Wearing Purple

Chapter 5

In a lot of ways, Newcastle is like Glasgow. There’s nothing quaint about it, but it has the same sort of grit — evolved, I suppose, through a century of building big ocean-going vessels. Like Glasgow too, the distinctive character and toughness of its people still shines through, for all its nineties face-lift.

Jan and I travelled down from Scotland by train on Friday afternoon, first class of course, courtesy of Everett Davis. He and his star performers had gone down to Tyneside that morning, to do television promotions for the live event, while the road crew drove down in their trucks, to begin the setting up of the arena.

As the express cut silently through the fields of East Lothian, many of them ploughed already in readiness for their spring seeding, I asked Jan whether she had taken up Susie Gantry’s invitation.

‘I called her this morning, while you were out doing that interview,’ she replied. ‘We had a long chat.’

‘Why’s she looking for a new accountant then?’

‘Because she does have a problem. I was right. She thinks her book-keeper may be on the fiddle, and she wants someone independent to cast an eye over his work.’

That sounded a bit odd to me. ‘Wouldn’t the company’s auditors do that?’ I asked her.

‘Normally they would. But Susie buys her book-keeping and audit services from the same firm. They’ve just finished the audit for the last financial year, but they seem to have skated over some discrepancies that were worrying her.

‘As a result, she doesn’t trust any of them any more; she wants me to do some forensic work, either to confirm her suspicions or put her mind at rest.’

‘Has she spoken to her father about this?’

‘No. That’s a bit of a touchy point with her. When the Lord Provost gave her control of the firm three years ago, he saddled her with an in-house accountant. He was an old mate of Councillor Gantry, who’d been doing the job for years, but very badly, according to Susie. She tolerated him for as long as she could, but finally a few weeks back, she’d had enough. She fired him.

‘Her father wasn’t very pleased about his pal getting the sack, although he didn’t interfere. Against that background, though, the last thing Susie wants is for her appointees to be found wanting. She says her dad would never let her live it down. So, among other things, she wants help to find the right successor to his old mate.’

‘Are you going to do it?’

Jan nodded. ‘I’m having lunch with her in the Rotunda on Monday. We’ll sort out the brief then.’

She glanced out of the window, as the train swept past a huge, grey, monolithic, menacing building, which I guessed had to be Torness Power Station. ‘That’s next week, though,’ she said. ‘What’s the programme for this weekend?’

‘We check into the Holiday Inn, then I have to go to the Arena. Everett’s called a team meeting for five o’clock, to go through the running order for tomorrow’s show. The roadies will start to build the ring and dress the hall this evening, while the rest of us are having a buffet supper back at the hotel.’

She threw me a mock grimace. ‘You mean I have to eat with a bunch of sweaty wrestlers?’

‘They only sweat after their matches, my darling. Some of them even know how to use a knife and fork.You’ll enjoy it.’

‘If I must,’ she grinned. ‘What about tomorrow?’

‘That’s when you go to the Metro Centre. I have to be around the Arena most of the day, ostensibly rehearsing, but in practice nosing around and keeping my eyes open for potential saboteurs.

‘The show begins at six o’clock. I told Dad you’d meet him and the boys outside the main entrance at five thirty. Once the thing’s all over, and they’re heading back to Fife, we’re on our own. .’ I hesitated ‘. . Except that Everett’s invited us to have dinner with him and Diane.’

My wife grinned at me, and leaned across the table which divided our seats. ‘You know, Osbert,’ she whispered. ‘I think you’re as big a Daze fan as Mike Dylan. Just as well I sort of fancy him myself.’