We recently held a contest for the ‘most liked’ writing idea.

The concept was simple. It was held on Facebook. Writers responded to our post with their writing ideas. The idea with the most ‘likes’ was the winner. Well, the winner was Paul Stephenson. And he has finished his story. We gave him very few requirements for the piece  And he didn’t let down.

It’s an impressive twelve thousand words, exploring the mystery of the missing flavor packets from a certain noodle company. It’s well worth the read. Also, we’ll be holding more contests in the future, so keep an eye out.

A Curious Case of Knitted Noodles

by Paul Stephenson

2013

My name is Steven Slade, I’m twenty eight years old, and I hunt the truth for a living. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? But no, it’s really not. The life of a Private Investigator is predominantly a boring one. Despite what you might think, delving into the lives of others is not as interesting as it may seem. After a while the job becomes nothing short of mundane. Eventually, you’ve seen it all and, for the most part, uncovering the sordid misconduct of others can get quite depressing: “He did this, she did that, then they did it again and again and sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but at least now you know the truth… thanks for the cash… bye!” Yeah, you always feel a million freakin’ dollars wrapping up those cases. And, for the years you put into the job, selflessly putting aside any chance of a decent social life for yourself, the money sure does suck the big fat one … Or so I thought.

It all began that Sunday morning – years ago now, it seems – while I was sitting, still in my boxers and dressing gown, at my kitchen table crunching through my third piece of dry, heavily seeded, slightly burnt toast and idly scanning through a three day old newspaper. I was glancing over an article about global warming and “how to reduce your carbon footprint” with not a lot of interest, when I heard the letter-box creak open and clap shut. I walked to the hallway expecting to see the silhouetted figure of a caller through the frosted glass of my front door – not that this was a regular occurrence, but there was no-one there and a large, strangely dark, brown envelope lay on the door mat. This wouldn’t have seemed so out of place on any other day of the week, but it was Sunday. Who the hell in their right mind – apart from me of course – goes to work on a Sunday?

I picked up the envelope. There was, apart from the dark color, nothing unusual about it and I put my half eaten piece of toast between my teeth and tore it open as I walked back to the kitchen and sat back down at the table. Inside, predictably, was a type-written, unfolded letter. It read,

 

Dear Mr. Slade (P.I.),

I am writing to you to procure your services in a matter of some urgency; although it may seem unimportant to most, it is a strange and somewhat harrowing state of affairs to some …

 

Kind of intriguing, wasn’t it? It had me hooked and I’d completely forgotten about the toast perched in my mouth as I continued to read,

… I am writing on behalf of myself and a committee of twenty-five other disgruntled customers of Enid Strange’s Knitted Noodles Company …

 

This made me smile and a long dribble of spittle slithered out from between my teeth and the toast, slid over my unshaven chin and landed on the bottom of the letter. I wiped it away with the sleeve of my dressing gown and tossed the toast onto the table. Enid Strange’s Knitted Noodles? I’d never even heard of them.

 

… Now, my colleagues and I have been loyal customers of Enid Strange’s brand of instant noodles for a number of years now and lately we have found, upon opening the plastic wrappers of said noodles, that seven out of ten times at least, there has been no flavoring sachet inside with which to flavor the noodles, rendering them a tasteless mass of squashy, wet strings. Upon writing numerous letters of complaint to the company, we have received no satisfactory explanation … until the Friday of last week, when I received an anonymous phone call from a man who claimed to work at the factory in Nuttington Hill. He also claimed that there was in fact another employee, whom he did not name, that he suspected of purposely making sure that a large quantity of these noodles were being distributed to various stores throughout the country without the flavoring inside …

 

I found myself giggling at this point. It had to be some kind of prank, but who would go to all this trouble? I didn’t have any real friends, only acquaintances and I had no family to speak of back then, having been abandoned before my first birthday and raised in state care.

I thought of Glen Sloane, a fellow P.I. and the man who had introduced me to this line of work, but he was not the sort of man who would have the sense of humor for something like this; all he cared about were the unsolved cases piled up on his desk, the alimony that he couldn’t afford to pay his ex-wife, and the varying levels of liquid in the bottles of bourbon stashed around his office. Anyway, back to the letter:

 

… We would like you to go to this factory (address on business card enclosed) and investigate this matter further. We are also willing to pay twice your usual rate and, should your investigations be fruitful, a substantial bonus will be proffered to you for your assistance in helping to save this, our most beloved noodle company. I do hope you find it in yourself to help us, Mr. Slade, as your services come highly recommended and I’m sure you will be able to get to the bottom of this heinous crime against all instant noodle lovers across the length and breadth of our fair nation.

We thank you for your time, and should you have any questions we can be reached via the PO number below.

 

Mrs. Phyllis Coppertop

The Noodle Consortium

Maine

New England

PO Box: 5896

 

Enc:

Enid Strange’s Knitted Noodles Company’s business card.

One cashier’s check for $500 (for your expenses, should you decide to take the case).

 

Still sniggering, I picked up the envelope from the table and looked inside. Sure enough, there was the business card, but more surprisingly, there was the check for five hundred dollars. It looked real enough, but surely it couldn’t be genuine, could it?

I threw the envelope and its contents onto the table and went to get dressed for the day ahead.

 

The case I had lined up for that day was nothing particularly special, a ‘dead-ender’, but it helped pay the bills. An old lady in the city had hired me because she suspected her Asian neighbor of eating her Pomeranian. She paid the going rate, daily at four-thirty without fail, but this case was a week old now and I was beginning to feel kind of guilty for still taking the old dear’s money –even if she was right, surely there was no way I could prove it now.

I usually wound up doing nothing more than listen to accusations, drinking a coffee, or two and then rooting through the Asian man’s garbage can at the front of the apartment building, occasionally looking up to the second floor window where she watched me with her hands to her mouth, expecting at any moment for me to pull out the remains of her beloved dog. I remember, in the first few days, actually starting to believe her; she seemed so adamant about it, but by the end of the week it was getting more than a little tiresome. I found myself fantasizing about finding a bag of bones and blood matted fur and lifting it up to show her, just to see the horror on her deathly thin, make-up laden face.

Today however, as I rooted through the torn open garbage bag and the remains of the Asian man’s last few days’ refuse, he too watched from his window on the second floor grinning, chuckling and shaking his head. I found myself completely indifferent to the task. I couldn’t tear my thoughts away from that morning and I had stopped my search and stood staring into the filth and sloppy leftovers pondering the perplexity of the letter on my kitchen table.

I didn’t know exactly how long I had stood there, motionless and staring into the garbage, but the old lady had obviously misunderstood my stillness for me having found something terrible. I remember seeing the pink and white floral dress and her almost skeletal frame come running down the steps of the apartment building and hearing her scream,

“Peppi… Nooooo!’

I had to run and catch her on the last step or she would have sent herself sprawling onto the street and from the look of her, she would have broken on the sidewalk like a dry twig.

“Whoa there,” I said as I caught her, “What’s all this about?”

She blubbered over my shoulder and clawed at my arms to get past me. I let her go and at the rate she was going towards it I honestly thought she was going to dive head first into the can. Her cries continued as she tore in to the garbage.

“Peppi! Where are you Peppi? Mommy’s here shnuckums.”

I couldn’t help it, I burst into a fit of laughter and not for the life of me could I stop, even when she turned around and shot me a glare that would have been more at home on a mountain lion than an old lady.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” she screamed, clenching her fists and I saw some kind of reddish-brown goop squeeze out from between her fingers and drip to the sidewalk, “You have a sickness in you, young man, that not even the devil could best.”

I managed to calm somewhat and, holding an ache in my side, I shook my head and strained at the muscles in my cheeks to straighten my grin.

“I, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“You’re fired!” she snapped, then picked up an empty can of baked beans from the trash and hurled it at me. It struck me in the face with a lot more force than I would have expected she was capable of and I could instantly taste the blood from a cut on my lip. She then stormed past me, shoving me as hard as she could, leaving greasy, sickly-sweet smelling palm prints on my jacket. I wasn’t going to get a sniff of that day’s wage, that was for sure, but at the time I couldn’t have cared less.

 

 

I discovered that the can had actually caused more damage to my lip than the pain had led me to believe when I got back home. The throbbing had started on the drive back to the suburbs, but the adrenalin still coursed through me and I smiled all the way up to my driveway.

It wasn’t until I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror that I realized the extent of the damage. The dull throb had intensified into a burning sensation and although the bleeding had all but stopped, I still had that acrid, coppery taste on my tongue. I even considered a trip to the ER for a stitch or two, but I hadn’t paid my health insurance for over half a year and I didn’t relish the thought of waiting for God knew how long at the free clinic. So, I cleaned the wound as best I could, pushed the split skin together and used a few small dots of Crazy Glue to seal it shut and then washed away the blood on my chin.

I walked into my kitchen drying my face with a towel and then it hit me… How the hell was I was going to cover this month’s car payment? I had some money stashed away, but not enough and I was counting on that day’s wage to make the payment. Shit!

I slumped hard onto a seat at the table and looked to the dark envelope. Could this really be genuine? I picked up the check and business card. Yes, they did appear to be authentic, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that something was amiss and, over the past five years on the job, I’d learned to trust my instincts. But what choice did I have? I had no more work lined up, and there would be no more to come if I didn’t have my own transport.

I stood up from the table, stuffed the letter, check and business card into my trouser pocket, took off my garbage-goop smeared jacket and threw it down on the kitchen floor by the washing machine and headed out.

 

 

It turned out that the check was in fact valid and I had absolutely no problem at all cashing it in. I walked out of the bank in town and back to my car feeling like I’d just robbed the place. I really was expecting to make a complete ass out of myself trying to cash it, but now that I had, I had no choice but to take the case.

I sat in my car looking at the business card. It had the name of the company written in an Old English style and a picture of whom I could only assume was Enid Strange, sitting in a rocking chair, surrounded by small squares of dried noodles, with a broad smile plumping her wrinkled cheeks as she knitted away on yet another square. I also noticed that although the address was printed on the back of the card, there was no phone number on either side. What kind of business didn’t have a phone?

I wrote the address in my notebook, tore out the page, stuck it to the dashboard with a bit of spit and sat drumming my fingers together and staring at the name, Nuttington Hill… I’d heard of this town, but couldn’t quite remember when or where. Anyway, I knew the direction from the zip code and I started the engine, pulled out into the light traffic of Main Street and drove out of town towards the interstate.

 

The drive was long, slow and mostly uneventful. The interstate had been packed bumper to bumper and the constant blaring of horns and shouts from the cars, to no-one in particular, about where the drivers had to be and when and why they had to be there had started a dull throbbing behind my eyes.

Now that I was off the highway and driving through the twisting and turning tree lined roads of the country, heading towards Nuttington Hill and the noodle factory, the pain had increased tenfold; it felt like my pulse was banging a drum in my head. I slowed the car to a crawl, reached over, opened the glove compartment and retrieved a bottle of aspirin. I then turned and reached over to the back seat for the bottle of water that I usually kept there. It was no-where to be seen. The memory of using the last of the water to clean pigeon shit off the hood of the car a few days ago in the city came flooding back.

“Shit!” I whispered to myself and emptied four or five powdery pills into my mouth, grimaced as I chewed them up and swallowed three times to get most of the caustic taste out of my mouth.

I drove for what seemed like hours, but was in fact closer to twenty five minutes, before my headache calmed. I drove over a small stone bridge above a trickling stream, slowing the car to take in the sight, then cleared the trees and saw the factory a short distance up ahead. It stood alone at the top of a steep, grassy hill overlooking the town a mile or two to the left of it, across an expanse of open fields. It was an old, red, Victorian looking building with white smoke billowing from its many chimneys and a long, winding driveway leading up the hill from a large wooden gate and a high, red brick wall that looked like it completely surrounded the hill, like the battlements of a fortress.

I drove up to the gate, which was a very solid looking dark, varnished wood, with cast iron bars in between each plank. It had the company’s name stained in black, Old English lettering into the wood across the length of it. I got out of the car and approached the gate. It was locked and, on closer inspection of the tall brick gateposts, I found that there was no intercom system with which to alert the factory of my presence.

“Now what?” I asked myself, although it was more of a statement than a question, and no sooner than the words had left my mouth, I heard a loud metallic screech and the gate slowly rumbled inward. I watched, confused, until the gate had completed its journey and thudded to a stop before I returned to my car.

The drive up the hill turned out to be a lot steeper than it had at first appeared and, on more than one occasion, I worried that my car might not make the ascent. I remember wondering about how any delivery trucks could possibly make it up there.

My car didn’t let me down though, and I reached the top without incident and pulled up at the similarly iron-barred wooden doors at the front of the building. As I got out of the car I couldn’t help but look up to the darkly ornate design of the building. It was three storeys high, made up of oversized, dark red bricks with painted black wooden window frames and dead ivy covered lattice work leading down from the windows, to huge, weed filled cast iron plant pots.

What the hell kind of factory was this? The whole place looked more like some monster mansion from a darkly comic children’s movie than a place of business. What really threw me though, were the small gargoyles that sat on the many ledges above and below the windows, across the width of the building. Nasty looking things, some kind of black stone with their eyes painted white; all of them seemed to be turned, staring right down at me. It was quite unnerving.

My gaze dropped to the door when I heard it creak open and a tall, thin man in a dark grey tuxedo, with black, sleek-back hair walked out to meet me.

“Ah, splendid, you’re here,” the man said, in an overly pronounced British accent while clapping his hands together beneath his chin and beaming a toothy grin, “My name is Hugh, Hugh Parkfield, but Hugh is fine,” he looked me up and down. “Yes, good, good. We’ve been expecting you, Mr..?” he trailed off.

“Slade,” I said, eyeing him suspiciously, “Steven Slade. I’m a Private-”

“Oh, don’t concern yourself with that now,” he interrupted, “come in, come in, and make yourself at home a while first.”

I waited a moment before following him inside. How the hell did he know I was coming?

He was standing in the cavernous, equally darkly decorated hall waiting for me when I walked inside. His grin remained, unwavering and intimidating, in a strange sort of way, and his dark, very circular eyes seemed to stare right into the depths of me.

“You said you were expecting me?” I said more than asked, “How did you know that I was coming?”

“Well, Mr. Slade, I would have thought that was obvious, wouldn’t you?”

It looked like this was all the explanation I was going to get when he motioned with an open palm towards a door at the far end of the hall to the left of a magnificent looking stairway that branched off to the left and right halfway up and then he walked off ahead of me.

“This way, if you please?”

I followed, glancing at the many wooden framed paintings on the dark green walls and listening intently to the sound of the man’s hard soled shoes on the wooden flooring. He patiently held the door for me when I stopped and stared into the eyes of what looked like a devil devouring a herd of sheep in the last painting on the wall.

“Fascinating, isn’t it, Mr. Slade?” he said, and his smile seemed to split his face in two.

“If you’re into that sort of thing,” I replied as I walked past him into the room. I didn’t see it, but I got the feeling that he eyed me like a snake would an injured mouse as I passed him.

Inside the room, which emulated the décor of the hallway, was a large, immaculately polished mahogany desk with twisting pillars for legs, carved faces on its sides and an intricate rope-like design all around the desktop’s edge and a massive, wall-to-wall bookcase filled with dusty, ancient looking tomes behind it. It was quite an impressive sight.

He walked behind the desk and turned the high backed, red leather chair towards him without sitting and motioned with a palm to the identical in design, but smaller seat in front of the desk.

“Please, Mr. Slade, make yourself comfortable… Can I offer you some refreshments, tea, coffee?”

“No thank you,” I said, “I never drink caffeine.” I lied, and to this day I have no idea why; I mean for crying out loud, I can’t even function properly without at least one creamy latte every two hours.

“Very good, Mr. Slade…” He turned and motioned to a table filled with fine crystal glasses and decanters full of dark liquids by the window “Perhaps something stronger?”

“Again, no thank you, Hugh. Perhaps it would be best if we got straight down to business.”

“Very good, Mr. Slade,” he repeated, nodding his head and taking a seat, “What is it that I can do for you?”

“Well, Hugh, as I’m sure you already know I am a private investigator and-”

“Really?” he said with what appeared to be genuine surprise. “A Private Investigator? How interesting. What brings you to our humble factory I wonder?”

I did not answer, only stared at him searching to find a clue in his demeanor that might give away any game he might be playing with me. There was no clue to come, he was completely stolid and I retrieved the crumpled letter from my trouser pocket and handed it over the desk.

He took it and straightened it out whilst looking at me with one dark eyebrow raised, as if politely scorning me for the untidy state of the letter and then looked down to read.

His smile, that had not faltered throughout the duration of the visit, straightened somewhat as he read, and then when he looked back up to me, there it was again.

“Well this is all very distressing,” he said, showing no indication of distress at all, “but I do not recall receiving any ‘letters of complaint’ from Mrs. Coppertop, or this so called ‘Noodle Consortium’. Are you sure that this is not some kind of joke being played on you?”

He handed back the letter and I smiled.

“That’s exactly what I thought at first, but the check for $500 was real enough. I cashed it in before I drove up here this morning.”

“Hmm, very odd,” he looked down to the letter in my hand and then back up at me, “can I ask where it was that you drove here from?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant, Hugh. Can I ask why you want to know that?”

“Of course,” he said, but remained silent, staring, smiling.

“Well?” I pressed him.

“Oh, yes, apologies, Mr. Slade,” he said and mockingly shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, “it’s just that if this is some kind of joke, and I strongly suspect that it is, then it is a simple matter of logical deduction that it is being played by someone close to you… and I mean that in the literal as well as the proverbial sense. You did drive here from New England, did you not?”

“Well yes, but I don’t know anyone who would pay me $500 just to prank me. I mean, it’s no small amount of money and I’m not close enough to anyone to merit this kind of commitment to a joke.”

“Are there no pranksters in your family..? I remember my life back in England when my family and I would go to great lengths to make light of each other on as regular a basis as was possible, and no expense was ever spared… it was all in good fun and it kept us close.”

“I never knew my parents,” I said, somewhat annoyed by his invasion of my private life, but his expression was now one of what appeared to be genuine interest and concern and, I thought, warranted an answer, “I was raised in state care.”

“How unfortunate for you, I’m very sorry to hear that,” his smile returned, “and, if I might venture another question… why is it – being a private investigator – that you have not tracked down your absentee parents? I would have thought that this would be at the top of any priority list.”

“They obviously don’t want to be found,” I said, frowning. “Can we get back to the matter at hand please? I’m really not comfortable discussing my private life with you.”

“Of course,” he said, holding up his hands in a gesture of submission, “my apologies, Mr. Slade; it was not my intension to offend you.”

I nodded in reply, but offered no acceptance of the apology.

“Right,” I started, “can you tell me about this… factory..? Hold up a second, where exactly is this factory?”

“What do you mean, Mr. Slade?” he asked, brow raised, “We’re in the factory.”

“Really? I hear no machines; I see no workers, no production line; where are these noodles manufactured?”

His smile broadened again, “I can understand your confusion, Mr. Slade. The actual factory floor is downstairs,” he looked towards the door and then back to me, “Would you like to see it?”

“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly, “I think, given the fact that my sole reason for being here is that I’ve been paid to conduct this investigation, that that would be a good idea.”

“Very well, Mr. Slade, we will be happy to accommodate you,” he glanced to the door again and picked up the receiver of a telephone that was just out of sight below where he sat at his desk, “however, I will not be able to show you around myself, very, very busy today, but if you’d care to wait in the hall I’ll have someone take you down and give you the tour.”

It wasn’t until I got up and walked to the door that he started dialing and he stopped when I turned around before exiting the room.

“It was very pleasant to meet you, Mr. Slade,”

That damn smile of his!

“Perhaps we can chat later, after your tour? I’d be very interested in hearing more about your life as a Private Dick. Good day to you.”

I was frowning, out of confusion more than anger, when I walked out into the hall. Just what the Hell was going on here? I couldn’t have cared less twenty minutes before, but now I had to find out.

 

I wandered up and down the hall inspecting the paintings on the walls for around about five minutes before another door to the right of the building’s entrance opened and a young, olive skinned woman with long, jet black hair tied back in a plait came out to meet me. She wore a dark, tight fitting trouser suit that accentuated her slender frame perfectly and as she approached me, smiling, I felt more than a little aroused by the sight of her.

“Mr. Slade?” she said with an ever-so slight Hispanic lilt and extended her hand in greeting. “My name is, Lauren Sanchez.”

Her eyes were amazing, the deepest and darkest brown, her face was a picture of perfect symmetry and I could smell a hint of blueberries on her breath as she spoke; I found myself consciously having to hold back from adjusting myself as an intense warmth started in my groin.

“Please, call me Steven,” I said, ever aware of the heat at my crotch and trying desperately to think of anything else to calm myself. My face was suddenly hot, itchy and my hands were clammy. I’m sure I was blushing fiercely.

She smiled again, glanced away momentarily and this confirmed my suspicion that I was more than a little red faced. “I understand that you’re here to conduct some kind of investigation,” she said and motioned for me to follow her back to the door from which she had come, “I wasn’t given very many specifics, but it all sounds very ‘cloak & dagger’.”

I handed her the letter which she read as we walked back down the hall, through the door by the entrance and into a dimly lit stairwell that bore no resemblance at all to décor of the upper floor. It was as if we were all of a sudden in a completely different building.

“Very interesting,” she said, smiling up to me as we walked down the winding metal staircase. I could hear the low rumble of machinery coming from deep below. “But I think someone might well be playing games with you. All the flavoring sachets are automatically added to the packets by machinery on the production line and individually checked by the quality control guys before each packet is sealed. I really don’t see why anyone would want to jeopardize their job by interfering with this process.”

“So, you don’t think any of your employees would have any reason to turn saboteur?”

She stopped on the last stair and turned back to me. “I wouldn’t have thought so… I mean the work is not exactly hard or stressful. The machines do most of the work, and for the money they are paid, which is a lot more than any other employer in town pays, I’d think their loyalty to the company would be assured.”

“You’d be surprised, believe me, I see it all the time in my line of work. People are rarely exactly what they show to the rest of the world, and when the opportunity arises to make a quick buck any and all loyalties can, and usually do, vanish very quickly.”

She pondered on this for a moment and then nodded her head. “So, do you think that another company might have actually bribed one of our workers to sabotage us from within?”

“Well, that’s what I’m here to find out, Mrs. Sanchez.”

“It’s Ms., not Mrs.,” she said, smiling sweetly and holding up her left hand to show that she wore no wedding band, “and please, call me Lauren.”

“Okay then, Lauren,” I said, smiling back down to her as she walked over and pushed open the double doors at the bottom of the stairs.

The factory floor turned out to be quite a lot bigger than I thought it would be; a high ceilinged, wide expanse with windowless white tiled walls and dark stone pillars at varying, symmetrical points holding up the slightly domed ceiling; and, it turned out, there was a lot more to the manufacturing process than I had originally suspected. There was a long conveyor belt that led from machine to machine, transporting the unpackaged noodles in differing forms of readiness, depending on where they were on the conveyor that ran around the entire production area. There were very few workers, only two that I could see sweeping the floor at the far end, and the whole place looked like it could run constantly with no human interference at all.

“Impressive,” I found myself saying, more from a lack of anything else to say.

She smiled back at me, “So, what would you like to see first?”

“I’d like to talk to a few of your employees, if that would be possible? I don’t want to be too much of a hindrance.”

“Not at all Mr. Slade. If you’d like to follow me, I think most of the workers are still in the canteen.”

“If you could hold back from telling them exactly why I’m here, that would be helpful at this stage… And, call me Steven,” I said as I followed her along the walkway past a large machine with the conveyor running through it, which appeared to be flash-frying the squared blocks of noodles to solidify them for packaging. We passed several machines, all whirring, clicking and doing whatever the hell it was they’d been designed for, until we reached another door and walked into the canteen area.

As we walked through the door I was sure I caught sight of Hugh Parkfield ducking through another door at the back of the dining area; only a quick glance of his grey suit and black, sleek-back hair before the door swung shut, but I could have sworn it was him. Yes, this was beginning to seem very “cloak & dagger” indeed.

There were four people sat at the two long tables in the room, a small, round, middle aged bespectacled man with a completely bald head who frowned as he spooned his steaming soup into his mouth; an older, shaggy, grey haired man in a greasy boiler suit and two red haired, heavily freckled and almost identical men in their early twenties, all sitting short distances apart from each other. They all stopped eating and turned their gaze on us.

“This is Mr. Slade,” Lauren began, “he has come to ask you all a few questions about the work you do here in the factory.”

There were murmurs of disapproval, intentional dropping of cutlery onto plates and a few wary glances exchanged between them.

“I’d prefer to talk to them all individually, if that’s possible,” I said in a hushed voice.

“Not a problem at all, Steven,” she replied, “but can it wait until they’ve all finished their lunch?”

“Sure,” I said, and turned back to the door, “I need to go back to my car for a few ‘tools of the trade’ anyway.”

“Carry on everyone,” she said, in a soft, but authoritative voice, “I’ll call you up to my office individually when I need you, thank you.”

We walked back through the production area in silence and it wasn’t until we started up the stairs that she spoke again,

“My office is the room just to the right of Mr. Parkfield’s, you can’t miss it, it has my name on the window. Don’t bother to knock, just come straight in when you have what you need from your car.”

Her tone had lost some of its appealing softness and when we reached the hall at the top of the stairs she didn’t even glance in my direction, just ambled off towards her office. It felt strangely like rejection and I was quite thrown by it as I walked out to my car.

 

I heard the voices coming from Lauren’s office as soon as I walked back into the building with the satchel that had my notepads, pens, Dictaphone and camera inside. They weren’t exactly raised voices but neither were they calm, conversational sounds and I held back from opening the door when I reached it, listening to the silence that had fallen, until the door opened and Hugh walked out beaming his usual ear to ear greeting.

“Ah, Mr. Slade, I trust you are finding everything to your satisfaction?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment at not hearing the discussion from inside the room, “no problems at all.”

“Very good,” he said and lightly patted me on the shoulder before walking back into his own office.

I know Lauren had told me not to, but I instinctively knocked on the window of the door before walking inside. The office was a near perfect duplicate – only slightly smaller – of the one next door and Lauren sat behind the desk, again smiling. The short, bald bespectacled man from the canteen sat in one of the three leather chairs before the desk, looking at me with a kind of nervous contempt.

“Steven, this is Karl Marshall,” she said and he nodded in my direction by way of a greeting, “he is the Floor Manager, it’s his job to make sure that everyone does what they are meant to be doing when they are meant to be doing it.”

I approached the desk, extending a hand to Karl, but he turned back to Lauren when I reached him and left me hanging.

“What’s this all about, Lauren?” he said in a gruff, impatient voice.

“Nothing to overly concern yourself with, I’m sure,” she replied, “just a few questions about the running of the factory floor.”

He looked to me as I took the seat next to his.

“Who are you then, and what’s this all about?” he asked.

I attempted a smile. “Like Lauren has already said, nothing to worry about; just a few questions,” I opened my satchel and reached inside. “Would you mind at all if I were to record the conversation, just for my records?”

I placed the Dictaphone on the table with my finger poised to start the recording.

“Yes, you’re damn right I would,” he almost snarled as he got up from the chair, “and I ain’t answering no questions until someone tells me what this is all about.”

Lauren looked to me, brow raised with a level, sympathetic smile and then to Karl.

“We can’t force you to answer any questions, Karl, but your cooperation will help things go a lot more smoothly for our guest’s business here.”

“And his business here is what exactly?” he asked, unmoving in his stubbornness.

“Please,” I said, “take a seat, Karl, there’s nothing sinister going on here. You’ve no cause to be so defensive; I’ll explain everything in due cour-”

“It’s Mr. Marshall to you,” he interrupted, “if you don’t mind?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Marshall,” this was not going as well as I’d planned. “If you could take a seat I’ll explain everything as we go.”

“You just make sure you do,” he said and slumped back into the chair folding his arms.

I picked up the Dictaphone, held it out to him to show that it was not recording, placed it back in my bag and brought out a notepad and pen.

“You don’t mind if I take a few notes while we talk, do you?”

“Knock yourself out,” he said.

“Right then, so you are in charge of the overall running of the production line downstairs?”

“Lauren already told you that,” he beamed a humorless show of teeth. “Maybe it’d be a good idea to start taking those notes now. You don’t seem to have a very reliable memory.”

I couldn’t help it, I smiled. His apparent obstructive and sarcastic nature certainly might impede my investigation somewhat, but it raised the entertainment value.

“I see there’s nothing wrong with yours though,” I replied. “That should be helpful.”

He did not seem impressed by my retort, but he unfolded his arms, held eye contact and seemed to relax into the chair a little. I glanced to Lauren momentarily, but her eyes were fixed on Karl.

“Okay, Karl… Sorry, Mr. Marshal, could you give me a little more information as to what exactly your role as ‘Floor Manager’ entails?” I knew immediately that this question would be met with another bout of his sardonic wit and I rephrased, “I know, as Lauren has already told me, that you’re job is to watch over the workers and make sure all goes smoothly in the production area…” I paused to allow a retort. None came. “But what I really want to know is just how much of the whole process is overlooked by you?”

“Well, all of it?” he replied, his brow furrowed into a frown. “What’re you saying? Are you trying to suggest that I haven’t been doing my job properly?”

“No, no, of course not… it’s just that surely you can’t be watching everything at once, can you? And things, mistakes perhaps, can happen unnoticed?”

His frown deepened, he got back to his feet and turned to Lauren. “This is ridiculous… Have I ever given you any reason to doubt my abilities? Have I ever been reprimanded for failure to carry out my duties? That production line runs like a Swiss clock because of me.”

“Please, Karl,” she said, “sit back down. No one is doubting your abilities here, But there does seem to be some kind of problem with the production process,” she sighed and turned to me. “This is going nowhere, Steven… would it not be better just to show him the letter?”

“What letter?” Karl demanded.

I felt my forehead wrinkle into a slight frown. I didn’t want him to know who or what I was, much less show him the letter and completely give the game away. But she was right, it would be impossible to coax the necessary information out of him otherwise. I just had to hope that by placing him in the loop it would give him a sense of importance and would therefore keep him quiet when he returned downstairs.

“Fine,” I said and reached into my pocket for the letter, “but can you give me the assurance that none of what I’m showing you here will be mentioned to any of the others that I need to interview?”

“I ain’t promising nothing,” he said and again took his seat.

I handed the letter over and he snatched it from my hand, shook it once, in more of an arrogant gesture than to straighten it, and then held it up just inches from the glasses that were perched at the end of his nose.

Lauren and I sat in silence while he read the letter, occasionally glancing over the paper to Lauren and then reading on, sighing and shaking his head until he had finished.

“What the Hell is this ‘Noodle Consortium’?” he raged, “Missing flavor sachets? It’s all done by machine, and the machines are checked and maintained daily. If there’s anything going on with missing sachets, then it’s something to do with Eric, or the two Chris’s, not me!”

He then slammed the letter down on the desk, got back up, shook his head, pushed his glasses back up to his eyes and stormed out of the room. I turned to watch as he walked out, to see if his gait would give anything away, but there was no pause in his step, no movement of his arms, head, or shoulders to show that anything else was driving his actions. His anger did appear to be totally genuine.

I turned back to Lauren; she was not all shocked by his sudden outburst, or swift exit from the room.

“Well, that could have gone better,” I said with a grin. “Bit of a fiery one there, eh?”

“I do apologize, Steven, he’s been under quite a bit of pressure lately; we all have. Mrs. Strange, the owner of the company died last week and no-one knows what’s going to happen to their jobs… Give me a moment and I’ll bring up the two Chris’s.”

“Two Chris’s?” I ventured, “I take it they’re the two red-headed boys, twins I thought … and I’m sorry to hear about Mrs. Strange, but I really would like to interview them separately if I could.”

She had already picked up the phone and dialed before I’d finished, and she held up a hand to quiet me as she spoke into the phone and requested that the two Chris’s come up to her office.

“Can I offer you some tea or coffee while we wait?” she asked, still holding the receiver to her ear. “They shouldn’t be too long.”

“Yes, coffee,” I said and I was sure I heard a quiet snort of derision from behind me, but when I turned around there was no-one at the door. “Two sugars, lots of cream please.” I had the feeling that someone was stood outside, right by the door, listening to every word we said.

“Yes, could you ask Chris to bring up a coffee,” Lauren was saying into the phone when I turned back to her, “two sugars and lots of cream, thank you.”

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Here what?” she replied, a poorly hidden look of concern on her face as she placed the receiver back below the desk.

“I could have sworn I heard…” I trailed off when I heard the door of Hugh’s office click shut, “never mind, it’s not important.”

It did not take the two Chris’s very long to get up to the office and they walked straight in, grinning like they’d just become privy to the punch-line of an amusing joke. One of them went straight to the seat on my left and sat down and the other walked over, handed me a steaming mug of coffee, patted my shoulder and gave me a thumbs up before he sat down on the seat to my right. They really were so alike in appearance that if not for their different clothes they wore it would be impossible to tell them apart.

“What’s so funny?” Lauren asked the Chris on my left.

“We just passed Karl at the bottom of the stairs,” he said, still grinning, “He was in a right state, totally fuming and stammering on about a ‘self important, down-right impertinent …’ I won’t repeat what he said next, Lauren.”

I heard a clap of a hand on leg to my right and turned to see Chris – I’ll call him Chris 2 – silently laughing and throwing back his head.

“What’s this all about then?” Chris 1 asked as yet another clap erupted to my left. “That’s enough, Chris, it wasn’t that funny.”

I turned to Chris 2 again; he was still smiling, and nodding his head in disagreement.

“As I’ve already said,” Lauren began, suppressing a grin of her own, “this is Mr. Steven Slade and he’s here to ask you a few questions about the work you do here. It’s nothing to worry about, so try and answer the questions as truthfully as you can… Steven?”

“Thanks Lauren,” I said, smiled and turned back to Chris 2. “Can I ask exactly what it is that you do at this factory, Chris?”

He did not answer.

“No good,” Chris 1 answered for him, “unless you can understand sign language.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” I said to Chris 1, and then to Chris 2, only slower, louder.

Chris 2 frowned, smiled and then signed with his hands to his brother who laughed.

“He can understand you fine, Mr. Slade,” Chris 1 said.

“Call me Steven,” I said, “so he can read lips?”

He laughed again and I could only assume that this was because of another signed joke at my expense from his brother, who was sat perfectly still when I turned to him.

“He’s not deaf, Steven, just mute.” Lauren interjected, a broad grin unhidden on her lips.

I smiled myself. “I do apologize, I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chris 1 interrupted, “happens all the time. We’re not bothered by it; in fact, you’re lucky you’re here on… official business?” I nodded, “or we’d have had a lot more fun with you.”

I turned back to Chris 2, who winked, nodded and gave me another thumbs-up.

Smiling, I reached down into my bag. “Would either of you mind if I was to record this conversation for my records?”

“Sure,” Chris 1 said, shrugging his shoulders, “no problem.”

I looked to Chris 2 who simply nodded.

I placed the Dictaphone back on the desk and set it to record.

“Okay then, Chris, can you tell me what exactly it is that you and your brother do on the production line?”

“We’re in charge of quality control and packaging,” he said in a straight forward, no nonsense manner.

“Is that the actual packaging of the noodles themselves, or the packaging into boxes or crates before they are shipped out for distribution to the stores?”

“Both, I suppose, although the noodles are packaged by machine. I am in charge of making sure that there’s nothing wrong with the packets before they’re sealed, nothing inside that shouldn’t be… etc, and Chris is in charge of double checking the packets to make sure they’re sealed properly before they’re boxed up and shipped out in the loading areas out back.”

“So, if any of the packets were defective in any way..?

“Defective? I don’t understand.”

“Well, say, one of them didn’t include a flavoring sachet, then one of you would know about it?”

“I’d say so, yes,” he said, slowly and he now eyed me suspiciously. “But that would be damn near impossible. All the sachets are added to the dried blocks of noodles by machine as they are put into the packets.”

“Could the machine not miss one or two from time to time?”

“Not to my knowledge, the machines are maintained daily by Eric and he’s as dedicated as they come. If there was anything wrong with any one of the machines then he’d be all over it quicker than a cheetah with a fire-cracker up its ass.”

Chris 2 clapped his leg again.

“Thanks to you both,” I said, smiling and nodding to each of them in turn and then taking a sip of my coffee, “I think I have everything I need. You’ve been very helpful”

“Sure, no problem,” he said, a somewhat bewildered expression on his face, “so what’s all this about?”

“Like I said,” Lauren interjected, “nothing at all to worry about. And, if you could keep the details of this conversation to yourselves it would be helpful.”

They both nodded to Lauren and walked out of the office smiling and signing to each other, and when the door closed I heard I a roar of laughter from Chris 1.

“Quite a pair those two, eh?” I said as I sipped at my coffee and nodded to Lauren.

“Quite,” she replied. “So, how far along are you with getting to the bottom of all this? You didn’t seem to get very much information from Chris.”

I smiled and winked at her. “I got a lot more than you’d think… everything about the way they acted, their willingness to cooperate, the fact that they took the whole thing as nothing more than an amusing break from the norm; I can pretty much guarantee that they have absolutely no knowledge of what’s been happening with the missing sachets.”

“What about Karl? I mean, if you maybe took his anger for guilt earlier, then it’s only fair that I tell you that, unfortunately, that’s how he is twenty-four seven.”

“Yes, I thought as much,” I said, grinning. “I didn’t get the impression that he was trying to hide anything, despite his obvious unwillingness to cooperate.”

“Really?” she asked, “I would have thought he had ‘guilt’ written all over him, if I didn’t already know him.”

“You soon pick up the tells in people’s demeanor in my line of work. Most people are hopeless liars… so, who’s next? Eric, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Eric,” she said, beaming a smile, “I think you’ll like Eric, it’s hard not to, but we’ll have to go down to him… dragging him away from those machines is damn near impossible at the best of times.”

“Sure,” I said, “I’d prefer a private interview, but if we can pull him off to one side that would be fine.”

“Yeah,” she grinned, “good luck with that.”

I gulped down the last of my coffee as she got up and walked to the door.

“I should warn you though, he’s friendly enough, but understanding a word he is saying can be difficult sometimes.”

“Oh, why’s that?” I asked as I got up from the chair and followed her out of the room.

“His accent isn’t exactly native,” she replied, without turning around and I followed her across the hall and into the stairwell.

We walked through the double doors and into the production area. I saw Karl at the far end talking to the two men that I’d seen sweeping the floor earlier. He glanced over to us and then whatever he had been saying to the two cleaners suddenly got a lot more heated. The two men stood, holding their brooms vertically and looking down at their feet as Karl scolded them. I couldn’t make out what he was saying to them over the noise of the conveyor, but whatever it was had just intensified because of my presence and I felt kind of sorry for it.

Lauren tugged at my arm and led me off to a quieter corner of the factory floor where Eric was crouched down and waist deep inside the bowels of a tall machine that was not connected to the conveyor, but looked like it should be.

“Oh, ya fecking useless tool! Work, will ya?” I heard him shout in as broad an Irish accent as I’d ever heard as we approached him… well, the dirty ass and legs of his boiler suit anyway.

“Eric?” Lauren said, “Can I have a word?”

“Aye, two ticks me dear,” he said. His voice seemed to be coming from the hole at the machine’s middle more than from him. “I’ll just be needing to untangle meself from the workings of this bloody thing first.”

“Take your time, Eric,” she said, suppressing a giggle.

He emerged from the machine with grease smeared all over his face and it wasn’t until he’d removed his safety glasses and rubbed at his forehead with a dirty rag that he smiled up to us. With his dirty grey and unkempt hair, he had the look of a comical imitation of Albert Einstein.

“Well, this must be the ‘self important, down-right impertinent, fecking prick of a Private Detective’ that I heard so much about … Ya been scrapping, lad?”

“Excuse me?” I said, and remembered the cut on my lip. I touched a finger to the glue to make sure it still held. It did. “No, no, just a misunderstanding over a possibly long dead Pomeranian and a can of baked beans.”

I was expecting him to question this further, but he just grinned and wiped at his hands with the rag. “Come on then young feller, help an old man up will ya?”

I saw what Lauren had meant about his accent; he spoke at least twice the pace of normal conversation and was quite difficult to follow if you weren’t listening intently. I extended a hand and pulled him to his feet.

“Mr. Slade, isn’t it?” he didn’t wait for a reply, “Eric Morgan at ya service, sir … what can I do ya for?”

“Call me Steven, please,” I said. Lauren was right, I liked him immediately.

“How are you getting on, Eric?” she asked, beaming the sweetest smile.

“Aye well, ya know me, me lovely; abiding it, but I’d sooner be in the pub with the lads and me darts.” He turned to me, wiped his hand on his leg, which seemed to dirty it further rather than wipe it clean, took hold of mine with a vice like grip and shook it twice. “Good to meet ya, Steven, now what’s this all about?”

“Nothing you need to -” I began, but he cut in,

“Nothing I need concern myself with, right?” again, he didn’t wait for a reply. “Just a few questions, Aye..? Ask away, me lad, and don’t be holding back on account of me missing marbles.”

“Sorry, I didn’t quite…”

“Oh, I’m only having a bit of fun young feller,” he said and patted my arm, hard, “I’m as sure upstairs as I ever was. What’d ya wanna know?”

I turned to survey the rest of the production area. No-one was paying us any attention and, trusting that there was no deceit in him as far as I could tell, I handed him the letter.

“What’s this then?” he asked, without looking down at it, “Can’t see a bloody thing written this small without me reading peepers… do ya not just wanna give me the gist of it and save some time..?”

Just then, his eyes left mine and he handed back the letter. “What’s that sulky sod doing down here?” he asked and I turned to see Hugh talking with the two Chris’s by the double doors.

“I don’t know,” Lauren said, “but he’s been acting strange… well, stranger than usual all day. He was in my office earlier, before you came in, Steven, asking all sorts of questions about you and demanding that Karl keep him informed of what took place in the interview.”

“Give’s a moment, will ya both?” Eric said and walked off towards the entrance of the stairwell.

I looked to Lauren, who simply shrugged in response.

Hugh and Eric talked for a while before he came back over to us, smiling. Hugh watched him walk over, that Cheshire-cat smile still slicing his face.

“That sneaky so-and-so’s up to something, and I reckon I got an inkling I know what it is.” He said when he reached us.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Sorry, me lad… can’t tell ya that. It’s not part of the game and I’ve already said too much about it,” he winked at Lauren who then shrugged again. “Right then, Steven, what’re these questions ya have for me?”

I paused. I didn’t really know what to say. What was this “game” he was talking about?

“Well,” I began, wanting to question him further on what he’d said, but also knowing that it would be fruitless, “getting back to this letter: I received it this morning from a Mrs. Phyllis Coppertop, who is part of some kind of organization called ‘The Noodle Consortium’…” I paused again, expecting a smile from him, but none came. “This Mrs. Coppertop claims to have received a phone-call from someone at this factory who claims that there’s another employee who is making sure that some of the packets of noodles are being shipped out without the flavoring inside; and I’ve been hired to come and investigate the matter.”

I watched him for any kind of reaction, but all through my speech he held a straight face and only nodded in conformation.

“So, what do ya want to ask of me? Am I responsible? Do I know who is, maybe? I can tell ye that it’s damn near impossible for anyone to tamper with the sachet distribution without me knowing about it –it’s all done by the machines, ya see, and no sod but me knows a bloody thing about them.”

“I don’t think that you are responsible for this, Eric, but I do think you know a lot more than you’re letting on. Can I see this system in action perhaps?”

“Aye, ya’re a smart one alright,” he said, a wide smile showing the gap where one of his front teeth was missing. “Come on then, I’ll show ya.”

He led us across the factory floor to another, smaller machine with the conveyor running up and in to its top and then back out of the bottom on the other side. It had another opening near the top where a long, continuous feed of plastic wrapping was being fed into it, and the squares of dried noodles that were slowly fed into the top came back out at the bottom wrapped in the plastic and sealed at one end. Chris 1 waved from where he stood quickly, but studiously inspecting the individual packets before sealing them with a hot pressing device at the end of the conveyor.

“Now, this is the machine responsible for packaging and adding the flavor sachets.” Eric pointed out over the sound of the droning machine.

He took a screw-driver from his boiler suit pocket and began removing a steel panel on the side.

“And when I open it up, I think ya’ll find that all is exactly as it should…” he trailed off as he removed the panel and looked inside.

I saw that the system was fairly simple. The newly packaged noodles were being fed down from where they had been wrapped and sealed at one end and then set into a line where two small prongs held open the packets and fed them along to where a small sachet was dropped inside. He was right, everything looked fine inside and I couldn’t possibly see how such a large amount of packets could have the sachets missing.

“Well where the hell is it?” he suddenly said. “I fecking knew it… Parkfield, ya shite!”

He dropped the panel to the floor with an almighty clang and stormed off towards the stairwell. Lauren and I hurried after him.

For such an old man he was surprisingly spritely on his feet and we didn’t catch up to him until we got to the top of the stairs where he’d stopped to catch his breath.

“Eric, are you alright?” Lauren asked taking hold of him. “What’s going on?”

He only nodded, wheezed, waved her away and pointed at the door in the direction of Hugh’s office.

“Sit down, Eric,” I said, “catch your breath.”

He nodded and allowed us to help him to the top step and lower him down.

“I, I’ll be alright… haven’t ran like that in years.”

“What’s going on, Eric? What’s Mr. Parkfield actually done?” Lauren said, still holding on to him as if he might topple down the staircase.

His face wrinkled into a grimace.

“That greedy bastard… he didn’t think I knew, but oh yes, I knew… she told me everything. Help me up, will ya?”

We guided him up from the stairs and walked him out into the hall.

“Right, Steven, I want ya to go into Hugh’s office and tell him ya’ve finished your investigation and found nothing to support the claims of those who hired you. Me and Lauren will wait outside… I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Eric, what’s going on?” Lauren asked, but he held up a hand to quiet her.

“Just do it, Steven, and wipe that confused look off ya face. It won’t help!”

I did as he asked and walked up to Hugh’s office and wrapped on the glass as they waited at the side of the door.

“Come in.” I heard from inside.

“Hugh,” I said by way of a greeting as I walked in and took a seat at the desk.

“Ah, Mr. Slade, how are your investigations coming along?” he asked, beaming that smile of his.

“All done, Hugh,” I replied, returning the smile as best I could. “I found nothing at all to support Mrs. Coppertop’s claims; everything seems to be running along smoothly.”

“Well of course it is, Mr. Slade. And I’m very sorry that you wasted all this time on what was obviously somebody’s idea of a joke…”

It was at this exact point that Eric burst through the door with Lauren in tow.

“Where is it, Parkfield, ya deceitful shite,” he screamed.

“Mr. Morgan, what on earth are you blathering on about?” Hugh replied calmly.

“Oh, don’t come the innocent with me. Did ya really think Enid would have trusted you and you alone with something like that? Where’s the letter?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about, Mr. Morgan,” Hugh replied, still smiling, “but if you would like to continue working at this company then I’d suggest that you lower your tone and explain this outburst immediately.”

His face was bright red at this point… well, at least it was where I could see it beneath the grime. He stamped around to Hugh’s side of the desk, pushed the wheeled chair aside, with Hugh in it, and began ripping open the desk drawers.

“I know ya took it, Parkfield,” he said as he pulled out the piles of folders in the drawers, glanced over them and threw them aside. “Apart from meself, ya were the only one who knew about it… I always told her ya were a sneaky little ferret of a man, not to be trusted with something like this when there was something you could gain from it, but she always thought the best of everyone, the daft old mare.”

“You are fired, Mr. Morgan,” Hugh said as he raised one leg onto the other and folded his arms as Eric finished rummaging through all the papers he’d pulled from the drawers.

“We’ll see who’s fired, ya fecking grass snake,” he replied and grabbed Hugh by the scruff of his tuxedo jacket and pulled him to his feet.

I saw a strangely familiar dark brown envelope slide from beneath Hugh’s jacket.

“What’s this then?” Eric asked and shoved Hugh back into the seat. He was no longer smiling.

Eric bent over, picked up the envelope and read what was written on it,

“To my dear grandson, Steven Slade,”

My face seemed to drain of all warmth as he spoke. I didn’t quite believe what I was hearing, but when he walked around to me and handed it over, there it was, the same kind of envelope and exactly the same handwriting I’d seen that same morning.

I looked to Lauren, who looked as shocked as I’m sure I did myself; and behind her stood the two Chris’s, both of whom were grinning at the sight before them; and Karl, who now had a look of what I could only describe as an almost completely horizontal smile stretching his mouth and plumping his cheeks.

“Lauren,” I said, “did you know about this?”

She slowly shook her head.

“Chris, and Chris, did you know?”

They just smiled and did the same.

“Karl… sorry, Mr. Marshall?”

He said nothing, did nothing and I looked back to the letter and tore it open. Inside, predictably enough, was a hand-written, unfolded letter. It read,

 

To my dear Grandson, Steven,

As I’m sure you are now aware, this whole investigation you were hired to conduct is nothing but a ruse to get you to come to my factory. The fact that you are now reading this letter is confirmation that you played my little game and reached the end to a satisfactory result. I apologize for my playful nature, and that it took so long for me to find you – you can thank your colleague, Mr. Sloane for this as it was he, whom I hired (after many an unworthy Private Detective had failed) who led me to you …

 

I knew it… well, at least I had suspected for a brief moment that Glen had had something to do with it.

 

… and I can only pray that as I write this, that my health holds out long enough for me to meet you and explain the tragic set of circumstances that led to you being taken away from me… however, as my time on this earth is dwindling to a close, I do not think that this will be so… I do not want for you to have read it all from a letter as that would be too impersonal in my opinion. But, not worry, I have had many a conversation with Hugh and Eric about this sordid affair, so they will be able to answer any questions you may have.

I do apologize for the shortness of this letter, but my hands are old and gnarled and it hurts to write.

I have left instruction with my legal aid that all that I own shall now be passed down to you, and is now yours to do with as you wish.

 

Your ever loving Grandmother,

Enid Strange

 

“Would you like to tell him, Eric?” Hugh asked, attempting a smile and cowering in the chair like a rebuked Grey Hound, “or should I?”

“Ya better keep that mouth of yours shut, if you know what’s good for ya,” Eric said, on the very brink of rage. Then he looked to me, calmly patted my arm and sat down on the edge of the desk. “Well… bloody hell, where to start?”

“The beginning’s always good,” I said, trying in vain to make to make light of the situation.

“Okay,” Eric began, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Ya mother, Olivia Strange, Enid’s daughter I’m sure ya now know, had become involved with a man called Curtis Robins – your father – back in the eighties. Enid never liked him very much, always thought that he was only with her ‘cause of the family’s money… So did I, truth be told, but there was no telling ya mother; she was besotted with him.”

“So my real name’s Robins?” I cut in.

“Yes, but hold off your questions for now lad,” he said with a sympathetic smile. “When ya mother fell pregnant with ya, back in December, 84, we thought that he’d disappear like a fart in the wind, but he stayed around like the stain that he was. He took a job on the factory floor, thanks to that piece of shite right there.” He glared and pointed at Hugh. “But it wasn’t long before he started slacking off and thinking that just ‘cause he was with Olivia, he didn’t have to put the hours in at work and said he should be tending to his pregnant girlfriend, not slaving on a production line… not that he ever put in any hours looking after your mother; he spent most of every day in the pub in town.

“Anyway, his attitude got worse over the months that followed; he was always drunk and couldn’t give two shites about ya mother. He thought that just ‘cause he was her baby’s daddy that he was part of the family and could take what he wanted. He started taking money from ya mother, and jewelry to sell when she had no money, to waste away in town. When ya Nan got wind of this she wasn’t too pleased, as I’m sure ya can imagine, and we came up with the idea of paying the bastard to disappear. She offered him ten grand to feck off and not come back and, as we suspected he would, he jumped at the idea and did just that.”

“That’s awful,” Lauren in interjected.

Eric nodded. “Well, that’s the kind of bloke he was. Enid couldn’t trust him to stick around once the baby came along, and she thought that the sooner he was gone the better… It all back-fired on her though. As soon as Olivia found out what her mother had done she sank into a deep depression, wouldn’t talk to no-one and went to live in town. When ya were born, Steven, she wouldn’t even allow her mother to be there. And, over the following months, every attempt by Enid at reconciliation failed miserably. She wouldn’t answer her phone, or reply to any letters, and we then found out that she had left weeks before to go looking for Curtis.

“Enid was crazy with worry, knowing Olivia’s state of mind, and spent months and thousands of dollars tracking her down, but when she finally found her it was too late. She’d killed herself with an overdose in some shite-hole of a motel after failing to find your father.”

“What about the baby..? Steven?” Lauren asked, her deep, dark eyes welling up with tears.

“I’m getting to that… hold ya horses,” he said, again smiling sympathetically. “The police found a note to ya Nan, one last dig at her for what she’d done, saying that Olivia had placed ya in state care after telling them that ya Nan had mistreated her as child and she didn’t want Enid to have anything to do with ya, in case history was to repeat itself. They had changed ya name and sent ya out of state, so finding ya was damn near impossible… and believe me, she never stopped trying. It wasn’t until she hired Mr. Sloane, who knew you, knew of ya past, and it was just blind luck that he thought of ya, matched up all the dates and put the pieces together.”

I was at a loss for words. My entire existence had flipped over, spun around and whacked me in the face with a shovel.

“So why would you want to keep this hidden, Mr. Parkfield?” Lauren asked with an expression halfway between anger and despair.

“I’ll tell ya why,” Eric answered, again glaring at Hugh and looking like he wanted to pounce over the desk and throttle the life out of him, “‘cause of Enid’s fecked up idea of fun and games… if Steven hadn’t taken the case, or if he’d failed to follow it right through and ask to see inside the packaging machine and find the letter, then the factory would go to him. Then the only inheritance Steven here would see would be the thirty or so grand she had left, after paying out most of her fortune over the years to track him down.”

“That was not my intention at all, Mr. Morgan,” Hugh said, again attempting a smile, but avoiding eye-contact with him. “I was only concerned with what would happen to the business and all of our jobs… We don’t know what he will be planning to do now that he is the owner, and, knowing the money-grabbing nature of the youth of today, he’ll most likely be planning to sell the business.”

“Mr. Parkfield,” I said, without looking at him. “Mr. Hugh Parkfield… get out of my office… you’re fired!”

 

*

Now, three years later, I still own Enid Strange’s Knitted Noodles Company; and, although I don’t have much to do with the running of the company, I know that it is in good hands. Mr. Marshall is a good manager, and he’s even cheered up a bit since his promotion. Eric still maintains the machines, after refusing a promotion – didn’t refuse the pay rise though – and the two Chris’s, Christian (1), and Christopher (2) now take care of managing the production area. The two cleaners (Peter Denya and Robert Morris) I’d seen being reprimanded by Mr. Marshall -for sneaking a quick smoke break during his interview, it turned out – are now in charge of quality control & packaging.

As for me, and my wife to be, Lauren, we live in Nuttington Hill, in our apartment above the Red Mansion Inn, which we now run together. Lauren is well, and is expecting our first child any day now.

And what became of Mr. Hugh Parkfield?

Who knows? Who cares?

 

Fin