Brushes With The Law ~ Part Two

 

My second brush with the law was even more traumatic than the first. I had been working in yet another office but by this time I had already left. My parents considered it was a waste of my talents but I felt I had to escape from the confines of an office and try something entirely different. Well, my new job was certainly different - I was working in the meat department of a local supermarket. Talk about from one extreme to the other. However, I very much enjoyed it. I had far more inter-action with people which is what I wanted.

One afternoon I was washing out the meat cabinet whilst chatting to customers when the manager loomed into sight flanked by two large gentleman. He was heading my way so I look directly at him. He said, at the top of his voice, “Miss F. - there are two detectives here who would like to talk to you.” I nearly fell through the floor! Detectives! My mind raced, had something happened to my parents? I could feel my heart hammering.The whole place had gone silent. This was a small local supermarket and some of the customers in at the time knew me very well. Staff came out from behind the scenes having heard the Manager call to me.

I was escorted into the Manager’s office where they began questioning me about a Mr. M. Now, Mr. M had been my last employer. A foreign gentleman, very smart and well-groomed. Very courteous. The background is that he ran an estate agency, a one-man affair and he had advertised for a secretary and I had gone for an interview and been chosen. It was a small office, just him and myself, we sold properties, rented out properties. He also ran a small hotel with his wife so he would often be absent. He was very difficult to get hold off in the days before mobile phones. If I tried to ring him nobody seemed to know where he was. Eventually it was just me there most of the time running the whole show. Then, one day out of the blue, he called me into his office and said he wanted a serious chat. He then asked me if I would like to be his partner and take over the office completely. I was stunned. He went on to explain that it would mean putting money up. I explained I had no real money of my own, as he well knew, I was living at home with my parents. Well, he kept on and on and asked whether he could meet my mother and my father and discuss it with them. I was torn. Part of me said there was something suspicious in this and part of me saw it as a golden opportunity to achieve great things.

I approached my Dad. He was not happy. He agreed to meet Mr. M. and it was discussed. In the end my Father said no. Mr. M. accepted it and things went back to the way they were. However, I got heartily sick of being on my own all the time, no other staff to talk to. I had asked him if we could employ an office junior or someone to help out and he had refused. So, after a another couple of months I decided enough was enough, handed in my notice and walked away. That is when I decided I needed a complete break from office life and went into the meat department.

Anyway there I was, sitting opposite these two very serious detectives, looking from one to the other and totally bewildered. They were not friendly. They were not smiling. They were intimidating. I told them I had no dealings with Mr. M. since I had left his employ. They asked me what sort of phone calls I used to take, did I ever talk to people who seemed suspect, what sort of papers did I handle, did any strange characters ever come into the office (they did from time to time) had I seen any lists of names? I kept asking why they wanted to know these things, they would not tell me. After about an hour they said I could go home but they would want to see me again. I felt sick. My parents were worried.

The following week, two more detectives called at our home. They asked my Father about Mr. M. They quizzed me again, the same old questions over and over. Then they wanted me fingerprinted (again). All this time they told us nothing. They just kept on about lists of names, did I know where Mr. M. went during his absences? It all made no sense. I was duly fingerprinted. It was very hard to carry on as normal with all this going on. I was sure that as I worked with him and that there were only the two of us, they would assume I was some sort of accomplice to whatever he had done. I pictured myself being sent to prison.There was no basis for this whatsoever but I felt guilty and somehow ashamed, ashamed that I had been associated with this man. The supermarket Manager seemed to change his attitude to me and was no longer friendly.

A few weeks later, we had a third visit from the C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Department). They informed us that Mr. M had been arrested and was facing very serious charges. They wanted to question me again so they could ascertain whether I could be a witness in the trial!!!!! Truthfully I told them all I knew which amounted to practically nothing. This time there were very nice to me and seemed to know that I was an innocent party caught up in something without even knowing it. Mr. M. had covered his tracks very well.

Apparently Mr. M. had been obtaining death certificates and false names, applying for and getting passports in those names and then selling the passports illegally overseas and making a fortune. He was also involved in drug dealing. Not only that but he had swindled several people out of very large sums of money. Thank God we decided not to put up any of ours. I knew nothing of all the goings on because, obviously, the estate agency business was a "front", he kept it all entirely separate although he could not stop a few dodgy characters entering the office now and again, but it takes all sorts and I just accepted the way they were. They gave me no reason to think they belonged to the criminal fraternity.

It was eventually decided that I would not add anything to the trial, they already had masses of evidence against him. I breathed a great sigh of relief. I had lain awake many a night and pictured having to appear in court. I do not think I could have coped.

We read in the newspapers later that Mr. M. had been given a very long prison sentence. What happened to him after that, I neither know nor care. I felt I could no longer go on working in that supermarket. They knew I had nothing to do with it but that did not stop me from feeling that things could never be the same.

So , back to secretarial work I went. This time I made sure I was employed by a large and well-known company with lots of employees.

Of course I was to meet the law in future years, in fact I went out with a very handsome policeman for some time (I wonder whatever happened to Malcolm?) Then there was the time a gang of drunken teenagers crashed their car through our front wall, completely demolishing it and almost part of our house. Then there was the dreadful time the police informed of us my brother' death. Hopefully my brushes with the law are over now. Neither of these incidents was funny at the time and are not funny now, but who would have thought that those experiences from my youth would now be fuel for my journal!