‘Time is getting on,’ muttered Grey, as he and Sergeant Smith went back down the stairs. A glance at his watch revealed it was already past four – nothing in police hours, but it would soon begin getting so much harder to find civilians at their allotted posts. ‘If you can call for a squad car, we’ll go and have a word with these two lads – if they’re the same pair from Monday night then they might be a handful.’
‘No problem, sir,’ she answered routinely.
‘And it doesn’t look as though we’ll be getting off at five tonight.’ He added this in a conciliatory tone, for what he was really saying to Cornelia was that she might not be home when her family expected her to be this evening. She said nothing though, so he dropped the hint again more bluntly, ‘You might want to call Brough too...’
‘Yes, I know,’ she answered firmly, confirming the message had gotten through. ‘He’ll love that.’
‘Well he loves you, doesn’t he?’
‘Not if he’s left with the kids all night.’
These words saddened him, hinting as they did at marital discord, however minor. Was he really responsible for causing this sadness? It must be said, he did attempt to be ever sensitive to the family needs of his colleagues; perhaps overly so, his own single status leaving him with no personal benchmark as to how far the work/life balance could, or should, be pushed.
It sometimes shocked Grey – himself unmarried, childless, and promoted to the level he currently enjoyed by a combination (or so it sometimes seemed to him) of pure luck and others’ misfortune – to remember just how much his bright assistant had packed into her young life. Indeed, were it not for her two bouts of maternity leave hot after being posted at Southney station, she would most likely be his level now. And were it not also for her being kept in this town through marriage (her husband managing a regional office for a London firm), then he had no problem at all with the notion that she might already have attained that higher level at a more prestigious station. Sometimes he felt thirty years her senior, not the fifteen or so he guessed it must be. She would make Inspector ten years quicker than he had, and he was still barely in his mid-forties.
She hung back to make her calls, as he bounded down the stairs and into reception,
‘Inspector!’ announced the woman there, rising at his entrance.
‘Now, Miss..?’ said Grey, turning to face her.
‘Mrs, but separated!’
‘Mrs..?’
‘Reece, Shauna Reece.’
‘Well, Mrs Reece, I wonder if you could help me.’
‘Anything, Inspector.’
‘Well, you could do me a great favour. Now my Sergeant told me you could point out some lads to us?’ With only a momentary gesture to Cori, to ensure she follow him when she was free to do so, he headed out of the room behind the eager receptionist. From there they took a different turning, before coming to a rather battered set of doors, hidden from the casual visitor’s view.
‘Don’t go any further without headph...’ began Shauna Reece, but it was too late as Grey pushed on through the doors, the opening of which broke their soundproofed seal, and delivered the trio – for Cori had hurried after them – at the end of a long and very noisy space, filled with men in green overalls arranged along long lines of machinery.
The Inspector marched into the din, Cori followed as soon as she had taken the headphones Shauna offered. Bunching them up over her hair, worn down today, she expected she now looked quite ridiculous. Shauna too had donned a pair, attempting to follow the man she was meant to be leading.
But Grey had already taken the measure of the place: that if the men were here they would be along this single bank of machines, and so to move along them like some giant industrial identity parade would inevitably lead him to them. And so it was more with inevitability than relief when he clocked the younger – and the drunker – of the two men he had met on Monday evening.
‘Hello. Is it Chris or Larry?’
‘Chris,’ he answered nervily,
‘Inspector Rase, you might remember that we met at the Prince Hal pub on Monday night.’
The man said nothing, the detectives’ arrival calling him away from a piece of machinery that Grey considered would make a good museum exhibit were it carefully cordoned off, its many jutting parts and sharp edges posing so obvious a threat to public safety.
‘Not quite as conversational today, are we?’
Still he made no response.
‘Chris, they just want to ask you a few questions,’ added Shauna, almost apologetically, young Chris turning her a sharp gaze.
‘Forget about the other night.’ Grey asked, ‘Can we talk a moment?’ his badge now brandished in the way officers did when expecting resistance. Chris nodded.
‘And can you tell me where Larry works?’ continued Grey, shouting beyond the constant rumble of thunder the production line generated, voices no more audible to those with headphones than without. ‘Was he the man you were with in the pub?’ Grey remembered the look of cold fury in the older man’s eyes.
Chris Barnes looked to the space on the other side of the apparatus he had until a short while ago been manhandling. Grey then clocked that the machines before and after this one in the row were manned by two.
‘He works with you here? Where is he now?’
Chris mumbled something sulkily.
‘What?’ Grey bellowed at him just a few feet away.
‘He went out for a smoke!’
‘How long ago?’
‘Twenty minutes maybe?’
‘Did he know we were here?’
To this Chris gave no reply, as casting one glance back at their now unattended machine, he moved with the officers back across the floor to where Shauna held open the double doors.
‘Can we borrow one of the rooms awhile?’ asked Cori, taking off the big ear-guards. They paused just to instruct the two Constables now arrived – Grey cursing his shabby handling of the situation – to search the grounds for anyone on a cigarette break and fitting Larry Dunn’s description. Shauna then led them up the stairs and into to a large white room, perhaps used in more productive times for presentations or meeting clients. Blinded windows let in filtered sunlight, which lent a glow to everything within.
‘Thank you for agreeing to speak to us,’ began Grey. ‘We’re not arresting or accusing you, just looking for a few answers. We shouldn’t keep you long. Now, as you know I’m Inspector Rase, and this is Sergeant Smith.’
‘You look much better without the headphones,’ said the young man to Cori upon being introduced, his sulk on the factory floor now shaken off.
‘Thank you,’ she let slip before regaining her professional equilibrium, but fairly confident she had staved off a momentary blush – he was younger than her, perhaps only twenty-one or twenty-two, and had a freshness about his face and manner that she couldn’t help finding attractive.
‘Now then Chris, why did Larry run?’ asked Grey, oblivious to any of this.
‘You don’t know that he has. He might be outside.’
‘He’s been gone twenty minutes. He knew we were upstairs.’
‘I don’t know. He gets... hot-headed sometimes. He got a bit cagey, said he was off for a ciggie, but he...’
‘Go on?’
‘Well, I thought he had a look about him, you know? Like something was up.’
‘But you didn’t know what?’
‘Is he in trouble?’
‘We don’t know yet. Okay. Going back to the pub on Monday – what were you fellows out for that night?’
‘It was just a few beers with the lads,’ answered Chris, a laugh running through him like a jolt of electricity.
‘But it wasn’t just that, was it. There was something else going on that night.’
He laughed again, and smirked, ‘Is that what this is all about? You tracked us down just because we had a bit of fun with you in the pub one night? You’ve got to lighten up, mate. I promise you, if you hadn’t been a copper you could
have had it much worse than you got it!’ He rolled with laughter again, Cori not able to help a smile breaking out on her lips too.
But Grey remained, silent, still, even smiling slightly himself, before saying,
‘No, Mr Barnes. I’m afraid this interview has a rather more important objective than to discuss my sense of humour, or lack thereof. I wonder if you know that your colleague Thomas Long has been reported missing since yesterday?’
‘Missing?’
‘He didn’t come home last night.’
‘Bloody hell!’ His genuine shock at the news instantly liberated him in both officers’ minds of having any involvement, it becoming no more than a fact-finding interview.
‘Has this place got something to do with it?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ answered Grey.
The man was silent, before saying in a low voice, ‘We’re not getting paid, are we? Tom was right. The money isn’t there.’
‘We’re looking into that. We’ll know very soon.’
‘I spoke to him on Monday night. Is that why you wanted to speak to me? It’s pretty common on the week we get paid. Sometimes on Monday or Tuesday he has the payslips ready early. I was on the later shift, so when I came back from my break I popped up to see if he was here still. It was only about half-five, Gail was just leaving, and he was on the phone when I got there. So I waited a minute.’
‘And what happened when you asked?’
‘Well, he said he didn’t have them. He looked a bit... you know. So I was going to leave him to it’
‘How did he look?’
‘A bit stressed, worse than he normally is.’
‘And how’s that?’
‘Well shy, quiet, doing that thing where he’s looking down when he speaks to you.’
‘And then what?’
‘Well, as I said, I was about to go. And then Tom... he just collapsed, and started crying. I was embarrassed at first; but then I got worried. I put my arm around him, trying to get him to pull himself together. And then it all came out: about how he couldn’t find the money to put in our accounts; and how that had been the bank manager on the phone just, confirming it, and now he didn’t know what to do. That sealed it for me, the bank manager being involved. I mean, if it was just Tom getting upset...’
‘Oh?’
‘Well as I say, sometimes he gets stressed. Not that I’ve ever had a reason to doubt him. I know he messed the payroll up that one time, but that was a one-off. And now you say he’s..?’
‘Did you go to school with him?’
‘I was a couple of years below him.’
‘How well do you know him?’
‘We’ve never been the of best mates.’
‘But you still say hello in the corridor?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t know if he has any other friends, anyone he might be stopping with?’
The lad looked almost apologetic as he shook his head.
‘You weren’t one of the people Mrs Long called on Tuesday evening?’ asked Cori.
‘No. I’ve never known the family that well.’
‘But you know his dad.’
‘Yes, I know Phil, but he’s been on another team the last few weeks.’
Grey paused a moment before delivering his next vital question, which needed to be pitched just right, ‘Well son, you may not have been his best friend; but at that moment, here alone and scared out of his wits, you appeared at his door and he trusted you enough to pour his heart out to. I wonder if you didn’t seem to him the closest thing he’s ever had to a friend in all his life? Was there anything else, anything at all, he may have said at that moment when the floodgates opened?’
‘I honestly can’t think.’
‘Well take a moment. Do you want a drink?’
Chris Barnes shook his head.
‘So, you went to drown your sorrows after work.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you shared all you’d heard with Larry Dunn?’
Chris nodded disconsolately.
‘And he took the news as badly as you did.’
‘Well, you heard him.’
‘I did indeed,’ concurred the Inspector. Interrupting my quiet drink, he could have added, but restrained himself. ‘And so did the barman, and so did half the town too I shouldn’t wonder: that was you fellows I heard singing later on?’
He laughed, ‘Yes, that was Larry. He started up with “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag...”’
‘...and smile, smile smile?’ deadpanned Grey. ‘That wasn’t his attitude a minute before.’
‘Well, he’s a funny bugger, is Larry. One minute he’s furious he might be losing his job, the next he’s full of ideas of where he’s going next; y’know, places he’s heard about where there’s work. He’s always moving around, you see. Only been here a couple of years.’
‘But that doesn’t mean he hates Alex Aubrey any the less?’
The man caught the look in Grey’s eyes, his tone quickly sharpening, ‘You can’t pin those stones being thrown on Larry.’
‘Who mentioned any stones being thrown?’
‘It’s all over the factory floor.’
‘The last one only happened a few hours ago.’
‘News travels fast.’
‘Do you know his address?’
Cori jotted it down as he said it, ‘But he has friends all over,’ added the man. ‘He could be anywhere.’
‘Anyone specific?’
‘I don’t know them myself. I don’t know who he knows outside of work. But he won’t be gone for long. He travels around a bit, but he’s always back on Monday morning – he needs the money.’
‘Oh, where does he go to then?’
‘Racing meets, 4x4 rallies, that kind of thing. He’s got one himself, a Land Rover.’
‘Do you know the registration?’
‘Not off the top of my head. He sleeps in it sometimes, if he’s away.’
‘Okay. We’ll check it out,’ said Cori jotting the details in her notebook.
‘And if you do see your friend,’ Grey burst in, ‘then tell him that he can’t make this cigarette break last forever. And if he didn’t attack Aubrey then he’s better coming forward sooner rather than later.’
‘If I see him I’ll tell him.’
Cori sensed the Inspector was keen to get on, but also that there was something in the lad’s demeanour, ‘Is there anything else, Chris? Anything that might help us?’
‘Well,’ began the young man sheepishly, ‘it’s just that I think Larry saw Tom, on Tuesday.’
‘On the morning,’ remembered Cori, ‘asking for his payslip?’
‘No, after work.’
Something in Grey stirred at those words, Cori seeming even more studious at her notepad.
‘Larry had gone up to see Tom that morning, after what Tom had told me the day before – I tried to stop him, but...’
‘Headstrong, eh?’ the Inspector urged him on.
‘You could say that. Anyway, Gail Marsh saw him off, told him the payslips weren’t ready yet, and that Mr Aubrey would let us know if there was a problem. So he left it at that. Anyway, about five he went out to get his sandwich – we’ve been on lates this week. There’s a van that parks up at the end of the High Street, it does those big baguettes?’
‘Yes, I know the one,’ encouraged Grey.
‘And when he came back he told me he’d seen Tom, up by the shops. Anyway, Larry had called out to him, and Tom had turned to see, but then a bus came and stopped between them; and by the time Larry had got over to Tom’s side of the road he had gone.’
‘He was waiting for a bus?’
‘Larry wasn’t sure, he said he could have been just walking by there. It’s not Tom’s stop anyway, his is up by the betting shop. I see him waiting there sometimes.’
‘But he could have caught the bus?’
‘Larry looked though the windows, but couldn’t see him. And the streets were packed ?
?? it would have been busy in the High Street at that time.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Grey completely unprofessionally. ‘So he had a good look for him. Then what?’
‘Well he couldn’t see him, so he got his food and came back.’
‘Gave up a bit easily, didn’t he?’
‘He only went out for a sandwich!’
‘Mr Barnes. This could be our most recent sighting of Thomas Long. Are you convinced your friend was telling the truth?’
‘He only wanted to speak to him.’
‘I saw the anger in his eyes for myself.’
‘He was angry at Aubrey, not Tom!’
‘But he was upset with what Tom had told you, at least he was the night before. He could have called after him, chased him, demanded to hear it for himself; threatened, scared the wits out of him. There are garages around there aren’t there, alleyways between the shops, quiet places...’
‘No! No, Larry wouldn’t do anything like that.’
Grey was standing before he’d even asked his final question, ‘I do understand, son, why you didn’t want to tell us. But if your mate even spoke to Thomas that evening we need to know it. One of the Constables will take your witness statement, and I’ll be checking it, so don’t leave anything out. Now, is there anything you know about the disappearance of Thomas Long that we haven’t already covered?’
‘No. But I’ll let you know if...’
Grey sensed he meant it. ‘I know you will. Then thank you.’
And with that Chris Barnes was released from a meeting both men were relieved to be done with, released to find his way back to his machine, with or without his friend there to help him operate it.
Grey did think of asking the man to keep what he thought he knew of the state of the company’s finances to himself, at least for the time being; but then considered how useful that instruction might be, when he had evidently spent the last couple of days spreading that particular secret around?
Once out of the room, Grey shot off instructions like a machine gun, to his Sergeant and the two returned Constables: to take Chris Barnes’s statement; to get someone to Larry Dunn’s house, and to trace his 4x4’s registration; to find which buses stopped at that point by the sandwich bar, and exactly which bus came by at that time; and to check precisely when Dunn had left on break, and just as importantly, when he had returned.
The Inspector however had a different duty to perform, and following Chris Barnes down, but only as far as reception, turned to ask the more than willing woman there for one more favour that day.
‘Philip Long? Oh yes, Phil’s here, poor lamb. He was telling me earlier how coming to work took his mind off worrying. He doesn’t want them all knowing though,’ she added in a whisper. ‘Let me take you.’
With a beaming smile cast back at the Inspector at every opportunity, she led him swiftly through a complex set of corridors and yards, to a small but just as industrious room at the back of the site.
There was only the one machine here, the man beside it powering it down upon seeing an official-looking figure by the door with Shauna. The room fell eerily silent, the only sounds those of a couple of apprentices muttering nearby; and a clacking and fluttering overhead, which turned out to be a pigeon flapping about amid the beams.
‘Don’t mind the birds,’ the man said, seeing Grey’s upcast gaze as he moved to shake his hand. ‘It’s a devil to shift them once they get up there. I reckon they get in by the skylights. The whole lot needs replacing. I suppose they do offer a bit of interest though, so long as they don’t get any mess and feathers in the machine.’ The man chuckled, but Grey was alert to the emotions he must be feeling underneath.
As it was, introductions proved unnecessary, ‘You’re with the lot who’ve been upstairs all afternoon?’
‘Yes I am.’ It seemed that even a back room like this was still in the loop when it came to the old bush telegraph. ‘Inspector Rase. Your wife spoke with my colleagues earlier. I wanted to come and tell you that we are doing all we can to learn your son’s movements in these last couple of days.’
‘But still no idea where he might be, Inspector?’
‘The last days before a disappearance are a launchpad, Mr Long: understand what a person was doing in those hours, and you can have an idea of where they might be now.’
‘I know you are doing all you can.’
He was a small man, considered Grey, and quiet in his demeanour, not as physical as the others in the main hall – an engineer and not a labourer. His overalls were kept neat, with buttoned shirt beneath.
‘Has Alex Aubrey got anything to do with it?’ It was a blunt question, deference to his employer stripped away. ‘I heard he took a clobbering and all, young Aubrey. Well I’m sure he had it coming to him, if the rumour’s true.’
‘You seem well connected out here.’
‘The lads are coming and going with parts,’ he gestured to the youths across the room, ‘and I’m in the main hall sometimes – they call me over to fix the machines. We pick enough up between us. There’s not much that doesn’t reach us one way or another.’
‘They didn’t know about Thomas over there though when I asked them.’
‘I keep my own cards close to my chest, Inspector.
‘Very wise.’
‘Who did you speak to?’
‘Chris Barnes.’
Philip Long gave a snort of derision, ‘A yobbo that one, drunk half the time he’s not working, half the time he is most likely. I’d sooner clip him around the ear than tell him my family dealings.’
‘Do you know Larry Dunn also?’
‘His mate? Hot-headed.’
‘He’s just done a bunk.’
Another snort, ‘You check your files, I’m sure he’s found his way into your bad books.
Hates Aubrey too, and I mean hates him. Listen, has he got anything to do with our Tom?’
‘We’ve nothing to support that.’
‘And if it’s to do with fighting, then our Tom couldn’t have been involved. He hasn’t got an ounce of fight in him, that lad. More’s the pity, I might have said, and Lily would’ve corrected me: He’s not rough like you other men, leave him alone, that boy has done us proud, she’d say. And he has done, Inspector. He earns a good wage, and without ever having to roll his sleeves up. He’ll see us right, you’ll see.
‘Is it anything to do with this place?’ he asked. ‘He was in a state on Monday night. Is it the payroll? Has he cocked it up again? This isn’t just because he was scared to tell me he’s messed up my pay? I had words with him last time, Inspector, what with all the trouble that it caused some of the lads. I told him we were better off with the old weekly wage packets, and that they couldn’t afford to make mistakes in those days, no sir.’
Grey feared this upright fellow going aquiver as Gail Marsh had; but Philip Long held his upper lip stiff,
‘Anyway, work to get on with. Inspector.’
‘Mr Long.’
Grey wished him good day, as with the flick of a switch the machine resumed its humming. Philip Long returned his expert hands to the quick-moving lathe, the fact of having his fingers inches from whirring metal and shearing blades as natural to him as holding files at his desk was to the Inspector.
Chapter 7 – Mr Foy of the First National Savings & Loan