to moralise about the rights or wrongs of his nefarious schemes. Readers may choose to take the strictly legal view and condemn his fraudulent schemes outright or they may empathise with him, recognising the frailty of the human condition. The book endeavours to draw a distinction between bad and evil and ensures that Harris’s sense of moral decency, warped though it undoubtedly was, does not cross the fine line between the two.

As Colin Harris goes about getting his own back the reader may find the deceptions credible and intriguing. Should that be so, the book has achieved its aim; but the reader is warned, as many TV programmes advise their viewers, Do not try this at home.

Anthony Holmes

Introduction

It was very late, or rather more accurately very early in the morning. In traditional undergraduate fashion, five students had foregathered in John Favell’s study to drink and while drinking to solve the global problems of poverty, climate change, religious extremism and over-population. With the assuredness of a little learning and the naiveté of youth they were putting the world to rights. The logic of their discussion however was in direct proportion to the amount of beer left in the small barrel on top of the chest of drawers. Logic had retreated into the last half-inch of amber brew and the phrase ‘scraping the barrel’ was never more appropriate than when applied to their current level of conversation.

Arthur Budge, a second year architectural student who fancied himself as a bit of a philosopher, had posed a question.

‘If ‘good’ is the opposite of ‘bad’, what is the opposite of ‘evil’?’

The whole debate, if one might use such an elevated term to describe the ramblings of these beer-brained undergraduates, revolved around the age-old question of whether it is ever permissible to use illegitimate means to correct a perceived wrong. Does the end ever justify the means?

From that point of departure they had come to the vexed definition of the difference between ‘bad’ and ‘evil’. Was ‘evil’ just a more intense form of ‘bad’? Was the answer to be found in the degree of injury inflicted by the act, or were the two concepts fundamentally different?

Colin Harris, in his second year of archaeology, was slouched on the bed along the wall of John’s study. Dark haired and brown eyed he had good features which fell marginally short of achieving a level of handsomeness that might have separated him from the herd. Gillian, Colin’s girl friend of some three months was draped uncomfortably across the bed with her head in Colin’s lap. She had long since given up the unequal struggle against the combination of fatigue and booze and had resigned from the debate. John, the resident of the study was looking decidedly the worse for wear. The fifth member of the group, Patricia Deignon, was sitting crossed legged on the floor in her version of the lotus position. She had discovered yoga during the previous term and took every opportunity to contort herself into excruciating physical positions, claiming that it was her way of relaxing. She and John had been an item before they started at university and it was perhaps her attachment to John that had encouraged her to enter the faculty of law to read the same subjects as her partner.

Arthur pushed for an answer to his philosophical question.

‘Well, Colin?’ he directed his question to the young man on the bed, ‘have you got an antonym for ‘evil’?’

‘Why would you want one? Can’t you just use the word ‘good’ like the rest of us poor, uneducated bums?’ was the response.

‘But that’s the whole point, you ignoramus. You claim that ‘bad’ is not the same as ‘evil’. If you subscribe to that differential then you simply cannot use ‘good’ as the opposite of both.’

He sat back on the rickety wicker chair, having proved his case to his own satisfaction, if to no one else’s.

John sat on a pile of dirty washing in the corner. He emitted a deep, rumbling beery belch. That was apparently the total of his contribution to the discussion, because he relapsed into studied silence. Patricia on the other hand, still pretending that sitting on her heels with her legs crossed was relaxing, pressed the argument forward.

‘In any event, you can’t define the concept of ‘good’ without reference to its opposite.’ she declared with all the self-assumed pseudo logic of the apprentice solicitor. Then, apparently seeing Arthur rising to the bait, she goaded,

‘Go on, Arthur, try it and see if I’m not right. Define a ‘good’ person.’

Arthur was too inebriated to even recognise, never mind avoid the trap she had set and fell right in.

‘A ‘good’ person is one who doesn’t cheat, steal, murder or covet his neighbour’s wife, whatever the hell it means to covet.’

‘You see.’ exalted Patricia, ‘your definition of ‘good’ cannot stand in isolation. You have based it on references to the absence of ‘sin’ and ‘evil.’

‘That’s a load of bollocks,’ said Colin, rearranging Gillian’s blonde hair as he spoke. ‘Good can be defined as moral, law-abiding, saintly, respectable, upright, virtuous or noble without any reference to bad. Evil can be defined as wicked, sinful, malevolent, malicious and vile, which by the way is an anagram of evil. You don’t need the one to define the other.’

‘What the hell does an archaeologist know about the English language?’ John asked, having some difficulty with the pronunciation of Colin’s field of study. ‘Why don’t you stick to your hieroglyphs?’ He slurred, then belched again and fell silent.

‘Is the beer finished?’ inquired Arthur.

Patricia reached over, rocking unsteadily and gave the little barrel a nudge. No sloshing was heard. She nodded.

‘It is with much regret that I have to record the passing of mister barrel,’ she proclaimed in a sombre voice.

‘Well, I’m gone’, said Arthur and he stood up, reached down and gave John a lift up to his feet. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Bugger off, I live here!’ was John’s indignant response.

It was the night before the Christmas break. Tomorrow all the undergraduates would make their way to their various abodes for the short winter vacation. As far as anyone’s beer-befuddled brain could recall John and Patricia were going to spend some time working as clerks in his father’s legal practice in Guildford, while Arthur had secured a part-time job in a drawing office not far from his parent’s home in Crawley. Gillian was going to her parent’s farm somewhere in Kent and Colin Harris, faced with no ready market for the short term services of an archaeology student, would go to work for Mr Hamlyn in the Garden Shop in Earl Shilton, his home town.

Colin nudged Gillian into a state that vaguely resembled consciousness.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Party’s over.’

Gillian stood up. She was an attractive girl with straight blond hair and a cheerful face, but at that moment she did not look her best.

‘Who won?’ she asked.

Colin laughed.

‘It was a draw.’ he proclaimed.

Three of the five friends bid John and Patricia farewell as they made their way through the door of John’s study and tottered towards their respective rooms, wishing each other all the compliments of the festive season and looking forward to meeting again in the New Year.

But only four of them would gather again in the hallowed halls of university. For one of them the Christmas break would bring a life-shattering event that would destroy all his previous concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

Chapter 1 : The Accident

Richard Edding arrived at Beddows Engineering Works in Earl Shilton on a grey and bitterly cold Tuesday morning in late December 2000 at his usual time of nine o’clock. He drove into the premises through a galvanised steel gate that had a sign in black writing on a yellow background stating that ‘This Gate is for Authorised Personnel Only.’

The guard at the gate, an elderly man dressed in a navy-blue pseudo-military uniform stood to attention and gave his unique interpretation of a salute as his Managing Director guided the dark blue BMW through the gate and into the reserved covered parking bay. The sign over the parking bay proclaimed this to be the exclusive preserve of Mr. R. Edding – MD and some disrespectful wag had tied a piece of tinsel to the sign, presumably to remind Mr Edding of the approach of Christmas and the pay out of bonuses.

Beddows Engineering Works was a factory that produced heavy equipment for the foundry industry. The company made huge ladles to hold molten steel. It manufactured a range of other specialised vessels, devices and contraptions used in the molten metal business. In the Beddows Heavy Fabrication Shop, steel plates of various grades and thicknesses were cut to shape by the sapphire blue flames of oxy-acetylene cutting torches. Powerful forming rolls groaned and complained as they rolled the plates into cylinders. Automated welders with electrodes that produced dazzling flashes of arc light and showers of orange sparks joined the various pieces together according to a design produced by a draughtsman and laid out on a blue-print.

Beddows Engineering had previously been a family-owned enterprise. The founder of the enterprise had been Benjamin Beddows, known universally as ‘BB’. He had built the company from a single shed, where he personally cut and welded simple repair work, into what it became; a significant manufacturing operation specialising in foundry equipment. When old ‘BB’ finally retired, long after his health suggested he should have done, Beddows Engineering was taken over by his son Edgar, called ‘Young Mr Edgar’ by the longer serving employees. Edgar Beddows was both a competent engineer and a highly capable accountant. This unusual combination enabled Mr Edgar to develop the company into a major player in the broader markets of Europe. Regrettably ‘young Mr Edgar’ died of a heart attack two months after the company celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. Beddows was an enterprise formed and nourished in the true engineering tradition of blood, sweat and tears. It had taken sixty years of hard work and courage for two generations of Beddows men to make Beddows Engineering into a leader in its field. It took the late Edgar’s wife and his three children less than six months to sell the company and pocket the proceeds.

An international corporation with its headquarters in Stockholm stepped forward as the most suitable candidate and the family was able to console themselves for the loss of a husband and a father by celebrating the many millions of pounds they received from the deal.

The new Swedish owners made the decision to install a British chief executive. They believed, and rightly so, that the Scandinavian style of management would not be conducive to the smooth transition of the company from its family origins to a tightly controlled corporate subsidiary. They employed ‘head-hunters’ and after several interviews settled on a certain Richard Edding. He was forty-years old and his curriculum vitae reflected several years experience in a similar industry. Edding’s immediate superior in Sweden made it clear that they were on the acquisition trail and if Edding ‘worked out’ he would be well placed for promotion when larger ‘English speaking’ companies were merged into their Swedish business empire.

Richard Edding was considered to be a reasonable boss by the workers of Beddows. Not like ‘Young Mr Edgar’ of course. Edding was not the sort of bloke you could enjoy a joke with or talk to about the horses or the performance of the local football team, but he was not bad for a ‘corporate’ type. On his side, Edding realised that the skill and knowledge of the workforce was absolutely crucial to the success of the business. Like so many family-owned outfits, Beddows had developed its products on the shop floor without the benefit of a research establishment or even a formal design department. This style of operation resulted in the intricacies of the designs of Beddows’ products being found exclusively in the heads of the long serving employees and not in the filing cabinets of the drawing office. It would be years before all the information could be extracted and put on record. In the meantime if one of the old codgers were to leave or to ‘snuff it’ he would leave a huge hole in the production process.

So far everything had worked very well. Beddows had good products, a small but loyal group of customers and excellent skills in its own work place. Edding had completed two years of service, had produced strong profit growth and had broadened the customer base. Everything was coming up roses. Now there were rumours that the Swedes were about to pounce on another English manufacturer, a significantly larger enterprise than Beddows. If the acquisition went ahead, Edding felt that he could be in line for the top spot in the new company. He just had to keep his nose clean and make sure Beddows’ profits remained on the up and up.

He was on his second mug of coffee when his secretary tapped on his door and walked in. He looked up.

‘Yes, Christine?’

‘George is here and says he needs to speak to you immediately.’

This particular George was George Sinclair, the factory manager. Edding had employed Sinclair as his number two and he was the man Edding expected to take over the top job at Beddows when the time came for Edding to be promoted.

‘Send him in.’

George Sinclair came into Edding’s office and shut the door behind him. He was wearing a grey anorak over his jacket. He was a seriously large individual with a red face and an uncompromising attitude. Not known for his quick wit or repartee he had the one attribute that all second level executives need - he got the job done. He came straight to the point.

‘Richard, there’s been an accident in the plant, a bad one. The forklift driver was stacking steel plates when the whole bloody pile came down. It knocked over the forklift with the driver in it. He’s badly injured, crushed by the plates. I’ve called an ambulance and they’re on the way. Personally I don’t give him much of a chance.’

Edding was already out of his chair and making for the door.

‘Show me where it happened.’

‘Grab your coat - it’s brass monkeys out there.’

Edding and Sinclair rushed through Christine’s office and down the stairs to the doors that separated the factory from the administration block.

‘He’s round the back of the stores in the steel yard.’

They half-ran and half-walked to the place. Several blue-overalled workers were standing around the untidy pile of steel plates and the crumpled yellow forklift stacker.

The steel plates were stacked on wooden pallet bases, eight plates to each pallet. Each plate was a half-inch thick, twelve feet long by four feet wide, the standard raw material used for ladle shells. One of the stacks had slid sideways, knocking the forklift over. Edding got closer and saw the driver lying on his side, half in the forklift and half out. He didn’t appear to be trapped under anything, but he was unconscious and bleeding from several cuts and grazes.

Sinclair spoke softly into Edding’s ear.

‘I’ve given the men instructions not to move him. I’m afraid of broken bones and internal injuries. He may also have taken a serious blow to the head.’

Edding became aware of the noise of a siren approaching the factory. The elderly gate guard in his dark uniform had opened the gates in anticipation of the ambulance’s arrival and when it had passed through the entrance it drove straight to the accident scene. The blue light on top of the white and green ambulance remained flashing as the vehicle came to a stop. Two paramedics got out and approached the injured man.

Sinclair moved the group of morbid onlookers to one side and spoke to them. They drifted off back to their workstations leaving the senior managers and the paramedics with the unconscious forklift driver.

One of the paramedics spoke to Sinclair.

‘Sir, it appears that the patient has suffered multiple injuries. My colleague is setting up a drip. We will immobilise his head and get him onto a stretcher. Is there any possibility that any more of that stuff could slip down?’ He indicated a second pile of steel plates.

Sinclair shook his head.

‘No, they appear to be perfectly safe.’

The two managers watched while the paramedics worked at the side of the patient. They finally slid the stretcher with the still unconscious forklift driver into the ambulance.

The senior paramedic took a quick walk around the forklift and the piles of plates. He turned to Edding.

‘What’s the fellow’s name?’

Sinclair answered for his boss.

‘He is Tom Harris, forklift driver.’

‘Have you had any previous experience with serious industrial accidents?’ he asked.

Edding and Sinclair both shook their heads.

Sinclair added,

‘We’ve had a few minor injuries, even a hospital case or two but nothing as serious as this.’

‘Then you won’t mind me giving you a quick word of advice. I have taken several digital photographs of the scene.’

He showed Sinclair the small camera. He spoke very quickly, clearly in a hurry to get the patient to the hospital.

‘These photos will be made available at the enquiry. You do understand there will be an enquiry? You should have this area cordoned off immediately. Call the Factory Inspector and advise him of the facts of the accident. Make sure you call him before I get to the hospital, because the first thing I will do when I have got your man into A&E is to phone the Factory Inspector and report the accident. The Inspectors get very touchy if they haven’t heard from the company’s management before they hear from the hospital. When you speak to him, stress the serious nature and the possibility that the patient may be fatally injured. I’m not saying he will die you understand, but it doesn’t look good. Then get hold of your Shop Steward and ask him to call his Trade Union Representative and advise him of the accident.’

The paramedic was climbing into the ambulance as he issued his final recommendation.

‘Call your own legal firm and have them send one of their specialist solicitors over as soon as possible. Do not touch or move anything in the vicinity of the accident. If anything is moved, comparison with the photographs I have taken will show it. And, of course, contact his wife and family straight away.’

The paramedic closed the doors to the rear of the ambulance and the driver started the siren as the vehicle made its way back to the gate. Edding and Sinclair stood for a moment listening as the sound of the siren disappeared in to the distance.

‘I didn’t need this to happen, George. How the hell did he pull that pile of plates down?’

Sinclair considered his answer.

‘It looks to me as if the wooden pallet at the bottom collapsed, but we’ll have to do a full investigation. I’ll take a leaf out of the ambulance bloke’s book and get some photos taken.’

‘Yes, fine. I’ll contact our solicitors. Do you know his family?’

‘No,’ replied Sinclair, ‘but Brown will have all the details.’

Joshua Brown was the company’s personnel manager.

‘George, I’ll leave you to call the Factory Inspector and talk to the Shop Steward. Get a couple of your men to cordon off the area. And post a guard here to make sure no-one gets behind the cordon.’

‘Will do,’ responded Sinclair. ‘I’ll need your authorisation to rent a forklift for a while and a temporary driver from the agency. We’ll work on that stack of plates on the far side of the yard.’ Sinclair pointed to a stack of palletised steel plates. ‘They came in recently, but we’ve been working off the oldest stock first. This accident shouldn’t affect production, except perhaps for the psychological effect.’

‘I’ll have to inform Head Office,’ said Edding, ‘and you know what that means, long reports and questions to answer. They always want to reduce everything to a ‘who’s to blame?’ scenario. Talking about that, I’ll get hold of the supplier of the steel plates. At first glance it seems to me those wooden pallets aren’t strong enough for the job. OK, let’s get on with it.’

The two men split up, Sinclair going into the factory while Edding made his way back to his office.

‘Christine, get Brown up here with the forklift driver Harris’s personnel file and get Watson & Stevens on the phone, I want to speak to Gardner.’ Edding issued instructions as he walked through his secretary’s office.

The coffee in his mug was cold.

‘And get me some more coffee, please.’ he called through the open door.

He picked up the phone as Christine rang through.

‘Mr. Gardner for you.’

‘Thanks. Hello Gerry. Look, old man, we’ve had an accident, a serious one. The man involved was badly injured and might not make it. Have you got a specialist in the field? Good. Yes, send him round as soon as possible. Ask for me. Bye.’

The phone was replaced and a tap on the door indicated that Brown was waiting.

‘Christine wasn’t here,’ he started.

‘It’s OK Josh, come in. Take a seat. You know that the forklift driver, name of Tom Harris has been involved in a serious accident? He’s been taken to the Hinckley General. We need to contact his family urgently.’

Joshua Brown had worked sufficiently long with Edding to know that sentences beginning with the pronoun ‘We’ really meant ‘You’.

‘OK, Richard, I’ll handle it, although I’m sure a call from you would be appreciated later on, when the situation is clearer.’

Edding nodded.

‘You’d better tell his wife that it’s very serious. The paramedic didn’t think much of his chances. Let me have his file when you’ve taken the wife’s contact details.’

Brown scratched down a phone number and handed over the green cardboard folder. Edding opened it and flicked through to the personal detail sheet.

‘I see he has a son, born in 1980 - makes him twenty odd.’ Brown mentioned.

‘All right Josh, get on and do your thing. After you’ve contacted the wife, get hold of the Hinckley General. Find out who is handling the case and keep me informed of Harris’s progress.’

As Brown got up and left, Edding’s phone rang. It was Sinclair.

‘You said you wanted to speak to the supplier of the steel plates. The company is Platecor and the boss man is David Dunlop. I’ve got him on the line now. Can I put him through?’

‘Thanks, George. Did you tell him what’s it’s about?’

‘No. I just said you wanted a word.’

‘OK. Put him on.’

‘Hello Mr Dunlop, this is Richard Edding. I’m the Managing Director of Beddows.’

‘Good morning, Mr Edding. How may I help you?’

‘We’ve had a serious accident in the factory. It appears that one or more of the wooden pallets that support the steel plates supplied by your company collapsed and the entire stack fell on our forklift. The poor driver has been severely injured. I need your company’s input as to how this could have happened. Can you or one of your staff come over immediately to take a look?’

There was a short pause.

‘Yes, Mr Edding. I will come over straightaway and bring one of my people with me. I can be with you in about an hour.’

‘Thank you. Ask for me at reception. I’ll be expecting you.’

Edding had no sooner put down the phone than Christine brought in a fresh mug of coffee and announced that a Mr Fisher from Watson and Stevens was waiting in Reception.

‘That was quick. Take him to the conference room next to reception. Call George and ask him to join us.’

Edding took a quick swig of coffee. Then picking up a note pad he made his way to the conference room.

Mr Fisher was a middle-aged man and unlike most corporate solicitors, he was wearing slacks, an open neck shirt and a check jacket.

‘Ah, Mr Fisher’ said Edding shaking hands. ‘My name is Richard Edding, I am the Managing Director. My factory manager, George Sinclair is on his way. Coffee?’

‘Your secretary has already arranged that,’ he said, a fact that was almost immediately verified by the arrival of Christine with a tray of coffee with three cups. Right behind her, holding the door open was Sinclair.

It took a few moments to pour the coffee and then Christine withdrew.

Fisher got straight down to business.

‘An industrial accident involving serious injury or death is one of the most difficult events for the management of the company to handle. It may only happen once in a manager’s career, but the effect on him and his company can be traumatic. You have been very wise to call me in as early as you have. I don’t say this to blow smoke or polish my own ego, but with twenty years in the field and regrettably more than two hundred cases behind me, you will need my experience to guide you through the procedures.’

‘First of all I need to get some basic facts, such as who is the injured party, when and where did the incident take place, what you have done so far and how do you think the accident occurred?’

Edding and Sinclair provided the answers to Fisher’s straightforward questions.

‘Right, now what have you done up to now?’

Sinclair answered first.

‘I’ve cordoned off the area with striped tape and posted a guard to make sure no one enters. I contacted the Factory Inspector’s office, a certain Mr Hargreaves. He was out but I informed his assistant of the circumstances and left a message for him to contact me when he returns. I’ve spoken to the Shop Steward and he has undertaken to get hold of the Trade Union Representative. I’ve arranged for the labour agency we use to send round a replacement forklift driver