“It could have been me or Joey,” she said. “We used to do the cash-and-carry run turn and turn about. KerrSter was one of the things that was always on the list, and we usually had a spare drum in the cupboard.” “Who made the last trip?”
“That was Joey,” she said positively. Given when the affected batch had gone out, that meant Joey had purchased the fatal drum.
“Where are your cleaning materials kept?” I asked.
“In a cupboard in the pub kitchen.”
“Is it locked?”
She looked at me scornfully. “Of course it’s not. There’s always spills and stuff in a pub. The staff need to be able to clean them up as and when they happen, not leave them for the cleaners.”
“So anybody who works in the pub would have access?”
“That’s right,” she said confidently. “That’s what I told the police.”
“What about private visitors, friends or business associates? Would they be able to get to the cupboard?”
“Why would they want to? Do your friends come round your office and start nosing about in the cleaner’s cupboard?” she asked aggressively.
“But in theory they could?”
“It’d be a bit obvious. When people come to visit, they don’t usually swan round the pub kitchen on their own. You must know some really funny people. Besides, how would they know Joey was going to open that particular container?”
Before I could ask my next question, a voice from the stairwell shouted, “Gail? There’s a delivery down here you need to sign for.”
Gail sighed and crushed out her cigarette. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
As soon as she left the room, I was on my feet. I wouldn’t be getting a second chance to check out what had set my antennae twitching. I took my tape recorder out of my bag and pressed the record button, then I picked up the phone and put the machine’s built-in mike next to the earpiece. Then I hit last number redial. The phone clicked swiftly through the numbers, then connected. A phone rang out. I let it ring a dozen times, then broke the connection and gently replaced the phone.
I heard steps on the stairs and threw myself back into my chair. When Gail entered the room, I was sitting demurely flicking through the pages of TV Times. “Sorted?” I asked politely.
“I hate paperwork,” she said. “But then, so did Joey, so we’ve got a little woman that comes in every week to keep the books straight.”
“Did your husband have any enemies?” I asked. Eat your heart out, Miss Marple.
“There were plenty of people Joey would happily have seen dead, most of them football managers. But people tended to like him. That was his big trouble. He was desperate to be liked. He’d never stand up for himself and make the bosses treat him properly. He just rolled over,” she said, years of bitterness spilling into her voice. “I told him, you’ve got to show them who’s in charge, but would he listen? No, he wouldn’t. Same with the brewery. I’d been on at him for ages to talk to them about our contract, but he just fobbed me off. Well, they’ll know a difference now it’s me they’ve got to deal with,” she added vigorously. Knowing the corporate claws of brewery chains, I thought Gail Morton was in for a nasty surprise.
“So, no enemies, no one who wanted him dead?”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she told me. “You should be looking for somebody at that factory who has it in for their bosses. Joey just got unlucky.”
“You benefit from his death,” I commented.
Her eyes narrowed. “It’s time you were on your way,” she said. “I’m not sitting here listening to that crap in my own living room. Go on, get out.”
I can take a hint.
When I walked into the office, Shelley had a look on her face I’d never seen before. After a couple of minutes of awkward conversation, I worked out what it was. The shifty eyes, the nervous mouth. She was feeling guilty about something.
“Okay,” I said heavily, perching on the corner of her desk. “Give. What’s eating you? Is it having to lie to the police about where I am?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said sniffily. “Anyway, I’m black. Isn’t lying to the cops supposed to be congenital?”
“Something’s bothering you, Shell.”
“Nothing is bothering me. By the way, if you wart your coupe back, it’s on a meter round the corner. I wouldn’t mind having my Rover back.” She couldn’t meet my eyes.
“Has he been here?” Try as I might, I couldn’t keep my voice cool.
“No. He came round the house about eight o’clock this morning. I asked him to talk to you, but you’re too good a teacher. That man of yours has really learned how to ignore. I was going to phone you, but he was gone by then, so it wouldn’t have been a whole lot of use.”
“Did he say where he was going?” There was a pair in my stomach which was nothing to do with what I’d had for breakfast.
“I asked him, but he said he wasn’t sure what he was doing. He told me to tell you not to waste your time looking for him.”
I looked away, blinking back tears. “Fine,” I said unsteadily. “Though why he should think I can spare the time to chase him…”
Shelley reached out and gripped my hand. “He’s hurting in his pride, Kate. It’s going to take him a bit of time, that’s all.”
I cleared my throat. “Sure. I should give a shit.” I walked through to my office. “If anybody wants me, I’m not here, okay?”
I closed the door and sat down with the tape recorder. I’d recorded the number dialing on high speed, and now I played it back on the lower speed setting so I could more easily count the clicks. Given the way my luck had been running lately, the call I’d interrupted had probably been made to Gail, aid all I was going to end up with was the number of her dentist.
I wrote the numbers down on a sheet of paper. Unless Gail made a round-trip of eighty miles every time she wanted her teeth fixed, it looked like I’d struck gold. The number I’d recorded from her telephone was a Liverpool number. On an impulse, I marched through to Bill’s office, where the phone books live, and picked out a three- year-old Liverpool directory. I looked up Halloran. There it was. Desmond J. Halloran, an address in Childwall. The number didn’t match.
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” I said grimly, picking up the phone and calling Talking Pages. I asked for portrait photographers in Liverpool. The second number she gave me matched the number on the sheet of paper. D JH Portraits. I didn’t think Ladbrokes would be offering me odds on those initials not standing for Desmond J. Halloran.
I shut myself back in my office and rang Paul Kingsley, a commercial photographer who occasionally does jobs for us when Bill and I are overstretched or we need pictures taken in conditions that neither of us feels competent to handle. Paul’s always delighted to hear from us. I suspect he read too many Batman comics when he was a lad. I got him on his mobile. “I need your help,” I told him.
“Great,” he said enthusiastically. “What’s the job?”
“I want to check out a photographer in Liverpool. I need to know how his business is doing. Is he making money, is he on the skids, that kind of thing. Do you know anybody who could color in the picture?”
“That’s all you want?” He sounded disappointed. It was worrying. This is man whose assignments for us have included spending a Saturday night in an industrial rubbish bin, and standing for three days in the rain in the middle of a shrubbery. In his shoes, I’d have been delirious with joy at the news that his latest task for Mortensen and Brannigan involved nothing more hazardous to the health than picking up a phone.
“That’s all I want,” I confirmed. “Only I want it yesterday. DJH Portraits, that’s the firm.”
“Consider it done,” he said.
My next call was to Alexis. “All right?” she greeted me. “Has dickhead turned up?” I told her about Shelley’s encounter with Richard. “That doesn’t sound like good-bye to me,” she said. “You want my advice, give your insurance man a bell. Show Richard you’re not sitting round waiting for him to decide it’s time to come
