Martin Edwards - Suspicious Minds

“Your old flame?” asked Valerie when they were inside Harry’s living room.

Harry had told her a little about his affair with Brenda. He’d wanted to build the trust between them. No secrets. And she’d mentioned a few young men she’d been involved with, at university and during the Bar finals course. Nothing serious by the sound of it. But she’d said not a word about Julian Hamer.

“Wasted on Colin,” said Harry. “Though he’s a decent enough feller.”

“Sometimes women have to take what they can get.”

“Men, too.”

She raised her eyebrows but instead of pursuing the point walked over to the window and gazed up the Mersey.

“You’re lucky to have this place, Harry. So peaceful.”

“You should hear the gales howl down the river on dark February nights.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Sounds bloody noisy. Anyway, never mind that. Did you enjoy seeing your parents?”

It wasn’t an idle enquiry. She’d told him she would be staying overnight at the family home. Although he hated himself for doubting, he wanted to be reassured she’d been telling the truth.

“So-so. My father’s got things on his mind. The business is ruling his life at the moment.”

“In a company like Saviour Money? Surely he’s reached the stage where he can delegate.”

Harry never looked at the City pages in the Press; they might have been written in Sanskrit for all he knew or cared about stocks and shares. But everyone reckoned that the old Liverpool supermarket business which had been on the brink of insolvency when Bharat Kaiwar bought it was now one of the most profitable in the North.

“It’s not an ordinary kind of problem.” She hesitated. “Look. I’ll tell you about it. But this is strictly between you and me. All right?”

“Sure.” His reply was matter of fact, but he couldn’t help feeling flattered by her willingness to confide in him.

She picked up from a chair a battered green and white Penguin edition of Tragedy at Law which Harry had been reading the previous night. She flicked idly through the pages, as if reluctant to embark on her promised disclosure.

“Mystery stories appeal to you, don’t they? But crime has changed since books like this were written. It’s less ingenious, more frightening.”

“Cyril Hare might not have agreed. And he was a barrister too.”

“Really?” She scrutinised the book again for a moment, then tossed it aside. “Anyway, I was about to tell you. Daddy’s worried sick. He’s being blackmailed.”

“What?”

“Or rather, Saviour Money is. It comes to much the same thing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Someone is trying to hold the business to ransom. Threatening to poison products on the shelves unless they are paid a hundred thousand pounds.”

Harry whistled. “Do the police know?”

“Yes, of course. Daddy didn’t take kindly to the first threats. Made by phone to one of the stores, as you might expect. Apparently it’s not uncommon in the food and drink business these days. Cranks mostly. The police are informed routinely. Nine times out of ten, nothing more is ever heard.”

“And this time?”

“First the caller asked for a payment of twenty-five thousand. No response was made. Then another warning call received by the shop in Birkenhead. The manager was told to check the yoghurt. He soon found a couple of strawberry surprise pots had been tampered with. Lab tests were carried out. The yoghurt contained finely ground glass. Possibly not enough to kill, but anyone who ate it would have suffered serious injury.”

“The wrong kind of surprise.”

“Yes. Within twenty-four hours he’d rung again. The price had gone up fourfold, he said. That was yesterday morning.”

“Presumably your father has store detectives out in force in the shops?”

“Yes, but it’s like searching for a twig in a forest. I gather the usual modus operandi in this sort of case is that the poisoner tampers at home with goods which he may have bought quite legitimately in the shop. Then he brings them back into the store and puts them back on the shelves when no one is looking. Done well, it’s almost impossible to spot.”

“Is your father going to pay?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell even me. I assume the plan will be to play along with the crooks and try to pick them up when they come to collect the money, but of course they’ll be alert for that. They’re bound to insist on hand-over arrangements which give them maximum safety. Daddy’s in despair. He’s caught between the devil and deep blue sea.”

She stared moodily out of the window. The picture Valerie had previously painted of her father was of a shy man who worked round the clock and shunned the limelight. He regarded the Saviour Money chain, she’d once said only half-jokingly, as his second child, the son he’d never had. Harry imagined that Kaiwar would feel any attempt to ruin the business he had spent twenty years building up almost as keenly as an attack on Valerie herself.

He went to stand by her side and put his arm on her shoulder.

“What would you like to do this afternoon? Something to take your mind off your father’s woes would be a good idea.”

“What do you recommend?”

He was acutely aware of her perfume, a subtle and delicious fragrance, and of the closeness of her. This is an important moment, he thought. I mustn’t blow it by being too eager. But nor must I miss the chance.

“Well…”

The telephone rang, shredding the silence like a knife through satin.

Shit, thought Harry. One of my regulars got himself locked up after supping too much at lunch time. Ignore it.

The phone kept ringing.

“Aren’t you going to answer?”

“I wasn’t intending to.”

“You should,” Valerie said. “It might be something important.”

“A wrong number, depend upon it.”

But he found himself walking across the room and snatching up the receiver as if it were the hand of a naughty child.

“Yes?”

“Harry? I need to see you right away.”

Jack Stirrup’s never-take-no-for-an-answer Brummie tone prompted Harry into mutiny.

“Sorry, Jack, it’ll have to wait. If…”

“Listen, this is a matter of life and death.”

Something in Stirrup’s inflection stopped Harry from putting down the phone.

“Tell me.”

“It’s Claire. She’s disappeared.”

“Call the police,” said Harry for the twentieth time. “It’s the only way.”

“What kind of advice is that?” Stirrup banged his fist on the pine table. “So they can lock me up?”

Frustration enveloped Harry like a pre-war London fog. How easy it would be to lose sight of what mattered, when all that was clear was Stirrup’s stubbornness. He fought an urge to take hold of the man and try to knock some sense into him. Brawling with a client was bad for business. And it would not bring Claire back home.

“Don’t be paranoid. They’re not going to lock you up because your daughter has disappeared.”

“Paranoid, you say?” Stirrup laughed scornfully. “You’d be bloody paranoid if you were in my shoes. Fat lot of help you are. My own bloody solicitor advising me to turn myself in. You’ll really make it to Lord Chief Justice, you will, with a legal brain like that.”

They were in the kitchen at Prospect House. The room was smart and clean, elegant and lifeless as a picture in an ideal home magazine. The silence was broken only by the sullen burbling of the coffee machine in the corner.

“Jack, there’s no question of your turning yourself in. Be realistic, you have no choice but to report Claire as missing. How long has she been gone now? Four hours? Five? Every minute you delay could make matters worse.”