Let The Devil Wear Black by James F Linden (c)2003

CHAPTER 7

Friday had crept around and it was time for the appeal or perhaps something horrible and devious that the company had cooked up for me instead. I wasn’t going to make any mistakes with noises on the recording this time so I made sure that the recorder worked and then turned the volume right down to zero. Having caught the buses as before, I arrived with a bit of time to spare so on the way through the main gate, I stopped to have a chat with one of the security guards. There is nothing quite like letting the truth filter through the workforce by word of mouth. While we were talking, Snaith walked past and informed me that the appeal would be in the main office block. However, when I got up to James’s office, I found that he was on his own.

“Where’s Rachel?” I asked.

“She’s on call,” he said. “All I’ve got to do is phone her on her mobile and she’ll be here within ten minutes.”

“Right. Do we know what the meeting is about yet?”

“This morning, Snaith said it was an appeal.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve just seen him down at the main gate. He said it would be in the main offices.”

“Right. Let’s get over there. They had seven senior managers there last time so we’d better not keep them all waiting. Snaith’s got some explaining to do and I can’t wait to see their faces when they find out what he’s really been up to behind their backs.”

As before, we set off for the main block but this time, calling in at the gent’s toilets to switch the tape machine on. Down the extravagant, oak panelled corridor we walked with the tape recording James’s diatribe. He really enjoyed maligning the opposition and was full of anecdotes of managerial incompetence.

Soon, we arrived at Bexley’s secretary’s office and almost as a reflex, she put us into a small office which looked more like a storage room. It was full of spare tables, chairs, cardboard boxes and redundant office equipment such as old computers, adding machines, dictation equipment and typewriters. We waited for what seemed a life time in this grey plastic graveyard, expecting the others to come in. It seemed that in Bexley’s circles, promptness was frowned upon. I had wound the tape back to the beginning and restarted it and James was just suggesting that we should go because they hadn’t bothered to turn up within a reasonable time when the secretary poked her head around the door and told us to go to Bexley’s own office. I wondered what they had been up to — writing another script perhaps?

For a second or two, we stood outside Bexley’s impressive, oak panelled office door. This was it: the portal to the directorial sanctuary — the home of the dog–shit world of middle management power politics — the entrance to the inner perfidium. I put my hand on the brass door knob and twisted. How many managers would be in there this time? Would this be a proper appeal? I opened the door.

Inside, we found Bexley and Snaith sitting at a small, round, varnished wooden table with a large, heavy, pub–style glass ash tray in the middle. The table could have come from any pub and it wobbled as though it needed somebody to stuff a folded beer mat under one of the legs. Such was this table, this testament of tackiness, that I half expected to see ‘Trev luvs Tracy’ cut into its surface with a penknife. Apart from Snaith, Bexley, James and myself, there was nobody else in the room, no escargatiore of managers this time. James and I looked at each other. This was going to be interesting. It was also being taped. We sat down.

Bexley started rambling on and after a few minutes, told us that we were there to talk about passwords and handing me a sheet of paper, in the middle of which was drawn a little box that contained the names of seven computer files. I could tell from the file names that the top four were my accounts and a proposition for a band that never got past the thinking about it stage and also that they were created and forgotten about a long time ago. The bottom three were a complete mystery, looking instead like database files. I told Bexley but he was not particularly impressed. He wanted the passwords to all seven of them regardless of whether or not I had ever had anything to do with any of them. It seemed that I should know because I was the accused, or maybe he thought I had other powers. All along, the company had acted with the utmost paranoia but unless Bexley had a fundamental flaw in his understanding of logic, there was no explanation as to why he could have thought that his position as ‘the omnipotent one’ could have been under any threat from me.

In the absence of Collingham, Snaith had been busy scribbling notes all of the time. He was barely managing to strike an intelligent balance between speed and legibility but, when I suggested that the company should use the same method that InComp had allegedly used to break into the files and use their password cracker, I caught a glimpse of him writing down the word ‘CRACKER’ amongst the list of suggested passwords. Should I tell him? Maybe not. Thinking of Collingham, Snaith and the others in the personnel department, Bexley had secured his position rather cleverly by surrounded himself with dullards and time–servers. Collingham was clearly a time–server.

Bexley took back the paper and made himself comfortable.

“Clearly, and I’m moving on,” he said. “We have one or two files for which we need more information. One of the things that I want to mention, to get it over with, is ...” he paused for a second. “I have a problem,” he started. Continuing seemed to be a problem for him. “In English Law, if an individual believes a crime has taken place, then,” he paused again. He seemed to be getting lost in his labyrinthine sentence structure. “It’s an ancient statute that’s beyond its sell–by–date, although it’s one that we should all be aware of even though it’s old. It’s not irrelevant, and we believe that in some of these files we’ve found ...” he said, breaking off again. “There are some discrepancies which could place you in some jeopardy.” I wondered what they had planted. “We do have some questions for you to answer as a result of your business activities,” he continued, “and we’ll have to tell the truth to the Department of Employment and the Department of Social Security as I’m sure you know, and we want those answered. I suspect you have a problem and I want to know if there is anything else that you want to tell me directly or indirectly which could influence the position we take, or what we say. We’ve got the dates for these and what we ought to ask — and I’m picking my words terribly carefully — is there anything that you’re aware of that you can tell me about now, that I can, having heard it from your lips, turn my back on?”

I was amazed at the confidence and arrogance he displayed in the complete absence of the knowledge that I was taping every word that he said. He had some sort of blind faith that Snaith’s version of events would be the only record — malleable or perhaps even fluid but considered verbatim. Just in case he really didn’t know what had been going on in the K51 business unit, I decided that it was time to enlighten him. They wouldn’t be able to deny the existence of Snaith’s written copy of all that was going wrong with the K51 business unit unless they started killing people. I sat back in my chair.

“I was aware from certain managers,” I started, using Bexley’s pace. Snaith continued writing, “that my salary was being held down because I was working as a musician. Suppressing the level of an employee’s wages is itself a breach of contract and as such, that places that manager at risk.”

Bexley didn’t take very well to that.

“Quite,” he agreed reluctantly. “No, I mean things that you’ve done.”

“That I’ve done?” I asked. I thought for a second. “I carried out a safety inspection that yielded fourteen items of which twelve related to the flat roof on the K51 complex. It was covered in K51 and very hazardous. Obviously the situation is very awkward for the person who is responsible because there was a complete failure to administrate the situation properly.” Bexley just sat there, presumably wondering what was going to emerge from Pandora’s Box next. I didn’t have the practice to make my sentences as funereally paced and labyrinthine as his but I was confident that I was at least part of the way to a truly bexleian speech. “I put in two near miss reports regarding K51 spraying out over the car park. Whether they got through the system or not I don’t know. I got the impression that somebody has been stopping them. The whole thing down there seems to be too embarrassing for somebody,” I said.

“I am utterly baffled by what you’ve just told me, utterly, utterly baffled,” Bexley said.

“Well I’ve told you. If you want to investigate it, then it’s your responsibility to do so.”

“If I’d known about it I would have shut it down,” he said.

I was glad I was taping this. “It hasn’t been shut down,” I said.

“I have a saying, as everybody who knows me will agree, ‘I walk past nothing’. As I’ve already said, I didn’t know about that, otherwise action would have definitely been taken.”

“Well maybe ...”

“Is there anything else,” he interrupted, “anything else that you can tell me which we may or may not have found as far as you know that’s in the computer, or anything else that you’ve done that will affect any decisions we make?”

“That affect any decisions you make?” I repeated carefully. “When I first started in K51, Graham Middleton was in charge and over a period of years while I worked down there, about two and a half, three years or so, my wages went up by sixty one percent. When Deryck Simpson got into charge my wages went up by only seven and a half percent.”

“Okay, Mr Rush,” he interrupted. “Is there anything else that you want to tell me? Okay, fine,” he said without giving me a chance to answer. I was going to let him know that I and around fifty other people knew that the company had been manufacturing and selling Ethyl Monobromoacetate tear–gas to the South African Government during the apartheid regime but maybe he knew that already. “We’ve heard what you’ve said. Thank you for coming. I’ll put that in my diary. That is dealt with. Done. Yes. I’ve made it clear that anything else that turns up in addition to what we’ve found already, we will deal with as appropriate because if we find something in the interim that you haven’t mentioned to me now, I will proceed with that little lot. Okay. Yes. And I don’t know what’s been found yet. No. I’ve not seen all of the evidence.”

“I’m not aware of anything,” I said, “I’ve had permission to work on the computers for my own benefit during my own time for ...”

“Not what were concerned about,” Bexley snarled. “I’m not going to mark your card. I’ll talk about the DHSS, the Department of Employment. I can talk about the Inland Revenue as well,” he said.

“What about the Inland Revenue?”

“You can ask questions by all means,” he snided.

“That’s all right, I’m perfectly above board. I have no problems with the Inland Revenue. My accountant sorts it out, I keep records. In fact, here’s an example,” I said with an air of confidence that appeared to make him quite uncomfortable. Instead of squirming on the floor, begging him to keep quiet as I expect he thought I would, I took my personal organiser out of my pocket and showed him. “Income, expenditure, my accountant looks after that.”

Bexley looked rather disconcerted by the awful reality of honesty. It appeared that he wasn’t used to being in its presence. Snaith looked up at him.

“Mr Rush,” he said. “From what I have seen, you may have some problems.”

“How could I? I could only have problems with the Inland Revenue if I have income that I haven’t told them about and you can see that that isn’t the case.”

Bexley fumbled for a word. “I, I mentioned three,” he said, backing away. “I mentioned the DHSS, the Department of Employment and the Inland Revenue.”

“Well I haven’t got any problems with those,” I said. “Unlike you.”

He looked at me quizzically.

“I was talking to the DHSS only last week,” I continued, “and they say that you haven’t bothered to respond to any of their letters or phone calls.”

Snaith looked at him in a new light. I got the impression that the great god Bexley didn’t appreciate his underlings paying him that sort of attention. Bexley sat back in his chair.

“I don’t want to have an argument,” he said.

“That’s no problem,” I said dismissively.

“Okay, we will try the passwords that you have given us. And, particularly given the difficulty that I think we experienced getting you to come in to see me ...”

“You didn’t have to bring me in to ask me about passwords,” I interrupted, “we’ve got telephones.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said sarcastically. “Okay. When we set this up, I said that I was prepared: one, to put off the appeal; and two, if the passwords worked, we all said seventy–two hours to deal with it. If they worked then I would accept, seventy–two hours later, a letter of immediate resignation pre–dating the dismissal letter and I said there were no guarantees regarding the proceedings on any other matter. That’s exactly what was said. Yes. We’re outside the seventy–two hours, which is perhaps more of importance to me than it is to you,” he said, banging his pen on the table. “I haven’t had passwords that work, I’ve been patience bloody personified and now if those passwords don’t work then as far as I’m concerned, the bets are off.” He was beginning to turn red in an almost comical manner. “I’ve tried to give you the opportunity to resign and the dismissal will stand.”

“So what about the appeal?” I asked. It was like throwing petrol on a fire.

“You forwent the right of appeal,” he snapped back.

“As far as I am concerned,” James said, “As you have defaulted on the seventy–two hours as you have just admitted, there will be an appeal.”

“But James,” Bexley said in his chummy voice. “We’ve put a lot of effort in trying to get Mr Rush here today.”

“All I have heard you do here today is threaten Alan.”

“Was that all you wanted to talk to us about?” I asked.

“Yes,” replied Bexley.

“We’ll be off then,” James said and we walked out.

In the corridor, I looked at the tape, it had run out. The meeting had been over an hour long.

* * *

The following Wednesday, 2nd March to be precise, I was sitting in the spare room, dabbling on Harry’s computer when the phone rang. It turned out to be Col.

“I’m having a bit of trouble with the passwords for these files,” he said. “I’ve got two of them to work but Bexley wants all seven looking at before he returns from his holidays. I’ve only got until the end of the week. Can you think of any other passwords?”

“Well,” I said, trying not to laugh.

“I’ve tried Blue and Berty,” he interrupted, “and I’ve tried F1–11 as well. What’s in those files anyway?”

“I don’t know what was supposed to be in the last three. What were the dates on the first four?”

“They were all done in 1990.”

“That was four years ago,” I said. “How am I supposed to remember them?”

“Well, what was in them?”

“Some old personal accounts and information about a band that never got going.”

“You had Blue down as one of the passwords for the Sale Order Processing System.”

“Yes,” I said tentatively.

“I couldn’t get into that either.”

“Bexley didn’t mention that.”

“No, he wouldn’t have.”

“But that was part of the evidence used in the InComp report,” I said. “Why don’t you use the method that InComp used.”

“They couldn’t break into any of it either,” he admitted.

I was shocked. Deryck was the only person who knew what the system could do, or more accurately, he knew what I had originally asked him a number of years earlier, which was slightly more.

“So I take it that InComp didn’t find the back–door?”

“No. Has it got one?”

“Yes,” I said. “It could only work from a compiled program so I had to encrypt it using a one way method and store each of the encrypted bits of the password string in various parts of the program so that nobody could see it. They probably didn’t know what they were looking at. They certainly wouldn’t be able to read any of the data without it.”

“I don’t think that they had time to go looking into the way that programs were written.”

“Anyway,” I said. “Here’s the back–door, all in upper case: ‘FGE463WP’. Have you got that?”

He read it back to me.

“So,” I said, changing the subject. “Bexley’s on holiday is he?”

“Just for the week.”

“He’s a nasty piece of work isn’t he.”

“Yes,” he replied. This seemed to hit a chord. “When I first came to Manchester, he messed me about with my salary. I had to get a network in on time and everybody was dragging their feet. He’s a right bastard to work for.”

“Yes, that matches my experience of him too.”

“I’m sure that you won’t have any trouble getting a job you know. Having looked at your programming, I reckon you were easily the best programmer on the site. I’ll try out those passwords and see if they work,” he said. “Bye,” and he hung up.

I went down stairs and into the kitchen.

“Who was that?” Marie asked.

“It was Col Burgess.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted me to help him with some passwords.”

“I hope you didn’t,” she said.

“Well.”

“He was one of the bastards that got you the sack,” she interrupted.

“I exchanged some information with him and found out something interesting.”

“What have you found out then?”

“Nobody managed to break into any of the computer programs they used as evidence during the hearing.”

“So they have been lying all along then.”

“Yes. Bexley is involved in this. I wonder how far up it goes.”

“Computer reports aren’t cheap,” she said. “Especially bent ones. I wonder who is bankrolling all of this?”

* * *

On the following Thursday, we received a letter from Bexley which started off with ‘We have continued our investigations into your various unauthorised activities.’ It went on about how he had asked me for seven passwords but I had had the audacity to give them only four. It finished off, completely evading the issue of an appeal, by stating that he was prepared to accept my retrospective resignation and that we should all conclude the matter as speedily as possible. I handed it to Marie. She read through it quickly.

“Do you think you should resign?” she said.

“I don’t know. It’s tempting. I’m getting pretty pissed off with all of this messing around. I’ll have to think about it.”

“You know that I’ll support you, whatever you decide, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know,” I said.

Later on, Marie telephoned one of her friends who had gone through something similar a few years earlier. She said that if I decided to have an appeal and it went against me, I could have an Industrial Tribunal hearing but if I resigned, I would lose that right. Also, I could only apply for an Industrial Tribunal hearing if I applied within three months of the date of dismissal but the rate that Bexley was manipulating the affair, it would be well beyond that before I even had the appeal. I telephoned the Industrial Tribunal and found that I could apply before the end of their disciplinary procedures but I should have as much information as possible.

That night, I thought about it — why they had done it, who was paying for it and who else had slipped or perhaps been pushed into this well of deceit. Was it limited to just the company or were there others involved? It was all too intricate and there were too many lies for just one person to be involved — just one person’s dream of power or supremacy. This was being directed from high above but I didn’t know how high, or even if it was limited to the company. There was only one way that I could ever find out what had really gone on and resigning was only going to provide the company with the opportunity to bury the information.

* * *

It was Lord Denning in the case of Allen v Sir Alfred McAlpine & Sons Ltd (1968) who said, “The delay of justice is a denial of justice” and the company’s procrastination was paying them dividends as it had crept around to half way through March. The leaves on the trees were already making themselves more conspicuous than any evidence in this case — or any progress for that matter. On the face of it, Rachel seemed to be playing hard to get but I’m sure that she was just overworked. I eventually managed to phone her before she went out and told her that I was dissatisfied with the response from Gazelles and that I had decided against resigning because I was innocent and anyway, they were the ones that had breached any agreement including my employment contract. She said she would write to Bexley and recommend that I do so as well. The following day, I put pen to paper, requesting the evidence again and setting the record straight about the contents of Bexley’s letter. He could only ignore it.

On Friday, I received a letter from him saying that he hadn’t received anything from me and the following day, we were blessed with yet another, this time acknowledging the existence of my last letter and offering two dates in April. The 6th and 7th, both at 2:00 pm, exactly three months after my dismissal. With a case as threatening to them as this one seemed, it appeared that he was banking on me getting involved with the industrial tribunal only after the appeal and therefore by delaying it, he could preclude such a dangerous activity by default. He gave me until 24th March to respond so I phoned Rachel. She said she would sort out a date with Bexley.

On the 24th, I received a letter from Snaith telling me that the appeal was at 2:00 pm on Monday 18th April in Bexley’s office. I managed to get the Industrial Tribunal application in before the deadline and just after Easter, they sent us a confirmation of receipt with our case number. Coincidentally, Marie’s part–time job finished, leaving us with plenty of forms to fill in and a marginally lower income as a result. A few days after that, we received a letter from Elizabeth Tarn of ACAS, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service, informing us that her job was to try to solve any dispute between myself and the company and that she would be contacting me shortly. I telephoned her and informed her that we hadn’t even finished the company’s own disciplinary procedures yet.

* * *

In need of some light relief, I bought a copy of Universal PC. In it was an article about a program that produced proper Auto–Stereograms. Looking like a mass of randomly positioned dots, these were the hi–tech, industrial–strength version of Magic–Eye pictures and they contained a lot of detail if you could see them. I couldn’t. The image in the magazine was only about two inches wide which didn’t help. I tried crossing my eyes and after a while, but only for a fraction of a second, I thought that I could see the image on the page become three dimensional although I couldn’t be sure about it. I was trying to get my eyes to do something that they weren’t designed to do and it was too easy to lose either the convergence or the focus.

That night, I had a go with the bathroom wallpaper. It had a small repeating pattern that covered my whole field of view and surprisingly, after only about ten minutes, I had got it. I had another go at the one in the magazine and found that the image looked inside out because, instead of converging my eyes behind the paper, I was doing it in front, making the image appear inside out — an artefact of being long–sighted. I had had a go at relaxing my eyes so they converged behind the paper as recommended in the magazine but they became so relaxed that, for a rather disconcerting five minutes or so, I had to struggle to regain my ability to focus properly on anything. Clearly, this was an activity that was to be avoided just before driving a car.

I started programming, trying out different methods of producing images on the screen and after generating some quite interesting patterns, I eventually hit on the right one. It turned out to be quite easy to change the image so that short sighted or long sighted people could see it just by clicking a button and after a few days I had a program that could create, edit, save, load and view images and make it so that anybody could see them. I sent a copy down the phone line to Harry in Stroud and after about half an hour of being taught how to see them and use the program, he said that he liked it so much, he would use it in a future issue. No money, but it would be something else to go on my CV.