‘No, quite.’
‘Anyway,’ they reaching the door of the Post Office, ‘I must get these sent and then get back up to the plant. You were lucky to catch me in town, I’ve hardly been back since yesterday. And then I hope they don’t keep me too late tonight, I’ve got to get back for the wife.’
‘Going anywhere nice?’
‘The theatre, to see a play — Deceptive Alibis it’s called. She does love these crime dramas. Might be right up your street too, Inspector. Or perhaps you’d only judge it against the real thing?’
And with that the men parted, Grey pointing himself back in the direction of the station.
‘On Monday afternoon, Thomas Long attempts to run the Payroll,’ the Inspector expounded, the words rebounding from the walls of his office, ‘the effort ending in failure, a phone call from Mr Foy, and his telling all to Chris Barnes. So, wouldn’t it be the most natural thing in the world, for Thomas to want to track down his absent boss, and tell him of the chaos his company was in?’
‘If he didn’t know already?’ added his Sergeant, the only one in the building at that moment free to listen.
‘Well, thank God then that Keith Pitt has already discounted fraud; for otherwise who knows what the pair might have gone to the Club to talk about! But if the money was simply seeping — and not being wrongly extracted — from the account, then they could only have been meeting to discuss the failing payroll process, surely.’
‘No arguments here, boss’ agreed Cori, for though Grey was speaking the obvious, she thought she knew the direction he was moving in.
‘So, it strikes me,’ continued the Inspector, ‘that rather less important than why Thomas Long met Alex Aubrey on Monday evening, was why they then met again on Tuesday morning, and why it took this second meeting for Thomas to feel better about things at the office. That was what Gail Marsh told you?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed the Sergeant, ‘she thought Alex Aubrey must have agreed to take the payroll problems off Thomas’ hands awhile, and that the lad seemed all the better for it.’
‘So why not come up with that solution the night before?’
‘Perhaps Aubrey needed to come to work to see what the problem was before deciding?’
‘But we know what the problem was! And Aubrey was in no better position to ease his cashflow on Tuesday than on Monday. Whatever assurance he offered Thomas was false assurance, and probably only offered to stop the lad from panicking and telling all and sundry…’
‘Which he didn’t know he had already done,’ Cori mused.
‘Quite. But even so, why not flannel Thomas the evening before, and save him a sleepless night?’
‘Let’s look at those meeting times again, sir.’
‘Aubrey met Yamamoto before he met with Thomas on Monday,’ Grey repeated from his notebook, ‘and with Philpot after seeing Thomas for the second time on Tuesday. Nothing had changed inbetween.’
‘And you’re certain of the times?’
‘Absolutely, I’m certain. And it fits with Thomas’ coming home late on Monday.’
Cori had to concede that point, ‘But what we really need to know are Alex Aubrey’s movements these two days.’
‘Yes. We know Thomas couldn’t have got up to much between home and work, so something must have changed with Aubrey. I’ll tell you what did change,’ Grey realised. ‘The first stone was thrown that night.’
‘A stone in itself wouldn’t tell him much,’ Cori counselled.
‘Maybe there was a shout to go with it? “We’ve heard what you’re up to, Aubrey! You’re not taking our jobs!” or some such? That would have his senses working on overtime alright.’
‘Well, even if Aubrey linked the stone through the window with something Thomas may have told the thrower…’
‘Go on,’ he encouraged, she noting a gleam in his eye,
‘Then are we suggesting Aubrey might have wanted to silence Thomas Long?’
‘At last a motive!’ the Inspector declaimed. ‘Admittedly a little far-fetched.’
‘Just a little, sir.’
‘Yes, for wasn’t the secret already spilt?’
‘Indeed.’
‘And why stop there?’ Grey attacking his own theory with sarcasm. ‘Why not also silence the bank manager? He knew too.’ Before offering more measuredly, ‘People like him don’t do things like that though, do they?’
For all her level-headedness, Cori could show an occasional gothic streak, ‘Well, we have seen in the past, sir, how such matters can get out of hand. Aubrey may only have wanted to confront Thomas, find what he had told and to whom, telling him not to tell anyone else, at least while these important meetings were going on, and reputation was so important. Aubrey is under a lot of pressure.’
‘The law-abiding classes heading into unchartered waters, you mean, and getting into difficulties? A discussion, turning into an argument, turning into… And that would be a third meeting in two days,’ he despaired, ‘presumably sometime Tuesday evening? No,’ he shook his head, ‘Tom’s still out there somewhere, run away because he couldn’t face his dad.’
‘For two nights though?’
They sat awhile, neither sure quite what either believed.
The Inspector spoke first, ‘He’s meant to be back today, isn’t he? Aubrey?’
‘Yes.’
Make some calls, would you — try and run him down. I don’t like asking Rose about him, it’s a sore point. And Cori, we’ll keep our wilder theories to ourselves for now.’
‘Yessir.’
Grey settles in his chair to think. Thomas Long may yet be blameless in all this; even Alex Aubrey as innocent as a lamb — and yet the thought could not be avoided that they were players in an as-yet unknown game.
Chapter 9 — The Corridors of Banality
The Inspector’s thoughts were interrupted after only a few minutes by another knock at the door, which had at last been long enough for the Sergeant Smith to confirm that the Aubreys were neither back at the plant or answering the phone at home.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ began Sarah Cobb, ‘but we’ve already had a few responses to the news appeal; and there’s a couple I think you’ll want to see.’
Back in the mess room telephones were indeed ringing and voices chattering, as Sarah led them to the computer screen where the calls were being collated,
‘Most of them are goodwill,’ she summarised, ‘people who knew him telling us what a good lad he was; some even offering character statements if needed. Others are strangers offering help and support. But those aside, we have two sightings of him on the High Street on or shortly after five on Tuesday. One is a possible, another a definite — a woman who works in the Council building, who sees him at her stop every night, although she didn’t know his name before. However, she says she saw him standing at a different stop that night, and that he caught a different bus.’
‘She’s certain he caught a bus?’
‘Yes, she saw him queuing and getting on from across the road, while she was walking down to their usual stop.’
‘Which one? Where would it go?’
‘The Fourteen,’ answered Sarah, a timetable already procured and being unfolded on the adjoining desk. ‘It twists and turns a bit at first, before heading out along the A-road.’
‘We need to speak to her.’
‘A Constable’s already on their way to the Council House to take a statement.’
‘And the bus driver — we need to know if he recognises him, and where he got off.’
‘It’s always tricky with drivers,’ Cori observed, ‘they see a hundred faces a day.’
‘We might not need to, though,’ said Sarah eagerly. ‘We’ve had another call, that sort of leads on from
