Sue-Lynn was standing at an upstairs window watching him. She was holding something to her jaw, probably a bag of frozen peas.
No, he corrected. Not peas. Dublin Bay prawns, or Beluga caviare. She looked like a woman with expensive tastes.
Which from the sound of it she wasn’t going to enjoy for long.
He gave her a wave, resisted the temptation to gun his engine and dig up more gravel as he tried to break the records so recently established by the two women, and set off down the drive at the speed of a cautious cortege.
As Edgar Wield drove back from Harrogate, he thought of diverting to the Golden Fleece once more in the hope that Edwin might be free for lunch. Mature consideration made him decide this was unlikely and to expect his friend to break off some learned confabulation with his dusty colleagues would be as unfair as the bookseller calling him out of a CID meeting.
Instead he turned the bike in quite the other direction and headed for the Blesshouse Industrial Estate which sprawled to the south of the city.
It was clear as he got nearer that even with New Labour’s promised recovery, the working week ended at Friday lunchtime for a lot of workers. A steady stream of cars and buses flowed out of the estate and probably some of them wouldn’t be flowing back in until the following Monday lunchtime or even Tuesday.
He paused to study a billboard diagram and located Ashur-Proffitt (with Maciver’s printed after it in smaller letters). When he arrived at the barrier that blocked his entrance to the plant, a uniformed man appeared from the kiosk and said, “How do, mate? And what can we do you for?”
As he removed his helmet and goggles, Wield said, “Bet if I’d turned up in a suit and a BMW you’d not have talked to me like that, Bri.”
“Bugger me, it’s you, Wieldy!” exclaimed the man. “I should have recognized the bike. How’re you doing? Long time no see.”
His name was Brian Edwards, he was a broad red-faced man in his fifties, and he’d been a DC till a problem with stomach ulcers brought on by the usual CID mix of stress, fags, beer and fatty takeaways had got him invalided out.
“I’m fine,” said Wield. “Didn’t know you worked here.”
“Oh aye. More than ten years now.”
“And is this all you do? I mean, are you on the security staff?”
Edwards grinned.
“You’re thinking, is this the best the poor sod could get, being a gate-man? No, don’t deny it, Sarge. Aye, I could have done better, might even have been wearing a suit and sitting in an office now. But I told ’em, I don’t want owt that means wandering around at night and risking getting banged on the head and having to chase some thieving scrote who’ll likely pull a blade if I catch him. No, checking folk in and out of the gate will do me fine. Regular hours and I’ve not had any trouble with me belly for years.”
“You’re looking well,” agreed Wield. “You don’t recollect another ex-job guy, name of Jake Gallipot, who worked for Security here about ten years back?”
“Gallipot? DS from Harrogate? Him there used to be the stories about? Aye, I remember him. I recall thinking, if retired DSs are reduced to wandering around in peaked caps with a big stick, then mebbe I’m not doing so bad. He didn’t last long, though. Couple of months at the outside, could have been less.”
“Did he leave or was he pushed?”
“Think he just handed in his cards. Never heard nowt to the contrary. He were pretty popular, always ready to stand and have a chat with anyone. Aye, everyone liked Jake. I heard later he’d got his own business, security or investigation or something, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Good luck to him. Wouldn’t have done for me. Start sticking your nose into other people’s business you never know what they’ll end up sticking into you.” He regarded Wield shrewdly and asked, “Is it Gallipot you’re here about?”
“If it was, who’d I want to speak to?” said Wield.
Edwards laughed.
“You don’t change, do you? Give nowt that’s not paid for and then ask for change. It ’ud be Tom Hoblitt. He does the hiring and firing. If this were the army, he’d be the RSM or top sergeant, him being a Yank.”
“Mr Hoblitt it is then. Where do I find him?”
“Nay, I’ll take you across to Admin myself,” said Edwards. “Can’t have suspicious characters wandering around the plant unaccompanied, got strict instructions about that. Leave your bike here, it’ll not get nicked.”
He spoke briefly to another man in the kiosk then led the way towards the plant at a brisk pace as though determined to demonstrate how fit he was.
You didn’t have to be an industrial archaeologist to plot the history of Ash-Mac’s, thought Wield. The story of the firm was written quite clearly in the ugly sprawl of buildings that lay before him. The initial basic workshop where Liam Maciver had started all those years ago was still there, with around it all the brick-built development that marked the company’s rapid expansion in the late thirties and forties. A keener eye might have been needed to detect the point where consolidation finished and decline began, but the reversal of that decline was unmistakable in several brand-new concrete-and-glass structures including a small office block over which flew both the Stars and Stripes and the Union flag.
Edwards led Wield in here. An unwelcoming receptionist wearing more paint than a bellicose Mohawk listened as the gate-man explained the sergeant’s purpose, her gaze running over his leathered body as though assessing where best to place her tomahawk. She then picked up her phone, pressed a button, spoke rapidly in what might as well have been Iroquoian, listened, then said, “Thank you, Mr Edwards. Sergeant Wield, will you come this way?”
She rose and set off rapidly up a flight of stairs.
Wield looked at Edwards, who made a face, murmured, “I think she likes you,” and left.
The woman, as if unable to conceive her instruction would not be instantly acted upon, was already out of sight but Wield was able to detect her progress by the sonar click of stiletto heels and soon fell into line astern. On the second landing she passed through a door without knocking, said to another woman, whose face differed from hers only in that the tribal artist had painted a smile on it, “This is Sergeant Wield,” and left.
The smiling woman went to an inner door, tapped once, opened it, and said, “Sergeant Wield.”
He went through. A man was sitting behind a desk. He was in his forties, stockily built, with vigorous hair on the turn from black pepper to sea salt. He rose, extended his hand and said, “Tony Kafka. How can I help you?”
“Must be a mistake, sir,” said Wield, shaking the proffered hand. “It was Mr Hoblitt I wanted to see.”
“So I understand, but this time you got on a fast track to the organ grinder himself. Hoblitt’s around the plant somewhere, so maybe I can clear up whatever it is you want clearing up.”
“Just a routine enquiry, sir. Hardly worth bothering you with.”
This was his first encounter with Kafka. There’d been no reason to have any direct contact with him when Pal Senior topped himself and less reason since. But he’d often wondered what kind of man it was that had taken on the enigmatic Kay Maciver and her stepdaughter after the tragedy.
The room itself gave little clue to character. Hanging on the wall was a photograph of the rock carvings of the heads of some American presidents which Wield recalled seeing in an old Hitchcock movie. On the clutter-free desk stood another photo in a silver frame, this one of a smiling soldier with a medal on his chest. He had to be some close relative of Kafka. The cheekbones and the nose were unmistakable. Nothing else which could be called personal was on view.
“You won’t be bothering me, Sergeant,” said Kafka in a tone which clearly implied, How could you?
“Just an old employee we’re interested in,” said Wield. “Man called Gallipot. He worked for your Security people about ten years ago.”
“Gallipot?” said Kafka. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
