Don’t think I can help you any more than I did on the phone. But sit down.’
Behind his desk was a plate-glass window, a good ten feet long and five feet high, looking down on to the shop floor. The light, entirely artificial, had the flat depressing effect usually reserved for deserted seaside aquaria. Dryden expected to see a bored shark cruising over the three identical production lines. On the conveyor belts salad crops, a livid lichen green, shuffled forward between lines of workers in bleach-white overalls.
Meat-eaters’ hell , thought Dryden.
It was the celery shed. Tractors brought the crop in off the fields and dumped it down chutes at the far end from Ashley Wilkinson’s office where it tumbled on to conveyor belts. By the time it got to the other end it was cleaned, trimmed, and neatly packaged. Radio I blared from a crackly tannoy system and the workers, each with a white plastic hairnet, moved with that odd combination of listlessness and physical economy born of the production line.
Dryden decided to be nice, a little-used tactic in his repertoire, and one invariably unsuccessful. But the blood-red sunset had lit up his mood. ‘I understand West Midlands Police have been making enquiries. Illegal immigrants. I’m told two men have been arrested and removed to the Home Office detention centre outside Cambridge…’ Drydenflicked open his notebook until he reached a page which contained an illegible shorthand note of three tips for the weekend’s race meeting at Newmarket. ‘Two West Africans I understand. Sierra Leone.’
Wilkinson didn’t look wildly interested in the geography of the Dark Continent.
‘Sub judice,’ said Wilkinson. This, Dryden recalled, was ‘fuck off’ in Latin.
‘This is all for my background, Mr Wilkinson. No names.’ Dryden shut his notebook, slipped a large rubber band round it, and lobbed it on to Wilkinson’s desk.
‘Your numbers are wrong. They had papers. There’s no suggestion we knew they’d come through Felixstowe. We’ll check the references next time,’ said Wilkinson.
Dryden noted the disguised admission. ‘Where were they living?’
‘Police never found out. Out there somewhere – plenty of places.’
‘Good workers?’
‘Fine. Darn sight better than the locals.’ Wilkinson looked down through the plate glass at his workforce. ‘Lazy bastards, most of ’em.’ British management at its motivational best, thought Dryden, as he produced another miniature pork pie from his pocket and popped it, whole, into his mouth.
Outside, the musical wallpaper was interrupted as a voice cut in: ‘Mr Wilkinson to the loading bay. Mr Wilkinson to the loading bay.’
‘I’ll show you out.’ Dryden noted relief in the voice, and made a silent bet with himself that the call had been pre-arranged to cut short his visit.
‘Ever been done before for employing illegal immigrants?’
But Wilkinson was already hitting numbers on a mobile phone. Interview over.
A door led out of the office to an observation balcony, from which a stairway dropped down to the shopfloor. They made their way between the production lines, watched by every worker in the shed. In a whites-only fastness like the Fens, the workforce looked like an outpost of the Notting Hill Carnival. Three women working together on the first line were black. Almost the entire second line was ethnic Chinese. ‘Cheap labour,’ thought Dryden. But he said: ‘Mind if I have a chat with one of the workers?’
Wilkinson hesitated. Dryden decided to push his luck: ‘I could always just hang around by the gate and catch them on the way home.’
‘This is Jimmy Kabazo,’ said Wilkinson, leading him over to a half-partitioned office at the side of one of the production lines. ‘He’s the day-shift foreman. Talk to him, if you like. He’ll show you out too.’
Jimmy was black. Night black. Dryden guessed he was Nigerian.
‘Follow me, sir,’ he said, the voice pitched high and singsong. Jimmy
Behind his desk was a plate-glass window, a good ten feet long and five feet high, looking down on to the shop floor. The light, entirely artificial, had the flat depressing effect usually reserved for deserted seaside aquaria. Dryden expected to see a bored shark cruising over the three identical production lines. On the conveyor belts salad crops, a livid lichen green, shuffled forward between lines of workers in bleach-white overalls.
Meat-eaters’ hell , thought Dryden.
It was the celery shed. Tractors brought the crop in off the fields and dumped it down chutes at the far end from Ashley Wilkinson’s office where it tumbled on to conveyor belts. By the time it got to the other end it was cleaned, trimmed, and neatly packaged. Radio I blared from a crackly tannoy system and the workers, each with a white plastic hairnet, moved with that odd combination of listlessness and physical economy born of the production line.
Dryden decided to be nice, a little-used tactic in his repertoire, and one invariably unsuccessful. But the blood-red sunset had lit up his mood. ‘I understand West Midlands Police have been making enquiries. Illegal immigrants. I’m told two men have been arrested and removed to the Home Office detention centre outside Cambridge…’ Drydenflicked open his notebook until he reached a page which contained an illegible shorthand note of three tips for the weekend’s race meeting at Newmarket. ‘Two West Africans I understand. Sierra Leone.’
Wilkinson didn’t look wildly interested in the geography of the Dark Continent.
‘Sub judice,’ said Wilkinson. This, Dryden recalled, was ‘fuck off’ in Latin.
‘This is all for my background, Mr Wilkinson. No names.’ Dryden shut his notebook, slipped a large rubber band round it, and lobbed it on to Wilkinson’s desk.
‘Your numbers are wrong. They had papers. There’s no suggestion we knew they’d come through Felixstowe. We’ll check the references next time,’ said Wilkinson.
Dryden noted the disguised admission. ‘Where were they living?’
‘Police never found out. Out there somewhere – plenty of places.’
‘Good workers?’
‘Fine. Darn sight better than the locals.’ Wilkinson looked down through the plate glass at his workforce. ‘Lazy bastards, most of ’em.’ British management at its motivational best, thought Dryden, as he produced another miniature pork pie from his pocket and popped it, whole, into his mouth.
Outside, the musical wallpaper was interrupted as a voice cut in: ‘Mr Wilkinson to the loading bay. Mr Wilkinson to the loading bay.’
‘I’ll show you out.’ Dryden noted relief in the voice, and made a silent bet with himself that the call had been pre-arranged to cut short his visit.
‘Ever been done before for employing illegal immigrants?’
But Wilkinson was already hitting numbers on a mobile phone. Interview over.
A door led out of the office to an observation balcony, from which a stairway dropped down to the shopfloor. They made their way between the production lines, watched by every worker in the shed. In a whites-only fastness like the Fens, the workforce looked like an outpost of the Notting Hill Carnival. Three women working together on the first line were black. Almost the entire second line was ethnic Chinese. ‘Cheap labour,’ thought Dryden. But he said: ‘Mind if I have a chat with one of the workers?’
Wilkinson hesitated. Dryden decided to push his luck: ‘I could always just hang around by the gate and catch them on the way home.’
‘This is Jimmy Kabazo,’ said Wilkinson, leading him over to a half-partitioned office at the side of one of the production lines. ‘He’s the day-shift foreman. Talk to him, if you like. He’ll show you out too.’
Jimmy was black. Night black. Dryden guessed he was Nigerian.
‘Follow me, sir,’ he said, the voice pitched high and singsong. Jimmy
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