Chapter 17: Paper bags in brown and white.

Manchester to London

It was early morning and I’d been showing off. Hitchhiking is easy I’d said and I’ll be in London in no time. I left my friends’ house in good time and was looking forward to sending a smug text within a few minutes to say I was on my way south. No such text was sent. 

I found a lay-by on a roundabout with a slip road straight onto the A556. It was, I thought a good spot. The cars came past in pulsating bands when the red lights turned green. None of them stopped, none even paid any attention. It’s meditative watching cars rush past - your mind focuses on nothing else – but it’s also deeply frustrating. A lorry pulled into the lay-by but he said he was just resting and instead suggested I ask the traffic cops who were also parked up nearby. I didn’t bother. 

I called up a friend who kindly said she’d drop me off on the M6 a few miles further on. In the car I tried to work out what the problem had been. At an hour and a half, it was the longest wait I’d had in Britain so clearly something was up. It could have been the traffic cops just behind me or as I sulkily decided, it was more likely the high proportion of Range Rovers driving past. 

I was standing on the junction for Hale and Altrincham, a wealthy region south of Manchester which boasts all ten of Greater Manchester’s ten most expensive streets. I was unsurprised that the wives of the world’s best footballers who’d (probably) been breezing past me all morning hadn’t stopped to offer me a lift. Nevertheless, I reflected that I’d not been picked up by a single Range Rover, or indeed any fancy car, in all my travels. Bloody rich people I huffed. 

Lilla dropped me at the Knutsford service station on the M6 and barely as soon as I held out my thumb a shining black Range Rover purred over and wound down the window. The driver, Phil, was going straight to London. I climbed up and sunk into the white leather seats. The shutting door clunked with a clunk only expensive cars make. 

Phil’s Range Rover was new, brand new this year, he told me with little emotion. He had slick back grey-black hair and wore big Ray-Bans, a neat polo and a pair of smart woven loafers. He had ashtray stubble that crackled as he stroked his chin. 

“You don’t mind if I smoke?” He asked straight away with a voice that betrayed a lifelong habit. Normally he smoked Camel Blues, but up north they didn’t have them so he’d had to settle for Marlboro golds. He reached behind the steering wheel, cracked the window an inch and lit up.

Phil was on his way back from Preston. His mother was ill and he spent 5 days a month seeing her. It was a long drive back to Kent where he’d lived for years but his Range Rover ate the miles. 

“Do you miss Preston?”

“Do I fuck.” He snorted. “It’s fucking horrible up there. Northerners are horrible. They’re too bloody nice!” His accent gave away his roots. “Nope, Kent is much better mate.” 

As a young man he’d come to London to make his fortune. It hadn't taken that long. The construction company he’d set up had taken off and was now huge. It specialised in all the fittings required for motorways and major roads: lights, pollution meters, fibre optics, signs, traffic level monitors and things like that. “The sexy bits,” he added dryly. He’d been involved in building the Olympic park. 

"How did you start it?” I asked. 

“Well,” he replied knowingly, stroking his stubble, “It’s all about relationships. Knowing the right people.” He shrugged, “And being in the right place at the right time.” 

He began to recount his career. “You’ve got to get to know the directors, managers and government officials. You convince them to let you do maintenance jobs, show them you’re good enough and then you try and get the big jobs from that.” It sounded simple. 

“You’ve got to be good at the backhanders too and once you’ve got all that you’re away.”

“Backhanders?” I asked, my ears pricking.

“Yeah, everybody pays backhanders.”

“Who to?”

“Managers, the tenders, people like that. The guys controlling the contracts. Civil servants usually. Everyone’s fucking bent mate. Corrupt as anything.” Phil spoke with a casual air, his deep timbre was considered and nonchalant. He spoke to me as a veteran would to a new recruit arriving at the front, and I in turn listened wide-eyed and shocked, trying my best not to show it. 

He continued to explain that to secure any big contract there had to be backhanders, not just with the officials offering them but with the competitor companies. During the pitching process, 3 or 4 companies would pitch to the tender. Each would probably have moles somewhere in the system who’d leak to the others what their company was offering, for a healthy fee of course. Often if the competing bosses knew each other they’d bypass this stage completely and over a quiet lunch somewhere decide who’d get the job. You can’t do all of them, Phil said, so it usually worked out neatly. The other bosses would go away and pitch ridiculously high prices ensuring the chosen firm would win the contract. Whoever wins pays the commissioner a large and healthy backhander for good measure. “Doesn’t matter who gets it, they’ll all be looking after him.”

If you’re trying to wrestle a contract from another firm then it’s imperative you reassure the responsible government official they’ll be well looked after. “It’s called ‘paying the tax’” Phil explained dispassionately, “If it’s a new job that conversation will have to be had. Normally though it’s all about the relationships. You probably know them well and you know what they need.” 

“How do you account for it?”

“There’s plenty of ways to get cash out of a business mate.” 

“Does it literally go in suitcases of cash?” 

“Brown paper bags…” He held the last syllable. “Corrupt as anything the whole thing.” He knew the game and how to play it.

“Will it ever change do you think?”

He didn’t bother answering. 

Conversation moved on. We went back to talking about his car. We were driving at 90, flying uninterrupted down the fast lane and the enormous engine whirred like an extractor fan somewhere underneath. Phil loved Range Rovers but actually liked Defenders more. He couldn’t remember how many he’d had. I asked if he’d ever had any sports cars. 

“I’ve been known to have a sports car or two…” he replied unemotionally and listed all his favourites: the Carrera GTs, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Maseratis and Jaguars, loads of Jaguars. His all-time favourite was an 80s BMW cruiser. There weren’t many he’d not had. But then he got divorced, lost the lot and hadn’t had one since. “Don’t get married,” was his advice. 

We pulled into a drive-through Starbucks and I asked for an oat milk flat white. He leant over to the lady in the booth, “One large cappuccino please and an oat meal milk flat white?” 

“Do you mean oat milk?” She said.

Phil looked over at me and I nodded. He pulled a face as if to say ‘bloody youth of today.’ 

We hit the motorway again and he told me about the month he spends every summer in San Tropez and every winter in Dubai. He was getting bored of both and hadn’t gone to either this year. He was becoming especially bored of the ex-pats in Dubai.

“We call them filth.” He informed me. “Failed in London, try here.”

He lit yet another cigarette. After just two hours we were in Enfield. 

“That was seriously quick,” I said. 

“I don’t fuck around mate.” he replied. I didn’t doubt it. 

As I stood on the edge of London and watched as Phil roared back onto the motorway I was reminded of a very different conversation I’d once had. I was on a train from Edinburgh to Glasgow during the COP26 summit sitting opposite a French-Ugandan delegate called Farhad. He was a wizened old man and knew full well that this, his 15th COP, would achieve nothing. He offered me his croissant and I declined because it had butter in it. “I can’t eat dairy,” I explained. Farhad said he hadn’t drunk milk since 1956.

“You know,” he began with his thick French accent, “In the 1950s an American milk company paid Harvard $50,000 to publish a paper saying milk is good for you? It isn’t. But now everyone drinks too much milk.”

He had mousey brown eyes that peered at me intently and he spoke with incredible clarity, his point invariably eloquent. It was a frustrating period for him, the COP summits always were. “On Wall Street they always want their returns.” Farhad continued, “In 1950 the US had enough food to go around, the population was only rising 2%, but Wall Street, they said to the companies ‘You must produce much more! You must sell more! Make it taste better!’” So they did. Look at Coca-Cola. Pffff.” He shook his balding head in dismay, “They fill it with sugar and addictive substances and then advertise, advertise, advertise! Now look. One bottle has 12 times more sugar than you should have in one day and everyone loves it. It's criminal!”

We were racing across Scotland and the morning sun was golden on the far-off hills. Farhad wasn’t done yet. “Sometimes companies like this, they get caught, they pay a fine or whatever and it is all ok. The cigarette companies know they are killing people but they pay their fines and get on with it. It’s corrupt. The whole thing!”

Farhad

He was getting into his stride. The gentle chatter of the other delegates and passengers filled the carriage. “HSBC gets billions from cartels, gangs and drug dealers. They got caught once and paid a fine of $5 billion but for them it's nothing, they earn much more. It’s just a cost, like for lawyers or consultants or something. They don’t go to jail. Maybe if they go to jail they think twice about this. But no! Corruption. That’s what it is.”

He shook his head again and looked at the passing houses before slowly beginning once more. He had a wealth of examples and they rolled effortlessly off his tongue. “In 2003 a Pakistani shopkeeper in London was given 12 years in prison for laundering £12,000. I remember the case. The judge, he looked at him and says, ‘But why? You had a good job, a good income. You didn’t need this. You were greedy!’” He held up a bony finger impersonating the judge. “That very same year, agh…what’s his name…” he scratched his temple and frowned, “Abramovich! Abramovich comes to London with £20 billion and the same judge, the same government, the same system says he can buy Chelsea and houses and art and whatever. He wines and dines with all of them at the top as if nothing is wrong. Ten years before, no one in Russia had $100 and suddenly Abramovich has $20 billion! How? Theft. Extortion. And corruption!”

Silence fell over us. “Do you know how many fossil fuel delegates there are at this conference?”

I did not.

“503. It’s the largest delegation at the whole of COP. Who lets them in? They should be in jail, not COP.” He sighed. “No wonder we cannot solve the climate crisis. This is what we’re dealing with.”

By now we were coming into Glasgow Central. We shook hands and said goodbye.

“Good luck,” I said, knowing he’d need it.

Farhad sighed again. He stood up, picked up the croissant that was still on the table and put it gently back inside its white paper bag.