The New Collected Short Stories (49 page)

Among the problems of earning £25,000 a week, and not having to pay tax, is that after being released from prison you are expected to settle for a job that only offers you £25,000 a year before tax; a common enough dilemma for most criminals, especially drug dealers.

With less than a month of his sentence to serve, Doug phoned his wife and asked her to sell his top-of-the-range Mercedes truck, in part exchange for the massive second-hand eighteen-wheel Peterbilt lorry that he’d seen advertised in
Haulage Weekly.

When Sally first saw the truck, she couldn’t understand why her husband wanted to exchange his magnificent vehicle for such a monstrosity She accepted his explanation that he would be able to drive from Sleaford to Marseilles without having to stop for refuelling.

‘But it’s a left-hand drive.’

‘Don’t forget,’ Doug reminded her, ‘the longest section of the journey is from Calais to Marseilles.’

Doug turned out to be a model prisoner, so ended up serving only half of his four-year sentence.

On the day of his release, his wife and eighteen-month-old daughter Kelly were waiting for him at the prison gates. Sally drove them back to Sleaford in her old Vauxhall. On arrival, Doug was pleased to find the second-hand pantechnicon parked in the field next to their little cottage.

‘But why haven’t you sold my old Merc?’ he asked.

‘Haven’t had a decent offer,’ Sally admitted, ‘so I hired it out for another year. At least that way it’s showing us a small return.’ Doug nodded. He was pleased to find that both vehicles were spotless, and after an inspection of the engines, discovered they were also in good nick.

Doug went back to work the following morning. He repeatedly assured Sally that he would never make the same mistake twice. He filled up his lorry with sprouts and peas from a local farmer, before setting out on his journey to Marseilles. He then returned to England with a full load of bananas. A suspicious, recently promoted Mark Cainen regularly pulled Doug over so that he could carry out a spot-check to find out what he was bringing back from Marseilles. But however many crates he prised open, they were always filled with bananas. The officer remained unconvinced, but couldn’t work out what Doug was up to.

‘Give me a break,’ said Doug, when Mr Cainen pulled him over yet again in Dover. ‘Can’t you see that I’ve turned over a new leaf?’ The customs officer didn’t give him a break because he was convinced it was a tobacco leaf, even if he couldn’t prove it.

Doug’s new system was working like a dream, and although he was now only clearing £10,000 a week, at least this time he couldn’t be caught. Sally kept all the books up to date for both lorries so that Doug’s tax returns were always filled in correctly and paid on time, and any new EU regulations were complied with. However, Doug didn’t brief his wife on the details of his new untaxed benefit scheme.

One Thursday afternoon, just after Doug had cleared customs in Dover, he drove into the nearest petrol station to refuel before continuing his journey north to Sleaford. An Audi followed him onto the forecourt, and the driver began to curse about how long he was going to have to wait before the massive pantechnicon would be filled up. To his surprise, the lorry driver only took a couple of minutes before he replaced the nozzle in its holder. As Doug drove out onto the road, the car behind moved up to take his place. When Mr Cainen saw the name on the side of the lorry, his curiosity was aroused. He checked the pump, to find that Doug had only spent £33. He stared at the massive eighteen-wheeler as it trundled off down the highway, aware that with that amount of petrol Doug could only hope to cover a few more miles before he would have to fill up again.

It took Mr Cainen only a few minutes to catch up with Doug’s truck. He then followed the lorry at a safe distance for the next twenty miles before Doug pulled into another petrol station. Once Doug was back on the road a few minutes later, Mr Cainen checked the pump – £34 – only enough to cover another twenty miles. As Doug continued on his journey to Sleaford, the officer returned to Dover with a smile on his face.

When Doug was driving back from Marseilles the following week, he showed no concern when Mr Cainen asked him to pull over and park his lorry in the customs shed. He knew that every crate on board was, as the manifest stated, full of bananas. However, the customs officer didn’t ask Doug to unlock the back door of the truck. He simply walked around the outside of the vehicle clutching a spanner as if it were a tuning fork while he tapped the massive fuel tanks. The officer was not surprised that the eighth tank rang out with a completely different timbre to the other seven. Doug sat around for hours while customs mechanics removed all eight fuel tanks from both sides of the lorry. Only one was half full of diesel, while the other seven contained over £100,000 worth of cigarettes.

On this occasion the judge was less lenient, and Doug was sent down for six years, even after his barrister pleaded that a second child was on the way.

Sally was horrified to discover that Doug had broken his word, and sceptical when he promised her never, ever, again. The moment her husband was locked up, she rented out the second vehicle and returned to her job as an estate agent.

A year later Sally was able to declare an increased income of just over £3,000, on top of her earnings as an estate agent.

Sally’s accountant advised her to buy the field next door to the cottage, where the lorries were always parked at night, as she could claim it against tax. ‘A carpark,’ he explained, ‘would be a legitimate business expense.’

As Doug had just begun a six-year sentence and was back to earning £12.50 a week as the prison librarian, he was hardly in a position to offer an opinion. However, even he was impressed when, the following year, Sally declared an income of £37,000, which included her added sales bonuses. This time, the accountant advised her to purchase a third lorry.

Doug was eventually released from prison having only served half his sentence (three years). Sally was parked outside the prison gates in her Vauxhall, waiting to drive her husband home. His nine-year-old daughter, Kelly, was strapped into the back, next to her three-year-old sister Sam. Sally had not allowed either of the children to visit their father in prison, so when Doug took the little girl in his arms for the first time, Sam burst into tears. Sally explained to her that the strange man was her father.

Over a welcome breakfast of bacon and eggs, Sally was able to report that she had been advised by her accountant to form a limited company. Haslett Haulage had declared a profit of £21,600 in its first year, and she had added two more lorries to their growing fleet. Sally told her husband that she was thinking of giving up her job at the estate agent’s to become full-time chair of the new company.

‘Chair?’ said Doug. ‘What’s that?’

Doug was only too pleased to leave Sally to run the company, as long as he was allowed to take his place behind the wheel as one of her drivers. This state of affairs would have continued quite happily, if Doug had not once again been approached by the man from Marseilles – who never seemed to end up in jail – with what he confidently assured him was a fool-proof plan with no risks attached and, more important, this time his wife need never find out.

Doug resisted the Frenchman’s advances for several months, but after losing a rather large sum in a poker game, finally succumbed. Just one trip, he promised himself. The man from Marseilles smiled, as he handed over an envelope containing £12,500 in cash.

Under Sally’s chairmanship, the Haslett Haulage Company continued to grow, in both reputation and below the bottom line. Meanwhile, Doug once again became used to having cash in hand; money which did not rely on a balance sheet, and was not subject to a tax return.

Someone else was continuing to keep a close eye on the Haslett Haulage Company, and Doug in particular. Regular as clockwork, Doug could be seen driving his lorry through the Dover terminal, with a full load of sprouts and peas, destined for Marseilles. But Mark Cainen, now an anti-smuggling officer working as part of the Law Enforcement Unit, never once saw Doug make the return journey. This worried him.

The officer checked his records, to find that Haslett Haulage was now running nine lorries a week to different parts of Europe. Their chairman, Sally Haslett, had a spotless reputation – not unlike her vehicles – with everyone she dealt with, from customs to customers. But Mr Cainen was still curious to find out why Doug was no longer driving back through his port. He took it personally.

A few discreet enquiries revealed that Doug could still be seen in Marseilles unloading his sprouts and peas, and later loading up with crates of bananas. However, there was one slight variation. He was now driving back via Newhaven, which Cainen estimated must have added at least a couple of hours to Doug’s journey.

All customs officers have the option of serving one month a year at another port of entry, to further their promotion prospects. The previous year Mr Cainen had selected Heathrow airport; that year he opted for a month in Newhaven.

Officer Cainen waited patiently for Doug’s lorry to appear on the dockside, but it wasn’t until the end of his second week that he spotted his old adversary waiting in line to disembark from an Olsen’s ferry. The moment Doug’s lorry drove onto the dock, Mr Cainen disappeared upstairs into the staffroom and poured himself a cup of coffee. He walked across to the window and watched Doug’s vehicle came to a halt at the front of the line. He was waved quickly through by the two officers on duty. Mr Cainen made no attempt to intervene as Doug drove out onto the road to continue his journey back to Sleaford. He had to wait another ten days before Doug’s lorry reappeared, and this time he noted that only one thing hadn’t changed. Mr Cainen didn’t think it was a coincidence.

When Doug returned via Newhaven five days later, the same two officers gave his vehicle no more than a cursory glance, before waving him through. The officer now knew that it wasn’t a coincidence. Mr Cainen reported his observations to his boss in Newhaven and, as his month was up, made his way back to Dover.

Doug completed three more journeys from Marseilles via Newhaven before the two customs officers were arrested. When Doug saw five officers heading towards his truck, he knew that his new impossible-to-be-caught system had been sussed.

Doug didn’t waste the court’s time pleading not guilty, because one of the customs officers with whom he had been splitting the take had made a deal to have his sentence reduced if he named names. He named Douglas Arthur Haslett.

The judge sent Doug down for eight years, with no remission for good behaviour, unless he agreed to pay a fine of £750,000. Doug didn’t have £750,000 and begged Sally to help out, as he couldn’t face the thought of another eight years behind bars. Sally had to sell everything, including the cottage, the carpark, nine lorries and even her engagement ring, so that her husband could comply with the court order.

After serving a year at Wayland Category C prison in Norfolk, Doug was transferred back to North Sea Camp. Once again, he was appointed as librarian, which was where I first met him.

I was impressed that Sally and his two – now grown-up – daughters came to visit Doug every weekend. He told me that they didn’t discuss business, even though he’d sworn on his mother’s grave never, ever again.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Sally had warned him. ‘I’ve already sent your lorry to the scrapyard.’

‘Can’t blame the woman, after all I’ve put her through,’ said Doug when I next visited the library. ‘But if they won’t let me get behind a wheel once I’m released, what am I going to do for the rest of my life?’

I was released a couple of years before Doug, and if I hadn’t been addressing a literary festival in Lincoln some years later, I might never have discovered what had become of the chief librarian.

As I stared down into the audience during questions, I thought I recognized three vaguely familiar faces looking up at me from the third row. I racked that part of my brain that is meant to store names, but it didn’t respond. That was, until I had a question about the difficulties of writing while in prison. Then it all came flooding back. I had last seen Sally some three years before, when she was visiting Doug accompanied by her two daughters, Kelly and, and . . . Sam.

After I’d taken the final question, we broke for coffee, and the three of them came across to join me.

‘Hi, Sally. How’s Doug?’ I asked even before they could introduce themselves. An old political ploy, and they looked suitably impressed.

‘Retired,’ said Sally without explanation.

‘But he was younger than me,’ I protested, ‘and never stopped telling everyone what he planned to do once he was released.’

‘No doubt,’ said Sally, ‘but I can assure you he’s retired. Haslett Haulage is now run by me and my two daughters, with a backroom staff of twenty-one, not including the drivers.’

‘So you’re obviously doing well,’ I said, fishing.

‘You clearly don’t read the financial pages,’ she teased.

‘I’m like the Japanese,’ I countered, ‘I always read my papers from back to front. So what have I missed?’