by Simon Brett
‘What about Trevor?’ Charles asked casually. ‘He been here long?’
For the first time in their conversation, Ken Colebourne looked guarded. ‘Quite a while. Since he left school.’
‘Just like you.’
‘Yes. Mind you, he’s twenty years younger than me.’
‘Mm.’ Charles spread the congealing duvet of custard over his Dead Man’s Leg. ‘Was there something between him and that girl Dayna?’
A shutter of caution came down over Ken Colebourne’s eyes. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘An affair.’
‘An affair between Dayna and Trevor?’ He seemed genuinely astonished by the idea. ‘But there was no way that . . .’
He thought better of finishing the sentence.
‘There was something going on,’ Charles persisted. ‘Trevor behaved very strangely when Dayna came into the warehouse that morning . . . you know, the day she died.’
The shutter stayed down. ‘I didn’t notice anything odd.’
‘Well, it was odd, you take my word for it.’
The Marketing Director became engrossed in his Lemon Meringue Pie. ‘Big place like this, a lot of relationships start up, break up . . . Goes on all the time. And then a lot of totally unfounded rumours of relationships start up and get gossiped about. I make a point of not listening to any of it, and you’d do well to do the same.’
‘But surely you –’
‘It’s not actually part of my job to know precisely who’s bonking who at any given moment.’
‘No, obviously it’s not. I’m just asking you if you happen to know whether Trevor and Dayna had ever gone around together.’
Ken Colebourne concentrated on severing the end from his wedge of Lemon Meringue Pie.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said.
But Charles Paris was left in no doubt that the Marketing Director was lying.
Chapter Eight
KEN COLEBOURNE downed the last of his Lemon Meringue Pie quickly, suddenly remembering someone he had to see about some artwork. He rattled out another quick apology about the Executive dining room, made a perfunctory goodbye, and was gone.
Thereby raising Charles Paris’s suspicions even more.
Why should his question have proved such a source of embarrassment? Had Charles been asking about some connection between Dayna and the Marketing Director himself, then the reaction might have been justified.
If he really had nothing to hide, Ken Colebourne could have answered a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ – or even a bluff ‘Mind your own bloody business’ to the enquiry about Dayna and Trevor’s relationship. By behaving as he did, he had raised the spectre of his own involvement with one or both of them.
It was a matter on which Charles would have to find out more.
Because the passage of time did not dilute his conviction that Dayna Richman had been murdered.
Charles knew he had left the forklift’s ignition switched off. Sometimes, he was aware, especially when he had been drinking, recollections of his actions were hazy, but on that occasion he hadn’t touched a drop all morning (not even the quick pre-teeth-cleaning snort of Bell’s which was becoming a regrettable habit these days). He had even been particularly abstemious the night before, not wishing to screw up his first foray into a new and potentially lucrative area of work. No, he’d left the ignition switched off all right.
So, at the very least, somebody had entered the deserted warehouse to switch it on again. And there would have been no point in doing that, unless the somebody in question had wanted to use the truck. The forklift certainly hadn’t been used to shift any stock, but it had been used to crush the girl.
What had Dayna been doing there, anyway? Why on earth should a girl dressed up to look her best on camera go scrabbling behind a pile of dirty pallets?
Charles decided that, while he was on Delmoleen premises, he should try to have a little look round the warehouse, see if there was anything hidden between the pallets and the wall that Dayna might have been searching for.
Though anything that had been there would probably have been tidied up in the course of the investigations into her death.
These investigations, Charles had gathered that morning from Ken Coleboume, had now been completed. The in-house enquiry had come up with recommendations that Delmoleen staff restrict their movements to the works areas where they had business to be – which was tantamount to saying that, if Dayna hadn’t been where she shouldn’t have been, the accident wouldn’t have happened. Or, in other words, that her death had been her own fault.
There had also been an investigation from the Environmental Health Department, whose findings had been quoted at the girl’s inquest. They echoed the strictures of the in-house enquiry, and made other specific safety recommendations for application in the warehouse.
The police had not been involved, but then, in a case of industrial accident, why should they be?
Charles wondered if the situation would have been different had the girl been killed outright. If he had discovered a corpse rather than a fatally injured person, maybe the police would have been summoned.
But somehow he doubted it. The whole business gave off a smell of cover-up. Within the Delmoleen site, the company seemed to do its own policing. The ‘accident’ having happened, it had been dealt with quickly and efficiently, in a way that caused minimum publicity and minimum disruption to company business. If anyone other than Charles Paris had had a suspicion of murder, he got the feeling they would have suppressed it – or perhaps been persuaded to suppress it – in the cause of Delmoleen.
Or was he getting paranoid?
‘That one’s the actor, is it?’ he heard a loud, crackly voice say as he was leaving the canteen.
Half-turning to the source of the noise, he saw an elderly woman in a fur-collared overcoat sitting at a table with Heather from the Dispatch Office. The elderly woman’s lips moved continuously, softly smacking against each other, as if she was talking all the time.
If the similarity in the set of the two women’s eyes had not informed him, then Heather’s reaction would have given away the fact that the older woman was her mother. There is a distinctive, atavistic, excruciating form of embarrassment that only parents can engender, and evidence of it glowed on Heather’s cheeks. ‘There’s no need to be so loud. He’ll hear you,’ she hissed.
Her mother was not a whit perturbed. Seeing Charles looking in their direction, she immediately addressed him. ‘Hello. My daughter says you’re in this film they’re making.’
He admitted that he was. Heather blushed even deeper as her mother said, ‘Would you like to sit down with us? There’s still tea in the pot.’
He was unsure whether the pain in Heather’s eyes would be aggravated more by his acceptance or by his refusal, but, seeing a possible opening for further investigation, he drifted across to join them.
‘Get the gentleman a cup.’
Heather seemed relieved to have somewhere to take her blushes and moved obediently across to the beverage counter.
‘My name’s Charles Paris.’ He proffered his hand.
The old woman shook it. Hers was dry and scaly. ‘Mrs Routledge. I’m Heather’s mother.’
‘I thought you must be.’
‘She’s a good girl, my daughter. Every Wednesday she gives me lunch here in the canteen. Gets me out of the house, you know, gives me a chance to see people a bit.’
‘Yes.’
Heather returned wordlessly and put a Pyrex cup and saucer down in front of Charles. Mrs Routledge, as was appropriate, acted as ‘Mother’ and poured in milk and tea. She had the sugar-shaker poised before he managed to stop her.
‘I was just telling Mr Paris what a good daughter you are to me, Heather.’
The younger woman almost imperceptibly cringed. Mrs Routledge was using that distinctive kind of parental commendation which is infinitely more diminishing than insults. ‘I’m such a lucky old lady to have a daug
hter who looks after me so well. We live together, you know . . .’
Charles just managed to interpose an ‘Ah’ into this stream of consciousness.
‘Always have done. I encouraged Heather to get away when she was younger, but she never seemed to have the will really, did you, love?’ It was clear that most of Mrs Routledge’s questions were rhetorical, as she steamrollered on, ‘So it’s just the two of us. Heather’s father died . . . ooh, how many years ago is it now, Heather?’ But again she supplied her own answer. ‘Twenty-seven, it is. Twenty-seven years ago. And since then there’s just been the two of us. You’re an actor, you say?’
Assuming that, despite this sudden change of direction, Mrs Routledge’s conversational method would not alter, Charles said nothing.
His tactics were proved to be correct. ‘Yes, Heather said you were. And you’ve been here working on this film they’re making all about Delmoleen, isn’t that right? I thought so. You know, they wanted Heather to be in the film. Yes, they did. They wanted to film her in her office. She didn’t have to say anything, just sit there and be filmed. But she didn’t want to. I said she was being silly. I said, there’s no harm in just sitting there, the camera won’t bite you, it’s silly to be so shy. I’ve always said she should push herself forward a bit more. But you wouldn’t do it, would you, Heather?’
In the course of this monologue, Charles caught its subject’s eye. Beneath Heather’s embarrassment gleamed an undercurrent of sheer blind anger. He gave her a half-smile; she responded with a wry tightening of her lips.
Now he looked closely at her, he saw that Heather Routledge was not an unattractive woman. The grey eyes were flecked with blue, and her skin had a tactile sheen. It was only the anonymous dowdiness of her clothes and awkwardness of her stance that created the image of ugliness. Illuminated by a little self-confidence, she would actually have been rather attractive.
‘Still, there’s no way I’m criticising my daughter. Oh no, I’m very lucky, and I’m not one of those old ladies who doesn’t appreciate her good fortune. I’m extremely grateful for everything my daughter does for me. Do you know, Mr Paris, except for Wednesdays when she invites me in here, Heather rings me from work every single lunchtime.’
He managed to slip in an appreciative nod at this point.
‘Yes, I’m very lucky. Every lunchtime. And she talks for a long time.’
Given Mrs Routledge’s taste for monologue, this sounded unlikely, but neither of them questioned it. Years of experience had dissuaded Heather from taking issue with anything her mother said, and Charles found that he was subsiding into the same mesmerised acceptance.
‘Every lunchtime,’ Mrs Routledge repeated. Then, confident of the total subjugation of her audience, she allowed herself a slurp of tea. ‘Ooh, this is getting very stewed. Go and get us some more hot water, Heather love.’
Her daughter, an obedient automaton, went back to the beverage counter and tried to attract the attention of one of the impassive women in pale blue housecoats.
Charles may have been sinking under the hypnosis of Mrs Routledge’s endless talk, but he had enough will left to recognise an opening for his investigation. ‘You say Heather rings you every lunchtime?’
‘Every lunchtime, without fail.’
‘So I dare say she’s told you a bit about the video we’ve been doing?’
‘Oh yes, all the details.’
‘And I expect she rang you the day we were filming in the warehouse a few weeks back . . .’
‘Oh yes, she did. She was on for a long time. I remember the day, because it was later that I heard about the dreadful accident to the poor girl who was in the film. Do you know, she was playing the part Heather would have been doing?’
‘Well, yes, I –’
‘And I kept thinking afterwards, if Heather had actually been doing it, then she would have been the one who had the accident.’
‘I’m not sure that –’
‘But wasn’t it dreadful for that girl? A lot of that machinery they use isn’t properly tested, you know. They’ve had other accidents here. There was a young man in one of the hoppers who . . .’
Heather had made contact with an impassive woman in a pale blue housecoat. The hot water was being procured. Charles hadn’t got long.
‘That day, Mrs Routledge,’ he interrupted firmly, ‘– the day of the accident – do you remember what time Heather rang you?’
The old woman was so unused to being asked direct questions that she replied instinctively. ‘Yes, I do. It was just before half-past twelve. I know, because I’d been listening to You and Yours on Radio Four – it’s a good programme, that – and then they’d started with one of these new shows they keep trying to do with young comedians and bad language, and I don’t hold with that – there’s enough muck in the world without putting it on the wireless – and just after I’d switched off, Heather phoned.’
‘And how long were you on the phone?’
The direct questioning really seemed to be working. Mrs Routledge replied, ‘Oh, a good half-hour, because they’d just done the news headlines at one when I switched the wireless back on again.’
‘And did Heather say whether there was anyone with her while she was talking to you?’
‘Anyone with her?’
‘Anyone else in the office?’
‘Well, Brian – that’s Mr Tressider – he came in, about one it must’ve been, because Heather said he’d come in and that’s why she had to ring off. We’ve known Brian a long time, you know. He used to work here in Stenley Curton and at one time I hoped –’
Heather was moving back towards them with a pot of hot water, so Charles cut short Mrs Routledge’s reminiscence. ‘But Heather didn’t say there was anyone there during the rest of the conversation?’
‘No, no, of course not.’ The old woman was only momentarily puzzled by this. Sensing a silence to be filled, she launched off again into her monologue. ‘No, we’ve known Brian Tressider since he was a boy. He went to a school near here which . . .’
Heather looked at Charles curiously as she put the pot down. He looked equally curiously back at her.
What she was thinking he couldn’t know. What he was thinking changed the whole premise of his investigation.
Mrs Routledge may have confirmed her daughter’s alibi for the time of the murder, but she had virtually destroyed Trevor’s. Heather had said the operator had been in her office at the relevant time, but surely he wouldn’t have stood there for half an hour listening to Heather’s minimal reactions to her mother maundering on.
So, if Trevor hadn’t been in her office, where had he been? And, more importantly, why had she said he was there?
What possible motive could Heather Routledge have for lying to protect Trevor?
Chapter Nine
CHARLES felt heavily ballasted with Jam Roly-Poly as he walked out of the canteen. Spending much time round Delmoleen, he realised, would have a devastating effect on his waistline (though, actually, these days it was more a general area than a precise line). Presumably, most of the people who used the canteen were manual workers who’d burn it all off pretty quickly; for actors the task might be more difficult.
Of course he didn’t have to eat so substantially. Among the bays of the food counter there had been a salad bar, but, though Charles enjoyed salad as a garnish to a meal, he’d never been able to think of it as a meal in itself. Though capable of going without food for long periods if necessary – as, for instance, during the innumerable technical runs of plays that his career had encompassed – if given the chance to eat, Charles Paris liked to have a proper meal. And for him a meal didn’t feel proper unless there was a slab of meat in the middle of it. Ideally, it should also have alcoholic accompaniment, though, if indulged at lunchtime, that did tend to make him a little dozy in the afternoon.
The Delmoleen canteen had deprived him of alcohol, but he doubted whether anything would have subdued his excitement that afternoon.
> The information he had gathered from Mrs Routledge represented a big breakthrough in the murder investigation. With Trevor’s alibi shot to pieces, the possible scenario which had led up to Dayna Richman’s death had altered radically. Putting on one side for a moment the reasons for Heather’s behaviour, Charles Paris now had to find out more about the forklift operator’s actions that fateful lunchtime.
And that meant paying another visit to the warehouse.
On his way across from the canteen, Charles met a very excited Will Parton. The excitement was in part due to the fact that the Delmoleen Executive dining room – unlike the canteen – did include alcohol amongst its privileges, but it had a second, more important, cause.
‘Got another job, Charles,’ the writer said gleefully.
‘Oh yes?’
‘Met Robin Pritchard in the Executive dining room.’
‘You know all the stars, don’t you?’
‘Anyway, Biscuits and Cereals are launching a new product – very exciting, going to be very big . . .’
‘With global outreach, no doubt?’
‘You said it, Charles. It’s going to be launched to the sales force at the sales conference in September, and he wants me to organise the presentation.’
‘Just you as a writer, or is this a Parton Parcel job?’
‘Parton Parcel. I mean, obviously I will write everything, but I get to direct it as well, if I want to – or bring in an outside director or . . . well, the possibilities are infinite.’
‘This going to be another video job?’
‘Could be. I’m having a meeting with Robin to sort out the nitty-gritty next week. At the moment we’re thinking about a live kind of revue format, possibly with a slide presentation backing it up . . . we might add a video element, though . . . details to be sorted out, as I say. But it’s a big, solid job – keep me busy for quite a while.’
‘So the play gets deferred yet again?’
