Styles handed Porter a folder. ‘It’s all in here but I’ll give you the highlights. The debt was racked up in 1981. Atlas borrowed big when they were getting ready to expand. They bought new trucks, new warehouses, hired new staff, all to handle a new contract they had won. Turns out one of Barclay’s guys, a guy called Arnold Bembenek, had paid a few people off to make sure they won it, and the contract was declared void. Bembenek denied it and said he’d been set up, but they had a paper trail to prove it so they were left with the bill for all the new equipment and infrastructure but no contract.’

Styles paused to take a sip from his coffee and Simmons jumped in to fill the gap in his flow.

‘The contract they’d won was with a Chinese firm called GFD who were trying to break into the UK market. No prizes for guessing who currently handles all UK import and distribution for GFD.’

‘Locke & Winwood,’ said Porter.

‘You’re good at this game,’ said Styles.

‘So they walked away, then came back to give all their business to essentially the parent company of the people who had just caused them public embarrassment?’

‘It gets better.’ Styles turned and winked at Simmons. ‘Tell him the rest about Bembenek.’

Simmons picked up the prompt and continued. ‘Arnold Bembenek was a second generation Polish immigrant. He’d worked at Atlas for twelve years and never had so much as a parking ticket since he came to the UK. Claims that two men tried to bribe him to sabotage the deal. He said no and told Barclay, but never reported it to the police. The next thing he knows the bribe story explodes with him at the centre, and proof that money changed hands is found in his office. This mystery man was part of his defence, but he was never located, and Bembenek went down for five years. I pulled the file from his case.’ She grabbed a single sheet of paper from the table behind her and handed it to Porter. ‘The two guys that approached him, one was big, around six-six, dark hair and a scar across his chin, and didn’t say much. The other one did most of the talking, and on the way out said he might send the big fella, Jimmy, round to have a private word if he didn’t reconsider.’