I tell the salesman, "Last time we ordered one we had our old one with a company called A. The salesman said A were in the process of being taken over by a larger company and he himself was in the process of moving to a different company, B, and would we like to buy B's product? I thought that was a bit sneaky so neither A nor B got our business and we used C."
"Was it Harry W?" asks the salesman.
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"We took over A," he says. "Harry did leave for B but he was back with us within a year. He's not on the road any more, he's working in the office now, somewhere more suitable for a man of his experience. Lovely man, Harry. One of the best. Old school."
"No he wasn't," I say. "He was a smarmy creep just like you are, just like most salesmen I've had the displeasure to do business with. In fact, if I was writing Death of a Salesman, the death would involve horrific bollock-crunching torture. I'd like to see the salesman smarm his way out of that one."
The Heron’s Cry by Ann Cleeves (audiobook)
4 days ago
