A Going Concern Read online

  ‘Death duties,’ said David Gillsans smoothly. He toyed momentarily with the idea of telling his employer that the tax had its early origins as a fine on a subject for dying and thus depriving the Crown of the services of the deceased – but decided against it. Harris was all on edge enough this morning as it was. He said instead, ‘There’ll be a bit of a delay of course before they can be sold – probate and so forth. Solicitors never hurry.’

  ‘She’ll have had a big holding,’ Harris mused, ‘because there were two of them, then. Her and her husband.’

  ‘It’s difficult to remember that Chernwoods’ Dyestuffs must have been in quite a bad way after the war,’ said David Gillsans peaceably, ‘and needing capital.’ This was much safer ground. Michael Harris was always ready to recount how his own father and Freddie Marsh had walked away from Chernwoods’ after the last war and set up their own firm on the other side of town: and how Albert Harris had kept his Chernwoods’ shares, too, so that he could keep an eye on how their nearest rival was doing. Not that balance sheets said everything. Old Albert Harris’d known that much before he and Freddie Marsh had branched out on their own.

  ‘Must have been hard going for all of them then,’ said Michael Harris. ‘Mind you, I was no’but a boy myself at the time but Dad talked about it a lot at home.’

  ‘Did they part brass rags?’ asked David Gillsans curiously. ‘I mean, did your father and Freddie have a row or just walk out on them?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing like that,’ responded Harris, sensing criticism. ‘The Garamonds were able to put real money into Chernwoods’, you see, and Dad and Freddie couldn’t. Not at the time. Dad just had a few shares for old times’ sake and to see how they were doing.’

  ‘And how is your father?’ enquired David Gillsans politely. Freddie Marsh had died long ago.

  ‘Much as usual,’ shrugged Harris. ‘Rambling, like he always does these days. I’m not even sure that he knows me now.’

  ‘Pity, when you think of what he did in the past.’ David Gillsans would not have dreamed of saying that he thought it just as well that Harris’s father didn’t know what was going on. The old man would never have agreed to this ill-advised take-over battle that his son was bent on.

  Hell-bent, amended Gillsans silently.

  Fortunately Harris was no mind-reader. He went on: ‘I sat by his bed most of Sunday afternoon – not that it does any good. Still it’s just as well to take an interest or the nursing home gets slack.’

  ‘Very true,’ nodded Gillsans.

  ‘Sad when you think of him as he was.’

  ‘Indeed.’ As it happened, the finance director knew a great deal about the early struggles of Harris and Marsh’s Chemicals Ltd., since he not only had access to the old company reports and balance sheets but could understand them as well. Old Albert Harris had done well in his day – and had a bit of luck, too, when he had needed it.

  As always, Michael Harris came back to his own consuming passion to take over Chernwoods’ Dyestuffs.

  ‘He’d be very pleased, David, if he knew what we were doing now. It was his dream, too, you know, to end up owning the firm where he first worked.’

  The finance director remained unmoved by his employer’s dreams: in his view personalities shouldn’t be allowed to affect financial decisions. ‘There’s no sentiment in business,’ he warned.

  ‘You tell that to Chernwoods’ when we get ’em in our net.’

  ‘If we get them,’ Gillsans reminded his boss, not for the first time. In the accountant’s book, schoolboy rivalries should not outlive the playground. ‘It’s not in the bag yet, remember.’

  ‘If the law doesn’t say you can’t,’ said Michael Harris gnomically, ‘then you can.’ Just then the door of his office was opened after a perfunctory tap and his secretary came in. He looked round. ‘Yes, Deanne, what is it?’

  ‘It’s my cousin Doreen on the switchboard down at Chernwoods’, Mr Harris …’

  ‘Yes?’ Michael Harris sprang to attention much as those at Ghent might have done when the messenger arrived from Aix.

  ‘She says they’ve got the police round there,’ reported Deanne, wide eyed.

  ELEVEN

  Bury him deeply – think of the monkey,

  Luston was Calleshire’s principal industrial town. As English settlements went it was old enough in its history to match Berebury itself – even Calleford – but it hadn’t burgeoned into a real town until the middle of the nineteenth century, when, with the advent of the railway, it had suddenly started to grow.

  Claude Miller, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive of Chernwoods’ Dyestuffs, received Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby with a judiciously balanced blend of courtesy and curiosity. Gregory Rosart, information officer and librarian, was at his side. Miller, noted Sloan, was a tall, rangy figure, thin as a yard of rainwater, and given to unnecessary jerky movements, while Rosart was short and thick-set, with fat, puffy hands.

  Miller said: ‘I’ve had Greg here dig out the records you asked for, Inspector.’

  ‘Mrs Garamond came to the firm early in 1941, Inspector,’ contributed Rosart fluently. ‘She was just Miss O. L. A. Harquil-Grasset, B.Sc., in those days, by the way. She didn’t marry until later.’

  ‘I understand,’ supplemented Claude Miller, ‘that she was one of our best people at the time …’

  ‘The notes I’ve turned up,’ chimed in the information officer, ‘describe her as a very promising young scientist …’

  ‘And,’ enquired Sloan pertinently, ‘was that early promise fulfilled?’ There were men who had been at the Police Training College with him who were rising chief constables now … and other men who had been there then who were still constables acting as human traffic lights in the constabulary equivalent of a punishment station.

  ‘Oh, yes, indeed.’ It was Claude Miller who responded this time. ‘What work she did in the war is mostly still covered by the Official Secrets Act and we don’t have complete records, naturally …’

  ‘Naturally,’ concurred the detective inspector, who had taken – and kept – his own Oath of Loyalty.

  ‘But afterwards she and her husband – as you know she later married William Garamond, who also worked here – he was a pure chemist …’

  Detective Inspector Sloan made an aide memoire in his notebook. He saw no point in trying to guess what a pure chemist was. Or in trying to tell the superintendent until he knew for certain.

  ‘Well,’ said Claude Miller impressively, sounding like the decisive chairman of the board that he would like to have been, ‘they were among those whose work made Chernwoods’ Dyestuffs what it is today.’

  ‘And what is it today?’ enquired Detective Inspector Sloan. He saw no reason to mention that he had already dispatched an urgent request to Companies’ House for the fullest of details of not only Chernwoods Dyestuffs but of Harris and Marsh’s Chemicals as well.

  Oddly enough the chairman of the board of Chernwoods’ left the answering of this question to his information officer. ‘One of the more important smaller companies in the bio-chemical medical-research sector, gentlemen,’ recited Gregory Rosart unhesitatingly.

  ‘Where do the dyestuffs come in then?’

  ‘Ah, Inspector,’ continued Rosart, after a quick glance at his chairman, ‘that has its origins in our early history. Chernwoods’ Dyestuffs first began about a hundred and fifty years ago as a processor of natural dyes – both Isatis tinctoria and Reseda luteola grew naturally in these parts …’

  ‘And are you going to tell me what they are?’ asked Detective Inspector Sloan, who didn’t like being talked down to any more than did the next man.

  ‘Waxen woad and dyer’s weld,’ said Rosart. Claude Miller’s attention seemed to be elsewhere.

  ‘I see,’ said Sloan, nodding. He thought about the photograph on the bedroom mantelpiece at the Grange and said: ‘And in the war?’

  He was immediately aware of a stiffening on Miller’s pa
rt, while there was a barely perceptible tenseness in Gregory Rosart’s posture, too subtle to be described as a bracing but a change in manner for all that.

  ‘According to my research, Inspector,’ said Rosart, ‘Chernwoods’ went over to war-work in September 1939.’

  ‘Before my time,’ said Claude Miller lightly. ‘I’ve only been with the firm since my father died about ten years ago. He and my grandfather would have been able to help you more.’

  ‘And did what,’ persisted Sloan, keeping his eye on the ball, ‘in the war?’

  ‘A great many things,’ said Rosart.

  ‘Chemical warfare work?’

  ‘I believe that they did do some testing but not the actual manufacturing,’ said Rosart unwillingly. ‘The records aren’t very explicit.’

  ‘Anything else?’ It was interesting, noted Sloan, how the information officer had immediately distanced himself from the unpalatable. The royal ‘we’ had suddenly become the impersonal ‘they’ when he spoke about the firm.

  ‘A great deal else, naturally.’

  ‘To do with dyes?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘The Garamonds,’ Sloan said. ‘What did they do? Do you know?’

  ‘Not exactly, Inspector, but I understand from such records as there are that to start with their work was to do with the staining of human cells.’

  Sloan said that he couldn’t quite see where that could have come into the war effort.

  ‘I believe, Inspector – that is, as far as I can make out – the boffins at the War Office were interested in the development of a skin dye with which they could identify prisoners-of-war on a semi-permanent basis.’

  ‘A tattoo that faded over time?’ supplied Sloan cogently.

  ‘Exactly. I have found records which indicate that checks were made to see that such an application did not contravene the Geneva Convention.’

  ‘Hence the combination of a chemist and a biochemist?’ said Sloan. Surely it was only the British who thought that war should be fought according to the Queensbury Rules?

  Scrupulously.

  Even if the other side played dirty.

  ‘Very probably, Inspector. However, I understand that the project – it was codenamed Operation Tell-tale – came to nothing and it was abandoned after the works were bombed.’

  ‘Chernwoods’ Dyestuffs wanted her papers as of last week,’ said Sloan flatly. ‘You said so on Saturday when you rang the Grange …’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘And from the state of the Grange at Great Primer it looks as if someone else wanted her papers pretty badly, too,’ said Sloan, ‘and not, unless I’m very much mistaken, just for old times’ sake.’

  ‘So it would seem.’ A thin trickle of perspiration had appeared just below Gregory Rosart’s hair-line.

  ‘Therefore,’ Sloan continued logically, ‘it would also seem that Mrs Garamond’s papers can’t have been deposited with you here or even left behind at any time …’

  ‘They haven’t,’ said Rosart quickly.

  Too quickly.

  That meant that Gregory Rosart had already checked. And had had a reason for checking.

  ‘What is it, then,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, ‘that you here at Chernwoods’ wanted from Mrs Garamond’s effects?’ He addressed both men but Claude Miller made no move to answer him.

  Gregory Rosart stumbled. ‘I … that is, we … don’t know.’

  ‘But there is something …’

  ‘Yes … no … that is, we think there might have been,’ said the information officer.

  ‘But you don’t know what?’ For some reason best known to himself, Detective Constable Crosby suddenly started to take an interest in the proceedings.

  Rosart turned in the constable’s direction. ‘No, not exactly.’

  ‘But,’ said Sloan silkily, ‘something happened that made you think that there might be … er … something?’

  ‘I suppose you could put it like that.’

  ‘And that Mrs Garamond’s papers might be able to tell you what it was?’

  This time it was chairman Claude Miller who fielded the question. ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  ‘Why did you wait until she was dead?’ asked Sloan.

  ‘We didn’t.’ Miller pointed ingenuously to Rosart. ‘Greg here made several approaches by letter and in person.’

  ‘Too right, I did,’ said Rosart feelingly.

  ‘And Mrs Garamond wouldn’t see him. That’s right, Greg, isn’t it?’ appealed Claude Miller.

  The information officer nodded. ‘For starters I couldn’t get past the dragon at the gate.’

  Sloan did a rapid search of his memory. ‘Ellen? Her old maid?’

  ‘More like a sentry on guard duty,’ riposted Rosart.

  ‘The letters?’

  ‘Not answered. Any more than the telephone calls were responded to,’ said Rosart. ‘No joy in any direction.’

  ‘I see.’ Sloan settled himself more comfortably in his chair. ‘And are you going to tell me what it was that suddenly provoked your interest?’

  After a quick glance at his chairman, Rosart said: ‘About six months ago we suddenly started to get a number of requests for information – which we turned down – about the work done here in the old days. They came from someone who described himself as a historian doing research for a thesis.’

  ‘We had his story checked out, Inspector,’ supplemented the chairman, ‘and it didn’t stand up.’

  ‘I see.’ Sloan maintained his leisurely posture. ‘And then?’

  ‘The next thing was an offer from a business history specialist willing to write us up for our hundred and fiftieth anniversary.’

  ‘Which, I take it, would have involved giving the writer access to all your records?’ asked Sloan.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Miller.

  Sloan waited. ‘Well?’

  Claude Miller said, ‘So Greg here started digging around for himself just in case and …’

  ‘And?’ prompted Sloan.

  Rosart said slowly: ‘There was nothing that I could put my finger on except what might have been a codename, Inspector. Nothing more than that …’

  ‘A codename?’

  ‘OZ.’

  Detective Constable Crosby sat up. ‘The Wonderful Wizard of?’

  Rosart said, ‘Your guess is as good as mine. But Operation something is more likely.’

  ‘This codename,’ said Sloan. ‘Where did it crop up?’

  ‘In an expenses claim for Hut Eleven towards the end of 1943. For an additional supply of microscope slides.’

  ‘That all?’ said Sloan. Not even an intolerable deal of sack to go with the half-pennyworth of bread? Sir John Falstaff would have done better than that.

  ‘It was only because there seems to have been something of a legend attached to Hut Eleven that we looked at it twice …’

  ‘The legend of Hut Eleven?’ mused Sloan. Superintendent Leeyes wouldn’t like that for sure. If there was any melodrama about the superintendent himself liked to be its ‘onlie begetter’.

  ‘I don’t know much about it myself,’ the information officer hastened on, ‘just this rumour which still persists that they’d stumbled on something, but there was nothing in any records that we could find.’

  ‘But surely, gentlemen,’ said Sloan, who knew next to nothing about chemicals but a great deal about theft, ‘any work done here by an employee remains the property of the company?’

  ‘Indeed, yes, Inspector.’ Miller was emphatic. ‘We have a whole department here which deals with patents, copyright, intellectual property, and so forth.’ He waved a long thin arm in the direction of the information officer. ‘And one of Greg’s jobs here is to – er – monitor before-hand’ – Censor, translated Sloan; but not aloud – ‘what we publish on – er – our findings’ – Discoveries, thought Sloan to himself – ‘that are – which might be – commercially sensitive.’

  ‘And what, might I ask, was Hut Eleven?’ asked Sloan,
who knew exactly what the chairman of Chernwoods’ Dyestuffs meant by the words ‘commercially sensitive’.

  Valuable.

  Rosart answered that one. ‘In the war. Inspector, the people here at Chernwoods’ worked in small huts out in the fields in case of air raids. There was a company rule that there were never to be more than ten workers in each hut at any one time.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan nodded. Nowadays firms made much the same rule about those employees from any one department joining the same football pools’ syndicate. The reasoning was the same in both instances: the employer didn’t want to risk losing all the specialist workers in any one area of expertise at the same time.

  ‘Would I be right,’ Sloan said, ‘in hazarding that Mr and Mrs Garamond worked in Hut Eleven?’

  ‘You would.’ Gregory Rosart gave a sigh of resignation. ‘Both of them.’

  ‘And who else?’

  ‘Ah, Inspector, there we have had a little difficulty …’ said Rosart. ‘It was all so long ago, you see.’

  ‘There are people we can’t trace,’ put in Claude Miller, ‘although we’d like to.’

  ‘Dead or alive?’ Detective Constable Crosby made one of his rare interjections.

  ‘Either,’ said Claude Miller tersely.

  ‘Both,’ said Gregory Rosart in the same breath.

  TWELVE

  Shallow his grave and the dogs get him out

  Amelia sat at the kitchen table for a long time after she had talked to the Bursar of Boleyn College trying to think of what she should do next.

  She would have liked to go back to the Grange at Great Primer but the police had asked her not to do that yet. She had thought that if she just stood in the house she might pick up some feeling of what her great-aunt’s death really meant. But there was little chance, anyway, she decided realistically, of her sensing any atmosphere at the Grange if the police were still going over it …

  She would have liked to study much more carefully the old photograph of the wayside cross which James Puckle had handed over to her but Phoebe had taken that back with her to her medical consulting rooms where there was a really substantial magnifying glass that outdid any domestic one.