Thirty-Four

Andy Carstairs had taken the drive along the A151 and A17 from Spalding to Sutton Bridge quite slowly. He was thinking about what he was going to say to the eight supervisors when he arrived at the de Vries food-packing plant. As Miss Nugent had suggested, he’d asked for permission to interview them from Tony Sentance and had been surprised at the alacrity with which her boss had agreed. Theirs had been a telephone conversation, not a face-to-face meeting, so Andy had not been able to see Sentance’s expression, but were it not for what he’d heard about the man, he would have believed he was a public-spirited member of the community doing his best to aid the police with their enquiries. Of course, if Sentance had something to hide, he wouldn’t have been the first crook to adopt super-helpful tactics as a smokescreen. Andy was convinced that he was playing some sort of game, and was more than a little irritated that so far neither himself nor Tim Yates had been able to penetrate what it was about. Hence the slow drive. He entertained a strong suspicion that Sentance planned to allow him one showcase meeting with the supervisors and ensure that it drew a blank. There would then be no reason for further visits to the packing plant.

The de Vries plant at Sutton Bridge was situated on a bleak and windswept site about half a mile before the outskirts of the town when approaching from the Spalding direction. Andy had typed its postcode into his satnav; otherwise, he might have driven past it. The buildings were half-concealed behind a line of tall conifers; there was a high wire fence in front of that. Access to the factory was gained via a narrow lane that led through the fence and the trees. There was a barrier across the top of the lane, beside which a small porter’s hut had been erected. Andy had seen open prisons with more lax security.

He drew up behind the barrier. The porter came out immediately; he was a burly man with a black beard and dressed in what Andy had come to recognise as the ubiquitous de Vries Industries overall, with a name-badge pinned to it: Roberts. Curious, thought Andy: the boss goes by his first name, though crucially prefixed with his title, and, if this bloke is typical, his staff use only their surnames.

“Can I help you, sir?” The man was friendly enough, but there was an edge to the question, as if he were unable to imagine what legitimate business Andy could have in this place.

Andy flashed his ID.

“DC Carstairs, South Lincs police. I’m conducting routine enquiries. I’ve come to speak to some of the people who work here. Your Miss Nugent said that she’d make the arrangements.”

Roberts put on a show of consulting his clipboard.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Miss Nugent has booked a parking space for you, sir. When I’ve raised the barrier, drive straight through and bear left. You’ll see half a dozen car park spaces immediately in front of the main building. One of them should have been reserved for you – there’ll be a bollard in front of it. Just move it out of the way, if you would, sir, and take the space. Or I can call the receptionist and ask her to come out . . .”

“Thank you,” said Andy briskly. “No need to bother anyone else. I’m surprised that you’ve only six parking spaces, though. How does the workforce manage?”

“Most come in works buses, sir, but there’s another car park, round the back of the building, that shop floor workers can use if they want. The spaces at the front are for management only. And visitors, of course.”

“Thank you,” said Andy again. He closed the window again as Roberts stepped back to raise the barrier. He’d been wrong about the place’s similarity to an open prison: it was more like a feudal estate. He wouldn’t mind betting that the workers had to sit in a separate part of the canteen from ‘management’, too, or perhaps the latter ate their lunch in a different room altogether.

Still driving slowly, he passed between the trees. Outwardly, the food-packing plant was an agreeable two-storey brick building fronted by a tarmac drive. A narrow strip of lawn grew between the building and the drive, with a paved path leading to the front door. Miniature box hedges lined the path and there were circular flower beds cut in the lawn. No flowers were growing in these at the moment, but they too were edged with box. Andy was surprised at this attention to detail, until he remembered that de Vries Industries produced flowers as well as vegetables. He supposed that it would be bad for business to leave the grounds looking scrubby.

The parking spaces had been laid out at the end of the drive and set at right angles to it. No vehicles had been left there. Nevertheless, as Roberts had indicated, the space furthest from the building had been ‘reserved’ with an orange bollard. Getting out of the car to move it, Ricky noted that at its head the space was labelled with the word ‘Visitor’ on a little plaque. A similar plaque had been placed on the two adjoining spaces. The others were labelled: ‘E M Nugent’, ‘A J Sentance’ and ‘K P de Vries’. Excellent, thought Andy: so none of them had chosen to attend in order to try to stage manage the interviews.

He was rather annoyed, therefore, when an Audi saloon with Tony Sentance at the wheel came around from the rear of the building and parked in its designated spot.

“DC Carstairs! Dead on time, I see!”

He took the outstretched hand reluctantly. It was dry and hard, the grip almost painfully vice-like.

“We’ve got the afternoon shift supervisors to come in early, so all eight are waiting for you in the canteen.”

“Thank you, but there was no need to alter your normal arrangements on my account. I’d actually have been very happy to have seen the supervisors individually or in pairs, as their own arrangements permitted. I don’t want to turn this into a big deal.” He didn’t add that he’d have less opportunity to gauge if they were telling the truth if he saw them all together.

Sentance eyed him cagily.

“Oh, but surely it is a big deal, isn’t it? A poor young woman has lost her life, after all.”

“Indeed,” Andy agreed, uncharacteristically taciturn. There was a short, awkward silence.

“Well, if you’d like to follow me . . .”

Sentance led the way through the grandiose revolving glass entrance door, past the receptionist and along a narrow corridor that managed to be scrupulously clean yet dingy at the same time. Andy saw that the gloss of the reception area petered out quickly in the parts of the building to which most visitors did not penetrate.

“Here we are.”

Sentance held open one of a pair of swing doors. Painted a light lemon yellow, each had a porthole-style window cut into it so that the occupants of the room beyond could be observed from the corridor. Andy concluded that this was probably for no more sinister a reason than to allow would-be diners to see if there was a free table. Even so, he could imagine Sentance prowling the corridors, checking up on the staff. He probably thought it was his right to do so.

“This is DC Carstairs,” Sentance announced, once they had both entered the room. Andy couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that the announcement had been made with just a shade too much of a flourish, as if inviting humour. One look at the row of faces in front of him told him that, if so, the gesture was ill-judged. The supervisors, uncannily alike in their de Vries overalls, were sitting in a row on two tables that had been pushed together. To a man (or woman) they were regarding him with little-concealed hostility.

“Would you like to make some introductions?” said Andy as lightly as he could, turning to his host.

“Of course. But, first of all, may we offer you some coffee? Or tea?”

“That won’t be necessary, thank you. I don’t want to take up more of your time than I have to.”

Sentance shrugged. “It would have been no trouble, I promise you.” There was another awkward silence. “Well, if you’re sure, I’ll get on with the introductions.”

After this ponderous start, Andy was taken aback at the speed with which Sentance proceeded to acquaint him with his subordinates. He worked along the row, pointing unceremoniously at the supervisor he was presenting.

“This is Alan, and Dulcie, Molly, Fred, Geoff, Wayne, Eric and Douglas. Eric’s been with us the longest – thirty years, isn’t it, Eric? But we’ve all put in a good few seasons.” He chuckled for no apparent reason. Perhaps the joke was that he’d just associated himself so democratically with the workforce.

“Nice to meet you,” said Andy, nodding. The two women managed frosty smiles. The men’s expressions remained flintily expressionless. He turned to Sentance: “Thanks for the introductions. First names are fine for now, but I’ll need surnames as well, if you wouldn’t mind providing me with a list before I go. And mobile numbers, unless anyone objects?” He looked at the group of supervisors again.

“I don’t have a mobile,” said Eric.

“I’d like your landline number, in that case.” Eric gave a surly half-nod. Sentance officiously wrote something in his diary.

“Now I’d like to show you all some photographs,” Andy continued. “There are quite a few of them, so you might be better off sitting down properly. Then you can pass them around more easily. I should warn you they’re a bit upsetting – they’re of the girl whose body was found in the woods at Sandringham – though she’s been tidied up as much as possible.”

The two women slid off their table first. Slowly, the men also got to their feet. Andy noticed that they were all pretty hefty. There was quite a bit of scraping of furniture on the tiled floor as they converted the two tables from an oblong to a square and dragged across chairs. Eventually they were all seated. Sentance chose not to sit with them; he moved over to the windowsill immediately opposite and perched on it. He watched intently as Andy drew a sheaf of photographs from the manila envelope that he was carrying and passed the first one to Dulcie, who was sitting nearest to him.

“I’d be grateful if you’d all look at each one of these carefully before passing them to the person on your right: I don’t want anyone to miss any of them. This is a picture of the spot in the wood where the girl was found. I realise that the police tape may make it look unfamiliar, but do any of you recognise it?”

The photo was passed around solemnly. Andy walked around the table while the group was looking at it, so that he could see each of their faces. No-one showed a spark of recognition, but he had to acknowledge it was a picture of a fairly anonymous spot, made strange, as he’d said, by the scene-of-crime tape.

“Have you all been to Sandringham at some point?” There were some nods. To Andy’s amusement, two of the men half-raised their hands, as if they were primary school children answering a question in class.

“Has anyone not been there?” No response.

Andy continued with the next picture, which was of the girl lying at some distance from the camera.

“I don’t expect you to be able to recognise her from this. It’s just to show you how she was found.”

This photograph also was passed around the supervisors, finishing with Sentance, who officiously returned both photographs to Andy. No-one offered any comment.

Andy was exasperated by their apparent lack of interest; it gave him a dark sense of pleasure to anticipate their shock at what he would show them next. He held out a sheaf of several photographs, all turned face down, to Alan, who was stationed at one corner, furthest away from Sentance. As Alan held out his hand to take them, Andy kept hold of the sheaf for a moment before releasing it, saying as he did so:

“As I said, you may find these upsetting. I apologise for having to put you through looking at them.”

Alan was a ponderous individual with a square, beefy face and black hair combed back to reveal a widow’s peak. He turned over the top photograph, looked at it for a moment, then put it to the back of the pile, imperturbably turning to the next one, and the next. Andy had intended him to pass them on as he looked at them, but decided against intervening. After perhaps three minutes, Alan squared up the batch of photos as if they were a bunch of charge sheets, turned them over again and passed them wordlessly to Dulcie.

“Just a moment,” said Andy. “I’d like Alan’s reaction first.”

Alan stared at him and still did not speak.

“Well?” said Andy. He realised that he shouldn’t have allowed Sentance to introduce the supervisors by their first names alone. It put him at a disadvantage when he was questioning them. He shot a glance at Sentance, but the Finance Director was giving nothing away. He was still balanced against the windowsill, examining the fingernails of his right hand, his head bent forwards so that Andy could not see his expression. He had crossed his legs and was tapping one foot gently on the floor. Whether this was a sign of nerves or impatience was impossible to tell.

“Well what?” asked Alan with surprising truculence.

“Do you recognise the girl, sir?” said Andy, with elaborate patience.

“No, I don’t think so. It’s difficult to tell when she’s so mangled up.”

“Quite. Dulcie, perhaps you’d take a look now.”

Alan looked at his watch and folded his arms. Dulcie was a buxom woman with frizzy sandy hair which was escaping from her cap. She was coarse-skinned, her face almost chapped, as if she’d been working out in the fields in a high wind. Or she could be a drinker, Andy thought. She threw him a timorous smile and turned over the pile with a slightly shaking hand. She was nervous, but it might only have been because he’d warned her that the pictures were unpleasant. Like Alan, she stared at the first one for a while, then moved it to the back of the pack. When she came to the second, she drew in her breath sharply and let the photo fall. It hit the others awkwardly, slewing them across the table-top. Two of them fell to the floor. Dulcie immediately scraped back her chair and plonked down heavily on her hands and knees to retrieve them. When she re-surfaced, her face was scarlet.

“Are you all right?” said Andy. He noted that Dulcie’s colleagues had remained curiously impassive.

“Yes – it’s just . . . The bastard. Look what he did to that poor girl. That was unforgivable. He could’ve . . .” She began to whimper.

“I’m afraid that you’ve distressed Dulcie, Detective Constable.” Sentance’s voice cut smoothly across Dulcie’s babbling. “Molly, could you fetch Dulcie a glass of water? And perhaps you’d like to take her to the ladies’ rest room for a few minutes, until she feels more herself?”

Molly, who was sitting next to Dulcie, nodded and stood up, hatchet-faced. She took hold of Dulcie’s arm and made a rough if unsuccessful attempt to yank her to her feet. Dulcie remained seated, her face now covered with both her large workwoman’s hands.

Andy stepped forward quickly and patted Dulcie on the shoulder.

“Dulcie, I’m very sorry that you’re upset. I tried to warn everyone, but it’s difficult to be prepared for something so horrific. Mr Sentance is right: you must rest until you feel better. But I’d appreciate it if you’d just tell me first whether you knew the girl?”

He couldn’t be sure, but Andy thought that he noticed Molly tightening her grip on Dulcie’s arm. Dulcie slowly moved her fingers from her face and met his eye. Contrary to the impression she’d given, no tears swam in her own, but her countenance was troubled, even haunted. Something more than an unpleasant photograph was frightening her: she seemed beside herself with fear. She gave a quick glance to her right. Sentance stared back at her, his face intent, but shuttered against all emotion.

“No, I don’t think I knew her,” she said. “But we get a lot of casuals here and it’s hard to remember them all.”

“What did you mean when you said ‘he’?”

“Pardon?” Her pale blue eyes had blanked.

“You said that the killer was a ‘bastard’ – I’m sure everyone would agree with you. Then you said ‘Look what he did to that poor girl’. What did you mean when you said ‘he’? Were you thinking of someone specific?”

“Really, DC Carstairs, where do you think this is leading? It’s a natural assumption that this crime was committed by a man, isn’t it? It’s unlikely that a woman would have overpowered the girl, and in any case women don’t . . .”

“I’d be grateful if you’d let Dulcie herself answer.”

Sentance sighed and opened wide his arms in a ‘be my guest’ gesture. Dulcie flicked another fearful glance in his direction, then fixed her eyes on the table. She did not raise them to meet Andy’s again.

“Mr Sentance is quite right,” she said, her voice rising squeakily as she gasped for air. “I just jumped to the conclusion that it was a man, that’s all.”

“And you didn’t know the girl?”

“I’ve said, haven’t I?” She rose to her feet, Molly still gripping her arm. “I need to have a sit down somewhere quiet now. I’m sorry.”

The two women left the room.

“Highly strung,” Sentance observed reflectively, as if talking to a fellow director. “But a good worker.”

“Can we continue?”

“Of course.”

Andy gathered up the photographs and passed them to Fred. They were silently examined by all the remaining male supervisors in turn. Each said that he didn’t know the girl and none of them betrayed any feeling. When the photos reached Sentance, he riffled through them perfunctorily before handing them back to Andy with a half-flourish. Andy had known from the moment that Dulcie had clammed up that he would get no further with the supervisors. He didn’t even bother to ask if Molly could return to speak to him. He thanked the supervisors politely and allowed Sentance to escort him to the door.

“As you see, we’re just like a family here,” said Sentance unctuously.

Andy ignored the remark. He held out his hand to shake Sentance’s briefly.

“Thank you for arranging for me to visit,” he said. Sentance gave a half-bow. “I’d like the full names of all the supervisors, please, with their addresses and how they may be contacted by phone, both during the day and at home. And e-mail addresses for those who have them. By the end of the day, if possible. I’d appreciate it if you’d e-mail them to me.”

He handed Sentance his card, who took it wordlessly.

“Just like a family!” Andy muttered to himself, as he trudged to his car. “They say that blood’s thicker than water and this family’s certainly seen some blood. I’d say that this lot were in it up to their eyebrows. It’s proving it that’s going to be the problem.”