gross of gallon drums of KerrSter that we can’t account for sitting in the loading bay. Come and see for yourself if you don’t believe me,” he added in an aggrieved tone.
“Let’s do just that,” Kerr said, heaving himself to his feet.
Come on, Miss Brannigan. Come and see how the workers earn a living.“
I followed Kerr out of the room, Unsworth hung back, holding the door open and falling in beside me as we strode down the covered walkway that linked the administration offices to the factory. “It’s a real mystery,” he offered.
I had my own ideas about what was going on, but for the time being, I decided to keep them to myself. “The drams that have been returned,” I said, “are they all sealed, or have some of them already been opened?”
“Some of them have been started on,” he said. “The batch went out into the warehouse the Tuesday before last. They’ll probably have started taking it out on that Thursday or Friday, going by our normal stockpile levels, so there’s been plenty time for people to use them.”
“And no one else has reported any adverse effect?”
Unsworth looked uncomfortable. “Not as such,” he said.
Kerr half turned to catch my reply. “But?” I asked.
Unsworth glanced at Kerr, who nodded impatiently. “Well, a couple of the wholesalers and one or two of the reps had already had containers from that batch returned,” Unsworth admitted.
“Do you know why that was?” I asked.
“Customers complained the goods weren’t up to our usual standard,” he said grudgingly.
“What sort of complaints?” Kerr demanded indignantly. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“It’s only just come to light, Mr. Kerr. They said the KerrSter wasn’t right. One of them claimed it had stripped the finish off the flooring in his office toilets.”
Kerr snorted. “He should tell his bloody workforce to stick with Boddingtons. They’ll have been pissing that foreign lager all over the bloody tiles.”
“Have you had the chance to analyze any of the containers that have come back?” I butted in.
Unsworth nodded. “The lads in the lab worked through the night on samples from some of the drums. There wasn’t a trace of cyanide in any of them.”
Kerr shouldered open a pair of double doors. As I caught one on the backswing, the smell hit me. It was a curious amalgam of pine, lemon and soapsuds, but pervaded throughout with sharp chemical smells that bit my nose and throat. It was a bit like driving past the chemical works at Ellesmere Port with one of those ersatz air fresheners in the car. The ones that make you feel that a rotting polecat under the driver’s seat would be preferable. Bight after the smell came the noise of machinery, overlaid with the bubbling and gurgling of liquid. Kerr climbed a flight of narrow iron stairs and I followed him along a high-level walkway that traveled the length of the factory floor. It was unpleasantly humid. I felt like a damp wash that’s just been dumped in the tumble dryer.
Beneath us, vats seethed, nozzles squirted liquid into plastic containers and surprisingly few people moved around. “Not many bodies,” I said loudly over my shoulder to Unsworth.
“Computer controlled,” he said succinctly.
Another avenue to pursue. If the sabotage was internal, perhaps the culprit was simply sending the wrong instructions to the plant. I’d thought this was going to be a straightforward case of industrial sabotage, but my head was beginning to hurt with the permutations it was throwing up.
A couple of hundred yards along the walkway, we descended and cut through a heavy door into a warehouse. Now I know how the Finns feel when they walk into the snow from the sauna. I could feel my pores snapping shut in shock. Here, the air smelled of oil and diesel. The only sound came from fork-lift trucks shunting pallets on and off shelves. “This is the warehouse,” Kerr said. I’d never have worked that one out all by myself. “The full containers go through from the factory to packing, where the machines label them, stamp them with batch numbers and seal-wrap them in dozens. Then they come through here on conveyor belts and they’re shelved or loaded.” He turned to Unsworth. “Where have you stacked the recalls?”
Before Unsworth could reply, my mobile phone started ringing. “Excuse me,” I said, moving away a few yards and pulling the phone out. “Kate Brannigan,” I announced.
“Tell me,” an amused voice said, “is Alexis Lee a real person, or is it just your pen name?”
I recognised the voice at once. I moved farther away from Kerr’s curious stare and turned my back so he couldn’t see that my ears had gone bright red. “She’s real all right, Mr. Haroun,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I think it had better be Michael. Otherwise I’d start to suspect you were being unfriendly. I’ve just been handed the early edition of the Evening Chronicle.”
“And what does it say?”
“Do you really need me to tell you?” he asked, still sounding amused.
“I forgot to bring my crystal ball with me. If you want to hang on, I’ll see if I can find a chicken to disembowel so I can check out the entrails.”
He laughed. It was a sound I could easily get used to. “It’d be a lot simpler to pop into a newsagent.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“Oh no. I’d hate to spoil the surprise. Tell me, Kate… Do you mind if I call you Kate?”
“It sounds like a reasonable euphemism.”
“Okay, Kate. Do you fancy dinner some evening?”
“Michael, it may not look like it, but I fancy dinner every evening.” I couldn’t believe the way I was flirting. I’d read better lines than that in teenage romances. Up until now, I’d always managed to avoid them, even when I was a teenager.
Bless him, he laughed again. I like a man who doesn’t seize on the first sign of weakness. “Are you free this evening?”
I pretended to think. Let’s face it, I’d have turned down Mel Gibson, Scan Bean, Lynford Christie and Daniel Day Lewis for dinner with Michael Haroun. I didn’t pretend for too long, in case he lost interest. “I can be. As long as it’s after seven.”
“Great. Shall I pick you up?”
That was a harder decision. I didn’t want to let myself forget that this was a business dinner. On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to give Richard something to think about. I gave Michael the address and we agreed on half past seven. Unlike everybody on TV who uses a mobile phone, I hit the“ end button with a flourish, then turned back to a scowling Trevor Kerr.
“Sorry about that,” I lied. “Somebody I’ve been trying to get hold of on another investigation. Now, Mr. Unsworth, you were going to show us these recalled containers.”
The next half hour was one of the more boring ones in my life, made doubly so by the fact that I was itching to get my hands on the Chronicle. I finally escaped at half past eleven, leaving Trevor Kerr with the suggestion that his chemists should analyze the contents of a random sample of the containers. Only this time, they wouldn’t just be looking for cyanide. They’d be checking to see whether the KerrSter in the drums was the real thing. Or something quite different and a whole lot nastier.
By the third newsagent’s, I’d confirmed what I’d always suspected about Farnworth. It’s a depressing little dump that civilization forgot. Nobody had the Chronicle. They wouldn’t have it till sometime in the afternoon. They all looked deeply offended and incredulous when I explained that no, the Bolton Evening News just wouldn’t be the same. I had to possess my soul in patience till I hit the East Lanes. Road. I sat on a garage forecourt reading the results of Alexis’s research. She’d done me proud.
CULTURAL HERITAGE VANISHES
A series of spectacular robberies has been hushed up by police and stately-home owners.
Now fears are growing that a gang of professional thieves are stripping Britain of valuable artworks that form a key part of the nation’s heritage. Among the stolen pieces are paintings by French Impressionists Monet and Cezanne, and a bronze bust by the Italian Baroque master Bernini. Also missing is a collection of Elizabethan miniature paintings by Nicholas Hilliard. Together, the thieves haul is estimated at nearly ?10 million.
The cover-up campaign was a joint decision made by several police forces and the owners of the stately homes in question. Police did not want publicity because they were following up leads and did not want the thieves to know that they had realized one gang was behind the thefts.
And the owners were reluctant to admit the jewels of their collections had gone missing in case public
