Beggars Banquet (collection) Page 9

  He gnawed at his bottom lip, and decided to take a calculated risk. He drove to the next lot of units, parked, and walked back towards Cooke Engineering. The door he was approaching, having ignored the carful of staring eyes, had OFFICE printed on it. He knocked and entered, closing the door behind him. He’d expected noise: after all, only a partition wall separated this part of the unit from the actual production line. But there was silence, punctuated by the slow clack of fingers on a computer keyboard.

  ‘Can I help you?’ She sat behind a desk, but also behind huge red-rimmed spectacles, which magnified her already large eyes. Her tone was hardly welcoming.

  ‘Mr Cooke?’ He said nervously. ‘Wondered if I could have a-’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No, well I…’

  ‘Are you a reporter?’ She examined him, hunched over as he was, shuffling and twitching and awkward. ‘You don’t look like one.’ She sighed. ‘No cold calling, reps by appointment only. I take it you are a rep?’

  ‘Well, as it happens I-’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, seeming to take pity on this particularly pitiful example of an unlovely breed. ‘Mr Cooke’s not here anyway.’

  He looked around. ‘Place looks dead.’

  ‘Dead about sums it up.’

  ‘Business bad.’

  ‘Let’s just say you shouldn’t look for too many orders.’

  ‘Ah…’ He seemed to think of something. ‘But the cars outside…?’

  ‘We let the guys from the frozen-food place park their excess cars there.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ He nodded towards where he assumed the production line would be, just through the wall. ‘Then you’re not…?’

  ‘We’re not producing. So unless you’re selling jobs in the light engineering sector, I shouldn’t bother.’

  He smiled. ‘But you’re still here.’

  ‘Only till the weekend. No pay by Friday, I’m off.’ She went back to her typing, her fingers hammering the keys.

  He turned to leave, his back and shoulders more hunched than ever. Then he stopped and half turned. ‘What made you think I was a reporter?’

  ‘You’ll read about it.’

  Only after he’d gone did she pause in her work. She’d seen them all in her time, all the types of rep you could imagine. But she’d never come across one who didn’t even bother to bring samples with him…

  Across from the industrial estate was a recently built pub, doubtless put there by a canny brewing concern who knew there would be plenty of clients from an estate of eighty-odd units.

  ‘That was the idea anyway,’ the barman admitted, pouring a pint of beer, ‘before times got hard. What gets me is that none of these financial projections ’ – he said the words with distaste – ‘ever projected hard times ahead. And let me tell you, there’s no money-back guarantee with these things.’ He had handed over the drink, received a five-pound note, and now pressed a key on the till.

  ‘Accountants aren’t all bad,’ said the customer.

  As the barman handed over the change, the customer asked a question.

  ‘Does a man called Bernard Cooke drink in here?’

  There was a snort from further down the bar, where a man on a stool was doing the crossword in the local paper.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ asked the barman.

  ‘I was supposed to be seeing him today. Drove all the way down from bloody Lancaster.’ The barman didn’t seem about to doubt his north-west accent. ‘Only there’s no bugger about except some right rough types in a car parked outside.’

  ‘Reporters,’ said the crossword solver.

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘You won’t be seeing Cooke for a while.’ The crossword solver tipped back the dregs of a half-pint.

  ‘We don’t know that,’ snapped the barman. ‘Don’t go jumping to bloody conclusions, Arthur.’

  Arthur merely shrugged in compliance, staring down at his paper.

  ‘He’s in trouble, is he?’ asked the traveller.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Bang goes my bloody contract.’

  ‘You’re lucky, then,’ said Arthur.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ He nodded towards the empty glass. ’Get you another?’

  ‘Thanks, I will.’

  The barman refilled the glass, but wouldn’t take one himself. Arthur sipped and swallowed. ‘I mean,’ he said at last, ‘Bernie’s been in trouble for yonks, money trouble. Chances are, if you were buying from him, you wouldn’t have got what you ordered, and if you were selling, you wouldn’t have seen the money.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip.’

  ‘I’ve known for months he was in trouble. Used to be, he’d nip in here Friday lunchtime for something to eat and a couple of brandies. Then it got to be twice a week and four brandies, and three times a week and six. Somebody drinks like that, it’s not because they’re flush, it’s that they’re worried.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘All I know,’ chipped in the barman, ‘is that he always paid… and that’s more than some.’

  Arthur winked at Beattie. ‘That’s a dig at me.’

  Beattie finished his drink and eased himself off the bar stool.

  ‘Back to Lancaster?’

  He shook his head. ‘Couple more calls first.’

  After he’d gone, the bar was silent a few moments, then Arthur cleared his throat.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Well,’ said the barman, ‘he wasn’t a reporter. I’m not even sure he’s in business.’

  ‘How do you make that out?’

  ‘No expense account – didn’t ask for a receipt for the drinks.’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t need receipts, Sherlock.’

  ‘Maybe.’ The barman lifted away the empty glass and washed it, placing it on the rack to dry. Then he wiped the bartop where the man had been sitting, and put down a fresh beermat. Now there was no sign anyone had ever been there.

  ‘Just be a second,’ the barman told Arthur. Then he disappeared into the alcove where the telephone was kept.

  At three-forty, the journalists slouched out of the press room carrying the latest news release. They were talkative, if they weren’t too busy drawing in cigarette smoke. Some were making calls on their telephones, or going off to their cars to make calls. They squeezed from the police station’s double doors and fanned out across the car park. A camera unit had been readied for the TV reporter called Martin Brockman, who was now checking his script while a make-up girl tried to get his hair to stop flying into a vertical peak every time a gust blew.

  Stefan Duniec walked slowly across the car park, not heading towards his car – he did not have a car – but just keeping moving, so he looked as busy and important as the other reporters. He was staring down at his notebook and didn’t notice the figure blocking his way until he’d practically bumped into it.

  ‘Hello, Mr Beattie, you missed the conference.’

  ‘Couldn’t be helped, Stef. Anything to report?’

  ‘I got you a copy of the press release.’

  ‘Good lad.’ Beattie started to read from the two stapled sheets. Gillian Webster, he read, had now given a description of the room she’d been kept in during her ‘ten-day ordeal’. Not so much a room, more a cupboard, kept in darkness. She could hear distant traffic, as though heavy lorries were passing outside. But she was tied up, mouth taped shut, and couldn’t cry out.

  Beattie read it again. Well, it was true he’d kept her mouth taped shut occasionally, but everything else was a fabrication, another false account.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Are they still questioning Cooke?’ Duniec nodded. ‘And I suppose they’ll be giving his factory the once-over?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Stands to reason, Stef. This cupboard could be in Cooke’s factory. I’ve just come from there. He’s been laying off staff. The only person left is a secretary, and I doubt she goes anywhere near the shop floor – she might get
her hands mucky.’ He glanced again at the paper. ‘Lorries going past… sounds just like an industrial estate.’

  ‘I suppose it does,’ Duniec said quietly.

  ‘And if he’s been laying off men, what does that tell you?’

  ‘His company’s in trouble.’

  ‘Dead right. So tell me, young Stef, is Cooke wealthy or skint?’

  ‘Skint, I suppose.’

  ‘And desperate.’

  ‘So he kidnaps someone he knows… How could he hope to get away with it?’

  ‘All we know is that he knew the parents; we don’t know Gillian knew him.’

  ‘But he let her see him,’ Duniec protested. ‘He must’ve known she’d give a description – that her father would see it…’

  Beattie nodded. Precisely. That was just one of the flaws. Would Cooke really have kept her in his factory, with someone else on the premises all day? How could he feed Gillian without the secretary becoming suspicious? Gillian’s story was badly flawed. But Beattie wondered if the police would see that. He could see what Gillian Webster was doing, and how she was doing it. He just couldn’t account for the why. But he had an idea now, a good idea. He only needed to study the photographs again.

  Meantime, Stefan had obviously been considering all the flaws too.

  ‘Like you say, he must have been desperate.’

  ‘He was desperate all right, he just wasn’t very bright.’ He tapped Duniec’s shoulder with the rolled-up press release. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He winked. ‘Remember the byline.’

  ‘And the seven-fifty words!’ Duniec called after him. ‘I’ve already made a start!’

  Without looking back, Beattie gave a raised thumbs-up. Duniec watched till he was out of sight, then turned back towards the reporters’ cars. Three men were in a huddle next to a red Porsche.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, interrupting them. One man, the one with a proprietorial hand resting on the Porsche’s roof, spoke for all of them.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’re Terry Greig, aren’t you?’

  Greig puffed out his chest. Of course he was Terry Greig, king of the tabloid newsroom, scourge of copy-takers. And here was another tyro looking to make his acquaintance.

  ‘What can I do for you, lad?’

  Duniec didn’t like that ‘lad’, but like Beattie’s ‘Stef ’ he let it lie. ‘Did you see that man I was talking to?’ he asked instead. ‘In the sheepskin jacket?’

  Greig nodded. Little escaped him. ‘I saw him earlier,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Right,’ said Duniec. ‘And have you seen him before? I mean, do you know who he is?’

  ‘Don’t know him from Adam. Football manager, is he? Third Division? They’re the only buggers would wear a coat like that.’

  ‘Except for Brockman,’ added one of the other reporters.

  ‘Except for old Brockie,’ Greig agreed. Then they all laughed, all except Stefan Duniec. When the laughter had died and they were waiting for him to leave, he turned his gaze once more to Greig.

  ‘He wrote up the Ripper case for the Telegraph.’

  ‘No he didn’t, not unless he meant the Belfast Telegraph.’ They all laughed again. Even Duniec’s lips were bent slightly in what might have passed for a smile.

  ‘What’s it all about, lad?’ asked Greig.

  ‘Could we step inside the station, sir?’ Duniec said. To anyone standing within earshot, it didn’t sound much like a question…

  The man who called himself Des Beattie was packing his bag.

  He tore the ring-pull from another can of McEwan’s and gulped from the can. The photographs were lying on the bed. He paused in his packing and studied the photos again. Cooke with Duncan Webster. Cooke with Mrs Webster. Cooke looking very comfortable with Mrs Webster. Cooke looking extremely uncomfortable with Duncan Webster, looking like maybe he owed the man money, money he couldn’t hope to repay. But that wasn’t Cooke’s problem. No, Cooke’s problem was the wife. Look at the two of them: touching, kissing. With Mr Webster, Cooke looked more like a business acquaintance than anything; but with Mrs Webster he looked like a very close friend indeed.

  Whether Webster knew or not, he couldn’t tell. But the daughter had known. Gillian Webster had found out about Cooke and her mother, about their affair. Christ, and she was Daddy’s little daughter, wasn’t she? When she’d spoken to him of her home life, hoping to ingratiate herself, hoping he wouldn’t harm someone he knew as a real person rather than an item (yes, she’d been clever all right), when she had done this, she had spoken always of her father first, her mother second. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy: it had always been Daddy. While Mother had remained just that: ‘Mother’.

  All those hours she’d been alone, those hours with little to do but struggle against her bonds, little to think about but… but how to turn this little adventure to her own advantage. She would set up Bernard Cooke. She must have known his company was in trouble, giving him the motive. Who would suspect she’d lie about something like this? No one, no one would know except three people: Cooke himself, the mother, and the real kidnapper. Cooke would protest his innocence, but it was his word against Gillian’s. Mrs Webster… what could she say without revealing the extent of her ties to Cooke? And as for the kidnapper… well, was he going to come forward to help Cooke? Of course not!

  It was true, wasn’t it? He wasn’t going to do anything. He was going to leave this town and never return. With Cooke inside, the heat would be off, the police would stop checking airports and seaports. Yes, a foreign holiday, somewhere sunny and dry, not like this cold miserable island where he worked. He could stop by a travel agent’s tomorrow. On the plane out, he’d order champagne and drink to poor Bernard Cooke.

  That was that.

  He opened another can and picked up the photo, the one of Cooke and Mrs Webster kissing. The more he looked at it, the more he saw that he could be wrong. What if it was just a friendly kiss? These types, types like Mrs Webster, they could get overfamiliar. What if it had nothing to do with the mother? What if… what if it had to do with Gillian instead? She’d told him, ‘Daddy doesn’t like it when I bring home older men.’ Could there have been something between Gillian and Bernard Cooke? Maybe he’d broken it off and she was out for his blood…

  Wait, think a bit. If Cooke was single, it wouldn’t work. It only worked if he was married and had to hide the relationship. His head began spinning, and he tried to stand up. How could he be sure? How could he be sure that Cooke and Mrs Webster or Cooke and Gillian had been an item?

  He caught that word ‘item’ and smiled. If they’d been an item, people would have seen them together, somewhere they felt safe from Mr Webster. Maybe that was why Cooke started using the pub across from the estate more often; nothing to do with his financial troubles. It should be easy enough to check. He’d go there now, on his way out of town. He thought of Stefan Duniec. Stefan, who probably wasn’t fit to report on a flower show, never mind a police inquiry. There were some real thick bastards in the world, when you thought about it.

  Jesus, weren’t there just.

  It was five o’clock when he walked into the bar. As he’d hoped, the shift had changed. The barman was new. What’s more, Arthur had moved on. Good: they’d have thought it more than a little off, the Lancastrian returning to ask questions about Cooke and some woman.

  The beer he’d drunk in his room had given him a taste, so he ordered a double Armagnac with a half of lager to chase it down. Fuel for the long drive ahead. The bar was medium-busy with workers on their way home from the estate. He sat on the same stool as earlier, and made a show of checking his watch and keeping an eye on the door.

  ‘Waiting on someone?’ the new barman dutifully asked.

  ‘Bernard Cooke. I thought we arranged to meet at five.’

  The barman tried the name. ‘Don’t think I know him.’

  ‘He’s a lunchtime regular.’

  ‘I never do lunchtime.’

  He nodded miserably and f
inished the Armagnac. It burned him all the way down. One last time then: ‘He usually has a woman with him, a bit of posh.’

  The barman shrugged and went back to wiping glasses.

  ‘Thanks anyway.’ He finished the lager and had another idea. It was a bit late, but worth a try. As he pushed open the door to the outside world, he met resistance. It was Arthur, coming in. Arthur looked surprised. Beattie switched to a north-west accent.

  ‘Hello, Arthur.’

  ‘Thought you were off to the wide blue yonder.’

  ‘Just heading back now. I’ve been hearing Cooke has a fancy piece.’ He winked. ‘That’s an expensive hobby, no wonder he’s gone broke.’

  Arthur just stared, as though listening to a ghost. There was almost… it wasn’t shock, it was more like fear in his eyes.

  Beattie persisted. ‘Nice looker, by the sound of her.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘They used to come in here.’

  ‘Did they?’

  Was the man pissed? Maybe those crosswords had addled his brain. Beattie felt good and mellow.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘See you around.’

  Arthur seemed to perk up. ‘Oh, right you are. Take care now.’

  ‘I will, Arthur, I will.’

  The secretary, having faithfully placed a dustcover over the computer, was putting on her coat when he arrived. She looked daggers at him, and he raised his hands in surrender.

  ‘I’ll only take a minute,’ he said. He hadn’t really expected her to still be here. How much paperwork could an empty factory produce? The reporters had vanished from outside, along with most of the cars on the estate.

  ‘You’re persistent,’ she said. ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘It was you I wanted to speak to.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He stepped forward and produced the photo from his pocket, the one of Cooke and Mrs Webster kissing.