Nobody's Perfect

by Douglas Clark

  “Pitt is inefficient?”

  Reculver didn’t deign to reply. He grimaced in disgust. Green was thankful. He and Brant were able to hurry away before Reculver started another lecture on the shortcomings of everybody in Barugt House with the exception of his own department.

  *

  The P.O.D. had no private office. Its members occupied a corner of the main Financial floor. The place was overcrowded and noisy. Typewriters, adding machines and other equipment filled the tightly packed desks. Green and Brant had to pick their way past the backs of employees whose chairs almost touched the desks behind them. Archie Pitt sat with three women clerks, a battery of telephones, order pads in a variety of colours, and heaps of ledgers. The women were using the phones to take customers’ orders, answer complaints and trace the whereabouts of deliveries. They made hieroglyphics on complicated forms and plonked them into trays to be sent to the despatch and pricing units. Pitt, tall, thin, and lugubrious, was dealing with the written orders. Before him was a pile of envelopes still to be opened; beside him, those he had already dealt with. When Green and Brant finally managed to reach him and indicate — rather than say — that they wanted to speak with him, he grew visibly uneasy.

  “You’re the police, aren’t you?” he shouted. “What do you want to speak to me for?”

  Green recognized he had a compulsive panicker to deal with. He despised them; despised anybody who wouldn’t stick up belligerently for their rights. Besides, Pitt reminded him of the lay preacher who used to visit the chapel Green had been forced into attending twice every Sunday when he was a boy. The lay preacher had preached long and unintelligible addresses. Green had hated him with all the loathing bored youth could muster. And yet, to his surprise, as soon as he had paralleled Pitt with this preacher, Green felt some compassion. The touch of memory softened him. Many people were dismayed by a police visit, he thought. Not because they’d anything to hide, but because, subconsciously, they felt that if the police approached them, they must be guilty of some misdemeanour. Uncharacteristically, he tried to reassure Pitt. “I’m not here to question you personally. Only because you’re manager of P.O.D. I want some general information about supplies.”

  The noise in the office was too great for anybody to hear clearly. Green noticed that everybody using a phone kept a hand over the ear away from the handset. But Pitt must have become attuned to the hubbub. At any rate he seemed to have understood what Green said, and he relaxed slightly.

  “Can’t we find somewhere a bit quieter?”

  Pitt got up and led them to a small, glass-partitioned office. He explained that the regular occupant was taking the last week of his holiday and wouldn’t mind if they used his office for a few minutes.

  Green took the seat behind the desk and asked Pitt to sit opposite him. As there wasn’t a third chair, Brant stood by the door. When Pitt saw him there, he half rose. Green felt a surge of revulsion at the thought of a grown man becoming panic-stricken at being cut off from his colleagues in the free world of a hell-hole office.

  Green said, “I want to know how, if I wanted them, I could get hold of some drugs for myself.”

  Pitt stammered: “What exactly is it you want, Mr … er …?”

  “Inspector Green. I don’t actually want anything. This is hypothetical.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, in that case, there are several sources of supply. Mr. Reculver keeps all the professional samples in his store, to fulfil representatives’ offers to doctors. Of course, not all the packs he keeps are sample packs. Quite often we use the smallest counter packs as samples, particularly when a product has been on the market a long time and we’re no longer sending out assessment supplies on a wide scale. You could get some of those. Then there’s the Pharmaceutical Department. They deal with direct requests from doctors for specific products for specific cases, and send them off with all the information about the drug. They might be willing to help you if the circumstances warranted it. Then there’s the Publicity Department who from time to time will have a large supply of some particular drug they’re promoting. You will find them only too pleased to get anything they may have left over off their hands. Then there’s the Company shop which supplies medical products free, within reason, and sells things like toothpaste, soap and cosmetics at reduced prices. That’s all, I think.”

  Green asked bluntly, “What about your set-up?”

  “The P.O.D? Dear me, no. Not really. I deal with customers’ orders. I very rarely handle stock itself.”

  “But you do sometimes?”

  Pitt frowned with worry. “Very infrequently, Inspector.”

  “Who does the packing up of orders, then?”

  “Why, the despatch department at our factory in Birmingham, of course. We do the paper-work here, and send a courier’s bag of orders up to them each day.”

  “That’s the laid-down drill, is it? You never change the routine for any reason at all?”

  “For very urgent cases I phone an order through so that it can be dealt with immediately, instead of taking its place in the queue.”

  “But if some local hospital near here wanted some drugs urgently, would you still have to send to Birmingham for them? Wouldn’t that be a waste of time? Some poor sinner might die while you were doing your paper-work.”

  “In a case like that, one or other of our sources of supply here in Barugt House would be able to step into the breach.”

  Green said, “So what you’re telling me is that you never have drugs in your possession?”

  Pitt glanced round at Brant, standing between him and the door. Green realized he would have liked to escape. It was as good as an admission that Pitt was worried. Green decided to press. He said: “Come on, man, I want the truth. First you said you did sometimes handle drugs, now you’re trying to say you don’t. Which is it?”

  Pitt looked at him like a rabbit at a stoat and said, “Well, you see, all our stationery has the address of Barugt House printed on it.”

  “So what? It’s your head office, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes. But you see, if customers wish to complain, they always write here, even though it’s a mistake by the factory they’re complaining of.”

  “What sort of mistakes does the factory usually make?”

  “Despatching goods.”

  “You mean they send out the wrong drugs? That’s typical. You shove up a damn great notice saying you’re all working in the cause of humanity, and then you don’t bother to let doctors and chemists have what they ask for first time. No wonder the Health Service doesn’t pay its way.”

  “Not wrong drugs,” said Pitt, getting excited. “You’ve got it wrong. It’s wrong amounts of the right drugs, usually.”

  Green said, “Oh? And what does that mean, exactly?”

  “It’s very simple really. We have various pack sizes of all our products. Small ones for over-the-counter sales, and big ones from which chemists dispense their prescriptions. If a chemist orders twelve bottles each of a hundred tablets and he receives a hundred bottles each of twelve tablets, he’s got the right amount of the correct drug, but not in the packs he asked for. So, because smaller packs are dearer than bulk, he gets cross and complains.”

  “I should think so.”

  “And though it’s the despatch people’s fault at the factory, the complaints always come to me. As if I’d done wrong. It’s grossly unfair. I’ve pointed it out time and time again but nothing is ever done about it.” Green said, “I know what it’s like to carry the can for something you haven’t done. But are you sure your own department never makes mistakes?”

  “Sometimes,” Pitt conceded reluctantly. “But it’s not our fault. It’s very difficult to hear properly through all that noise in the main office. And you know what the telephones are like these days. Every line seems to be a bad one. And some pharmacists don’t really seem to know what they want when they ring up and they forget what they’ve said after they’ve said it.”

  “Why don’t you
get your union to investigate?” asked Green. “You can’t work under bad conditions. It could be dangerous, with drugs.”

  Pitt said stiffly, “We don’t have unions at Barugt.”

  “More’s the pity. Go on. What happens when chemists receive the wrong orders?”

  “That’s just what I’ve been telling you. They send them back. Not to the factory. Oh, no. To me. Just because this address is on the invoice.”

  “So that’s how you occasionally come to handle drugs. What happens then? Do you send them back to the factory?”

  “Yes, we do. And a fine business it is, too. The work it involves! Old invoices to be cancelled, credit notes raised, new orders, new invoices. It really is appalling.”

  “Too bad. I suppose you keep a file of all the mistakes the factory makes?”

  “I certainly do,” said Pitt with feeling. Then he faltered. “You don’t want to see it, do you?”

  Green nodded. “Get it now.” He winked at Brant and smirked with satisfaction. Brant went with Pitt to fetch the file.

  It was a simple story. The letters in the file showed that a hospital pack of one thousand tables of Metathiazanone, sent out in error for smaller packs, had been returned by the customer to Pitt, had then been sent by Pitt to the factory, but had never reached its destination. Disclaimers and accusations had been exchanged, but the pack still remained unfound. The factory, in its final memo, had insisted on charging the cost of goods to the P.O.D. budget, and to make sure its views were known, had sent copies to a management distribution list which included Huth.

  Green saw there had been many cases of mistakes in despatch, but in every instance — except that of the Metathiazanone — the returned goods had reached the factory safely. He said to Pitt, “How do you think this Metathiazanone went missing?”

  Pitt was nervous. “I really can’t be expected to explain its loss, Inspector. I return goods to the factory, if needs be, twice a week on the lorry which runs to and from the factory every Tuesday and Friday. They are stacked in the loading bay on the ground floor to await collection with everything else that has to go.”

  “They’re what?” asked Green.

  Pitt said plaintively: “It’s obvious that I can’t store them in my office area. My assistants carry them down as soon as we get them. After that they make out the return-goods note and send it to the factory with the mail. What happens after that is none of my business. All I know is that the tin of Metathiazanone went down to the bay. The factory say they never received it.” He sniffed. “As like as not they lost it themselves and then accused us to cover up their own carelessness.”

  “You’re wrong there. I’ve found it.”

  “You have? Where? Why didn’t you tell me before? This has looked very bad for me — my department. And I’ve worried about it. I’ll send one of my assistants to collect it from you.”

  “Not yet, you won’t,” said Green. “I still want it. But don’t worry about the thirteen pounds. It won’t come off your pay now it’s been accounted for.”

  Pitt seemed happier when they left him. He shook them by the hand at the door. Green remembered the lay preacher who had looked so much like Pitt had always made a point of shaking hands with every member of his congregations at the chapel door. He hoped he wouldn’t have to interview Pitt again. Nostalgia and dislike didn’t mix well in Green. It made him unsettled.

  “It’s clear what happened,” said Brant. “Torr nicked it from the loading bay.”

  Green said, “Strikes me anybody could nick enough dope to knock off half the Smoke if they’d a mind to. Press that lift button and let’s go and tell his nibs what he wants to know.”

  *

  After leaving Hunt, Masters had gone in search of Dieppe. Vera Chambers grinned amicably as he entered Pharmacy. “Teddy’s in. That is, he’s in the building, but not in his office. He’s been running about like a wet hen all morning.”

  “Migraine gone?”

  “Conveniently.”

  Christine Blake came over. “Good morning, Chief Inspector. I should wait a minute, if you can spare the time. Teddy’ll pop in again in a moment. Since he heard you’d been looking for him yesterday he hasn’t known whether to stay or go. What a man he would be in a crisis!”

  “Yes, stay and talk,” urged Vera. “Christine hogged you all to herself yesterday afternoon and then was so mysterious about it we’re all intrigued.”

  “I’ll stay to see Mr Dieppe.”

  “Poor Teddy!” said Vera. “He is in a stew. I can just imagine him having to make up an urgent prescription. All fingers and thumbs. Thank heaven for women pharmacists.”

  “Is it a good job for women?”

  “Must be. There’s more of them every day. It’s one area where we women really have broken in.”

  “When they’re broken in, do they like the work?”

  “Mostly. But a lot find Saturday work a bore,” said Christine Blake.

  Vera said impishly, “It has its moments. Particularly when men are too frightened to ask for what they want when they see a girl behind the counter. We sell millions of razor blades that way.”

  Christine said, “Darling Vera boasts that she rarely lets them go without what they came in for.”

  Before Masters could reply Dieppe hurried in with an armful of papers. The Company Pharmacist differed from the mental picture Masters had built up of him. Dieppe was in his middle forties but still had the looks of a handsome youth, with unblemished skin that gave the impression of being too soft for a man who shaved daily. His hair was fine and so pale gold it shone white in the artificial light. The lips were full, red and moist; the eyes nervous and quick. He was a short man, but well proportioned and nimble on his feet, which never appeared to be entirely still even when he was halted. The way he jiffled his legs reminded Masters of a child who wanted the lavatory urgently.

  Christine said, “Teddy, this is Detective Chief Inspector Masters.”

  Dieppe said quickly, “I really haven’t time to see you now. I’m exceedingly busy.”

  “I think we’d better get our interview over,” said Masters quietly. “Now. In your office.”

  “You really can’t expect to upset our routine like this. This afternoon would be much better.”

  “You could have started another migraine before then,” said Masters.

  Dieppe was outraged. “Well, really!”

  Christine said quietly, “Go on, Teddy. Mr Masters doesn’t bite. He’s rather sweet, actually.”

  “Oh, very well.” Dieppe’s eyes darted round the office, then he pirouetted on the spot and hurried off towards his own room. Masters followed slowly, and closed the door behind him.

  “Sit down, Mr Dieppe,” he said firmly. “I’m not here to make trouble for anybody who hasn’t bought it. What I want is to finish the case as quickly as possible, so that we can stop interfering with people’s work.” He thought Dieppe had not taken in a word of what he’d said. The impression was strengthened when Dieppe opened a drawer in his desk and then shut it again without looking inside.

  He said: “Of course. I understand. I’m an investigator, too, you know. I investigate drug properties.” He laughed unexpectedly, as though he had cracked a good joke: but it was a short, tinny laugh that had little humour in it. Masters thought it did nothing but emphasize that Dieppe was in a highly nervous state, and he wondered why.

  “Good,” said Masters soothingly. “We shall be on common ground.” He offered his pouch across the desk. “Do you smoke a pipe?”

  “No. I tried it once. I can’t get on with a pipe.” Masters thought that Dieppe was the least likely of men to take to staid pipe-smoking. He was probably a wet smoker: the type that would drown a good bowl of Warlock Flake. Dieppe helped himself to a cigarette, and started to smoke it in quick little puffs. Masters waited a few moments to let him simmer down, but noted that in so short a time the end of the cigarette between the lips grew moist and dark. It was Dieppe who broke the silence. His ner
ves wouldn’t let him be quiet.

  “I’ve been looking in here on and off all morning in case you wanted to see me.”

  “It’s your office. Why leave it at all?”

  “I’ve been busy elsewhere.”

  “Then why did you try to put me off just now?”

  “Oh! Things crop up, you know. Urgent things that can’t wait. The Company Pharmacist’s at everybody’s beck and call. I provide a service, you see.”

  “I’ll try not to keep you too long. Miss Blake gave me most of the information I wanted yesterday.”

  Dieppe glanced quickly round the room and murmured more to himself than Masters, “I hope she gave you the right answers.”

  “She did. I’d say she was a responsible girl.” Then he added, in the hope that it would help Dieppe: “She reflects great credit on your training.”

  Dieppe was pleased. “She’s coming on. Not very good on paper yet.” His mood changed. He grumbled: “She can’t take any work off my shoulders on the writing side yet.” He spoke for two or three minutes of the difficult technical nature of his job, and of the difficulty in finding a pharmacist capable of assisting him. Masters thought that Dieppe must revel in having people believe he was overworked. A weak man’s attempt to give himself importance in the eyes of others. Masters let him stumble on, disjointedly, as he picked up files and papers to illustrate the points he was trying to make, and put them down again, unexplained.

  When Dieppe finally paused Masters asked, “How often did you speak to Mr Huth?”

  Dieppe said shrilly, “Never.”

  “You must have seen him occasionally.”

  “Once in a blue moon. He was … I hardly ever spoke to him.”

  “When was the last time?”

  Dieppe became even more flustered. He stubbed out his cigarette with quick, short jabs. “Some time ago, I think. Yes. Some time ago.”