Chapter Sixteen
Now wondering what this elderly gentleman would be like, I walked back around the pathway that led to the kitchen – and the door we had entered through last night. On my way round I went past a window that had been opened slightly, and could hear a vacuum cleaner, as the workings of a large house had swung into action. The next window along was also opened, but through this came bursts of hurried dialogue. Continuing my journey, one or two lines carried on the morning breeze, snatched words escaped, making me wonder still what was going on.
The kitchen door was open and so I went in, clutching the file. My husband was sat reading a paper, and looking quite settled in his surroundings. It was a homely kitchen, though it had been modernised, this had been done in sympathy and all modern gadgets were in situ, including a huge refrigerator, and the customary range cooker, though there was also a conventional cooker.
At that moment Deano poked his head around the corner of the door, and asked me if I was ready. I followed him from the room and along a stone flagged passageway, down past walls adorned with family photographs – a surprising insight into the life of people I had only considered as employers, and even then only for a short time. Deano gave nothing away as we traipsed along- nothing was said about the file I was carrying, or the certificate that we had just passed, mounted on the uneven wall, in the name of Dean Mills, awarded for accreditation of Electricians Guild Level Four – Installation.
Then without warning, he turned left and we entered into a wood panelled room. One wall was lined with books, and had a large mullioned window, the far wall had chairs against it, none of these were currently occupied. Before I even looked, I knew that there would be a large desk and sat behind it would be the mastermind of Brightsparkz himself.
What I was not prepared for was exactly how this man would look. I knew he was elderly, and obviously I had seen elderly people, but nothing could prepare me for my first glance of him. Mr James Watt.
With a light in his eyes, belying his true age, he sat up in his chair and bade me a good morning and acknowledged my work in his company to date – brief as it had been. I could only wonder at how much information this man knew, surely it wasn’t really necessary to know this much about someone who had only been an employee for such a short time. We passed a few minutes chatting before others made their way into the room, each of them dressed sombrely, as if about to attend a funeral. I mentally counted them in – Maggie – whom everyone seemed to call Margaret, Deano, Mr Edison, Deano and Helen. Even Lorraine had joined us, and she carried with her a notebook and pen, sitting to one side of Mr Watt, ready to take notes. It was extremely formal, and to a degree, orchestrated, yet when I had been speaking to Mr Watt, he had been courteous and friendly. I put down the file on his desk. He reached forward, but before he could reach it, Helen Bright stepped forward and got there ahead of him. She told him that a page of the handover document was missing, and she was unsure of it’s whereabouts. Mr Watt knew of this page, and he, along with Dean, had set up a system between them to find out exactly who had it. All would become clear in – at this, he checked his watch – about five minutes or so.
While we were all left wondering how he could know, a car thundered into the parking area, a door slammed and shouting could be heard as Mrs Pipe let the car’s angry occupant into the building. She was talking to him in a calm, no-nonsense way, but as he burst into the office, it had not worked.
It was Derek Mills, Maggie’s husband. Deano’s dad? Actually, looking at him, I began to doubt that he was. It was not so much his angry presence that was threatening, more the gun he was carrying, and now pointing at Tom Edison. Maggie stepped closer to Mr Edison, and her grandfather called order to the situation, in a surprisingly loud and authoritative voice.
