Fire in the Blood (2 page)

Chapter 2

As Jack was checking his watch and considering, in the event of a no-show by the fifth and last applicant, whether to crack open another beer, a
slim
young woman with spiky, short blonde hair, who was wearing a black leather jacket, with skin tight blue jeans and shiny black Doc Marten boots, was chaining her bicycle to railings outside the entrance to his run-down Glasgow city centre office building, in clear defiance of a prominent
No Bikes
sign.

Just as the she finished securing her bicycle, a black taxi screeched to a halt at the kerbside and the bug-eyed, red faced driver lowered the passenger window and leaned across towards her, clearly intent on a full and frank exchange of views regarding cycling etiquette in the city centre.

‘Hey you, aye
you,
ya cheeky cow. Whit’s your fuckin’ game, bangin’ oan the roof of ma taxi back there?’

Apparently unfazed, the young woman immediately took out her iPhone from a jacket pocket, and pointed its camera towards the taxi driver.

‘Don’t say another word, knobhead, because I’m recording this and, trust me, I’ve got the Glasgow cab office on speed dial
just
for idiots like
you
. You’re obviously don’t know that, two minutes ago, you did a U-turn right in front of me,
without
looking
or
signalling, and I nearly got plastered right across the bonnet of a Transit van. Fortunately,
unlike
you,
I
was paying attention to other road users around me, otherwise you would be talking to the police right now. So, in the absence of an apology, what you need to do right now is
fuck
off
like a nice little taxi driver and, when you get the chance, have a read at the Highway Code.’

The altercation had quickly attracted a small gathering of passers-by, who were hugely enjoying the young woman’s heart felt rant, and maybe secretly hoping that the two protagonists would resort to violence at some point. In order to fan the flames of conflict, an elderly woman then chipped in.

‘You
tell
him hen, these black taxi drivers are a right bunch of arseholes.
And
they’re always taking me the long way roond tae get back tae ma hoose.’

As some of the passers-by nodded in agreement, and others began swapping war stories about their own dealings with the taxi trade, the driver of the black cab sat silently in his vehicle, gripping the top of the steering wheel with a full set of white knuckles showing. Fuming and humiliated, he was torn between a burning desire to get out and punch this smart mouthed bitch in the face and the realisation that, if he did, that moment of instant gratification would be swiftly followed by an appearance in court and the loss of his taxi licence. In the end he resorted to a classic taxi driver
retreat under fire
manoeuvre, which involved revving his engine furiously, before taking off in a thick black cloud of exhaust smoke with a squeal of tyres. When safely out of range of any thrown objects, he wafted a languid one finger salute above the cab roof.

However, this pathetic attempt at bravado cut no ice with a tough Glasgow audience, and the small crowd on the pavement responded with a ragged chorus of boos, whistles and V-signs.

With the drama over as quickly as it had begun, the young woman shook her head and then started looking at the nameplates of the dozen or so small businesses located within the office building. She was clearly puzzled and took a piece of paper from her bag, apparently checking the address. Frustrated, she then made a call on her mobile and a moment later was buzzed through the entrance door. She then quickly climbed the stairs up to the fourth floor, knocked loudly on the door of JD Investigations and waited.

Inside the office, Jack Davidson’s first thought was that the forceful knocking meant the bloody sheriff officers were back again, about the rent arrears. He stood up and shook his tie free of crisp fragments, before unwrapping a breath-freshening mint, which he tucked away in a corner of his mouth. After remembering to stash the beer can under his desk, he took a moment to regain his composure and then opened the door, smiled and introduced himself.

‘Ah, you must be Ms James, exactly on time. Please, come in and have a seat. By the way, do you know what that racket down in the street was all about? I heard a lot of shouting followed by the squealing of tyres. It sounded like there was a right rammy going on.’

‘Oh, it was no biggie, honestly,’ said the young woman dismissively. ‘It was just some taxi driver being a complete arse. I think he had to rush away to his anger management class.’

The striking looking young woman then made herself comfortable on the opposite side of the desk and they eyed each other up and down for a few moments without speaking, like boxers before a major title fight. She appeared familiar and confident with the interview experience and coolly held Jack’s gaze without flinching. However, to break the awkward silence, and move things along, she spoke first.

‘You can call me Annie; here’s a copy of my CV.’ Jack took the slim folder, but left it unopened on his desk. ‘By the way, you don’t make it easy for people to find you. I had to phone because I couldn’t see your nameplate downstairs.’

‘That’s because I don’t have one any longer. Solid brass it was, but some thieving bastard stole it a couple of years ago.’

Clearly unimpressed, Annie continued, ‘
And
you don’t have a website either, just a boring two line entry in Yellow Pages. That’s crazy, I mean even the Pope and MI5 have websites.’

Surprised to find himself suddenly on the defensive, only two minutes into the interview, Jack tried to explain.

‘Well I’ve always tried to be discreet, you know, kind of under the radar. But I appreciate that nowadays people do expect to be able to check out all kinds of businesses and services online.’

‘That’s right, but there’s under the radar and then there’s
invisible
. There’s a big difference. I mean, how do new clients find you?’

Jack shrugged,
and said,
‘The people I want to find me usually make it up here, like you did. The rest don’t. I’ve always relied on word of mouth, personal recommendations and referrals up until now. But I must admit over the last couple of years they’ve begun to dry up.’

‘Yeah, it looks like your cleaner hasn’t made it up for a year or two either.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry about the mess. But I work alone and most of my clients these days, frankly, aren’t too fussy about the standard of housekeeping. To be honest, it’s a long time since I did any interviews. I suppose I should ask you some searching questions.’

‘Please ask me anything you want, but I hope you’re not going to try any of that psychometric testing crap.’

‘Well I might, if I knew what it was.’

Annie seemed relieved and said, ‘Thank God for that. It’s an interview technique that a lot of companies use to find out about the
real you.
Believe me, I’ve had a lot of interviews lately and it absolutely does my head in.’

‘Sounds clever, how does it work?’

‘But that’s the point, it
doesn’t
work. What they usually do is ask completely mad open questions that don’t have a right or wrong answer, or any answer really, just to hear what you say and how you react under pressure. Occasionally, if the interviewer is bored, you can be asked to sing, dance, or role play, even if the interview is just for some rubbish zero hours, temporary gig in a call centre or a shop. The
really
annoying thing is that totally unsuitable people seem to be able to sail straight into the top well-paid jobs, like the guys who run some of the big banks. While all the poor sods like me, who are scrambling around for shitty, entry-level jobs have to jump though endless hoops of screening and interview. I don’t get it. It’s
completely
mad.’

Jack was both intrigued and amused by her rant and said, ‘I knew things were tough out there for young people looking for work, but I didn’t think it had got
that
crazy. Tell me a bit more.’

‘Okay, I went to an interview for a call centre job last month and the HR guy I was there to see asked me to imagine that I’m walking along a beach on holiday. This is true, I swear. So he says, in the distance you can see three women. Two of them are wearing white swimsuits and the third one has a skimpy black bikini on.’

‘That’s
amazing
,’ said Jack, ‘I have that
same
dream all the time. Sorry, please go on.’

‘Anyway, he tells me that as I get closer to them I will see that the two swimsuit chicks have worried sad expressions on their faces and bikini girl is rolling around in the sand, laughing like a drain. But she also has floods of tears running down her cheeks at the same time. So Mr HR asks me what I think the “group dynamic
”
is down on the beach, to cause such “polarised emotions”. In plain English, I have to try and explain what the hell’s going on.’

Jack scratched his head and said ‘Jeez, that’s a tough one. I mean it could be just about anything.’

‘Well I’d been to loads of interviews just like this recently, and I’d just about had enough of the stupid questions, so I told him that I honestly couldn’t see what this had to do with a poxy job, working to a set script in a call centre selling car insurance. So then he got the hump big time and said that it didn’t matter if I saw the relevance of the question or not, because his boss drew up the interview questions and everyone has to answer them, without exception. End of.’

‘So, he was just following orders, eh?’ said Jack, smiling.

‘Exactly. So then I told him that was perfectly obvious to me what had happened on the beach. Bikini girl had just farted. She’d dropped an absolute bomb. Her two mates had just caught a whiff and they were both about to bring up their breakfasts.’

Jack, something of a serial farter in his own right, laughed out loud and then asked, ‘So did you get the job?’

‘Funnily enough, I didn’t get
that
one. The personnel dork said I wasn’t taking the interview seriously. He was right.’

They both smiled and Jack started to get a good feeling about the early rapport that he seemed to have struck up with this strange, outspoken young woman sitting opposite.

‘So anyway, what do
you
want to ask me?’

‘Okay then, and I promise there’s absolutely no tricky psychometric stuff. How old are you Annie?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘And how many jobs have you had since you left school?’

Annie had to think for a moment, before answering, ‘About thirty. Well, give or take a couple.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, how many times have you been sacked?’

She
s
miled. ‘No, I’ve never been sacked. I have been asked to leave once or twice, admittedly at fairly short notice. Once with a security escort right out the front door onto the pavement, with my stuff in a cardboard box. But no, never formally sacked. Not so far.’

‘And if you got this job, would you need to work any notice?’

‘No, I walked out of my last job yesterday, so I can start right away.’

With the preliminaries taken care of, Jack cut to the chase. ‘Okay Annie, I normally prefer to work alone, but there’s been a recent change of circumstances, which means I now need an assistant. Why do you think that might be necessary?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Humour me, okay. Pretend for a minute that you’re a private detective. Just look around the office here and use your powers of observation.’

Annie paused and composed her thoughts before replying, ‘Well I suppose you could be really busy with work, making loads of money, but that’s, um, unlikely. Or you might be getting a bit past it, a bit forgetful, needing someone around to help out.’

‘You’re getting warmer … go on.’

Annie looked again around the chaotic office and said, ‘Maybe you just can’t find anything. It looks as if you badly need someone to organise things around here. Where’s your office computer by the way?’

Jack hesitated and squirmed slightly in his seat before answering. ‘It sort of gave up the ghost last month and I haven’t had a chance to replace it. So I’m mainly just using an old fax machine at the moment to communicate with clients.’

Annie was incredulous and spluttered, ‘A
fax
machine
? You’re kidding me, right? I saw a couple of
them
demonstrated at the Science Museum last year, it was
so
funny. Where you put a sheet of actual paper in one end, press a button and maybe, if you’re lucky, a curly, barely legible document, reeking of chemicals eventually plops out at the other end.’

Jack felt his neck and both cheeks start to burn red with technophobe shame. ‘That probably does just about cover it, yes.’

‘Well that’s just, like,
so
last century. I know you don’t have a website or a computer, but surely you must at least have a smart phone?’

Jack shook his head and crossed his arms, clearly now reluctant to reveal any further information beyond name, rank and number.