Industrial Manslaughter - a short story

The conveyor groaned a deep howl as it spluttered cardboard across the floor, one final jerk and it halted. The sound of the machinery grinding echoed around the warehouse, and with a ping a bolt fired across the room and ricocheted into the plumbing of an oblivious storage management drone.

“Powering down,” were the drone’s last words as it stopped dead in the centre of the storage facility. Other drones manoeuvred around it like Roombas awkwardly stuttering around a stubborn house cat.

Evans removed his headphones, and saw the workers on the cardboard conveyor had stopped. Evans marched over to the crew members and waited in front of Yuri for an explanation. Yuri didn’t like eye contact, preferring to gaze aimlessly at the ground. Yuri gestured vaguely at his colleague and mumbled “not my end”. Evans walked down the line to Carmine, “what’s happened here then?”

Carmine was normally laid back, but leaning against his station he stared warily around the warehouse as he spoke, “I was folding cardboard, I look up and I see this panto dame, he puts this piece of paper in my hand and tells me to go on break. I told him to piss off and I go to grab my thermos, I turn back and this rod is jammed into the conveyor”.

Carmine sipped from his thermos, “isn’t it nearly the end of day anyway?” Evans' head darted around the shop floor, “where’d he go?” Said Evans. Carmine pointed to the dimly lit area by the bay doors.

Stood at the open bay doors, was this silhouetted figure in a cheap dull dress that bellowed against the lashing rain outside. It looked like the kind of dress your grandmother’s grandmother forced into an unsuitably liberal wardrobe.

Evans yelled up to the office, “oi! Turn the floor lights on”. Agnieska watched from the window, flicked the light switches up and gave Evans a thumbs up. Evans had a habit of grinding his teeth when he was mad, and once he knew where the problem was he was chewing through his fillings.

The lights flickered on and illuminated the broad silhouette. And there they were standing in steel toe boots, an old purple frilly dress with a garish yellow wig atop their head and a slab of red lipstick smeared across their grinning mouth. With the ale stained teeth and stubbly wrinkles, this costume seemed like it was going through its first outing.

The gowned saboteur winked at Evans and ran out the door into the rain. Evans sprinted out to the door and saw the figure clutching their dress above their knees as they stumbled into their Ford Mondeo. The car door slammed on their dress - catching a corner of it out in the rain. And the conservatively clad culprit sped off.

Evans held his hands around his mouth and called out “TREVOR WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Agnieska ran down the stairs and joined Evans on the shop floor, “should I get Robert?” Said Agnieska. “Not yet Agnes” said Evans. Evans plodded towards the conveyor and set out commands so that the rest of the day wouldn’t be wasted and arranged with Agnieska for repairs to the damaged machinery.

Evans was about to go give the bad news to Robert when he remembered he missed something. “Carmine!” Evans yelled across the warehouse. And Carmine did that slow jog old men do when they have to travel an expanse not quickly but not slowly towards Evans. “Yep?” Carmine huffed. “Can I see that paper Trevor gave you?” Evans asked. Carmine reached into his pocket and handed a scrunched up bit of A4 to Evans. “Trevor? I thought it were Ned” Carmine replied. Evans looked at the paper then up at Carmine, “and you just took this?”

“Sorry but what’s the right way to react in this situation? You ever known this to happen?”

“No one wears a dress here. Ever.”

“Sorry but where’s the sign for us that reads: do not trust people in dresses?” Carmine trudged back to his station.

Evans unfurled the balled up paper - it was a photocopy of a memo that had been sent to board members regarding their payslips. Increased bonuses with more zeros than anyone in this warehouse had ever had in their pocket. Evans turned the paper over and on the back scrawled in sharpie was ‘Love Rebecca Ludd x’.

It’s a short walk to the branch manager’s office but today’s walk for Evans felt longer. Evans tentatively knocked on Robert’s door and through the grey window Robert hailed him in. “Evans you will not believe this, I just got off the phone with Milton Keynes, some bloke in a dress poured a bucket of bolts into the engine of a delivery truck.”

“Really?”

“Honestly! Lauren in Lancashire rang up asking about where the toolmaker is, I told her they’re working on something for us, Lauren told me they had someone in a dress light a fire at one of their operation stations. So then we get a team call with division management, they tell us it’s happened in Yorkshire, Dublin, Nottinghamshire - although apparently Nottingham was actually a woman and she put stink bombs in consumer item bins - and they tell us it’s one name over and over. Rebecca Ludd”.

“You know how you said there were these people disrupting production across the division?”

“Have we had one?”

“Yes,” Evans clenched his jaw tight, he felt like he was back at school about to get a bollocking. Robert pounded his fist on the desk and let out a roaring laugh. “You’re joking! Really?”

“I’m not joking. It just happened, they stuck a rod in the packaging conveyor and some scrap came off the machine and impacted with a storage drone. I’ve moved production onto another conveyor and I’ve arranged for someone to come in to look at the -”

“-That is fucking marvellous! After the call I was worried I wouldn’t get a nutter in a dress. Felt left out. Any idea who they were?”

“I thought it was Trevor who finished at lunch today, Carmine thought it were Ned.”

“Ned or Trevor?”

“According to this, Rebecca Ludd.” Evans handed the crinkled paper to Robert, Robert put his glasses on and looked down his nose at the paper. “Where did you get this?”

“Carmine said that some bloke in a dress gave it to him and told him to piss off so Carmine did.”

“Right. Do you trust Carmine?”

“Don’t know yet. He’s always done well on the line.”

“How old is the CCTV? - Is this a union thing?”

“I’ve had no one from the union tell me about this and last I checked old enough that you won’t make up much more than the cobwebs in front of the lens.”

“Christ.”

“What did the division management suggest?”

“They’re going to involve the police, so you get a statement from Carmine and write up one yourself.”

“Any idea what I should tell the workforce?”

“Tell them that passing around private e-mails can be considered criminal and none of this Ludd shit or contracts will be thrown out. And no dresses.”

“Should we have a sign up?”

“Saying what? No dresses? Write it on the whiteboard and scream it from the roof for all I care. Zero tolerance of this silly shit.”

Evans went back to the warehouse floor, borrowed some hands to shift the broken storage drone away and waved Agnes off as she left for the day. Evans gathered the remaining workforce into the conference room and explained to them what they were going to do about the situation and how this can’t happen under their roof. It was the same room where just last week he had to squash rumours of pay rises.

As everyone left, Evans stopped Carmine at the door. “Carmine, you’ll need to make a statement to the police”.

“Right.”

“We need you to write it up that you were with me when you saw Trevor damage machinery and that he handed you that note.”

“I didn’t see Trevor do anything. I saw Ned. Besides it was Rebecca Ludd that handed me the note.”

“It wasn’t Rebecca Ludd though was it? How’s she all round the country at one time cocking up our production?”

“And how many Rebecca Ludd’s are there?” Evans stared at Carmine. Carmine stared back. “I’m off Evans, don’t stay too late now,” Carmine walked through the bay doors and into the rain. The rain fell heavy that day, it was hard to make out much past a foot in front of you.

Evans walked up to the office and pulled out the accident report journal. He noted that a conveyor belt was damaged as well as an operational storage drone that had been rendered non functional. In the box that read ‘accident cause’, Evans wrote Rebecca Ludd.

Evans shut the book and turned the lights off. He saw Robert was in his office, working late and taking a call on the phone. Evans wandered out to his car and climbed into the driver’s seat. Evans stared into the vague rainfall. His phone rang, Evans thumbed the little green icon across the cracked screen. It was a woman’s voice.

“Be kind to Ms. Ludd or there’ll be more gifts.”

“Gifts?”

“Under the seat”. The hot phone vibrated against Evans’ ear as the dial tone droned. Evans reached under his car seat and pulled out a blonde wig. Evans stuffed it under his arse, turned the key in the ignition and sped away.