Cold Black. Alex Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ were made aware at the start of the consultation process, cuts have to be made. We’ve been as fair as we can.’

      There was a pause as Leo Sawyer waited for Fox’s reply. Unable to bear the awkward silence, Fox’s line manager, Janet Cope, coughed to clear her throat.

      ‘James, we really are sorry to let you go but it’s been decided we need two sales engineers, not three.’

      Fox stared at each of ‘the suits’ in turn. ‘What about the position in Saudi?’ Fox’s voice was loud in the small, glass-walled room.

      Cope flinched and Sawyer nervously straightened his tie

      ‘You weren’t suitable for the role. Sorry,’ Sawyer replied, in what he seemed to think was a sympathetic manner. He felt Fox’s green eyes bore into him.

      ‘But I speak Arabic! Can any of the other candidates?’ Fox had started to turn a shade redder than normal.

      Cope gasped. ‘Now, James, I understand that you’re upset, but we don’t need to shout.’

      Fox cast her a contemptuous look. ‘Only my mother calls me James.’

      Cope herself turned a shade of pink and looked down.

      Sawyer pushed a sheet of paper across the table to Fox. ‘If you have a look at this you’ll see we’re paying you in full for your unused holiday time, three months’ redundancy pay – as per your contract – and an additional bonus for all your hard work over the last five years.’

      ‘Six years. I’ve been here since 2002.’ Fox picked up the sheet and scanned the thirty-eight lines.

      ‘Of course, six years. My mistake.’

      ‘Your redundancy is effective immediately, as of the end of today. That means you can start looking for work from tomorrow. We wouldn’t want to stop you from finding another job. We really are truly sorry.’ Cope smiled that ‘monkey smile’ Fox had hated ever since the day she’d become his boss six months earlier.

      Fox folded the letter, placed it in his shirt pocket, and stood. He stared again at both suits. Sawyer was about to speak but Fox held up his hand.

      ‘Thank you for your sincerity.’

      Heads turned as Fox crossed the open-plan office to his desk; some tried not to make eye contact, others tried to look sympathetic. Either way, to him they were just pathetic. His two sales colleagues, those that weren’t being pushed out, were, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be seen. He reached his desk and started to empty its drawers into his pilot case. Fox had always disliked Sawyer. Ever since the last Christmas do, when Tracey had let slip he’d been in ‘Desert Storm’, the man had constantly quizzed him about his past. Sawyer – a member, he claimed, of the ‘territorials’ – had then tried to take the whole of sales and marketing on a team-building paintballing weekend. As marketing director, Tracey had gone and according to her Leo was ‘such a laugh’. At the next work event, Fox had caught him staring at her and given him the nickname ‘Eagle-eyed Action Man’. In fact, the only real action Fox could envisage Sawyer getting was from behind at the local gay bar.

      Looking up, Fox saw the security guard leave the MD’s office with a clipboard in his hand. He bore the man no ill will.

      ‘Hi, Mick. Are you going to march me off the premises? ‘

      ‘Sorry.’ He put the clipboard on Fox’s desk. ‘I’m going to need the car keys and your signature here.’

      Shaking his head, Fox took the keys to his BMW three series and dropped them into Mick’s outstretched palm. ‘Of course you are, and I’m going to walk three miles to the train station.’

      ‘Thanks.’ Mick cast a glance around before saying, almost in a whisper, ‘I don’t suppose Mr Sawyer has offered to drive you in his Z4?’

      ‘I’m not queer.’

      Mick suppressed a smile. ‘It’s my break in ten minutes – I’ll take you to the station.’

      ‘That would be good pal, thanks.’

      It was the way of the world. Mick had more decency than all of them. He patted Fox on the shoulder and left him to finish his bags. Fox continued to shove his personal papers into the pockets of his case. Sawyer and Cope remained cocooned in the meeting room, eyes glued to documents, pretending to look busy and hoping he would leave. Fox closed the case and walked towards the stairs. As he passed the meeting room he tapped on the window, causing both occupants to snap their necks to the right. Fox smiled and held up his middle finger.

      Fox tried to forget that awful day as he crossed the road towards the river and used the pedestrian bridge to make his way home. The tide was out as usual and the river had turned into a thick, muddy smudge. Bloody awful if you asked him, but then Tracey hadn’t when she’d bought the house that overlooked it. As he reached the opposite side he could hear them already, the local kids from the flats out again on their ‘mini motos’, zipping between cars. Jim would be outraged. Jim was always outraged.

      ‘Get off the bloody road! I’ll call the police!’ Jim Reynolds, retired decorator and moral voice of the street, yelled after the miniature motorbikes.

      Fox laughed. ‘Good evening, Jim.’ He liked his neighbour, even if he made fun of him.

      ‘Is it? I’ve had them effing kids tormenting me for the last hour! Shouldn’t they be at school?’ He waved his hedge scissors.

      ‘Jim, it’s almost six.’

      ‘Oh, well, at work then, or doing their homework. At their age, I was painting houses.’

      ‘So are they, with spray cans.’

      The area had been touted as the latest urban development for professional people with two point four children and a BMW. The truth, however, was that the kids from the local council flats saw the quiet, pothole-free roads of Shoreham beach as their private racetrack.

      The old man removed his gardening gloves and scratched his head. ‘Any more news on the job front?’

      Fox shrugged. ‘Who wants to employ an old soldier like me?’

      ‘That’s the problem – no gratitude. They should have given you a medal.’

      Reynolds knew that, as a member of the SAS, Fox had been sent into Iraq. Fox hadn’t been a member of Bravo Two Zero, as all those who knew the truth of his past seemed to think, but a deep-penetration mission which had never been publicised. It had been their job to recce the approach to Baghdad in advance of the coalition’s arrival, an arrival which hadn’t come, at least not for ten years. This mission, he never talked about. Reynolds, himself a veteran of Suez, had great respect for Fox.

      ‘Maybe when we’re both dead they’ll put plaques on our houses?’ Fox smiled.

      There was the sound of bass-heavy music from behind them and Tracey Fox, his wife of five years, raced up the road in her convertible Saab.

      ‘Here she comes, Ghetto Gertrude!’

      Reynolds chuckled as Tracey pulled up onto the drive. ‘Hello, love.’

      ‘Hi, СКАЧАТЬ