Chapter 8

Business almost as usual

CLARE SHILLINGSTONE opened her sleep-encrusted eyes just a crack and stretched her arms and legs, woken by the bright winter sunlight pouring into the bedroom. She closed her eyes and relaxed momentarily, before realising it was dawn already and she had slept in late. She never slept in except for a couple of hours on Sundays when Amos played a round of golf. Her husband usually moved the foil-covered joint from the fridge and switched on the oven for her to start cooking the Sunday roast before he left. Otherwise, every other day of the week, Clare always got up early to prepare coffee and breakfast for Amos before he left for work, even if it was usually just cereal or toast for the two menfolk of her household. Scott! She remembered that Scott had to get off to work. He was still a college student, and broke up a week or so ago, but had taken on a Christmas job stacking shelves at the mini-mart in the High Street in town, which he only started last Saturday. It was a job that Amos had found for him and insisted that he worked during the college holidays.

Clare got up and put on her fluffy dressing gown before she knocked on Scott’s door. No answer. Inside she found the bed empty and the rumpled bed covers untidily on the floor. No sign of him downstairs but his trainers were gone, and a quick check of the garage revealed that Scott’s bike was missing.

Amos must’ve got him up, given him breakfast and washed up all the crockery except Scott’s dish before he left for work. Amos never did that; he never had to. They always had their first cup of the day together and he always kissed Clare goodbye with a “Love you” before he left for work, as they had done for nearly twenty years. Clare wondered fleetingly if he knew, but no, he couldn’t possibly have found out, she had been so very careful. Besides it was all over on Friday, she had ended it almost as quickly as it had begun. Amos’ usual time of leaving would have been after Scott needed to start his job, so Amos must’ve gone in earlier than usual this morning. Perhaps, Clare wondered, Amos had thought she had been lying there so peacefully that he had decided to let her sleep on. After all, as a stay-at-home mum, she had no pressing need to get up early every day. ‘When I get back upstairs,’ she thought, ‘I’ll send him a text message on my phone, thanking him for my lie-in, and include my love, knowing that he hated being called directly during the day when he was often up to his eyeballs in banking work.’ Indeed, Amos Shillingstone usually started work at eight, but this morning he had been in since a quarter past seven, a full quarter hour before the postman dropped off the first post of the day. Amos had sat in the dark on a chair near the door, waiting until the postman took three goes to deposit all of the mail for the bank through the ancient, narrow, highly-polished brass letterbox in the front door. Amos waited a minute or so before getting off the chair, bent down and picked up the mail from the floor under the front door. He deposited all bar one package on Pam’s desk for her to deal with when she came in at eight. The majority of the mail seemed to be Christmas cards rather business mail, more often conducted by email in recent years.

He had sat there in his office at the very back of the bank for fully ten minutes, before opening the dreaded padded envelope he knew would be there. He set the enclosed crystal CD box to one side and read the brief note from the private investigator, which was wrapped around photocopies of receipts and a pile of still photographs that presaged the end of his almost 20-year marriage.

Mr Ford was thorough, so he should be for the fee he was charging. He enclosed copies of hotel room credit card receipts, café and restaurant bills and his accompanying note listed names, venues, dates and times. Most of the stills showed his wife Clare with her lover, at restaurants, walking through car parks together, letting themselves into hotel rooms, at three separate locations, and one stolen passionate kiss at the back of a car park in the shadows of trees, but the image still sharp enough to identify them both clearly. The note continued to say that the disk contained all the images taken, including scans of the receipts and still photos, seven audio tracks, including two from hotel bedrooms, and one video track from another hotel bedroom. Mr Ford recommended that he didn’t view the video or listen to any of the audio tracks except track seven, and pass the CD, photos and copies of receipts onto his solicitor should he wish to take the matter further.

Amos had inserted the disk and clicked onto audio track seven. Clare was saying goodbye to her lover in the car park before kissing him on the cheek. It sounded like a final farewell, the file dated last Friday afternoon at 15.21 hours. Was that the end though, or was it a case of once a cheater, always a cheater? Was this even the first affair she had had, or was this only the first that Amos had discovered? Was she saying goodbye to this particular lover because she already had another one waiting in the wings? Twenty years, in the spring it would be. Twenty years of wedded ... bliss they had called it when he and Clare last discussed their impending milestone anniversary. They had talked about celebrating the occasion with a Caribbean cruise and were hoping to book a luxury cabin straight after Christmas. It looked like he would be going solo on his next holiday, if he felt like taking one. Their only son Scott would be no company, as father and son were so far apart in attitude that they hardly ever talked any more. Scott was selfish and mooched around the house all the time moaning about having no money. Amos even had to arrange with a personal and business friend that holiday job for him; Scott would have been happy continuing to sponge off his mother. It had been a nightmare getting him up this morning, Amos recalled. He had to pull all the bedclothes off the youth’s naked unwashed body and threaten him in whispers before he got up and into the bathroom. Amos determined that he’d give him one more year at college and, if he failed again then that was it, he’d be cut off without a penny and would have to live with his good-for-nothing mother, wherever she ended up after the divorce.

Clare would be all right, of course. She’d never worked a day in her life, spent her time down the gym and hairdressers or shopping in dress shops. She was an attractive woman, in great shape and still in her late thirties; she could clearly still pick up young lovers on a whim, and she had just proved that. What did Mr Ford say about ... he picked up the note again... “Jake Wheeler, 24, office machinery engineer, has a live-in girlfriend Sofia Shelley, 19, hairdresser”, at the same salon Clare uses, Amos had noted. No, she’ll fall on her feet, with Amos paying her alimony for years to come, so she can continue to enjoy pleasing herself at his expense.

On the other hand, Amos was four years older than his wife, the wrong side of 40, balding, myopic, short, overweight and out of condition. He was manager of a tiny High Street bank branch that might be closed down any day, should his company decide to merge with one of the larger banks, as had been rumoured ever since the banking crisis surfaced. Amos had never even considered having an affair and hadn’t been on a date with a woman other than Clare for the twenty-two years he’d known her. He wouldn’t know where to begin, or even if he would be able to trust anyone enough to begin this sorry exercise all over again. He had only recently been looking forward to offloading his freeloading son in the near future and spending more time with the woman who he once loved unreservedly. Now that the love of his life had proved to have feet of clay he felt deflated, lost and alone.

The nightline phone rang with its distinctive tone and Amos picked up the call without a second thought.

“Central Bank Halifax, how can I help you?” tripped off his tongue like he was on autopilot. Pam usually flicked the phone switch over to normal when she came in but it was seven minutes to eight and Amos was still alone in the bank. He often answered the phone in the late afternoon and early evening when he was usually the last person to leave, particularly lately.

“Hi, Ammo, that you?” asked the jolly, upbeat voice at the other end, “I was expecting the answering machine. So, Clare kick you out of bed, already, or did you shit your blankets again, compadre?”

Amos smiled, for the very first time this morning, he realised, but then he always smiled during conversations with Timothy Smith. Only Tim called him ‘Ammo’ at the bank. Some half a dozen other old friends also occasionally called him by this old nickname but they weren’t big customers like Monroe’s or Tim’s car leasing company. The name derived from the dozen or so seasons he played left wing for Tim’s Sunday football team, that was started at Mac’s as “Mac’s Meteors” and became “Monroe’s Jags”, when he switched allegiance to his current company about a dozen or so years ago. Amos had been fit and very quick on his feet back then, while skipper Tim Smith orchestrated proceedings from centre half or sweeper. Tim coined the nickname for Amos as the skilled winger supplied the pinpoint crosses that centre forward Dave “Digger” Dunham buried from edge of the six-yard box. With those three key players, Timbo, Ammo and Digger, the side rose from division seven newcomers to league champs three times running and county cup winners, plus several other cup successes. Those were the best years of Amos’ life, further emphasising his disappointment with both his wayward wife and wastrel offspring.

“Hi, Timbo,” he responded, almost as cheerfully, “You up with the lark as usual, then? Or did you have to get some nubile chick home before dawn, because it’s a school day?”

“Nah, school’s out this week,” Tim chuckled, “Brought her into work with me, Lily’s showing her exactly how I prefer my coffee. Ow! ... Sorry, Ammo, I’m getting thumped here by a slip of a girl who should know better how to treat their elders when they’re on the blower conducting serious financial business.”

“Well, you’ve only yourself to blame, you brought her into work with you,” Amos chuckled, “Anyway, I’ll happily take her off your hands if you like. I’m afraid I’m back on the singles market after all these years.” It had to come out sometime and who better than through the guy that had quietly informed him a couple of weeks ago that he had seen Clare holding hands with a very handsome but extremely youthful young man at a swanky out-of-town restaurant? Tim did a lot of lunchtime entertaining for his various business activities and the clandestine couple were seen at a converted mill, in an outlying village some twenty miles or so from Halifax, where they didn’t think they would be discovered.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Ammo, I was really hoping it was all a misunderstanding and he’d be a visiting nephew or something. How’re you taking it, Buddy?”

“Well, I’m not taking it lying down, it is just a case of whether I’ll be able to get the paperwork in hand before or after Christmas. I’m ringing Ed at nine and see who he can recommend to handle it and how quickly they can move.”

“Damn shame, Ammo, you really deserve much better than this.”

“It is a damn shame, Timbo, nearly twenty years down the tubes with one flush of the chain, but I’ve got to snap myself out of it. So, you ready to hand this current school kid over to my lascivious clutches, then?”

“No, sorry my friend, I’m not handing this one over,” Tim said breathlessly, sounding very much like he was being tickled at the other end, “This one’s a keeper. Although she is seriously trying my patience somewhat, while I’m attempting to conduct some serious banking business with my favourite financial adviser on the phone here. Besides, she’s far too young a handful for a respectable old soon-to-be-single guy like you.”

“Cradle-snatching again then, are we?” Amos ventured with the hint of a chuckle in his voice, which surprised him this morning of all mornings, “Are you calling me this early in the morning to set up a trust fund for her education, Timbo?”

“No, she’s already much better educated than I am. Actually, she’s a schoolteacher at the East End Comp,” Tim giggled, still clearly fending off someone at the other end of the line. Amos could hear the delightful sound of a girl’s giggles in the background, too, and thought he heard a further female voice saying something like “Sic it to him, girl!” So it sounded to Amos like this mystery girl must be someone very special indeed to have Tim calling her a keeper, while clearly having that mother-hen Lily’s approval to boot. Only thing is, Clare and Tim were the same age, both younger than Amos. Clare was in Tim’s class at school and, while no more than friendly, they had been platonic friends since, so Amos had known Tim for over 22 years and was fully aware of the hours and years of night school that the car salesman had put in ever since he left secondary school. To Ammo’s knowledge, as a late developer, Tim had at least two bachelors and one master’s degree in sales, marketing and business management. So it was unlikely that this girl was really any more qualified than he was. It was also very unlikely that she was better off financially than he was, either. As far as Amos was aware Tim had all of his business banking accounts in this local branch and was Amos’s best customer by far, as well as his favourite. With his interest in the garage, the breakers’ yard, plus a large number of other small businesses around the town, Tim was a paper millionaire several times over. He had bought the old bowling alley business when it went bust several years ago and even made back all the money it had cost him just by clearing the site of materials for recycling. Then he had tarmac’d the surface for the additional parking required when a consortium finished building the nearby cinema and restaurants complex, which had delivered the death knell to the weary old bowling alley. As Tim had easily undercut the purpose-built multi-storey car-parking charges, the old bowling alley car park was almost always full. Tim had therefore been in a financial position to help a number of friends over the years, too. His mate Malcolm bought a second pub and turned it into a thriving nightclub with Tim’s sleeping partner investment, which helped in its turn to secure a bank loan from Amos for the rest of the finance. Tim had a quarter share in an Italian restaurant as well as a minority finger in a number of pies run by mutual friends, all of them ending up banking with Amos. Everything Tim touched apparently turned to gold, down purely to good business sense and a large amount of integrity. He was a solid businessman, holding firm and soaking up pressure when times were tough, like they were now, but when business expanded he was always willing to follow his hunches and they appeared to pay off more often than not. He was generous enough that he put his faith in people he trusted and even the risky ventures he partook in seemed to thrive on the confidence he put in the people being given the opportunity to run them.