Tying Up
Jemima remained in her office. She’d barred all calls apart from any from Jerry. She had to work through the options. She could be honest and report the circumstances of Chester’s death to all concerned and that would probably be that. On the other hand, she could construct a series of lies to cover it up. Slack was the only other person who knew what had happened and he seemed tame enough. She’d employed Jerry for long enough to be pretty sure he was too much of a coward to ask anything probing and besides, he’d seemed happy enough with her reassurances. She could probably convince everyone that this Chester was a freak and that the Lardomat experience had been abused by him over the years. She’d already sent a brief message to Nature’s Natural Beauty telling them their manager would be late but she’d have to provide more information soon. She kept on gently chewing her lip. Lost in thought, her first reaction was to be annoyed when Jerry came through.
“Yes, Groble here.” Although it was a video-link, she took it on voice-only. She didn’t want him to see her looking worried. She knew she was prone to wearing her emotions on her sleeve.
“Ms Groble, this is Jerry, reporting back as requested.”
“Right. And?”
“Just to say everything has gone like you said it would. I found the button just like you said and the safety facility worked first time. Slack said the dials registered maximum. He seemed a little hesitant but then he also checked the main compartment.”
Jemima screwed her eyes tightly shut and groaned. The idiot had done more than she’d asked. “Yes, and then?”
“Well, nothing. He just said everything seemed OK and closed it again. I couldn’t see what the problem was. I mean, I saw inside the thing too and it was just empty. Looked fine to me.”
Jemima felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders relax. “Good, good. OK, what I want you to do now is go through the normal de-commissioning procedure we follow whenever one of the machines becomes unserviceable. Then tell Slack we’ll provide him with the spare panel he’ll need free of charge and that I’ll be contacting him myself. Got that?”
“Well, yes, fine. If that’s what you want.” Jerry sounded unsure again. For one thing he’d never know the company to give away anything to its franchisees, and for another he’d never known Jemima to willingly talk to the likes of Slack.
Jemima guessed what he was thinking. “It’s alright. Yes. Efficient Effluent runs on a very tight margin but seeing as Slack now knows I’m involved and seeing as he’s not exactly well-off I thought I’d help him out, both to thank him and buy his silence. I’ll transfer the funds from G & G. He deserves something despite the fact that he’s a bit of a pain. It was a serious problem; in fact I’m glad he got me involved. OK?”
“Well, I suppose so.” This sounded more like the Jemima he knew.
“Jerry, believe me, if he’d made a lot of fuss it could’ve meant the end of the Lardomat and Tailors and that would mean you for one might have been out of a job. So, let’s be nice to the guy.”
“If you put it like that.” Jerry liked the cushy little number he had too much not to be satisfied with the answer. “I’ll get on with it then.”
“Yep. Do what I said and then come back here and just carry on with the day as normal. I’ll do the rest. I’ll only involve you again if I have to.”
She terminated the connection. As she did so a thought occurred to her. If the remains had now been recycled then Chester’s I.D. tag would have already been read off into the central Citizen log. She decided there and then that she might as well come clean about the whole business. The only real risk was if the Board decided to close down the remaining Lardomat and Tailor branches. She reasoned it didn’t really matter that much anyway. She was only being sentimental. The likes of Slack and Jerry could find other jobs if they had too. Sentimentality was a dumb reason to get embroiled in what would probably turn out to be a complex deception. Nevertheless, despite the fact that she’d come to a decision, she felt unhappy. Something felt wrong somehow, something more than just a malfunctioning machine.
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Christian’s message-taker jumped into life. ‘Call for you from Jemima Groble. Do you want me to take it?” Christian liked Jemima, they’d met socially many times over the years and he’d always found her good company. He hit ‘no’ and selected two-way complete interface. The less than happy face of Jemima came up on screen.
“Hello Christian. I’m sorry to bother you but I’m afraid I rather need your help; that is, in your official capacity.”
“That’s alright. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. What is it you need?” Christian tried to look and sound reassuring. Jemima wasn’t someone he’d ever dealt with professionally.
“You have access to the central Citizen Log don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. In fact I’ve just been accessing it.”
“Could you check the following name for me. It’s Chester P. Portly the third. I don’t know what the ‘P’ is for. I think I noted it down right.”
“Oh, I see. Hang on.” Christian punched in ‘Portly’. A Chester P. Portly III and a P. Portly IV came up. “The third you say?”
“Yeah. Chester P. Portly the third”.
“OK, I have it. Hang on a minute.” He delved deeper into the system. Chester’s file turned out to be quite large. “Right, I have his file now. What do you want to know?”
“What’s the most recent entry on him?”
“Let me see. Ah. His death – he died this morning, in fact about fifteen minutes ago according to this. Is that what you expected?” Christian looked across at Jemima’s image. She nodded. “How did it happen? It’s logged as an accidental death, but that’s just a catch-all category. Hang on though, he’s already been recycled. That’s quick.” He checked the time. “It’s not as if he could have been caught in the last Cleaning Time.”
“That’s where I come in Christian. He died some time before then, in a Lardomat. It went wrong. I arranged for his remains to be recycled just now – to get rid of him without anyone seeing. I rather think it looked pretty horrific. The machines themselves have a facility for handling this kind of accident. Not that it’s ever been used before mind you.”
“Um. I see. That might be a bit of a problem.” Christian didn’t quite know what to say. “Look, do you want to come over and talk about it?
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