Quintin Jardine - Wearing Purple

‘Next morning, she went to the hairdresser’s, as she usually did every second Saturday. Afterwards she went shopping; for Jan, that would mean the St Enoch Centre, a bit of lunch, Princes Square, maybe Habitat or somewhere else for household stuff — an afternoon’s worth.

‘Then she came home, and she was killed. She switched on the fucking washing machine and she was killed. You with me so far?’

‘Yes, Oz,’ he whispered, discomfort all over his coupon.

‘That’s good. In that case, I’d like your help with something. I’d like you to tell me who took the Gantry papers from Jan’s filing drawer and put them back into the company records, and who took her notes on the health care division and made them disappear. Because I didn’t, and I know Jan didn’t.

‘While you’re working that out, maybe your experts can have another look at that bloody appliance, and tell you whether they agree with the manufacturer that it could have been rigged to kill my wife the moment she went to empty it.’

Dylan looked at me. He tried to speak, but went into a fit of coughing and spluttering. ‘Do you realise what you’re saying?’ he asked me.

‘Yes Mike. I’m saying there’s a chance that my wife was murdered because she had found out about something that’s going on within The Gantry Group — the company your girlfriend runs.

‘The company where Mr Joseph Donn has just been reinstalled as Finance Director,’ I took a deep breath, and stared at him, ‘over Jan’s dead body, you might say.’

I was an expert in the task of breaking bad news, so putting my friendly detective inspector on the spot didn’t bother me one bit.

For a few seconds he was absolutely speechless. ‘You’re not saying Susie’s involved, are you?’ he gasped, as he began to recover himself.

‘Not for one minute, Mike. But someone in her company is, of that I’m certain. Also, I would love to know what our friend Joe Donn was doing on the weekend Jan died.’

‘What the hell am I supposed to do about it? Why tell me about this, Oz?’

‘Well for one thing, if I go to any other copper; say, for example, the boys who investigated Jan’s death; they’ll investigate hard, they’ll walk all over Susie, and you’ll be seriously embarrassed, maybe even out of a job. Remember Ricky Ross?’ As I looked at him, he did, and he shuddered.

‘For another thing,’ I continued, ‘you might be a flash bastard, but I trust you. Now ask yourself this. What would you do if any other company was involved?’

He answered without a second’s thought. ‘I’d go to my boss and ask permission to seek a warrant to seize the documents involved.’

‘Well in this case, why don’t you go to your other boss? Ask Susie to let you have those papers back.’ I checked myself. ‘No, on second thoughts, ask her for photocopies. We don’t want anyone to know that we’re still looking into this.’

‘But what’ll I tell her when she asks why I want them?’

‘Tell her what you like, mate, but make damn sure you tell her to keep her mouth shut.’

‘You can trust this buddy of yours not to make too many waves, can you?’ Everett was still not reconciled to the idea of bringing the police in on his problems.

‘He understands the situation okay, and the sort of money involved. I spoke to Mike this morning before I came here. He’s advised his boss of the situation and he’s got the green light to handle it himself. He’ll be there tomorrow night with a couple more CID men, but there’ll be no heavy uniform involvement, nothing like that.

‘Have you hired the security firm, as we discussed?’

The big man nodded. ‘Yeah, I did that yesterday afternoon. I went for the biggest and best. They’ve promised me a specialist team on site all day tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘Will you still make it through tonight for the first rehearsals?’

‘Sure. No reason why not.’

‘That’s good. Everything’s gotta be word and move-perfect tomorrow; there’s no scope for mistakes, so everyone has to rehearse as often as it takes — including you.’

I threw him a look. ‘I could shove a brush up my arse and sweep the floor at the same time,’ I offered.

Everett grinned. ‘I’ll bear that in mind, should the need arise. Meantime, let’s go and sort out this information your policeman friend needs.’

The GWA contractual work was all handled by the McPhillips law firm, but Everett employed a personnel manager to deal with the routine aspects of people management. He led me straight into her room. ‘Want to look at the files, Hazel,’ he said.

He crossed to one of three steel filing cabinets which stood against the far wall, opened a drawer, pulled out a file, apparently at random, and handed it to me. It belonged to Diane, and listed her birthplace, Decatur, Illinois, her date of birth, which was one day after mine, her maiden name, Boone, her US and UK social security numbers and her permanent address and telephone number.

‘That be enough for you?’

I nodded. ‘Looks ideal. Are they all in this format?’

‘They’re all computer stored, so I guess they will be. Hazel, I need you to do something.’The dark-haired woman, who was in her mid-twenties, looked up from her desk. ‘Print out the top sheet of every file and bring them to me. Don’t ask why, and don’t tell anyone.’

She nodded, without a word, and we went back to Everett’s office. One mug of coffee and two doughnuts later — he had five — she knocked lightly on the door, stepped inside and laid a brown A4 envelope on the glass table.

‘That’s whit yis wanted,’ she said, in a broad Glasgow accent, turned on her heel and left. I watched the door as it closed.

Everett was grinning as I turned back towards him. ‘Hazel doesn’t say a word she doesn’t have to, but she keeps tabs on everyone in the business. I like her, like her a lot. I’m just waiting for the day she smiles at me.’

I was back home by midday, half an hour before Dylan arrived to pick up the documents. I spent the time glancing through them; they were completely up-to-date, for they included forms for Al Hendrix and the unpronounceable Japanese tag team.

‘How long will that lot take to process?’ I asked Mike, as he flicked through the thick bundle.

‘Depends on access to the computer,’ he replied. ‘We’ll have to do some checking across the Atlantic and in Europe, and that’ll take time. I hope it’ll be wrapped up by close of play tomorrow, but I can’t promise anything.’

‘Touch and go,’ I said. ‘We need this before the event, don’t we?’

‘If your client had brought us in earlier that would have been no problem.’

‘ Touche ,’ I conceded. ‘Have you talked to Susie about the other matter?’

‘As soon as I got back to her place last night.’

‘How’d she take it?’

‘Badly, as I’d expected. She exploded at first, but when I got her to calm down, and explained what had happened and what it might mean, she got frightened. She’s terrified by the very idea that someone in her business might have been involved in Jan’s death. Of course she’s worried too about the effect on Jack’s political career.’

‘Fuck Jack’s political career,’ I snapped at him. ‘Is she going to get those photocopies for us?’

‘Calm down, Oz. She’s going to do it as soon as there’s no one else in the office to see her. She hopes she’ll manage it tonight, but she did warn me that the new book-keeper’s been working late a lot, getting to know the business and getting ready to do his first VAT return.

‘I asked her about Joseph Donn too. She said that he couldn’t have been in your flat that day. When she fired him, he went off in a huff to his apartment in Marbella. Jack had to call him there to get him to come home, back to the business.