Beware This Boy (13 page)

Tyler would like to have told the miserable sod to get lost but he just nodded politely. The man sat down and started to unload his tray. He immediately stuffed some of the bread and butter into his mouth, and began talking through unchewed food.

“Blimey, I thought she wasn’t going to stop offering what was on tap,” he said, spitting bread crumbs as he spoke. “Wish
I could get that kind of service. Must be that good country fresh air you’re giving off that attracts them.”

Tyler cut into the shepherd’s pie. “Must be. Can’t think of any other explanation.”

“You here on business?” the man asked.

“Sort of.”

“I bet I can guess what you do,” the man continued, undeterred. “You’re an insurance agent. Am I right?”

Tyler stared at him. “What makes you think that?”

“I can always tell. It’s the tie, you see. You can tell what a man does by his tie. Yours is quiet, you might say, nothing flashy. Don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

Tyler couldn’t help but notice that his companion was wearing a brightly coloured tie that appeared to have been liberally sprinkled with brown sauce. Or maybe that was the pattern.

“Besides which,” continued the man, “you’ve got what I’d call a careful look to you. Sizing people up all the time, you are. Well? Am I right? You’re in the insurance business, aren’t you.”

Tyler had to laugh. “Something like that.”

Fortunately for Tyler, his unwanted dinner companion soon saw somebody he knew and went to sit with him. Tyler scarfed down his meal and, with a wave to the friendly server, hurried back the factory.

Cudmore was waiting for him outside the cubbyhole.

“Mr. Riley showed up on his own account. Would you like to see him this afternoon?”

“I would. Did you get hold of anybody else?”

“Only two others, I’m sorry to say. I was able to get word to Mick Smith, the dillie man on the first shift. He is here. I asked him to wait in the canteen until you could speak to him. Our second dillie man, Joe Abbott, was not at home. We do have the caretaker, Wolfsiewicz. He is here every day. Mrs. Castleford is under doctor’s orders to rest but her husband will
bring her in tomorrow. Things will be a little more normal, if I may put it that way, tomorrow and I thought we could cover more ground then.”

“More competent thinking, Mr. Cudmore. Right, let’s hear what Mr. Riley has to say.”

Phil Riley was a short, slim man with horn-rimmed glasses, black hair slicked back from his face, and a pencil-thin moustache.
Fancies himself a bit of a masher
, thought Tyler. The proximity forced on them by the tiny space was uncomfortably intimate. Tyler could smell the pomade that Riley had used on his hair. It looked freshly applied. He’d also augmented his moustache with some kind of black pencil.

“It must have been a dreadful shock to you, what happened on Sunday, Mr. Riley. My job here is to determine what exactly occurred. Just so we make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Good on that,” said Riley. He had some kind of accent that Tyler couldn’t immediately identify. Maybe North Country?

“I was surprised you came in to work at all today,” continued Tyler. “You were given permission to stay at home, I believe.”

Riley grimaced. “Yes, we was given permission all right but nobody said we’d get paid, and I can’t afford to miss me wages. I’ve got three nippers at home and a sick wife. I don’t have the privilege of staying home.”

Tyler made a sympathetic cluck. “I’m with you on that, mate. These toffs don’t understand how it works down on the front line, do they?”

Riley scowled. “You can say that again. Nobody docks their wages, do they.”

Cudmore melted into the woodwork. Tyler offered Riley a cigarette, which he took and lit hungrily.

“Tell me in your own words what happened on Sunday.”

Riley nodded in the direction of the secretary. “No offence, but does Mr. Cudmore need to be here?”

“He’s taking notes for me, but he’ll leave if you prefer.”

“It’s just that I don’t want anything I say to go beyond this room, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” said Tyler. “Mr. Cudmore?”

“Think of me as simply a recording machine.”

“Right. Now where were we?”

Riley took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his nose. Tyler was rather surprised to see that he seemed on the verge of tears.

“Sorry, sir. Nasty it was.” He blew hard into his handkerchief, then folded it carefully away in his pocket. “I was by myself in the magazine shed. It’s my job to keep track of the number of detonators that come in and out. Yesterday there was a problem with the count. I was missing fifty detonators. What I had coming in filled from Section A didn’t agree with the number that was on the sheet as had been delivered. I was doing a recount. I can’t just let the fuses go out without a proper tally, can I.”

“And did you find the discrepancy?” Tyler asked.

“Matter of fact, I didn’t. We never got back to it, given what happened.”

“What did you do when you heard the explosion?”

“I ran out to see what was going on.” Riley’s shoulders were tense. “It was a horrible sight. I knew all of those girls, you see. Nicer bunch you couldn’t hope for.” The handkerchief came out again and Tyler waited until Riley could continue.

“I should have been more helpful, I know I should, but I didn’t know what to do. Fortunately we’ve been well drilled on fires and there were men from the floor on the spot. The one bench was burning and there was a hole in the roof, but they had the hose on it. I just made sure the other workers were got out of the building. We didn’t know if the whole thing was going to blow, you see.”

“Quick thinking, Mr. Riley,” murmured Cudmore, and Riley gave him a nod of gratitude.

“Mr. Riley, in your opinion is there any bad feeling among the workers that might lead them to … lead them to try to disrupt the work of the factory, for instance?”

“Blimey. You mean sabotage? Fifth-column stuff?”

“You could call it that.”

Riley shook his head emphatically. “Not here. Sure, there’s the odd whingeing and moaning, but everybody knows we’re in this together. Besides, it’s too dangerous to play around. The whole damn – excuse me – the whole darned place could blow up if the Danger Section explodes.”

He was making a good point, Tyler thought. If it was sabotage, the saboteur was taking quite a risk with his own safety, unless he was able to plan to get out of the way in good time. “And as far as you know, none of the operatives would have been the target of a personal attack?”

Riley stared at Tyler as if he had lost his mind. “An attack? Like an assassination? What we’d like to do on Hitler?”

“Something of that sort.”

“How could that be? There wasn’t anybody important in that section.”

Tyler knew what he meant but he couldn’t help thinking about what Cudmore had told him. One of the women had two children. She was certainly important to them.

“Mr. Riley, I’d like to have a look at the actual fuses. Would that be possible?”

“The empty ones are stacked in the magazine shed. You can see those.”

“Good. Let’s go, shall we.”

The shed was situated between the two sections, which were connected to it by short passageways. It was long and narrow but it did have windows, although they were small and
high up. Wooden boxes were stacked on shelves that lined one of the walls.

“Walk me through what happens to the fuses, will you, Mr. Riley.”

The magazine-keeper indicated a ramp that led up to the door. “The dillie man brings the filled fuses in that entrance. They’re in a box such as is on the shelves here. He’s picked them up from Section A, where they’ve been filled with powder. He puts the box down here.” He pointed. “I count them and check them against the delivery slip that he gives me. He’s got that from the lorry that brings the casings to the factory. While I’m doing me counting, dillie man goes out that exit ramp to Section B with another magazine box that’s been marked all present and correct. That’s it, really. I divide me time between here and Section A, where I help supervise what’s being done.”

“The dillie man doesn’t wait while you do the count?”

“Not usually. He’s coming and going with his deliveries.”

Tyler removed a black pot from one of the boxes. It was light, made of some sort of papier mâché, and cylindrical in shape. He placed it on the floor and, squatting down, he tapped it with his finger. It wobbled a little. He gave it a harder tap and it fell over.

“It’s not very stable,” he said to Riley.

“I know. Mind you, when it’s filled with fuses, it’s heavier, but I’ve never thought it was very safe myself.”

“The centre of gravity should be higher.”

“I think you’re right there, Inspector.”

Tyler replaced the pot in the box.

Cudmore was standing at the head of the exit ramp, and with Tyler and Riley in the middle of the floor, the space felt cramped.

“There’s not a lot of room in here, is there, Mr. Riley?”

“No, there aren’t.”

Tyler went on. “When you were counting the detonators for the second time, was anybody else with you?”

“What do you mean by that, sir?”

“Earlier you said,
we
. ‘We never got back to it.’ Was anyone else helping you with the count?”

“No, sir.”

“Not the dillie man, for instance?”

“No.”

“So you were by yourself?”

Riley slapped at his own head. “Blimey, I almost forgot. I asked the supervisor of the incoming shift to give me a hand. But we’d only just got started when the explosion happened.”

“I understand that is Mrs. Castleford?”

Riley nodded. He was looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“Did she go with you to see what had happened?”

“Lord, no. I’d a feeling it was going to be bad. You don’t get a bang like that in a munitions factory without it being bad. I made her stay where she was while I went and checked.”

Tyler glanced over at Cudmore, whose expression was inscrutable. “Thank you, Mr. Riley. That’s all for now. You’ve been most helpful.”

Tyler insisted that Riley go home, and Cudmore promised him he would in fact be paid overtime for coming in today.

“Mick Smith is waiting in the canteen,” said the secretary. “Shall I fetch him?”

“Seeing as there’s nobody in, why don’t I talk to him there. My, er, office quarters are on the tight side.”

“Sorry, Inspector. But by all means we can move operations. I can probably make us some tea if you’d like.”

“Tea all round, Mr. Cudmore.”

He followed the secretary back to the factory floor. A few dim lights were on around the periphery but the place was
deep in shadow. The canteen was brighter but also empty except for a man reading a newspaper at one of the tables and a cleaner in overalls who was mopping the floor.

As they came over towards him, the man put away his paper at once and leapt to his feet. Cudmore introduced him as Mick Smith and he and Tyler shook hands. Cudmore explained they would do the interview there in the canteen.

“Fine with me,” said Smith.

Tyler indicated the cleaner. “Maybe he could go somewhere else for the time being.”

“I’ll take care of it, sir,” said Cudmore.

He was about to rush off when Tyler stopped him. “Oh, Mr. Cudmore, you said the caretaker was in the factory yesterday. I might as well speak to him next.”

“I’ll let him know.”

He trotted off and Tyler sat down at the table across from Smith. He was probably in his early forties, dark complexioned, with dark, curly hair cut close. There was something of a Gypsy look to him.

Tyler offered him a cigarette. “We’ll just wait for Mr. Cudmore if you don’t mind. He’s taking notes for me.”

Smith grinned. “Good secretary then, in’e?” He lit the cigarette and they smoked in silence until Cudmore returned with two cups of tea. Tyler took a swallow, as did Smith.

“Strong enough to stand by itself, as my granny would say.”

“And sweet enough to charm any man,” added Smith.

Tyler put down his cup and gave Smith more or less the same preamble he’d given Riley.

Smith was quiet for a few moments, concentrating on his tea. “To my knowledge, there was nothing different at all in the routine. I picks up the crates containing fuse casings from the lorry, like I usually do, and puts ’em on the conveyor belt so they can be properly calibrated. Then I drives around to
where they’re coming off the belt. I picks ’em up and transports ’em to Section A. There I picks up a finished box and brings ’em into the magazine shed to be counted. The supervisor, Phil Riley, has to make sure they is present and correct.” Smith’s accent was pure Brummie and Tyler had a hard time understanding him some of the time.

“And did he? Yesterday, did Mr. Riley make sure all was in order?” he asked.

“Well ’e did and ’e didn’t. We was all right at start, but at the end of shift ’e was in a lather because delivery sheet wasn’t tallying with number of fuses that had been filled. ’E kept going on about missing some, or having too many. Sorry to say, sir, I didn’t pay ’im much mind. ’E’s a mitherer and often keeps me back fussing over the numbers, which always turn out to be wrong. So I just carried on and left ’im to sort out the other stuff.”

“Was yours the last box to be delivered to Section B before the accident?”

“It was. The first shift hadn’t finished their quota. There’s often an overlap between shifts, so that wasn’t unusual. Normally the dillie man picks up the assembled fuses and takes ’em back to the loading dock. That’s when we have to wave our red flag, because we go through the main floor and we don’t want anybody walking into us.” He tapped his finger to his nose. “I can see what you’re thinking, Inspector. Why go through the main floor?”

“I was wondering about that.”

“Because Mr. Endicott doesn’t want the expense of building a separate passageway, that’s why. Am I right, Mr. Cudmore?”

The secretary pursed his lips. “We are looking into it.”

Tyler rescued him. “When you were transporting the magazine boxes, Mr. Smith, did you notice anything at all that was out of the ordinary?”