5 From 7

by Damien Seaman

Born in Mansfield, UK and baptised in Libya, DAMIEN SEAMAN has vomited orange juice on infamous English football coach Brian Clough and smuggled illegal bacon and booze into Kuwait, his most criminal act to date. He has worked in European politics, edited a newspaper and been a security guard, after which he worked in an egg factory, a pizza factory, a salad factory and a fruit factory, but not all at the same time. An unspectacular stint as a Tesco management trainee helped speed his current exile to Berlin, where his hobbies include learning German and going to work. More of his crime fiction is forthcoming at Pulp Pusher and Spinetingler Magazine.
Contact Damien

CHAPTER ONE

Charlie shut the meeting room door and left her interviewee inside. She went over to the tannoy microphone and tried not to laugh as she picked it up.

‘Tina McAvoy to the meeting room, please. That’s Tina McAvoy to the meeting room. Thank you.’

She clicked off the microphone with a dull thud that went out over the loudspeakers and then she did laugh. Quietly, so the woman in the room couldn’t hear.

She looked around the main office, as she did every day. And just like every other day, it seemed like someone had kitted the place out from a fifteen-year-old office supplies catalogue. Grubby PCs smashed through the obsolescence barrier on plastic desktops. The strip lights twitched with electrical epilepsy. Sunlight fought through the blinds on the windows.

Paul from Buying was the only other person in the room, and he was too busy speaking to someone about a lorry-load of bad mushrooms to pay any attention to Charlie. The other office guys had gone to lunch. Part-timers, thought Charlie. She glanced at the big clock on the wall; just after one. Checked her watch. Three and a half minutes fast. Say Tina made it by ten past. Quicker the better – it was going to be a long meeting.

#

When the call went out, Tina was over in Toppings talking to Sue, one of her line leaders, about shaving four tenths of a second off each stage of production. Sue ran line one and line one made pizzas for Tesco. The Tesco job represented just under sixty per cent of output, which meant Sue had the fate of the factory more or less in her hands for eight hours of every day.

The tannoy call brought a scowl to Tina’s face. ‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘not one fucking thing it’s another round here. How’m I s’posed to get any bloody work done?’

‘I didn’t know you did do anything. Lazy bitch,’ said Sue, with a smile.

‘Cheeky cow. Better watch I don’t drag you up for a disciplinary, talking to me like that.’

‘Who’d run line one for you then?’

‘Fuck off.’

Tina went through a white door into the changing room. Sue’s foghorn voice echoed off the walls behind her. Then the door shut and cut Sue off.

Two-thirds of the way into the room was a steel hump at knee height. Tina sat, removed her regulation blue Wellingtons and put them up on a rack. Then she took off her blue overall and hung it on her numbered peg. She found her trainers, put them on. Went through the exit into the corridor and took off her hairnet.

Tina would have killed for a fag just then, but you were only allowed to smoke in the smoking room. Was that Health and Safety or was it Food Safety? She couldn’t remember; it had been so long since she’d done her basic training. The corridor’s concrete floor echoed the faint sounds of production.

Charlie raised her eyebrows when Tina entered the office. The clock showed quarter past. Paul had gone for a sandwich and the room was empty. Tina’s loose clothes hid her pear shape, her hair a Ziggy Stardust mullet. Only it was mousy and not red.

‘Frigging Toppings, wasn’t I,’ Tina said. ‘About as far as you can get. What’s up? It’s bloody Deedes isn’t it?’

Charlie nodded. She put a finger to her lips and pointed to the meeting room door.

‘Shit. Sorry.’ Sheila Deedes was one of Tina’s, from Toppings.

‘You won’t believe what she’s just gone and told me,’ Charlie said. Too posh for her own good, Tina sometimes thought. And always wore expensive clothes, even under the overalls. What was the point? Who was ever going to notice round here? She waited for Charlie to go on.

‘It would be pretty straightforward, but I definitely need a witness for this. I’ve taken some notes but…I don’t know what to do about this, really I don’t. I just need you to be there. It might take some time.’

‘I’ve got nothing better to do, have I?’ Tina’s voice had an edge to it.

‘I mean, it’s funny and I had to stop myself laughing at first, but I don’t know whether to call the police or the fucking RSPCA.’

‘RSPCA?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘Isn’t this about the two pretty new girls in Toppings?’

‘And more. We’ve got a list of complaints long as your arm.’

‘Who else?’

‘Ellie and George on line two. Sue. Sarah. Take your pick.’

‘My Sue?’

Charlie paused for a beat before nodding.

‘Good old Sue. That’s my girl,’ Tina said.

‘You need any more background?’

‘Don’t think so. You want me to pick up the notes where you left off, right?’

‘Yep.’

‘Everything in there already?’

Charlie nodded. ‘You got a pen?’

Tina nodded.

‘Okay, let’s go.’

#

They entered the room. Its pale walls were stained the shade of a teenage smoker’s lungs, and another cheap clock hung on the wall. Underneath it were laminated photos of what the pizzas were supposed to look like when they came out of the oven. A long meeting table stood more or less in the middle of the room. Sheila Deedes was sitting at the head of it. Charlie and Tina went and sat either side of Sheila. Charlie picked up her notes and disciplinary checklist, passed some blank sheets of paper over to Tina.

Charlie cleared her throat. ‘Okay, Sheila, you all right to continue?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So… meeting recommenced at …’ Charlie checked her watch, ‘one seventeen pm. Now I’ve explained to you why I had to adjourn, but I’ll just reiterate for the notes. We are here today because you have been reported for making threats to your line leader and other members of staff in your department.’

Sheila made a noise at the back of her throat while Charlie paused to look over the notes.

‘I explained all this to you and you replied that it wasn’t fair. You said your line leader, Sue Johnston, is always being rude to you and that, quote, "nothing ever gets done about her". Right so far?’

Sheila nodded, didn’t say anything. Tina made a note of that.

‘Okay,’ said Charlie. ‘I asked if you had anything to say in your defence and you said yes. You told me what it was. I said, in light of the seriousness of what you had to say, that we should adjourn while I got another manager in as a witness. Now I just have to ask you one more time if you would like a representative present. This has got quite serious and you are entitled to one if you want.’

‘No.’

‘Then I’ll just read through what it was you said to me. You caught up there Tina?’

‘Yeah. Go on.’

‘Right. You said Sue Johnston is always bullying you. You want to just explain to us what you mean there, what sort of bullying we’re talking about?’

‘All right,’ said Sheila. ‘She shouts at me the other day for being too slow on the changeover for the Tesco Deep Pan Veggie, yeah? And I say it’s not good manners, like. So she says to me to do what I’m fucking told and I tell her to fuck off, which is fair enough, right? I mean, I don’t come to work every day to be sworn at by that fat bitch. It’s not like it’s just me either. She’s rude to everyone.’

Sheila looked to Tina. Tina didn’t look up, kept her eyes on her notes.

‘Well, Dave was on line two and he heard what she said and I swear he almost fucking went for her. I had to get him to calm down. So he leaves the shop floor and gets changed and comes up for a smoke. And he was the one who got disciplined! Now I’m telling you, if he hadn’t gone to the smoking room to calm down that bitch would’ve been flat on the floor with a broken nose, or something worse maybe. She’s always rude to me and Dave. And she gets away with it too.’

Sheila stopped and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘This place is mental. You ask Robert. He don’t like her either.’

‘Okay, hang on a mo, Sheila,’ said Charlie. ‘You getting this all right, Tina?’

‘Give us a sec.’

‘These are pretty serious allegations.’

‘Yeah, well I’m not saying what people don’t already know.’

‘That’s as may be, but you can’t threaten to beat up your line leader because she’s rude to you. Like I said before, the right thing to do is come here during a break time or at the end of a shift and make a proper complaint to another manager.’

‘Yeah right, and what would you do about it? You trying to tell me if I complained you’d get her in here and give her a talking to, like with me? Bollocks! She’s always bloody in here during breaks and after the shift, brown-nosing her way around. And I’m supposed to come in and say "excuse me, Charlie or Tina, but I need to make a complaint about Sue", when she’s right there listening? My life wouldn’t be worth living when I got back to Toppings and you know it!’

Sheila slumped back in her seat and crossed her arms in front of her shapeless breasts. Tina caught up with the notes. She looked at Charlie when she’d finished.

‘Right then,’ Charlie said, ‘we’ll move on from this. But, as you know, Sue has complained about you too. She says she never swore at you –’

‘She’s a lying bitch. But you’re gonna believe her, aren’t you?’

‘Give us a chance, Sheila, come on. The problem I have here is she’s not the only one, is she? I have a list of half a dozen people who’ve complained about you threatening them.’

‘That was a joke.’

‘What, like with Gemma and Lucy? They were scared out of their wits when they came to see me.’

‘Yeah, well they’re lying, aren’t they? We never touched them.’

‘They didn’t say you did, not exactly. And that’s not the point, anyway. They asked me not to say anything to you about it because they’re frightened. You told them if they said anything to anyone then you and your husband "know where they live".’

‘We was having a laugh, that’s all. It’s just something they say in films and that, isn’t it? But nothing happened on site anyway. So it’s none of your business.’

‘You threatened them on site. And kidnapping two teenage girls is not just "having a laugh". I don’t think the police would see it that way, anyhow.’

‘Hey, fuck off!’

‘Don’t talk to me like that!’

Silence fell. Charlie counted to ten in her head before continuing.

‘Let’s go through this systematically, all right? Your line leader complains about you, and says she didn’t provoke you. She’s got witnesses to back her up. Sarah complains you’ve been going on about how she’s a…"lesbo". That’s what she said you called her.’

‘Yeah well she is a lesbo. Everyone knows it.’

‘Whether she is or not is irrelevant. She says you’re hassling her, making her life miserable. And she says this started after you and Dave invited her back to yours for a threesome and she refused.’

Sheila went a little red in the face and shuffled in her seat.

‘You okay Sheila?’ Charlie asked. ‘Want some water?’

Tina hid a smile. Sheila shook her head.

‘George and Ellie say you regularly take the piss and use abusive language, and now I get two new members of staff coming to see me to tell me you threatened them and too scared to tell me why. Now what would you do in my situation? Do you think all these people are lying? Do you think I’m supposed to think all these people are lying?’

Charlie let the silence hang for a minute or two while Tina got the notes up to date.

‘So, after ten minutes in the canteen and several cups of tea I get them to open up. And what do they tell me?’

Sheila shrugged.

‘Okay, I’ll read over what I told you before.’ Tina wrote ‘read thru prev. notes’ and put her pen down. She wanted to hear this.

‘Gemma and Lucy tell me you and Dave offered to take them home after the morning shift on Wednesday. They knew you and knew you lived out near them, so thought nothing of saying yes.

‘Then, on the way home, you invite them in for a cup of tea. They say yes, and then you use your mobile and phone up someone, telling them to have a shower and get ready because you’re bringing guests home. Now, I know to you this might seem normal, but this is when the girls start to feel a bit uncomfortable. For most people this is not normal behaviour, Sheila. You get to your house. You let them in; sit them on your sofa.

‘So there you are, you and your husband and these two teenage girls, chatting away about the factory, according to them. And then your son enters the room. His hair is wet and he’s wearing a towel. You tell him to come over and introduce himself to Gemma and Lucy. And, I want to emphasis this point, he’s just wearing a towel, right? Nothing else? And you invite him over to shake hands with a couple of young girls he’s never met before?’

Sheila nodded.

‘Is this what normal people do, Sheila, d’you think?’ Sheila shrugged. ‘So then you say to your son, "which one of them do you fancy?"’ Charlie paused.

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘It’s intimidation, Sheila, that’s what’s wrong with it. You bring in a half naked man in his mid-twenties and ask him to choose which one of two teenage girls he fancies. What, was he supposed to have her right there on the table?’

‘We haven’t got a table in the front room.’

‘It’s a rhetorical question, Sheila.’

Charlie paused to see if her words were sinking in. Got the feeling they weren’t.

‘The girls are really quite freaked out by this point, and ask you to take them home. You refuse, saying they have to stay for a cup of tea, and then you make them stay and drink it while your son…Darren…goes to put on his clothes. And then Gemma’s mobile goes and it’s her dad, and she asks him to come over and pick them up, at which point you get angry and tell them to leave anyway.’

‘Yeah, well it was rude, them just going like that. They could’ve given my Darren a chance.’

‘It sounds like a lucky escape to me.’ Charlie motioned to Tina, who picked up her pen ready to write. She knew the best was about to come.

‘We talk all this over and then you say…well, what don’t you say? You say they’re all prudes. And they don’t like it in Toppings when you talk about yours and Dave’s sex life. Sheila, I’m not surprised. According to you Ellie and George and Sarah and Gemma and Lucy are all, let me see, "intimidated by your sexuality"? You go on to say you regularly have threesomes and anyone who doesn’t is stuck up. You say you have a pet snake. Now this is where I get concerned, Sheila, because snakes have rights too, and now I’m wondering if I need to be calling the RSPCA. You let Dave put the snake – no, wait. I have to read this out.’

Charlie scanned her notes till she found the relevant bit.

‘So…"Dave takes King out of his case and wakes him up. He knows what he’s got to do and he gets all excited. He wriggles around like he can’t wait to get started. Then Dave goes and puts him with his head on my fanny and puts a bit of food in there to entice him in".’

Charlie stopped, looked up. She held Sheila’s gaze for a second or two.

‘And what food is that, Sheila? Snakes eat mice don’t they?’

Tina put her hand over her mouth to hide her grin, or maybe it was a grimace. Charlie kept a straight face.

‘King likes peanut butter too,’ said Sheila. Her face had flushed and her voice sounded thick. Charlie couldn’t tell if Sheila felt embarrassed or turned on.

‘If he really wanted to get up there, d’you think you’d need to spread yourself with peanut butter to…"entice him in"?’

No answer.

‘So then "King tastes the air for a bit and tickles my…cunt hairs and I get all wet and excited. Then he thrusts in after the food and buries himself deep inside and I’m loving it and he moves around inside me all smooth and long and I cum after a couple of minutes…normally more than once".’

Charlie paused again.

‘You get all that Tina? He "thrusts in and buries himself deep inside".’

‘Yeah.’ Tina’s voice crackled with suppressed laughter. Her hand shook as she got to the end of her notes.

The silence held for a long time.

‘So, Sheila, we’re just gonna have to adjourn for a minute or two while we decide how we want to take this matter further. Oh, and we’ll need you to sign a copy of these notes to say they’re a true reflection of what’s been said here today.’

‘What? You want me to sign it all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even the bit about King?’

‘Even the bit about King. Particularly that bit, as a matter of fact.’

‘I’m not signing that. It makes me sound like a fucking pervert!’

#

‘So what the fuck do we do now?’ said Tina. Charlie could tell she felt shocked. ‘I mean, it’s unbelievable!’ They had moved to the smoking room.

‘True. We’ve given her a warning though. I don’t know there’s much more we can do.’

‘I mean, "normally more than once"? What’s normal about that? I’ll have trouble sleeping tonight. Just thinking about that jelly having an orgasm’s enough to give me the willies.’

They laughed, but it was a hollow sort of laugh. You saw more than you thought you would on this job, that was for sure.

Compared to the meeting room, the smoking room walls were like the lungs of an eighty-year-old coal miner. There were twelve more minutes until the next scheduled break time, and Charlie and Tina had the place to themselves. They drank instant coffee from the machine in the corner and smoked Marlboro Reds.

‘Thing is,’ Charlie said, ‘the girls are shitting themselves and they won’t press charges. As for the rest, we’ve done what we can. It’ll be a final written next time and then maybe we can get rid of her after that. Plus Dave’s already on a final. We’ll get them.’

‘Yeah, but I still wish we could do more. What about the snake thing?’

Charlie shook her head. ‘No proof, if she denies her statement. She’s probably made it up, knowing her. Just out to get attention.’

‘Yeah. S’pose so. There’s a lot we’ve missed out as well though, don’t you think?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Sheila and her husband must be the biggest dealers in the factory.’

Charlie frowned. ‘Maybe. But that’s only a rumour.’

Tina started to protest but Charlie cut her off. ‘No, come on Tina, what real evidence do we have? Yeah, okay, so we know they’re dealing, but only because other people say so. They’ve never been caught doing it and there’s nothing would stand up in a tribunal, never mind a court.’

Tina looked unconvinced.

‘Besides,’ Charlie went on, ‘no one’s complained about it have they?’

‘No.’

‘No, they haven’t. So it’s not our responsibility. It’s not even relevant to the disciplinary. These two’ll be out on their collective ear in less than a month. We’ve got nothing to worry about.’

‘What do you mean? Surely it’s our responsibility to make sure nothing illegal’s happening on factory grounds, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but how much cannabis is illegal these days, anyway?’

‘You know we’re not just talking about a bit of cannabis.’

‘Do I?’

‘There’s harder stuff out there, Charlie, and it’s not right to turn a blind eye.’

‘It’s not right to assume guilt without evidence either, Ti. And it’s not up to us to do the work of the police. We pay taxes so the police can do the work of the police. You know what I mean? I’m not gonna go and get myself stabbed to try and keep the factory clean of drugs just because the police can’t do their job and customs can’t stop it coming into the country. It’s not our job, and it’s not relevant to the disciplinary.’

They went silent while Tina thought things over.

‘We’ll have to show this disciplinary stuff to Jill you know, and Terry as well,’ Charlie said.

‘What d’you reckon he’ll say?’

‘Nothing. Probably just go red and tell us to deal with it.’

‘Can I be there when you tell him?’

They laughed; smoked some more.

‘We do have a problem though,’ Charlie said.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s not the first complaint against Sue, is it?’

‘Hey, come on now. Sue had witnesses.’

‘Yes, witnesses who say she was provoked. She still swore at Sheila though. It’s not the first time and I don’t think it’ll be the last. Not unless we talk to her about it.’

‘She’s the best line leader in Toppings!’

‘I’m not denying it. But if we don’t warn her to watch her language then we’ll end up with a complaint we have to uphold. What Sheila said was right: Robert doesn’t like her.’

‘He’s a pompous fuck.’

‘True, but all we need is for her to piss off someone in the union and Robert’ll be onto it like a fly on shit. We can’t give him that chance. I’m not talking about an official telling off. Just a quiet word, off the record.’

‘It’s not fair though, is it?’

‘Listen, Sue can’t go on talking to people the way she does. Someone has to talk to her and sort it out.’

‘I’ll do it, then.’

Charlie took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know if you should. I think you’re too close.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well look how upset you are now just talking about it.’

‘Don’t you trust me to do it right or what?’

Charlie paused. ‘Tina, you know I’m right on this. I know there’s probably a reason. Things are bad with Jenny, I know – ’

‘Her home life’s got nothing to do with her work.’

‘They work together, for Christ’s sake! But that’s not even the point. If she’s upset we can’t let her take it out on the line. Production will suffer and the atmosphere’ll go down the toilet.’

Tina sighed. ‘Okay, you do it. You want another coffee?’

‘Yeah, go on. Put some sugar in it this time though, will you?’

They drank coffee through till the bell went for tea break. When the smoking room and canteen started to fill up they went to get ready for the three o’clock handover.

###

Copyright © Damien Seaman 2007

Read Femme Fatale: Women, Sex And Guilt In Noir Fiction by Damien Seaman