Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [111]
She found Nicholas in the shipping department, a warehouse that served as a modest step up from where he’d laboured the previous six months. Then he’d been working on the tops of cisterns, the bowls of toilets, and kitchen sinks, seeing to the application of porcelain to the moulded clay and sliding them into the enormous kiln. In that part of the factory, the heat was intolerable and the noise was just as bad, but Nicholas had been successful there. In fact, he’d been successful in every job he’d been placed in during the last two years.
Manette knew he was working his way through all possible jobs in the factory. She’d developed a grudging admiration for this although the why of his doing it gave her a bit of concern. Surely he couldn’t think that a few years of puttering round Fairclough Industries superseded the decades she and Freddie had worked there? Surely he didn’t expect to be named managing director once their father stepped aside? The thought was ludicrous.
Today’s employment for Nicholas involved bathroom basins, Manette saw. At the loading dock, with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, he was comparing sizes and styles on shipping boxes to sizes and styles on an order. The basins had been delivered on a pallet by a forklift. Once Nicholas had checked them off, he would load them into a waiting lorry, the driver of which had reversed it to the shipping gate and was waiting round, smoking and generally being unhelpful.
Because the huge shipping doors were open to the lorry, it was cold in the warehouse. It was noisy as well because there was music blasting from speakers in the building, as if someone’s proclivity for Carlos Santana oldies might raise the ambient temperature a bit.
Manette approached her brother. He looked up and gave her a nod of hello. Above the music, she shouted, asking him if she could have a word. His response of, “It’s not near my break time,” irritated her.
She said, “For God’s sake, Nick. I think you can take five minutes without being sacked.”
“We have a shipment going out. He’s waiting.” By he Nicholas meant the lorry driver, who didn’t look exactly desperate to be on his way. He’d gone to the driver’s side of the lorry and had opened its door, true. But he emerged with a Thermos from which he poured himself something that steamed in the air. He looked happy enough for the break in his routine.
She said, “I need to speak to you. It’s important. Ask permission if you want to. Or shall I do that for you?”
Her brother’s supervisor was approaching anyway. He tilted his hard hat back on his head, greeted her, and called her Mrs. McGhie, which rather stabbed at her heart although it was indeed her legal surname. She said, “C’n I have a word with Nicholas, Mr. Perkins? It’s rather important. A family matter.” She said this last as a way of reminding the man— as if he needed reminding— who Nicholas was.
Mr. Perkins looked towards the lorry and clocked the lounging driver before saying, “Five, Nick,” and moving off.
Manette led the way to a quieter location, which turned out to be round the side of the warehouse. This was the gathering place for smokers, she saw, for although none were present at the moment, the ground was littered with evidence of their presence. She made a mental note to talk to Freddie about this. Then she crossed out the note and made a second one telling herself to handle it on her own.
She said to her brother, “It’s Tim and Gracie,” and she gave him the story with all its ins and outs: Niamh’s intentions, Kaveh’s responsibilities, their father’s position in the matter, Tim’s distress, Gracie’s future needs. She ended with, “We need to do something about all this, Nick. And we need to do it soon. If we wait, there’s no telling what Tim might get up to. He’s that damaged by what’s gone on.”
Her brother removed the gloves he was wearing. From a pocket, he took out a tube of thick lotion. He began to apply this to his hands. She gave idle thought to the reason