by David Beard
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Hec. I really wanted this weekend to be memorable.’
‘It bloody will be,’ he confirmed ironically.
‘Never mind, there are some things I can still do,’ she hinted provocatively.
‘I will be too tired with all I have to do,’ he grinned and they both giggled. ‘These things happen, darling. It could have been a lot worse.’
‘I will have to rest the damned thing. I reckon if I am careful, it will be all right by Tuesday.’
Things were not wholly satisfactory with the Smalacombes as they drove home. He was pleased that the rain had arrived but Freda knew he would use it as an excuse to stay at home and work.
‘Bloody weather,’ he pretended to be upset.
‘You know it isn’t and we are still going to the craft fair.’
CHAPTER 9
Tuesday began early and the pair sat in Smalacombe’s office. He was relaxed, leaning back in his chair with his feet crossed on the corner of his desk.
‘Inspector Tiley told me that, at moments like this you dish out the peppermints,’ Emily goaded.
Smalacombe opened a drawer, foraged around, found a tube of triple X’s and tossed it over to her.
‘They are old now. I was trying to give up smoking.’
‘And you succeeded.’
‘I did, but then I couldn’t stop eating those bloody things.’
‘They’re not addictive, Dexter.’
‘I know. I just couldn’t stop: it was a habit – no more. But, I got there in the end; those are the leftovers.’
Emily pressed out a mint with her thumb and popped into her mouth. ‘Wow, they’re hot,’ she exclaimed.
‘Giving up smoking isn’t easy and not without pain. Good weekend?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Weather didn’t help… Well, it did for me,’ he corrected himself.
‘I fell off my bloody bike. Hurt my ankle. I spent all day Sunday and Monday with my legs in the air.’
Smalacombe studied her closely; he raised his eyebrows, cocked his head slightly and gave a broad grin.
‘Oh come on, with an ice pack strapped to my ankle? It cooled things down.’
Smalacombe was pleased with himself. He had said nothing and the double entendre was identified by her. He felt that he had won that exchange and for the first time. Who is the naughty one now he thought? ‘I think we had better move on.’
‘Dexter, I have been thinking…,’
Surprise, surprise, he thought. ‘So have I. The super has been pressing me for an update on your progression.’
‘Oh! Good news or bad?’
‘There’s always a bit of both. I’ll begin with good.’
Emily was concerned but on the other hand she suspected this was another Smalacombe wind up. ‘Start with the bad.’
‘OK. I have explained this to Sheila. I think with your progress you will be in charge of us within a couple of years.’
‘Oh, that is bad news. No doubt it will be your turn to accuse me of verbal innuendo.’
‘As we have discussed before, I think it will be bloody verbal innuendo.’
‘Yes, and just think it will be in my remit to decide whether I should tell you to f off. Good news?’
‘Emily, I want to be serious for a moment. I have been well pleased with your start and I am confident I can rely on you to do a lot more independently.’
‘Well, thank you, Dexter. Good for my CV no doubt. You see, great minds do think alike. I was about to broach the business of doing something independently.’
‘You don’t want to work independently?’ Smalacombe said, testing her but knowing full well that she did.
‘On the contrary, of course I do,’ she said forcibly and then realised it was another Smalacombe inanity. ‘Look, to emphasise the point I will put it this way; of course I fucking do. Is that clearer?’
‘Without a doubt,’ he answered somewhat amused and bemused, as she always seemed to know the right ploy to counter him and when he was near to winning she would not only top it but make sure she shocked him as well. As he was thinking of her two brains, she was reflecting on the country boy.
He began to outline his plans for the days ahead. ‘I must get to Bristol today and talk to the A Gate Services’ staff. Should have been done days ago! What I want you to do is to begin on the Lynley side of things. We haven’t even thought of that yet; apart from her old man.’
‘With pleasure. I was going to make a similar suggestion for my input in this. I have traced the teaching colleague she had an affair with. He has been abroad on holiday but he returned this weekend so I wondered if that was a good place to start.’
‘August is a bloody rotten to time to get hold of anybody. No wonder we can’t make progress; they are all over the bloody world sunning themselves. So, you have found one of the few.’
‘Not a few, Dexter, dozens I reckon. I started yesterday going through her emails. Goodness, I could write a book…No wonder Samantha wanted to do it herself. There is one other thing; there are no emails with Crossworth recently; ins or outs, which tells me nothing. I decided they must have contacted each other by mobile. I have checked that out too, and texting but again, no contact recently. So the sooner we get Crossworth’s mobile up and running the better, as there may be photos and other clues.’
‘They are not sure his mobile is recoverable but they haven’t given up. Right, let’s get started then.’
‘Do you want your peppermints back?’
‘No, I bloody don’t. You can keep them.’
‘You’re so generous. Not a bribe is it?’ she smiled.
Smalacombe shook his head and grinned. ‘Milner has already explained to me that I am treading on thin ice in my relationship with you. That would just about mess it up completely wouldn’t it? Bribe for what? No, no, no! No reply please.’
They both stood feeling relaxed and ready to go. Emily moved first. Smalacombe couldn’t resist studying her as she walked to the door. He noticed she looked uncomfortable as she walked.
‘You OK?’
‘Still a bit awkward but I can drive now; my ankle is nearly back to normal. What a palaver!’ She was more relieved that the swelling had reduced considerably and she no longer needed her wide trouser bottoms to cover it.
‘You can take time off you know. For goodness sake, don’t carry on and damage it more.’
‘I’m pretty sure it is just a sprain. It hurts a bit but I am not really incapacitated and I don’t want to miss out on this case, Dexter. We have so much to do.’
‘Take care.’
*
During his Sunday investigations Smalacombe was surprised at the size and wealth of A Gate Services. He was even more surprised when he visited its office in a large, glass, high rise building in the centre of Bristol. The exterior may have looked impressive but the area occupied by A Gate Services was a small, modest, soulless place and on the tenth floor. The management had an inner sanctum but incongruously the furniture looked as if it had been bought from a charity shop. The reception area fronted a busy office with everyone pouring over a screen, some with two and others with three screens spread in front of them. However, the electronic hardware was impressive and so was the managing director, Manik Tagore.
‘I’m pleased to see you, Chief Inspector. I have been waiting for quite a while; it has taken you a long time.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Tagore,’ Smalacombe answered, relying on the receptionist’s pronunciation, ‘It is embarrassing that it has taken us so long. You are the MD?’
‘Yes, to clear up any confusion, Henry was the chairman; I am just the employee whose duty is to run things. It has not been easy to do so this last week.’
‘I can imagine, what with his computer being wiped.’
‘Nightmare and we had no idea for a while that Henry was gone, so we were in limbo.’
Smalacombe asked, ‘Can we address this computer incident first?’
‘The computer wipe is not the central issue. I don’t understand what that is about. What matters is that someone has been trying to destroy the business or at the very least, seriously cripple it, which the culprit has succeeded in doing,’ Tagore outlined his difficulties.
Smalacombe hadn’t picked up on Tagore’s inference and went back to the wipe incident, ‘It was a bit amateurish surely. He must have known there is software to recover files and that you had backups.’
‘On the contrary, it was a very proficient piece of nastiness. Leave aside the wiping bit, there is much more to it than that. Our policy was to back up once a month onto other systems. Serious error on our part and we now do it every day. It meant the current work was vulnerable. He knew that, so before he wiped Henry’s hard drive…’
‘Can I interrupt you? It was Mrs Crossworth who wiped the computer and on her husband’s instructions.’
‘That’s interesting, as I have intimated, I feel that is a side issue. If Henry organised it then it can’t be part of the real problem. Frankly, our difficulty is there are other things that are crippling us. Why would Henry want to do that?’
‘I was hoping you had the answer, Mr Tagore.’
‘I’m afraid not. We only fully understood what was going on a few days before he died. We discovered that someone was hacking into our system regularly. Phone numbers and addresses were altered, occasional but important figures were modified; a five replacing a three, say. All done in such a way that we didn’t notice until we began to use it. It has caused chaos and had we not been lucky enough to discover it, it could well have destroyed us beyond repair. Just adding a few noughts or deleting them is devastating. We were unable to contact people because the phone number was wrong. Horrendous!’
Smalacombe leant forward with his wrists resting on his thighs. ‘So, this was a professional job, designed to cost you a great deal of money at the very least.’
‘Millions. We have already fallen foul of trying to close two contracts with flawed data. One was bound for court until I explained what had happened. That could have destroyed our reputation as well.’
‘Are you saying it was an inside job? He knew your systems.’
‘No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. What is clear is that this guy has been hacking us for some time. He found his way around our security devices and began the disruption. This was a well planned piece of industrial espionage; not to pinch our ideas but to destroy us.’
‘Is it still going on?’
‘We are pretty sure it isn’t. Whether he is aware that we now know of it and are capable of correcting it, or whether it is because Henry has gone, I don’t know.’
‘I understand the press have got hold of it now.’
‘Yes, to be straight with you, I welcome that. It shows that the company has been targeted too.’
The conversation covering Tagore’s difficulties continued for some time in a formal manner, which suited the business man but not Smalacombe. Gradually it turned to other things that Smalacombe really wanted to hear. Smalacombe assessed him as a man of some substance, both intellectually and financially and with the remit to organise this complex outfit Crossworth must have respected him greatly.
‘What can you tell me of Rollisade and Son?’
‘Very unhappy people I’m afraid. There is huge potential there and they simply weren’t capable of exploiting it.’
‘So, you have sacked them; that is, Rollisade and his accountant, Whitecroft.’
‘Rollisade had to go. Mr Smalacombe, may I call you that?’
‘Of course.’
‘Whitecroft is a different matter: we haven’t sacked him.’
‘But he told me…’
‘He has had instructions. He is very able and he was very loyal to Henry. He was keeping a close eye on what was going on there; he is the brains but not the decision maker. We have offered him a senior post here, but that meant he had to leave Rollisade. Henry decided that the first part should be assumed as a sacking and the second part was to remain under the covers for a while until Rollisade left. Don’t ask me why!’
‘So, Henry had a plan.’
‘Henry always had a plan. Yes, he was up to something, but I don’t know what. I can’t explain why he would wish to wipe his own computer for instance. Look, I do what I’m told. Henry made all the decisions.’
‘You mean you had no influence?’
‘No, no. I had plenty of that. Indeed, I make sure in our reports that Henry had all the facts and yes, a good report always guides the reader to one conclusion. I make no apologies, I am no minion but the strategic decisions always came from him.’
‘What can you tell me about Stomely Holdings?’
‘Trouble there too.’
‘Why did Mr Crossworth go to Hong Kong recently to see Mr Lynley?’
‘Similar problem to Rollisade. Lynley has developed a fabulous system for cutting tables but he isn’t marketing it properly.’
‘Is he in danger of being cast aside?’
‘That was Henry’s wish, but no, because there are problems. Lynley has patented the central part of his development which complicates things. Henry had something else about Lynley that I couldn’t get to the bottom of.’
‘Henry was very close to his ex, and I mean very close: Heather Lynley, who was also murdered. Does that ring a bell?’
‘Oh of course, I have seen her around but I never made the connection. I was detailed to find a way of sidelining Lynley. It didn’t make sense, as I would have preferred to keep him in a top position, perhaps as our development engineer. To be honest, I haven’t found a solution and I’m not in a position to do so now.’
‘So, what was the gist of the meeting in the far east?’
‘Henry told me it was very prickly and they left with no agreement.’
‘You don’t know if the private problems were aired?’
‘No. I do know there are plenty of similar scenarios though.’
‘Was Henry a good employer?’
‘I don’t know of any disillusioned ex-employees who would wish him harm. Let me make it clear, he pays, I’m sorry, paid exceptionally well to people who can do their job. I certainly have no concerns.’
‘Yours is a big and responsible job, what are the rewards?’
‘Do you need to know that?’
‘We need to know everything that we can about Henry Crossworth, so yes, we do.’
‘Well, my take home pay with bonuses is recorded in seven digits. I think that is sufficient. What I can say is that it is not in the same league as Henry’s income.’
‘Thank you.’ Smalacombe handed Tagore a photograph, ‘What can you tell me about these two?’
‘Ah, Johnny and Jamie Addleson.’
Smalacombe was relieved. At last here was someone who knew them. ‘They work for the company?’
‘Yes, very able, very bright and they do the most difficult jobs of all.’
‘Sacking people!’
‘They reorganise companies when it is necessary. They have the sort of job that requires a very firm hand and thick skin. I don’t envy them on occasion; I often send them out to jobs I would have difficulty in doing myself.’
‘Maybe I should have a word with them?’
‘Of course, but they are on holiday at the moment. I will make arrangements with them as soon as they return.’
‘They visited Whitecroft on the Thursday before the murders.’
‘Don’t know. That arrangement must have come from Henry himself. I expect it was to do with the offer I have already mentioned.’
‘Do you know of the Woodland Hotel?’
Tagore shook his head and shrugged. ‘Don’t know. We don’t invest in single establishments. We do have money in hotel chains.’
‘Perhaps Woodlands is part of one.’
‘I will check it out and let you know. Is it somewhere Henry went regularly?’
‘Yes.’
‘In which case, we may well have a
n interest in it. Perhaps Henry had a private financial arrangement with them. It was not unknown.’
‘The proprietor has been to Ashton Gate bashes.’
‘Ah, then we must look into it.’
‘There is just one final area, Mr Tagore; what happens to the business now?’
‘All I can do is to keep it running, hopefully on an even keel if I can, with all the problems. I can’t undertake anything new. I am trying to sort out the computers. We have already had a number of enquiries about a take-over. I think we are past the worst. We do have a problem though.’
‘You don’t know of Henry’s will?’
‘Yes I do: that’s the problem. I couldn’t get Mrs Crossworth to the phone but when she did finally answer she uttered two words only: sell it. But there is another legatee and no one knows who she is. I didn’t know he had a daughter.’
‘Quite. Well, we’re working on that and we may have an answer later in the week. I understand; there is nothing you can do until that is cleared up. A routine question, Mr Tagore, where were you on the night of the murders?’
‘Here, in Bristol, with the family.’
‘Thank you for your time, I must go.’
‘Before you do let me say there has been much going on with Henry recently that I have not understood. I am working on it and if I do come to a conclusion I will let you know. He has had meetings with people I am not sure about.’
‘Not sure in the sense of their credibility or their purpose?’
‘Both. I don’t have names yet but I am talking with his secretary and there are things she doesn’t understand either.’
‘Would it be worth me having a word?’
‘I don’t think she possesses any details that I am not aware of. In any event, she is on annual leave at the moment.’
‘Speak to you soon.’
*
Emily Corndon walked carefully along a street in the older part of Tiverton; every step jarred her ankle and she began to wonder whether she should have taken medical advice. It would have been perfectly reasonable for her to take time off and maybe most people would have done so. Emily was aware of this dilemma but she was so wrapped up in the case she reasoned that any hindrance to her work would put greater pressure onto the team and Smalacombe. She decided to persevere and although it was not comfortable, the swelling had gone down and it was improving day by day.
