Fault Line - Retail (27 page)

Pete opened the padlock on the cage door and we stepped in. I pulled out a box-file dated in the mid-sixties, propped it on the stack of minute books and took a look. It was exactly as Fay had said. Two or three authentic documents, then nothing but blank flimsy paper. I pulled out a couple more, while Pete looked on amusedly, with the same result. Almost everything from the last twelve years of Wren & Co.’s independent existence had vanished. Minute books detailing board meetings from before the First World War were there for anyone to leaf through. But the late 1950s and all of the 1960s was a different story – a different, empty story.

‘It’s a baffler, isn’t it?’ said Pete, jingling the padlock key in his hand. ‘A real baffler.’

‘Has the cage always been kept locked?’ I asked with a sigh.

‘No. I’ve only been particular about that since Doctor Whitworth’s visit. Shutting the stable door, I know. But there it is.’

‘So more or less anyone could have done this, at any time?’

‘Pretty much. They wouldn’t even have had to be a member of
staff.
It would’ve been easy to slip down here from reception if you knew the layout of the building. And what you were looking for, of course.’

‘The paper they substituted for the real documents. It’s the flimsy stuff we used to use for carbon copies.’

‘So it is. But if you’re thinking that proves the stunt was pulled before PCs replaced typewriters, think again. There’s a pallet-load of that kind of paper in one of the cages further down.’

‘Unlocked, of course?’

‘You said it.’

‘Bloody hell.’

Pete grinned at me. ‘It just goes on getting better, doesn’t it?’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Me? Ideas are above my pay grade, Jon. You know that.’

‘They were even further above it when you and I worked at Wren’s. That didn’t stop you having them.’

‘True.’

‘So?’

‘Well …’

‘What?’

‘I’ve no idea. Honestly. It’s beyond me. But … no idea doesn’t mean no clue.’ His grin was becoming mischievous now. ‘I, er … found something.’

‘Found what? Where?’

‘I came down here after Doctor Whitworth threw her fit and saw just what you’ve seen. When I couldn’t do anything for her, she stormed off back to Bristol. Then Beaumont peppered me with angry emails. He even phoned me once to give me a bollocking. It didn’t get him
or
Doctor Whitworth anywhere, of course.’

‘Where’s the “but” in this, Pete?’

‘Just coming. Last time I was down here, I dropped the key while I was checking the padlock. When I bent down to get it, I noticed something lying underneath the shelving unit. It was a single sheet of paper. A memo, as it turned out, from George Wren to Greville Lashley, dating from late 1959. Now, how did that get there, do you suppose?’

‘You have a theory?’

‘My guess is it slipped down the back of the unit while our mysterious thief was emptying the files.’

‘Which proves?’

‘Nothing. Unless the memo is one of the documents the thief was particularly interested in.’

‘Any reason to think it was?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What did the memo say?’

‘Thought you’d never ask. See for yourself. It’s back where it belongs now.’ He pulled down the 1959/60 box-file, put it on the table and opened the lid. ‘Here we are.’ He turned over the first couple of documents to reveal the memorandum, then leant back to let me see it.

26 November 1959

To: Mr Lashley

Please advise me at your earliest convenience of your conclusions as to how we should best proceed in the matter of the Trudgeon contract in light of the issues arising from your perusal of Mr Foster’s correspondence.

G. Wren

At first glance, the memo was notable only for its utter blandness. Kenneth Foster had been dead four months in November 1959. George Wren had presumably asked Lashley to tidy up various pieces of business Foster had been dealing with and wanted to know what he’d done about one of them. Earth-shattering, it wasn’t. ‘Is this supposed to prove something, Pete?’

Pete shrugged. ‘That’s for you to say.’

‘It’s just a memo. George Wren must have sent hundreds of the bloody things in his time, if not thousands.’

‘True. But whatever our thief was after would look like this, wouldn’t it? It would look insignificant.’

‘Maybe. But how do you suggest we distinguish between the
apparently
insignificant and
genuinely
insignificant?’

‘That’s your problem, Jon. I’m just trying to … lend a helping hand.’ He shrugged. ‘It struck me our thief might have separated the stuff he was seriously interested in from the rest as he went through the file. Then one piece of that stuff could have slipped down the back of the shelf. There’d be nothing to stop it finishing up on the floor, would there? Which is exactly where I found it.’

I looked at the shelving unit. It had no back and wasn’t fixed to the wall. It could have happened as Pete had suggested. But it was a big
could
. ‘Know anything about the Trudgeon contract?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Not really. Wilf Trudgeon was a haulier based in Charlestown. You must remember his lorries.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘No? Well, it was before your time, I suppose. He handled most of the transport for Wren’s from the dryers to the docks. Wren’s bought him out in the end. It was the only way we could get an A licence of our own.’

‘A what?’

‘An A licence. You needed one to operate as a haulier in those days. They were like gold dust. I was at school with Wilf Trudgeon’s son. Dick Trudgeon. Big lad. Built like a brick shithouse. He joined the police. Dick Truncheon, we used to call him. I wonder what happened to him. Retired now, I guess. Like we should be. Like you soon will be.’

‘A haulage contract from half a century ago? I don’t get it, Pete. It can’t possibly matter to anyone, can it?’

‘You wouldn’t have thought so, would you?’

‘Who else have you told about this?’

‘No one. It doesn’t amount to anything really, does it? Like you said, it’s … insignificant.’

‘I’d better take a photocopy of the memo, even so.’

‘I’ve got one waiting for you upstairs. Seen enough down here?’

‘More than enough.’

‘Let’s go, then.’

We stepped out of the cage and Pete locked it behind us. Then we headed for the stairs.

‘There are a couple of things I ought to mention, Jon,’ Pete said as we reached them.

‘Oh yes?’

‘We could talk them over out front before we go back to my office. I don’t know about you, but I could do with some fresh air.’

Pete’s need of fresh air was heavily qualified. He immediately lit a cigarette once we were outside. We took shelter from the rain in the covered way that linked the main building with the laboratory block and he puffed away tensely for a moment or two before explaining what the ‘couple of things’ were.

‘First off, I guess you ought to know Adam Lashley’s in town.’

It was worrying enough that Adam had phoned Fay Whitworth from London. His presence in St Austell was downright disturbing. ‘He is?’

‘’Fraid so. After his father sold Nanstrassoe House he bought a place out at Carlyon Bay. Wavecrest, it’s called. About halfway along Sea Road. Absolutely massive, as you’d expect. Empty most of the time, of course, while he’s off in Thailand. But he’s back now. A woman in the marketing department who walks her dog out on the coast path near there saw him tooling past in his Lotus yesterday morning. Quite a coincidence, hey? You and him showing up in the same week.’

‘I doubt it’s a coincidence.’

‘Me too.’

‘Fay Whitworth said he’d contacted her recently. He’d urged her to stop making a fuss about the missing records, apparently.’

‘It’s a pity she didn’t take his advice.’

‘What’s he up to, I wonder.’

‘No one seems to know. I hope it doesn’t involve turning up here and throwing his weight around. Of course, he could have come down to … er …’ Pete hesitated and took a fretful drag on his cigarette.

‘To what?’

‘Well, that’s the other thing, Jon. He could be here to see his … half-sister.’

‘Vivien’s in St Austell too?’

‘Yeah. Rumour is she’s had it pretty rough these last few years. Well, not just these last few, I guess. Losing her son and her husband like she did …’ He shrugged. ‘It’s bound to have taken its toll.’

I said nothing. There was nothing I felt capable of saying. The tragic misfortunes of the Normingtons had been amply documented in the tabloid press, where the family had been portrayed as an example of the aristocracy brought low by hard drugs and soft living. The facts were widely known. And the facts were all I knew.

‘When did you last see her, Jon?’

‘Twenty-six years ago.’

‘As long as that?’

‘It feels like less.’

‘It won’t if you see her now.’

I looked at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘She’s not … looking too good these days.’

‘Where’s she living?’

‘In a caravan … out at Lannerwrack Dryers.’

‘A caravan?’

‘She pitched it there a few months ago.’

‘At Lannerwrack?’

‘Yeah. I know, I know. It’s desperate. But then I get the feeling desperate’s what she is. We decommissioned the dryers a couple of years ago. It’s basically a derelict site. Ripe for redevelopment as an eco-town, if you believe our press releases. But I’m not holding my breath. Anyhow, Vivien’s the only resident at the moment. I consulted HQ and was told to let her be. Whether the old man’s been informed I don’t know, but no one here’s in a hurry to evict her. I’m not sure where we’d stand legally, anyway. I’ve given her a key to the dryer office, where there’s electricity and hot and cold running water. It’s not exactly all mod cons, but …’

‘I don’t understand. She could surely afford to live somewhere more comfortable.’

‘Cut off by the current Viscount Whatsit. And refuses to take anything from her stepfather. That’s the rumour.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Families are, aren’t they? Will you go and see her?’

‘Yes.’ I tried to imagine the state Vivien had been reduced to. But all I could see in my mind’s eye was the beautiful young woman I’d fallen in love with so many years before. She was lost to me now. Just as she was lost to herself. It shouldn’t have come to this. There should have been a way to make a better future for ourselves. But the future was with us. And it was what it was. ‘I’ll go and see her,’ I murmured. ‘Of course I will.’

TWENTY-THREE

BEFORE LEAVING THE
CCC building that morning, I instructed Pete Newlove to schedule a series of one-to-one meetings for me with all members of staff in order of length of service. It would take a while to work through them and I wasn’t optimistic I’d learn much in the process, but there didn’t appear to be any other course of action open to me. I had to start somewhere.

I wasn’t optimistic that George Wren’s 1959 memorandum to Greville Lashley would lead anywhere either, but I asked Pete to phone round any of his contemporaries from the secondary modern school he was still in touch with in the hope that one of them might know where I could find Dick Trudgeon. Whether Dick would have anything of the slightest value to tell me if I did find him was, of course, open to question.

Also open to question were Adam Lashley’s reasons for returning to St Austell. But I felt sure I’d discover what they were soon enough, probably from the man himself. I assumed he knew I’d been sent over from HQ to track down the missing records. Whether he meant to help or hinder was unclear and perhaps unimportant. We didn’t like each other. We never had. His presence was bad news.

It wasn’t the only bad news, of course. I drove out to Lannerwrack Dryers that afternoon, feeling sick with apprehension. I didn’t want to see Vivien looking old and weary and defeated. But that was how Pete had told me she was. Sooner or
later,
I’d have to meet her, though. And sooner was marginally better than later.

Relief, of a kind, awaited me at the end of my journey. Lannerwrack was a drying and milling plant I remembered as a bustling, noisy place, served from St Austell by road and rail. Disuse had brought an eerie desolation to the site. No lorries rumbled along the approach road. No smoke rose from the chimneys. The elevator towers stood sentinel over an empty drying shed. Nothing stirred beneath its vast roof. And weeds were sprouting through the concrete in the loading yard. I saw the caravan as I drove slowly in. There was no car parked beside it. The old Volkswagen Beetle Pete had said Vivien got around in was missing. And that meant, in all probability, she was missing too. I didn’t have to see her yet. There was still a little more time to prepare myself. I was glad of that.

I stopped the Freelander in the lee of the dry and climbed out. Silence and stillness closed in around me. It was no place to be. It was no place to live. Yet Vivien had chosen to come here to hide from the world. I walked across to the caravan. It looked old – twenty or thirty years, I’d have guessed. But the paintwork was in reasonable condition and a couple of hanging flower baskets Vivien had rigged up gave it a homely appearance. There were net curtains at the windows, so I couldn’t see in. A wire trailed from the caravan at head height to a half-open vent in the wall of the office lean-to at the end of the dry. Vivien was evidently helping herself to as much electricity as she needed. And why not? Only her stepfather could deny her the right to use it. And I doubted he was about to.

Despite the absence of the car, I knocked on the caravan door. There was no response, of course. Vivien wasn’t there. According to Pete, she’d been seen at local markets, selling embroidered handkerchiefs and tablecloths. Maybe that was where she was now. She certainly needed whatever money she could raise if the new Viscount Horncastle had cut her off and she’d refused to take anything from Greville Lashley. Her current existence must have seemed strange to her, if not ironic, after all the privileges and
advantages
life had bestowed on her. But perhaps that was the point. Her brother, her husband and her son were all dead, in part because of those privileges and advantages. Perhaps what she was engaged in here was a form of penance.