Clean Break (17 page)

“Thank you very much, Dennis,” I said.

Impervious to my sarcasm, he said, “My pleasure. Be careful out there now, you hear? Let me know how you go on.”

“OK.”

“Be lucky.”

If only it was as simple as that. With a groan, I turned back to the computer. Just after eleven, I made it into Sandra Bates's data. Interestingly, it looked like Sandra had overall supervisory responsibility for about half of the Filbert Brown warehouses in the Northwest, as well as her day-to-day charge of the Ancoats cash-and-carry. She hadn't mentioned that in our brief encounter. I decided to concentrate on Manchester for the time being. The first thing I went for was the purchase orders for Kerrchem. When I reached those files, I printed the lot out. Analysis could wait until a time when I wasn't wandering round someone else's system like an illegal alien. After a bit of searching, I found the till data, sorted
product by product. I scrolled through till I found KerrSter and printed that lot out too. Finally, I made myself at home in the invoices section of Sandra's files. That was the first indication I had that there was something going on. As a matter of course, I'd been checking for hidden files as I went along. When I added up the sizes of the individual files in the invoices subdirectory, it came to less than the amount of space the terminal told me the subdirectory occupied. The difference was about the size of one biggish file.

What Sandra Bates had done was clever. She could have made the file a password file, but anyone from head office trying to get into it would have become immediately suspicious. With a hidden file, there was no way of knowing it was there unless you were looking for precisely that, and nothing to trigger off suspicions in a routine trawl. I copied the hidden file on to my own hard disk, not wanting to interfere with it in Sandra's environment, and also copied the visible Kerrchem invoice file. I couldn't think of anything else I needed right then, so I made my way out of the system. If what I already had suggested fresh avenues of inquiry, I could always go back in. I didn't think I'd left any footprints obvious enough for the sysman to notice and do anything panicky like change his password.

The last thing I did was to open up the hidden file and print out the contents of it and the other invoice file. Then, clutching my pile of papers, I staggered off to bed. Richard hadn't appeared, which meant he was probably out on the razz with a bunch of musicians. When he finally came home, he'd collapse into his own bed rather than waken me. Just one of the advantages of our semi-detached lifestyle.

I woke up just before eight, the light still on, the papers strewn all over the duvet and the floor. I hadn't got past page one before sleep had overwhelmed me. I picked up the papers and shuffled them together. I showered, sliced a banana into a bowl of muesli and took breakfast and coffee out into the conservatory. As I ate, I started to read the paperwork. The purchase order for KerrSter showed a sudden hike about two months previously, virtually tripling overnight. Interestingly, they weren't big orders. According
to this printout, Sandra hadn't increased the amount of KerrSter on each order. It was the number of orders that had shot up. That seemed a pretty inefficient way of doing business to me.

I checked back with the till receipts to see when the sudden surge in sales of KerrSter had started. I knew then that I was on to something. If what Sandra Bates had told me was the truth, the increased orders should have been sales-led. But what I was seeing was something very different. The till receipts for KerrSter didn't start to pick up until a few days after the orders increased dramatically. It looked as if the product had been given its starry position before the sales justified it. I was sure Trevor Kerr hadn't been paying them a premium to improve the profile of his product; I couldn't imagine him parting with his company's cash in a deal like that. Trevor struck me as a man who liked his profits, and wouldn't cede them to anyone.

By now, I was gripped by the paper trail. Time for the invoices. First, I went through the accessible KerrSter invoice file. That was when the alarm bells started ringing. The product orders might have tripled, but the invoices hadn't. I double-checked, but there was no mistake. Filbert Brown were still paying Kerrchem for the same amount of cleaning fluid as they had been before the order hike.

That left the contents of the hidden file. It contained the invoices for the remaining two thirds of the KerrSter. There was one crucial difference. The bank account where the electronic fund transfer was sending the money for the extra KerrSter wasn't the same as the bank account on the other, upfront invoices. Whoever Sandra Bates was paying for the KerrSter, it wasn't Kerrchem.

That left me two possibilities. Either somebody at Kerrchem was creaming off a tidy back-door profit for themselves. Or Sandra Bates was dealing with the chemical merchants who were peddling phony KerrSter with such disastrous results. I knew which theory looked most likely to me.

I checked the clock. Ten to nine. Chances were that management staff at Filbert Brown didn't start work until nine. If I was quick, I could be in and out of their computer before their sysman logged in to find someone else using his ID. To be on the safe side,
I should have waited until the evening, but I was behind the door when they were handing out patience.

Two minutes later, I was in the system again. This time, I wasn't looking for Sandra Bates's terminal. I wanted her personnel file. I got into personnel at three minutes to nine. A minute took me to staff personnel files. Once I was there, I downloaded Sandra Bates's file to my own hard disk. I was back out of Filbert Brown by one minute past nine. A couple of minutes later, I was looking at Sandra Bates's CV.

She'd been to school in Ashton-under-Lyne, a once separate town now attached to East Manchester by a string of down-at-heel suburbs. She'd done a degree in business studies at what was then Manchester Poly and is now Manchester Metropolitan University. You'd think when they got their university status that someone would have noticed their new initials translate only too readily to Mickey Mouse University, endorsing the snooty opinions of those who attended “real” universities. After her degree, Sandra had gone to work for one of the big chains of DIY stores, havens for suburbanites on Sundays and bank holidays. She'd stayed there for a couple of years before joining Filbert Brown three years previously. She'd had one promotion since then and was pulling down just over twenty grand. The item that really interested me was her address: 37 Alder Way, Burnage. I needed to check out her house at some point today while she was at work. I would probably have to stake her out or do a little bit of illegal bugging to discover who her phony KerrSter supplier was, and to do that, I needed to get a picture of the set-up in Alder Way.

Before I could do any of that, I had to get dressed and stop by the office. I had plenty of time before the meet with Dennis's fence, so I could at least put off the tart's disguise till later. I grabbed a clean pair of jeans, my Reeboks and a denim-look cotton sweater. If I was going to spend the afternoon teetering on stilettos, I could at least spend the morning in comfort.

Shelley was catching up on the filing when I walked in, a clear sign that she was bored. “Going part-time now, are we?” she asked acidly.

“I've been doing some work on the computer at home,” I said
defensively. Shelley has the unerring knack of making me feel fifteen and guilty again.

“A report would be nice now and then,” she said. “I know I'm only the office manager, but it does help when clients phone if I know where we're up to.”

“Sorry,” I said contritely. “It's just that most of the things I've been doing for the last couple of days are the kind of things I don't want the clients to know I'm up to. I'll get something down on tape for you by the end of today, promise.” I smiled ingratiatingly. “Would you like a cappuccino?”

“How much is it going to cost me?” Shelley asked suspiciously. Abe Lincoln wouldn't have said you can fool all the people some of the time if he'd ever met Shelley.

“Can I borrow you and your car this afternoon?” I asked. “I've got a meet with the fence who's been handling these stolen art works, and I'm going to need to tail him afterwards. He's going to have clocked the coupé, and it's too obvious a car to follow him in. I want you to come out there with me and after the meet, we can swap cars. I go off in your motor, you come back in the coupé.”

“You saying my Rover's common?” Shelley asked.

“Only in a numerical sense. Please?”

“How do I know you'll bring it back in one piece?”

She had a point. In the past eighteen months I'd written off one car and done serious damage to the Little Rascal, the van we've got fitted out with full surveillance gear. Neither incident had been my fault, but it still made me the butt of all office jokes about drivers. “I'll bring it back in one piece,” I said through gritted teeth.

“What about the Little Rascal?” Shelley demanded. “You could tail him in that. All you have to do is make sure he doesn't see you getting out of it. Just be there early, out of the car, waiting for him.”

I pulled a face. “The guy drives a Merc. I suspect I'd lose him on the motorway. Besides, he's no dummy. He's probably going to wait till he sees me drive off before he takes off himself.”

“So if you drive off, how are we going to swap cars?”

“Trust me. I'll show you when we get there.”

“I get the coupé overnight?” she bargained.

“But of course. I might as well take your car now, since I've got to look unobtrusive in Burnage.”

We swapped keys and I headed off in her four-year-old Rover to Burnage. My first stop was the local library, where I checked the electoral roll. Sandra Bates was the only resident listed at 37. Alder Way was a quiet street of 1930s semis, each with a small garden. I marched boldly up the path of 37 and knocked on the door. There was no reply. There was an empty carport at the side of the house, and I walked cautiously through it and opened the wrought iron gate leading into the back garden. Sandra was obviously as efficient at home as she was at work. There was a line of washing pegged out, drying in the watery sunlight. Whatever the electoral roll said, Sandra didn't live alone. Hanging beside her underwear were boxer shorts and socks. Flapping in the breeze like a phantom among the shirts and blouses were two pairs of overalls. Maybe I wouldn't have to look so far for the mystery chemist after all.

I rang the doorbell of 35 Alder Way. I was about to give up when the door opened. I realized why it had taken so long. The harassedlooking young woman who stood in the doorway had identical toddlers clinging on to each leg of her jeans. As a handicapping system, it beat anything the Jockey Club has ever come up with. The twins stared up at me and conducted a conversation with each other in what sounded like some East European language, all sibilants and diphthongs. “Yes?” the woman said. At least she spoke Mancunian.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said. “I'm looking for a guy called Richard Barclay. The address I've got for him is next door at number thirty-seven. But there doesn't seem to be anybody in.”

She shook her head. “There's nobody by that name next door,” she said with an air of finality, her hand rising to close the door.

“Are you sure?” I said, looking puzzled and referring to the piece of paper in my hand where I'd just written my lover's name and Sandra Bates's address. I waved it at her. “I was supposed to meet him here. About a job.”

She took the paper and frowned. “There must be some mistake. The bloke next door's called Simon. Simon Morley.”

I sighed. “I don't suppose he's the one taking people on, then? I mean, I've not got the right address and the wrong name?”

One of the twins detached itself from the woman's jeans and lurched towards me. Without looking down, she stuck her leg out and stopped its progress. “I shouldn't think so, love,” she said. “Simon got made redundant about six months ago. He's only started working himself a couple of months back, and judging from the overalls he goes in and out in, he's not hiring and firing.”

I did the disappointed look, but it was wasted on the hassled woman. The pitch of the twins' dialogue had risen to a level she couldn't ignore. “Sorry,” she said, closing the door firmly in my face.

“Don't be sorry,” I said softly as I walked back to the Rover. “Lady, you just made my day.” Simon Morley's name had rung so many bells my head felt like the cathedral belfry.

 

By three o'clock, everything was in place. Shelley and I had driven across the Pennines on the M62, to the Bradford exit, the first past Hartshead Services. We'd turned off on the Halifax road, where I remembered there was a lay-by just after the motorway roundabout. I left Shelley there in her Rover while I zoomed back down the motorway, doubling back so I ended up on the correct side of the sprawling service area. I parked away from the main body of cars and teetered up the car park on the white stilettos I keep in the bottom of the wardrobe for days like these.

I went to the ladies' room to check that I still looked like a tarty blonde. I don't often go in for disguises that involve wigs, but a couple of years before, I'd needed a radical appearance change, so I'd spent a substantial chunk of Mortensen and Brannigan's petty cash on a really good wig. It was a reddish blonde, which meant it didn't look too odd against my skin, which is the typically yellowbased freckle-face that goes with auburn hair. Coupled with a much heavier make-up than I'd normally be seen dead in, the image that peered out of the mirror at me was credible, if a bit on the dodgy side. I'd dressed to emphasize that impression, in a black lycra mini-skirt and a cream scoop-necked vest under my well-worn brown leather blouson. My own mother would have thrown me out of the house.