Peter Robinson - Watching the Dark

Annie entered through a door at the far end and soon found herself in an open area, where several giant rollers, like the front wheels of bulldozers, turned slowly as the yeast coated them, dried and was shaved off by a fixed razor-sharp blade into large boxes, and then no doubt fed into the other machines. The smell was even stronger inside.

She found a white hat, which happened to be a trilby. He was also wearing a white coat and carrying a clipboard. He seemed to be standing around doing nothing, so she went over and showed her identification.

‘Can I have a word somewhere?’ she asked over the noise of the factory.

He jerked his head in the direction of a row of small offices, and when he closed the door behind him, the volume level dropped considerably. It was a shabby office, furnished only with a cheap desk, chair and gunmetal filing cabinet. There was an ashtray on the desk with several cigarette stubs in it. The room felt uncomfortably small to Annie with the two of them in there. ‘Len’, as he was called, was a red-faced, paunchy man in his fifties who, to Annie’s eye, was fast heading for a coronary, if he hadn’t had one already. He rested one buttock on the desk, which creaked in complaint. Annie remained standing by the door.

‘I’ve come about some migrant labourers you employed here recently.’

The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘They come and go. That’s nothing to do with me.’

‘Are they here now?’

‘Not any more. They wouldn’t be in here, anyway. Most of them usually work over in the extracting department.’

‘In particular, I’m trying to find a Polish girl. I think her name is Ewa. She’s friends with another Polish girl who worked here until a week last Wednesday.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ Len said. ‘Like I said, they come and go. I don’t know their names. As long as they do their jobs, I don’t give a fuck what they’re called. You’ll have to try Human Resources, and they don’t work on a Sunday. It’s not my department.’

‘Said Werner von Braun.’

‘What?’

‘Never mind. Thanks for your help.’ Annie left the office, muttering ‘arsehole’ under her breath. She stood for a moment in the doorway watching the people work. Most seemed absorbed in their tasks, such as they were, and they didn’t return her gaze. Krystyna certainly wasn’t there. Not that Annie had expected her to be.

Before leaving the factory altogether, she thought she might as well drop by the extraction department and see if she could find out any more there. As there was only one large building left, she assumed that was it, dashed across the yard, avoiding puddles as best she could, and headed inside.

The factory floor was quiet, no thrum of machines or banging of gears and metal drums. There was one man, sans white hat, walking around the equipment, checking things and jotting notes on his clipboard. Annie coughed loudly enough that he could hear her, and he turned, surprised to see her there.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Police.’ Annie came forward and showed him her warrant card.

He put his clipboard down. ‘What can I do for you?’ He was younger than Len, and a lot more trim, as if he played football in a local league on Saturdays maybe.

‘I’m looking for someone who works here, or used to work here,’ Annie said. ‘Len over in the other building said I’d have a better chance here.’

The man, who introduced himself as Dennis, laughed. ‘Len’s very old school. There’s nothing much he doesn’t know about yeast.’

‘How can you stand the smell?’ Annie asked.

Dennis shrugged. ‘You get used to it, like anything else.’

‘Hmm. Anyway, I understand you employ a number of migrant labourers around here?’

‘That’s right, though I don’t actually do the employing. That would be the personnel officer, or Human Resources as they call it now. I believe we have a contract with Rod’s Staff Ltd, who supply most of the workers.’

‘Do you know anything about them?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The conditions they live in, the wages they’re paid, that sort of thing.’

‘No. I just make sure they do their jobs, and they’re treated well enough on the shop floor, get their tea breaks and all. There’s quite a turnover. As you can imagine, nobody wants to do this sort of work for very long.’

Annie took in the row of industrial washing machines and the racks of hanging canvas sheets, about twenty of them in a row, stretching from one side of the room to the other. ‘What kind of work would that be?’

‘As you can see, we’re not in operation normally today. We have to do maintenance and equipment checks once in a while. That’s me. As a rule, we make the yeast extract here. Basically, you force the yeast through those canvas sheets and collect what gets through to the far end. It’s concentrated and thick by then, sort of like Marmite.’

Annie felt her stomach churn. She hated Marmite, more because of its consistency than its taste. ‘What do you do with the used canvas?’ she asked.

‘That’s what the big washing machines are for. You flip them in there and wash them. It’s a dirty job because by then they’re covered in slime. It’s sort of the consistency of—’

‘I can guess, thanks,’ said Annie. ‘You don’t have to spell it out.’

‘They usually wear neck-to-toe leather aprons.’

‘I’ll bet they do. Do you remember a young Polish girl, very thin, short dark hair, pretty if she had a chance. She could hardly lift one of those canvases.’

‘She sounds familiar, but as I said, they come and go. A lot of them are thin and seem none too healthy.’

‘Haven’t you ever wondered why?’

‘Not really my business. I assumed it was because of where they come from. Poor national diet.’

‘As opposed to the north of England, where we all eat so well?’

‘No need to be sarcastic. I’m only saying.’

‘Sorry.’ Annie scratched her head, thinking a visit from Trading Standards might be in order. Or Immigration. ‘Sorry. It’s just a bit frustrating, that’s all.’

‘There was a girl hanging around the gates this morning about the time the shift started. She sort of fits your description. She might have worked here at some time.’

‘Did anyone talk to her?’

‘I don’t think so. We get quite a few Eastern European girls here. Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians.’

‘That’ll be Rod’s Staff connections.’

‘I suppose so. If it’s illegal immi—’

‘No, no,’ said Annie. ‘I know we’re one big happy family now they’re all in the EU. They might not all have the correct or up-to-date permits and visas, but we won’t worry about a little thing like that.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘Murder.’

Dennis swallowed. ‘I knew something was up,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When they didn’t turn up for their shift yesterday.’

‘Who didn’t?’

‘The nine people we’ve been employing from Rod’s Staff. The van usually drops them off at eight o’clock. Yesterday it didn’t turn up.’

‘Why not?’

‘No idea. The boss was furious. They’ve always been reliable before. That’s one reason we use Flinders. But the boss got no warning at all. He couldn’t get in touch with the Rod’s Staff office. Mind you, it is a weekend, and most offices are shut.’

‘So none of the casual labour turned up for work yesterday, but this girl you think might have been Polish, and you might have seen working here, was standing at the gate this morning?’

‘Yes.’

‘Could she have been one of the Rod’s Staff girls?’

‘She could have been. Yes.’

‘What happened to her?’