A Day at the Races (5 page)

“Nothing will happen until the forensic people put in their report, and if it was arson and they prove it, it might not be plain sailing. It will take them some time to complete all their enquiries, and there are a bunch of them picking their way through the debris at the moment, but some areas are still too hot to access and will be for a couple of days I would think.

Anyway Fisher, I’ve got to get back to the office to complete my preliminary report, I might see you in the Duke for a pint tonight? ”

Fisher nodded and bid him good day, and walked into the packaging plant to check there were no hold ups on the production lines, also make sure that all the returning trucks had been washed thoroughly, and woe betide anyone that didn’t do a proper job.

“Good day Mr Rathbone’s surgery, Cecil Pilkington speaking.”

“Hello this is Brenda Ireland, Mr Rathbone is my M.P. and I wondered if I could arrange an appointment to see him?”

“Could I ask the nature of your business with Mr Rathbone?”

Brenda gave him all the facts relating to Rachel, and what Mr Mohammed had said about the operation, and the cost involved.

“I see, the first available appointment will be Tuesday the 23rd, the week after next at 11.00 a.m.”

“Do you not have anything sooner than that, it is very urgent?”

“Unfortunately not, Mr Rathbone is in Frankfurt on business for the next week or so, and his first surgery will be on the 23rd, I’m sorry it’s the only time he can see you.”

Reluctantly Brenda accepted the appointment and thanked him. She then put a call to Mike at Hurricane Press.

“Hi Bren what’s up?”

“Just been on the phone to Rathbones office, he can’t see me until the week after next on the 23rd, because he’s in Germany on business.”

“Business my arse, he’s probably looking up his old relations, or on some council piss up, but you can bet whatever it is, it will be at taxpayers expense.”

“You don’t think much of him do you Mike?”

“No never did, and if ever a person was in the wrong job its him, and I can’t honestly see him being of any help to us at all, but I suppose we have to go through the motions. I will come with you even though I think it will be waste of time, it might give me the opportunity to tell him what I think of him. Anyway love I was just about to go into a meeting with a client so I will have to go, I should be home by eight thirty tonight, so ill see you then – bye.”

Over the coming week, Mike thought of nothing else, except his daughter’s situation, and whatever money he could raise, there was going to be a huge shortfall.

Maybe he was judging Rathbone unfairly, and that he would be able to help them.

The morning of the 23rd arrived soon enough and Mike and Brenda drove into Salford town centre and parked in Rathbones car park.

“Mike and Brenda Ireland to see Mr Rathbone.”

“Please take a seat, he’s just on the phone he will be with shortly.”

After a few minutes, his secretary showed them into the M.P’s office.

“Good morning Mr and Mrs Ireland it’s good to see you again, how’s your mother doing Mr Ireland?”

“She’s dead.”

Rathbone looked decidedly uncomfortable and walked over to his desk.

“Oh I am very sorry to hear that.”

“Yes you remember, she came to see you after she fell down the steps of a corporation double decker bus, and smashed her scull open? Well she never really recovered from that, even though she lived for a year or so after, the doctors felt it was a contributing factor in her death.”

Rathbone was feeling very uneasy, and he could remember the time when she had consulted him and he had promised all kinds of things to help, but failed to live up to his promises.

Brenda gave Mike a slight nudge as she could feel the awkward silence in the room, and felt that Mike might just forget why they were there, and vent his anger on this pathetic M.P.

“Well let’s get down to business shall we, please take a seat. My secretary tells me you have a problem with your daughter, is that correct?”

“Yes it is, we did not take the decision lightly to seek your help, knowing what a busy M.P you are, but our daughter needs help and we don’t know what to do.

The Consultant looking after Rachel has told us, she is not responding to conventional treatment. She has been attending the liver unit at St Swithins Hospital every two weeks since she was eight years old.” Said Brenda.

“Who is the Consultant?”

“Mr Mohammed.” said Mike.

“Oh an excellent man.”

Probably never heard of him thought Mike, this was just to appear interested.

“He says that she needs a liver transplant, if she is to have any quality of life, or even to have any life at all.

The operation is new and far from straight forward, and has only been performed successfully in America, and would cost a lot of money.”

“And where do I come in?”

“Well we hardly came to ask you for a loan, but we thought as our M.P you could suggest how we may proceed to get some financial help.”

Said Mike sarcastically, he could feel himself getting angry at Rathbone, his pompous nature and lack of grasp of the situation, was so annoying.

Mike wondered how did he ever get this job, surely there were more adequately qualified people to serve the public than this clown.

“Well as you are aware I’m sure, this would not be covered by the National Health Service, as wonderful as we have made it. All I can do is ask some of my corporate friends, if they would be prepared to make a donation, or possibly sponsorship in return for some advertising.”

Brenda rose from her seat and was ready to blow a gasket.

“Sponsorship, advertising! This is a child’s life we are talking about, not some bloody greyhound, we are looking for help to save our daughter’s life, it would be nice to think we could get it without any strings attached.”

“Mrs Ireland you must understand, that is the situation regarding healthcare in the U.K. I will see what I can do, but there are restraints within the N.H.S and it does not allow for funding for treatment of this kind, in a foreign country. I feel the only way to raise this kind of money, is by way of donations, either from the public or from the business community, but they would want something in return.”

“Come on Brenda I told you it would be a waste of time, don’t bother trying to canvas our vote at the next election, we will vote for someone with compassion and who understands the needs of ordinary people, and that rules you out.”

Mike and Brenda stormed out of the M.P’s office and got into their car.

“What a prick, he is the most infuriating person that I know, the sooner he looses his seat the better.”

By now Brenda was in tears and Mike took her in his arms.

“Come on Brenda don’t let that buffoon upset you, I told you not to expect any help from him, he is just arrogant upper class twit. Even if he offered to help, he would probably let us down sooner or later, he is just not worth getting involved with.

We will work something out, maybe we can get Maria in the Duke to organise some kind of charity function, were people donate to a fund, out of the kindness of their hearts, she is very good at that sort of thing.”

“It’s the word charity that I don’t like, it’s almost like we are poor and on the bread line, I don’t think I would feel comfortable, if Rachel’s life depended on charitable donations.”

“Brenda, we have to face up to the fact, that we are going to need financial help, we simply don’t have the kind of money needed, not even if we take a second mortgage, it will still leave us short by many hundreds of thousands.”

“I know Mike you know how I am, we are proud people and have never asked anyone for financial help, it just seems so hard to stomach. What are we going to do? Do we tell Mr Mohammed, that we can’t afford it and let the inevitable happen, or do we say go ahead, and try and get the money from somewhere?

It’s an impossible situation but we have to make a decision quickly, Rachel’s situation is deteriorating weekly, soon a transplant may be too late?”

Mike looked at Brenda and he knew she was right; she was making sense in a difficult situation. She was a good mother and only wanted the best for their daughter, he knew how hard it would be for her to accept any kind of charity, but eventually she would, for Rachel’s sake.

“Look Bren I’m starving, lets go and have some lunch in the Lord Raglan Pub, then I’ll drop you home. I have a meeting with Reg Prentice at two thirty and I can’t be late for that. He has just finalised all the copy for the second issue of his new interior magazine, the layout looks very good and I would think he has another winner on his hands.”

Chapter 5

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Mike kept thinking about Moxie’s idea about printing bank notes, and doing a one off sting on the bookies. It could work if it was organized properly, and done with the right people. There was no question, with the latest scanning and printing equipment at his disposal; they could produce a note of the highest quality.

He had a large supply of suitable cotton based paper, left over from an old company he worked for, that specialised in printing Government currency and bonds and share certificates. He had bought an old hot foil machine at auction, that was almost antique, but that could be used to put on the foil patch.

He also had a numbering machine, that would give each note it’s own individual numbers, usually the downfall of all would be counterfeiters.

It was also true that they had had frequent visits from detectives and members of the security forces, all too well aware of the advances in scanning and copying equipment, had made it much easier for people to counterfeit banks notes.

They seemed to keep tabs on all the repro and printing companies, as a sort of big brother is looking over your shoulder, so don’t try anything. It would have to be a one shot operation, everything would have to be destroyed afterwards, and all unused notes burned. In short, anything that could link them in any way to this sting would have to be erased completely. Anyway it was madness and he dismissed the idea.

Mike was in his office doing his monthly budgets, when Brenda rang him.

“What’s wrong Bren, you sound out of breath?”

“Its Rachel, she is very sick and has been vomiting all morning, so I contacted Mr Mohammed and he has arranged for an ambulance to collect her.”

“Why didn’t you ring me earlier?”

“I knew you had a lot on today and didn’t want to disturb you, I thought it was just a reaction to the new antibiotics she was prescribed last week, and she would get over it. But she has gradually got worse, and she has now started vomiting blood, so I am just waiting for the ambulance to come.”

“Right Bren, I will leave now and go straight to St Swithins Hospital.”

Mike met up with Brenda at the Hospital, and it was very distressing to see Rachel in so much discomfort. She was taken into a specialist ward, where Mr Mohammed was in attendance. They managed to stop the bleeding, and discovered it was a side effect of the new medication that did not agree with her. Mr Mohammed and his team worked on Rachel constantly, until they felt comfortable that she was over the worst, and her condition was gradually stabilised.

Over the coming days his daughter’s condition improved, and step-by-step she got better as she was weaned off the medication. When Mr Mohammed was happy with her condition, she was allowed home.

This single frightening moment was something of a watershed for Mike. Seeing Rachel so vulnerable and barely hanging on to life, brought home to him, just how dangerously ill she was.

He would have to do something; he just couldn’t see her suffer like this any more, it was too painful to see her in so much discomfort, she deserved to have a better quality of life.

The fact that the new medication wasn’t suitable for Rachel meant that their options were disappearing fast.

Because of this latest scare, it prompted him to search the depths of his soul, and give a lot more thought to Moxie’s idea about printing money.

It was a huge step to take, littered with all kind of pitfalls should they embark on what appeared on the surface was shear lunacy. Lots of people had tried this in the past, and most of them had come unstuck one way or another.

He mulled over the pro and cons, and apart from the technical problems in producing a note of top quality, there was the question of logistics, how to distribute the notes without getting caught.

However Rachel was at the forefront of his thoughts, he had to do something quick, he just couldn’t see her suffering like this, it was just too painful to see her going down hill so rapidly.

After much thought, he decided to talk to Moxie about it, and hoped he wouldn’t live to regret it.

Mike put a call through to him, and arranged to meet up with him in the Old Duke. He was of course straining at the leash, because his financial situation had got worse.

“I am barely keeping my head above water, I borrowed three grand from Frank and have been buying second hand cars, doing a bit of refurbishing, then selling them on. Any surplus left over I would buy something else and so on, but not making a fortune and certainly not making what you would call a decent living.

Meanwhile, I have bills piling up, Delores won’t pay for anything. In fact I have no idea where she is. I am afraid to open my mail at this stage, because it will probably contain some form of bill or another, or someone threatening legal action over an unpaid invoice, she has certainly extracted her pound of flesh.”

“I thought you had decided on a career change, that you were doing some male stripping at the Pink Gardenia Club in Rochdale, or at least, that’s what you were thinking of doing the last time we talked. Did that all fall through?”

“I was doing some stripping for a few weeks. Initially I was enjoying it, the money was quite good, but some of these hen party’s that they cater for get totally out of hand. Last Tuesday night these two young girls got on the stage and ripped off my G-string.

They got me down on the floor; I can tell you I was absolutely terrified, I thought they were going to rip my cock off.