Snatch Crop Page 5

  I ate a snack for lunch, did the ironing, walked Sam again and then sat down for a read that would have been about as interesting as the story of somebody else’s operation if it had not been linked to the disappearance of somebody I knew. The image of Delia in the hands of strangers kept coming between me and the page. I could recall the feelings of menace and doubt. Sam put his head on my knee and I took comfort from rubbing his sleek hide.

  Never having had enough money to worry about, I had paid little heed to the financial pages and had missed the first hints that the fall in Sempylene shares reflected serious financial problems in the company. I vaguely remembered an article in the body of the local paper which pointed out the scale of job losses if Sempylene folded but had not paid it much attention. Scottish papers tend to be preoccupied with gloom and doom. Moreover, the article had come out during the hectic run-up to my wedding and I had passed it by, thinking only that its message had been too obvious to be worth printing. The works, which produced hi-tech plastic extrusions for almost the whole spectrum of industries, was to the south of Edinburgh and within car-sharing distance of Newton Lauder. Several of the workers in the defunct poultry and meat pie factories had found work there and had had to be coaxed back.

  I made myself a pot of tea and read on. The crunch had come while Ian and I were airbourne for Cyprus. The imminent collapse of Sempylene leaked out. Subsequent articles blamed this on the cancellation of a huge contract for the defence industry. The Government, after being accused of extravagance by the Opposition and pressed to retrench, had, as usual, been as heavily criticised for the effects of its efforts to economise.

  The bad news was followed almost immediately by the good. Levieux et Cie, a company vast in Europe but with only a token British presence in Clydebank, had stepped in with an offer to take over Sempylene. The prompt agreement of the Monopolies Commission and the Board of Trade suggested that the takeover had been in the wind for some time. Sir Humphrey Peace, the chairman, had made vague but reassuring statements about job security which had caused panic in the ranks of the unions. I turned to the back page. Sempylene shares, after being virtually given away with a pound of tea, had surged back to near their previous level.

  The story had then died the death for some weeks, apart from some editorial chest-thumping on the subject of British defence technology leaking abroad at bargain prices. Then – I looked at the date of the paper and it was only ten days old – there was a brief announcement that Sir Humphrey was retiring on the grounds of health. If Sir Peter’s appointment in his place was formally announced, I must have missed it.

  The only other item was just two days old and had been reprinted from The Financial Times. A press conference, at which the successful conclusion of the takeover was to have been announced, was postponed indefinitely and with no reason given. Nobody was prepared to make any kind of statement. There was some speculation as to whether the French had backed out of the deal, but there was a total lack of facts and the journalist was obviously making bricks without straw. He might well have detected a strong smell of fish, but the threat of libel would have restrained the paper from voicing any suspicions until there was a ‘reliable source’ to be blamed.

  I put the clippings away in an old envelope, fed Sam and decided to do a little gardening and then tidy the garage while I thought about it. Monotonous toil always seems to stimulate my thinking processes. But I had not got much further than to reflect that Sir Humphrey had seemed passably fit when I had seen him the previous day when I was called indoors by the phone. Another message from Ian. He would be home in an hour.

  Where had the day gone? Daylight seemed to have slipped away unobserved while I was trying to restore order to the accumulation of odds and ends that Ian had retained in the garage in case they might come in handy some day and had later heaped against the back wall to make room for the new car. I forgot about Sempylene and even Delia and did a quick network diagram in my head to determine how on earth I could get the meal ready for the table and still manage time for a shower and to tart myself up into the sort of wife to whom Ian would find it a pleasure to return.

  If Ian had taken the hour he had promised me, I would have made it with time in hand. As it was, he short-changed me by nearly twenty minutes.

  I intended to amaze him with my preparedness. As it turned out, I think that he was as surprised as I was. I never heard him come in. I had had my shower but had interrupted my first attempts to get dressed in order to dash through the flat and turn down the potatoes, when I was grabbed from behind by what seemed to be several pairs of hands but turned out to be those of Ian alone. I recognised them just in time to stop myself poking his eye out.

  His usual homecoming kiss was more fervent than usual but he was prickly and smelled of sweat. His gingery colouring never showed stubble but his chin became like sandpaper after a few hours. ‘You’ve just got time for a shower and a shave before the meal’s ready,’ I said, trying, not too hard, to wriggle out of his grasp.

  ‘I’ll make a deal with you,’ he said. ‘I’ll shave and shower if you’ll come to table just like that.’

  ‘You’re turning into a dirty young man,’ I told him. ‘Not that I’m complaining. But Uncle Ronnie or somebody would be sure to crash in on us. Save yourself up for later.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ His grasp slackened.

  ‘It’s my turn to bounce all over you,’ I said.

  He brightened perceptibly and went off to take his shower.

  When things were under control in the kitchen I went to finish dressing. Ian was still under the shower. I spoke to him through the open doors. ‘What have you been doing all day?’ I asked.

  He had water in his ears and I had to repeat the question.

  ‘I think I should leave you guessing,’ he said.

  ‘All right then, I’ll guess,’ I said. I had intended to make one of the flippant guesses which could set us both giggling; but I was still needled by his secretiveness and while I dithered my subconscious fitted a few of my new-found facts together and I decided to make a stab in the dark. ‘I think you’ve been looking for Bernard Thrower,’ I said.

  He came out of the bathroom in a hurry, towelling his hair. ‘Who the hell told you that he’d done another runner?’

  ‘You did, more or less. I must see to the meal,’ I said. ‘Don’t be long.’ And I left him to seethe.

  The meal was on the table before he came through in slacks and a polo neck, looking very damp and cuddly. The living-cum-dining-room was cosy, with a fire burning and the lighting low.

  Instead of putting me through an immediate interrogation, Ian filled his mouth several times in quick succession. He tried not to let me see how much he was enjoying it, because I get angry when he goes through the day without stopping for lunch or even a hot dog, but he couldn’t prevent little sounds of pleasure escaping. One of the perks of my job was that I could buy pheasants at wholesale prices, but we only indulged at weekends. Even if there had been time for luxury meals during the week, a diet of roast pheasant would eventually have palled.

  When the immediate hunger-pangs had been dulled he said, ‘Now, tell me who’s been talking out of turn.’

  I waited until he had filled his mouth again. ‘You’re the detective,’ I said. ‘But I bet you can’t find out.’

  He chomped hastily for a few seconds and then swallowed his mouthful almost whole. ‘Be serious,’ he said. ‘I suppose you didn’t warn Thrower that I was on his track?’

  ‘How could I?’ I asked.

  ‘You knew that I had his car number.’

  ‘That was the only number I had. He didn’t leave me his phone number as well.’

  He tried out the disbelieving look which might have worked on a prisoner with a guilty conscience. When he found that it did not work on a wife, he said, ‘All right, then. How did you know that Thrower had done another bunk?’

  I shrugged. ‘It seemed obvious,’ I said. ‘For one thing, it’s what he would
do. For another, your Control Room’s too used to doing things by the book. When they pass on a message they give the time and the place of origin. You’ve been dashing all over the region like a dog after a rat. So, instead of tracing Mr Thrower through his hire-car and settling down for a nice, cosy interrogation, you’ve had to follow up every suspected sighting of him.’

  Ian’s look went from disbelieving to pained. ‘What on earth did you mean . . . “It’s what he would do”?’ he demanded.

  I was beginning to enjoy myself. ‘His daughter had been taken, to put pressure on him not to talk to you. He’d come out of hiding – only for a few minutes, but for long enough to attract attention.’

  ‘Go on,’ Ian said. ‘Tell me why you’re so sure.’

  ‘You didn’t believe that it was a sex crime, even after getting a description of the man who seems to have swept Delia off. So he was a professional thug hired for the job. I believed her father when he said that he’d had nothing to do with it. I spoke to Mum and she’s had Mrs T hanging round all day. If there’d been a ransom demand I’d have heard about it.’

  I got up to serve a tart made with surplus apples from Dad’s garden and to bring coffee.

  ‘So what does that leave?’ Ian asked me.

  ‘You know perfectly well,’ I said.

  ‘I do. I want to know how much you know that you shouldn’t.’

  ‘It only adds up one way. Mr Thrower was a key figure during the run-up to the takeover of Sempylene by Levieux.’ Ian looked at me very hard but waited for me to go on. ‘It was in the papers,’ I pointed out. ‘If the authorities have detected a lot of buying before the rise, by Sempylene directors or people who could be connected to them, Mr Thrower would be one of the few people who could state whether the dates of those purchases were before or after the buyers could have known that the takeover was coming. There’s no crime in making a good guess before the privileged knowledge actually arrived.

  ‘The others who knew about the dates would be the directors themselves, especially Sir Humphrey Peace as chairman. But, as he seems to have resigned under rather a cloud, I assume that he’s under suspicion with the others, so he’s hardly likely to be helpful. Obviously the correspondence files didn’t help or there wouldn’t be all this fuss. Can’t you get the dates from Levieux?’

  Ian hesitated, pouring himself a glass of wine. One of the surprises in our relationship had been to find that he enjoyed a glass of wine, but only of a quality that our slender budget could rarely run to. It happens, however, that almost my only talent, apart from clay-shooting and being able to whistle through my teeth, is an ability to get the utmost out of the kits of winemaking concentrates now available. There are usually a couple of demijohns blooping away in the airing cupboard and several more settling in the cool of the former coalshed. Fussy as he is about wines, Ian seems to appreciate my efforts. That may not be why he married me, but I sometimes think that it is why he will never leave.

  He took some wine, rolled it around his tongue and swallowed gratefully. ‘This is your best batch yet,’ he said. ‘I hope you can remember how you did it.’ He seemed to decide that I knew so much that a little more would not hurt. ‘Levieux are being very unhelpful and, of course, they’re mostly outside our jurisdiction. Their local executives know nothing, or that’s what they say.’

  ‘In other words,’ I said, ‘they were also cutting themselves a piece of cake. Right?’

  ‘That seems possible,’ Ian admitted.

  ‘My guess would be that Mr Thrower saw what was going on. He took fright and did a bunk and then Sir Humphrey, or some other director, or a syndicate of the whole bally lot of them, hired somebody to kidnap Delia, to make sure that Mr Thrower keeps his head down until the shit’s stopped flying – if you’ll pardon my French.’

  Ian held his glass up to the light and then went through the rigmarole again. ‘That’s pretty much how we see it,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll find out who’s been spilling the beans, but I must admit that it’s a relief to be able to talk about it. We disagree on one or two points. You’re assuming that Mr Thrower wasn’t in it from the first. We think that he was in with the others. You seem to assume that when the investigation started he felt endangered. We think that he just plain ran off with his ladyfriend.’

  I gathered up the dishes and we went through to the kitchen.

  ‘You see,’ Ian said. ‘Nobody came to disturb us.’

  ‘Sorry if I disappointed you,’ I said. ‘But they would have done. It’s what Dad calls Sod’s Law.’

  ‘Your father blames Sod’s Law for a lot of things.’

  I washed while Ian dried. ‘What you said didn’t quite make sense,’ I told him. ‘It was Mr Thrower’s disappearance that first attracted attention to the goings-on. He wouldn’t have risked that if he was involved. And a man who’s making an illicit bob on the stock market might elope but he isn’t in a good position to change identities and disappear for good. Have you tracked any dealings back to him?’

  ‘Not yet. His girlfriend’s aunts and cousins are being checked out now.’

  ‘Did she vanish with him?’ I asked.

  ‘Not the second time. She’s still hanging around their love-nest, worried sick. When he heard about the kidnapping, he seems to have dashed through here to protest his non-involvement and then did his second disappearing act. She’s promised to get in touch with me if she hears from him, on the understanding that we’ll protect both of them and keep it confidential. She may even do it. I gave her this address and phone number.’

  I nearly dropped a glass. ‘What on earth did you do that for?’

  ‘She doesn’t know that I live here. Thrower phoned her and he told her that the factory manager was the one person he thought he could trust. She asked me if I knew where you lived. I thought that she might be more likely to contact another woman and a potential ally than the police.

  ‘She didn’t want to contact a police station. Understandably. If her lover surfaces, somebody might well decide that it would be surer and cheaper to have him knocked off than to go on holding his daughter indefinitely. And the cop-shop may be watched. There are those who have a lot of friends around here.’

  ‘Sir Humphrey?’ I suggested.

  Ian threw up his hands in horror, putting one of my best plates at risk. ‘Don’t even say it aloud. Unless some new evidence turns up, he could sue the hell out of both of us. You’re not supposed to know any of this,’ he said seriously, ‘and nobody would believe that you didn’t get it from me. So if you repeat a single word that we’ve said in here, I swear to God I’ll have grounds for divorce. Until that day,’ Ian said, with a complete change of tone and hanging the dish-towel over the rail, ‘we are still man and wife and I’m legally entitled to do . . . this!’

  He made a grab at me and I fled in the general direction of the bedroom.

  Chapter Four

  Reporters must have been poking around in Newton Lauder during my quiet day at home, because Monday’s papers were full of the kidnapping story. None of them had so far made a connection with the Sempylene takeover. Either they had been misdirected by the fact that the frauds were being handled from Edinburgh while the kidnapping was left to Ian in Newton Lauder, hindered or helped by any advice that he cared to call for; or else the police had had the sense to keep that aspect out of print for the sake of Delia’s life. All the same, it seemed a nuisance and an invasion of privacy, with Ian’s name and quotations from his brief statements all over the front pages and even a photograph that made him look like the sort of policeman to be avoided on a dark night.

  At least I was spared the presence of Mrs Thrower, simultaneously anxious and disapproving. Mum phoned to say that Mrs T felt unable to return to work just yet, if ever, phrasing it in terms of apology which I am sure were her own. Knowing Mum, I could guess that Mrs Thrower had been moved into my old bedroom. She was certainly not at home. The few reporters who arrived at the factory in the hope of a few agonised quotes from a
distraught mother were sent packing.

  As it happened, a bright teenager with a certificate in typing and book-keeping had applied for a factory job. I shot her straight into the secretary’s chair with a promise that the desk would be hers if she proved herself and a mental promise to myself that Mrs Thrower would come back to the office over somebody’s dead body – preferably her own, if that were physically possible. I was sorry for the woman, but that didn’t make her combination of arrogance and an air of patronage any easier to bear.

  Young Samantha turned out to be a gem. Efficiency and morale both rose to previously impossible heights. By the Monday evening she had mastered the filing and invoicing systems and had even developed enough confidence to make my phone-calls for me, leaving me free for a blitz on the factory workings.

  I decided to give Mrs Thrower a powerful hint by taking her the few personal odds and ends that she had left in the secretary’s desk. The shop had already closed but Ian was still too busy to chauffeur me out to my old home. When I said that I would walk to Briesland House and he could cook his own meal, he capitulated at last and met me in the police car park with the keys to the car and a solemn warning that if I put just one scratch on its lovingly polished paintwork he would personally prosecute me for dangerous driving.

  Whether he would really have taken such drastic action remains uncertain, but it was nearly put to the test. I was turning into the by-road and paying careful attention to my signals – Dad blames Sod’s Law for the fact that nobody ever has two successive cars with the indicator control on the same side – when a brilliant light came rushing at me. Blinded, I could only stamp on the brakes. There was a blast of sound, the light went by and a motorbike was tearing away towards the junction with the main Edinburgh road, leaving me sitting shaking in a stalled car.

  After ten deep breaths, I had recovered enough to drive shakily up to the front of Briesland House. The outside light was on and I walked once round the car. I was amazed to find that, as far as I could make out in the unsatisfactory light, I was still scratch-free and immune to prosecution. The by-road had always seemed to me to be barely wide enough to accept a car. I blessed the rider for his skill if not for his manners.