And I didn’t mind working over when there’s only me at home to cook for.’
‘So you haven’t had any trouble? That is a relief,’ Grey answered.
‘I’m working in the main room today — it seemed lonely down here with the doors closed,’ she said as they passed through the unlit reception, further darkened by the board put up across the outside of the window. That this flimsy panel was part of the same line of defence as those stout and sturdy doors struck Grey not only as absurd, but also offered a commentary on the plant’s current state — that its foundations may be deep, but the walls were made of chipboard. He could forget his earlier observation, for there was no security in this citadel.
‘We saw you getting through the crowd from up here,’ said Shauna guiding them up toward the main office, ‘I can’t believe you made it! It was so exciting. And right after that other car came through. He must be somebody important — are you with him? He went straight through to the far office, he’s in there now.’
‘How long have you worked here, did you say?’ asked Grey quickly.
‘Six months, no seven now.’
‘Yes, of course, you did tell me. For some of the men rather longer, I expect?’
Isobel smiled as she guessed where the Inspector was going with this.
‘Oh, half a lifetime,’ answered Shauna. ‘ Man and boy, as they say, man and boy…’
At the top of the stairs by the empty rooms, Isobel, who seemed to know where she was going as well as their guide, spoke to Grey,
‘Am I coming in there with you?’
‘Would you pay any attention if I tried to stop you?’
That the room was filled with mostly non-locals who wouldn’t have known Isobel Semple from Eve, Wuthertons not being a Southney firm, rather detracted for Grey from the shock effect of arriving in places in the company of the town’s golden girl.
‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to play our trick any more,’ she said so quietly that only he would hear.
‘No, we might have to rely on our natural charm from here on in.’
‘What was all that fuss about downstairs? Who are you?’ asked a stout young man as he came forward. He stood out among the mainly young men in spivvy dark suits who made up the administration staff, in looking rather more like a scrubbed up farm labourer in rolled-up shirtsleeves. Grey wondered if it wasn’t this fellow’s unspoken role to act as bouncer? For he imagined that they often had trouble with the natives. Grey looked across the host of men, some of them blearily eyed if not actively wrecked from the night before — but this was par for the course with the junior staff of financial firms. He watched the way they leant manfully over desks strewn with papers.
‘I am Inspector Rase of Southney Station,’ he announced. ‘I am here in connection with a very serious crime, and…’ He felt for his badge, then remembered that his suit jacket was in an evidence bag. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have my warrant card with me, but I can easily…’
‘He is an Inspector,’ confirmed Isobel.
‘And who might you be, Miss?’ asked the stout fellow no more cordially.
‘That’s Isobel Semple!’ called a woman’s voice from the back of the room — Gail Marsh of the office staff, who Grey recalled had been so helpful earlier in the week. ‘Dear Isobel, I used to work with your mother you know, before she had you. I remember meeting you when were this high.’
‘Yes, by the shops. We hid under the awning when it rained.’
‘You remember that?’ said Gail, evidently charmed.
‘Hello, Mrs Marsh,’ added Grey, ‘So they have kept you on too?’
‘Oh yes, there is far too much paperwork not to,’ she answered, evidently nonplussed at the situation, and quite ignoring the glowering lump of gristle beside her. ‘Although poor Cynthia has gone — her agency wrote to say they could no longer offer her to your firm, when we do not know we would be paid for her services; so they found her another placement. It is a shame, she was a good worker, and I miss her company.’
‘Inspector!’ came another jovial voice from the same end of the room, this time Keith Pitt of Southney’s computing consultants, looking towards Grey and the figure beside him. ‘And look who you’re with. How good to see you both, and for such different reasons.’
With every positive reaction Isobel received to her return, Grey hoped this process of reintroduction to Southney society could develop into a new life for her here, things slowly returning to normal. But nor could he forget how she had spoken to him in the canteen: her frustrations, her anger, the lengths she would go do. Not that it bothered him as such, but it revealed her complex nature, a nature not satisfied by town life before, so why would it be now? As yet few had seen that other side of her.
‘And guess who else is here?’ announced Gail, ‘You’d better come with me.’ She led them down the long room, quite ignoring the stolid dolt attempting to look ominous.
‘You’d be useful in our uniform,’ said Grey to the farmhand as they passed him, ‘if you had a better temperament.’
But the Inspector already knew who Gail was leading them to; and guessing this, the lady held the Inspector back a moment as they approached the partitioned area at the end of the floor,
‘Is he who you and Isobel have come to see? So is it true then,’ whispered Gail in his ear, ‘about him and Christine Semple?’
‘Sorry?’ asked Grey, his head full of theories at the moment.
But she said no more, only asking ‘And Thomas?’
Neither able to say, nor knowing how to say it, he merely squeezed the lady’s hand; the look she gave in return suggesting she had got the message, and would brace herself.
By the small partitioned sub-office at the end of the floor, Gail Marsh left them; the room where two days earlier Grey had spoken to Mr Foy the bank manager on the phone, when he had called to tell them there was no money in the pot. He and Isobel came around the divide to see the boss’ chair, the chair that Alex Aubrey would surely never fill again. Another person was in it now, sat there as if he owned the place, which in a way he did,
‘Hello Inspector,’ said Anthony Aubrey, ‘I see you’ve found my girl.’
Chapter 34 — The Tarnished Throne
The next few minutes were a confusion, the scene not able to develop: Keith Pitt buzzing about collecting papers, Shauna Reece coming in with their drinks, she still not knowing that the man who had said yes to cream but no to sugar in his coffee was the founder of all they saw around them, the originator of the company still just about able to retain her services.
Eventually, the surrounding figures knowing there was a meeting needing to happen here, drinks were quickly deposited and activities moved elsewhere.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met, Inspector,’ began Anthony Aubrey. ‘Or not to speak to at least.’ He shook Grey’s hand and gestured for them to sit. He was a big man who left a big impression, and Grey felt his aura. Of course he knew the legend: self-made, industrious, Anthony Aubrey had built the firm up with his bare hands, and had learnt to love the high life along the way.
‘I don’t get to the Club as often as I used to,’ he continued. ‘I’d seen that you’d become a member, of course. Was it Rose who’d proposed you? My son seconded you then. Did you know that? He and Andrew always back each other’s choices.’
‘But you were at the club on Monday evening weren’t you, with Thomas Long?’
‘Yes,’ the man drawled, ‘Parris called to say he’d tipped you off. He felt guilty for it — the loyalty of the man, quite staggering these days. I told him not to worry; although I thought you might have been knocking on my door a little sooner.’
‘A mistake on my part I’m afraid.’
‘Inspector, I don’t believe it!’ chuckled Isobel.
‘You sign A. Aubrey, like your son.’
‘He signs A. A. Aubrey, or he did — Alexander is his middle name — although lately I see his initials do rather blur.’ Aubrey picked up a document from among those on the desk and studied the signatures.
