Years back, before the tarmacking business, Kevin had offered his services as a builder, but the shoddy work and payments for work that was never completed was when he had first come to the attention of the local trading standards officer and eventually led to him being sentenced to three years for deception.
Luckily his crafty barrister had managed to persuade the judge his client if given this one final chance would reform and so he had walked out of court with a suspended sentence.
He had even managed to get his costs put onto legal aid. The £165,000 he’d conned from people was never recovered. And no tax was ever paid. And with a new sucker born every minute, there was no shortage of mugs he would be able to take advantage of.
Chapter Three
ROGER MAYNARD
It was late in the day when Roger Maynard’s PA, Wendy Northgate buzzed through to say he had a call from Arthur Turnball of Turnball’s Transport who at the time was one of his biggest customers.
“Roger, I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve just discovered my brother George has been syphoning off money from the business to pay for his gambling addiction. We’re close to bankrupt. I won’t be able to pay your invoices next week.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Arthur, I’m sorry to hear that, for both of our sakes. You’ve always been a good customer and payments have never been an issue until now. Tell me one thing. If he wasn’t in the picture and if I gave you some breathing space could the business survive and pay me in the future?”
Arthur felt some of his tension reduce. “We’ve worked together for more than five years now, you know me. I can honestly tell you, with him gone, the business could survive but MacDonald’s who we use for some of our welding work say they won’t wait and have put our account on hold. They won’t do any more repairs until we pay them and I can’t do that until I sort out this mess.”
Roger thought for a moment. “What if I offer to do the repairs in place of MacDonald’s? You know we have the equipment to do it.”
“You’d trust me and undertake that repair work as well? If that’s the case, we could get over this and get back on track.”
“Arthur, the only proviso would be George is no longer associated with your business. I’d need to be assured of that and have it in writing.”
“I’ll get on to the lawyers first thing in the morning and have them send you the paperwork. Roger, I can’t thank you enough.”
Four months later, Turnball’s won a massive contract with one of the major supermarket chains. It doubled the size of their business, and despite MacDonald’s going back to them and offering lower prices, Arthur Turnball repaid Roger’s loyalty and help by keeping all their repair business with Trentbridge Engineering. It was a contract that grew five-fold over the years, and the two men had become close friends.
Two years later, MacDonald’s went into receivership, and Roger was able to purchase some of their equipment and plant for a fraction of its value.
Another ‘stroke of luck’ came about because the four-acre site the Trentbridge Engineering occupied happened to be directly behind the depot of Felix Marks Containers Ltd. In fact, the property of the two companies backed onto each other.
This became handy when their depot needed containers repaired quickly. And they always needed the work done quickly. So who better to use than Trentbridge Engineering who specialised in container repairs and were just a stone’s throw from your back door.
Over its twenty-four-year history, Roger Maynard’s business Trentbridge Engineering had expanded beyond recognition. What had started in a rented commercial unit on the edge of town had grown into a purpose-built award-winning freehold building set on its own a four-acre site.
After leaving school at fifteen, he had been offered an apprenticeship at a local engineering business, over time Roger had gained the skills and become an outstanding engineer with a lot of diplomas to hang on the wall.
When the company he worked for was bought out by a large multi-national, he found the friendly atmosphere started to change, and not for the better. Finally, one day after being told what to do by a so-called management fast tracker with no knowledge of engineering, Roger decided enough was enough and when the company offered some of the workers a redundancy package he put his name forward.
With eight years behind him, the package wasn’t a fortune, but his parents had taught him to be cautious with his savings. With the redundancy package it was enough to get his new business off the ground. His old company in their wisdom decided to sell off some of the machinery the previous management spent a fortune on. Roger had been lucky and managed to purchase it for a song. He had even arranged a deal so the company would deliver and install it into his new unit.
The struggle of those early years and the various fights with the bank to borrow a few thousand pounds when customers were slow in paying were thankfully a distant memory. The business was now extremely cash rich and had grown by specialising in the maintenance of shipping containers. Perhaps it had been a question of being in the right place at the right time, but Roger felt it was more than that.
One of the turning points came when he’d been running his business for ten years. They had moved to a new four-acre site, which Roger managed to buy the freehold to for a knockdown price during the recession. At that time, things were going well. He was making
