John Eider - Late of the Payroll

Eventually, the surrounding figures knowing there was a meeting needing to happen here, drinks were quickly deposited and activities moved elsewhere.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met, Inspector,’ began Anthony Aubrey. ‘Or not to speak to at least.’ He shook Grey’s hand and gestured for them to sit. He was a big man who left a big impression, and Grey felt his aura. Of course he knew the legend: self-made, industrious, Anthony Aubrey had built the firm up with his bare hands, and had learnt to love the high life along the way.

‘I don’t get to the Club as often as I used to,’ he continued. ‘I’d seen that you’d become a member, of course. Was it Rose who’d proposed you? My son seconded you then. Did you know that? He and Andrew always back each other’s choices.’

‘But you were at the club on Monday evening weren’t you, with Thomas Long?’

‘Yes,’ the man drawled, ‘Parris called to say he’d tipped you off. He felt guilty for it — the loyalty of the man, quite staggering these days. I told him not to worry; although I thought you might have been knocking on my door a little sooner.’

‘A mistake on my part I’m afraid.’

‘Inspector, I don’t believe it!’ chuckled Isobel.

‘You sign A. Aubrey, like your son.’

‘He signs A. A. Aubrey, or he did — Alexander is his middle name — although lately I see his initials do rather blur.’ Aubrey picked up a document from among those on the desk and studied the signatures.

‘But you could still have got in touch.’

‘Well I could have,’ the man paused, ‘but by yesterday evening you were reporting that Tom had been seen at the hotel, and that was already more than I knew. I couldn’t have helped.’

‘But you could have told us why he was there; I mean you must have known, you only spoke to him the day before.’

‘But I also had Isobel’s wishes to consider,’ answered Aubrey tersely, ‘and they have always been most important to me.’

‘You make it sound like it’s all my fault,’ she shot back.

‘I only mean your wish for secrecy. You know that never in a million years…’

‘But did you not consider,’ continued Grey, trying not to get angry, ‘that if it had gotten to the point of us making televised appeals for information, that we must have been worried for Thomas’ safety?’

‘Thomas’ safety, you say… He was the safest person on Earth! He never got into trouble.’

Isobel dashed around to Aubrey’s side of the desk, to kneel at his knee and hold his hand, looking up at him imploringly. As Grey explained,

‘Mr Aubrey, earlier today we found Thomas Long’s body at the motorway services.’

‘Oh my,’ was all he managed at first. ‘He was a good lad, the best I ever had work for me. Lord help us. How are his family?’

‘They don’t know yet; not until he’s ready to be identified.’

‘But you’re sure?’

‘A hundred percent.’

‘Who found him?’

‘I did.’

Aubrey asked, ‘So did it make a difference, my not calling you?’

‘No, we think he died that evening,’ answered Grey, still not knowing whether to be furious or sympathetic with the man.

‘So, how..?’

‘I’d rather not say too much in public. Once we’ve…’

‘Please, Inspector!’

‘He was chased from the carpark, and fell from the motorway bridge.’

‘Oh God no, he fell into traffic? He would have been torn to…’

‘No, he fell on the verge. He’s lain there undisturbed. He… was actually quite peaceful, if it helps to think of him like that.’

‘Yes, yes I think it does.’ Aubrey slumped back into the old leather chair, Isobel still attending.

‘Chased and fell, you say?’ she asked the Inspector.

‘I suspect that’s rather a police euphemism,’ Aubrey observed.

‘And you aren’t going to ask me who it was chased him?’

Aubrey’s look was unfathomable, Grey sensing traces of grief, guilt, stress, shame, and more besides — As Isobel rose to say,

‘I think that what the Inspector is trying to say, is that he thinks my ex-boyfriend killed Thomas — isn’t that right?’

‘God, Isobel, you know how to pick them, don’t you.’

‘Well, if we are going to start talking life choices…’

‘You little…’

‘Hey!’ Grey burst in to break up their spat. ‘This is too important.’ But neither could let the topic go, as if they each needed Grey to hear their case.

‘If you hadn’t gone and got involved with that bloody ruffian, none of this would ever have happened,’ Aubrey simmered.

‘Do you know why I went off with him? Because I was bored. Bored of everything, bored of this town, bored of my family… bored of you! ’

Stood apart from the men now, Isobel continued,

‘The truth was I loved Stephen, I loved his arrogance; because it meant that he never got jealous, or not like you do anyway. Of course he felt it like any man, but he knew I was his, that I wouldn’t want another while I was with him.’

Aubrey listened on in silence.

‘I spent a lot on looking good for Stephen, I was his trophy perhaps — isn’t that the expression? There were always other men buzzing around — his contacts and cronies, some of them quite rich by the end — but he knew I was his, that he could show me off and get the others drooling, and then snatch me away at the end of the night, as if to say, but she’s mine, fellows, she’ll always be mine, not one of you can match me, none of you are man enough for her. It was power, like a drama. A play, with me at the centre every time we went out — and I enjoyed it.’

‘Sweet Jesus.’

Grey considered that at the very least Anthony Aubrey had had his mind taken from his other troubles.

‘You were my life,’ continued the man.

‘You made me your life, you hid away from everyone else.’

‘You left me with nothing.’

‘I was allowed to spend some time away, surely?’

‘So you ran off with that thug.’

‘You were stifling me! What other option did I have? You wanted every bit of me. I had to escape you a while, I had to breath.’

‘Oh. You stupid girl. I’m not even going to argue with you any more. And he was a thug, Inspector.’

‘He knows.’ Isobel turned to Grey, ‘You see how we get? What he is like, what I am like, how we argue?’

‘Well,’ said Grey, motioning to rise, ‘we’ll have a chance to talk more calmly back at the station.’

‘You’re taking me in?’ This was Aubrey asking, Isobel seeming to have accepted the inevitable.

‘How on Earth can you think we wouldn’t? Mr Aubrey, a friend of yours has died violently and you are involved.’

‘How?’

‘You haven’t even told me what you were doing at the hotel yet. Besides, that is a very beautiful car you arrived in today; and Thomas was last seen waiting by it.’

Anthony Aubrey slumped across the big desk between them, Grey taking no pleasure in watching a person find the centre of their pain, as this lion of a man, father of the town, who had bought employment to its men, security to its families, had raised tens of thousands of pounds for good causes, had bestowed on his son the kind of legacy only a desperate attempt to live up to a father could destroy, burst into tears, with all the dignity a man can only manage when those tears have been held back all his life.

Isobel jumped up to hug him, their differences instantly forgotten; in a fashion Grey wondered might characterise their relationship, forever falling out to fall back in.

After a while the tears lessened, and he spoke, ‘I know, I know. I am a wretch who deserves to be spoken to no better. But I must ask a favour of you, Inspector. I must ask a reprieve.’