18
A man with white hair was playing a guitar in the Shaw Croft Centre near Boots the Chemist and the Co-op. He was performing a version of ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’.
Near Victoria Square, St John Street still had its famous gallows-style pub sign spanning the street. It bore what must be one of the longest pub names in England — The Green Man and Black’s Head Royal Hotel. It sounded like three pubs, but was actually only one. Mounted on top of the sign was the head of the black boy himself. Seen from the Dig Street end, he was grinning like an idiot. But from the other side, his painted red lips were turned down in mock sadness. The guide books still referred to him as the ‘blackamoor’.
Heavy lorries were struggling to get past a keg delivery at the pub. Of course, it was no longer a brewery dray, but a lorry owned by Kuehne amp; Nagel drinks logistics.
Cooper realized that he might have chosen the wrong day. It was market day in Ashbourne, and parking spaces were in high demand. The market itself was only a small one, nothing like the size of Edendale’s. But people from the surrounding area were in town doing their shopping, or having tea at Spencer’s the Bakers tea rooms in the Market Place under the antique Turog sign.
Lodge’s supermarket was located in the southern half of the town, near the corner of London Road and Blenheim Road, just down from the Quality Inn and the Black Sheep Bar. Across the road were commercial premises on the Airfield Industrial Estate. Alruba Rubber, Artisan Biscuits, Vital Earth Organic Compost. The mixture of smells must be interesting over there. A forklift truck bumped up the road, carrying a stack of pallets to an engineering works.
The assistant manager of Lodge’s was David Underwood, a man in his thirties with a neat goatee beard and the sort of red hair that suggested distant Viking ancestors. When he met Cooper in the office, he was just removing a white coat.
‘I was about to go off shift,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could give me a lift home? I only live just up the road. I normally walk.’
‘Fine,’ said Cooper. It would be a better place to talk anyway. He could see members of staff already looking their way, wondering what his visit was all about.
Underwood lived in a nice post-war semi-detached house on Old Derby Road. Lots of hedges and larch lap fencing. Handy for the golf club, if you were interested. And Cooper noticed that all the streets in this area seemed to be named after plants — Rowan, Poplar, Chestnut, Lime. On Willow Meadow Road, they passed the Pinecroft Stores.
David Underwood invited him in.
‘So what can I do for you?’ he asked. ‘Is it anything to do with the death of Bob Nield’s little girl? We’ve all been very upset about that. A lot of the staff took time off to go to the funeral.’
Cooper remembered Robert Nield describing the Lodge’s staff as a big family. But was that entirely true?
‘Yes, I met one of your staff after the service. Marjorie Evans.’
‘Our checkout supervisor. She’s been at Lodge’s for years. We couldn’t manage without her.’
‘Are all the staff so loyal and contented?’
Underwood looked at him sideways. ‘I suppose Marjorie said something to you, did she? She’s a lovely woman, but she can be a bit of a gossip. Likes people to think she knows things they don’t, if you understand me.’
‘So if I asked you your opinion of Robert Nield, would it be an entirely positive one?’
With a smile, Underwood turned to gaze out of his front window at Old Derby Road. ‘It depends on how persistent you’re planning to be. I could say the two of us see totally eye to eye, and you might go away satisfied. But if you’re intending to talk to any of the staff, you’d get a different story. And then you would know I was lying.’
‘Well, it’s probably best not to start by telling any lies then, Mr Underwood,’ said Cooper.
‘Well, the fact is, we’ve had a few disagreements about the running of the store. Business isn’t good at the moment. The competition is too intense. If we don’t adapt and change, we’ll go down, like so many other businesses. That’s my view, anyway.’
‘And Mr Nield is more of a traditionalist, perhaps?’
‘He’s very conservative,’ said Underwood. ‘He says Lodge’s have unique values, and we’ve got to stick to them. But that’s not what customers look for these days, is it? They shop on convenience and price. The only value they want is value for money. Special offers — three for twos and BOGOFs. Locally sourced products are good, but it’s not the priority, if we’re going to survive.’
‘I can see you’re both probably quite passionate about it.’
‘We are. Bob Nield has a vested interest in the store, of course. But it’s my livelihood, too. I want a career in retailing. I don’t want to be part of a failing operation.’
‘Do you have disagreements about the staff too?’ asked Cooper.
Underwood shrugged. ‘Oh, sometimes. But, to be fair, Bob has a good eye for hiring staff. He can assess people pretty well. And, once they’re on the payroll, they become part of the family. He treats everyone like an uncle. That’s the part of the job he really loves, I think. Presiding over his family. The trouble is — some of his family know that he’s leading them towards disaster.’
Cooper nodded. It wasn’t an uncommon story. Nield sounded like a man who was giving far more attention to his work family than to his real one back home. Perhaps that was because he had more control in the workplace, the power over the pay packet, the ability to hire and fire. In the Nields’ home, Cooper suspected that Dawn was the one in control.
He turned back to Underwood.
‘You don’t happen to know a man called Sean Deacon, sir?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Cooper was surprised. It had been a bit of a shot in the dark.
‘You do?’
‘He worked for us for a while.’
‘At Lodge’s?’
‘Yes, Bob Nield gave him a job. I think he felt sorry for the man. Deacon wasn’t long out of prison then. He was trying to get his life back on track, he said. He seemed genuinely to want to work — though I would have said he was a bit over qualified for stacking shelves. He used to be a teacher, I think. But that profession is closed to him now.’
‘Did you have trouble with him?’
‘No, he was a perfectly good member of staff. Honest, punctual, hard working…’
‘Is there a “but”?’
‘There’s always a “but”,’ said Underwood. ‘It was other people who had problems with him. I mean, when it got around the area that a convicted paedophile was working at the store. You can imagine what that was like. Some of our customers were up in arms, and said they daren’t bring their children into the store while he was here.’
‘I see.’
‘All nonsense, of course. Complete hysteria.’
‘Do you have any children yourself?’ asked Cooper.
‘No.’ Underwood looked at him. ‘Oh, I see. You mean I can’t really understand how parents might feel in those circumstances. Well, perhaps you’re right. Anyway, Bob Nield had to let Deacon go in the end. I suppose we were being tainted by association. It was a real shame, though. The guy seemed absolutely genuine to me.’
‘Yes, I met him.’
‘Did he get another job?’
‘Yes. But I’m not sure it’s any better than stacking your shelves.’
‘Pity.’
‘Were there any anonymous letters written to the store at the time?’
