Mr Todd's Reckoning Read online

  On occasions, I would have to drive by a taxpayer’s house to see if their lifestyle was consistent with what they said they earned. You might be surprised to learn that some people who claimed to make very little money would have two cars on the driveway, both with relatively new registration plates, and perhaps even a boat.

  I recall once, walking by a taxpayer’s house and seeing, with the lights on, that she had had a brand-new kitchen just fitted that she could not have managed to buy based on what she had put in her tax return. I made a careful note to do one or two checks when I got back to the office the next morning. It was something we would have a little chat about later.

  Now and then, I would have to follow a taxpayer to see what they were up to ‘behind the scenes’. I do remember having no end of trouble with one Pakistani gentleman who simply would not come clean about matters. If he had been honest immediately, it would have been better for him. But no, he was not. I followed him by car one morning to see him taking his daughters, three of them, to a private school some way away. That is not something he could afford, based on his tax return, and it needed to be investigated further. His lies and deceit ruined him in the end. He had only himself to blame.

  (Adrian’s mobile phone has gone quiet. That beeping will be something or nothing. A reminder, most likely, that he needs to take his medication.)

  I would always find something in every return I looked at. I was renowned for it in the office. One of the young ladies called me ‘Sherlock’ for a while before she moved on. I think her comment was meant to be a little joke, but it had a ring of truth to it and I believe everyone recognised that.

  I, being a jolly sort, reciprocated in kind by always referring to her as ‘Watson’, which was very amusing all round. “Ah Watson, good morning” and “What do you think, my dear Watson?” were two of my favourite ‘one-liners’. We certainly had a good few chuckles.

  (Adrian is up and moving about the bungalow. To his room. Back into the hallway. I hear the front door being opened. I wait for him to say what he is doing. The door slams shut. He’s gone. Why? He never goes out in the evenings. Never.)

  Despite all that I did, the dishonesty I uncovered, the unpaid tax I recovered for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, I have been ‘let go’. It was a dismissal. And I can see, as I think back over things and write these words down again, where it all began.

  I stop my writing, at a convenient point in my story, to slip to the front of the bungalow and into the porch, to see where Adrian is going. He is out there, a little way up the road, waiting at the bus stop to Ipswich. Where is he going at this time of night? What on earth is he going to do? The thought sickens me.

  MONDAY 24 JULY, 7.57AM

  We are in the living room, Adrian and I, getting ready for breakfast. It is still stiflingly hot. The air outside is hazy. Adrian always wants to have the windows shut in case he gets hay fever. He never has. But he thinks he might if he is not careful. I am sweating again, partly due to the heat, but mostly because of Adrian.

  The way he is.

  What he is doing.

  Where he was last night.

  Breakfast, at 8.00am every morning, is a ritual for Adrian and, although I never show it, another ordeal for me. It is not something we enjoy. Not for us the amiable conversation, the sharing of news and thoughts and the occasional but companionable silence of a father and son at ease with each other. I do not know why we still do it. Breakfast. Habit, I suppose. There is little more than that between us.

  I tried to be a good father in my own way.

  He is not a nice person. He is not normal. He is not decent.

  I have been ashamed by him, embarrassed – and now I am fearful.

  Adrian fusses around as ever. I sit quietly in the corner as always, waiting endlessly. He has to have the fold-out table just so and I have learned that it is best to keep out of his way while he arranges everything. He lifts up one side of the gateleg table, securing it by swinging the leg below into position. He checks the leg, once-twice, once-twice, to make sure it is safe and well.

  I turn on the radio on the side of the table.

  We listen to the Radio 4 news and the weather every morning.

  Like ordinary people do.

  At the 8.00am pips, he stops for an instant, as if standing to attention for a two-minute silence. He then spreads the tablecloth and lays place mats, one each, plus another one for a pot of tea and another two for racks of toast, butter and a jar of marmalade with a teaspoon. We have a mix of brown and white toast and he likes to put these in separate racks. He brings two chairs out from the kitchen and places one at either side of the table.

  It is at this point that I move to the table and sit down, my back to the garden window.

  Adrian carries the breakfast things through on a tray.

  We will sit, opposite each other, for no more than ten minutes, hardly saying a word.

  There is a moment or two’s silence as he pours tea for me and then himself, before shaking his head and scolding himself quietly because he has forgotten the milk. He hurries back to the kitchen. I hear him opening the cupboard to get the jug, pulling at the fridge door for the milk carton, pouring milk into the jug, putting the milk carton back into the fridge. Checking the door is shut. Once-twice, once-twice. Every time.

  I repeat the headline news, calling out to him. Echoing the newsreader word for word.

  The latest dramas from Westminster.

  It’s something to say. I might as well be talking to myself.

  He returns to the table, settles back down and then realises he has also forgotten the little pack of sweeteners. This time, he shakes his head and stands up sharply. For a moment, I think he is going to cry.

  I do not say a word about this. We have shared the moment and others like it many times and I know it is best not to react at all, to show irritation or anger. It is better if I stay quiet as he returns to the kitchen and repeats the process.

  There have been occasions when he has done this four or five times in rapid succession for one thing or another. I sit here unblinking, never moving a muscle. My eyes gaze calmly into the middle distance.

  I then call out again, telling him what the weather will be like today.

  Hot.

  As if it has been anything else for days, weeks, forever.

  Now he has sat down and has fussed his way through sweeteners and milk and is stirring his tea. I let him reach for the toast first, to smear the butter, add a teaspoon of marmalade, spread it across with his knife. Then back again, and so on, and so forth, to have it thin and even. He waits for me to prepare my toast too. Not because he is polite, caring, thoughtful. I have been drawn into his obsessive routine. I have to play my part in it.

  He bites into his toast, a look of pleasure on his face as he moves the buttery marmalade mess around his mouth. He opens his mouth as if to show me the churning food. He makes an ‘ahh’ noise. As if it is the nicest thing he has ever eaten. That, and the endless, swirling, chopping, clacking noise of his teeth, would set most people on edge.

  I take deep breaths.

  For I am a relaxed man.

  Nothing troubles me.

  I do not know whether we will ever have a normal conversation. Sometimes, I want to ask if or when he is going to try and get another job. Perhaps he could pick up where he left off, five or so years ago, with old friends. Now and then, I think I should suggest he gets out and about to a church, a charity shop, somewhere to meet people. But it is pointless. He is what he is.

  Odd.

  Friendless.

  A bloody menace.

  I stay silent and we listen to the radio and an interview with someone from the Met Office about heatwaves. She drones on, saying there’s no official definition of a ‘heatwave’, it’s just a term to describe an extended period of hot weather that’s higher than usual for the time of year.

  If I ask Adrian a question, anything personal, he does not like it.

  He gets an
gry and defensive. Says I am ‘getting at him’. Again. As if I constantly badger him, causing him stress and ‘grief’, as he puts it.

  Anything I say must be neutral and vague, parroting the radio without thought or opinion.

  The woman on the radio is now interviewing someone or other from the ambulance service. A know-all who loves the sound of his own voice. The man repeats what are obviously carefully prepared comments. It sounds as though he is reading answers from a card.

  They are talking about a heat-health watch service, which is some sort of alert system for medical and emergency services when temperatures are high for a sustained period of time. There are various different levels, apparently.

  Adrian stops eating and tilts his head upwards.

  He is listening and thinking about whatever it is he is going to say.

  I know better than to interrupt him, to ask him what is on his mind.

  Level one, says the know-all with the robotic voice, is in place through the summer weeks and medical and emergency services need to be aware that something called the temperature threshold may be reached during this time. Level two is when it’s expected that the threshold – an average of 30 degrees by day and 15 degrees at night for two consecutive days or more – will be exceeded soon.

  Adrian pauses, as if he is having second thoughts.

  About speaking, starting a conversation, about being normal.

  He dips his head down and we continue to listen to the radio in silence.

  Level three of this health alert, and the know-all chuckles as if it is something very funny, is when that temperature has been exceeded for more than two days, and level four, he laughs again, is when a prolonged hot spell means it is severe. I do not know why he thinks this is funny. People die in hot weather. Someone needs to say something. He should be reprimanded. A letter needs to be written by a community-minded member of the public.

  Adrian smiles. To himself.

  As if he has thought of something very amusing but does not want to share it.

  Not just yet anyway.

  I know what it is. I am not stupid. He is thinking that this is not a heatwave, even though I have said over recent days and weeks that it is. Although it has been hot for so long now – level four – the weather may not have exceeded 30 degrees for two successive days. It has, I think, dipped above and below that mark. Above one day. A touch below the next. Up again the day after. And on and on. Relentlessly hot day after day after day. But not, strictly speaking, a heatwave.

  I can hear Adrian in my head saying, “So, technically, this is not a heatwave… whatever anyone says.” The pause being for my benefit. The ‘anyone’ being a little dig at me. He’d then smirk and start clearing away the breakfast things.

  “Um,” he goes, and then brings his cup up to take a mouthful of tea. He slurps it. Loudly.

  “Er.” He takes another bite of his toast, pulling at it with his teeth before wolfing it into his mouth with a wet and sloppy noise.

  He stares into space for a moment or two, thinking, his mouth chomping up and down on his toast.

  I know what is coming. The sly glance at me. To check I am listening. To hear what he is about to say. To laugh at and belittle me without doing it directly. Repeating what we have heard on the radio. In direct contradiction to what I have been saying. That this is becoming the hottest and longest-hottest summer ever.

  He makes a noise somewhere in the back of his throat.

  A pleasurable noise.

  It sounds almost sexual, which makes me feel uncomfortable.

  The radio has moved on now. From the weather. To a train accident in India. A shooting in America. Endless death and misery. We carry on, sipping our tea and eating our toast, but Adrian and I are still thinking about the weather. He is deciding what he is going to say and how he is going to say it. I am waiting, ready.

  Then he’s chewing, chomping and clackety-clacking and clearing his throat repeatedly.

  I sit and wait. He edges his way towards what he’s going to say. His nasty little dig at me.

  He looks over at last. Our eyes meet, I hold his gaze. And then, as he is about to speak, I get up and walk away, shutting the living room door carefully behind me.

  MONDAY 24 JULY, 9.49AM

  Having put together a ‘to do’ list for today – a letter to the BBC, various notes to attend to, a shopping list, a small package to put in the post box to a neighbour – I am now going to write my first entry of the day in my diary. I will work through what I will describe as ‘the first incident’ that led to me having my job taken away from me. I should add that the word ‘incident’ makes much more of it than it actually was; something and nothing.

  The incident, at the start of the year, was in relation to a young trainee in my section who I will not, out of respect, name, not even providing her initials, although I know not only her first and last names, of course, but also her middle name, which is rather amusing.

  Her parents chose an unusual name quite out of keeping with the young woman’s appearance and demeanour. I will say no more on the matter other than to suggest the lady in question has the manner of a librarian about her and the middle name of what might be described as a burlesque dancer (to put it politely). I will, as I have done before, simply refer to her as ‘the young woman’.

  (Adrian is outside. I can hear him opening the garage door, a screech as he lifts it up and over. I do not know what he wants in there.)

  The incident – as I suggest, the word is something of an exaggeration for what happened – occurred when we were resting in the staff room, enjoying a mug of piping hot coffee after a very busy afternoon going through the papers to bring ourselves up to date on all matters regarding outstanding taxpayer files. We were sitting opposite each other in easy chairs with a small table separating us. (I say they are easy chairs but, in reality, they were rather straight-backed and forced one to sit up in a most uncomfortable manner.)

  We had talked over various issues until we came to a recent enquiry – not to be confused with a more formal and detailed investigation – where it transpired that the young woman lived close to the taxpayer in question. She had, without reference to me, or anyone else, taken it upon herself to make some additional checks, walking by the gentleman’s house, seeing what type of car he drove and so on. She had done this quite thoroughly, going there on various separate occasions and, so as to be less likely to be spotted, in different ways (on foot, by car, etcetera).

  It was while we were drinking our coffee that she revealed this information to me, starting off hesitantly and shyly, glancing and smiling at me for encouragement, as she explained what she had done. She seemed, if I may say, rather servile in manner (unlike many girls of today who can be quite full of themselves and ‘uppity’, to use mother’s apt expression). I was, frankly, rather taken aback by this revelation but I have been trained not to show emotion, nor to give anything away as to what I was thinking at any given time.

  (Adrian is now in the garage, rummaging about among the packed-away accumulation of many years. I hear random noises. A clonk. A clang. A thud. I don’t know what he is up to.)

  As an investigator, I should explain that there are times when you do make a conscious decision to express surprise, but this is often done as a subtle way of encouraging a taxpayer to tell you more. I have found that there are certain types, ‘white van man’ for example, and to use a popular expression, who like to boast about their ‘enterprising ways’ and, with only a little encouragement, will talk freely of their exploits and reveal, inadvertently, all manner of lines of further enquiry that can lead to a full-scale investigation into their affairs.

  In this instance, though, as she sat back, I could tell that she had summarised matters and concluded what she had to say so I did not feel it necessary to press for further information. However, although I was obliged to admonish her, more of a gentle chiding, about what she did, I had to admire not only her initiative, which one does not see in young
people at all these days, but the way in which she had gathered her information and described her findings so succinctly. (“A taxpayer living beyond his declared means,” she summed up accurately with a firm nod). I was encouraged by her.

  I could not tell, from the look on her face, quite what she made of my chiding, which I felt I had to do, as per my job specification rather than by my personal inclination. I have found in the past that some of the ladies, especially the younger ones, can be brought easily to tears by even the mildest of criticisms, perhaps about an unfortunate new hairstyle or a rather promiscuous application of make-up or bright red lipstick. I have learned, sometimes the hard way, to be very mild in what I say and how I put it to them.

  (Lo-oo-oo-ng scrape.)

  I would have been especially gentle with this young woman as I had something of an admiration for her and the work she did. I had been with her for only a short time, working one-to-one, mentoring her for some six weeks or so at this point.

  (Sudden bang.)

  She had been in the department for a year or two prior to that and I had noticed her as we went about our work and we smiled as we passed and, occasionally, while we were waiting for the lift, we would exchange a few words about the weather and such like. I do recall an extended and quite animated conversation about a Wimbledon tennis match on one occasion.

  (Adrian is searching for something. I hear dragging noises as things are pulled out. Bumps as they are pushed back.)

  During our six weeks together, she had shown a considerable work ethic and commitment and I believe we had struck up something of a rapport. She had, if I might say, something of a twinkle about her at times when she was with me.

  (Another loud bang.)

  As I ended my gentle chiding, she leaned forward and ducked her head down in front of me. I could not tell if she was upset with what I had said or was merely reaching for her cup of coffee on the table. It was at this moment that, quite inexplicably, the incident took place. I looked down at her head of smooth brown hair, clean and shiny, and had an overwhelming urge to smell it. Before I could resist, my head dipped down too and I found myself taking in a breath of the sweet lemon scent of her hair.