Wearing Purple (Oz Blackstone Mystery)

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘What are you doing about this guy Reilly in the States? Are you going to ask the Americans to interview him?’

  He screwed up his face and shook his head. ‘No chance, on what we’ve got. I tried that on my boss and he nearly blew me out of his office. Before we can ask the Philadelphia police to go anywhere near Reilly we have to show them good cause. The way things are at the moment there isn’t the semblance of a case against the man.

  ‘Your big pal might be dead certain about him, but until we’ve had a chance to talk to Mr O’Rourke in a room with walls that move about, there’s no way we can prove it. And maybe not even then; our boy Gary does not strike me as a soft touch.

  ‘When he was questioned about that shooting thing he was involved with a security outfit; the sort that provides bouncers for pubs that really need them. He was one of their top men.’

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Some guy in Garthamlock got himself kneecapped, for reasons unknown. No one ever suggested that O’Rourke did it, but he was fingered as having ordered it. However, when they nicked the guy who actually did it, he said he’d never heard of him.’

  I shrugged and got up from my captain’s chair. I had been working at the desk; on Jan’s side. I had decided that from now on, for ever more, that would be my work station.

  ‘Sod him, anyway,’ I muttered. ‘That’s yesterday’s business; and it was never my top priority. D’you get that stuff from Susie?’

  He nodded and opened his briefcase. ‘Has my pal from forensics been?’ he asked, as he took out a sheaf of A4 documents.

  ‘Has he just. I’ve only just finished cleaning the powder off the desk and the kitchen units. He lifted a few prints and I gave him mine for elimination - I want them destroyed, by the way, Mr Dylan, once this thing’s over - plus as many as he could get from Jan’s hairbrush.

  ‘Not having a full set of Jan’s prints is going to be a problem for him, if he finds one that looks odd.’

  Mike shook his head. ‘Not really, Oz. The prints will only come into play once we’ve caught someone, as part of the chain of evidence. One dab won’t point us at a suspect - that sort of thing doesn’t happen.’

  He dropped Susie’s photocopies on to the desk, and spread them out. As I had recalled, there were up to a hundred of them.

  ‘These,’ he said, ‘are the purchase ledgers for the health care division of The Gantry Group, stretching back ten years. They’re the files that Jan took away with her.’

  ‘What are these places anyway? Nursing homes?’

  Dylan frowned. ‘Not exactly, though I suppose most people would call them that. These aren’t the sort of places where you park your granny. Because of the nature of the care they provide, they’re actually classed as private hospitals. They look after geriatrics sure, but also people with pre-senile dementia and the terminally ill: they take in a lot of cancer patients.’

  I picked up one of the sheets. ‘Are there separate purchase records for each place?’

  ‘No. Susie says that because of the size and the nature of the business they’ve operated on a group basis for the last ten years. All their major purchasing is done centrally.’

  ‘I see.’ I looked at the sprawl of records on the desk. ‘Let’s split them. You take the first five years, I’ll take the second. You ready to enjoy your day off, Inspector?’

  He scowled at me. ‘Sure; digging for dirt in my girlfriend’s company . . . without a bloody clue where to start looking.’

  We sat down facing each other across the desk; he was on what had been my side, and I was in Jan’s place. Until I saw the truth of it before me, I had no idea how much was involved in running a chain of small private hospitals.

  There were stationery purchases, office equipment, office telephone costs, office furniture, office cleaning, office heat and light, newspapers and periodicals, hospital cleaning materials, bedding, towels, soap, miscellaneous sanitary items, hospital furnishings, hospital heat and light, hospital telephone costs, nurses’ uniforms, nurses’ footwear, pharmaceutical supplies listed by drug purchased, other medical supplies listed by quantity, ambulance costs, petrol costs, hospital indemnity insurance costs, hospital fabric insurance costs, staff recruitment costs, miscellaneous costs and sundry expenses. I’m sure there were others too, but that’s all my mind could cope with at the time.

  For hours we sat there, working as methodically as we could, taking each annual total and checking it against items listed under that heading during the year, making sure that everything added up, looking for anomalies. Everything did; there weren’t any.

  Occasionally, the phone would ring, but I left the answering service to pick up messages. Occasionally, one of us would go through to the kitchen for a coffee refill. But mostly we just worked away in silence, reconciling the records, proving to ourselves that while Mr Joseph Donn may have been inadequate as a Finance Director, the book-keeping staff he oversaw had at least been meticulous.

  It was well into the evening before Dylan finally cracked. ‘Oz, this is bloody useless,’ he moaned, leaning back in his chair. ‘Your wife was a chartered accountant, and a bloody good one there’s no doubt.You and I are a couple of number-blind idiots with calculators. Without a hint from Jan, which we haven’t got since her notes have vanished, we’re never going to crack this. And if we did we’d probably find that the office junior was into the tea-money, that’s all.’

  I knew that wasn’t true, since I could remember how excited Jan had been; but he was right in pointing out that without her guidance we were stumbling about in the dark.

  ‘Come on, Mike,’ I said. ‘We’re both knackered. Let’s take a break, go for a pint and a curry, and see if that gives us inspiration.’

  ‘You’re on for that,’ he replied rolling back the chair and standing up. ‘I’m going for a slash first though.’

  As he left the room I sagged down in my seat and let my head fall back, allowing my tiredness to close my eyes. I sat there, looking at gathering blackness as my mind cleared. Then, gradually, the picture in my imagination took on light and shade and colour and out of it, Jan’s face appeared. She was sitting where I sat now, and her head was turned sideways looking at me. Her laptop was switched on, and the screen was bright.

  ‘This is what I do,’ she said, ‘when I want to keep something important, so I can refer back without digging out my notes.’ She turned to the laptop. I watched her as she pulled down a list of menu items, and selected ‘Note Pad’, then began to type. I couldn’t see what she was writing, but I knew that didn’t matter.

  It was only when my eyes snapped open and I found myself staring at the ceiling that I realised I had been asleep for a few moments, and dreaming. I shook my head, trying to remember that scene, the moment when Jan had shown me that computer short-cut, but I couldn’t. I was certain . . . and I still am . . . that it had never happened in life.

  Nevertheless, I took the laptop out of its drawer and switched it on. Fortunately the battery was still on full charge. I felt a thrill of excitement as it booted up, as I pulled down the Menu Items and selected Note Pad.

  The first small page was a list of birthdays. Mine, Mary’s, Jan’s dad’s, my dad’s, Jan’s Uncle Bob’s, Jan’s Aunt Betty, Jan’s Aunt Mima, Noosh Turkel, Ellie, Jonathan, Colin. I hit the icon in the corner to move on.

  I shuddered as I looked at the page. For an instant I was frightened, very frightened, until in my mind’s eye, its waking eye this time, I saw Jan smiling. My fear vanished, replaced by a pure, adrenalin-pumping, rush of excitement.

  There was a note on the page. ‘Pharmaceutical supplies anomaly. Temazepam and diamorphine. First five years; second five years.’

  I was still staring at it when Dylan came back into the room. ‘Sorry I was so long,’ he said, casually. ‘I decided a Turkish Delight was called for. You ready to go, Oz? I could murder that curry now.’

  ‘Forget the curry, Mike,’ I murmured. ‘Look at this.’

  He did a
s I told him, peering at the screen over my shoulder. Dylan’s eyesight was slightly on the blink but he was too vain to wear glasses.

  ‘Oh my Christ,’ he gasped.

  ‘Never mind the detail for now,’ I said. ‘Let’s check the pharmaceutical totals for those years.’ Each yearly total ran to two pages. I scrambled among the pile of papers to find the twenty sheets for which I was looking.

  On the annualised purchase totals, pharmaceuticals showed as a single category. For the first five years of the period we had been scrutinising, the totals showed very modest annual variations, slightly up in three of the years, almost unchanged on one, and down in another. During the most recent five years, the figures were also consistent - but six times higher.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Mike,’ I muttered. ‘This is it. “Temazepam and diamorphine”, the note said. I know what Temazepam is, a sedative; but what sort of medication is diamorphine?’

  ‘On the street,’ he answered grimly, sounding far more serious than I’d ever heard him before, ‘you’d call it heroin.’

  ‘Let’s get into the detailed records,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s start with year five and year six for comparison. Tick off each of the purchases then see how many of each we have.’

  Dylan nodded and picked up the year five records; I went to work on the other.

  He was finished first. ‘What have you got?’ he asked, when I was through my check. ‘I’ve got four purchases of Temazepam and four of diamorphine.’

  ‘I’ve got twelve of each. Five years ago The Gantry Group health division started to buy these drugs on a monthly basis, rather than quarterly.’

  As we stared at each other, I could see desperation in Dylan’s eyes. ‘If this is what I think it is, what’s it going to do to Susie and Jack?’ His voice was almost a groan.

  ‘Don’t jump at this, Mike,’ I said, trying to reassure him. ‘Maybe the patient profile changed five years ago.’

  ‘It didn’t. Susie told me that the division has traded unaltered in size and sector for the last ten years.

  ‘We need to look at detailed purchase records, Oz. These drugs have been bought through pharmaceutical wholesalers. Someone signed the order forms; there’ll be copies in existence. Let’s go and see Susie. Right now.’

  ‘Mike, is that wise? This is her company we’re investigating, after all.’

  ‘We’ve been through this, Oz. She gave us these records, didn’t she? We can trust her.’

  ‘Believe it or not, mate, I wasn’t thinking about that; I was thinking about your job. This is freelance activity, remember.’

  ‘Stuff my job. Anyway, what we have isn’t conclusive. I can take it one step further at least.’

  I was unconvinced, but I nodded nonetheless. ‘Okay. We might as well crack this tonight if we can. Before we go, though, I’d better check the day’s phone messages. These days I have to remind myself that I still have a business to run.’

  I picked up the phone on my desk and dialled the retrieve code for the answer service. I was told that I had seven messages; I pulled my pad across and picked up a pen to note the details of each.

  The first five were from clients, but the sixth wasn’t for me at all: it was for Detective Inspector Dylan, from his friend in the Strathclyde Police scientific department.

  ‘Hello Mike,’ said the voice of the man I had met earlier. ‘I thought I should let you know about this right away. I lifted two odd prints, first two fingers, left hand, in the classic place, the underside of his desk, where I dusted. Then I found the same two prints on the underside of the kitchen work surface, just where the washing machine housing is.

  ‘They don’t belong to your pal, and from the size I knew they couldn’t have been his wife’s. So I ran a quick comparison check on them and I got an answer. It’s a bit naughty. We shouldn’t have these dabs, because the guy was never prosecuted, but you know how it is; sometimes we just forget to destroy them.

  ‘The bloke’s name’s O’Rourke. Gary O’Rourke.’

  Chapter 57

  I don’t know why, but I didn’t tell Dylan about the message; not then at least. I suppose I reckoned he had enough on his plate, and that if I overloaded his brain a few circuits might blow.

  All the way out to Susie’s I wrestled with it, trying to get my head round it, trying to imagine what motive Gary O’Rourke might have had for breaking into my flat that could be connected with the GWA business. Maybe he had rumbled me and wanted to find out a bit about me. After all, he hadn’t been in Barcelona. He’d been back home in Glasgow when Jan died.

  Maybe he hadn’t taken the papers. Maybe that was another burglar. Maybe they had passed each other in the hallway and said hello. Maybe another special forces trained explosives expert had booby-trapped my washing machine. Or maybe Gary had done it in the hope that I’d do my own washing when I got back from Spain.

  So many maybes, only one certainty: Gary O’Rourke had been in our flat, searching our desk, pulling our washing machine out of its housing.

  Dylan didn’t notice my silence as I drove the pair of us to Clarkston, because he was wrapped up in his own. I hoped that he was genuinely concerned about the effect of the business on his girlfriend, rather than beginning to fret after all about the impact on his own career if it blew up in our faces.

  It was just after eight when we arrived at Susie Gantry’s semi-detached house. Fortunately she was in; we ace detectives hadn’t thought to call to find that out before we left.

  There was none of her sparkly, nervy bonhomie as she opened the door. I guess the expressions on our faces must have ruled that out; that and the fact that she noticed Mike was carrying his briefcase.

  ‘Hello boys,’ she greeted us, as she showed us into her sitting room. ‘You look completely puggled. I take it you haven’t just dropped in for a drink.’

  ‘Not just that, love,’ said Dylan, ‘although I won’t say no. We’ve picked up the trail that Jan was on. We need your help to take it further.’

  ‘I’ll do anything I can. What do you want?’

  Mike was about to tell her, when I interrupted. ‘Before that, Susie,’ I asked her, ‘does the name Gary O’Rourke mean anything to you?’

  She stared at me, frowning, puzzled. ‘Of course it does. He used to work for the group, as our supplies manager. He’s my cousin.’

  Dylan’s head turned towards me as if it was on a swivel, then swung back to his girlfriend. ‘He’s what?’

  ‘My cousin. He’s my Auntie Norah’s son; she’s my father’s sister. I haven’t seen him in months though; not since he said he was fed up and went off to take a job with Everett Davis.’

  ‘Have you got a photograph of him?’ I asked her.

  ‘I should have.’ She crossed to a cabinet set against the wall and took out a thick album, then leafed through its pages. ‘There you are. That was taken at last year’s May Ball in the City Chambers.’ She held the volume up, pointing to a photograph. I recognised all three people in it at once. Susie was in the centre, flanked by the bulky figures of her father on her right, complete with chain, and a blond man, whom I had last seen only twenty-four hours earlier.

  ‘What made you ask that?’ she queried.

  ‘He’s the guy who took those papers from my flat.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she gasped.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true. One of Mike’s SOCO buddies lifted his prints from my desk.’

  Glancing at Dylan, I said, ‘Sorry mate, that was one of the messages on the message service tonight. I should have told you earlier, but I had to get my own head round it first.’

  I turned back to Susie. ‘Can I ask you something else as well? Is there any way he’d have been able to get hold of a key to the flat? You see, there couldn’t have been any sign of a breakin, otherwise Jan would have noticed it when she came in. If she had done, she wouldn’t have done the washing. She’d have called the police.’

  She frowned again, and chewed her lip. ‘Well,’ she began. ‘We
did have a bit of a problem with the woman who bought your flat first. We didn’t get full payment for a while, so we decided to keep a set of keys on the Q.T., just in case we needed to take drastic action. I thought they’d been handed over, though.’

  Her face was drawn and pale as she stood with her back to the fireplace, the album hanging limply in her hand. ‘Look, leaving Gary out of this for a minute, what is it you need?’

  ‘We need order forms for drugs,’ said Dylan. ‘How does the health care division order its pharmaceutical supplies, love? Do you know?’

  ‘Course I do,’ she snapped at him. ‘We have a fully qualified group pharmacist. Her signature has to be on all the purchase orders which we give to the wholesalers, and she has to countersign every delivery slip. She’s responsible for distributing drugs and other supplies to each of the hospitals. The Chief Nursing Officer in each place is responsible for their security after that.’

  ‘Do you file the copy order forms and delivery slips separately or are they in with all the purchase receipts?’

  ‘They’re kept separately. Joe Donn keeps them in his safe.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Dylan, ‘we need to get in there. Do you have keys?’

  Susie had recovered her temper, but not her complexion. She was still chalk-white. ‘Yes, I have keys to everything. Take me to the office and I’ll open it for you.’

  ‘Better if you take your car,’ I suggested. ‘We might have to go somewhere fairly quickly afterwards. We’ll follow you.’

  She looked puzzled, as, once again, did Dylan, but neither of them argued.

  The evening traffic had largely died away, and so the drive to the headquarters of The Gantry group didn’t take long - fortunately, for I still didn’t want to get into any discussion with Mike about Gary O’Rourke. I had never been to the office before, so I was surprised by the modesty of the building, compared to the size of the business which was controlled beneath its red-tiled roof. It was set behind a low wall, with head-high railings and a privet hedge behind, anonymous save for a painted, blue-on-white sign on the gateway reading simply, ‘Gantry’, and for a brass plate at the door, listing the companies which were registered there.