The next morning, I arrived at the Royal Oak just before 09:00. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Casey was waiting for me. She looked much better than she had when I dropped her off, the previous lunchtime.

“Good morning, Casey.”

“Hello, Mr Beatty.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“I did thank you. I also had a good meal. This place is a lot quieter than the place at the airport so thanks for that.”

She climbed into my car after putting her briefcase in the back.

“I took your advice and ditched the heels. Again, thanks for that. The company has instigated a pretty strict dress code back in Austin. Female salaried employees are to wear dresses or skirts and heels at least four inches in height. The CEO thinks that this will deter any male to female transgendered on the staff from coming out.”

“As well as making you all look like eye candy and entertaining the lecherous male chauvinistic and decidedly geriatric old sods who occupy the C-Level suites?”

“Oh my, you really don’t like them, do you?”

“Would you if you were sitting at my desk? Besides, I’m not exactly an old white male, am I?”

“Give it time,” she muttered under her breath.

“Not if I can help I won’t.”

I failed miserably and laughed at my own joke. I quashed it when I saw her grip on the door handle get considerably tighter.

“What is your plan to convince me that this relic from the dark ages should not be closed down right away,” asked Casey when we arrived in my office.

“As I said yesterday, I will open the books to you. I have engaged the services of an accountant to assist you. Our accounting methods differ from those used in your part of the world. Your GAAP rules do not apply here. How does that sound for today?”

“How independent is this accountant?”

“Oh, very independent in that they are not involved and have never been involved with doing the books for this business.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“I can be 100% certain of that. She… She is my ex-wife. We were divorced before I started working at the Mill.”

“Your former wife?”

“It is ok, she does not bite. We parted on good terms. It was a teenage mistake for us to get married. She has since re-married and has two delightful terrors aged two and four.”

Then I added,
“She is already at the Mill and is familiarising herself with the books. As I said, she has never seen them before today.”

“Oh?” came her simple reply.

“Sandra, this is Casey,” I said as a way of introducing the two women.
“All the accounts and tax returns including VAT for the last five years are there. If you have any questions then Debbie, in the next room will be able to help you out. I’m needed down on the production floor for the next few hours, but any of the office staff will know how to contact me.”

The two women looked at each other. They were sizing each other up. I hoped that the day would not end in a 'cat fight'. I'd seen two strong-willed women get physical with each other but knowing Sandra as I did, I hoped any combat would be limited to verbal jousting.

I left them to it and after giving Debbie Ramsden, my chief bookkeeper, the lowdown, I headed downstairs and onto the manufacturing floor.

This was the beating heart of the organisation. Thanks to some very diligent planning and a good deal of luck, we managed to keep some production going all through the COVID pandemic. Now we were back in full production and thanks to two top-notch buyers, we had not suffered any of the supply chain issues that had plagued and were still affecting so many sectors of both the UK and Worldwide industries.

I chatted with some of the workers on the line. I knew each of them by name and a good deal about their lives outside the confines of the Mill. I'd learned very early on that this hands-on approach to management helped morale in a company the size of ours. I could also do their jobs albeit, not as rapidly as them but it helped when there were problems on the line. When I joined the company, the management at the time had stressed how lean and mean the place was when it came to staffing levels and that as production manager, I'd be expected to pitch in and help out when needed. I'd maintained that ethos even through the tough times following the last round of redundancies in 2019. After that ‘clear out’ of all the old management team, I’d been made the boss. I’d hardly gotten my feet under the table when COVID had hit us. While it was bad that we lost three staff to the pandemic, we used the slowdown to plan for the future. That future was right now.

I had to answer the inevitable questions about Casey and the reason for her sudden appearance. I turned it around by saying ‘What do you think?

That answered most of their questions. All I could do was reassure them that any concrete developments would be communicated to everyone at the same time. While it wasn’t the answer they wanted, they all knew the plans we had put in place for this very situation.

The principal object of my visit to production that morning was not to avoid Casey and Sandra but to speak with the people working on the final assembly. We'd just changed suppliers of the plastic moulding we used for the main body of our 'smart thermostat' and I wanted to check if there had been any problems with the changeover.

It turned out that there had been a small problem with fitting the main circuit board, but after five seconds with a sharp knife, the problem was history. I took a couple of photos of the before and after and made a mental note to inform the supplier. I knew from their reaction to me that my visit was helpful. I was also sure that ‘she’ was the main topic of conversation behind my back. That was only to be expected.

The last time we’d had a visit from across the ‘pond’, they went home leaving us with a very diminished workforce, a new boss who felt like a fish out of water and although we didn’t know it at the time, a pandemic just over the horizon.

Since then, we, as in the entire workforce, had worked long and hard to make our operation profitable, but also to plan for the day when the numpties in Texas decided that we were superfluous to requirements. Little did they know what the impact on their bottom line would be should they close us down, but that was my secret weapon. Only three people on my staff, plus our local accountants and lawyers knew about that weapon. I hoped that it would not be needed. It all depended upon Casey and how much influence she had over in Austin.

I arrived back at my office just before midday. From the sounds of some slightly animated conversation, I could tell that Casey and Sandra were hard at it. I’d just sat down when Debbie came into my office.

“Is it ok if I send out for some lunch for our two gladiators?”

It took me half a second to grasp that she meant Casey and Sandra when she referred to them as gladiators.

“That bad, eh?”

“I get the distinct impression that someone somewhere that isn’t here, has been cooking the books,” said Debbie.

She was a master of understatement. It was exactly as I’d suspected. I’d had a few phone calls from the Accounts department in the US in recent months about the figures that we were reporting. Individually, they didn’t amount to much, but put them all together and add in a dose of Casey Burbank, and I could almost smell the odour coming from Texas in my office.

“Get them whatever they want,” I replied as I reached for my wallet.

I handed Debbie a £20 note.
“That should keep the wolves from the door for at least a while,” I remarked.

Debbie just smiled and left me alone.

For several minutes, I debated joining them, but in the end, I decided against it when the sandwich van came around. Those things are a blessing for us and thousands of other businesses all over the country. We get two visits from the van each day. The first one is around breakfast time as some other companies that are based in the nearby mills have early shifts, and the second one is in the late morning for the office workers and the ‘day shift’ staff.

I went down to the curb and bought my favourite, ‘ham, cheese and onion' half baguette. With a fresh mug of tea, I settled in for a spell of email answering and the bi-weekly production switch around. We moved most production workers to different workstations every two weeks. It kept the motivation up. Some jobs were hard on morale, but according to the psychologists, if there was light at the end of that tunnel then the staff would stay motivated longer. It also helped us cover for when someone was ill or on holiday.

That kept me busy until almost 3 pm. I knew that my former spouse would want to be away very soon so that she could pick up her eldest child from kindergarten.

With nothing left to occupy me that could not be put off until another day, I went into the boardroom. As I expected, Sandra was packing up her things. Casey sat quietly. That surprised me.

“Well ladies, how did it go?”

Both of them attempted to speak. Sandra stopped.

“Why don’t you say it, Casey?”

“Either these books are a fake or someone in Austin has been altering the figures that you send over. As I have the tax records to back up your books, then I’m inclined to point the finger given one side of the story, at Texas and in particular at Doug Freeman, the CFO. Until I see the books that the people in Austin are using, I can’t make up my mind one way or the other… Sorry, but that is how I see it.”

“Sandra, do you agree with that conclusion?”

“I do. I have to say that I never expected to see a set of books as well put together as these. I seem to remember you having real trouble with your tax returns and your male pride stopped you from asking me for help?”

I laughed.
“That is very true… about both things. I’m not the person who put the accounts together. That was all down to the efforts of Debbie. She is good at that sort of thing.”

Then I turned to Casey.
“Well Casey, where do you go from here? As it is Friday today, do you want to sleep on it over the weekend?”

“I think that might be the correct thing to do although I have had Doug Freeman on the phone twice this afternoon demanding to know when this place is going to stop operations.”

“Casey was very adept at putting him off,” added Sandra.

“That was all down to Sandra. She pointed out something that you hinted at yesterday, the contracts that everyone is on. I told Doug that I needed to look at them first as there are financial implications if we shut this place down today. He seemed to accept that but I know it won’t put him off for long.”

Sandra had put on her coat and was ready to leave.
“Is 8 am too early for you tomorrow?” she asked Casey.

“It will be fine.”

“Good, I’ll see you then,” said Sandra.

Then she turned to me.
“My bill will be in the post tomorrow.”

“Thanks for today. I’ll make sure that it is settled by the end of the month.”

She smiled at me.
“That’s what we agreed, so we are good.”

Then she was gone.

She left a silence between Casey and myself.

“I take it that today was useful?”

“It was and I now have a little more understanding of the differences between the accounting practices of the USA or GAAP, and those in operation here. Even so, it was clear to me that something happened to your figures after they were sent to Austin, especially during COVID. The money that you received from your government is clearly shown in your accounts. We received over six million dollars in PPP loans that have been forgiven. The employees there never saw any of that. Most were laid off very early on. Things were different here.”

She looked at the stack of papers in front of her for several seconds before saying,
“I need to think carefully about my next move.”

I decided to change the subject.
“Where is Sandra taking you tomorrow?”

“She was very coy but it has something to do with shoes. I told her about what I was wearing when I turned up yesterday and your reaction. It seems that she has a thing about shoes like me.”

She’d never said that she had a shoe fetish… no… that is the wrong word. Sandra certainly has a fetish. Casey must like shoes, and expensive ones at that… Intriguing.

“I’m sure that Sandra will look after you very well.”

“You still have the hots for her, don’t you?”

Her question surprised me.

“Once upon a time, I did. Then we were married. It didn’t take us long to realise that we’d made a mistake. We found after a couple of months of marriage that we could not live together. We ended up rowing about almost everything. That was almost ten years ago and we have both moved on with life since then. We parted by mutual agreement and divorced two years later. We’d both made a mistake but thankfully, we were both adult enough to admit it.”

Her body language told me that she didn’t believe a word I’d just said. What I’d said was true but for entirely different reasons.

I dropped Casey off at the Royal Oak a bit later.
“Thanks for setting things up with an accountant today. I am beginning to see things differently from what I was briefed about in Austin.”

“I’m glad that you are coming around to my way of thinking.”

“I wouldn’t say that just yet,” replied Casey with a small smile on her face.

I opened my mouth to say something but my brain warned me off of it.

“Have a good evening and enjoy your trip to the wilds tomorrow.”

“The wilds?”

“If Sandra is going to take you where I think she is then you will see a wilder bit of the country than you have so far.”

“Where is this place?”

I just smiled.
“That would spoil the surprise wouldn’t it.”
“Enjoy tomorrow.”

I put the car into gear and left her standing in front of the pub. I wasn’t happy about not arranging something for Sunday but being the chicken that I am, I didn’t. Part of me wanted desperately to get to know her better but I kept repeating to myself, ‘there will be time for that later’ if my master plan worked out.

[to be continued]