CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"I think I was quite lucky," said Sally.
She was sitting on the tall stool in Winner's kitchen, while he finished adding chopped mushrooms to the spaghetti sauce. She thought she could probably have made a better job of it herself, but after all, it was Winner's kitchen. Come to think of it, this was probably the first man she'd been with who would even attempt to make a spaghetti sauce from basic ingredients.
"How do you mean, lucky?"
"Even when you know the rough dates, there are still an awful lot of pages to turn in a month's worth of Daily News, but I found the articles almost straight away. We were roughly right with what we could remember about the estate. There were a lot of complaints that the workmanship had been substandard or that the materials weren't up to specification. It doesn't look as though there were ever any court actions taken, but there were a lot of accusations flying about."
"Did it give the names of the contractors?"
"Yes, Kalvoxor Construction. They seem to have defended their position, but from what was said by the newspaper, they were far from happy with the materials suppliers. Guess what their name is?"
Winner eased the spaghetti into the saucepan, the long strands becoming flexible as he pushed them into the boiling water.
"Um, Valleydale Western Building supplies?"
"Exactly. The very same company that we had a look at last Sunday."
"So, if Nigel got his facts right when he tried to blackmail Cavendish, and we must assume he did, because Cavendish reacted to the threats, then Cavendish must have some sort of link with Valleydale."
"Cavendish wasn't mentioned at all in any of the newspaper articles in connection with Valleydale. The spokesman for the building supplies company was a man named Riggs. There was a very clear photograph of him in one edition. The strange thing was that when I left the newspaper offices, I'm sure it was the same man Riggs coming out of the editorial offices. I hope he didn't think I was staring at him."
"I get the feeling that before we've reached to the bottom of things we'll find that Cavendish has his tentacles stretching into a whole lot of local businesses. That means we've got to be very careful where we ask questions."
"How long's that spaghetti going to be. I'm ravenous."
"Ten minutes maximum. I've made a little progress today, as well. At lunch-time I had an interesting look at Cavendish's boat in the marina. Very expensive, I'd say. Then this afternoon I did a rush photocopying job on Cavendish's diary."
"You did what!"
Winner explained to her about his nerve wracking audacity in the Chief Executive's office. He had just finished when the timer buzzed for the spaghetti and he fished out a strand to test.
"Not too 'al dente' for you is it?" he asked, handing her half the strand.
"I think I can get my teeth through that. Now don't be so infuriating. What did it say in his diary?"
"Actually, I haven't had time to look. I thought we might study it after dinner."
Winner drained the spaghetti and put it into bowls, pouring the tomato and mushroom sauce over the top. Sally sprinkled on some grated cheese, while Winner opened a bottle of red Bordeaux.
They moved through to the living room and sat at the table. Winner poured out the wine and for a few minutes they were silent as they started into the spaghetti. Eventually, Sally noticed the wad of photocopies on the arm of the sofa.
"You seem to enjoy keeping me in suspense," she said. "Didn't you see anything while you were copying them?"
Winner twizzled some spaghetti round his fork. "Not really," he said. "Mind you, Cavendish did seem very upset, so the diary must be important to him."
"Perhaps he was just worried about missing appointments?"
"It was more than that. After all, we can all remember what's arranged for the next day or two and then check up with people we know we're due to see. He seemed more upset than that. I wasn't able to copy everything, of course, so I may not have got the sensitive stuff. We'll have a look in a moment."
When they had both finished, Winner poured the last of the wine into their glasses and they sat together on the sofa. He picked up the photocopies and they started reading through them.
"It's all initials and abbreviations," said Winner, "but it might make some sense." He flicked through the pages. "Look, this is the page for this week. Today, half past two, the entry reads CGF etc. TH. That's pretty straightforward. We know that he came in to meet Forbes and others at the Town Hall."
"What about that day he came in for the superstore presentation?"
Winner turned back a few sheets. "Here we are. Sup St pres 10.00 TH (MF). That's pretty clear. I suppose MF could be someone's initials."
"Can you think of anyone who was there with those initials?"
"It wouldn't be any of the staff. It could be one of the development company directors. I'm sure one of them was called Michael."
"Go back to this week. What's he got coming up?"
"Yes, no, wait a minute. Yesterday he was with MF again at Cres. That must be his Crescent offices. JR was there as well."
"From Dallas, no doubt."
"You're not taking this very seriously," Winner accused her.
"Of course I am. Anyway, what would a director of the developer's company be doing meeting with Cavendish? They're not supposed to have anything to do with each other outside the official Council meetings."
"Exactly. That's what Nigel accused him of on the tape. Failing to declare an interest."
Sally took the sheets from Winner and leafed through them. "This JR appears all over the place," she said. "I can only see one other FM, And that's just before Christmas. JR was there as well, plus IM and RP. Twelve noon at CPk."
"That must be his house, Cedar Park. Perhaps a little pre-Christmas social gathering."
Sally reached down beside the sofa and found the notes that they had made when looking through the minutes.
"I thought as much," she said. "IM and RP are probably Ian Martin and Richard Parker, the Councillors who always vote along with Cavendish. They must know who Michael F is, which means that they must be involved as well."
"They were definitely both at the superstore presentation," agreed Winner.
"So we can be fairly sure that Cavendish has some interest in the superstore development and that at the very least these other Councillors have some knowledge of what's going on, even if they're not directly involved."
"Cavendish is seeing JR at Cres on Saturday at three o'clock. If we could be there in good time, we might see what JR looks like."