SEARCHING FOR THE fertilizer factory on the small industrial estate on the outskirts of Carmarthen, Tony Ellis drove past the entrance and came to a dead end in the road, realizing he’d missed the small lane leading to Hallam Biofeed.
He turned the car round in a three-point turn, intending to drive up the lane to the small factory, but had to brake sharply as a vehicle hurtled out of the lane as if it was being driven by a reckless boy racer. But it wasn’t that which had caused Ellis to slam on the brakes so violently.
The vehicle was a small unmarked white van.
And it was being driven by Norman McNeil, the self-appointed vigilante.
Entering the reception area of Green Valley Productions, Lambert quickly noted the subdued ambience of media sophistication: the expensive brown leather L-shaped sofa; the silver-framed original watercolours and industry awards certificates; the large pot plant in an exquisite ceramic tub that dominated the water cooler, as it was clearly intended to.
The receptionist, a brunette in her early thirties, looked up and caught Lambert’s eye as soon as he entered, offering him a warm smile from straight gleaming teeth that looked cosmetically enhanced. She had a slightly masculine face, softened by skilfully applied make-up, and her sequin studded T-shirt would have looked more suitable on a club dancefloor. She spoke in what Lambert recognized as a toned-down Cardiff dialect.
‘Good morning. Can I help you?’
‘I’d like to see Gavin Lloyd.’
She raised her eyebrows in surprise and glanced at her desk diary. ‘Do you have an appointment?’
Lambert held his warrant card in front of her. ‘Detective Inspector Lambert, CID. I’d like to speak with Mr Lloyd as soon as possible.’
Lambert noticed the curiosity in her eyes as she digested this information, and he might have been wrong but he thought he detected a slight gloating, evident in her private smile. That, and the way she eagerly grabbed the phone.
‘Hold on a minute, will you?’
She lifted the receiver and pressed the internal button. Lambert watched her, wondering how much she knew about what went on in the company.
‘Gavin,’ she said as soon as she was connected, ‘I have a Detective Inspector Lambert to see you. He hasn’t got an appointment but says it’s important.’ She paused, listening, and made eye contact with Lambert. ‘Yes, I’ll tell him.’
As soon as she replaced the receiver, she said, ‘Please take a seat. Gavin’s just got one quick phone call to make and he’ll be right with you. He won’t keep you long. Can I get you anything? Tea or coffee?’
‘No thanks.’
He turned away, sank into the leather sofa, and caught the receptionist studying him.
‘How long have you worked here?’ he asked her.
She tilted her head up, remembering. ‘Let’s see, it must be a good four years last March.’
‘Have you been involved with many television dramas?’
‘I have, funnily enough. I don’t just do reception work. I’ve always wanted to go into the production side of things. We’re a small company, so I guess I’m like a sort of Girl Friday.’
‘What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Of course not. It’s Jackie Dearlove.’
Lambert smiled. ‘Nice name. And what are you working on at the moment, Jackie?’
A slight hesitation before she pulled a wry face and said, ‘It’s been deathly quiet for months now. Gavin’s got a few things he’s pitching but nothing definite in the pipeline.’
Lambert studied the framed BAFTA certificates, showing Green Valley’s nominations for various categories, all of them more than ten years old.
‘Must be a hard old business to work in. One minute you’re flavour of the month, and the next….’ He gave her a palms-up gesture, letting the incomplete sentence do its work, hoping she would open up about the state of Green Valley Productions.
Lowering her voice, she started to say, ‘The last two drama productions …’, but was interrupted by the buzz of the phone.
Lambert glanced at his watch. It was just gone 11.30. Hopefully he’d be able to question Gavin Lloyd for a good half-hour. He fully expected the producer to be open to answering all his questions, seeing as Tony Ellis got the impression that he had an enormous ego and liked nothing better than to talk about himself.
Jackie, receptionist and Girl Friday, hung up the phone and pointed to a door marked Private to the side of the reception desk. ‘If you’d like to go through there, Gavin will be pleased to see you. Sorry to keep you.’
Lambert got up, nodded and smiled his thanks, gave a tap on the door and entered. Just as he knew the producer might not be shy and retiring, he wasn’t prepared for such a demonstrative greeting.
Gavin Lloyd leapt up from the seat behind his desk, bounded forward, offered Lambert his hand, and spoke as if they might have been old and cherished acquaintances. ‘Good to meet you, Inspector Lambert. I hope you found my documentary interesting.’
Lambert shook his hand. ‘Yes, thank you for your co-operation. It was very useful.’
‘Good, good,’ Lloyd replied, gesturing for Lambert to take a seat. As soon as he was seated behind his desk, he surveyed the detective with a confident stare that bordered on rudeness.
If Lambert were to hazard a guess, he would put Lloyd’s age at forty-nine or fifty, roughly the same age as his wife Rhiannon. He was of average height, with undulating waves of floppy brown hair, almost too uniform in colour, showing no signs of middle-aged grey. His face, although round, was not fat, and his complexion was ruddy, cheerful and healthy-looking, and pale blue bedroom eyes peered out from under half-shut lids and long lashes. He wore an expensive-looking pale blue shirt and yellow silk tie, and had removed his suit jacket, which was draped over the back of his swivel chair.
‘And now how can I be of assistance, Inspector?’
‘I’m investigating the murder of one of your employees – Mark Yalding.’
Lloyd looked down at his desktop, his face a mask of seriousness. ‘A terrible tragedy. I saw it on last night’s news. I still haven’t taken it in. Mark may have compromised himself with that sleazy business of the child porn, but the punishment didn’t fit the crime. What an awful thing to do to anyone.’
‘He was no longer an employee of yours, I believe. How long ago did he leave your employ?’
‘Let me see. Roughly speaking, I think he finished about two months ago.’
‘And what was the reason for his leaving?’
‘I sacked him.’
‘I see. Did he have a contract of employment?’
‘He did, yes.’
‘So why did you sack him?’
‘Over the downloading of child pornography.’
Lambert rubbed his chin thoughtfully, play-acting uncertainty. ‘Now let me get this straight: it was reported in some of the papers that you sacked Mr Yalding after his arrest, saying that you had warned him about the internet pornography. But now you’re telling me you sacked him almost two months prior to his arrest.’
Lloyd raised his hands in surrender. ‘If I gave that impression, I have to take the blame. But have you ever known reporters to get their facts right? Let’s face it, half the time they make it up.’
‘Forgive me, Mr Lloyd, but you just told me you sacked him because he was downloading child pornography, yet this wasn’t revealed by the press until Saturday, only two days ago.’
Lloyd sighed impatiently, as if he was dealing with someone who couldn’t grasp an obvious concept. ‘Two months ago he told me he was going to follow up the documentary by writing a book on the subject and was planning his research, part of which involved downloading child pornography. We had an argument about it. I said it was morally wrong. If there was no market for child pornography, then there might be less child abuse. But he wouldn’t listen, and I told him he was sacked. When he threatened me with an industrial tribunal, I retaliated by threatening him with public exposure about the child pornography.’
‘But he had only spoken to you about downloading porn at that stage,’ Lambert said. ‘Hardly a strong enough reason for dismissal as far as a tribunal was concerned. He might have changed his mind.’
‘You must understand, Inspector, this goes back a long way. This child abuse had become an obsession with him. It was his idea in the first place to make that documentary. And during the making of it he wanted to download child porn – for research purposes, he said. I managed to persuade him against it at the time.’
Lambert decided it was time to go for his wrongfooting tactic.
‘Who do you think was responsible for leaking your documentary sex offenders’ details to the Sun?’
Gavin Lloyd’s face was expressionless, stilled by Lambert’s question. After a brief hiatus, he shrugged and said, ‘I have no idea. They could have got the names of the sex offenders from some other source.’
‘It seems too much of a coincidence that each one who appeared anonymously in your film was named by the paper. And I tend not to believe in coincidences. How many staff do you employ?’
‘Well, up until fairly recently there was Mark Yalding and Jackie – who you met in reception and has been with me some time. And I can’t see Jackie doing something like that. But although we’re a small company, we employ a heck of a lot of freelancers. The film crews for a start. There could have been at least a half-dozen people on the making of that documentary who might have leaked those names to the press.’
‘And would they have known the names of the sex offenders?’
Lloyd smirked. ‘I doubt if it would have been any big secret as far as the crew were concerned. And film crews are the biggest gossip merchants going. Maybe Mark told some of the crew who those men were, especially if it was that one with the unusual name.’ He clicked his fingers several times. ‘What was it?’
‘Lubin Titmus.’
‘That’s the one,’ Lloyd laughed.
‘During the making of that film, did you still get on with Mark Yalding?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So, up until the time you had this disagreement about child porn, were there any other problems in your relationship with him?’
‘None at all.’
‘Can you think of any reason why someone would want to murder him in such a brutal fashion?’
Lloyd shrugged and pouted. ‘Not really. Unless the killer thought he was a potential paedophile. Which clearly he was.’
‘How long had you known Mr Yalding?’
Lloyd gazed at the ceiling for a moment. ‘Let’s see now, I think it must be all of twelve years. He started working for me back in 1998 when there was more going on in the way of drama. Nowadays everything’s reality TV shit. No one has enough money for drama, it seems, especially as one episode of a drama might cost over a million quid. Costume drama – forget it!’
Lambert had been searching for an opening to his next question and Gavin Lloyd had just provided it. Using the same conversational gambit he had used on the producer’s receptionist, he said, ‘It must be a precarious business.’
Lloyd smiled confidently. ‘I get by.’
‘One minute champagne and strawberries, the next—’
‘Beans on toast!’ the producer interrupted with a laugh. ‘But things are not that bad.’
‘Even so,’ Lambert said, doggedly pursuing the theme to get to the question, ‘I’d hate to own a luxury car one minute and then have to downsize to something below average. I recently treated myself to a Mercedes but that’s after years of hard graft. I hope you still manage to drive something suitably exclusive.’
Lloyd smiled thinly. ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t. I still own a BMW, but I don’t drive. Never have done.’
‘You don’t drive! But you own a car?’
The producer chuckled, obviously enjoying the way the detective’s probing question had been shot down in flames.
‘I have a chap – Jack – and I pay him to do my driving.’
‘A chauffeur?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose you could call him a chauffeur,’ Lloyd laughed. ‘But I don’t make him wear a hat.’
‘It’s very unusual these days not to be able to drive. Did you never attempt to learn?’
‘I was always too busy with other things. I did think about it, and then I went to university. Oxford.’
‘Which part of Wales are you from?’
‘I was born and bred in Y Drenewydd.’ Seeing the blank expression on the detective’s face, Lloyd added, ‘That’s Newtown in Powys. I take it you’re not a Welsh speaker, Inspector.’
‘I never found the time to learn. I didn’t find it necessary.’
Lloyd sniggered. ‘Well, I thought it necessary. My wife’s a fluent Welsh speaker, and some of the circles she moves in, they refuse to speak English. So I tried to learn, just to keep up. But, apart from a few words, I failed miserably.’
‘What about Mark Yalding? Was he fluent?’
Lloyd seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Mark wasn’t Welsh. He was from the north of England. What made you think he spoke Welsh?’
Thinking of the murdered man’s relationship with Lloyd’s wife, Lambert said, ‘I just wondered, perhaps he might have thought it advantageous to learn.’
‘Are you suggesting Mark wanted to ingratiate himself with the educated class of Welsh speakers they disparagingly refer to as the Tafia?’
‘Possibly.’ Lambert smacked his forehead as if he’d overlooked something. ‘But then of course you’ve just told me he hadn’t learnt any Welsh, so he probably wasn’t looking to recruit to the Tafia.’
Lloyd’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed Lambert. ‘You know, it’s funny,’ he began, waiting for Lambert to pick up on it.
‘What is?’ Lambert obliged.
‘You’ve asked me a few questions about Mark, but mainly we’ve talked about cars, speaking Welsh and which part of Wales I come from. What’s that got to do with Mark’s murder?’
Lambert smiled disarmingly and shrugged. ‘I think I got sidetracked. But back to Mr Yalding’s murder. Did he ever mention any threats against him?’
‘None that I know of.’
‘Notice anything unusual or peculiar about his behaviour?’
‘I think I might describe his behaviour as a bit furtive.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Nothing I could put my finger on. He seemed quieter than normal. A bit secretive. Maybe it was something to do with the child porn.’
‘Over the years, you must have got to know him quite well. Would you describe him as a friend or colleague or employee?’
Lloyd shifted awkwardly in his chair. ‘Um – I guess it would have to be all three.’
‘What about his background? Did he talk about his parents?’
Lloyd sighed deeply. ‘I suppose I should have got to know Mark better, but we were always talking about work. There seemed to be little time for other things.’
‘So is there anything else you can think of that might help? Any mysterious phone calls he might have received in the office?’
‘No, there was nothing unusual.’
‘And those sex offenders he filmed for your documentary, did he see any of them again after the filming had been completed?’
‘Well, if he did, he never mentioned it to me.’
Lambert glanced at his watch and stood up. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Lloyd. If you think of anything, however unimportant it might seem, perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving me a call.’
He handed the producer one of his cards.
‘Glad to help in any way I can.’
‘And if I get the slightest indication of your old friend’s innocence regarding the child pornography, I’ll let you know.’
As Lambert exited to the reception area, he caught the deep expression of doubt eclipsing Lloyd’s bombastic self-confidence. The door closed behind him, not slammed exactly, but it was a robust end to their meeting.
Lambert knew he should have delved a little deeper into what had gone on in the Lloyd household, and found out whether or not Gavin Lloyd knew about his wife’s affair with Mark Yalding. Had he known, it gave him a motive for killing his employee. But Lambert was reminded of his own shortcomings and the way he had cheated on Helen, and how last year he had attempted in vain to rekindle their marriage. At the time there was no way he would have wanted outside interference, some well-wisher reminding Helen about his affair with a psychiatric nurse. And that’s how he felt about Gavin Lloyd. Even though it was a murder investigation, why disclose Rhiannon Lloyd’s infidelity knowing that he could be responsible for destroying a marriage that might still survive?
Now Lambert felt cheated by his own sense of fairness.
The receptionist was busy talking on the phone as he left. She flashed him a smile and he gave her a wave before stepping out into the glare of the noon sunshine.
Gavin Lloyd’s office was diagonally opposite the New Theatre, so Lambert crossed the road, went into the theatre foyer, and hung around, pretending to show an interest in the leaflets advertising forthcoming productions.
It was just before midday, and he hoped he wouldn’t have long to wait.
Tony Ellis sat in the factory manager’s office and stared at him expressionlessly across the desk. His name was Alan Hughes and he was Norman McNeil’s brother-in-law. The desk was cluttered, and the desktop computer monitor was grey with age. The office reminded Ellis of his motor mechanic’s office, untidy, unclean, harbouring years of grease and grime, and randomly scattered were long-forgotten invoices and yellowing papers curling at the edges. The room was stuffy, the window was shut tight, and it looked as if the rusty metal frame was jammed.
With a studied appearance of machismo ruggedness, Hughes matched his office. He was in his mid to late forties, and wore a V-neck mauve T-shirt with a row of buttons in the V. Although he had the jowly face of an overweight man, he seemed to be attempting a Bruce Willis Die Hard image, the way he was dressed and the way his hair had been closely shaved, with a hint of stubble on his ample chin. His bulbous eyes with dark brown pupils showed the ravages of drink, and it was difficult to distinguish the motifs of the faded tattoos on his hairy arms, which were smudged like Rorschach inkblot tests.
‘What’s this about?’ he asked.
‘We’re enquiring into some recent murders. Perhaps you’ve seen the news. On Friday a man was murdered on his boat on the marina. And another man’s body was discovered in a mobile home not far from here—’
Interrupting the sergeant, Hughes made a gesture by turning his palms over on top of the desk and said, ‘Whoa! What the hell’s this got to do with me?’
‘That’s what I’m here to find out.’
Hughes stared at him, mouth slightly open, still expressing bewilderment.
‘Your brother-in-law, Norman McNeil, works for you.’
Hughes glared with hostility at Ellis before answering. ‘Wrong. He used to work for me.’
‘But I thought …’ Ellis began.
‘Not any more. He left over a year ago. Had back trouble.’
‘Well now, that is peculiar, because I just saw him leaving your factory in one of your vehicles. Was he making a delivery for you?’
Hughes pursed his lips as if he couldn’t care less. ‘So what if he was?’
‘I believe Mr McNeil’s on incapacity benefit. If he’s claiming benefits illegally while still working—’
Hughes raised a hand. ‘Whoa! Hold on! I never said he was working for me.’
‘But he was making a delivery for you.’
‘No, he wasn’t.’
‘But I saw him driving one of your vans.’
‘Yeah, but he weren’t making no delivery. He was collecting for us.’
‘Please, Mr Hughes – don’t split hairs. You know very well what I mean. I’m suggesting he works for you occasionally, while collecting state benefits.’
‘We’re short staffed at the moment and Norm offered to help. He ain’t getting paid. I just buy him a few drinks now and then; buy him the odd bottle of whisky and that. Payment in kind, you see. Strictly legal.’
Pleased with himself, Hughes leaned back in his creaking chair. He smiled, though there was little warmth in it.
‘Are you by any chance a member of PASO?’
There was a sudden stillness in the room. They both heard a fly buzzing and hurling itself against a window pane behind Hughes’s back. After a long pause, Hughes must have decided that Ellis could check up, so he nodded slowly.
‘Yeah, I am. What of it?’
‘It’s a group of vigilantes, I believe.’
Hughes leaned forward across the desk and stared defiantly at Ellis. ‘We gorra right to protect our children. I’ve got two little girls, eleven and nine, and we don’t want those bastards living within fifty miles of us. If I had my way …’
He stopped, realizing he had said too much.
‘Yes, what would you do, Mr Hughes?’
Hughes controlled himself and leaned back in his chair. ‘I’d pass a law to bring back capital punishment for crimes against children. And if that didn’t work I’d lock them up for life. And I mean life!’
‘And if the laws are not adequate, what then?’
‘If the law can’t deal with them, we want them to bugger off and live somewhere else. And that’s why PASO was formed, so that we can get rid of them legitimately. That doesn’t make us murderers.’
‘Let’s get back to the work your brother-in-law does for you.’
‘I’ve already told you, he’s just helping out on a voluntary basis.’
‘Delivering and collecting?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And when I saw him leaving your factory less than half an hour ago, he was driving a white van. Is that your van?’
‘It belongs to Hallam Biofeeds. It’s not mine personally.’
‘Do you drive it occasionally?’
Hughes shook his head emphatically. ‘I don’t do deliveries. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m the manager here.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting you did the deliveries yourself, Mr Hughes. I wanted to know if you ever drive the van home.’
Jerking a thumb at the grubby window behind him, Hughes laughed and said, ‘That’s my Mitsubishi gas guzzler in the car park.’ He saw Ellis was about to ask another question and anticipated it. ‘And that’s Norman’s Renault next to it. We only use the vans for work purposes.’
‘Where are they kept at night?’
‘Here on the premises, of course. Let me ask you something, Sergeant.’
‘Go on.’
‘How many white vans d’you think there are in South Wales?’
‘Hundreds, I should think.’
Hughes feigned an expression of incredulity, patting his chest theatrically. ‘And you suspect me of murdering those blokes because I happen to have access to a white van? Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?’
Ellis stared deep into Hughes’s eyes, seeing if he could shake the man’s confidence as he said, ‘One coincidence I can accept. But when you add another two to the mix … like your brother-in-law living a few doors from one of the murdered men. And thirdly …’
Ellis hadn’t heard the vehicle pull up outside. He stopped speaking as Norman McNeil entered the office. He saw Hughes trying to silence his brother-in-law with a look as he started to speak.
‘I got that consignment of—’
He looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach as Ellis turned to face him.
Calmly, Ellis addressed Hughes. ‘I was saying – oh, yes – and thirdly, the other coincidence. The consignment your brother-in-law’s talking about: would that happen to be sulphuric acid, by any chance? That chemical must be running in short supply here lately.’
Lambert had been waiting in the foyer for twenty minutes when he spotted Jackie Dearlove leaving her office and walking towards the shopping precinct. He left the theatre and followed her past the Park Thistle Hotel, and watched her entering a sandwich shop. He waited, standing to one side of the door.
As soon as she came out, he said, ‘Miss Dearlove!’
She stopped, a puzzled frown screwing up her face as she squinted through the sunshine at him.
‘I wonder if I could take up ten minutes of your time. Just a few questions about Green Valley Productions. I’d be happy to buy you a coffee.’
She laughed, suddenly finding his presence amusing. ‘Have you been following me, Inspector?’
‘I needed to speak with you outside of your work environment.’
She hesitated. ‘Well, I promised Gavin I’d only be a few minutes today. Hence the sarnie.’
He looked her straight in the eye, impressing on her the importance of his request. ‘Every employee’s allowed a proper lunch break. And ten minutes is not too much to ask. You could say there was an extra long queue.’
Her face broke into a smile. ‘Go on then. It’s not as if it matters anymore. There’s a Starbucks over there.’
‘Thank you, Miss Dearlove.’
‘Please! Call me Jackie.’
Inside Starbucks she spotted a corner table and he told her to grab it while he got their coffees, a standard cappuccino for her and a large espresso for himself.
Once he was seated opposite her, he smiled reassuringly. ‘When you agreed to have this meeting with me, Jackie, you said it’s not as if it matters anymore. What did you mean by that?’
She glanced round, as if someone might be listening, and lowered her voice. ‘I’ve got a new job with another company. And I haven’t told Gavin yet.’
‘Any reason for your move?’
‘It’s a sinking ship. I don’t know how Gavin manages to keep it afloat. Well, I do, but that’s another story. He’s pitched loads of ideas to the BBC and ITV networks, but none of them have been taken up. And his last drama series for the BBC wasn’t recommissioned.’ Seeing the frown on his face, she explained, ‘Because it slumped in the ratings, they didn’t go for a second series.’
‘Tell me about this other story,’ Lambert said.
‘Sorry?’
‘You said you had an idea how he manages to keep his company afloat.’
‘His wife’s loaded. Old money. Have you heard of the Crachach?’
‘I hadn’t until William Hague married that Ffion Jenkins and it was in all the papers.’
‘Well, Rhiannon Lloyd comes from that artistic and well-to-do class of Welsh people. The Crachach.’
‘And what about her husband?’
Jackie Dearlove pursed her lips and shrugged. ‘I get the impression – and it’s just an impression, mind – that Gavin’s not really top drawer. I think he’d like to be thought of as Crachach, but I think he’s from more humble origins.’
‘And how did you form that impression?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just the way he tries too hard to be one of them. If you are, you don’t have to try, if you see what I mean.’
‘So you think Rhiannon Lloyd is footing the bill for his company.’
‘I know she is. I heard them arguing about it in his office one day, about three weeks ago. And he hates her coming into the office or having anything to do with the company.’
‘Have you any idea what their argument was about?’
‘I think it could have been something to do with the London flat, which Rhiannon considered unnecessary.’
‘This London flat, is it for the family to use?’
‘No way. It’s purely for Green Valley Productions. Gavin often goes to London for business meetings and to pitch ideas to various networks, and he stays at the flat.’
‘What’s the address of this flat, d’you know?’
He waited while she took a dainty sip of coffee before replying.
‘Ten Asquith Mansions, Coach Road, Hammersmith.’
‘And was this flat for Gavin Lloyd’s exclusive use, or did anyone else in the company use it?’
‘Well, when I first came to work for the company, about four years ago, there was more staff. We had Bill Knight who was a producer and partner. I think he saw the writing on the wall and got out while the going was good. He got a job at the BBC. I think he used the flat a few times.’
‘And what about Mark Yalding? Did he ever use the flat?’
She looked down into her coffee and frowned. When she looked up again, he noticed her eyes were moist.
‘I cried buckets after I saw it on the news last night. What a terrible thing to have happened. I liked Mark, although when I found out he’d been downloading child porn on the internet….’
She sighed deeply, and shook her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it.
‘Whose idea was it to make a documentary about the sex offenders?’ Lambert asked.
‘That was Gavin’s idea.’
‘Not Mark Yalding’s?’
‘No, I don’t think Mark was very enthusiastic about it. But when it got the green light from Channel 4, he had no option but to go along with it.’
‘So when Gavin Lloyd sacked Yalding—’
‘I don’t think he was really sacked,’ Dearlove interrupted. ‘I think they probably had words and it was mutually agreed that he would go. At the time Mark wanted to pursue a writing career and was going to take a year out to do that.’
‘So why d’you think Gavin Lloyd told the newspapers about warning Mark Yalding about downloading porn?’
‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t know everything that went on between them.’
‘So did Mark Yalding ever use the London flat?’
‘I think he did a couple of times.’
Lambert paused, sipped his coffee, savouring its rejuvenating sharpness. He watched as she knocked back her cappuccino and then looked expectantly in his direction, thinking the interview was ended. But there was one more thing he needed to know.
‘Did you know Mark Yalding was having an affair with Rhiannon Lloyd?’
It was as if he’d slapped her in the face. Her jaw fell open, like someone parodying shock.
‘Mark and Rhiannon! No! Are you sure?’
‘I’m one hundred per cent positive.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘We have it straight from the horse’s mouth.’
‘Rhiannon told you! I can’t quite believe she would do such a thing.’
‘Put it this way: she had very little choice.’ He saw her intense expression shifting into curiosity. ‘Clearly you had no idea about the affair,’ he said before she could press him for details. ‘What about her husband? D’you think he might have known?’
She thought about this for a moment. ‘Well … I … I really don’t know. If he did, he never let it show.’
‘Is it likely he could have kept that sort of thing to himself?’
She shrugged. ‘I haven’t a clue. But then he’s always been difficult to read. He’s one of those people you could know for years and never really get to know.’
‘What about family? Have they any children?’
‘They’ve got two, a boy and a girl. Angharad and Rhys. Angharad’s the youngest. She’s on a gap year, travelling in Italy before she starts university at Aberystwyth in September.’
‘What about the boy?’
‘I don’t know much about him. I think he’s a bit of a drifter. Goes home when he’s flat broke.’
She stared pointedly at her watch. ‘I really must get back….’
‘One last thing,’ Lambert said hurriedly. ‘Gavin Lloyd told me he can’t drive.’
‘That’s right.’
‘A bit unusual, isn’t it?’
‘Apparently he’s never learnt. Jack, that’s his driver, takes him everywhere.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Jack? He’s very shy and withdrawn. He lives with them, you know.’
Lambert raised his eyebrows and waited for her to elaborate.
‘They’ve got a very palatial house, and quite a few acres of land – her inheritance, I believe. And Jack’s got the granny annex, so he’s always on hand to drive his master to wherever he wants to go.’
Lambert heard the sarcasm in her tone and smiled. ‘Your employer obviously thinks of himself as a high flyer.’
‘Yes, I feel sorry for poor old Jack sometimes. Gavin’s got this business meeting in Edinburgh tomorrow, and rather than fly up there, Jack’s driving him all the way there.’
Seeing her about to rise from the table, he said, ‘Finally, before you dash back to work, I’d be very grateful if you didn’t let on to your employer about his wife’s affair.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘I’m not suggesting you would but …’
Dearlove stood up hurriedly. ‘Please! Give me some credit for intelligence.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry. That was a bit patronizing of me. Good luck with the new job.’
‘Thank you.’
She gave him a rather lukewarm smile before leaving. Lambert was about to follow her out when his mobile rang. He flipped it open and the display revealed it was Tony Ellis. He clicked answer and listened intently while Ellis filled him in on what had happened at the fertilizer factory.
After hearing the sergeant’s account, he said, ‘Tony, I want those two brought in on suspicion of murder. I’ll be over right away.’