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Altogether we found twenty-one recorded incidents of tampering, all in Grainger's stores, which was a determined effort to make mischief by anybody's standards. It looked as if the early efforts — the dye and the tin-puncturing — had not had the required effect, so more drastic measures had been adopted. But how many suspect tins were standing on the shelves, either in a store or in somebody's larder, was impossible to calculate. There were bound to be some. Grainger's temporarily took tinned pineapple, peaches and baked beans off their shelves and issued a statement offering to replace any that had been purchased from them in the previous three months. It made the headlines locally and was reported in the national press, lost somewhere between news that a Pop Idol contestant had had a boob job and the tomato that spelled out Allah is Great when cut in half.
We were less successful in our attempts to talk to Sir Morton Grainger. He had a personal assistant — male — resident at Dob Hall, the Georgian pile near Hebden Bridge that he called home, who told us that Sir Morton would be passing through on Wednesday afternoon. Mrs Grainger — she held the title of Lady but preferred plain Mrs — was in London, where she had an architect's practice.
We made a list of all the dates but it was meaningless. Things could have been lying around for weeks. As Jeff Caton said, this was the only enquiry he'd ever been on where there was no point in asking: "Where were you on…?" The forensics people started some experiments to see how quickly tinned fruit went mouldy, but we knew it would be of doubtful value.
Wednesday morning Dr Hirst rang me. The name didn't mean anything for a few seconds until he reminded me that I'd seen him at the General after the Ebola scare.
"Sorry, Dr Hirst," I said. "I didn't recognise the name.
We're still working on the case but not making much progress."
"I know, I've heard the appeal, but there may have been a development."
"Go on."
"We had an admission through the night with all the symptoms of a severe stroke, but a brain scan was negative. She's very ill — we've put her on a respirator — and in the light of what's been happening I started wondering about botulism poisoning. I've given her a dose of the antitoxin serum and sent a stool sample for analysis, but a full diagnosis may take a day or two."
Twenty minutes later Dave and I were seated in the corridor outside the 1C ward with Dr Hirst.
"You work long hours, Doc," Dave told him.
"It's not too bad," he replied with a grin. "They let us use the coffee machine as often as we like. Can I offer you one?"
"No, we'll get out of your way," I said. "So tell us about botulism."
"I suspect you know the general details," he replied. "It's caused by a little blighter called Clostridium botulinum, which normally lies dormant in the soil." He paused as a grim-faced man carrying a bunch of carnations and leading a weepy little girl was taken into the ward. The door swung silently shut and he continued: "The bacterium thrives in conditions of low oxygen, such as in sealed cans, where it produces a nerve toxin which can be deadly."
"Sounds nasty. What can you tell us about the patient?"
"Maureen Wall, a fifty-six-year-old widow. Started feeling ill last night. Blurred vision, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing. She telephoned her daughter in Ipswich who thought it sounded like a stroke and sent for an ambulance."
"Is she speaking?" I asked.
"Barely."
"Will she live?"
"She's off the danger list, but it will take a long time for her to get over the paralysis."
"Do you want me to look for her last meal?"
"It could be a big help."
"No problem. Do we have an address?"
"Right here." He produced a piece of paper.
"And a key?"
"It's with the neighbour."
"Right. I could sign a search authority but it might be more polite to telephone the daughter."
"I've spoken to her," Dr Hirst said. "She says do whatever's necessary."
"You're a treasure, Doc. If you ever want a career change we could use you. If we find something, who do we leave it with?"
It was the corned beef. The neighbour wanted to supervise our search but Dave steered her away with threats of having to take intimate body samples "for elimination purposes" if she stepped one inch over the threshold. It was a tiny kitchen in what I believe is called a maisonette, designed for older couples or singletons. There was a group of them, each block containing four homes, situated around an overgrown patch of lawn with cherry trees, long past their best.
I opened the refrigerator door and immediately saw the remains of the corned beef on a saucer, covered with cling film. In a swing bin under the sink we found the tin. Dave sniffed at it, said he couldn't smell anything, but I declined the opportunity. He turned the tin in his fingers, holding it by the edges, and gestured for me to look. In the middle of the O of Corned was a tiny hole. When you looked inside you could see how the metal was displaced. This hole had been made with a nail or something like a drawing pin, not drilled.
"Brilliant," I said. "You and the doctor could crack this one between you and I could go home." We bagged the evidence and dropped it off at the hospital's toxicology lab.
In the car on the way back to the station I said: "It's good to be out on the streets again, Dave, making enquiries. Sitting behind a desk was getting me down."
"Serves you right for joining." What he meant was that promotion above the rank of sergeant always took you one more step away from the sharp end, where the real policing was done.
"True," I agreed.
After a silence Dave said: "It's great to see you more relaxed. Charlie. We were worried about you after the last job."
"I was worried about myself. I thought I'd gone mad."
"Yeah, well, it was a tough 'un. The rest of us were feeling edgy, too."
"I know. Everybody in the team felt a personal involvement, but I don't think I handled it as well as most of you."
"It was your head that was on the block, Charlie. I don't know 'ow you stood the pressure."
"Well it's behind us now, and I learned a lot from it. From now on I'm going with the flow. It's tough luck on Mr Johnson and Mrs Wall, and I'll do everything in my power to give them justice, but it's their problem, not mine. I hesitate to admit it, but I'm enjoying this case."
"You might not if someone dies," Dave cautioned.
"Yeah, well, let's say a little prayer that it doesn't come to that."
"Amen. So why do you think he's suddenly started using poison?"
We were going through the town centre but it was still early and not many shoppers were about. Two girls and a youth were standing outside the side door of the HSBC bank, shivering in the cool morning air and drawing on cigarettes as if their lives depended on it. The last remaining greengrocer in Heckley was loading his outdoor display with fruit and veg. Hand-written signs showed the prices of carrot's, apple's and orange's. I started to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing."
"Well something's tickling you."
"It's nothing."
Now Dave was laughing. "It doesn't look like nothing."
I found a tissue and blew my nose. "Do you remember when I was in digs at Chapeltown?" I said.
"At Mrs Stalin's? I remember." Dave had been a PC and I was a rookie sergeant.
"Well, there was this youth lived next door. Had a car with a straight-through exhaust. An Avenger or an Allegro, some rubbish like that. A Morris Ital, I think that was it. Anyway, every morning at eleven minutes past seven he'd slam the door and rev the engine like he was starting a grand prix, ruining my beauty sleep, especially if I'd just come off nights."
"That sounds like Chapeltown," Dave said.
"So, this fine sunny morning I was coming down Roundhay Road on my bike at the end of the shift when I saw this great big cooking apple lying in the gutter. I stopped and picked it up. It was the biggest, greenest, shiniest apple I'd ever seen. I got off my bike at Mrs Stalin's and I was wondering what to do with the apple. It was a cooker, but not big enough to make a pie with. And then I saw Laddo's car, and knew that in exactly thirty-one minutes he'd be revving the damned thing enough to wake the dead. And me. So I jumped over the fence and stuffed the apple up his exhaust pipe."
Dave chuckled and gave me a disbelieving look. "What 'appened."
"Nothing. I fell asleep and never heard a thing, and next morning the car was as noisy as ever."
"So why are you confessing after all these years?"
"You asked me why the person tampering with the tins had turned to poison. Because he wasn't getting any feedback from his other activities, that's why. He planted the tins with the dye, at great personal risk, but never heard anything more about them. It was one big anti-climax, so he upped the ante. Now he's in the papers, reading about his handiwork. For months it was eating my heart out not knowing what happened to that apple. My next stunt was going to be a bomb wired to his ignition but fortunately my promotion came through first."
"You sneaky so-and-so. Sir Morton this afternoon?"
"Yep."
"Am I invited?"
"You bet."
Dob Hall was built by a merchant adventurer who made his fortune out of wool in the eighteenth century, according to the local history society. Less charitable authorities suggested that slaves, guns and opium may have made a contribution to the family's wealth. Sir Morton's father, also a Sir Morton, had switched from blanket manufacturing into the grocery business when he realised that the duvet would do to blanket sales what the steam engine did to sail-making. When a shrinking army caused his lucrative military contracts to dry up he opened his first supermarket.
Originally the family had been called Grossbach, but the great-grandfather changed this to Grainger at a time when a foreign-sounding name was not good for a family business. The Saxe Coburg Gothas became the Windsors for similar reasons.
I knew all this because I'd asked Pete Goodfellow to do some research, and his findings were neatly typed and left on my desk. He'd resumed his normal duties, looking for the knicker thief and following up on burglaries, so I scrawled a message on the bottom of the sheet and placed it back on his desk. I put: That's great, Pete. It looks as if Sir M. inherited the family business. See if you can discover any disgruntled siblings hovering in the wings.
At five minutes to three Dave steered us into the imposing gateway of Dob Hall and spoke into the security system. A lone hot hatchback was standing outside them with a young female reporter from the Heckley Gazette dozing behind the wheel. She jerked awake as we stopped and climbed out of her car.
I wound my window down, shouting to her: "What time does the Gazette go to bed, love?"
"Anytime now. It's Inspector Priest, isn't it?"
"Never heard of him, but if you contact our press office you might just get a scoop."
She thanked me with a big smile and started to stab a number into her cell phone. If not a scoop at least she'd be up there with the tabloids when the news of the poisoned corned beef broke. The gates opened and we drove forward. The personal assistant met us at the front door and we were ushered into a side room, lined with books, and invited to sit down.
"Sir Morton will be down shortly," he told us. My idea of a personal assistant didn't run close to this one. He was about thirty and of a type that women find attractive, if you can believe the deodorant adverts: dark-haired and designer stubble. Yasser Arafat has a lot to answer for.
He turned to leave, but before he could I said: "I get the impression that Sir Morton is just passing through."
"Yes."
"It sounds a hectic schedule. Any idea where he's going or how long he will be away for?"
"I'm sure Sir Morton will be able to tell you that himself," he replied, scowling at me from beneath bushy eyebrows, and left.
"Good try," Dave said.
"The soul of discretion."
"Think he's gay?"
"It's possible. Is it relevant?"
"It's possible."
In the middle of the room was an antique table with a shine on it that took a hundred years of sore knuckles to produce, and on the table was a perspex box, keeping the dust off the model it held. I stood up and walked over to inspect it.
"It's this house, I think," I told Dave.
He came to join me. It was beautifully made, with delicate stonework and tall chimneys, and an ornate, tiled roof that must have taken hours to construct. Tiny-figures were grouped at the front around a model car and others were neatly parked nearby. Trees like the ones I'd seen on model railway layouts were dotted around the grounds, and at the back ancient met modern. There was a huge extension, bigger than the floor plan of the original building but only one storey high, with two more cars — a Rolls Royce and a little yellow coupe — parked outside. His and hers, at a guess. It was all metal and glass, one part being a swimming pool and the rest of it what looked like office space.
"Like it?" said voice behind us like the crack of a whip. We turned and introduced ourselves to Sir Morton Grainger, multimillionaire and supermarket supremo.
When we'd shaken hands I said: "Is it this place?"
"That's right," he replied. "My wife made the model to help; get the improvements past the planning people."
"Did it work?"
"Oh yes, it's all up and running. Been so for nearly five years."
He was about five feet seven tall and dressed in what I believe is called County: hacking jacket; fawn slacks; heather-mix shirt and woven tie. His hair was fair and crinkly and the broken veins on his cheeks indicated an outdoor man who enjoys a drop or two. A hunting man, at a guess, with a military background.
He gestured for us to sit down and I noticed that his brogues were shiny enough for him to shave by in the absence of a mirror, or perhaps use to signal a passing plane were he ever unfortunate enough to be shipwrecked. There's no substitute for breeding, I reluctantly admitted to myself, drawing my grubby footwear under the chair, out of sight.
"Thanks for seeing us, Sir Morton," I began, "and I apologise for you hearing about this business somewhat indirectly. We did try to contact you but you lead a busy life."
"The price of success, Inspector. Constantly trying to keep ahead of the game. Actually, I'm glad you're here. Any chance of you doing something about the press — they're camped outside the bloody gates?"
"There was just one there when we arrived," I told him, "and we've sent her on her way."
"Oh, that's good. Thank you. So how is the man who was poisoned?"
"He's recovering, but there's been another."
"Oh dear. It's a nasty business. Is he alright?"
"It's a woman, but we're told she'll recover. This time it appears to be a tin of corned beef that's caused the problem. I'm afraid you'll have to widen the scope of the call-back."
"Bloody hell! That's all we need. So how much nearer are you to catching the person responsible?"
"No nearer at all, but we'd like to ask you a few questions."
"Right. So fire away, but make it quick, I've a train to catch."
"Will do. First of all I'd like to say that all your managers have been very co-operative. These days, what with all the red tape, political correctness and civil rights that we are beset with, it would have been easy for any one of them to obstruct the enquiry, but they didn't and we're grateful. I believe you're just passing through."
"That's right. You're lucky to catch me. I'm on my way to play in a pro-am at St Andrew's. Charity do on the Old Course. Won't be back until Monday."
Golf, not hunting. Near enough, though. I said: "Sounds fun. In that case, as we won't be able to contact you, it would be helpful if you could issue an instruction to your managers to keep up with the co-operation."
"No problem, Inspector. I'll put Sebastian onto it straight away."
"Smashing. Thanks for that. Now, if we can ask you a few questions pertinent to the enquiry…"
He'd always tried to play fair, he told us, and as far as he knew had no business enemies. Some of the stores were built on greenfield sites and opposition, both locakand from organised groups, had been vocal, but the applications had gone through. Supermarkets were what people wanted. He hadn't cancelled any big contracts causing companies to go bust, and he'd received no threats or demands for money.
"You will," I told him, "but most will be from cranks, opportunists. It's important that any that arrive are sent straight to us with the minimum of handling."
He said that he understood and he would include that in the message to his managers. When he started looking at his watch we stood up to leave. We shook hands again and as he walked us to the door I said: "Your wife's an architect, I believe.",
"That's right. She's a partner in a practice."
"In London?"
"Head office is in London, but she works from home most of the time."
"Oh. Did she design the extension?" I tried to think of a grander word than extension, but couldn't.
"The leisure and office complex? That's right. With her own fair hands."
"She must be a clever lady.",.
"Yes, she is."
But there was no pride in his voice as he said it.
"So what do you think?" I asked as we drove out through the gate.
"He'satwat.",;
"Another one! But a rich twat, wouldn't you say?".,
"And that."
"With no enemies."
"If you believe that you'll stand for the drop o' York."
"He seemed concerned about the victims."
"The only thing he's concerned about is his profits."
"And his golf handicap?"
"Aye, and I bet he cheats at that."
"Is your ulcer playing up?"
"It could be. Did you ring her?"
"Who?"
"Who! Who do you think? Rosie."
"No, I didn't."
He snorted disdainfully and concentrated on driving. A woman was negotiating her way across the High Street with a baby buggy and Dave held up the traffic for her. She smiled a thank you and tipped buggy and youngster it contained violently backwards to mount the kerb. A Reward poster fastened to a lighting column caught my eye. I twisted in my seat as we accelerated away and saw that it was for a lost cat. Approaching the turn-off for the nick I said: "Have you got the address of that girl in your notebook? The one who was relocated by Robshaw. It was somewhere in the Sylvan Fields."
"Yeah. Want to go see her?"
"We might as well. She may give us a different perspective on the cosy world of Grainger's superstores."
Sylvan Fields is a rambling estate on the edge of Heckley, although it might be more accurate to say that Heckley is a small industrial and market town on the edge of the Sylvan Fields estate. Most of the houses date from the between-the-wars era, built for heroes, what was left of them, in a wave of compassion and social engineering. All went well for a couple of generations, but by the seventies the decline was well under way and accelerating. Nobody knows what the mechanism is, although thousands of theses have been written on the subject. Greater freedom, less respect for authority, prosperity, poverty, lower morals, breakdown of family life? Who can say? Alcohol and drugs, the advent of the motor car? Rock and roll and the Pill?
How about Y-fronts? Perhaps the decline in standards and increased tendency for violence, particularly amongst young men, was brought about by something as simple as the introduction and widespread use of snug-fitting underwear, causing the testes to overheat with the subsequent over-production of testosterone. Thinking about it, I could not rfecall a single case of a burglar or mugger being described by witnesses as wearing a kilt.
Dave passed me his notebook and I found the address. "28, Windermere Drive," I told him. "Know where it is?"
"No problem."
"Anywhere near where you lived?"
"No, we were at the rough end. Shirley lived in the next street, Buttermere Drive."
I didn't speak as Dave negotiated the estate, avoiding the bricks that strewed the road and the various wheeled devices dotted about the place like exhibits in a sculpture park: old prams, shopping trolleys and a couple of burnt-out cars. A dog chased out of a gateway at our car, then changed its mind and trotted back whence it came. There was a community centre on a corner that I'd seen a picture of in the Heckley Gazette when a local councillor cut the tape, its walls already sprayed with graffiti. Jeb and Shaz believed in advertising their feelings for each other.
I think Dave sensed what I was thinking, so he said: "There are some nice people live here, Charlie. They're not all yobs, y'know."
"I know that, Dave."
The litter thinned out and the houses changed colour. The council has a segregation policy, lumping most of the problem tenants at one end of the estate, together with the single mums, divorcees and rent-evaders. The best tenants, the ones who've had the foresight and wherewithal to buy their homes, are on the north side. Now the gardens were tidy, the hedges trimmed or replaced by brickwork, and the houses painted in individual styles. Burglar alarms adorned walls instead of satellite dishes. Dave turned into Windermere Drive and we looked for house numbers.
The girl was called Rebecca. She was born north of the tracks but was heading south, fast. It must be heartbreaking for parents to bring up a child to be polite, speak in sentences and take an interest in the world outside, only to see all their hard work swept aside by street culture as the kid reaches puberty.
Rebecca was eating Pringles, watching television, as her mother showed us through into the front room. The house was spotless but cluttered in a familiar way. They just didn't make them big enough for a growing family. She was dumpy and pasty-faced, with a mouth that permanently drooped at the corners.
"Two gentlemen to see you, Becky," her mother said. "About when you worked at Grainger's. It's about this food scare."
Becky's gaze switched from the TV to me and back again as she felt for her mouth with another Pringle. Her mother invited us to sit down and asked if we'd like a cup of tea.
"No thanks," Dave said, "but can we have the TV off, please." In a fantasy story Becky's glare would have turned him to stone.
"How long did you work at Grainger's, Becky?" Dave asked.
Realising, probably for the first time ever, that pressing the red button caused the moving images to go away, Becky turned on the settee to face her interrogator. "'Bout six months," she replied.
"Did you like working there?"
"No."
"What was the problem?"
"Itwa'borin"' "Have you seen anything on telly about the scare we're hav-ing?"
"A bit."
"Did you ever see anything suspicious while you were at Grainger's?"
"Suspicious? Like what?" Her mouth re-formed into a snarl, as if she thought the question ridiculous.
"Like anybody tampering with food. Tinned food in particular."
"No."
"Nothing that you can remember?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I've said so, 'aven't I?"
"Becky!" her mother admonished.
"Are you looking for another job?" I asked.
She turned to me and I felt the chill of her disdain. "There is nowt," she stated.
"But you're looking?"
"I'm trying to get my 'ead together."
"I understand you were moved from the store floor into the warehouse," Dave said.
Becky's expression changed quickly, from a brief flash of embarrassment, through glee and back to bored stiff again, like a shaft of light through a crack in a wall.
"That cow had me moved," she said.:
"Becky!"
"Well she is."
"Which cow would that be, Becky?"
"Mrs Brown. Sharon stuck-up Brown cow." '[Her mother said: "Becky, will you try to be polite to the gen? tlemen."
"It's OK," I told her with a grin. "We get much worse."
"Why did she have you moved?" Dave asked.
"I dropped things."
Her mother coughed. "Becky's always had this problem," she explained. "She's all fingers and thumbs, keeps dropping things."
"What did you drop?" Dave asked.
The look of glee returned and lingered this time. "Jars of things."
"What sort of things?"
"Beetroot. Pickled onions. Things like that."
"Big jars?" Dave asked. Now he was smiling.
"Yer. Right big jars."
I stood up and stretched, rotating my shoulders a couple of times. "Could we have a word in the kitchen, please?" I said to Becky's mum, and moved towards the door.
The sun shone in through the window and there was a pleasing smell coming from the oven. "That cup of tea would be most welcome," I said. She clicked the switch on the kettle and it rumbled into life.
"Sugar and milk?"
"No, just black. Has Becky always been a problem?"
She nodded and turned away from me, and I heard her sniff a couple of times.
"We learned that Becky had left under a bit of a cloud," I said, "and we've been looking for someone with a grudge. It's obviously not your daughter but we thought she might have some ideas, give us an insider's view of the company. DC Sparkington will tease it out of her if she's seen anything."
Her mother poured the tea and handed me a mug.
"Thank you. Is Becky looking for another job?"
"There isn't anything," her mother replied. "She goes to the job centre — sometimes I take her — but the only jobs she could do are in catering. And what with her little problem…"
"It sounds difficult."
"It is. We thought she'd be all right at Grainger's, but we were wrong. Now she doesn't seem bothered. Trouble is, there's no incentive for someone like her. She was on minimum wage, which wasn't too bad for a girl with Becky's qualifications, and most welcome, believe me, but she sees other girls on the estate who are much better off. Girls who went to school with her and are living the life of Riley, getting benefits and the rent paid because they've got kiddies."
She had a moan about the injustices of the system and we agreed that it was an insoluble problem. Try to do something about it and the children were the ones who paid the price. Dave came through, edging his bulk into the kitchen and rolling his eyes as he saw the mug of tea in my hand. Voices from the other room indicated that the TV was back on. We said thank you and she asked how the poisoned man was. "He'll live," I told her.
"Back to t'nick?" Dave asked as he started the engine.
"Yes please, driver. What did you learn?"
"Aha!" he responded. "Wouldn't you like to know."
"OK. I'll just sit here patiently waiting for a moment when you might find it convenient to fill me in."
"Right. Get this: Becky reckons that all-hands Robshaw is screwing old-cow Mrs Brown."
"Gerraway! All-hands Robshaw. Is she saying that he belongs to the touchy-feely school of management training?"
"Can't leave the girls alone, it would seem."
"And presumably Mrs Brown is the bespectacled lady called Sharon who brought in the complaints book?"
"Head of human resources, based at the Heckley branch."
"You did well."
"There's a bit more. Becky left because she was being bullied. It was OK on the shop floor but started when she was moved to the warehouse. Mrs Brown knew about it but didn't do anything."
After a while I said: "Poor kid. What do you reckon's wrong with her?"
"Don't know. When we went in, after a few seconds, I had this flash that she was Down's syndrome. Then I realised that she wasn't, just — what do we say these days? — has learning difficulties."
"Hmm. I went through the same process." • "Makes me realise how lucky we've been with our two."
"I bet. Have you heard from Sophie yet?"
His shake of the head and ensuing silence were more eloquent than words and I knew I was treading a minefield, so I changed the subject.
"What have you got against Grainger — Sir Morton?" I asked him. "You didn't exactly take to him when we met." "Huh!" "Go on." "I'll tell you in the office."
But he didn't have the chance to tell me. There was a note on my desk from Pete Goodfellow and another saying that Mr Wood wanted to see me ASAP. Pete had done his homework about Sir Morton, as requested. He was a Foreign and Commonwealth Office man, not army, and had held a junior position at some God-forsaken outpost in the Pacific until hurriedly promoted when his boss drowned while snorkelling. He was stationed in Fiji, and when the Queen, on a tour of the more distant corners of the Commonwealth, unexpectedly changed her itinerary to visit her loyal subjects in Tuvalu, Junior Consul Grainger had filled the breach and ensured that everything went along swimmingly. His reward was promotion and promise of a KCMG, whatever that meant. Grainger's older brother had inherited the burgeoning family business, but he was killed while racing a vintage grand prix car in Belgium and the whole lot passed to Morton, or Sir Morton as he became on leaving the FCO.
A line from Dylan's "Idiot Wind" flashed through my mind: And when she died it all came to me, I can't help it if I'm lucky. I walked through into the main office and passed the note to Dave.
"Tuvalu?" he said, after considering the note for nearly a minute.
"Yep."
"Wear the fox hat?"
"It's in the Pacific."
"Thanks. That pins it down. Fancy a pint tonight?"
"Good idea. Gilbert wants me, I'll be upstairs."
Gilbert wasn't alone. A tall man with a navy blue sweater and the resigned expression of a long-term political prisoner was sitting in my chair, nursing a coffee. Gilbert introduced me and confirmed what I'd already deduced by reading the logo on the man's epaulettes: he was an RSPCA inspector.
We shook hands briefly, but then I turned back to Mr Wood, saying: "How's young Freddie?"
Gilbert brightened and shuffled in his seat. "He's fine, thanks, Charlie. As good as new. This morning I had the public health people on to me, about the botulism. I told them it was the result of criminal activity, not a natural outbreak, and that seemed to satisfy them for the moment. Does that sound right?"
"Yes, that's fair enough."
"Good. Now, John here was telling me about the apparent increase in dog fighting. He believes there's an organised ring, and they're into badger baiting, too."
And for the next hour Inspector John regaled us with horror stories about Man's inhumanity to his fellow creatures. The natural world is red in tooth and claw, as we all know, but Man, with his gift of imagination and insatiable desire for excitement, adds a new dimension to the game. I wasn't unsympathetic, and doing unspeakable things to animals is only a small step away from repeating the practise against human beings. It was chicken for tea, in lemon sauce, but I didn't enjoy it.
"This is a pleasant surprise," I said, stooping to give Shirley, Dave's wife, a peck on the cheek. When we go for a midweek drink Dave and I walk to the pub and Shirley usually collects us towards closing time.
"Wouldn't let me out on my own," he complained. "Said you were a bad influence."
I got the drinks, with a packet of crisps for myself, and we made ourselves comfortable at a corner table. "We've got to concentrate on the dog fighting," I said after the first sip of my pint. "There was an RSPCA inspector with the boss and he reckons it's widespread. And badger baiting. Gilbert's promised to divert resources in that direction, whatever that means."
"Send a panda down the lane once a shift," Dave replied.
"Yeah, but it would be good PR if we made a few arrests, and that's what it's all about, these days."
"Why do they do it?" Shirley asked, adding: "They must be sick," to answer her own question.
"Has Dave told you all about our visit to Dob Hall?" I said, changing the subject. "You'd've loved it. Talk about how the other half live."
"No, he never tells me anything."
"That's not true," he protested, and extricated himself from blame by describing in intricate detail the precise geography of the hall, as gathered from studying the scale model.
"It sounds rather grand," Shirley agreed without enthusiasm, adjusting the position of her glass so it was dead central on the beer mat and then slipping her jacket off her shoulders. Dave reached across and helped arrange it on the back of her chair.
"You never finished telling me why you're so fond of Sir Morton," I said, and Dave made a grunting noise and picked up his pint.
When it was firmly back on the table I said: "So?"
He looked uncomfortable, glancing at Shirley, at his pint and back to Shirley. "I was going to tell Charlie about your mum," he said to her.
Shirley reached for her glass, turned it in her fingers and replaced it. "If you want," she said. "It can't hurt Mum now."
Something had happened but I didn't know what. I opened my mouth to say that if it was personal I was happy to be kept in the dark, but before I could find the right words Dave started speaking. "Shirley's mum was done for shoplifting," he said, "six months before she died."
"Oh, I didn't know. She died… what? About a year ago?"
"It will be twelve months on the 18th of August," Shirley said. "The day before my birthday."
"She'd bought a trolley full o' shopping at Grainger's Halifax branch," Dave continued, "including a toothbrush in a plastic tube. It fell through the wire of the trolley a couple of times so she must have put it in her pocket. She was stopped outside and hauled off to the manager's office. They have no discretion, they always call the police and prosecute."
"Discretion requires making a decision," I said.
"Exactly. So, at the age of seventy-two, and never having been as much as a day behind with a payment for anything, she finds herself summoned to Halifax nick for an official caution."
"God, Dave, why didn't you say?"
"It's all right. I had a word and she didn't have to attend. But that's when the decline started and she was dead in six months."
"Like Lady Barnet," I said.
"Who?"
"Lady Isobel Barnet," Shirley replied for me. "Something similar happened to her, a long time ago. Mum wasn't the first and she won't be the last."
We had another drink and decided that was enough. Dave went to the loo and I followed him. There was one person already in there, shaking the drops off. When he'd gone, without washing his hands, I pushed open the doors to the two cubicles with my toe to prove they were empty.
"You realise," I said, "that this makes you a suspect. You have a motive."
"Yeah, I know. Me and a few hundred others."
"Jeez, you're right."
Shirley was waiting in the car for us. "Dave says you've had a postcard from Sophie," she said, brightly.
"That's right, last Thursday, I think it was. Said she was having a good time and that I'd like it in Cap Ferrat because everybody was old."
Shirley laughed. "Good old Sophie, tactful as ever."
"It wouldn't hurt her to send a card home," Dave grumbled. "If she doesn't send you one on your birthday she's in big trouble."
"She's young," Shirley explained. "She's probably in love. Leave her alone."
"Huh!" he snorted.
When I was at art school I remember my dad coming out with a maxim that was prevalent at the time: send your sons to university but keep your daughters away. I'd a feeling that Dave had heard the same maxim.
L