Death on Site

by Janet Neel

  ‘It will, won’t it? Well, we’ll just have to find the killer, be it him or someone else.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  McLeish waited for the fruits of this process to emerge.

  ‘Does it have to have been the same person had a go at Fraser in Scotland as killed him down here?’

  It was a sound question and McLeish sat down to brood about it. ‘Why would they be different, Bruce?’

  ‘Well, mebbe someone wanted different things – I mean, mebbe it was worth Mr Makin’s while to put young Fraser into hospital for a bit so he could get his girl away – there’s not much glamour in a bloke who is flat on his back with a leg up in plaster. So maybe Makin did the business in Scotland, and someone different actually killed him in London. We’ve been looking for a murderer who could have done both. Perhaps we should take these two separately?’

  McLeish nodded. ‘I have been looking at them separately to some extent – I just couldn’t get enough on the Scottish attack, even though I was there, so I have been thinking about London separately. But you’re right, I must watch that. It needn’t be the same person. Hamilton could have wanted to put Fraser out of action without killing him.’

  Both men considered this hypothesis, but it was McLeish who decided it was flawed. ‘Our man couldn’t have been sure he was just putting Fraser in hospital: he could just as easily have been killed falling off the Wall. Equally, he needn’t have been sixty feet up in London when he turned giddy.’

  ‘A bittie opportunistic, both times?’

  ‘Yes,’ McLeish agreed soberly. ‘Yes. The murderer couldn’t have been absolutely confident he’d kill him, but could reasonably have expected to do serious damage.’

  ‘Which points to Hamilton again, or Makin in Scotland?’

  ‘But not Makin in London. By then it would have been worth his while waiting to see if the K6 expedition was going to take Fraser.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Davidson agreed.

  ‘I can’t get away from the timing,’ McLeish said, after a period of contemplation. ‘Fraser gets knocked off just before he sees me. Someone thought he was going to tell me something.’

  ‘If you’d been able to talk to him, John, what would you have said to him?’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ John McLeish suddenly felt the full painful weight of grief and anxiety. ‘I’d have told him someone was laying for him, and have got him to think who it might be. He’d have been warned. We know he felt peculiar on that scaffold, and he would have known to be more careful, to come down immediately instead of just assuming the dizziness would go away.’

  ‘What would he have said to you?’

  ‘You mean would he have told me about Sally? Or about the fiddle he was in – if he was in it? I can’t see it, can you? But someone thought he would.’

  Bruce Davidson sighed, evidently feeling he had shot his bolt, but McLeish’s mind was working again. ‘He may have known who was involved in the lorry fiddle, even if he wasn’t himself. And that would have made it worth someone’s while to top him rather than have him talk to the police. The sooner we get to the bottom of that fiddle, the better.’

  ‘Well, Mr Makin’s doing that, isn’t he? And he won’t have been in the fiddle.’

  McLeish shook his head. ‘I’m not going to assume anything, Bruce. Makin’s an intelligent bloke, he could be covering his traces. We’d better put one of our blokes on, assuming you can find anyone left who can read and write. You may have to do it. Yes, Woolner?’

  ‘Sorry, sir, it’s your secretary.’

  Jenny had a message from Francesca; could he please ring her urgently. ‘She was very apologetic, John; says to tell you she must speak before lunch.’ Jenny was sounding disapproving but McLeish knew his girl and rang straight back.

  ‘Darling, Robert Vernon has just rung and said was I free for lunch tomorrow. My mind wasn’t on him because I was adding up numbers, so I said yes. I’m sorry; perhaps I shouldn’t be doing that?’

  ‘No, that’s all right. He knows about us,’ McLeish said, reluctantly. ‘Just try not to talk about the case, all right? I don’t want the evidence to come unstuck when we get whoever it was.’

  ‘Are you getting anywhere?’

  ‘Not really, but I don’t feel any worse about Robert Vernon than anyone else.’

  ‘You haven’t got anywhere, in short.’

  ‘Go away, Frannie.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, just an observation. I’m sure it’s all going better than that.’

  He put the phone down, grinning to himself reluctantly, and told Bruce Davidson the latest.

  ‘Is he going to tell Francesca something he’d rather not tell us?’

  ‘Possibly, blast him.’

  Back in the Georgian house in the West End, Robert Vernon was sitting beside his daughter’s bed, visibly fussing. ‘What are you going to do now, Sal?’

  ‘Do you mean am I still going to have the baby?’

  ‘I suppose I do,’ her father conceded reluctantly, looking so utterly dispirited and suddenly so old that she was appalled.

  ‘Dad, I don’t know what I want to do. I’ve been thinking, though. Alan wouldn’t ever have married me, would he? I mean, even if he hadn’t died.’ Tears spilled out of her eyes and she wiped her face unceremoniously on the bedspread. Her father reached out awkwardly and gathered her into his arms.

  ‘I don’t think so, no Sal.’

  She looked at him sharply, puzzled by his uncharacteristic hesistancy, but he avoided her eyes. She was about to question him further when her mother came in, holding herself very erect with her head up, and father and daughter wordlessly braced themselves, recognizing the symptoms.

  ‘That was Nigel on the telephone. He’d like to see you for a few minutes, Sal. You ought to see him.’

  ‘I know I ought to,’ Sally agreed, ‘but I’m not going to yet, Mum, I’ll see him tomorrow.’

  The two women looked at each other across Robert Vernon, who found himself feeling uncomfortable in a way he hadn’t for years.

  ‘I want to think it out, Mum, and I don’t want to see Nigel until then.’

  Dorothy Vernon considered her daughter. ‘But you will see him tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, I promise, and you can tell him so.’

  Robert Vernon, with a strong feeling that he had put his foot on a step that wasn’t there, opened his mouth to speak and closed it again.

  ‘Bill rang too, by the way, asking how you were.’

  ‘That was nice of him,’ Sally sounded surprised. ‘He warned me about Alan, told me he had another girl.’

  Robert Vernon blinked. ‘That’s more than he told me.’

  ‘He may not have thought it was your business, Robert.’ Dorothy Vernon sounded uncharacteristically snappy. ‘He’s on the Underpass site for another couple of days, he tells me?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s being very good about finishing up – he’s told me he wants to go up and look at a farm at the end of next week, and I don’t think we’ll get much useful work out of him after that. But he’s doing well.’

  Robert Vernon was obviously pleased and Dorothy relaxed a little. ‘Anyway, Sally, he said to tell you he was there if he was wanted. You rest now for a bit and maybe you’ll get up for supper?’

  On the Western Underpass site, Bill Vernon was struggling with last week’s paperwork. He lifted his head and looked out of the window, scowling at the back of a dumper truck which filled the immediate horizon. He blinked a moment later as Mickey Hamilton appeared at the window.

  ‘Hello, Bill, I’ve come to get my pay. I’ve got the place, I’m going to K6.’

  ‘Oh, well done, Mick. You want a drink on it? I’m not making any progress.’

  ‘Thanks Bill. I’ll just get my envelope.’

  He appeared a few minutes later and the two men left the site together, turning automatically into the Duke of York.

  ‘Champagne, Mick?’

  ‘They’ll not have it here, will you, Deir
dre?’

  The black-haired girl smiled at them demurely and asked whether non-vintage Dom Perignon would do because that was what they had cold, and both men laughed, appreciating her moment of triumph.

  ‘So that’s it then, Mick?’ Bill Vernon said, watching appreciatively as Deirdre expertly flipped off the cork and caught the first drops in a glass. He waited till she had filled both glasses and raised one to Mickey. ‘To K6.’

  ‘To K6,’ Mickey repeated and drank a large mouthful. ‘Christ, it feels good.’

  He looked a size larger and five years younger than usual, Bill observed, the tense lines in his face relaxed.

  ‘Damn.’ He put the glass down and winced, then laughed. ‘My shoulder still twinges but it doesn’t matter; it’ll get right by the time we do any serious climbing.’

  ‘When do you go?’

  ‘With the rest, in two weeks.’ He took a swig of the champagne, and poured himself another glass without asking, then blinked as he realized what he had done. ‘Sorry, Bill, could have waited. I suppose I’m just a little worried about whether I’ll be let go on time, with this investigation going on. Christ, I’d forgotten about Alan for a minute.’ The lines in the face were suddenly back in place, Bill observed, fascinated. ‘He’d not have grudged me, though.’

  ‘Why don’t you just go now?’ Bill Vernon refilled both glasses. ‘I mean, no one’s going to bother to bring you back.’

  Mickey Hamilton looked at him over the top of his glass. ‘That’s a thought, isn’t it? No point hanging round here – I couldn’t bear to go back on the tools after what happened. I could be away, get some training in.’ He looked past Bill, out of the window, seeing a vision. ‘Save a lot of trouble too, that could,’ he said, and looked sharply down at his glass. ‘I’ll think about that, I’d like to be out of all this – I mean, what with Alan gone,’ he ended, bleakly.

  ‘That must have been awful for you,’ Bill said, quietly.

  ‘He was a good mate.’ Mickey sounded desolate, and gulped down the rest of his glass. ‘He was a better climber than I am, too,’ he said, to his empty glass, ‘and if he’d been here he’d have got the place, God rest him.’ His voice roughened on this epitaph and Bill waited, not wanting to speak into that silence.

  Mickey drew a breath from his boots and looked up. ‘Thanks for the drink, Bill. I appreciated that, and I’ll think about going now. You off now?’

  ‘No, I’m going back on site for a bit. I’ve got nothing done all day. I’ve had Nigel Makin buzzing round me like a wasp all day, looking at the books for the last two months.’

  Mickey’s hand tightened on his glass. ‘Oops, sorry Deirdre, clumsy. I’ll pay for it.’

  ‘Away with you – what’s the odd broken glass between friends?’ Deirdre had materialized from down the bar and was dealing competently with the damage.

  ‘What’s he looking for?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘Oh, he’s decided after all to try and find out why the steel deliveries were short. He thinks they went adrift to somewhere else, probably with people off the site here. Same as at the Barbican, he thinks.’

  ‘Can he prove it?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. But you know our Nigel – he’ll keep on, won’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hamilton agreed, on a long indrawn breath. ‘Yes, he will.’ He looked past Bill, seeing his vision again. ‘Thanks for the drink, Bill.’

  He shook hands and went, finding his way easily through the crowded bar, going fast without seeming to hurry.

  Across London, John McLeish was sorting papers and rereading the statements in the case. His secretary, coat on and shopping bag in hand in a definite statement that she was going home and would not be willing to engage in any further duties whatsoever that night, placed in front of him a copy of the statement which Nigel Makin had made that morning. McLeish methodically read it through, noting the neat signature at the bottom of every page. You could depend on Davidson to get his paperwork right. He read it twice, and sat back, allowing himself the luxury of trusting his instinct. Somewhere in that statement lay the possibility of progress, but it wasn’t obvious where.

  He sat quietly in the silence of his room, letting himself drift, then pulled himself awake with a start and decided he needed a meal. Francesca, he remembered, was out, so he decided he would go down, eat near the site, and see if inspiration would visit him. He thought about Nigel Makin again, and on impulse rang the site number.

  ‘Yes, I’m glad you rang. I’m here for a bit if you want to come down,’ Makin said. He raised his voice: ‘No, I’ll lock up, Fred. Sorry, just telling the nightwatchman. I’ll tell you something very odd: I’m working here on copies of the wages print-out for the Barbican for February and this site for the last six weeks and … I spilt my coffee – I’m tired, I suppose. So I tapped into the computer for another copy. They aren’t there – I mean they’ve gone, kaput, destroyed. Head Office is going spare, wants to take my copies away from me, coffee and all.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ The monosyllable admitted of no doubt.

  ‘That’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Mr Makin, are there other people around where you are?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Nigel Makin said, with something like reverence. ‘I’d never have believed this. I’m going to get off site and make a couple of copies – I’ll go up to Criterion Place; they’ve always got a secretary on.’

  ‘Why don’t you meet me at Edgware Road police station – they’ve got photo-copiers.’

  ‘I still don’t know what I’ve found,’ Makin objected.

  ‘Maybe we can both look for it?’

  ‘Two heads probably are going to be better than one,’ Makin agreed, still sounding incredulous, ‘I’ll do that. Give me ten minutes.’

  ‘It’ll take me twenty to get there myself, but you go there now. I’ll telephone them to expect you.’

  15

  In the event it took McLeish thirty-five minutes to get to Edgware Road, the traffic being heavy in the pouring rain.

  ‘You got my customer? Mr Makin?’ McLeish asked the desk sergeant, showing his warrant card and peremptorily ignoring the demands of a large West Indian lady who was working herself up to have a shouting match.

  ‘No, sir, no one’s came,’ the sergeant replied ungrammatically, grateful for the diversion.

  ‘You’re sure?’ McLeish demanded, so urgently that the fuming West Indian lady shut her mouth on whatever protest had been about to emerge.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  McLeish looked at him carefully. The man was unfamiliar but was a type he had worked with before – a careful deliberate bloke not given to mistakes.

  ‘Then where is he?’ he asked rhetorically, realizing he was rattled.

  ‘Where was he coming from, sir?’

  ‘The Western Underpass site. He left half an hour ago.’

  ‘Should be here, then.’

  The two policemen looked at each other.

  ‘I’ll go and look. If he turns up here, you hold on to him, sergeant!’ McLeish nodded to the West Indian lady and, mindful of relations with the public, apologized for interrupting; he was taken distinctly aback when she beamed back at him, a huge smile revealing far too many, far too white teeth for her substantial jaw. He ran for his car, the rain so heavy that he was perceptibly wet by the time he had covered the fifty yards separating it from the steps.

  He switched on the engine and sat for a few seconds, thinking about his route. He had, of course, no idea what car Nigel Makin was driving; he’d just have to come back again if he couldn’t find him. The traffic was still heavy and it took him a good ten minutes to get to the caravan site which bordered the underpass site; as he moved slowly forwards in a queue of cars he glanced sideways to see Mickey Hamilton, carrying a huge rucksack and moving purposefully into the caravan site. Not unreasonable, McLeish thought a minute later; chap had to live somewh
ere, and the caravan was still there and doubtless now stripped of all traces of Fraser’s occupancy.

  He swung his car as close to the wire fence as he could get it, crawled out over the passenger seat and spent a damp five minutes attracting the attention of the night-watchman. He stood, itching with impatience, as the figure moved slowly towards him, noticing that this one was well within the proud tradition of nightwatchmen everywhere, being oldish, bowed by a serious chest complaint and limping heavily on a gammy leg. Not for the first time he wondered why major industrial concerns habitually entrusted the security of their undertakings during the hours of darkness to men who would be handicapped in a fight with a ten-year- old girl.

  He shared something of this thought with the bundled-up wheezing figure who admitted him to the site as they trekked unhopefully towards the darkened Section I offices.

  ‘When I’m on me own, I only have to press the button, guv.’

  McLeish considered the top of the venerable grey head with exasperation.

  ‘Where’s the button then, uncle?’

  ‘Well, in the offices, isn’t it?’ The man sounded world-weary, but the thought penetrated, and he stopped to consider it.

  ‘Never mind, uncle,’ McLeish urged him on; ‘just you stay close to that button. Now, when did you last see Mr Makin?’

  ‘’Bout twenty minutes ago. ’E said for me to go on with my rounds, ’e’d be finished soon, then ’e’d be off.’

  ‘Did you see him go? Did you close the gate?’

  ‘No, ’e told me not to bother, it was a lovely night, and he had a key. ’E forgot though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When I let you in, the gate wasn’t locked, it was just closed.’

  McLeish, who had not even tried the gate, assuming that it was locked, swore inwardly.

  ‘I’ll come into the offices anyway, and use the phone.’

  He stood aside while the older man wheezed his way up the three wooden steps into the Portakabin. He followed him and stopped, the hair at the back of his head prickling. ‘Come back, uncle. Come behind me!’ He reached for the light switch, illuminating a bare corridor and six closed doors. The seventh stood open, and McLeish was by it before his companion had adapted his eyes to the light. He pushed the door inwards with his right shoulder, reaching for the light switch with his left hand. ‘Jee-sus!’ He jerked his left foot back from something and stared down at the still body of a man, lying face down, one arm crumpled under him and the other flung out at his side, almost underneath McLeish’s foot.