HE LOOKED around for help, but there was no one else in the warehouse. The girl was unconscious and looked ghastly, but vague recollections of the basic principles of first aid told Charles he shouldn’t move an injured person. He’d just have to leave her and go for help.
He hurried up the aisle to the office at the back. There was no one in the outer room. He knocked on the interconnecting door and moved through into the inner office.
Brian Tressider and Heather looked up with surprise at his entrance, but without embarrassment. Nothing untoward had been going on, and indeed looking at the two of them – he wirily elegant, she frankly frumpy – it was an unlikely thought that anything might have been. She sat at her desk, an opened but untouched packet of sandwiches in front of her. He stood at the other side of the room.
The Managing Director cocked an interrogative eyebrow at Charles.
‘There’s been an accident. It’s dreadful. In the warehouse. We need an ambulance.’
‘What’s happened? Who’s been hurt?’
‘Dayna.’
It seemed to Charles that, at the mention of the name, Heather searched Brian Tressider’s face for some reaction. What she was expecting was hard to judge, but, whatever it was, the craggy face remained impassive.
‘Get on to Security, Heather. And Personnel. They’ll have a contact for her parents or next-of-kin. And find Alan Hibbert – quickly!’
‘Yes, Brian.’
‘I think you should call an ambulance first.’
Charles’s suggestion was rewarded by a flash of anger from the Managing Director’s grey eyes. ‘Security will do that.’ Brian Tressider didn’t take kindly to being told how to run his company.
Just as she reached for the receiver, the telephone on Heather’s desk rang. She picked it up. ‘Oh, Mother, what is it now? Well, it is a bad moment. We’ve got an emergency on and . . .’
Brian indicated the door. ‘Show me,’ he commanded.
Charles Paris ushered him through the offices to the warehouse, and down the aisle to where the girl lay. Her breathing seemed even weaker. The pool of blood from mouth and nostrils was spreading ominously.
Brian Tressider showed no emotion. ‘Did the pallets fall on her?’
‘No, the forklift had somehow started and pushed them against her. I moved the truck back.’
The Managing Director gave a curt nod. ‘Industrial accidents are buggers. Last thing you want in a place like this.’ He looked back up the aisle to the scattered cartons. ‘Those must’ve fallen and knocked the truck into gear.’
‘Does that really seem likely?’ asked Charles.
The flinty grey stare was turned on him. ‘Well, I can’t think what else happened, can you?’
‘Just seems a coincidence. Anyway, somebody must’ve left the truck switched on.’
Brian Tressider shrugged. ‘Happens all the time. Trucks keep having to be recharged when they shouldn’t because some idiot’s left them running. Dozy lot of buggers you get in a place like this.’
‘But presumably you will investigate to find out who did leave it switched on?’
‘Yes, we’ll investigate.’ His voice didn’t express much confidence in the efficacy of the procedure. ‘They’ll all deny they were the last ones to touch it.’
‘I think I was the last one to touch it. You know, in the filming.’ This prompted another sharp stare. ‘Then I’d bloody well keep quiet about it, if I were you.’
‘But I know I left it switched off.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you did.’ The scepticism in the tone was undisguised. Though he might not have used the expression ‘bleeding fairies’, Brian Tressider clearly shared the common prejudice against the theatrical profession.
He looked down at the injured girl and pursed his lips with annoyance. ‘Why people can’t just do what they’re meant to do I’ll never understand. Most industrial accidents occur because people are where they shouldn’t be, or doing what they’re not meant to be doing.’
‘Well, what do you think she was doing behind the pallets?’
This got another shrug. Such speculation apparently held no interest for Brian Tressider.
They heard hurried footsteps and turned to see Alan Hibbert approaching. The Warehouse Manager took in the scene instantly.
‘Shit,’ he said softly.
‘Yes. Shit,’ Brian concurred. ‘Is the nurse on her way from Surgery.’
A nod. ‘And they’ve called an ambulance. She’s still alive, isn’t she?’
‘At the moment. Not looking too good, though. Maybe we should put a blanket over her or something?’
The Warehouse Manager found a blanket and gently covered the still form. ‘Silly girl. She was a right little mixer, B.T.. Always poking her nose into things that weren’t her business.’
Again the Managing Director didn’t seem interested. The girl’s behaviour was irrelevant. It was the inconvenience of the accident that seemed to preoccupy him. ‘Have to do a full report, Alan, won’t we . . .’
The Warehouse Manager caught the slight interrogative inflection at the end of this. ‘Sorry. No way round it. I must get on the blower to the Environmental Health Department straight away.’
‘I’d hold fire till she’s been moved to the hospital, if I were you,’ said Brian Tressider.
Alan Hibbert looked at his boss in some surprise. Despite the softness of tone in which they had been spoken, the words had been not a suggestion, but an order.
The warehouse staff who’d been involved in the video and the film crew who had made it were assembled in Heather’s back office an hour later for a debriefing from their Managing Director.
‘Listen, we’re all obviously very upset about what’s happened and I hope it’s reinforced to the lot of you working in this warehouse just how seriously the safety regulations have to be followed. Now of course we’re going to have an internal investigation to find out exactly how the accident came about and to make sure that this kind of thing can’t happen again . . . isn’t that right, Alan?’
The Warehouse Manager nodded. He was completely solid with his boss. Both of them knew that an investigation had to take place; neither of them wanted that investigation to make any waves. All they did want was for Delmoleen to return to business-as-usual as soon as possible.
Already, Charles had noticed with some shock, the site of the accident had been cleared up, sawdust scattered and swept away, disinfectant sprinkled. Along the other aisles of the warehouse forklifts and stockpickers plied their trade, as the waiting lorries slowly filled with Delmoleen products. Whatever kind of investigation did ensue, it wasn’t going to have much to go on from the forensic point of view.
‘And it’s quite likely,’ Brian continued, ‘that we could be the subject of an external investigation too. In fact, it’s pretty well certain that the boys from the Environmental Health Department will be along soon.
‘I’m going to be in London and abroad for the next few weeks, so I want to say to all of you now, that if their inspectors do come round to talk to you, please co-operate. Answer any questions they ask you, but – and this is an important “but” – don’t tell them more than they ask. OK? No speculation, no comments about the poor kid’s character – none of that stuff, all right?’
The assembled group nodded agreement. Ken Colebourne caught Robin Pritchard’s eye and shook his head wryly.
‘Isn’t it possible,’ Charles hazarded gently, ‘that the police might also make some kind of investigation?’
A roomful of cold eyes focused on him.
‘I wouldn’t have thought that would be necessary,’ said Brian Tressider. ‘We are talking about an accident here.’
‘Yes, but –’
The Managing Director’s voice continued on a level note. He was not used to being interrupted. ‘I would also have thought that a police investigation was something that you particularly would wish to avoid, Mr Paris – as the last person to leave the warehouse before the accident, and the last person to touch the forklift that caused it.’
‘I’m fairly sure I wasn’t the last person,’ Charles persisted. ‘I’m also positive that I switched the engine off when I left the truck.’
‘I’d doubt that.’ Now Trevor had joined in the argument. ‘Did any of you see the way he was farting around on that forklift this morning – bloody hopeless? Hardly knew if it was in “forward” or “reverse”. Can’t expect a bloody actor to remember whether he’s left it switched on or not.’
Without this aggression, Charles probably wouldn’t have made a public accusation, but he was stung and spoke before he could stop himself. ‘I know I switched it off,’ he announced firmly, ‘and I’m pretty sure that someone else switched it back on again. In fact, as I left the warehouse, I saw someone going in.’
Trevor sensed he was about to be named and came in quickly with his admission. ‘All right, I was going in there, don’t deny it. Left me fags. Just nipped in to get them.’
The operator blushed defiantly, judging that the pro-cover-up mood of the meeting would probably preclude further questions.
But he’d underestimated his Managing Director. Brian Tressider wanted the investigations to be concluded as quickly as possible, but he wasn’t going to ignore this new information. ‘Why didn’t you mention this before, Trevor?’
The blush grew deeper. ‘Like I said . . . I just nipped in. I, er . . . I . . .’
He looked acutely uncomfortable, but salvation came from an unexpected source.
They all looked round as Heather spoke. ‘That’s right. I saw Trevor as he came into the warehouse. Then he came into my office for a chat. You remember, because my mother rang while you were here, didn’t she, Trevor?’
There was an infinitesimal pause before the operator replied, ‘Yes, Heather, that’s right.’
Charles was convinced they were lying. ‘So how long was Trevor with you?’
‘Till about one, I suppose.’
Nearly all the time that Charles had been absent from the warehouse. He’d seen Trevor on the way out, gone to the canteen to eat his Steak Pie and Jam Roly-Poly, and apparently just missed Trevor on his return. What on earth had Heather and the forklift operator talked about for so long?
‘Yes, it would have been one o’clock,’ Heather went on, ‘because that’s when you came in, Brian. Trevor had just gone out there’ – she indicated the door that led to the exterior – ‘when you came in from the warehouse, Brian.’
The Managing Director eyed the actor sardonically. ‘Well, I think we seem to have sorted out Trevor’s movements, anyway, Mr Paris.’
Charles wasn’t satisfied. Nor could he provide a logical motive for Heather’s rescue of Trevor. Perhaps it was done simply in the cause of company solidarity. Or maybe she nursed a secret passion for the operator. Heather must have been in her early fifties. She didn’t look the sort of woman in whose life romance had featured much; so it was in theory possible that she might have a love object as unprepossessing as Trevor.
But whatever her motivation, Charles still didn’t believe the alibi she had provided. ‘Look, it still seems to me –’
He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone on Heather’s desk. She answered it. ‘Yes. Oh, hello, Mrs Tressider. Yes, he’s here. Brian.’ The phone was handed across.
‘Yes, darling? Mr and Mrs Richman? Oh, right. Well, say all the appropriate things. Yes, I’ll come over and talk to them straight away. See you shortly.’
He handed the phone back to Heather, and sighed. ‘Brenda’s at the hospital, with the girl’s parents. I’m afraid Dayna’s just died.’
There were mixed reactions of shock and other sentiments appropriate to the announcement of a death.
Only Brian Tressider showed nothing.
And once again Charles was aware of Heather staring into her boss’s face, looking for some reaction.
But what reaction she was expecting it was again impossible to tell.