Chapter 7

The meeting with the Managing Director of the Manchester Ship Canal was useful only in the fact that they met. The container handling development was a joint venture with the port which was taking the lead. It was clear though that the two men took a liking to each other. Rory Murphy agreed to consider Marshall of Liverpool for any engineering work that came up.

At nine-thirty on Friday Nick had his last internal interview: with David Steel. Nick was worried about it. David had impressed him when he first met him and clearly Norman thought he was all right but Nick had seen those two tenders that had failed because they were shoddy work. He hoped David would be able to explain them away satisfactorily.

He asked David about his branch, what work he had in hand, very little, and about redundancies. It looked as though he could lose a quarter of his staff without pain. Finally he took the bull by the horns.

"David, there were a two tenders you put in a couple of years ago which failed. I looked through them and frankly could see why. What went wrong?"

"They were awful," said David shamefacedly. "The jobs came up shortly after I took the branch over and I pushed them out to the boys to get started on. A couple or so weeks later I caught a bug which for some reason went bad on me and I ended up with pneumonia. I was in hospital for three weeks and then on sick leave for a couple of months. It was as long as that because I had to be readmitted to hospital for another week when it flared up again after a fortnight. They had got my drug dose too low. Anyway, when I got back, I had to get the tenders off within twenty-four hours. I was appalled by them. I tried to get an extra forty-eight hours without success. I asked Mervyn to intervene but he said it would be a waste of time and to whack them in as they were."

David shrugged. "I was ashamed of them, Nick."

Nick smiled. "What a bugger!" he said. "No recurrences, I hope."

"No, thank Heaven."

"Good! Well that explains everything."

Nick was relieved and walked round the branch in a much happier frame of mind. He was glad he was not going to have to put pressure on David or worse sack him.

Detective Sergeant Crawshaw appeared at eleven and Nick told him of his suspicions and what he and Jerry had done. Crawshaw nodded approvingly.

"Well, sir, I'd better start having some interviews, obviously Contracts Branch. Is there anyone else you'd suggest?"

"Yes, Norman Hackforth, our Head of Finance. I mentioned him."

"You did indeed, sir. I think I might start with him and then Mr Fisher."

"Fine. I'll introduce you to Mr Hackforth."

"Thank you, sir. I'll come and see you again before I leave if I may."

"Please do."

When he got back to the office Nick asked Megan whether there were regular managers' meetings.

"There used to be," she said, "but for the last two years they've fallen by the wayside."

"Right!"

"Strewth!" he thought. "What was this place running on? No reserve tanks worth talking about. 'Merv the Swerve'! Why did Head Office take so long to chuck him? Strewth again!"

"They're going to be reinstated, Megan, starting on Monday."

"What time?"

Nick pondered. There was no money at the moment but, when it started to come in again, a sandwich buffet afterwards might help a lot with bonding of the managers. Or even going to Norman's pub.

"Eleven."

"OK, boss. Will fix."

"Thanks, Megan. I'd like a word with Melanie when she's free."

Melanie materialised ten minutes later.

"Twice in four days," she smiled as she came in.

"It's the glamour," riposted Nick.

She snorted. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"No, Melanie, nor will sucking up to the boss."

She pealed with laughter. Nick laughed with her.

"Melanie, the subject now is redundancy."

"I thought it might be. Jerry and Harry have both talked to me."

"Good! Nothing from George I gather."

"No."

"We've got virtually nothing on the books until we win the contracts for the port. I may be able to dredge up some more on my rounds but they're not going to earn us money for a year or eighteen months. In the meanwhile, unless we win the council job and the small port one, we're going to be in the red. I've put in a feeler with Head Office for bridging funds to avoid bank charges on debt and that appears hopeful but I need an estimate of what this is going to cost us in terms of redundancy payments. I'm thinking of fifty per cent redundancies across the board."

"Wow!" said Melanie.

"Yes. We're actually working at less than fifty per cent capacity. If we can get the two big port jobs then we'll be in a position to start recruiting again."

"Any estimate is bound to be a guesstimate based on who takes up the redundancy offer: qualifications, length of service and so on."

"I think it will largely be the drones and I suspect you know who they are."

Melanie nodded.

"We may have to introduce an incentive scheme to retain some of the better ones but that will only have a marginal effect on your calculations, I'd have thought."

Melanie nodded again. "When do you want this by?"

"A first guess by eleven on Monday. I'm reinstituting the Managers' Meetings."

"You're a hard taskmaster," she grinned. "It will be done. Have I got to reduce my lot as well?"

"Please but bear in mind that we hope to be recruiting again in about a year's time."

"OK."

"Now, how do we go about this?"

"I suggest you start by offering voluntary redundancy with the incentive scheme in your back pocket. If there are insufficient volunteers you'll have to have forced redundancies."

"That's rather what I thought you'd say. I'll talk to everyone on Monday and get the ball rolling. Presumably people should work through their line managers."

"Yes, please."

"Thanks, Melanie. In the meanwhile I think I need to light a fire under George."

Melanie smiled. "The sooner the better. Incidentally Elaine has two possible replacements when you're ready to interview them."

"Fine but I've got to fire George first."

Melanie smiled again but this time wickedly. "What about Monday week for the first interview?"

Nick laughed. "You are evil, Mrs Stubbs."

"Yup."

They both laughed.

Nick ate his packed lunch from the hotel and cleared some paperwork. At two he rang George.

"Hello, George," he said cheerfully. "Have you got your redundancy suggestions for me?"

"Er, no. They're not quite ready yet."

"When will they be?"

"Give me an hour to tie up loose ends."

"Fine. Come on up as soon as you're ready."

He put the telephone down before George could prevaricate further. He thought further about the reorganisation he had in mind. At the moment he had only two branch heads destined for major projects but, with any luck, his visits would produce more. He could see David Steel being upset if he gave the next big one to George if only to break him. He hoped George would break before that. He probably would. A thought struck him. He walked through to Megan.

"Annual appraisals," he said. "We have to submit a report to Head Office each year on branch managers, don't we?"

"Yes."

"I didn't want to look at them but form my own views but I have a feeling that I ought to."

Megan looked at him. Her eyes gave nothing away but he sensed she looked at him longer than she needed. Silently she went to a filing cabinet and handed him a slim file.

"Will last year's do for the moment?" she asked.

"Yes, Megan, thanks."

He took the file back to his office and sitting in one of the armchairs read it through. It did not take him long. No one had more than half a page written. None had recommendations for further development or promotion but all were complementary. There were two exceptions, George, whose engineering abilities and zest for work were extolled, and Arthur who was commended for keeping a tight rein on sub-contractors. Nick could not help but laugh. He resisted the urge to share the reports with Melanie and hear her acid comments but that would be a breach of confidentiality.