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Jinnie had a sense of déjà vu as she stood in Terminal Three arrivals by the exit from the customs hall waiting for Monica to appear, it was not so long ago that she had stood waiting for the Baker family to emerge from customs. The arrivals board had said Baggage in Hall for about 10 minutes and Monica was yet to emerge. Suddenly her mobile rang displaying ‘Number Withheld’. Very few people had her mobile number outside her friends and business colleagues and only Alan at the SIS regularly came up ‘Number Withheld’. Thinking ‘Bugger, what an awkward time to get activated for a mission’ and expecting it to be Alan’s PA, Jinnie decided to answer the call a little formally saying “Hello, Dame Jinnie de Luca speaking.” A male voice she did not recognise said “I’m sorry to trouble you, but this is HM Border Force at Heathrow. Are you expecting a visitor from overseas today.” Jinnie immediately realised that it was Immigration and they must have stopped Monica.
Jinnie said “Yes, I am, that is why I waiting outside the exit from the Terminal Three customs hall for my business colleague Monica Marshall.” “Thank you, Mrs de Luca, can you confirm that you are expecting Miss Marshall to be staying with you while she is in the UK.” A slightly annoyed Jinnie “Yes, I can, and the normal form of address is ‘Dame Jinnie’. Now if you care to look on the covert CCTV system this arrivals building is covered by it will pick me out in the crowd of greeters waiting by the door out of the Customs Hall and I know for a fact the face recognition system has my details on it, and it will identify me in approximately one thousandth of a second. If that is not good enough, send one of your officers out here to meet me and I will prove my identity to you.”
The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Will you hold a moment, please, Dame Jinnie, a Border Force officer will be with you shortly.” As Jinnie waited, getting more annoyed by the second, a girl in Border Force uniform emerged from the exit and the disembodied voice on the mobile said, “Please will you identify yourself to the officer who has just come out of the exit.” Jinnie waved at the girl who came across to the barrier where Jinnie was standing and said “I’m Assistant Officer Hickman. Please will you walk around the end of the barrier and then walk ahead of me, Mrs de Luca.” Jinnie was more than a little annoyed now and said, “I will, but how many times do I have to tell you the correct form of address is Dame Jinnie.”
Jinnie walked with the girl through a door by the side of the exit which she opened with a card and down a corridor around a couple of turns, to what was clearly an interview room where another uniformed Border Force officer, this time male, was waiting. Jinnie was now wondering why she was about to be interviewed and said to the male officer “Before you say anything, I just want to inform you that I will be recording this meeting, I can clearly see from the cameras with the red blinking lights that you are too.” Jinnie held up her iPhone and started to record video footage. “Why am I being interviewed?” she asked “and why is the evidence of your facial recognition system not good enough for you. Why are you detaining my colleague and employee Monica Marshall.” “We suspect her of drug smuggling and you of aiding and abetting her, and her of entering the country without sufficient funds to support herself,” replied the officer.
“This is clearly ludicrous,” said Jinnie. “Monica is the Managing Director of several of our catering companies in Barbados, I have asked her to fly here to attend a group board meeting on Friday, and a series of other meetings where I will be offering her a major promotion. I am certain she has sufficient funds to support herself as she has both a company credit and debit card. The credit card we give our directors has a £100,000 limit as standard and the debit card is limited only by the amount in her company’s bank account, which is never less than US $1 million, and often very much more. Neither she nor I use, smuggle or handle drugs.” “Then how do you explain this,” he said, producing a small plastic bag of a brown powder. Jinnie chuckled and said “Quite simply, I bet you haven’t tested that, because when you do you will find it is nothing more than a mixture of herbs and spices used to coat fried chicken. Monica’s team in Barbados has been developing a new ‘Extra Spicy’ version to go alongside our Aunty JoJo’s original recipe. This visit has offered us the chance to test a small batch at one of our London restaurants and she is simply bringing a small sample of what is the main contender for the ‘Extra Spicy’ coating.”
“When we discussed it on the phone yesterday,” Jinnie continued, “we agreed to declare it to Customs. Now I can see what has happened here, you have pulled her out of the queue at Immigration because you have profiled her. A young black woman, on a Virgin Upper Class ticket, bought at the last minute and without a hotel booking, and little luggage, it screamed drug smuggling to you. Then you find a bag of powder in her carry-on baggage, you think you have hit the jackpot, then you learn she is being met by another one of the ‘gang’.”
“Well, you have just made an enormous mistake. Get your supervisor, senior officer or whatever he is called here right now. I know you haven’t done the simple face recognition check on me or you would have been a bit bothered to find you have detained an SIS officer, you can’t have tested what you think is drugs as it would have shown up as nothing of the sort.” Jinnie pushed her SIS photo pass across the desk and said “I suspect you have never seen one of these before. Now where is your senior officer.”
Jinnie had loved watching the officer’s face change when he had seen the SIS pass and realised that everything she said was true. Jinnie’s eye caught sight of the female officer who was standing in a corner, under a camera, out of its view, and behind the male officer. She was trying hard not to giggle, which only endorsed Jinnie’s view that this officer was flying a kite. The officer stood up and said “Hickman, watch the detainee, while I consult the boss.” As he walked past, Jinnie noted his epaulette number, spoke it into the phone. Mentally, Jinnie noted he had called her a detainee. That might come in handy if she chose to sue for wrongful arrest. Jinnie decided it was probably better not to say anything. So, she poured a glass of water from the bottle of Highland Spring water on the desk and sat back on the uncomfortable plastic chair.
Eventually, another Border Force officer entered the room followed by the original officer who looked a little sheepish. Addressing Jinnie, he said “I am Senior Officer Pett, and I oversee Border Force in this terminal. I must start by apologising to you, Dame Jinnie, it is now quite clear following a test that what Officer Clarke suspected was drugs was exactly what you and Miss Marshall claimed, a spice mix. In fact, Officer Clarke appears to have overstepped the mark in several areas in detaining you and Miss Marshall, particularly in the area of funds and the fact that she has a return ticket for a flight for Monday and more than enough money in both cash and plastic to support her until then. I am pleased to tell you that you are free to go, but if you would care to wait a minute or two, Assistant Officer Hickman will organise an entry stamp on Miss Marshall’s passport before bringing Miss Marshall here and then escort you to Arrivals.”
***
As Jinnie drove Monica around the M25, she mulled over the afternoon events, before saying to Monica “I can’t make up my mind whether to sue Border Force for unlawful arrest, to complain via Sir Nigel and his political contacts or get my father to embarrass them by asking a question in Parliament.” Of course, she had another course of action, but Jinnie didn’t need to publicise her connection with the SIS, so she didn’t mention that. Monica replied “I can’t complain about my treatment by any of the Border Force people other than Clarke, he was officious and just didn’t listen to what he was being told. Still, I don’t want that to spoil my visit, let’s just forget it while I am here.”
“OK,” said Jinnie, but deciding on a different course of action, as soon as she was alone she was going to ‘leak’ the story to Bill Furr, he would sell the story on to the national press and Clarke could be made to look a fool while the other officers could be shown to have acted perfectly reasonably. Jinnie said “I’m sorry, but I forgot to mention on the phone, we have a family pet, a cat. I trust you are not allergic.” “Actually, I knew,” Monica said. “The twins told me all about Larry when we were all eating at Anderson’s. They were quite worried that he would be missing them. I don’t have a cat of my own, but I do rather like them.”
The twins were back from school when Jinnie got home and rushed out to greet her and Monica. As usual, Larry was waiting in the hall for them and permitted Monica to pet him. Millie said, “See Larry, we told you Monica was nice.” Jinnie suggested that the twins should show Monica up to the ‘Blue’ bedroom which was to be hers for the visit and as they headed upstairs Jinnie said “When you are ready, the twins will bring you to the kitchen, we always have a drink and a piece of cake when the twins come home from school. They are always too hungry to wait for dinner when Paolo gets home around six.
It only took a few minutes for Monica to put her small cabin bag on the bed and refresh herself in the en-suite. All the time, the twins were chatting to her from outside the bathroom door, telling her about their day at school and how they were ‘advanced readers’ and allowed to read a French book with one of the assistants, while the rest of the class read an ‘easy’ book with their teacher. The twins showed Monica into the kitchen where one of Izzy’s famous chocolate cakes with chocolate icing and chocolate buttercream filling was waiting for them. The twins both had a big slice to go with their glasses of milk while the adults had a mug of tea and a small piece of cake.
After tea, the twins took Monica on a house and garden tour, while Jinnie slipped out to her garden office to phone Bill Furr and tip him off about her detention as a drug smuggler by Border Force and the officer who would rather detain an innocent black businesswoman than listen to her story or test the supposed drugs that were in fact a bag of ground spices for fried chicken. Bill listened to the story intently and interrupted occasionally to ask questions to ensure he fully understood the tale. He said “I think I have got this right, but can I quickly draft the story and then email it over to you to fact-check. Read it through, and once it is factually correct I’ll get it up on our website and in tomorrow’s paper. I’ll also hawk it around the nationals, I suspect the Mail or Sun will want an exclusive and be willing to pay for it. Do you have an account number for me to pay the fee into.” “I don’t want to make money from this,” said Jinnie, “otherwise I would be suing Border Force for illegal arrest. If there is money from this, after you have deducted your cut, the remainder can go to charity. Preferably the one that supports the old people’s homes lunches.”
***
Preparing breakfast for the twins the following morning, Izzy had the kitchen TV on and was half watching it and half watching the twins’ eggs boiling when an item came on about Dame Jinnie and a black employee being wrongly detained on suspicion of drug smuggling only for the drugs to turn out to be spice for a new Aunty JoJo’s chicken flavour. One female presenter initially played it for laughs, pointing out how incompetent it made Border Force look, but the presenter’s male partner took a view that something more sinister had been going on. The employee had been racially profiled because she was young, black and flying in from the West Indies. Both women had been detained before the spice had been tested, something that would have taken only seconds in the gas chromatography equipment used at the airport. The man suggested that Border Force had not only been incompetent, but they had also been racist.
Izzy had nearly over-boiled the eggs, so distracted had she been. But she had got them out just in time, and the twins had neither noticed the near disaster with the eggs nor the picture of their mother on the TV screen, mainly because it was in an alcove that wasn’t visible from the table. When first Monica and moments behind Jinnie had appeared for breakfast, Izzy didn’t say anything. It was only when the twins had gone to brush their teeth and get their school shoes on did she say to Jinnie “You didn’t tell me you were arrested yesterday.” Jinnie looked up from the buttered toast she was applying thick-cut dark orange marmalade to and replied “That’s because it was all a mistake by a stupid Border Force officer who was trying to make a name for himself. It was quickly sorted out when a senior officer got involved. Anyway, we were not formally arrested, only detained.”
Izzy asked, “Weren’t you scared.” “More annoyed, really,” replied Jinnie. “I knew I had done nothing wrong and when the officer showed me the bag of ‘Extra Hot’ spice for Aunty JoJo’s chicken it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. It was then that I was certain the man was a buffoon.” “Well, I was scared,” said Monica. “I was alone in a foreign country and being accused of something I knew was rubbish by an officious little man who ignored everything I said. I’m only glad Jinnie was there to rescue me.”
The conversation was cut short by the sound of the twins clomping down the stairs and entering the kitchen. Monica looked them up and down in the school uniforms and said “My, do you look smart.” Izzy picked up her car keys and said, “Come on kids, time for school, say goodbye to Mummy and Monica.” The twins kissed both their mother and visitor goodbye and trooped out of the kitchen. As the front door banged shut, Jinnie’s mobile pinged with an incoming message. She quickly read the message and turning to Monica said, “That was good news, TT SuperBurger now owns a wine estate in Bordeaux, we will soon be selling our own estate-bottled wine in our licensed restaurants.”
“Is that anything to do with why you wanted me here?” asked Monica. “Good God no,” answered Jinnie. “That is a completely different project we have been working on. I thought you might have guessed what we need to talk about. Brian did have to warn you about someone possibly contacting you about Aunty JoJo’s franchising and wanting to see a franchised outlet.” “I had completely forgotten about that, it was a few weeks ago and I met him in Jamaica. He liked what he saw, and I understand he is talking to franchising about a branch in Negril.” “Really,” said Jinnie. “He told me he had a KFC in Miami,” continued Monica, “and had been thinking about opening a second outlet but an Aunty JoJo’s franchise was much cheaper to open, and his projected profit was a lot more. He did say if we ever start selling franchises in Miami then he would be interested in opening an Aunty JoJo’s there too.”
“Well,” said Jinnie, “we have been looking at starting a business in the United States and the core team who have been doing the investigation are ready to do a presentation to the board on Friday. That is why you are here; we need to get some input from you. This morning, we have a meeting with Brian and Belinda, tomorrow we will be joined by Brooke. This really is a huge project, as big as, if not bigger than, the catering company.”
***
Jinnie drove into the Maple House car park and handed an RFID photo pass on a lanyard over to Monica. “You will need this to enter the building, use the lifts and to get into our offices. We give people who work here the choice to have a card or to have the RFID chip implanted in the back of their hand. Nigel and some of the IT team trialled the chip and found it worked perfectly and unlike some of the others they never forgot their card and have to get a temporary one! I still have the card for personal reasons,” said Jinnie, putting her own lanyard round her neck. Jinnie had no intention of telling Monica of her second job as an SIS agent and that a chip might be a way for the enemy to identify her.
They walked through the reception area and Jinnie pointed out the artisan sandwich bar and explained how the discount worked. They both used their pass cards to pass through the turnstile line and Jinnie showed Monica how to call a lift using the card. Jinnie explained that the lift only worked if the RFID chip was waved over the reader once the floor button had been pressed. Jinnie explained how the Trattoria Trevi offices were on one floor and the TT SuperBurger (Group) offices on the floor above. Monica asked what floor other divisions’ offices were on and Jinnie said they weren’t. Fastfood and the Construction Division were in the same building in Crawley. DKL had offices and a kitchen complex about half a mile away on Crawley’s Manor Royal estate and SuperBurger were in offices in the middle of Crawley.
Jinnie impressed on Monica how important it was to check in to the office with her card as it meant the system knew who was in the building in the case of an emergency. As they entered the office, Monica’s first reaction was “Wow, this is so light and airy and I just love the bright colours and look at those floor-to-ceiling windows, this is fabulous, you are so lucky to work in this environment.” “Let’s go into my office and have the first coffee of the day,” said Jinnie.
No sooner had they entered the office than Janet arrived with two mugs of coffee and Jinnie introduced Monica and Janet to each other. Monica said, “It’s nice to put a face to a voice, we have spoken on numerous occasions.” It was only a few minutes later when Brian tapped on Jinnie’s open door and walked in. “Hello ladies,” he said. Turning to Jinnie he went on, saying “Did you read the message from Purchasing? We now own the winery. I think we need a visit to talk to the staff and assure them of our plans.” “I agree,” said Jinnie, “who do you think should go.” “Well, it has got to be some main board directors, say you, me, and Alberto,” replied Brian. “That’s OK with me,” said Jinnie, “but it can’t be before next Tuesday. One other thing, I think we ought to include Sir Nigel, he is our in-house wine expert, he would never forgive us if we didn’t ask him!”
“I took the liberty of checking out flights,” said Brian. “The good news is that we can get there and back in a day. But the bad news is the only direct flight is EasyJet from Gatwick, and it goes out at about 08:00 and doesn’t get back until 18:30. That’s pretty good for me, I can be at Gatwick in under 30 minutes but it’s not so good for you. We could stay over in France, but I think you would rather do it in a day even if it is a long one.” “I’m not sure Sir Nigel will be very happy flying EasyJet,” replied Jinnie, “but if he wants to go he’ll have to put up with it.”
***
Belinda pressed the button to turn on the board room’s ‘privacy glass’ and it turned opaque almost instantly. At the same time Jinnie turned the white noise generator on and Brian opened the storage wall doors revealing the giant screen and plugged his laptop into a pop-up point in the board room table and its display appeared on the screen with the title ‘Project Olympus’ displayed.
Jinnie said, “Thank you everyone. Brian and I are quite familiar with this project, Belinda knows a bit but Monica knows almost nothing so I think we better start at the beginning, which I expect Monica will be familiar with.” Jinnie and Brian started off by explaining how the opportunity for more Aunty JoJo’s outlets in the Caribbean was fairly limited even if they were to look towards non-English-speaking islands. So, the decision had been made that while still populating other islands with branches they should expand into another market. Several places that were English-speaking and offered substantial markets had been considered. The markets looked at had included Australia, South Africa and the Philippines. Europe had been thought about but the market for fried chicken was immature mainly because many of the nations had not long been freed from German occupation.
Brian then picked up the story saying the final decision was to try to break into the USA. But to start off tentatively, in only one state, Florida, where there were many residents with Caribbean roots. KFC had around 280 branches in Florida so the idea was to ultimately have a similar number of Aunty JoJo’s outlets, the vast majority of which would be franchises as it would cost substantially less to establish them. Brian took Belinda and Monica through the thinking of himself and Brooke having spent over two weeks in Florida scouting out the land, talking to KFC and Popeyes franchisees, working out a strategy and writing a report on how it could be implemented.
Then Brian started to show the PowerPoint presentation he, Brooke and Jinnie had made for the board from the original report. Monica and Belinda watched and listened as the plan emerged in all its detail, owned outlets, franchised outlets, chicken farms, a huge processing plant, their own distribution network, corporate offices, sourcing of every conceivable supply from spices and kitchen equipment to straws and paper napkins, it was listed and costed. The proposed corporate structure was shown as a family tree all under Bearcat Food (USA) Incorporated. Some branches of the tree were in green and others in red and yet more still in black. Then came a project plan showing tasks, duration and how they interlinked to arrive at the first sales.
Brian explained that this was really a simplified version of the complete plan as many of the project tasks were the result of other programmes. Monica nodded happily and said this took her back to business school and how she had not used Microsoft Project in some years but recognised the output. Finally came the costing and the summary page from Brian’s multipage spreadsheet showing costs to get the basic structure up and running with four in-house outlets costing just under $30 million to set up and the company losing $9 million in the first full year. The predictions for years 2, 3 and 4 were much healthier, with a profit of about $20 million, $26 million and $32 million. Jinnie commented that by the final year the plan was to have around 280 outlets in Florida, and although not documented here, was to have started opening franchises in neighbouring Georgia and Alabama. Jinnie explained those plans called for a further 180 outlets in Georgia and 90 in Alabama, all under the same basic type of corporate structure and supplied via the facilities created in Florida.
Jinnie added that depending on just when and how much of the longer-term plan for Georgia and Alabama was implemented, the year 3 and 4 profits could be considerably more. Jinnie asked if there were any questions and Belinda said, “I don’t see a fit-out company in your corporate structure, is that because you intend to use the style book and local contractors.” “Not at all,” replied Jinnie, “it is because this structure all reports to the Fast Food Division via Bearcat Food (USA), trading as Aunty JoJo’s Chicken Shack. We have already registered Aunty JoJo’s and Aunty JoJo’s Chicken Shack as a trade name in most states. We have been keeping our lawyers very busy! We thought you would want to set up or buy your own fit-out company in Florida, just like in countries we already operate in we intend to put a clause in the franchise agreement saying that the franchisee must use our in-house fit-out company. We will also need them for the corporate offices and all the other depots and plants we have to refurbish and expand. I expect to see a considerable profit flowing from your US subsidiary soon.” “Hang on,” said Belinda, “we need to drive this through the board first.”
“I have some questions,” said Monica. “Why the different colours on the family tree?” “I’ll answer that,” said Brian. “Companies in black have already been registered by our legal team, those in green are companies that we need and have identified a target company to acquire like the processors, red are companies we know we will need in the structure but have done nothing about yet as it might mean committing expenditure too, which should only come after board approval of Project Olympus.” “That makes sense,” said Monica. “I don’t see any mention of a delivery service or website anywhere.” Jinnie answered, “We think we can get a website up and running very quickly. It would initially be based on the one in use in the Caribbean, but with towns and cities rather than islands. We already own AuntyJoJos.com, Nigel’s web designers can have a US site up and running in days. As for delivery I propose we initially use DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub. Eventually we could set up our own delivery company when we are big enough, but why reinvent something that already exists, it’s not the same as delivering from a dark kitchen.”
“They can all put a version of our menu on their websites,” continued Jinnie, “then they take the order, add their delivery charge, take the money, and transmit the order to the nearest branch with a pickup time. At the same time, they message a delivery person to pick the food and transfer payment to us. Of course, we can sell directly through our own website for in-store pickups and deliveries. We would need to contract with one of the delivery companies to make our deliveries.” “Gosh,” said Monica, “I didn’t realise how easy we had it with our own delivery company and DKL. You mentioned offices, where do you envisage having them and how extensive will they be?”
Brian answered, “I think we must plan for eventually handling everything in-house. It might be expensive, but I think it all depends on how quickly we grow. With only a dozen branches it would be difficult to justify the expenditure, but with say 75 it would be difficult not to. That will be up to the CEO.” “What about advertising?” asked Monica. “There is a budget,” replied Jinnie. “With only four branches at the beginning we don’t need a statewide advertising programme, definitely local radio, maybe local TV stations but the advertising budget will have to grow as we grow.”
“Well, you seem to have thought the launch through and covered just about everything. I really don’t understand why you wanted me here,” said Monica. “I’m more than happy to help you present this at the board meeting. But it does seem to have been a bit of an expensive way to get some hired help for the presentation.” Jinnie smiled and said, “I disagree with you, we really need the Bearcat Food (USA) CEO designate at the meeting, and if you haven’t guessed it yet we are offering you the job, if you want it. It will mean moving to Florida, but we’ll help you with that, we will also take care of work permits. One other thing, and I don’t think we have mentioned it, is that we fully foresee that in a very short while this company will be so big it will have become a division in its own right and if you accept the post, then you will get a seat on the main board.” “I accept,” said Monica.
In Chapter 19 – The Board makes a decision
© WorthingGooner 2025
