Absolute Poison (18 page)

Llewellyn didn't pursue it. “What about the toilets? Did you check them?”

Llewellyn's gaze was steady, unthreatening, but Smith avoided it. “No. The windows in there don't open. There was no point in checking them.”

Rafferty raised an eyebrow, so much for Smith's claim that he did his job properly. Now he took over the questioning. “Surely you must have been instructed to check everywhere, particularly in view of the recent threats against the firm. Besides, you couldn't be sure one of our local hooligans hadn't smashed a window in one of the toilets. We had reports of a gang of youths causing trouble out this way that night.”

“The windows are still there aren't they? Besides, I'd have heard it smash.”

“Even if you were at the other end of the building? You can't be certain of that,” Rafferty insisted. “After all, you didn't hear Clive Barstaple shout.”

“Glass is different. It makes a much sharper sound. The noise would have carried. Besides,” he repeated, “we none of us know that he
did
shout.”

Rafferty was half-tempted to put Smith's theory to the test and smash a pane of glass at the rear of the premises. But the thought of explaining such vandalism to Bradley and Alistair Plumley made him forget the idea. Why court more problems? But there was one thing he could try smashing—Smith's claim to innocence. There was something decidely shifty in the man's manner. And once the security man had returned to his duties downstairs, Rafferty instructed Llewellyn to get back onto Guardian Security, Smith's employers, to see if they could tell them any more about the man than the basics they had so far supplied.

Downstairs once more, they ignored Smith's sullen face and settled in the staff room to await the arrival of the cleaners.

“I can't believe that Barstaple didn't make some attempt to get help,” Llewellyn commented as Rafferty studied the drinks machine and hunted in his pocket for change.

“Nor me.” Rafferty broke off. “Oh good, they've got vegetable soup.” He hoped something warming in his stomach would persuade his bones to stop aching. “After all, Barstaple's phone was dangling over the edge of the desk so it seems likely he tried to summon outside help. Maybe that's because he'd given up on getting any of the other sort. He must have been in that lavatory for some time, far longer than the fifteen minutes that Smith claims his rounds take. Which leaves us with the probability that Smith did hear him, but chose to ignore him.” He gazed speculatively at Llewellyn. “Any ideas as to why?”

Llewellyn hadn't. Rafferty turned back to the drinks machine, inserted his coins and made his selection. Nothing happened. He thumped the machine, but this brought no result either and he scowled. “Blasted thing. Bet you it won't give me my money back, either.”

However, to his surprise, the machine proved more honest that most of its breed and regurgitated his coins once Llewellyn suggested he press the reject button. The noise of a vacuum cleaner starting up told him the cleaners had arrived earlier than he had expected and he decided to abandon the idea of soup. It was as well to quit while he was ahead.

They went out to the reception area. At the desk, Albert Smith's head was determinedly bent over some papers. Rafferty ignored him. For the moment he had other things on his mind than the security guard's suspiciously selective deafness and he went in search of Ada Collins. Even if she had found Mrs Chakraburty no more chatty than he had, the Asian woman might have let slip something about her family to another woman. Dot Flowers had done so after all. Rafferty felt that if he could just find the two women who were presumably working illegally he might be in a position to eliminate them from the enquiry. There was enough to do without chasing around trying to find people who were probably guilty of nothing more than working off the books. Besides, with his body laid low with flu and half his mind occupied with personal problems, he was having trouble enough keeping on top of it all. On top of the enquiry was the last thing he felt.

After walking round a mop and bucket wielded enthusiastically by Eric Penn on the reception area floor, Rafferty followed the noise of the electric cleaner to its source in one of the downstairs offices. It was there that he found Ada Collins.

She switched off the cleaner as soon as she saw them. “I wondered if I'd see you again. Ross Arnold's been complaining you've scared off half his workers. I've even been able to get a pay rise out of him.” Her smile became conspiratorial. “You must have put the wind up him good and proper.”

“All in the line of duty,” Rafferty told her. He propped himself on the edge of a desk, surprised that Ross Arnold hadn't yet staged his own disappearing act. Arnold's business must be even more lucrative than he had imagined.

“About time somebody did,” she remarked. “The way he treats the likes of Eric and those poor Asian women is sinful.” She shrugged. “All right I know they're illegals and not supposed to be in the country, never mind working, but they're decent, hardworking people, most of them. You can't help feeling sorry for them. A few of the women I've worked with have told me they felt they had no chance of any kind of a life in their own countries, so they come here, hoping for better. Fat chance of that when they have to work for the likes of Arnold. Sad little things, some of them.”

Rafferty nodded. He could imagine Ross Arnold would be the type to enjoy bullying people who couldn't fight back. “I gather Arnold had a few other people working here at the beginning of the contract.” He already knew about Anderson and now he questioned her about the others.

“Not much I can tell you,” she said. “They came, worked a few days and then left.” Mrs Collins screwed up her forehead. “If I remember rightly there were three all told; two Asian women and one white chap. I haven't seen any of them since. None of them was much more than 30. Told me their first names and nothing else. Then Dot Flowers started shortly after the new year and we were more settled.”

Curious, Rafferty asked, “Why do you choose to work for a man like Arnold?”

She shrugged. “I just stayed on when he bought the business. Not one for change, me. Though I was surprised he let me stay, given the set-up he prefers. But I'm reliable, you see. I suppose that's what stopped him getting rid of me. With the illegals he employs, he can never be sure when they'll feel it necessary to move on and leave him shorthanded, so he has to have a few old faithfuls.”

“Tell me about Mrs Chakraburty. You know she's disappeared?”

Ada Collins nodded. “Ross Arnold told me I'd likely be getting another replacement. Can't say I'm surprised.”

“Had you worked with her before?”

“No. This was the first time. And the last, I imagine.

Rafferty had hoped for more. “I take it then that you didn't know her well?”

“I doubt anyone ever gets the chance to know her well. She hardly opened her mouth the few evenings she worked with me and just did what I directed her to do. And, of course, her English wasn't too good. Like all of them, she was between the devil and the deep blue sea. Although I didn't get to know her, I've known plenty of women like her. Men too, though it's mostly women I see. They all knew well enough that they had no rights. Knew they had to take whatever the likes of Ross Arnold dished out. They stuck it because they had no alternative.”

“So you've no idea where she lived or what her real name is?”

“I'm afraid not. As I said, she didn't talk about herself. I barely knew the woman.”

“What about Mrs Flowers? You told my sergeant you thought she was foreign. Do you think she was an illegal, too?”

Ada Collins frowned. “I'm not sure. It was more an impression I had, as if she was somewhere else half the time.” She shrugged. “Most of them are. It was that more than anything that made me think she might be foreign. But I have to say that she spoke English as plain as you or me. Some of them do. Educated some of them and use this sort of work as a stopgap.”

“Have you heard from her since she phoned you?” Llewellyn asked.

She shook her head. “No. Not a word since last Friday night. Still, I expect with her son in hospital, she's got more to worry about than keeping Ross Grab-it-all Arnold sweet. Jobs like this are ten a penny. She can get another one easily enough when she comes back. There are no shortage of employers of Ross Arnold's stamp.” She paused and then added, “If she comes back, that is. She'll have heard of the murder here by now, so she may decide she can do without getting tangled up in it.”

“We've contacted various hospitals in Birmingham,” Llewellyn butted in. “But none of them had admitted a male named Flowers. Of course, it's possible that's not his name, especially if Mrs Flowers is working here illegally and using a false name, but I wanted to check that you're sure she said Birmingham.”

Rafferty hadn't considered that possibility and he looked sharply at Ada Collins. Her look of doubt didn't inspire confidence.

She apologised. “I
thought
she said Birmingham, but now you mention it I can't be sure. It was a bad line,” she explained, “and I couldn't hear her all that well. It's not as if I thought it was important. It certainly began with a ‘B’ and ended with a ‘ham’ It's the bit in the middle I'm not sure of.”

“You're at least fairly confident that this place name is a three syllable word?” Llewellyn asked. Ada Collins looked blankly at him and he explained. “Birmingham makes
three
distinctly separate sounds. Are you sure the name Mrs Flowers mentioned had the same?”

Ada Collins shook her head and told him apologetically, “I can't be sure. I'm sorry. Dot Flowers had a coughing spasm while she was talking to me and the middle part of the name was obliterated by her spluttering. It didn't help that there was some sort of echo on the line.”

Rafferty stifled a groan. He even managed a faint smile when Ada Collins said encouragingly, “Still, there can't be that many place names beginning with a ‘B’ and ending with a ‘ham’. It should be easy enough to check.” He hoped she was right. He thanked her for her help and the unwelcome information and they left her to her work. With witnesses and possibile suspects disappearing at the rate they were, this case was rapidly turning into an Agatha Christie saga. He could only hope his suspects didn't continue to disappear ‘until there were none’ as had the characters in Mrs Christie's famous novel.

With his
mind still wrestling with the suit problem and his body plagued by what seemed to be turning into a particularly virulent form of influenza, Rafferty was finding it increasingly difficult to summon the energy to give the enquiry the lead it demanded. Llewellyn wasn't similarly troubled and he had apparently decided he had to take the initiative. He took to it like a duck to water.

Rafferty let him get on with it. After all, if he didn't manage to come up with a solution to the wedding suit problem it might be the only taste of rank and responsibility Llewellyn got.

Llewellyn had checked out the NHS website for a listing of all the hospitals in the country as well as using various search engines to check on possible place names. Not satisfied with these, he was currently working his efficient way through various atlases and gazetteers checking on place names that began with ‘B’ and ended with ‘ham’. He had already collected quite an impressive list, Rafferty noted. But, if they were to eliminate Mrs Flowers from the enquiry they had no choice but to check with the hospitals of each place on the list. He knew he should be grateful that Llewellyn had not only thought of the possibility that Mrs Collins had misheard the name of the place where Mrs Flowers’ son was hospitalized, but had also taken upon himself the responsibility of following it up. He wasn't, of course. And his conscience, which, like him, had been subdued of late, bestirred itself sufficiently to tell him he was an ingrate.

Pausing to wipe his streaming nose, Rafferty peered over Llewellyn's shoulder. Burnham, Bookham, Brookham, he read. And Beckenham, Balham, Balcome, Bulphan, Burham…He drew back with a sigh when he saw that Llewellyn's growing list still scarcely extended beyond the Greater London area.

“I presume we're doing this phonetically as well as alphabetically?” Llewellyn asked.

“What?”

“Balcome isn't spelt ‘ham’ at the end, but it sounds as if it is and Bulphan is also pretty close.”

“I suppose so.” Rafferty waved his hand over the list of names. “You don't think this is a total waste of time?”

“Probably. But it looks worse than it is. Most of the smaller places won't even have hospitals, so will be quickly eliminated. But we've got to check.”

“I know that.” Rafferty paused, then burst out, “But do you have to be the one to do all this? It's taking far too much time. We're neglecting our more likely suspects; the staff of Aimhursts. We haven't even got around to asking Hal Gallagher about the argument he's supposed to have had with Barstaple yet. Maybe we're wrong to become so obsessed with a couple of off-the-books cleaners who weren't even on the payroll at Aimhursts.”

Rafferty thought of all the other checking that was still to be done and felt more ill and depressed than ever. “I could use your help checking them out, not in doing glorified clerical work.”

For once, mercifully, Llewellyn didn't pull him up by pointing out the obvious—that if he had been doing any such checking he'd kept it very quiet. Instead, in a long-suffering voice, he asked, “Who do you suggest replaces me? Smales?”