Smile for the Camera by Simon Danczuk & Matthew Baker

Author:Simon Danczuk & Matthew Baker [Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849547307
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2014-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Killer Dust

The executive lift chimed as it reached the top floor. The doors opened and a large man stepped out. He walked down the corridor alone, the sound of his heavy footsteps beating a dull rhythm on the polished parquet wooden flooring. ‘Hello Cyril,’ a friendly worker’s voice called after him from the office he passed, but he didn’t answer. Through the window manicured lawns and rose bushes stretched out before him. But he wasn’t there to appreciate the views. Staring straight ahead, his jaw jutting stubbornly to the director’s office he marched towards, he only looked up once to acknowledge the portraits on the walls. John, Robert and Samuel Turner. A dynasty of shrewd and determined mill owners. Reformers, too. They had perfected a highly profitable industrial system of production that controlled everything from mining to processing to distribution. Two-and-a-half pence of raw asbestos from their mines became £10 of finished product when it left the factory gate. These are my kind of people, he thought.

When he reached the door his hand hovered above the knob engraved with the company logo. It was shaking. He pulled it back and took a deep breath, smoothed his hair and adjusted his braces. The Turners were part of a Nonconformist, reform-minded liberal town establishment. Married into the Royds family of local bankers, landowners and freemasons, they had taken a strange new material seen in a nearby mill and developed it into a magic fireproof cloth. Their Rochdale factory was the first, then largest asbestos textile factory in the world – and also the headquarters to its multinational empire until 1948.

He extended his hand once more. His shoes could have done with a bit more polish. Wingtip loafers with leather-fringed falls. He’d only bought them a few days ago and they already needed cleaning. He straightened his tie, used his fingernail to remove some food from between his teeth and knocked twice.

‘Come in,’ a voice from inside boomed.

He turned the doorknob.

‘Cyrrrilll!’ the men sat round the table exclaimed with welcoming smiles. ‘So glad to see you again.’

Cyril eased his bulk into a seat around the boardroom table and smiled back. His eyes swept the wood-panelled walls, the candelabra-style light fixtures and, of course, the beautifully polished floor. You could see your reflection in it. No carpets were allowed in this part of the building, he’d been told. As befitting a place with the best air-conditioning system in the country, there wasn’t one speck of dust in the management area.

A large serious-looking portrait of Samuel Turner in velvet court dress dominated the wall opposite. The pioneer at the heart of this empire, he was the man who’d made Turner & Newall the biggest asbestos conglomerate in the world. And he was a great Liberal too.

‘Drink, Cyril?’

A Baccarat decanter of Salignac Napoleon cognac appeared in front of him.

Cyril winked. ‘Don’t mind if I do, thanks.’

A box of Joya de Nicaragua Antaño cigars was handed round and he jammed one between his teeth, careful to savour the odours of the cognac for a few moments before he lit his cigar and inhaled deeply.

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