No sooner had the Inspector arrived at the station that morning, than he was ushered away to the television crew who were awaiting him. Any later and the station would have had to enquire after his whereabouts, which would have been embarrassing all around.
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ the Inspector had assured them to general disbelief, while the Superintendent conceded that any discussion they needed to have over recent developments would wait until after the broadcast. Much like that conversation in prospect, Grey wasn’t sure that the televised interview, which he had been doing his best not to think about since hearing of it the previous evening, was going to go entirely as he would have liked.
Southney was too small for a broadcasting station of its own, bar a local radio network forever threatened with cuts, it having not yet yielded completely to twenty-four hour a day banality and chart hits – whatever had happened to cultural pluralism, lamented Grey. And so for a story involving the town to get onto the local television news, required a journalist and crew in a satellite truck setting up in the town centre. This would immediately gain the attention of the entire district, who would come to watch and hopefully appear on screen in the crowd behind the action; and so be able to tell their friends and workmates for days on end how they had ‘been on television the other night’.
The truck and its crew hailed from one of the cities that circled Southney, they all being just far enough away to require a special journey to be made there, or visa versa; and that was just the way the locals liked it. Acting as something like an unofficial regional capital, this largest of the area’s population centres tended to dominate the local headlines, if only through having the largest concentration of businesses, hospitals, universities, and other institutions prone to the calamitous effects of, on the one hand the increasingly competitive global marketplace, and on the other chronic recession-led Government underfunding. As Alfie had pointed out, if they haven’t got you one way they’ve got you the other; and so Grey would think himself when watching these sometimes doom-laden lead stories.
It was these necessarily serious headlines, negotiated with stern faces before the hosts could get on with telling the more inspiring tales of children overcoming illnesses and locals running their own Post Offices, that led Grey to not watch the show as often as he ought – it was after all vital for the regional knowledge that formed the backdrop of so much of their work. And this Grey pondered, as the producer’s assistant ushered him out to the green square of parkland at the centre of what you might call the town’s civic hub. The green was flanked on one side by a Sixties brutalist (though none the less loved for that) library building, and on its adjacent side by the rather more respectable Victorian Council House/Chamber of Commerce. The police station – polite, conservative, post-War – was on the third side, the fourth occupied with offices.
His interview was primed to make the morning news and be repeated on each subsequent bulletin throughout the day, and was rolling before he knew it,
‘Thank you, Carol,’ began the brightly-toothed and bushy-haired man Grey was being moved off-camera toward. ‘I’m here at Southney Police Station; and yes, as you say police here are becoming increasingly worried about the disappearance of local man Thomas Long. Here to talk with us about this very worrying case in some more detail is Inspector Rase. Inspector, hello, thank you for joining us...’
The camera, live and broadcasting and ready to gobble him up, swung smoothly in Grey’s direction. He had been here before of course, and always thought the same panicked thought at this point: Is this it, so suddenly, just like that? No intermediate state between life and live? But of course this was a one-shot deal, the camera either rolling or not rolling – what preparation could there be? And that he could not adjust to this as readily as the toothsome man only served to confirm that, however his police career panned out, there was no move into true crime broadcasting to follow it.
Grey mumbled some greeting as the interviewed confidently continued, ‘Now, Inspector, what can you tell us about the missing man?’
‘Well,’ Grey launched into his short speech, a brief description of Thomas Long, edited down to only the essential details, all the better for those few details to lodge in the minds of viewers. His own mind was racing, as he told himself: this will all be over in twenty seconds, just keep thinking straight, talk slower than you think you need to, form sentences.
‘I think we have a picture of him appearing on the screen now,’ the reporter interjected, as viewers across several counties saw Mrs Long’s digitally cropped family portrait, ‘So what can you tell us about the circumstances of the disappearance?’
‘Well, Thomas Long left work around five pm as usual on Tuesday of this week.’
‘His place of work being Aubrey Electricals?’
‘Yes. An unconfirmed sighting places him at the bus stops on the High Street a short while after this. Now this is a busy street, especially at that time of day, so we are hoping there might be a number of people who recall seeing him then, or indeed at any time since.’
‘And this was on Tuesday?’
‘Yes, and as of yet we have no trace of his movements since then, hence our appeal to the public for their assistance.’
‘And you can see the number to call appearing on screen now, and also the email address for local police enquiries; and you can also email us at the programme’s usual address and we will forward on your information to the police. Now Inspector, speaking to your team, I believe it is the nature of the disappearance that is causing you most concern?’
‘Yes. From talking with his family and those that work with him, we know that Thomas Long is a man of habit and familiar routine. He is thoughtful and hard working, but not at all impulsive, and someone for whom just upping and leaving would seem completely out of character. He is also I believe a conscientious man, and so to stay away for two days without informing his family of his whereabouts leaves us very concerned for his wellbeing.’
‘Indeed. So Inspector, in conclusion is there anything you would like say to our viewers out there watching right now?’
‘Just to reiterate: that Thomas hasn’t been home for two nights now, and his family and friends are very worried for him. So if you think you have seen Thomas recently, or have any other information you could give us, even if it seems hardly relevant, please do so. We are just really keen for anyone who has seen Thomas to contact us.’
‘Thank you, Inspector.’
‘Thank you.’
‘We’re off to the plant now as it happens.’ The reporter didn’t miss a beat, speaking the second the red light had gone out, and as another man unplugged various cables from a box attached to his belt. ‘Aubrey’s are issuing a press statement today. Word is, it’s to announce job cuts. Your lads’ll be out in force no doubt, once the workers get restless. I don’t suppose there’s anything there you could help us out with?’
‘Once you get their statement you’ll know much more than me.’
Grey left the temporary encampment on the town green as soon as cleared by the production crew to do so, his involvement with the world of broadcasting over for he hoped as long as he could swing it until he had to place himself in such a situation again.
Grey found an office already abuzz with activity: Superintendent Rose was meeting the Assistant District Commissioner to discuss emergency measures, he relaying his concerns of industrial unrest; while the Sergeants and Constables were relieving themselves of what duties they could, in preparation for both the potentially exhaustive enquiries (door-to-door questioning, the distribution of fliers and posters) involved in a missing persons case – they had handled these cases before, they knew what was expected – and too whatever crowd control they might be asked to perform at Aubrey’s.
The Inspector himself intended heading straight to his office to write something legible by means of a record of yesterday’s events, but first he had to speak to Sarah Cobb, she herself, along with the rest of Administrative Support, standi
ng readied for the hoped-for deluge of leads, false or otherwise, they hoped the residents of such a relatively small and close knit community as Southney’s would provide in response to the televised appeal. The calls had already begun to come through, he discovered; and he considered it a credit to their readiness that the swiftness of developments hadn’t left them out on something of a limb.
She had however already been over to speak with the bank this morning, Thomas Long’s mother having given them permission to look at her son’s bank account.
‘Did they give you any trouble?’ asked Grey as he came over.
‘No, the cashier spoke to the manager right away. He didn’t sound very happy, but they went along with it when I mentioned your name.’
‘I never knew I held such influence. He doesn’t like me very much, you know.’
‘Well you must hold some sway there.’
‘Evidently, so...’
‘His pay goes in monthly,’ she advised. His housekeeping he takes out at the cashpoint. There are a few Internet purchases, books mostly, never very large amounts.’
‘Did his pay look reasonable to you?’
‘The amount? Yeah, about right, a bit more than you might think actually.’
‘Well, he did... does a lot for them.’
Sarah caught his slip, a risk in any missing persons case, ‘You’re asking,’ she continued unfazed, ‘because he would be paying himself in effect?’
‘Yes, there’s always the possibility of fraud. Although it doesn’t seem very likely, does it?’
‘He doesn’t sound the type, sir.’
‘No, quite. Any cards?’
‘Not a credit card, just the debit card he uses for his purchases.’
‘And nothing more exciting than that?’
‘Well, his balance was higher than you’d think, but then he hardly spends anything apart from on his books and his housekeeping.’
Grey thanked her for checking, before she added,
‘You know sir, I bumped into that lad you were questioning last night, Chris. He was in the pub with the football team.’
‘Oh?’ Grey sat up to take notice. ‘Chris Barnes, from the factory?’
‘He asked if you were out that night,’ she laughed. ‘I think he was glad you weren’t. He didn’t seem him usual self, though.’
‘No, he wouldn’t. Do you know him well then?’
‘Only from the pub. He’s the star of the team, you know. The older fellows love him. He’s a good lad, boss – tough but honest. He wasn’t there very late though.’
‘The youngest leaving first?’
‘Yes. I think he’s worried for his job – he was in at eight today, doing early overtime.’
‘Then for that alone I pity him.’
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘They were hours wasted.’
‘Oh, you mean he won’t get paid for the overtime?’
‘He won’t get paid for any time, he won’t get paid at all.’
Sarah looked suddenly worried for the lad.
Sergeant Smith was among the others readying in their preparations. She too had been busy that morning, and soon filled the Inspector in on her visit to the Long house the previous evening. A chat with the parents had yielded much background, but no new leads in their search. While a look around Thomas’s bedroom had only revealed a shelf of novels, some of whose titles she recognised, and which upon reading the jackets startled her in their subjects, but beyond that she imagined bore no import on the case. She had left realising Thomas had a bookish, perhaps even emotional, side to him, but no more extra information than that. If he kept a diary she couldn’t find it, nor any other writings – for weren’t readers often also writers? But if so he didn’t keep them there. Perhaps he hadn’t found his voice yet?
The Inspector absorbed this new information, and turned to go upstairs to the relative quiet of his and Cori’s office sanctuary. But no sooner had he sat down to begin on his notes, than there was a knock, Sarah poking her head around the door,
‘Sorry to interrupt you sir, but I thought you’d want to know. One of the staff took a message for you, they didn’t know you were back yet. A call from a Mr Parris. He said you knew him from the Club?’
‘Parris, ah yes,’ he remembered.
‘Another of your business connections?’ joked Cori, who had come in and was rifling through papers at her desk.
‘No, he’s the steward. He wouldn’t normally call here about Club business.’
‘No sir,’ confirmed Sarah, ‘he said he hoped to speak to you after seeing your broadcast earlier.’
‘Oh?’
‘Something to do with Alex Aubrey?’ Cori speculated. ‘He is a Clubman after all.’
‘Well, I was going to go into town later anyway... I’ll go and see him now.’
‘You think it might be something?’ asked Cori.
‘It could be, ‘he countered. ‘The report might have to wait.’
‘Shall I call him and let him know?’ offered Sarah eagerly.
‘Well, you could do,’ Grey considered, ‘but I shouldn’t think he’d be going anywhere about now. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him outside of the Club at any time of day or night.’
He was not a fan of crowds, such as he found along both sides of the High Street this bright morning, but for the chance they gave him to see a few faces in places, and to judge the local mood. It could sometimes feel, as he had pondered before, an unofficial and unspecified aspect of his role, that of recorder and arbiter of opinion, collator of his townsfolk’s thoughts and feelings. For how could he do his job without the understanding this brought him?
As he moved through the bunches of people he encountered – talking outside shops, queuing at cashpoints, log-jammed by badly placed phone-boxes and bins – Grey remembered these were not normal times: the mood was already heightened by the weather (short sleeves again today), even before anything official was announced at Aubrey’s. Those men on early finishes would be in the bars by lunchtime, and the rumours would be there for any to hear and pass on. Passions may soon rise. Though if these fears and feelings were present in the men and women Grey passed on his walk this morning, they were not yet pressing at the surface.
He passed the mock half-timbered building at which his friend was landlord, and which of course offered its own opportunities for people-watching, were it after midday and so open to the public; even then it seemed, as evidenced earlier that week, that hardly anything of real interest ever occurred in Britain’s public houses before darkness fell; it taking the extended consumption of alcohol, the drawing in of evening, and the threat of time being called to force the really dark and twisted stuff up out of the depths of the nation’s psyche.
Bounding right past the Young Prince Hal, Grey carried on the short distance it took to arrive at the Royal Hotel. He entered the reception it shared with the Club that occupied part of its ground floor, not even needing to show his membership card now the experienced receptionist knew him from repeated visits. ‘Good afternoon, Inspector,’ she called as he opened the heavy brown doors, he smiling in return as he vanished from the outside world and into that secret realm of still and muffled silence.
Despite the main room being lined by high windows, through which at this time of day light poured as if in solid shafts, he couldn’t shake the idea of it being a somehow hidden, subterranean place. The dark-stained wood of the other three walls, which absorbed what light did not remain hanging in the space of the high-ceilinged room, supported this notion; while the quiet and purposeful way the members spoke to one another seemed to embody the manner of secrets being shared – these rooms retained something noble and lost to the outside world.
Grey was hardly at the threshold of the main room though, before the ever-attentive steward Parris was there to whisk him into one of the smaller spaces to its side. This in itself was not unusual, when arriving for an intimate dinner, say, or a private business conference (for the clu
b was here to cater for all such occasions) but what was unusual was the steward remaining once Grey had been seated in his green leather armchair, he himself on this occasion being the subject of the meeting.
‘Thank you for coming, Inspector,’ he began, a man of sixty if you were being charitable, and to whom manners and decorum were as vital to life as air and water. ‘I took the liberty of bringing tea – I remembered you tend not to drink when here earlier in the day; but I can fetch you something else if you’d prefer? On the house, of course.’
‘Oh no, that’s very kind.’ Grey would leave the silver pot awhile before pouring for fear of scalding his lips. ‘You spoke to my colleagues just now?’
‘You have very polite staff, Inspector,’ began Parris as if praising a rival establishment’s dining room complement. ‘I don’t know where you find them.’ The man, himself sitting now, seemed eager to unburden himself. Grey saw him as a messenger, he hoped, bearing words of great import. Yet there was also a reserve about him, perhaps a counter desire to retain his secrets, fearing that to reveal them would break a confidence, perhaps one held only by and for himself.
‘Inspector,’ he resumed, ‘I watched your broadcast just now, on the little screen I keep on in the kitchen.’ (The idea of the club retaining so modern a device as a television quite startled Grey.) ‘And I was moved to hear about the young man who you reported as not having returned home, and of his family waiting for news of him.
‘And as it saddened me, Inspector, to think of the poor boy’s family at such a time, so it also reminded me of something, something that I hope you will, as a good Clubman and a respecter of our traditions, treat with the proper regard.’
Grey was a lover of tradition and of respect amongst peers, but all this sworn secrecy toward the sayings and doings of fellow Clubmen could become wearisome. He had assumed in his induction that the pledge to this effect was little more than a formality, and so it had proved in practice, with there being little discussed between the men and women in these rooms that couldn’t have been talked of just as freely had he bumped into them instead in any bar or restaurant. But Grey persisted with it for Parris’s sake.
‘Perhaps,’ continued the man, ‘it would be simpler if I just left this book with you,’ he leaning to reach from beside his chair a leather bound volume, obviously secreted in preparation for their meeting, ‘and allowed you, Inspector, to draw your own conclusions from its pages.’
His words were loaded with an understanding of shared confidence; yet as for the book itself, Grey recognised it as nothing more deserving of his ‘regard’ than the club’s register for signing in guests, a volume he had scrawled over many times himself as Rose’s drinking partner in his pre-membership days. Still, Parris spoke of it as one might upon presenting the Magna Carta in the British Library’s reading room.
‘Even a member wouldn’t get to study this book so closely or in private, as I am allowing you to do now. I know you probably have the right to seize it anyway, should you wish, but I do hope that is not deemed necessary, and that this volume can be kept safely within these walls where it belongs.
‘You take as long as you need, Inspector, and please leave the book here when you are finished. I’ve marked it at a certain page. I hope you appreciate the trust I, and by proxy every Clubman, am placing in you here in letting you study these records.
‘Right, I will be going back to my duties. Do call if you need anything; but please Inspector, don’t place me in a delicate situation by asking me anything more about what you may read in the book – I am already violating every Clubman’s privacy by letting you see it.’ And those were his final words as, with a smile and a fraternal pat on the arm, Parris was off, exiting to the sucking sound of a heavy door levering back into its cushioned frame, and leaving Grey alone in the wainscoted room.
The subterfuge infuriated Grey, who wished Parris had simply told him what he thought he knew. Had he allowed his respect toward the steward to allow him to demur from demanding a straight answer? Maybe, but he was locked now in this child’s game of turning over cards without knowing what second card he was looking for.
Grey had rarely been in these smaller rooms, he having little business of the sort that required them, nor the secretive nature or proclivities that may benefit from them. He had certainly never been in here alone, and it was suddenly eerie. He poured and sipped his drink, the cup hard to control with its minute handle, and clanking noisily as he put it down on the saucer. He moved the heavy volume toward him across the leather-topped table, opening it with a tremendous crack of its spine. ‘What is it, Parris?’ he whispered to the walls, ‘What’s so important here?’ Before, like a reader on Jackanory, taking up the book and seeing what story was to be told.
A list of dates and names was all he saw though, no text to narrate: only recent dates, and mostly the names of members he knew. The markered page was the current one, nearly at its foot now, and covering perhaps the past week and a half. The two names beside each date and time, written in their owner’s hand, were those of the Clubman in question and the guest they were signing in – the solitary Clubman or they who only spoke with other members would never need the book. So Parris meant an outsider’s name to be noticed? Starting at the top Grey worked his way down.
Just a ledger then, Grey pondered, and not even a very interesting one at that: no note of what took place in the rooms or even the purpose of the booking, but merely the names taken on the door. There were hints of carrying on though even in this Spartan archive, should you wish to look for it, he thought, a scanning of the names listed soon bringing up a local tradesman alongside that of a woman who, even before he had read her name, he presumed to be the young assistant he had not recently seen the man without. And the building being a hotel after all... perhaps there were stories here?
He had been given a sensitive record in the strictest confidence, and all he could think to do was look for the dirt. He was sure this said something about human nature though, and decided not to beat himself up about it too much. Out of interest, he flipped to the front page – and was disappointed to see it only showed dates no older than nineteen ninety-six – what a fraud, he thought, hoping perhaps for something reaching back to the days of the War and the Aerodrome when this had been an Officers’ Club.
‘It’s hardly the Domesday book,’ he heard himself mutter absurdly to the wooden walls, as turning again to the most recent entries, he minded to knuckle down to his search.
Reading through the markered records, Grey saw that on the previous Tuesday Mr Foy the bank manager had signed in another local figure of his acquaintance, a hardware retailer with a string of wood yards, meeting perhaps to sign off the quarterly accounts? Foy’s name jumped out again; as did those of other personages, appearing with more or less likely meeting partners. Here were the Aubreys, Mr A. A. signing in Mrs S. last Friday night. And here he was again on Saturday, meeting with a man who shared his name with a brand of popular electronics – another failed salvage plan? Grey wondered how true a picture of his finances Alex Aubrey had painted for this presumed investor?
The club, it was becoming clear to Grey, was the base from where Alex Aubrey chose to run his empire. Getting ever closer now to the current moment, he found his name again, listed as meeting a Yamamoto San. This latest meeting had been the one that had kept him from the office on Monday afternoon, when Thomas was having such a torrid time with the payroll and pouring his heart out to Chris Barnes. And there, later on that same evening, was that ubiquitous name again – Aubrey – meeting a Mr T. Long.
Grey ran his finger leftward along the line, zeroing in on the meeting’s date and time, his other hand fishing for notepad and pen. ‘Tuesday, seven thirteen,’ he spoke as he wrote, also jotting down the other encounters that had caught his eye. So Thomas was here between leaving the office and going home that last evening. What that meant Grey couldn’t yet fathom; but there were yet more lines to go through, and so he hoped he might get
even luckier.
And there it was, almost the next line down, Aubrey’s name yet again, on Tuesday of this week, at eleven thirty in the morning. The guest’s name, Mr K. Philpot, meant nothing to Grey, though he noted it anyway, more interested in the fact that this seemed to confirm that Aubrey would have had a chance to talk to Thomas at the office earlier that morning, as Gail Marsh had confirmed he had to Cori.
And that was that, with nothing notable listed for Wednesday, and there yet to be a guest here today. The Inspector leaned back in the armchair, and tried to get the sequence of events right in his head; but realised he needed Cori and her knowledge, gleaned from Gail Marsh, of all that had been happening in the Aubrey office those two days.
Knowing that copying or taking the heavy book from the room would be out of the question, the Inspector placed it back on the table, and rose to go and find Parris. Grey came upon him in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, food being taken out of Tupperware boxes. The room was out of bounds for all but staff, but Grey felt the intrusion hardly mattered along the access he had already been granted.
‘Inspector. Are you finished with the book?’ asked Parris upon seeing him, already wiping his hands. ‘I should put it back out. There might be lunchtime guests who need it.’
But Grey held him at the door, ‘Mr Parris, you brought me here to see a certain name, didn’t you? And the person who signed then in?’
‘Yes,’ he answered bleakly.
‘Then thank you. I know how much it pains you to break a member’s confidentiality.’
‘Will you need to come back? In a professional capacity, I mean?’
‘I don’t know yet. I hope not.’ And with that Grey was off, and back out into the busy High Street.
As he walked, a thought snagged at his subconscious: would an international businessman – if that was who Yamamoto San was? – or the leader of a national electronics retail firm, really deign to leave behind the capitals of Europe and Asia, to travel to a meeting in their town? Such a prospect seemed ridiculous now; yet even in Grey’s own lifetime Aubrey’s had been one of Britain’s biggest electrical producers, kettles and toasters across the land bearing that name. It wasn’t impossible, was it, for this town and its activities to still hold some sway?
Urgent though it was to get back, armed now with all this new information, there was still the call he had initially planned to come into town to make; and so half way back along the short road of only modest shops, at least on city terms, that nonetheless served the town as High Street, bathed this lunchtime in golden sunlight, Grey spotted the sign he remembered being around here somewhere, an arrow pointing down a side road; and turning along that narrow lane saw, above the first door you came to, another notice identical: IT CONSULTANTS – Printers, PCs, Laptops, Software, Data Processing, Digital Image Transfer.
That last service listed reminded Grey of a stash of old cine film he kept meaning to ask someone to put on disk for him. Cori had shown him the same service advertised on the Internet, after he shared his wish with her. Perhaps when all this was over he might be able to get it done at last.
And stood there just off the busy street, no longer rushed along by the flow of humanity, the memory cheered him, he realising afresh just how he valued his professional relationship with Sergeant Smith: she someone he could talk to, who knew about the cases, already in his confidence and trustable with secrets. And that was half the problem, he reasoned, why he had never taken his chances with women and remained unmarried: for when you were on a case it was all you wanted to talk about, the key to all your strongest feelings. And how selfish it was to expect someone not personally involved to understand that, to accept only what was left of your attention.
Sometimes, I swear, I think you enjoy talking to criminals more than you do talking to me... So the last one had said; as if anyone dealing with some of the lowlife he encountered didn’t wish they never had to again.
And then the thought struck him, that his subconscious was playing a trick on him, and that the woman reciting these lines in his mind was not the one who had originally spoken them, but rather a new face, that of someone he had seen somewhere recently. And how wooden the words sounded in her mouth, how unconvincing the feelings surrounding them. If only he could remember...
But at that point, the door beneath the sign opened, and a jovial voice boomed out along the lane, ‘Inspector, I thought it was you! Are you all right? I saw you standing out here. Were you looking for me?’
Grey, embarrassed to have been caught in his reverie, and fearing he resembled one rather lost and confused, was nonetheless glad to see Keith Pitt.
‘I’m just going to the Post Office, if you’re heading this way.’ Grey fell in beside him for the short walk. ‘Forms to send by courier,’ Pitt raised the bundle of post in his hand. ‘And I’m afraid there’ll be rather a lot more paperwork coming my way over the next few days.’
‘So, you’ve arranged for the administrators..?’
‘It was my duty, as a financial consultant.’ The man said this almost in his own defence, Grey sensing he took no pleasure from it.
‘So you found someone to... what was it again?’
‘We needed a creditor of Aubrey’s to ask the court to appoint an administrator, before the firm got wound up and the machines started being taken away for scrap. The energy company seemed a good bet. They have a two-year contract they want honouring after all, and it wouldn’t benefit them if the gates were locked tomorrow – they want someone there paying for their product for as long as possible.’
‘And they went for it?’
‘They didn’t take much encouragement, in fact they got the ball rolling first thing this morning.’
‘So Aubrey’s will be okay?’
‘They’re not out of the woods yet, I’m afraid. Wuthertons are the appointed firm – have you heard of them? Pretty strict in my experience. They’ll get you back on your feet, but do whatever it takes to get you there. Don’t be surprised if there are job cuts, changing work patterns. Scaling back in all kinds of ways.’
‘The workers won’t like it,’ lamented Grey.
‘No, I fear there’ll be trouble: you can’t expect someone who’s been doing their job, day in day out, to be happy to bear the consequences of their bosses not having been doing theirs. There will always be an edge of unreasonability in such scenes.
‘You know, it is the worst part of our job, Inspector,’ continued Keith Pitt, ‘when the best advice you can offer your client is for them to pass on control of their affairs to others; that efforts at turning things around have become a chase after shadows... Well, in such a circumstance you are not a professional if you do not tell the person paying you for your expertise and experience that that experience is calling for the chase to be called off. I’m sorry, that’s a terribly inappropriate metaphor isn’t it, given the circumstances.’
It took Grey a moment to get Pitt’s reference, ‘Oh, no. Not at all.’
‘So, there have been developments in the Long case?’
‘Developments yes, progress no.’
‘I’ve seen how upset the women are at the office.
‘Of course.’
Pitt paused a moment before saying, ‘I believe it can often be a cry for help, running away, that they hope someone will care enough to come and look for them? Sorry, ignore my amateur theorising.’
‘Don’t worry. Half the time I don’t think they want to be found.’
‘Well, people are a funny sort, Inspector. I suppose we don’t always know who needs finding until we try.’
‘No, quite.’
‘Anyway,’ they reaching the door of the Post Office, ‘I must get these sent and then get back up to the plant. You were lucky to catch me in town, I’ve hardly been back since yesterday. And then I hope they don’t keep me too late tonight, I’ve got to get back for the wife.’
‘Going anywhere nice?’
‘The theatre, to see a play – Deceptive Alibis it??
?s called. She does love these crime dramas. Might be right up your street too, Inspector. Or perhaps you’d only judge it against the real thing?’
And with that the men parted, Grey pointing himself back in the direction of the station.
‘On Monday afternoon, Thomas Long attempts to run the Payroll,’ the Inspector expounded, the words rebounding from the walls of his office, ‘the effort ending in failure, a phone call from Mr Foy, and his telling all to Chris Barnes. So, wouldn’t it be the most natural thing in the world, for Thomas to want to track down his absent boss, and tell him of the chaos his company was in?’
‘If he didn’t know already?’ added his Sergeant, the only one in the building at that moment free to listen.
‘Well, thank God then that Keith Pitt has already discounted fraud; for otherwise who knows what the pair might have gone to the Club to talk about! But if the money was simply seeping – and not being wrongly extracted – from the account, then they could only have been meeting to discuss the failing payroll process, surely.’
‘No arguments here, boss’ agreed Cori, for though Grey was speaking the obvious, she thought she knew the direction he was moving in.
‘So, it strikes me,’ continued the Inspector, ‘that rather less important than why Thomas Long met Alex Aubrey on Monday evening, was why they then met again on Tuesday morning, and why it took this second meeting for Thomas to feel better about things at the office. That was what Gail Marsh told you?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed the Sergeant. ‘She thought Alex Aubrey must have agreed to take the payroll problems off Thomas’s hands awhile, and that the lad seemed all the better for it.’
‘So why not come up with that solution the night before?’
‘Perhaps Aubrey needed to come to work to see what the problem was before deciding?’
‘But we know what the problem was! And Aubrey was in no better position to ease his cashflow on Tuesday than on Monday. Whatever assurance he offered Thomas was false assurance, and probably only offered to stop the lad from panicking and telling all and sundry...’
‘Which he didn’t know he had already done,’ Cori mused.
‘Quite. But even so, why not flannel Thomas the evening before, and save him a sleepless night?’
‘Let’s look at those meeting times again, sir.’
‘Aubrey met Yamamoto before he met with Thomas on Monday,’ Grey repeated from his notebook, ‘and with Philpot after seeing Thomas for the second time on Tuesday. Nothing had changed inbetween.’
‘And you’re certain of the times?’
‘Absolutely, I’m certain. And it fits with Thomas coming home late on Monday.’
Cori had to concede that point, ‘But what we really need to know are Alex Aubrey’s movements these two days.’
‘Yes. We know Thomas couldn’t have got up to much between home and work, so something must have changed with Aubrey. I’ll tell you what did change,’ Grey realised. ‘The first stone was thrown that night.’
‘A stone in itself wouldn’t tell him much,’ Cori counselled.
‘Maybe there was a shout to go with it? “We’ve heard what you’re up to, Aubrey! You’re not taking our jobs!” or some such? That would have his senses working on overtime alright.’
‘Well, even if Aubrey linked the stone through the window with something Thomas may have told the thrower...’
‘Go on,’ he encouraged, she noting a gleam in his eye,
‘Then are we suggesting Aubrey might have wanted to silence Thomas Long?’
‘At last a motive!’ the Inspector declaimed. ‘Admittedly a little far-fetched.’
‘Just a little, sir.’
‘Yes, for wasn’t the secret already spilt?’
‘Indeed.’
‘And why stop there?’ Grey attacking his own theory with sarcasm. ‘Why not also silence the bank manager? He knew too.’ Before offering more measuredly, ‘People like him don’t do things like that though, do they?’
For all her level-headedness, Cori could show an occasional gothic streak, ‘Well, we have seen in the past, sir, how such matters can get out of hand. Aubrey may only have wanted to confront Thomas, find what he had told and to whom, telling him not to tell anyone else, at least while these important meetings were going on, and reputation was so important. Aubrey is under a lot of pressure.’
‘The law-abiding classes heading into uncharted waters, you mean, and getting into difficulties? A discussion, turning into an argument, turning into... And that would be a third meeting in two days,’ he despaired, ‘presumably sometime Tuesday evening? No,’ he shook his head, ‘Tom’s still out there somewhere, run away because he couldn’t face his dad.’
‘For two nights though?’
They sat awhile, neither sure quite what either believed.
The Inspector spoke first, ‘He’s meant to be back today, isn’t he? Aubrey?’
‘Yes.’
Make some calls, would you – try and run him down. I don’t like asking Rose about him, it’s a sore point. And Cori, we’ll keep our wilder theories to ourselves for now.’
‘Yessir.’
Grey settled in his chair to think. Thomas Long may yet be blameless in all this; even Alex Aubrey as innocent as a lamb – and yet the thought could not be avoided that they were players in an as-yet unknown game.
Chapter 9 – The Corridors of Banality