The Shift of Numbers (5 page)

“You must be the new,” cough “…lad. Follow me.” They walked
for a while to another field, t
he silence broken
,
as they walked
,
by the
Scientist’
s persistent cough.

“Here we are
,
boy. Do you see the fence that goes round this field?”

“Yes.”

“Good. T
his is field 7 and today you will be fertili
s
ing it.”

“
Okay
.”

“This is very important; I want you to listen carefully. Take this.” The
Scientist
handed Gordon a squeezey bottle and a pair of rubber gloves.

“What’s this for?” a
sked Gordon.

“You see those carrot tops?”

“Yes.
” Gordon presumed that the small green plants arranged in rows in the field were the carrot tops.

“This is the most important bit. I want you to spray each carrot top once with the contents of that bottle. Do you understand?”

Well yes, I’m not stupid, Gordon wanted to say but he just nodded.

“Good, just once remember. The
r
e’
s enough formula in that bottle to spray each carrot top once. It should take you
all day so stop for lunch at 12.
30 and go up to the house.
Report back to me at 5 o’clock.
Okay
?”

“
Okay
.”

The
Scientist
walked off
,
leaving Gordon alone. He put the gloves on and started spraying. It wasn’t long before he realised how boring this job was going to be.

By 11
,
Gordon had ma
de his way up to a large rustic-
looking house and knocked on the front door.
A middle-aged
woman answered the door and told Gordon to follow her.
She had a type of tired glamour that had been faded by time, like a rundown seaside resort in winter that relied totally on the locals for trade.
They made the
ir
way to a small room on the other side of
the house that contained a
table and a tape measure. Bill
’
s wife measured Gordon in silence
,
then
said, “Your uniform should be here in a few days.”

“Thank you
,
” said Gordon and turned to leave
.

“Before you leave I have a job for you t
o do. Will you follow me, please?
” They walked out of the house and into the back garden.
“I want you to dig something up for me. It’s just under that tree. The spade is over there.” She pointed w
ith a hand covered in expensive-
looking rings. Gordon obediently picked up the spade and started digging where Bill
’
s wife had showed him.

“What am I digging for?” a
sked Gordon.

“Money,” r
eplied Bill
’
s wife. Gordon kept digging until his spade hit something; he put his hand into the hole and pulled out a very dirty banknote. Michael would have been most displeased.

“You can leave now,
” Bill
’
s wife said abruptly. “Take
one of the notes if you wish. J
ust don’t tell Bill...” Gordon put one of the notes in his pocket and walked back down to his field to continue his spraying.

*

He
continued spraying until lunch then he went back up to the house and ate
,
in the staff room
,
the sandwiches his mother had made for him. After lunch and back at field 7
,
Gordon was tho
ro
ughly fed up of spraying the
carrot tops and it was only 2 o
’clock
. As
no-
one
was around
,
he decided to have a break and sat down by the edge of the field under a tree.
He was awoken to the sight of a man in a suit frantically pulling the carrots out of the ground.

“What are you doing?” Gordon shouted over. The man stuffed the carrots in his pockets and ran as fast as he could away from Gordon. Gordon looked at his watch; it was nearly 5 o’clock so
,
emptying the rest of the bottle out behind a tree
,
he walked back to the hut. He knocked on the door and a cloud of smoke
,
followed by the
Scientist,
emerged.

“How did it…” cough “go?” a
sked the
Scientist.

“It went well,” answered Gordon, not bothering to tell the
Scientist
about the strange man he saw.

“Did you spray all the car
rot tops once and only once?” d
emanded the
Scientist
fixing Gordon’s eyes in a steely gaze.

“That’s what you told me to do
.
”

“But is that what you did?”

“Of course
,
” said Gordon staring directly into his eyes. The
Scientist
looked like he wanted to say more but started coughing. He motioned Gordon to follow him and they both made the
ir
way up the hill back to the house. Bill was waiting for them on the driveway to the house.

“How did he fa
r
e
?” Bill said amiably to the
Scientist.

“He did
okay,” t
he
Scientist
replied in a flat voice.

“Excellent,” exclaimed Bill, rummaging in his pocket
.
“You won’t get paid till next Friday
,
lad, and we are all going down the pub. This will get you a couple of pints after that hard day’s work you had.” He handed Gordon a
10 pound
note and
,
without asking if he wanted to go to the pub
,
he called over to the other workers and shouted that it was the new lad
’
s round. Everyone cheered apart from Gordon and the
Scientist
, who both looked a little bewildered.

Within 15 minutes they were at the pub and Gordon was bundled to the bar by the happy workers.

“What’s you
r
poison
, son?” a
sked the barman.

“Erm…drinks all round?” r
eplied Gordon, still unsure of what was happening.

“Coming right up,” the barman poured out a pint for Gordon and while another was pouring he winked at Gordon and said
,
“That’s 10 pounds please
,
squire
.
”

“Cheers
,
” said Gordon and handed a 10 pound note to the barman who held the dirty note up to the light, frowned and put it into the till.

“3 cheers for the new lad. V
ery generous
, I thought,” s
houted Bill after everyone had gotten
their
drinks.

*

From the moment the seed wa
s planted in the ground
, the carrot cells were dividing, m
illions and millions of them swelling and breaking apart, gaining all they need
ed
to grow by leaching the soil of its nutri
ents and drinking in sunlight, a
ll the time being nourished by the water and fertili
s
er Bill and his workers provide
d
. This care
that
all Bill
’
s carrots receive
d made
each one grow quickly. Once fully-grown
, they could
now begin the next stage in their lives. It start
ed
with being uprooted and
mechanically
shaken vigorously to remove any loose soil. Once ou
t of the ground things really go
t interesting
for the carrot
. Recently
,
Bill had started using a new
fertili
s
er
,
so he had
his workers hose the carrots down to remove any trace of i
t.

Once cleaned
, the carrots we
re put in boxes and driven t
o a storage unit that Bill rented
in town. From there
, they we
re shown to the
ir
potential owners, a wide range
of shop owners and supermarket managers
. One particular carrot in box number
7G was
squeezed by a large man in a white apron. It was decided between Bill and the white-aproned man, that box 7G containing 60 carrots would be sold for 8 pounds. The carrot and it
s
friends in box 7G had made Bill a profit and were now being driven to a small shop where they were emptied into a display case in the window. After being lined up in rows
,
the carrots had a sign at
tached to them. It exclaimed, “I
mprove you
r
eyesight for only 27p per carrot”.

The carrot and 7 others were purchased 3 hours later for 2.16 pounds
and placed in a paper bag. In
the
ir
paper bag
,
they were put in a car boot and driven to the destination of the
ir
demise. After reading a book for a few minutes
,
the carrots
’
new owner began placing ingredients into a pan. About 11 minutes later
,
the carrots were shredded and tightly rolled along with some tuna and avocado into a sheet of nori seaweed by a bamboo roller.

Some time later
,
a key could be heard in the door and a female voice could be heard saying, “What a nice surprise! What have you cooked me?”

“California sushi rolls
,” a
man replied.

A little bit later
,
the carrots
,
snug inside the rolls
, were placed
in the centre of a table and a candle was lit.

“Mmmm, this is rea
lly nice. Can I taste carrot?” a
female voice said appreciatively.

“Of course…”

“You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.”

Ronald Reagan

Things at Shure Stock were approaching meltdown as its bubble of liquidity neared popping size. After a frantic early morning call from the accounts department to the chairman-of-the-board, action had to be taken. The conversation concerned the whereabouts of large quantities of the
company’s
cash and where it had disappeared to over the last 4 days. The chairman immediately froze all the accounts and went in search of the only person who could possibly shed any light on the mysterious disappearances, a
person whose name
, after extensive searching through the company books, kept cropping up – Richard Lehman. After finding his corner office locked and
after
listening for several minutes to strange garbled ramblings from inside, he decided it would be best to have a chat to some of Richard’s colleagues. All he found in the gleaming corridors of the 21
st
floor were rumours, whisperings and several very tall tales of crates of carrots being delivered in the dead of night. Taking a sip from the water cooler, the chairman pulled himself together and decided
that the situation required
a meeting.

*

Richard
’s
fiancé
e
gazed at her hand absently, half listening to the lady painting her fingernails a deep shade of red, the other half wondering who was ringing her phone again. She had only been in the nail bar for about an hour and her phone hadn’t stopped vibrating. The l
ittle handbag it lived in moved
slowly across the counter with every fresh buzz.

“You can get that now,” the lady said chirpily, looking up from her work, clearly annoyed at the handbag
’
s strange dance. “I’m done.”

Richard’s fiancé
e
thanked her and tried to unzip the bag
. “
Sorry, could you open that for me?” She waved her wet fingernails at the lady who carefully placed the phone in her hand. 32 missed calls. It buzzed again.

“Hello…Yes…Why
?...It
can’t be that urgent?...Ok then.”

Richard’s fiancé
e
didn’t have to wait long before a car arrived outside and she was whisked away into the uptown traffic. With few words of explanation, she arrived at Shure Stock and was taken quickly into the boardroom. She was politely seated at the head of a gigantic, very shiny table, surrounded by very worried looking middle-aged men. Getting worried
herself
,
she tried to interrupt the
i
r excited chatter.

“What’s going on? Is Richard ok
ay?” s
he asked
,
and was ignored. One of the men who had slightly more of an air of importance about him than the others banged his empty coffee mug on the shiny table.

“Right then, down to the ma
t
ter in han
d. We all know why we are here. B
ut do you?” he said lou
dly looking directly at Richard
’s fiancé
e
.

“No.” She frowned.

“Really
,
” he said making the “e” a full octave higher than the remaining letters. “How’s Richard been recently?”

“I know he has been
acting a little differently,” s
he replied defensively.

“Differently,” the man spluttered. “I would call that an understatement.”
Noises of agreement sounded around the table and echoed off expensive wallpaper.

“I don
’t understand,” replied Richard
’s fiancé
e
.

“I will explain it to you then.” He sighed. “Richard is 1 of the best stockbrokers in this firm. This means that he has access to all of our major accounts. In fact, he was the one who got us a lot of those accounts.”

“That
’s
good then
,
isn’t it?”

“Well… yes and no. How has Richard been acting at home lately?”

“To tell you the truth
,
he has been obsessed with this new diet of his. He has been eating nothing but carrots.”

“Don’t you find that a
little odd?” a
sked the man
,
with a raised eyebrow
.

“He told me it would improve his eyesight. He has always had tr
ouble with his eyesight you see,” s
he explained, blowing on a wet thumbnail.

“His behaviour, I’m afraid to say
,
has been quite erratic of late. He has been telling his colleagues that he can see through walls.”

“What? Are you being serious?”

“
I’ve never been more serious,” h
e replied sternly.

“I want to see Richard,” s
he demanded.

“The problem is greater than you think. You see, Richard has unrestricted access to the company bank account and in the last week or so he has transferred almost half of it to places unknown. He has told us that he knows exactly where it is and he believes that he is making lots of money.”

“Well
,
perhaps he knows ex
actly what he is doing,” r
eplied Richard’s fiancé
e
looking more than a little shocked.

“I really don’t think so… An ideal solut
ion would have been to sack him
but
,
unfortunately
,
with the amount of money Richard has transferred, the company will surely go bankrupt. We need you to help us.”

“I don’t care about that! Just take me to see him.” She stood to her feet, glancing down at the mahogany
,
smeared rosy
red
where her hands had been.

“Please sit down. T
his really is a lot more serious than I think you realise.”

“What do you mean?”

“He could go to prison.” He watched as the words sank forcefully into her conscious thought, rearranging the world about her. Richard
’s f
iancé
e
sat slowly back down.

“We need you to find out where Richard has put all that money or get him to tell us. He won’t talk to any of us.”

*

While this meeting took place
,
Richard was sta
ring at the wall in his office.
Occasionally
, he would point and yell out, “I can see you!”

*

Gordon had been working on the farm for over 3 weeks now. It had been a
busy
time with Bill pushing the workers
to grow and harvest as many carrots as humanly possible. All Gordon had been doing every day was spraying carrot tops, under the watchful eyes of the
Scientist
. He was getting the impression that the
Scientist
was growing concerned with his ability, or motivation, to spray the carrot tops. A
f
t
er lunch,
Gordon walked back to the hut as he did every day and was greeted by a column of black smoke emerging from
behind the hut. He wa
ndered
curiously towards the smoke where
he heard raised voices. Standing by a large fire were Bill and the
Scientist
, shouting at each other.

“I’ve told you before, you lunatic, we need a permit to burn things. You could bring the fire marshals up to the farm.”

“And I’ve told you before that if I don’t destroy this stuff before it oxidises then it could become explosive. Don’t you listen to anything I say?” The
Scientist
managed to shout all this before he started coughing
violently.

“Tell me first, that’s all I ask,” shouted Bill over the coughing. “That’s all I told you to do. Can’t you remember anything?” He offered the Scientist a bottle that he grabbed quickly and started swigging from until the coughing subsided. Bill took the bottle back.

“Don’t drink too much. You know what happened last time.” Bill turned to walk away and saw Gordon. “What are you doing?”

“Getting the sprayer,” Gordon replied.

The Scientist disappeared briefly into the hut, returning with the spray bottle and gloves. He handed them to Gordon.

“You’d better get a move on,” Bill said. They both began walking away from the hut in the
ir
separate directions until they heard a loud gurgling noise behind them. They turned to see the Scientist collapse head first onto the ground. Bill ran over to the convulsing mound of white lab coat. Ignoring the strange and disturbing noises from the still gurgling Scientist
,
Bill turned him over.

“Shall I get a
n
ambulance?” shouted Gordon nervously, ready to run up the hill to the house.

“Bit late for that.
I think he’s dead…” Gordon walked over to Bill and the
Scientist
’s limp body. The
Scientist’s eyes were wide and his
face was fixed into a terrified-
looking mask. “…He hasn’t got a pulse
.
”

“Why is he maki
ng them noises…if he’s dead?” r
eplied Gordon. They listened for several moments to a series of gurgling, popping and wheezing sounds.

“I’m not a doctor. P
erhaps it
’
s normal?” Bill said ma
tter-of-
factly.

“What do we do now? S
hall I go and fetch someone?”

“No need for that. Go and get a couple of spades from the shed
.
”

“What for?” a
sked Gordon, not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“To bury him with.”

“You
’
r
e
that
sure he’s definitely dead?”

“Look at him.”

“Won’t someone wonder where he is?”

“He
don’t
have any family, or friends for that matter. Nobody even knows he’s here and I’m not forking out for a funeral.”

*

At Richard
’
s house things had taken a turn for the worse. His fiancé
e
had been trying to get him to leave his office all morning. He hadn’t let her into his
office for nearly a week now. H
e
’d
had some builders around the previous week and they had installed a security system with several large locks on his office door. He had taken to sleeping
in there, only coming out at night when his fiancé
e
had gone to bed. Sh
e was deeply concerned for him. S
o
,
in the early hours of the morning
,
she had reluctantly placed a call to the local psychiatric hospital.

“Richard
, it’s me. Can you hear me?” s
he called through the office door.

“I can see you,” c
ame the shrill response.

“There are some people coming to see you.”

“I don’t want to see them.”

“I can’t help you if you don’t come out
of the office and talk to me. T
hen we…” The doorbell rang followed by a loud knocking on the door.

“No, not them
,
” screamed Richard
.

Richard’s
fiancé
e
opened the front door to a small balding man in a grey suit with powerful round glasses that made his eyes look en
ormous. On each side of him was a giant ma
n in
a white lab coat
and
,
behind them
,
a 4
th
man with a blowtorch and a bag of tools.

“Hello
,
miss
. I’m the doctor from Dullstand Psychiatric H
ospital. I
’ve
brought the locksmith as you requested. Where is the patient?” The small man stood at the door blinking through his thick glasses.

“He’s upstairs. I’ll show you.” She led the doctor upstairs to the imposing office door. “You
’
r
e
not going to hurt him
, are you?” s
he added nervously.