He walked over to the large window in the centre of the wall that faced out to the front street and stood there, hands clasped behind his back, a lord surveying his manor. Carter stopped just inside the room. An old wooden desk and steel grey filing cabinet sat in the corner next to two plain wooden tables. Scattered around the room were a minefield of cardboard boxes, their once uniform brown exteriors discoloured with splashes of mould.

‘First things first, give me a hand moving these,’ said Bolton, motioning to the nearest pile of boxes. ‘This place will be flats in twelve months and I need to clear all this shit out.’

Carter nodded and followed Bolton’s lead, carrying them one at a time over to the wall nearest the door. They weren’t too heavy, but his fingers went through the bottom of several, where the cardboard had turned to mush. He wished he had a pair of gloves like those Bolton wore, but had to make do with rubbing his hands together, sending a shower of card fragments raining to the floor.

It took almost ten minutes, and Carter had just placed the last box on the floor when he heard a scraping noise. He turned to see Bolton with his hands on one side of the old desk.

‘Grab this,’ said Bolton.

Carter did as he was told and they manoeuvred it over towards the large window that looked out over the road.

‘Here will do,’ said Bolton, when they were four feet away from the panes.

Carter hurried back over to fetch the matching chair and had just reached it when Bolton spoke again.

‘Do you know what makes a business successful, Mr Carter?’

Carter stood mutely, unsure whether he should speak, let alone what to say. Bolton saved him the trouble.

‘It’s the people. With the right people you can achieve anything.’ He motioned for Carter to join him. Carter wasn’t about to argue. He left the chair and strode over eagerly to where Bolton stood. ‘You need people with the right skills, but if you’ve not got an engaged workforce, you’ve lost the game before you start. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Engaged? I, um …’

‘What I mean is that they have to understand what role they play, and why the business needs them to succeed. You have that and the sky’s the limit. You don’t, and, well …’ He turned to face Carter, ‘Your employees start to make poor decisions, like talking to the police.’

‘Mr Bolton, I—’

Bolton held up a shovel-like hand. ‘Of course we’re not running your bog-standard business here, Mr Carter, but there are similarities. In both scenarios, you might be hauled into a room with your boss to explain yourself. Difference is, in our line of work you might not leave the room.’