Ghost Writer Read Free Page B

Bryan would never let a faulty unit leave here.”
    “Clarrie – it happened. The
Kittering plane crashed. I remember reading about it. I can’t
remember when though,” Susannah replied.
    “March 31 st ,” I
supplied. I couldn’t forget that day.
    Susannah looked at me, her chin
resting on her hand, her elbow on the desk.
    “What happens to faulty
instruments,” I asked.
    When Clarrie didn’t answer me,
Susannah repeated the question.
    “Bryan fills out a form
detailing the faults, and then disassembles them. We reuse the
casings, not the rest. The ones that pass are number stamped and
certified.”
    Susannah and Clarrie continued
to speak. I leant back against the wall, making notes about
anything that seemed important. Finally, Susannah let Clarrie go,
after agreeing to his offer to take her around the factory.
    “I’ll start looking for any
paperwork on that sale,” I offered. Susannah nodded.
    The second of the section heads
arrived when I had barely begun to search. He knocked and had
entered before Susannah finished inviting him in. When she looked
up, he was sitting straddled on the chair, looking at her over its
back.
    It didn’t take much to figure
this was Prosser – the chief storeman. We had found a list of
employees during our tidy up.
    “We’re well rid of that twerp Mc
Murtee. He wouldn’t authorise anything without the boss’s say so.
Nothing has been ordered for months – we will be out of parts for
instruments in days. You have to send the orders off now!”
    The man’s whole manner was
annoying. It was as if he thought he had the right to order
Susannah around and she should be glad to be told what to do.
    “Speak to him from behind,” I
suggested quietly.
    Susannah took my advice. She
moved casually as if pacing and thinking. When she spoke, Prosser
had to swivel around. He no longer looked comfortable.
    “Tell me how many completed
instruments are in stock,” Susannah asked.
    Prosser knew his job. He rattled
off the types of instruments and the number he had. He also knew
what parts and supplies were critically low.
    “What happens if you get an
order and the parts are not in stock?” Susannah asked. “Like with
that big order four months back?”
    “We had most of it. I had to
request a flow meter and an altimeter to be made up,” Prosser told
her. “It took two or three days by the time it was made up and
checked.”
    “Do you log the serial numbers
of the instruments against each order,” was Susannah’s next
question.
    “Of course I do, Missy,” Prosser
sounded exasperated. “Now you see that those orders go out!” He
stood up and stared at Susannah, and she stared back.
    “I will handle things Mr
Prosser,” she told him coolly, and continued to stare at him as he
backed out the door.
    “He’d never try that on Bryan,”
Susannah muttered when the door had closed.
    “There’s no rush if you have to
stop production,” I commented.
    “True, the orders can wait.”
    Our third visitor was young and
he had waited to be admitted. The first thing he did on entering
was to straighten the chair and sit on it properly.
    “Steve Lehman, R and D,” he
introduced himself.
    I studied that young man as
Susannah asked him some general questions. I liked what I saw and
from my glance at the employee file, I knew he had an engineering
degree.
    However, for some reason he
wasn’t looking at Susannah, he seemed to be picking lint off his
spotless white shirt.
    He was praising the company and
Bryan, but I wondered if he had ideas he didn’t want to broach.
    I suggested very softly for
Susannah to ask what his current project was.
    “Oh, I’m investigating different
polymers for casings,” he said, but he was still picking at his
sleeve.
    “John had me trying out a
modification for an altimeter. I told him it wouldn’t work but he
said the boss had ordered it. I assume it didn’t work because it is
still sitting in John’s desk.”
    “What is your opinion of