Quaranteam – Hebridean Hame

This is a story set in CorruptingPower's Quaranteam Universe. Permission has been sought and granted to allow me to attempt writing something in the setting - despite my inexperience!

Thanks to AgathonWrites and The_Licentious_Laureate for their editing and story input. As well as to the other QT authors who contributed to editing and whose work I would recommend you check out - BreakTheBar, AgathonWrites, BronanTheLibrarian, OtterlyMindblowing, SilverRyden, RonanJWilkerson, BirchesLoveBooks, The_Licentious_Laureate, DisquietCertitude, 32inch, Ranthoron and Percheron.

This continues to be a slower burn story than some of the other QT stories. Set in (very) rural Scotland during the DuaHalo/Covid lockdown, I've written without much use of the Scots language for easy reading. No sex scenes in this chapter - they are coming!

Constructive feedback is always welcome!

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Saturday, 26th September 2020

Eilean Arthriagh, Inner Hebrides, Scotland

Callum's morning had gone about as well as he expected.

His lack of sleep the night before hadn't helped. His mind had continued to revisit everything that had happened that day. Still massively aroused from his physical contact with Emma, an instant message from her an hour after he left the Lodge hadn't helped. It contained a picture of an empty battery packet and a winking face emoji.

He'd been tempted to message her back but knew that wasn't a good idea. Letting his dick think for him had only caused him problems in the past. It had taken an act of will not to let it do the same tonight.

Instead, he'd tried to get some sleep and ended up tired but unable to switch off. His brain kept running through the sequence of events he'd have to recount to Emma, which led to him remembering every hurt, shame, and frustration. On top of that, he was also worried that whatever was happening to him might impact his relationships in the future.

He finally focused on thinking about Emma, the image and feeling of her grinding on him, her large breast in his hand... before a quick bit of guilty 'self-care' relieved him of some pent-up frustration, and he eventually got some sleep.

Due to his late night, his usual morning routine started a little later than expected. And even then, he'd only woken when Piper and Skye decided they had waited long enough for their morning ablutions and breakfast, resorting to jumping on the bed to assault him with wagging tails, cold noses and warm licks.

After sorting the dogs out and grabbing a shower, he checked the cupboard and fridge. Monday's shopping trip was sorely needed, he thought as he poured himself the dregs of two different types of cereal into a bowl. Then, he found via a sniff test that his milk had gone off. He grabbed his last container of frozen milk from the freezer and set it aside to defrost. Breakfast would have to wait.

Logging into his work laptop, he first went to his emails. The 'Urgent' email he'd spotted before logging off the previous day now sat below four other emails also marked 'Urgent'. He was sure none of them actually would be urgent - the marker was merely a cry for help from incompetent leaders. Fifty-seven other emails had also appeared in his inbox since logging out the day before.

With a sigh, he decided that those could all wait for a day when he was actually supposed to be working. Today was Saturday, and he'd already worked his hours for the week. He didn't want to get sucked into dealing with whatever issues the emails revealed and losing the rest of his day.

As promised, Graham had sent two emails to him on Friday afternoon and another much later on Friday evening. The first was a copy of the statistical information Callum had seen the day before. Graham had pre-empted Callum's next request and pulled closure data from three other teams as well. This showed that, with only slight variation, each team encountered a similar percentage of deceased individuals within their assigned cases. Case closures were up across the board.

Still trying to understand why they were seeing these numbers, Callum opened the second email, which contained the same information but included demographic data. At the beginning of this email, Graham stated that he'd identified something unusual.

Having reviewed a random sample of the deceased individual's records, he noticed that all the relevant markers or Police notes had been recorded before 31st May 2020. Graham had then conducted a 'dip test' of fifty random cases spread over all four teams, and no similar entries were found after the end of May.

Graham went on to state he could not determine why this data wasn't current or why the recording of this data seemed to have changed after that date. He was making enquiries with their Police liaison officer and would get back to Callum when he had an update.

In other words, the Police data was last updated four months before Truecheck started their work. This raised a number of questions about the potential value and accuracy of what they had been provided, and ultimately the value of Truechecks work.

The spreadsheet Graham had attached convinced Callum that somewhere there was an error. The demographic breakdown showed that, while there were not many of them, nearly 100% of the individuals aged under 18 in the demographic information were listed as either deceased or 'believed deceased'. The youngest individual with a current criminal record listed was 13 years old, which would fit with the passage of time since the census was taken. It was even more odd, then, that this person was also recorded as having died.

Graham also highlighted that the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales was ten. Callum added a note to say that this was 12 in Scotland. As usual, an Englishman had forgotten about the different legal system north of the border.

Scanning the rest of the information, it looked like around 70% of the deceased adults were male, with around 30% female. While it looked like the mortality rates were higher in the lowest socioeconomic groups - which comprised the bulk of those being assessed - but it was also evident that each socioeconomic group had an unexpectedly high rate. Callum was left without clear answers about why the numbers were so far off what should be the average. He quickly checked the government website tracking COVID-19 casualties, but even the most up-to-date numbers wouldn't account for the discrepancy.

The third email from Graham had been sent late at night, much later than Graham should have been working. Graham's manager had contacted him that evening and asked why he was looking for data from other teams and 'bothering' the Police liaison. Graham had tried to tell her he'd noticed a potentially serious issue in some of the data and had been sternly told to 'stay in his lane', that his efforts could be considered a security concern and that he should focus on clearing his assigned tasks. At the bottom of the email was a mobile number, different from the work contact number listed in Graham's email signature.

Graham had said he'd be working Saturday, so Callum checked his contact list, hoping to thank him for his work and check he was ok. However, Graham was offline; his last login listed as the previous evening. Callum quickly added Graham's mobile number to his personal phone and sent a quick text, "Hi, it's Callum. I hope you're okay. Are you not working today?"

After sending this, he noticed two other messages had been received while he'd been distracted. The first was from Emma telling him what she was bringing for lunch, which seemed to consist of 'sandwich stuff' and looking to confirm he was still ok with her visiting. He fired off a 'see you soon' reply. The second was from Mira and was a little more concerning:

M: "Hey, Cal -- I'm not sure what's happening, but you could cut the atmosphere here with a knife this morning. Alison appears to be upset with Em but won't say why. Em claims she doesn't know what she could have done to upset Alison. They are usually as thick as thieves, and it's unusual for them to disagree or fall out. Do you have any idea what's going on?"

Callum sighed. He'd had far too little sleep to deal with whatever this was. He'd been pleased that as the months of lockdown had passed, there had been no significant disagreements or personality clashes. Thinking back, he realised Alison had acted oddly when he said goodnight. He sent back a reply:

C: "Sorry, I've no idea. I had a difficult discussion with Alison yesterday about her driving, but I thought she was ok afterwards. She did seem a little off when I said goodnight. I don't know why Em would be involved, though. I'll try to talk to her this evening. Thanks for letting me know."

Putting his phone aside with a slight grimace at whatever that conversation might entail, his next step was to check if any Truecheck technical staff were online.

Unsurprisingly, the instruction for mandatory Saturday work hadn't applied to the support staff. "After all," he muttered sarcastically, "why would frontline staff working on a new system that was being stress tested for the first time need technical support when forced to work overtime?"

Piper and Skye were used to such vocal outbursts from him by now and barely stirred.

He resorted to filling in the far too lengthy bug report form (three times, as it timed out on the first attempt and failed to submit on the second). On submission, he received an automated response with a reference number. He also drafted and sent a quick email to the Technical Director outlining the issue regarding the 100% of under-18s listed as deceased and the oddly high overall death rate. He included the bug report reference number.

As he finished, his mobile vibrated, indicating an incoming voice-only WhatsApp call. He grabbed the phone and saw that the caller was Graham. He quickly answered. "Hey Graham, you ok?"

On the other end of the call, Graham let out a big sigh. When he spoke, there was an echo in the room, suggesting he was in a bathroom or some other carpet-less space. Graham's voice was also quieter than usual. "Hey Callum, sorry for ringing you on a Saturday. Did you see the emails?"

"I've just finished looking at them and sent a bug report. None of the technical staff are working today. Are you not supposed to be working today?"

Graham chuckled a little. "I was expecting to be online, but I was so pissed off about that conversation yesterday evening with that useless bitch Susan that I drank a significant portion of a bottle of vodka all by myself last night. Called in this morning and said I'd gotten food poisoning."

Callum laughed. "Remind me to send you the quote I have set as the background on my work laptop. It sums some of these people up to a tee. But thank you for what you've done so far; I can take it from here if it will cause you problems. You can share anything else odd you find via WhatsApp if that's better. It's encrypted, isn't it?"

"Yeah, end-to-end. If I come up with anything else, I'll let you know. Can you do the same? I'd love to know what's going on with those numbers. I got the feeling it was my enquiries with the Police liaison that put Susan onto what I was doing."

"What did you ask?"

"I'd just sent them an email asking if they could tell me why our data has no death notification information from the Police after May. I asked if it was a policy change or if they could check on some of the cases to confirm the information we have is correct."

Callum thought he heard a slight splashing noise on Grahams end of the call.

"Next thing I know, I've got Susan calling me after I've finished work and shouting at me. I was so close to telling her to stick her job up her arse. I told her my husband could hear her shouting, that it was extremely unprofessional, that it was outside office hours and that I'd take it up with HR in the morning. Then, I logged in to take notes on the conversation and sent you that email. Once I'd shut down, I still had to calm myself, so I promptly raided my emergency drink stash and watched trashy rom-coms." He sighed again. "Feeling it this morning, though. The worst thing about getting old is being unable to handle the hangovers."

The final comment was followed by what sounded like another splash of water.

Callum wholeheartedly agreed. "Tell me about it; I've tried to cut down over lockdown as it was too easy to sit with the ladies and drink a bottle or two each night." He shuddered at memories of various dreadful mornings. His hangovers had started causing him real issues over the last few years to the extent that he avoided heavy drinking entirely. "I've not had many dealings with Susan, but she's never left a good impression. Who's she married to?" The question implied something about Susan's ability without explicitly stating it. He listened carefully, trying to determine where Graham was calling him from.

"One of the directors, I think. The usual." Graham sounded resigned. "I'll undoubtedly be made to pay for it, somehow. But it was worth it just to hear her gasp like a fish when I challenged her. I'm pretty sure it's almost pointless raising a grievance about it, but it got her to shut up."

Callum shook his head, though he was aware the gesture was unseen. "I'll do what I can to cover your back. If the Tech team finds that it is a bug, I'll make sure you get the credit. And I'd suggest Irn Bru for the hangover, ice cold."

Graham gave a louder laugh, confirming there was an echo in the room, and there was another splash of water. "I'll take that under advisement. It's not the easiest thing to find in Liverpool during lockdown. It's not like I can just wander down to the shops. I'm going with my usual hangover remedy: hot tea, a hot bath and a mid-afternoon nap."

"Graham, have you called me from the bath?" Callum was both amused and incredulous.

"Don't be silly, that would be unprofessional..." Graham sniggered, following his statement with what could only be the squeak of a rubber duck and another splashing noise. "Speak to you on Monday! Bye!"

Shaking his head and grinning at the oddity of a grown man calling him from the bath, Callum put his mobile phone down, returning to his work. He still had some time before lunch and spent it revisiting his various forecasting spreadsheets.

While he was confident that the mortality rate issue would be an IT or data quality problem, it wouldn't take long to draft new forecasting plans based on 22% of the checks requiring barely any work. Unsurprisingly, this improved forecasted performance by around 22%. No doubt, someone would ask for this information once he started making senior leaders aware, and he didn't want to be scrabbling around looking for the data.

Finally, he drafted but did not send a report on the issue. The report focused on the impact on clearance numbers, the effect on staff morale, and the potentially damaging media exposure such an error could generate if the public became aware of it. He made some recommendations, including having an internal team manually sift the cases before they were issued to the Caseworkers and placing any with deceased markers into a separate work stream where they could be checked later. While he wasn't going to submit the report now, he did send a quick email to the relevant directors. He highlighted that the closure numbers were above forecast but that a Team Leader had identified a potential reason for this and that there would be further information once it had been investigated.

***

Callum was still pondering if any other measures were required when he heard the roar of a Quad Bike engine and the crunch of gravel outside. Checking the time, he was surprised that it was already just before noon. Saving his draft report and shutting down for the day, he rose from the computer and followed the two dogs who had dashed down the hall towards the door as Emma arrived and shouted her greetings. He shouted hello back and made his way to the kitchen. Emma was already there when he entered, unpacking tubs from a cooler box she'd somehow carried with her on the Quad -- looking a little pink-cheeked and windswept.

She immediately turned to him, looking serious. "I don't know what's going on with Alison, but I think she saw something that upset her last night. She made some snarky comments about my night dress. As soon as she found out I was bringing you lunch, she..."

The sound of another Quad Bike pulling up outside interrupted the rest of her sentence. A glimpse through the kitchen window showed him Mira had driven with an unhappy-looking Alison riding pillion.

"She insisted she was coming as well," he said, finishing the sentence for Emma.

Emma gave him an apologetic smile and shrug. "I'm sorry. We can have that chat another time?"

A few moments later, while Callum put the kettle on and sorted out some mugs and tea bags, Alison burst into the kitchen as if she expected to find him and Emma committing a crime. Finding a calm scene of domestic activity, she scowled at them before noisily dragging a seat out from the kitchen table and angrily sitting down, making sure they were both in her eye line.

Callum turned to her and said with a smile, "Afternoon Alison, Tea?"

Her eyes narrowed, giving him what he was sure was supposed to be a hard look. She then nodded once abruptly. He returned to organising hot drinks, calling "Hello!" to Mira as she entered the kitchen with both dogs excitedly bouncing between her and Alison.

"Hello, you," Mira responded. Do you need some help with those?" Without waiting for a response, she came over to the counter, standing so her back was to Alison, and rearranged the mugs. "What the hell is going on?" she asked him in a confused whisper.

Callum glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, whispering in response "I think it's just Alison getting the wrong impression about something from last night. Why she's reacting like this, I don't know."

Mira frowned at this, glancing over at Emma, who was still unpacking lunch. "Did something happen between you two?"

He concentrated on pouring the boiling water, buying a few seconds of thinking time before he answered. "You know Em, she was... playfully pushing things and teasing me, and I... got a bit upset." He deliberately spoke loud enough that Emma could hear his explanation. "When I went to leave, we hugged, and she apologised and kissed me on the cheek. I think Alison might have seen that and now thinks something more is happening. Emma was dressed, well, let's say inappropriately and leave it at that." He glanced over his shoulder at Alison, giving her another smile while she glared back at him. He turned back to the counter so she couldn't read his lips. "Though why she's behaving like she caught someone having an affair, I don't know."

Mira stopped stirring and glanced at him with a look that might have been both pity and disbelief. Her look made him feel like he was the village idiot. She shook her head but otherwise didn't respond. She returned to stirring again as he looked at her with a confused frown and asked, "What?" but received no answer.

Taking the mugs to the table, Callum grabbed a seat next to Alison and handed out drinks as Emma brought bowls containing homemade sandwich fillers. She had planned for them to have open-style sandwiches using some of her freshly baked bread rolls - the last, she informed them, until they had been shopping. Emma sat herself opposite Alison, while Mira sat opposite Callum. He could feel his stomach growl at the sight of the food, realising he hadn't returned for the cereal earlier.

They, or at least three of them - Alison clutching her mug and stubbornly glaring at Emma and Callum without eating - began sorting out their food while commenting on the various fillings. Emma asked if they could try to guess the different dishes before revealing them with some glee when they couldn't identify them. Mushy pea curry, Salmon salad with tinned salmon and tinned sweetcorn, a Mediterranean take on Tuna Mayo with thinly sliced preserved red and green peppers, pureed canned Corned Beef with caramelised onions and pickle... along with some more mundane fillings. She explained that some fresh ingredients were getting low enough that she'd done what she could with tinned food. Somehow, she had managed to make the food look more appetising than it sounded.