The Concrete Ceiling

by Peter Rowlands

  I’d already explained briefly why I was there, and we’d established that yes, he had known Gary Hobbs at school, but no, they weren’t in regular touch now, and he certainly hadn’t passed any confidential information to him.

  I said, “And you can’t think of anyone else at your company who would have leaked that information to Antler Logistics?”

  He frowned. “Look, even if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t tell you. But I don’t have any reason to think so. As far as I know, my boss Derek was our man at that meeting, and he’s as honest as the day is long.”

  I said, “Do you think anyone at Cavenham Risby is close to Gary Hobbs?”

  “Yeah, of course – Dan Risby himself. He and Gary go way back. I lost touch with Gary, but I think they stayed close.”

  So there it was – the probable link with Antler Logistics. Wardell had provided the information I wanted without even knowing it.

  Before he left, I felt I should take advantage of his insight into the Banbury property scene. I said, “Presumably you know Nick Hathaway, do you?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Vaguely. Everyone in the property market around here probably knows him.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He’s all right. Friendly enough guy.”

  I sensed a qualification. I said, “But?”

  “Oh, you hear things – you know how it is.” He hesitated. “We’re completely off the record now, are we? Because my firm gets quite a lot of work from Hathaways.”

  “Completely. I’m interested in the man, not the business.”

  “OK.” He pondered for a moment. “I get the impression that he tends to flit from one thing to another. Since he’s become a director at Hathaways, they seem to keep changing direction. They’re into letting, then they’re not, then they’re into a new housing scheme, then they don’t want to touch it with a barge pole. But this is all secondhand information, you understand.”

  I remained silent, hoping for more, and I got it. He said, “If you ask me, he has an obsessive streak. I mean, take gliding. My sister told me he was fanatical about it. Turned up practically every single weekend for two years – sometimes weekdays as well. Then he suddenly dropped it, and as far as I know he’s never shown his face at the club again from that day to this.”

  * * *

  After we left the pub I sat in my car, thinking over what I’d learned.

  It seemed clear that Nick Hathaway had deliberately misled me over Neil Wardell’s involvement in the Antler Logistics leak, presumably hoping I would never actually contact him and find out the truth. And it was only by luck that I had. If Wardell had been a different kind of person he would never have agreed to talk to me, and I would know no more now than I’d known yesterday.

  What was Nick’s game? Apparently he’d wanted to seem helpful, so he’d thrown me a line that was broadly true, but which featured the wrong people. There had probably been a leak about Vantage Express to Antler Logistics, but the source was evidently his own friend Daniel Risby.

  It seemed perverse, but I was beginning to understand that Nick was both clever and opportunistic. If I published the story as he’d recounted it, but I failed to substantiate it, I could find myself in the midst of a libel suit. But if I sat on it or simply ignored it, I would appear to be dismissing his help: not a problem for him, but something he could report to Samantha as a mark against me. Either way, I would come out of it the loser.

  Was I being paranoid about this? I didn’t think so.

  Chapter 33

  Time was ticking towards my trip to California, but I was still in the sights of the police over Rob Openshaw’s death. The threat of being taken back into custody hung heavy over me, and I needed to get out from under its shadow if the visit was to go ahead.

  I’d heard nothing more about the case for several weeks. What was happening? I tried phoning the police station in Islington a couple of times to ask how matters stood, but DS Ratcliffe was always unavailable. All I could prise out of his colleagues was that the investigation was “ongoing”, and I would be informed of any developments.

  Back at my desk on the morning after my trip to Banbury I decided to move things forward. After staring indecisively at my phone for several minutes, I picked it up and tried calling Bernard Croft, the solicitor who had been summoned to my defence by Nick Hathaway. It grieved me to take up any recommendation that had originated with him, but I reasoned that Croft already knew my case, and it was a little late to rustle up some other defence lawyer.

  When I eventually tracked Croft down I asked him, “Are you my solicitor? The matter was never resolved.”

  “I thought I was. You surely don’t imagine that your status would have been left dangling, do you? Do you not want me to represent you?”

  It was a bad start, but we gradually worked out that the paperwork confirming his appointment had been sent to Truro instead of Camden Town. I said, “By all means let things stand. I’m glad to have you on board.”

  “So what were you calling me about this morning?”

  “I just need some advice about travel. I believe I’m barred from leaving the country.”

  “That’s correct. You’re on police bail, and the terms include a ban on travel outside the UK.”

  “So how do I get round that?”

  “You need them to cancel the bail. I’ve been trying to arrange that for you, but so far without luck.”

  “I’m sorry – I didn’t know you’d been doing this.”

  “I’ll talk to them again.”

  I hesitated, then said, “I need to go to the United States. Do you think I’ll be barred if they find out about this?”

  “Quite possibly. They’re very fussy these days.” He sounded irritatingly unconcerned. “But don’t try to hide it. You’ll only make your situation worse.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “Let me know if you have any bother. As it happens I might be able to help.”

  I ended the call marvelling at the discovery that I had someone batting for me. I might not like the route by which we’d been put in touch, but I couldn’t deny that Croft seemed briskly capable. The likely cost of his services was a worry, and the lack of contact from him was scarcely encouraging, but whenever I did reach him he seemed to make the right noises.

  All the same, I wanted to do more. I wanted to drive matters forward on my own terms.

  I phoned Dave.

  “I don’t have any pull in north London,” he told me with a sigh. “I used up what credit I had there when I got you out of jail.”

  “I know, and I hate to ask you for help again.”

  “But you’re going to anyway.”

  I cast around, trying to think of something that would enthuse him. And that was when my thoughts crystallised. I said, “Something about this whole episode has been bugging me right from the start. I mean, look – there I am, standing in Rob Openshaw’s house with blood on my hands and my fingerprints everywhere, and there’s this poor guy lying dead on the floor. And there’s the daughter, crying blue murder and pointing the finger at me. And no other suspects in the frame.”

  “OK, I’m listening.”

  “Well that sounds like a pretty watertight case against me, doesn’t it? So why have the police let me go? Why have I heard nothing more from them for weeks? Shouldn’t I have been charged by now?”

  “Don’t tempt fate.” Dave chuckled dryly.

  “What I’m getting at is that there must be some factor here that we don’t know about – some doubt in the minds of the police.”

  “Yep, that does make sense.”

  “So I wondered if you could find some way to follow it up, and find out what’s really going on?”

  “I thought you were going to say that.” There was a long pause, then he said, “Have you seen my chart?”

  “What chart?”

  “The one that lists all the favours I’ve done you on one side, and all the favours you’ve done me on
the other.”

  “I don’t think I want to see that, do I?”

  “Got it in one. Your side of the chart is running out of space.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  A long pause, then another sigh. “Leave it with me. No promises, OK?”

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  It took Dave three days to find out what was happening to my case. He phoned me back with a mischievous tone in his voice.

  “There’s good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

  I said, “Let’s start with the good.”

  “Right, well if your solicitor talks to the police in north London, he’ll find your bail is about to be scrapped. In other words, you’ll be off the hook.”

  “That’s amazing! How come?”

  “It’s a tricky one.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “You wouldn’t believe the devious lengths I go to for you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, I found out that this guy I know in the police station up there – Pat Evans, he’s called – is seeing an ex-girlfriend of mine. She’s another cop. We’re still good mates, so I called her up.” He paused. “To cut a long story short, we all met up for a drink.” He sighed. “I had to drag Suzy along as well. I couldn’t exactly go off drinking with an ex without including her – even an ex from long ago.”

  “And?”

  “It was a surprisingly good evening, actually.” A reluctant smile crept into his voice. “We ended up going for a curry.”

  “So what did you find out?”

  “Luckily for you, Pat Evans can’t stand this guy Andy Ratcliffe, the DS who’s been on your case. He thinks Ratcliffe and his sidekick Blair are chancers, and they keep cutting corners. That’s why he was willing to listen to me. The day after we met up, he called me back to tell me what he’d found out.”

  “And?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know why they ever arrested you at all.”

  Chapter 34

  “What makes you say that?”

  Dave paused. I waited. I’d come to realise that he enjoyed the occasional grandstanding moment. Whatever this one was, I felt he’d more than earned it.

  He said, “The time of death was wrong. You couldn’t have been there, so you couldn’t have done it.”

  “How did they work that out?”

  He seemed to consider for a moment, then said, “Your posh lawyer should fill you in eventually, but I suppose I can tell you about it now.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s all about timelines. They know exactly when you turned up at Openshaw’s house because they’ve got you on CCTV. Not in the square, but on the way from the Angel Tube station. You can’t walk about in London without being spotted somewhere.”

  “How does that help?”

  “Basically you arrived there too late. Openshaw had already been dead too long for you to have killed him.”

  “Ha! But if that’s the case, why didn’t they discharge me ages ago?”

  “They had all that circumstantial evidence, plus possible motive, and they didn’t have any other suspects.”

  “All the same … ”

  “Basically, the timeline margins are thin. It’s almost certain that you couldn’t have killed him, but there’s still a remote outside chance that you might have. Ratcliffe and his crew were clinging to that.”

  “But they’ve been told to back off?”

  “Yup. They had to admit they were pushing their luck. Basically Pat made them drop the bail.”

  “Presumably they’re not his best friends, then?”

  “Fuck ’em. Pat seems a good guy, and he’s not into sloppy policing any more than I am. He’s got a thick enough skin to take it.”

  “So if that’s the good news, what’s the bad?”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad. It’s just that you’re not completely off the hook yet. These guys have had to start looking properly for other possible suspects, but you’re still somewhere in the frame. You have to wait now and see what else they turn up on you.”

  “There’s nothing to turn up.”

  “Clearly. Which means you should be fine.”

  After we ended our call I phoned Bernard Croft’s number and left a message with an assistant about the bail cancellation. Then I logged on to check my eligibility to travel. I found to my dismay that there was a whole new set of forms I now needed to complete to validate my US visa. As Croft had intimated, the Americans weren’t keen to admit people who had been under police scrutiny. With a sigh, I started the ball rolling.

  * * *

  Finally I could concentrate again on my work for Smart Headings. Ideally I should be pressing on with the story on Antler Logistics, but at the moment it had ground to a halt. Dan Risby might have passed confidential information to Gary Hobbs to help him steal a distribution contract, but there would be no written evidence of it, and I was certain neither of them would ever admit to it.

  Besides, as Guy Dereham had so eloquently reminded me, I still had responsibility for the more routine work on the web site. With a sigh, I called up the latest batch of incoming press releases.

  An apparently mundane announcement caught my eye. It was about the head of a logistics company who had died suddenly of a heart attack. I’d met the man briefly some years before, when I was working for one of the leading logistics weeklies. I’d been sent to visit the company, Backer Logistics, in order to write a feature article about it, and I’d been introduced to him. Coincidentally the company was based in Rugby, the home of Vantage Express.

  There was a contact phone number for press enquiries. I rang it, and my call was answered by a young woman with a West Midlands accent. I didn’t recognise her name or voice from my previous encounter with the company. I asked about the circumstances of the man’s death.

  “Mr Smithson was in a meeting with colleagues when he was taken ill. They tried to revive him, but it was a massive heart attack. There was nothing they could do.”

  “Could I ask what the meeting was about?”

  This seemed to floor her. She probably knew she didn’t have to give me an answer, but I could tell she didn’t want to put me off. After all, I was responding to her company’s own press release. She settled on, “I’m afraid I can’t disclose confidential details about the company’s affairs.”

  “No, of course not. I just wondered about the nature of the meeting – whether it was internal, for instance, or a meeting with customers.”

  I was still on precarious ground, but this time she decided to throw me a bone. She said, “I believe it was a meeting about the re-negotiation of the lease on one of our warehouses.”

  In theory I should read nothing significant into this. All logistics companies used warehouses and had to negotiate terms with letting agents. Yet the property angle immediately had me interested. I said, “May I ask which warehouse you’re talking about?”

  “It’s the one we use for our soft drinks contract. It’s about half a mile down the road from here.”

  “So he was talking to the property agents about renewing the lease?”

  “That’s correct.” She waited.

  I decided to take a flyer. I said, “And they wanted to impose a big price rise?”

  “I wasn’t in the conversation, but it was quite a heated session. I heard raised voices from outside. We think it must have prompted his heart attack.”

  “So what’s the status of the lease now?”

  “It’s still pending. You’ve probably read in the press that the soft drinks company is considering its options. We’re fighting tooth and nail to retain the contract.”

  There was a long silence. Eventually I said, “Can I ask who was present at the meeting?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then said, “It’s probably on the public record. The warehouse is leased through Cavenham Risby, and their representative that day was Daniel Risby.”

  “And you said he had a colleague with him. Do you kno
w who that was?”

  “Hathaway, he said his name was. Nicholas Hathaway.”

  I thanked her and ended the call, wondering what to make of the information she’d given me. Apparently Dan and Nick had literally negotiated Don Smithson to death. What the hell did this mean? Before I could think it through, my reflections were interrupted by an incoming call.

  “Mike, it’s Des here. Are you free for a minute?”

  Calls from Sam’s father were a rarity. I said, “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about Nick. I wanted to run something past you.”

  “OK, go ahead.”

  “Ah, well I was hoping you might be able to drop in for a chat. Any chance you’ll be passing this way some time soon?”

  Chapter 35

  It was mid-afternoon two days later when I arrived at Des Adams’s house. I’d scrounged around among my old press contacts in search of a commission that would pay for my journey, and I’d come up with a low-paying job in Bristol: not exactly round the corner from Des, but in the right part of the country. Perhaps more important, it meant I had a valid reason for making the trip. Visiting Des wouldn’t feel quite such a big event.

  Des and his partner Norah lived in a substantial eighteenth-century farmhouse deep in the Cotswold countryside. They sometimes let out rooms on a bed-and-breakfast basis, but Des’s main source of income seemed to be power selling on eBay. Adjacent to the house was a barn filled with his stock – anything from scale model toys to kitchen equipment and electric guitars. Parcel vans were a common sight in the lane.

  I’d first met Des when I was ghost-writing the autobiography of his landlord, a former logistics executive named Alan Treadwell who had lived half a mile away on the same farm estate. I was immediately attracted to Sam, but I’d also formed what now seemed to be a lasting bond with Des. This was cemented when, in a stand-off with the volatile Treadwell, Des had saved my life.

  As I drove up he was waiting for me in the middle of the farm track, wearing brown chinos and a white open-neck shirt. Although substantially built, he looked bronzed and healthy, and beamed at me as I climbed out of the car. He immediately beckoned me into his barn, where he showed off his latest intake of stock. “For some reason, musical instruments are doing well at the moment.”