grunted, and rolled over in his chair to extract his wallet from his back pocket. The boy stepped up to the desk, his hand out.
‘D’yeh live anywhere near Pagford golf course?’ he asked, as Simon counted out tenners into his palm. ‘Mate o’ mine was up there las’ night, an’ saw a bloke drop dead. Jus’ fuckin’ puked an’ keeled over an’ died in the car park.’
‘Yeah, I heard,’ said Simon, massaging the last note between his fingers before he passed it over, to make sure there were not two stuck together.
‘Bent councillor, he was. The bloke who died. He was takin’ backhanders. Grays was paying him to keep them on as contractors.’
‘Yeah?’ said Simon, but he was immensely interested.
Barry Fairbrother, who’d have thought it?
‘I’ll get back ter yeh, then,’ said the boy, shoving the eighty pounds deep into his back pocket. ‘And we’ll go an’ get it, Wednesday.’
The office door closed. Simon forgot his headache, which was really no more than a twinge, in his fascination at the revelation of Barry Fairbrother’s crookedness. Barry Fairbrother, so busy and sociable, so popular and cheerful: and all the time, trousering bribes from Grays.
The news did not rock Simon as it would have done nearly everybody else who had known Barry, nor did it diminish Barry in his eyes; on the contrary, he felt an increased respect for the dead man.Anyone with any brains was working, constantly and covertly, to grab as much as they could; Simon knew that. He gazed unseeingly at the spreadsheet on his computer screen, deaf once more to the grinding of the printworks beyond his dusty window.
There was no choice but to work from nine to five if you had a family, but Simon had always known that there were other, better ways; that a life of ease and plenty dangled over his head like a great bulging piñata, which he might smash open if only he had a stick big enough, and the knowledge of when to strike. Simon had the child’s belief that the rest of the world exists as staging for their personal drama; that destiny hung over him, casting clues and signs in his path, and he could not help feeling that he had been vouchsafed a sign, a celestial wink.
Supernatural tip-offs had accounted for several apparently quixotic decisions in Simon’s past. Years previously, when still a lowly apprentice at the printworks, with a mortgage he could barely afford and a newly pregnant wife, he had bet one hundred pounds on a well-favoured Grand National runner called Ruthie’s Baby, which had fallen at the second last. Shortly after they had bought Hilltop House, Simon had sunk twelve hundred pounds, which Ruth had been hoping to use for curtains and carpets, into a time-share scheme run by a flash, fiddling old acquaintance from Yarvil. Simon’s investment had vanished with the company director, but although he had raged and sworn and kicked his younger son halfway down the stairs for getting in his way, he had not contacted the police. He had known about certain irregularities in the way the company operated before he put his money there, and he foresaw awkward questions.
Set against these calamities, though, were strokes of luck, dodges that worked, hunches that paid off, and Simon gave great weight to these when totalling his score; they were the reason that he kept faith with his stars, that reinforced him in his belief that the universe had more in store for him than the mug’s game of working for a modest salary until he retired or died. Scams and short-cuts; leg-ups and back-scratches; everyone was at it, even, as it turned out, little Barry Fairbrother.
There, in his poky office, Simon Price gazed covetously on a vacancy among the ranks of insiders to a place where cash was now trickling down onto an empty chair with no lap waiting to catch it.
Trespassers
12.43 As against trespassers (who, in principle, must take other people’s premises and their occupiers as they find them) …
Charles
‘D’yeh live anywhere near Pagford golf course?’ he asked, as Simon counted out tenners into his palm. ‘Mate o’ mine was up there las’ night, an’ saw a bloke drop dead. Jus’ fuckin’ puked an’ keeled over an’ died in the car park.’
‘Yeah, I heard,’ said Simon, massaging the last note between his fingers before he passed it over, to make sure there were not two stuck together.
‘Bent councillor, he was. The bloke who died. He was takin’ backhanders. Grays was paying him to keep them on as contractors.’
‘Yeah?’ said Simon, but he was immensely interested.
Barry Fairbrother, who’d have thought it?
‘I’ll get back ter yeh, then,’ said the boy, shoving the eighty pounds deep into his back pocket. ‘And we’ll go an’ get it, Wednesday.’
The office door closed. Simon forgot his headache, which was really no more than a twinge, in his fascination at the revelation of Barry Fairbrother’s crookedness. Barry Fairbrother, so busy and sociable, so popular and cheerful: and all the time, trousering bribes from Grays.
The news did not rock Simon as it would have done nearly everybody else who had known Barry, nor did it diminish Barry in his eyes; on the contrary, he felt an increased respect for the dead man.Anyone with any brains was working, constantly and covertly, to grab as much as they could; Simon knew that. He gazed unseeingly at the spreadsheet on his computer screen, deaf once more to the grinding of the printworks beyond his dusty window.
There was no choice but to work from nine to five if you had a family, but Simon had always known that there were other, better ways; that a life of ease and plenty dangled over his head like a great bulging piñata, which he might smash open if only he had a stick big enough, and the knowledge of when to strike. Simon had the child’s belief that the rest of the world exists as staging for their personal drama; that destiny hung over him, casting clues and signs in his path, and he could not help feeling that he had been vouchsafed a sign, a celestial wink.
Supernatural tip-offs had accounted for several apparently quixotic decisions in Simon’s past. Years previously, when still a lowly apprentice at the printworks, with a mortgage he could barely afford and a newly pregnant wife, he had bet one hundred pounds on a well-favoured Grand National runner called Ruthie’s Baby, which had fallen at the second last. Shortly after they had bought Hilltop House, Simon had sunk twelve hundred pounds, which Ruth had been hoping to use for curtains and carpets, into a time-share scheme run by a flash, fiddling old acquaintance from Yarvil. Simon’s investment had vanished with the company director, but although he had raged and sworn and kicked his younger son halfway down the stairs for getting in his way, he had not contacted the police. He had known about certain irregularities in the way the company operated before he put his money there, and he foresaw awkward questions.
Set against these calamities, though, were strokes of luck, dodges that worked, hunches that paid off, and Simon gave great weight to these when totalling his score; they were the reason that he kept faith with his stars, that reinforced him in his belief that the universe had more in store for him than the mug’s game of working for a modest salary until he retired or died. Scams and short-cuts; leg-ups and back-scratches; everyone was at it, even, as it turned out, little Barry Fairbrother.
There, in his poky office, Simon Price gazed covetously on a vacancy among the ranks of insiders to a place where cash was now trickling down onto an empty chair with no lap waiting to catch it.
Trespassers
12.43 As against trespassers (who, in principle, must take other people’s premises and their occupiers as they find them) …
Charles
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