A Rumour from the Firehouse: The Co-Conspiracy Trilogy Book 1

By Mari Emm

Full of the flavour of the eighties, It depicts the story of a group of fire brigade personnel that co conspire to destroy the life of a senior officer, set against the backdrop of the miners strike and the Thatcher government. Each one has their own beneficial interest in seeing the back of him. He has no idea he is deliberately being coerced into a position of entrapment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496997364

Mari Emm

Mari was born in Middlesbrough in 1957. She grew up on a council estate not far from the hospital. She later worked in as a nurse. She nursed for thirty five years and after retiring in January 2013 decided to write her first kindle book.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

I siah Royston sat with a smug smile on his face. He was a man born with a congenital sociopathic personality it was the instinctive nature of the beast conferred within him that gave him an intuitive untaught disposition. He would spend his life inflicting his extremely assertive very confident and very sure of himself persona on people, he would go unchallenged in his quest to aspire to be someone one day. He had been born with an extreme narcissistic quality and had displayed egotistical tendencies from a very young and tender age. He had entered the fire service with the full and sole intention of making a successful career out of the job that had seduced him with the uniform and romantic notion of rescuing people. The heroic clean living decent reputation that people associated with the uniform had great appeal for him, and of course the one most women appeared to like and be drawn to the one of being a courageous macho man. It was his drive and ambition that fuelled the burning desire to escalate and rise through the ranks of his chosen career and to be extremely prominent and successful. He was a highly skilled manipulator with the cunning ability to plot and scheme. He knew that with the right men around him he needed to create an infra-structure of the right people that could potentially help him and assist him with his high aspirations to socially engineer his way to the top and one day with the right group of disciples surrounding him he would aspire to the prestigious position of the post of Fire Chief and enjoy, the benefits of the wealth and status the position would bring to both him and his family. He knew that one day the difference between a fire officer and a fire Chief would be a hundred and twenty grand and he wanted that more than anything he was going to achieve his goal no matter what and eliminate any man that stood in his way. One of his strategies was his clever use of sly salient psychology remaining in the back ground as other people carried out his plans and schemes. His ability to manipulate was a great skill and with the necessary people’s help that he required, he needed a small enclave of trustees around him. He personally would see to it that his hand rags and his cronies would be very well rewarded for their quiet secretive involvement to help him socially engineer and accomplish his dreams. His friendship with the right people and his ability to make himself popular in the right circles was something he was more than capable of, he was more than proficient at being able to kiss all the right collective arses of his superiors and would not hesitate to do so when or where ever it was deemed necessary. He harboured an unquenchably thirst for promotion and to be well accomplished and succeed in life was his goal. If it meant the expulsion of people that stood in his way then so be it. They would have to go; he had no conscience when it came to sacking men and if dead wood needed to be removed then they would be, no matter what it took. Whoever obstructed his progress then he would plan their removal some- times it was easy whilst others would prove more of a challenge, his greatest encounter and test of his ability and skill would be the expulsion of a man he had his eye on from the day he entered the Fire service and that was the ambitious Danny Mull igan.

It was 1979 and at the present time Isiah was being assisted and helped at work by the recently recruited Dale Pendry to get the Station officer the man in charge of their blue watch the sack. The two young men worked together on the marine Fire Station at the foot of the Transporter bridge. Isiah had been quick to act and had already rapidly achieved leading Fireman status it had all been possible with the help of Dale Pendry. He was unofficially one of his much needed toe-rags. He needed this man Dale to help with the removal of the Station Officer from his position. He was hungry for promotion with this man removed he could progress to be- come the Sub Officer and with a bit of luck quickly rise through the station to become the Station Officer, he was more than eager to progress through the ranks. He desperately needed the removal of this man from his position he needed him out in order to one day fill this man’s shoes. Dale Pendry was a man that knew no social boundaries and was a man that had not shown any form of respect for his superiors, to them they were just men like he himself. He did not view these men as superior or better than he was he had no respect for the status that their roll carried, these men were there as his sport to be taken on to be challenged. He had been torturing the Station Officer on his shift whenever the opportunity presented itself. He would instigate situations and confrontations by arguing with him and disagreeing with the man’s every word. He would be completely none compliant but defiant with every order that the man tried to implement and carry out. He had worn the Station Officer in to the ground and he was now on the sick with stress and anxiety the man would never return and come back to work he was later diagnosed with cancer. Isiah needed to surround himself with the right men and Dale Pendry was the first of a small enclave of men and women that Isiah Royston plotted schemed and connived with. Isiah was a man on a mission wanting the glory the money, and the power that came with heading and controlling a workforce of men and women. It was that all inspiring powerful position he craved it was like a drug were his status would give no man the opportunity to oppose him. He would one day hold the ability never to be questioned, to have the first and the last word, with no man daring to question his actions or if they did try they would certainly feel his wrath. The very threat for any man of joining the ranks of the country’s unemployed, as the nation headed in to a recession was just enough to keep any man in line. He would rule with a rod of iron one day and enjoy every last moment. His actions would be rewarded, all he had to do was bide his time and he would one day enjoy the fruits of his hard work and labour. At home in his spare time Isiah liked to listen to Brian Ferry’s music he particularly liked his album Lets stick together. The Lead singer of his favourite band Roxy music the singer he too had been born and brought up in the North East. He been born the son of a humble farm labourer and a man that loved and cared for pit ponies. Isiah had admired the singer; he had risen very significantly from his modest beginnings. He had done very well after establishing himself as the lead singer of the band. Isiah harboured high aspirations just like him, he knew could never aspire to international fame as a famous pop icon, he could not sing a word but he was determined to rise from his low working class origins. He was very confident and sure of one thing if he could not court fame internationally like the star. He would have fame in his local community people would recognise him for his status and position he would be like a local V.I.P. His photograph would appear many times in local tabloids and newspapers.

Tooled with the social skills to obliterate any man that stood in his way he would do just that. He was now surfacing as the head honcho of the right group of people that worked and stuck together united with the same want: the one to get Danny Mulligan out of the Fire Service. He had heard about Danny Mulligan and had watched him from a distance he had heard of his ambitious tendencies and had no intention of befriending him but would always make sure he had someone close to him knowing everything about him. Isiah always used a charm offensive to someone’s face and although he would plot scheme and connive behind his back, he was always all smiles to Danny’s face. This was to be the young Isiah’s year the start of the rest of his life. The year 1979 was the beginning of the period known as Thatcherism. It was the first time in the history of Great Britain the country was now governed and had a female Prime-minister the daughter of a greengrocer Mrs Margret Thatcher was the leader of the Conservative Tory party.

It had been an eventful year for the Conservatives and having a female leader appeared to dominate the national news with her predominant rise to power. It was on 8th May that same year the evening news showed footage of Woolworth’s biggest store in the European chain go up in smoke in Manchester. It was this fire, which would historically change fire legislation in the manufacture of polyurethane foam in soft furnishings this had been a contributing facture in the death of eleven people. The fire, which started on the second floor furnishing department, killed ten shoppers and one member of staff. It was believed that the fire had been started by a damaged electrical cable, which apparently had furniture stacked in front of it. An enquiry showed that although the store’s fire precautions met all the legal requirements, the fire and the high numbers of casualties were in part due to the absence of measures such as a fire sprinkling system to stop the spread of the fire from the furniture department, and the use of polyurethane foam in the furnishings, a material which is highly inflammable and highly toxic but cheap and at the time legal in furniture. It was this fire and the deaths of these people that prompted the Watch Manager in charge of the fire to force a change to the regulations in the manufacturing of this cheap and potentially dangerous furniture. It was a major consequence and brought about a change in later legal legislation. The catastrophe resulted in the modification to the Fire Precautions Act and was among the factors that led to the ban on the use of the cheap foam in home furnishings. It also forced manufacturers to develop new fabrics and materials that were fire retardant. The second floor was gutted by the fire, while people tried to escape some were trapped and news images from the local television crews at the nearby Granada studios showed graphic pictures of office girls trapped behind barred windows on the top floor the Iron bars hampering their escape.

The store subsequently had to be closed and it was months before the store reopened.

This period in time was the era and the birth of the punk rock movement it had established itself with the British youth culture. The most infamous of the punk rock bands was the notorious band The Sex pistols they were filmed when they created riots at nearly every gig they performed. The band members could be seen shopping and buying most of their punk attire from Vivien Westwood’s shop that she Named Sex on the King’s Rd. The most famous and rebellious of the punk stars of the time Sid Vicious had died earlier in the year of a heroin overdose whilst out on bail for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at the Hotel room they shared together. It was the year mother Theresa received the Nobel peace prize. Macdonald’s introduced the children’s happy meal. China made it mandatory that families were to have no more than one child. For most people the only way to add a bit of glamour to their life was to watch the imported American soap Dallas. The Clash had released London’s calling and Pink Floyd with a choir full of children sang all in all it’s just another brick in the wall. Off the Wall became Michael Jackson’s solo breakthrough album. It was also said to be the year of the performer’s first surgery after breaking his nose while dancing. Bob Geldof and the Boomtown rats had a hit with I don’t like Mondays.

This was to be Isiah Royston’s year the foundation year that he would build the rest of his life on.

It was at the fire brigade Christmas beano that Isiah and his wife Marcie sat in the very good company of Dale Pendry and his wife Colleen. This was the very first moment Isiah Royston recognised and realised that the infra- structure of people he needed to create were fireman with partners or wife’s that were in the nursing profession. Women like Dale’s wife Colleen who was a nurse, or midwife’s his wife Marcie she was training as a student midwife all part of the same public service sector. The N.H.S. this infra-structure between the two professions was just what he needed to create a subterfuge that would work against the Mulligans not with them, he needed to socially alienate the couple not involve them if he wanted his plan to work. Dale Pendry and his wife Colleen were willing accomplices. Colleen’s face light up as she listened willingly to his plan. It was her thickly applied terra-Cota coloured pan stick foundation that appeared to take on a more orange appearance as her face beamed and glowed enthusiastically. She appeared riveted as she listened intently to his detestation for the Mulligans and eagerly had to agree with everything he had to say. Colleen hung on to every word that he spoke with such enthusiasm and commitment to destroy the couple’s lives. The friendship between these two couples was now forged with the same mutual hate for the same couple the Mulligans and they were to become and would be the most detested couple, and that hate for them was to be done with a vengeance and would last a life time. Isiah Royston had been more than pleasantly surprised to receive both the Pendry’s response. The couple appeared so eager for reprisal against the Mulligan’s. It was with a sheer un-adulterated delight and it was unexpected the contempt that Colleen had for Myra her response was a welcomed surprise and had quite delighted him. He revelled at the way she spoke about Myra she had venomous tongue and spoke about her with acid tones. He had not realised that Colleen had hated her on sight when they were teenagers it was a major plus sign. His mind-set was similar to that of Colleen’s both of them knew how to play mind games with people and social exclusion was the best mind game of all to play. He had been told about Danny Mulligan’s rapid rise through the ranks and of his other half being a nurse, he was much higher up the promotional ladder than Isiah he needed a plan to snare him and bring him down. Isiah was a man that was empowered with the knowledge that the higher up the ladder you got the further you had to fall, and all Isiah had to do would be to sit back and enjoy watching Danny Mulligan make his fall from grace as he kicked the promotional ladder from underneath him and watch him go unwittingly, like a lamb to the slaughter. He would enjoy observing him and savour with delight over the years as he slowly and gradually witnessed and listened about the destruction of his marriage, and how his world was collapsing both in his professional private and social life. This would be carried out and done with full implementation, behind the couple’s back being very careful behind Danny’s back in particular not to give the game away. Danny had to remain in his own little world in total and complete oblivion as to what was really going on around him. Danny Mulligan unbeknown to himself would on day, embark on and make the most humongous fuck up of his life. All the hard work and planning and the time he had invested in his future. He had put his all, into his career and one day against his wishes and no matter how much he tried to resist he would be forced to make a premature end to his chosen profession. All Isiah had to do was make the right group of people do the donkey work for him and most of all he had to be extremely patient. He had a plan, a very cunning plan for Danny Mulligan and when his career came to an abrupt end, at a relatively young age. Isiah Royston knew that he would rise like a phoenix from the ashes and one day reign triumphant and claim his well-earned crown. His voice was low he spoke in quiet conspiratorial tones as Dale Pendry and his wife Colleen sat listening the couple acknowledged with smiles they were all ears. Both Isiah Royston and Dale Pendry saw the world especially the fire brigade as an oyster created to cater for their own needs. These two men needed each other and their wives who were to be the portal for his clever infra-structure he needed his cronies, but he needed more couples like the Pendry’s in his world, that were entwined in his social proposal with the same two public service sectors. The two men and their partners had a shared detestation for the same couple in common between them, and that common denominator was embedded with a jealous envy of the Mulligans lives. Such was the attitude of Isiah Royston, he was a man who saw himself above everything and anyone he also knew that with some very clever social engineering and the right people he would achieve the position of one day being untouchable, it would be decades before how he had achieved his prestigious position he would ever be exposed, and that his conniving would ever be uncovered. Danny Mulligan was completely and utterly oblivious to the fact that his life in the fire service and his marriage were to be deliberately sabotaged and his world poleaxed for the gratification of other men. The strong sense of comradeship amongst his fellow fire fighters held a great feeling of security, a sense of belonging for Danny Mulligan he loved his job he knew where he stood amongst the men. The very thought of any of his companions betraying him or each other was a concept unthinkable to him. Fire fighters worked with each other not against each other, he had loved the job he had joined as an eighteen year old. Danny was unaware that Isiah Royston was cultivating a little world for himself and harboured the same high aspirations and ambitions as he himself. He was cleverly concealing his ability to make full use of the people employed within the two professions that both Danny and Myra worked in. He had realised that this crossing over of the two professions, and the woven pathways it had provided, into the two working and social environments of the Mulligan’s. This had in itself created the perfect foundation to organise and build his world. Providing a pivotal where Isiah could not only watch from afar but listen to how they would all be involved in bringing down the Mulligan’s one day. With all the right people working in harmony with him, they could unanimously make Danny Mulligan’s name and that of his wife’s reputation like mud and have both of them dragged down into the gutter. The two of them they would be spoken about like they were both pieces of shit. He would enjoy the plan he had formulated for the Mulligan’s it would allow him a working knowledge of everyone and everything in both the Mulligan’s orbit. Isiah Royston had a brain that was mentally agile, and very alert to Danny Mulligans world he made absolutely certain he was tuned into every aspect of his life. He was very aware also and knew that everyone had their price, and he had a clever expertise on how to buy someone with favours and reel them into his world. He also possessed an innate persona that was also cunning enough to sell any man down the river when and were ever it was necessary. It was this crafty shrewd ingenuity side to his nature that also told him that people liked nothing more than to tear someone apart and he personally would ensure that with the help of his trusted foot soldiers, the people he held in his pocket, those people that were as sly salient and as devious as he himself. The Mulligans were ripe and ready for the taking it helped enormously with his approach and strategy that they both worked in the two interlinked professions with everyone knowing each other and each other’s business, his gain plan was so much easier to control. The ability to reign in and start gathering information about the couple had been simplified with everyone knowing just who was a friend and with whom. It was this interlinked process that was very useful to him in his action plan to bring Danny Mulligan down. He would slowly compel him into the trap he had formulated for him. One that he would one day implement and not only destroy their marriage but both the couples said careers. He was extremely eager to bring them down and very keen to start he would make sure the couple would be as socially acceptable as an outbreak of Ebola by the time he finished. With Isiah’s mind working overtime he needed someone to be close to Danny at work and someone to work close to Myra. The turn in his eye twisted and twitched uncontrollably when he was in devious mode his nick name pontoon eyes had stuck with him from his school days. It did seem an extremely and very appropriate description of him as he always appeared to have one eye sticking as the other one was twisting, when he was in deep devious planning thought. This scheming factor was very important in his grand design of things. He spent nearly every conscious living moment and was constantly socially engineering his future. He needed to have as much information about the couple’s lives as he could obtain, if he was to one day succeed in aspiring to his dreams and own an O.B.E. It was an essential element needing as much information about the couple not only socially, knowing where they socialised and who they associated themselves with, but he needed to gather as much working knowledge about them and how they were liked disliked and received in their work areas. It was very vital fundamental and necessary in his crusade to ruin the marriage and reputation of these two people. He was racking his brains to the point he was giving himself a head ache thinking of someone to be close to Danny and someone to be close to Myra.

January 1980 the new-year had started for many workers across the country with strike action. British Steel Corporation, the state owned firm had over a hundred and thirty five thousand employees all of whom were now all out on strike and standing on picket lines around the country. Teesside had produced and built the steel for many famous land marks around the world and some families had been in the Steel industry for generations. Some of the men on these picket lines had fathers and grandfathers that had produced the steel to build some of the world’s greatest Steel structures. One the world’s most famous landmark steel bridge’s had been produced in Middlesbrough and was one of the most famous bridges of all, it was set in one of the most spectacular settings in the world. The Sidney harbour Bridge in Australia, it had been manufactured and built in the thirties. It had boosted work and productivity in the town during a recession as a result of Dorman Long, a firm that was to later become part of the British Steel Company had been successful in winning the contract to produce and build the massive structure in 1924. Australia had been discovered by a man born in Middlesbrough and schooled in Great Ayton Captain James Cook. In the seventeen seventies he had left the North East via Whitby. He had been on a reconnaissance voyage to circumnavigate the world. On his voyage he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern Australian coastline. It appeared a fine and fitting tribute to connect the historical link with the country that Captain Cook discovered and the Steel produced from Middlesbrough, and that Sidney should benefit and be the recipient once again of Middlesbrough’s industrious productivity. The city of Sidney had been supplied with the Steel for the famous bridge from the town and birth place of the man who discovered the massive continent. History in the making such as this would not be repeated again. Steel production in Middlesbrough under the conservative government was all about to change. Under the watchful eye of Margret Thatcher and the man she had enlisted to spearhead into decline the downturn and closure of the industry Ian Macgregor. Across the country in England after the fourteen week strike of 1980 life as many knew it was all about to change. For many men and women employed in the industry. Steel being produced much cheaper in the world markets, the government where now in favour of cheaper imports forcing the closure of the Industry and in turn making people redundant. Work was to ex-changed for a large void in the lives of so many people as unemployment rose the dole queues began to swell and British Steel that year had been established as the Thatcher government’s first victim.

As the fire engine raced along the road its blue light spinning and alarm sounding as it gathered speed and momentum. The men on White watch had been called to a house fire. As the engine sped past two small boys they began to mimic in tune to the sound of it’s wailing running along the footpath trying to run along chasing it as it flew past them the children shouted Bi-Bor Bi-Bor as it roared past them pursueing it’s way to the address where the fire had been reported at. The firefighters high on the adrenaline that always rushed through their veins when they arrived at the scene with the unpredictable nature bought about by the job, it was that surge of excitement the potentially unknown predicament they had to respond and turn out to a shout. Each man jumped from the appliance and was prepared and ready to spring into action. The Station Oficer as always mentally prepared to assess the situation and formulate a plan on the safest and most effective way to deal with the situation.

Where’s the fire shouted probationary fireman Stu Price affectionately known to his colleagues as fireman PID the twenty years old took the jibe with good humour. There is no fire here said the woman who had answered the frount door.That would be all I would bloody well need it’s as if things aren’t bad enough in this house at the moment The woman’s voice was hoarse from smoking to many ciggarettes that she could barely afford to buy, her husband was not at home he was on the picket line at the Britsh Steel plant fighting with hundreds of other men to save the plant from privatisation if this happened the men knew it would come at a cost and that cost would be the loss of jobs. The woman looked harrassed the frawn lines on her forehead became deeper and more defined as she dragged on her ciggerette. Still wearing her overall from working in the factory, the morning at the local clothing factory had been filled with tension. It was tough now every one had been put on reduced hours and the pay cut was difficult to deal with, since most households in the area had man on strike. What few extra hours of overtime that was occasionally available was being fought over literally by the women. The woman continued dragging on her cigarette as the fire crew checked over the premises. It appeared the firemen had been called to a false alarm.

The job of a fireman is to serve the community and to contribute on a daily basis whether it means pulling a body from a crashed vehicle or attending a burning building the job its self is to be responsive regardless of or whatever the circumstances may