Learning Curve Page 16

  ‘Thank you for coming back to me,’ said Sloan.

  ‘No problem, Inspector,’ said the man at the other end of the line. ‘Let me see now, it was Berebury Pharmaceuticals you wanted to know all about, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. A firm attacked recently by Luston Chemicals with predatory pricing.’

  ‘There’s a lot of it about,’ said the money man. ‘No pressure, no diamond,’ he added obliquely.

  ‘Eat or be eaten, I suppose,’ observed Sloan in response.

  ‘Nasty as well as illegal,’ said the other man. ‘Does a lot of damage.’

  That there was no such thing as a victimless crime, Sloan knew already. And that most crimes were nasty.

  ‘The customer likes the undercut prices, of course,’ the man was going on, happily oblivious of Sloan’s views. ‘In the first instance, that is. They soon get to see the other side of the coin, of course, and they don’t like that then.’

  ‘Higher prices,’ deduced Sloan.

  ‘Very much higher prices,’ said the other man, ‘because they’ve effectively killed off the opposition since the market has been cornered. They can charge whatever they like as soon as they have the monopoly.’

  ‘Berebury Pharmaceuticals would appear to have fought back by poaching Luston’s chief chemist,’ said Sloan tentatively.

  ‘H’m.’ There was a noticeable pause at the City end of the line. ‘And they let him go without much of a struggle, you say?’

  ‘Only gardening leave that I know about,’ said Sloan. That Chris Honley had just been waiting in the wings for Derek Tridgell to die, he didn’t say.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said the money man quickly. ‘No great offers of raising of salary, extra bonuses, to keep him on board? Golden handcuffs? That sort of thing? On either hand? In my world, Inspector, you should always follow the money.’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard,’ admitted Sloan.

  ‘Find out,’ advised the man. ‘You snooze, you lose. It could be important.’

  ‘Perhaps the Berebury people offered him more money still?’ suggested Sloan diffidently.

  ‘I thought they were supposed to be on their financial knees?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Sloan humbly.

  ‘Doesn’t make sense to me,’ said the man from the City. ‘If you ask me he should have been the last person you’d want to invite into your outfit.’

  ‘A Trojan horse?’ That hadn’t occurred to Sloan either. He must always remember that the new man at Berebury Pharmaceuticals, Chris Honley, was a replacement for Derek Tridgell, deceased, he who had died accusing an unknown man of killing someone also unknown.

  ‘Well, the new man there’s going to get his hands on all the work his predecessor had in hand, isn’t he? That could work both ways, of course.’

  ‘You mean that Berebury Pharmaceuticals might have had something good in hand when their man died? Or that the Luston lot might have had something that Berebury wanted.’ It made simple larceny sound positively maidenly to Sloan.

  ‘Someone is said to have killed someone, you told me,’ the City man said. ‘The sort of knowledge we’re talking about here can be very valuable. Work in progress, they call it. Can be really good stuff sometimes. And worth a lot.’

  ‘Surely,’ objected Sloan, ‘just moving one man out of one outfit and into another couldn’t make all that much difference?’

  ‘Don’t let a headhunting firm hear you say that, Inspector. It’s heresy from their point of view. Their credo is that it can.’

  ‘And does it?’ he asked. Prima donnas were not encouraged in the police force. Teamwork was what got all the plaudits, definitely not an officer who, grand-standing, stood on the steps of a court and implied the conviction was all due to what he had done. That never went down well in the canteen.

  ‘If it’s a head of department man they’ve appointed then that man can go into every nook and cranny of the firm with impunity,’ said the man in the City. ‘And,’ he added ominously, ‘do what they like when they get there.’

  ‘You mean …’ began Sloan.

  ‘I mean industrial espionage, Inspector,’ said the money man crisply. ‘Plant a cuckoo’s egg in their IT system – that sort of thing. That would finish Berebury Pharmaceuticals off completely. For good and all, if that’s what Luston Chemicals have in mind, which I must say I am beginning to wonder.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan didn’t usually feel so naïve. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he said slowly.

  ‘On the other hand,’ the man went on, warming to his theme, ‘there is always the possibility that the Berebury firm had made a discovery that the Luston lot wanted. They’d have let their man go very easily to the Berebury outfit if they thought he could report back with that sort of news.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that either,’ said Sloan.

  ‘There is something else, Inspector – if you think the Luston man only wanted more money then you’d think the Luston people would have just given it to him to keep him on board.’

  ‘That’s true,’ admitted Sloan. It didn’t work like that in the police force. Police pay scales were fixed and the promotion ladder up them had, in Sloan’s opinion, a lot in common with both a greasy pole and the board game snakes and ladders. Alongside any ladders there might be, it didn’t need saying, were an awful lot of snakes. And nobody had ever called staying on a greasy pole easy, either. ‘By the way, can you tell me anything about a remainderman?’

  ‘That’s easy. It’s the one – man or woman – who collects at the end of the day.’

  ‘Legally?’

  ‘Usually. Not always, of course, because perfidy takes many forms,’ the other man informed him kindly, ‘and here in the City one way and another we tend to come across it quite often.’

  If there was one thing Detective Inspector Sloan didn’t like it was being made to feel a country bumpkin. ‘I daresay you do, but I don’t suppose you have as many cases of murder in your line as we do,’ he said, before thanking the man and ringing off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Detective Constable Crosby had planted himself down in front of Sloan with a noticeable lack of ceremony, returning rather in the defensive manner of a worker bee that hadn’t been able to find any pollen on a rainy day. ‘I’m starving, sir. Isn’t there a law about a worker having to have a break for food every four hours?’

  ‘Quite possibly, Crosby, but I’m not sure if the police are workers within the meaning of the Act,’ said Sloan calmly. ‘All the same I’ll have your report before you head for the canteen if you don’t mind.’

  ‘In the matter of crumpled wings,’ said Crosby, tugging his notebook out of his pocket, ‘Ralph Iddon over at Luston has two cars, neither of them damaged.’ The constable brightened visibly. ‘The Roller’s a real beaut. He let me sit in it.’

  ‘But not drive it?’ said Sloan, seriously alarmed. The thought of the financial consequences of a set-to with Crosby at the wheel of somebody else’s Rolls-Royce sent shudders down his spine in the way that an armed robber wouldn’t have done.

  ‘’Fraid not, sir, but it was lovely just sitting there.’

  ‘I trust you didn’t kick the tyres?’ Kicking car tyres was a sign that experienced car salesmen took very seriously.

  ‘No, sir. Of course not, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘They’ve got the health and safety people back there again, still sniffing around.’

  ‘Good on them,’ said Sloan absently. ‘Go on.’

  Crosby consulted his notebook. ‘Then I saw Elizabeth Shelford, the paralysed young woman at Larking. She swears that Trevor Skewis was with her only until half past nine last night.’

  ‘But no later?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And how long,’ asked Sloan, ‘would it have taken him to get from her house to the Lamb and Flag at Friar’s Flensant?’

  ‘What sort of car, sir?’

  ‘Trevor Skewis’s
sort, not yours,’ sighed Sloan.

  ‘And what sort of driver would he be, sir?’

  ‘Let’s say average, normal,’ said Sloan, sighing again.

  ‘Not long. He would have had plenty of time to get over to Friar’s Flensant and knock the two Tridgells down. And, sir …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Paul Tridgell had told both Tim Cullen and Trevor Skewis as well as Elizabeth Shelford that he and his sister were going to the pub that evening on foot.’

  ‘Had he, indeed?’ said Sloan, tapping his pencil on his desk.

  ‘So they knew the Tridgells would be there that evening.’

  ‘And could probably guess the time they would leave,’ said Sloan, veteran of many a turn-out fracas in his days on the beat. ‘All they would need to know was which pub to watch and Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sir, what’s oakum?’

  ‘Tarred rope. Why?’

  ‘When I asked Elizabeth Shelford what she did all day she said she picked oakum.’

  ‘I daresay it’s a way of saying that she was a prisoner in her own home.’

  ‘I don’t know why because she’s got a car.’

  ‘I don’t either, Crosby. And after seeing her, where did you go then?’

  ‘I went and saw Simon Thornycroft down by that bridge they’re building over the river. He’s got a newish Mercedes – the big one – not in quite the same league as the Rolls-Royce but not bad, not bad at all as cars go.’

  ‘I’m glad you liked it,’ said Sloan in a tone studiously without inflexion.

  ‘Its front nearside wing was damaged big time but from an earthmover.’

  Sloan sat up instantly. ‘What?’

  ‘He’d had a bash from an earthmover, sir. There was lots of bright yellow paint from it all over his wing. I checked. And there was a bit of the paint from Thornycroft’s car on the earthmover just like that man said there would be.’

  ‘What man?’ asked Sloan, mystified.

  ‘The Frenchman.’

  ‘What Frenchman?’

  ‘Edmond Locard. You know, sir. He’s the one who invented the exchange principle that everyone in the detective division is always going on about. The one that says you can’t touch anything without leaving a trace from you on it or from it on you. Him.’

  ‘I take it,’ said Sloan, ignoring this nugget of detection, ‘that you also interviewed the driver of the earthmover.’

  ‘No, sir. He wasn’t on the site there. Apparently he was needed at the other side of the bridge. The south side. He’d already left by the time I got there.’

  ‘Had he, indeed?’ murmured Sloan, making a note. ‘So you didn’t get his side of the story?’

  ‘No, sir, but I examined the back of the earthmover even though the driver wasn’t there and that’s where I found traces of black paint from Simon Thornycroft’s car. He’d gone to his lunch early, I expect,’ added Crosby. ‘The worker, I mean.’

  ‘All right, all right. I can take a hint. You can go and get yours now.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. The canteen’s all-day breakfast is very good.’

  Sloan nodded. It was no accident that it was always on the menu at the police canteen. Often enough it was breakfast time – that is, the first meal of the day – for some of the force who came in no matter what time of the day or night it was. ‘Then after you’ve had it, we’ll go over to Berebury Pharmaceuticals and have a word with Mr Jonathon Sharp.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘And, sir, there was something else.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I think that man Skewis is a bit sweet on the girl in the wheelchair.’

  Or consumed by guilt, thought Sloan. It was a thought though that he was keeping to himself.

  For the time being anyway.

  ‘Do come in, gentlemen,’ said Jonathon Sharp as a secretary ushered the two policemen into his office at Berebury Pharmaceuticals and showed them to their seats, Crosby at least duly fed and watered.

  Detective Inspector Sloan couldn’t quite decide what was different about this second interview with the chairman of the firm but very different it was. Then it came to him. The amiable man whom he had first met, relaxed and at ease in his own home just after Derek Tridgell’s funeral, was nowhere to be seen here in his office. Instead there was a brisk captain of industry sitting opposite him across a businesslike desk, trying hard to make it clear to the police that every minute counted. To him, anyway.

  ‘Yes,’ Jonathon Sharp admitted at once, ‘I took on Chris Honley. His coming here had been in the pipeline for quite a long time – ever since the bad news about Derek Tridgell’s prognosis got out, in fact.’

  ‘Rather odd that, all the same,’ pointed out Sloan, fortified by his conversation with the policeman in the City.

  ‘There’s no sentiment in business,’ said Sharp. ‘Can’t be.’

  Sloan knew that there was no sentiment in police work either. In theory, that is. In practice, police officers had been known to exercise mercy disguised as discretion. ‘And,’ he asked aloud, ‘how has Paul Tridgell taken it?’ Like it not, that young man seemed to be a key player wherever you looked.

  ‘Badly. Very badly.’ Sharp pursed his lips. ‘Mind you, he’s not the easiest chap in the world to deal with in the first place. His father would have been the first person to say that. Often did, actually, now I come to think about it. Too many chips on his shoulder. At least,’ he added, ‘Derek never asked me to give the boy a job here. I was really grateful for that, I can tell you.’

  Nepotism wasn’t something you had to worry about in the force. How Crosby had got past the rigid selection process was another matter altogether, although Sloan was the first to agree that sorting out the muffs and duffs at a very early stage wasn’t the easiest of tasks.

  ‘Quite,’ he said non-committally. He didn’t think young Paul Tridgell would have got very far in the police selection process either. Applicants were subtly riled on purpose to see if they rose to the bait. He didn’t think Paul Tridgell would have been able to resist doing that for one moment.

  Sloan looked carefully across the chairman’s desk now, mindful that here was yet another man who had been at the Tridgell funeral to hear Paul’s accusation of a killing, a man moreover whose car the two policemen had just examined in the firm’s car park. As well as examining it they had also taken photographs of it, paying attention to quite a lot of damaged paintwork, including that on the front nearside wing, even though this did appear to be rather rusty. With his arm considerably strengthened by this, Sloan said, ‘Where were you last night, sir?’

  Jonathon Sharp’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What happened last night, Inspector?’

  ‘There was very nearly a nasty accident,’ said Sloan succinctly. ‘So where were you?’

  The chairman’s lips twitched. ‘Eating out in what you might call the Calleshire profonde.’

  ‘And where is that exactly?’ asked Sloan, irritated. He didn’t like playing verbal games. Especially in French.

  ‘At Ornum.’ Sharp frowned. ‘At the Ornum Arms restaurant, actually.’

  ‘Posh nosh,’ said Detective Constable Crosby, who hadn’t been able to fault the canteen’s all-day breakfast.

  ‘They know me there, Inspector …’ began Sharp.

  ‘Not alone, I take it?’ Sloan asked. To be known by a head waiter cut no ice with the detective branch. They had other measures of worldly success.

  ‘Of course not, Inspector,’ said Sharp stiffly. ‘I was having what you might call a working dinner with a member of my staff.’

  Crosby stirred. ‘Lucky them.’

  Jonathon Sharp turned his head towards him. ‘Sometimes, Constable, it is easier to talk freely outside the working environment.’

  ‘Walls have ears,’ observed Crosby to no one in particular.

  Detective Inspector Sloan was the first to agree with both of them. In his experience, suspects often found their tongues in the custody suite but just as often lost them again
later on in the interview room with their solicitor sitting at their side and a camcorder whirring away. He asked Sharp who his guest had been.

  The chairman of Berebury Pharmaceuticals had the grace to look somewhat discomfited. ‘Chris Honley.’ He hesitated. ‘I felt discreet surroundings were necessary.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Sloan bluntly.

  ‘I was asking him what he’d found particularly important after he came to us. You will understand that there has been a bit of a hiatus here since Derek fell ill.’ He sighed. ‘He was such a good man, you know.’

  ‘And presumably,’ said Sloan in a tone that was studiously neutral, ‘you also wanted to know exactly what Honley had left behind at Luston Chemicals.’

  ‘I already knew some of that, Inspector.’

  ‘But not all?’

  ‘Naturally Honley was bound by a confidentiality agreement with his former employers.’

  A barely suppressed snort escaped Crosby’s lips. ‘Pull the other one,’ he muttered only just under his breath.

  ‘It’s true,’ protested Sharp awkwardly. ‘There are facts and other facts in our line.’

  It was simpler in the police force, thought Sloan to himself. There were known facts and unknown facts in a case and in his book there was information that had been verified to court standard on the one hand and there was conjecture and speculation on the other. Separating the wheat from the chaff was what took a case forward. The converse was that failure to do so held it back in no uncertain way.

  ‘About the car in your parking place, sir …’ said Sloan.

  ‘That’s not my car,’ said Sharp immediately. ‘It’s my wife’s.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I know it’s a bit bashed about but she’s not the best driver in the world. We have it done up again every now and then but it’s no use her having a new car. It’s not too bad to be on the road, is it?’