The Vital Chain

by Sally Spencer

  ****

  I met Oxford’s prettiest private eye in a pub called the Head of the River, at seven o’clock that same evening. The place was packed, as usual, with a combination of students, tourists and locals, but after I’d bought the drinks we managed to grab a corner table.

  ‘Did you find time to make those phone calls for me?’ I asked.

  Marie took a deep drag on her cigarette. ‘Yes, I did. A couple of them, anyway.’

  There was a strange note to her voice that I didn’t quite like.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘No – nothing much, anyway.’ Marie stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray, and immediately took a fresh one out of the packet. ‘It’s just that I’m not happy conducting this investigation by phone.’

  I chuckled. ‘I’d scarcely go so far as to call it an “investigation”. It’s just a few inquiries.’

  Marie did not seem to share my amusement. ‘I’d like to go to Wales for a couple of days and see some of these people. Will you pay my expenses?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘But is that really necessary? Hugh Morgan’s gone to all the trouble of providing you with the telephone numbers. Shouldn’t that be enough for you?’

  ‘I’d feel a lot happier if I could talk to some of these people face-to-face,’ Marie said stubbornly.

  ‘I don’t see what they could tell you in person that they couldn’t say over the phone.’

  Marie’s lips curled, and I knew she was about to do her hard-boiled PI impersonation.

  ‘Listen, Buster,’ she said, ‘you don’t tell me how to be private dick, and I won’t tell you how to sell books.’

  I laughed, and this time she joined in.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘If it’s a paid holiday in sunny Wales you want, it’s a paid holiday in sunny Wales you’ll get.’

  ‘You won’t regret it,’ Marie said enigmatically.

  ****

  She drove up to Wales on Tuesday morning, and though I tried to ring her several times that day – and several times and Wednesday and Thursday – she wasn’t picking up.

  By Friday I was really starting to miss her. And yet that was only four days, I reminded myself. What would it be like if I didn’t see or hear from her for a month?

  Or a year?

  Or ever again?

  The prospect was too awful to contemplate.

  She called me just after I’d arrived at my office the following Monday morning.

  ‘When did you get back?’ I asked.

  ‘Last night.’

  And she hadn’t even called me!

  ‘I’ve been trying to contact you all week,’ I said, trying not to sound too aggrieved.

  ‘I switch my phone off when I’m working,’ she said without a hint of an apology. ‘Can you make some time for me this morning?’

  ‘Is it important?’ I asked, suddenly for some insane reason of my own playing hard to get.

  ‘Yes, I think you might consider it important,’ she said in measured tones. ‘I’ve certainly found out some things I think you ought to know.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I never divulge the result of my investigations over the phone.’

  I glanced down at my appointments’ book.

  ‘I can fit you in at eleven,’ I said.

  ‘Good enough,’ she agreed.

  ****

  When Marie arrived at my office, she was wearing a business suit which somehow managed to combine efficiency and aggression, and her normally wild hair was held in place by clips. In fact, she didn’t look like my Marie at all.

  ‘You’ll get my written report tomorrow, Mr Conroy,’ she said, ‘but I thought you’d appreciate a verbal one now.’

  ‘Mr Conroy?’ I repeated. ‘You haven’t called me Mr Conroy since that night outside St John’s College.’

  ‘You’ve never been my client before,’ she said briskly. ‘Listen Rob, tonight we can go back to normal, but at the moment you’re the one who’s paying the bill. And,’ she added with a smile which showed me just a flash of the Marie I knew, ‘it is quite a bill I’ll be putting in.’

  I sighed theatrically. ‘Okay, let’s have your report, Miss O’Hara.’

  ‘By the time I’d finished ringing up the first few of the numbers you gave me, I wasn’t quite happy,’ Marie said. ‘Oh, on the surface, the people sounded plausible enough, but something – an investigator’s instinct if you like – told me they weren’t quite kosher. That’s why I had to go Wales and see for myself.’

  ‘And what did you find out?’

  Marie took her notebook out of her pocket. ‘When I spoke to Mr Clifford Davies at West Wales Plastics over the phone, he told me he had a factory which employed a 150 workers.’

  ‘And he doesn’t?’

  ‘No such factory was listed in the directory of companies, and when I got to Swansea, I found out why. West Wales Plastics’ sole asset is a crummy one-roomed office which it shares with a firm selling novelty sex goods and another which deals in practical jokes. The sole proprietor and employee of these three companies is Mr Clifford Davies. There’s a whole list of similar shady operators on Hugh Morgan’s list. I can tell you about all of them now, if you want me to – or you can wait for my written report.’

  ‘I’ll wait for your written report,’ I said. ‘What else did you find out?’

  ‘After I’d discovered that Mr Morgan’s character witnesses weren’t totally reliable, I took a closer look at Mr Morgan himself. When you met him, how did he strike you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Honest. Reliable.’

  ‘He’s a con-man, and he really did the business on you,’ Marie said cuttingly. ‘He’s gone bankrupt at least three times, and each time he seems to have done much better out of the disaster than his partners did. If he’s been losing drivers, it’s only because he pays the lowest union rate – and even less than that if he thinks he can get away with it. And that’s only the start. The police can’t prove it, but they strongly suspect he’s been moving stolen goods—’

  ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘You don’t want to know. They also suspect that he’s arranged to have other companies’ lorries stolen, then cannibalised them for the parts which will keep his own fleet on the road. As to the fire, it’s a pretty good bet that he started it himself – he was certainly over-insured.’

  ‘So why did he come to me?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but if I had to make a guess I’d say he probably wanted to stay in the business a little longer so he could continuing milking his partners right up to the point at which the official receiver was called in,’ Marie said. ‘He must have known it was a long shot that you could persuade your uncle to change his mind—’

  ‘He never wanted me to go my uncle,’ I said, suddenly realising just how much Morgan had manipulated me. ‘It’s true he asked me to talk to Tony, but it was my grandfather who he’d targeted all along. If I’d been able to convince the old man that his son had been up to dirty tricks in order to get what he wanted, Grandfather would have called the whole deal off.’

  ‘There you are then,’ Marie said. ‘He can’t have been sure he’d even have the slightest chance until he actually met you, but once he had, his hopes must have risen considerably, because he knew a mug when he saw one.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ I said

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ replied Marie, the emotionless private investigator. ‘Morgan’s a professional, which means that you were way out of your depth. He took you in completely, and if you’d talked to the man at West Wales Plastics, why wouldn’t he have done the same?'

  I had to admit she was right.

  ‘You’ve done a good job,’ I told her.

  ‘Then why are you looking so down in the mouth?’

  Why?

  Because my one chance of thwarting Uncle Tony’s plans had just gone out of the window.

  Because now I knew that the take-over of Western Haulag
e would be good for its investors, there was simply nothing more that I could do to stop the deal going through.

  ****

  Owen Flint and I had reached the front door of the house which was now mine, but in which I had no intention of ever living.

  I checked my watch. ‘The taxi should be here in a couple of minutes,’ I said. ‘I need to go inside and pick up my bag.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be carrying it yourself – not in your condition,’ Owen said. ‘Tell me where it is and I’ll bring it down for you.’

  We entered the house. Four of us had lived here once, and three of them – three gentle human beings – were gone forever whilst I, the least worthy of the quartet, remained. It took a huge effort on my part not to scream until my lungs collapsed.

  ‘The suitcase?’ Owen said.

  ‘It’s upstairs – second bedroom on the left.’

  ‘Right-ho,’ Owen said. ‘I won’t be a tick.’ He put his foot on the first stair, then turned around. ‘You told me you’d met Hugh Morgan twice, didn’t you? When was the second time?’

  ‘When the five of us went down to Bristol to sign the contract with Western Haulage,’ I told him.

  ****

  The two hire cars – the Jag and the BMW – were waiting for us at Bristol Airport. It came as no surprise to anyone when Tony announced that he had earmarked the Jaguar for himself, nor when he added that Bill would ride with him and the rest of us could follow in the BMW. The writing had already been on the wall before that but Uncle Tony, being the man he was, just couldn’t resist the temptation to heavily underline it.

  We drove straight from the airport to the headquarters of Western Haulage, which was located in Patchway. It was a single-storeyed brick building that wouldn’t have impressed anyone, but from the number of lorries parked around it, it was clear that the company had the capacity to handle a lot of business even if it wasn’t doing so at the moment.

  We were met at the door by our lawyer and led into what passed for a boardroom. There were five men already sitting around the table – Hugh Morgan and his four partners.

  Morgan seemed a very different man to the one who had visited me in my office in Oxford a few weeks earlier. The suit he was wearing was much sharper. His movements were more self-assured. The hands, which had looked so huge when he was playing the role of an honest working man, had now shrunk to normal size.

  But most of all, it was the eyes that I noticed. The frankness and lack of guile which filled them in Oxford had been replaced by the cunning look of a man who could go bankrupt three times, and still find people willing to invest in him.

  The four partners were a complete contrast. All of them wore expressions which hovered somewhere between apprehension and relief. I guessed – and I suspect I was right – that they had each invested their life savings in a business which Morgan had convinced them would make their fortunes – and that now they were pleased to get out of with rather less than they had put in.

  The deal had been concluded by complex negotiations beforehand, and the signing was just a formality. The papers were passed around the table and I signed after my father, thinking as I did so that, that as long as Uncle Tony had Grandfather’s permission to use the voting stock as he wished, my signature – and those of all the other directors – was about as much use as a rubber sword.

  The signing over, Morgan stood up and walked over to the drinks cabinet. ‘What’ll you all have?’ he asked, as he made the smooth transition from hard-headed businessman into jovial host.

  One of his partners – one rather, of his now ex-partners – rose from his seat. ‘Err … if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll pass on the drinks,’ he said. ‘I’ve got things to do.’

  The other partners made similar excuses, but what they really meant was that they wanted Morgan out of their lives – and daren’t risk being near him any longer than was absolutely necessary in case he took the opportunity to con them into putting what capital they’d managed to salvage into something else.

  Uncle Tony had no such scruples. This was his crowning moment and he really didn’t care who he shared it with.

  We stayed there drinking for around half an hour, with Uncle Tony and Hugh Morgan doing most of the talking and my side of the family just feeling awkward.

  Finally, Uncle Tony slapped Morgan on the back and said that much as he would like to stay longer, we had important business meetings the next day, as he, Hugh – ‘ho! ho!’ – could well appreciate.

  Morgan replied that yes – ‘ho! ho!’ – he imagined we had.

  It was as we were moving towards the door that Morgan, still jovial, put a restraining hand on my shoulder. ‘Could we have a word in private, Mr Conroy?’ he asked.

  ‘Why not?’ I replied.

  Why not indeed? I had nothing to fear from this man. And if our private conversation unsettled Uncle Tony even for a second, well, so much the better.

  Morgan led me into his office – which was little more than a cupboard – next to the boardroom.

  ‘Like it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not what I would have chosen for myself,’ I said.

  Morgan grinned. ‘I know you wouldn’t. I’ve been to your office in Oxford, don’t forget. But this is what the punters like to see. They’re not going to invest their money in a company where the boss lavishes money on himself, now are they? They think if you work in an office that even a rat would turn its nose up at, you must be looking after their cash. That’s the thing about punters.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘They’re stupid. And every night, while I’m driving my old banger back out to my big house in country – which has two Mercs parked in the garage – I laugh myself silly about them.’

  ‘What exactly was it that you want to talk to me about, Mr Morgan?’ I asked coolly.

  ‘Hugh,’ Morgan said. ‘Please call me Hugh.’

  ‘What exactly was it that you want to talk to me about, Hugh ?’

  ‘I’m just curious,’ Morgan admitted. ‘I thought I did a pretty good job on you when I came down to Oxford.’

  ‘A brilliant job,’ I confessed.

  ‘So the fact that you didn’t talk to your uncle—’

  ‘My grandfather, you mean,’ I interrupted.

  Morgan grinned again. ‘Yeah, that’s right, your grandfather,’ he conceded. ‘Charlie Conroy – one of the old school, upright and honest, with his hands firmly on the purse strings.’

  ‘You’ve done your research,’ I said.

  ‘In my line of business, you have to do your research,’ Morgan told me. ‘It’s the only real working capital you’ve got. Anyway, as I was saying, when I left you that day, I had you marked out as a bloke who’d do just what I wanted him to do. So where did I go wrong? How did I manage to misread the signs?’

  ‘I didn’t call those numbers you gave me myself,’ I said.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I hired a private detective.’

  Morgan shook his head as if, once I’d said it, the answer was obvious.

  ‘And he saw right through the little network I’d set up to con you,’ he mused.

  ‘She,’ I corrected him. ‘But yes, that’s right. She did.’

  ‘That was smart,’ Morgan said. ‘Smarter than I’d ever have given you credit for.’

  But it wasn’t really. If I hadn’t known Marie, and wanted to put work her way, I’d have fallen into the trap – just as he’d intended I should.

  Now he’d learned what he wanted to know, Morgan dropped all pretence. The eyes, which had been genial before, turned to ice. The jaw, which had suggested bonhomie, jutted aggressively forward.

  ‘You could have bought me another six months, Mr Conroy,’ he said. ‘I could have done a lot with another six months.’

  ‘You mean that you could have stolen more of your partners’ money?’ I said.

  ‘I mean that I could have transferred more assets,’ Morgan replied. He raised his right arm and poin
ted his index finger at my chest. ‘By being too clever, you’ve cost me money. I don’t forget things like that easily.’

  ‘You’re about the lowest form of life there is,’ I told him. ‘I don’t care whether you forget or not.’

  ‘Oh, but you will,’ he said, starting to show signs of anger. ‘You definitely will – because I’ll find a way to pay you back. It might be tomorrow, or it might take years, but I’ll find a way.’

  ****

  The taxi which was to take me to Warrington had arrived, and my case was already sitting in the boot.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this conversation you had with Morgan before?’ demanded Owen Flint, who was holding the back door of the cab open for me.

  I bent over to climb into the back seat, and felt a pain shoot through my bruised ribs.

  ‘I didn’t think it was worth mentioning,’ I said.

  Owen sighed. ‘A man makes a direct threat against you, and a few hours later someone sabotages the brakes of the car you’ll be riding in the next day – and you don’t think that’s worth mentioning?

  I eased my body onto the seat. ‘When Morgan said he’d find a way to pay me back, he wasn’t talking about physical violence,’ I told Owen. ‘He’s a con man, not a thug.’

  ‘That’s your opinion of him, is it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s my opinion of him.’

  ‘You read him completely wrong once, didn’t you?’ Owen asked.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘So how do you know that you didn’t make the same mistake a second time?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  I called Marie several times on the train journey down to Oxford, twice in the taxi from the railway station to my flat, and once before and once after the pre-cooked meal which I heated up in the oven, and then left largely uneaten. Each time, I got a recorded message telling me to speak after the beep.

  It was the same story the following next morning – I rang from my office, and a voice with a gentle Irish lilt to it said, ‘I’m not available at the moment, but if you’ll leave my number, I’ll call you back .’

  Except that she hadn’t!

  It seemed an eternity since the crash in that Welsh country lane, and I hadn’t spoken to her once.