thanks, I wandered through to the outer office. Shelley's fingers were flying over the keyboard as she worked her way through the proposals Bill had put together for our Channel Islands clients. 'Ted's little problem,' I said. 'I'm just nipping out for a couple of hours to tie up the last loose ends. He should be ringing back to let me know when we're seeing his bank manager. Give me a bell on the mobile when you know.'
She gave me one of her looks. The ones I suspect she reserves for her kids when she thinks they're trying to dodge out without finishing their homework. 'You mean it?' she asked.
'Brownie's honour,' I said. 'Would I lie to you about something so close to your heart? Are you familiar with the works of Rudyard Kipling?'
She looked at me as if I was out to lunch and not coming back for a long time. 'Wasn't he the one who went on about the white man's burden?' she said suspiciously.
The same. Knew all about keeping the yellow and brown chappies in their places. However, he was not entirely a waste of oxygen. He also wrote the private eye's charter:
'Well, as far as Ted's case is concerned, I know the what, the why, the when, the where and the who. I know most of the how, and after I've paid a little visit to one of my contacts, I expect to know the lot.' I smiled sweetly as I shrugged into my coat and headed for the door. 'Bye, Shelley.'
'You worry me, Brannigan, you really do,” floated after me as I ran downstairs. The day had not been wasted.
Rachel Lieberman was doing front of house at DKL Estates when I walked through the door. The suit she was wearing looked as if it was worth about the same as the deposit on any one of her first-time-buyer properties. I pretended to study the houses for sale while she made appointments for a potential buyer to view a couple. Five minutes later, the grateful house-hunter went on his merry way with a handful of particulars, leaving Rachel and me facing each other across the desk. 'Lost your young man?' I asked.
'His mother says he's got a bug. I think it may have more to do with the fact that United won last night,' she said.
'You just can't get the help these days,' I commiserated.
You can say that again. Anyway, what can I do for you? Still hunting for your mysterious con artists?'
I'd already decided that whoever was supplying Jack McCafferty and Liz with the information they needed, it wasn't Rachel Lieberman. I hadn't made that decision purely on women's intuition. I reckoned she'd have found a way politely to show me the door if she'd been involved. So I smiled and said, 'Nearly at the end of the road. I was hoping you could help me out with a couple of loose ends.'
'Fire away,” she said. You've got me quite intrigued. My son was enthralled when I told him I was helping a private eye with her inquiries. So I owe you some co-operation. It's not easy for a mother to impress a ten-year- old, you know.'
o you store all the details of your rented properties on your computer?'
'It all goes in there, whether it's for rental or for sale,” she said.
'So how does the Warrington office get your data, and vice versa?'
'I don't mean to be rude, but how well do you understand computers?' she asked.
I grinned. 'If you left me alone with yours for half an hour, I could probably figure it out for myself,” I said. I was almost certainly exaggerating, but she wasn't to know. Now, if I had Bill with me, he'd definitely be in there before I'd had time to brew a pot of coffee.
“I’ll save you the bother,' she replied. Twice a day, at one and again at five, I access the Warrington office computer via a modem. The software identifies any new files, or files that have been modified since the machines last conversed. Then it exports those files from my machine and imports the ones from the Warrington computer. The system also warns me in the unusual event of the same file having been modified by both offices.'
'Sounds like a nifty bit of programming,' I said.
'Our software was written by my brother-in-law, so he had to make sure it does what it's supposed to, or I'd make his life hell,' Rachel said. I could imagine. One of the things I learned in law school was, never cross a Jewish princess.
'Now for the hard question,' I said.
'I can guess. Who has access to the computers?' she asked. I nodded. 'Is this really necessary?' I nodded again. 'And I suppose you won't be satisfied if I tell you that they're only accessible to members of my staff?' I began to feel like I was following the bouncing ball.
'You want names, do you?' she said.
'Photographs would be even better,' I said.
Her eyebrows arched, then she snorted with laughter. 'Have you ever considered a career in estate agency? With cheek like yours, you could stand in the middle of a decaying slum with rising damp, dry rot and subsidence and persuade the clients that the property has unique potential that only they are capable of exploiting.'
'Kind of you, but I prefer catching crooks to becoming one,' I said.
'It’s flattery that’s supposed to get results, not insults,' she retorted. 'All the same, would you mind terribly keeping an eye on the shop while I attempt to meet your demands?'
I even went so far as to sit behind the desk while Rachel disappeared into the back office. I suppose she could have been phoning the baddies to tip them off, but I didn't think so. Luckily, no one came in during the few minutes she was gone. Thursday morning obviously isn't the busy time for estate agents. Rachel returned with an envelope of photographs. 'Here we are,' she said. 'We had a staff Christmas dinner last year. The only person who's new since then is Jason, and you've already met him.'
Rachel handed me the bundle of snaps. They'd celebrated in one of the Greek tavernas, and the pictures had obviously been put back in reverse order, for the first few showed one of those organized riots that the Greeks, like the Scots, call dancing. There was no one that I recognized. I carried on. Then, on the seventh photograph, shot from the opposite end of the table, there she was. Small, neat features, sharp chin, face wider across the red eyes. Just like Diane Shipley's sketch, except that her natural hair was dark blonde, cut short in a feathered, elfin style. I pointed to the woman. 'Who's that?'
Rachel's face seemed to close down on me. 'Why? What makes you ask?'
'I don't think you want me to answer that,' I said gently. 'Who is she?'
'Her name is Liz Lawrence. She works two afternoons a week in our Warrington office. She has done for nearly three years. I think you must be making a mistake, Miss Brannigan. She's… she's a nice woman. She works hard,' Rachel insisted.
I sighed. Sometimes this job makes me feel like the bad fairy who tells children there's no Santa Claus. The worst of it was that I had another sackload of disillusion to dump on someone before the day was over.
Ted's suit was having yet another outing. When I got back to the office, he was perched on the edge of Shelley's desk, looking as cheerful as a bloodhound whose quarry has just disappeared into the river. 'And you know what garages are,' I heard him say as I came in. They don't know when they'll have either van back on the road.'
'More problems?' I asked.
'You're not kidding. Two of my three vans are off the road.
Which means my installations have slowed right down. It's a disaster,” Ted said mournfully.
'Are you sure it's just a coincidence?' Shelley demanded. 'On top of everything else, it's beginning to sound as if somebody's got it in for you!'
Ted managed to look both wounded and baffled. 'I don't think so, Shelley, love,' he said. 'It's just been bad luck. I mean, the first one was parked up when it happened. Somebody'd obviously smacked into it in the pub car park while Jack was busy inside.'
“Jack McCafferty? What was he doing with one of the vans? Surely he's got nothing to do with installations?' I asked, too sharply. They both gave me odd looks.
'He borrows it now and again. He runs a little disco business with his brother-in-law, and sometimes they're double booked so he borrows one of my vans overnight to run the disco gear around in,' Ted said. The final piece slotted into place.
