Family Business (4 page)

‘No. Strictly accidental. And I don't mean to suggest that Jack's low very often. He isn't. He's normally very … very
level
. And that's why what happened last night is so disturbing.'

‘So what do you think actually happened?' Angelo said. ‘Do you think that Jack didn't go into the kitchen to make his drink? Or do you think he didn't notice the bottle because he was preoccupied by something?'

Mrs Shayler leaned back with her tea mug in one hand and her Bourbon in the other. ‘Oh, I did the right thing, coming to you,' she said. ‘Everyone along the street says how clever you people are. What good work you do for lawyers and all sorts. And I can see already that they haven't told a lie.'

‘Thank you,' Angelo said.

‘So, did your husband have his hot drink with him when he came to bed last night?' Gina asked.

‘I've been worrying and worrying about that,' Mrs Shayler said. ‘Ever since he left for work.'

‘Did he leave at his usual time?' Angelo asked.

‘Twenty to eight. Yes. He always leaves at twenty to eight. Jack is a very organized person.'

‘And you didn't ask him?' Gina said. ‘About the bottle?'

‘Good heavens, no!' Mrs Shayler said. ‘I couldn't possibly do that.'

Angelo and Gina waited for Mrs Shayler to explain further, but her silence made it clear that while one can consult private detectives about one's husband,
some
things are beyond the pale.

Finally Angelo asked, ‘What does Mr Shayler do for a living?'

‘He's an accountancy clerk. He's worked nineteen years for Whitfield, Hare and O'Shea. In The Circus? Do you know it?'

‘No.'

‘And every morning, rain or shine, summer or winter, Jack leaves the house at twenty minutes to eight and he walks to The Circus.'

‘He walks?' Angelo said.

‘Up the passage from Walcot Street to the London Road. Along the London Road, crossing at the lights, and then to Bartlett Street. Up Bartlett Street to Bennett Street and then left to The Circus.'

‘Arriving at work?'

‘In time to get himself settled before starting promptly at eight.'

‘Excuse me for asking,' Gina said, ‘but how do you know his route so exactly?'

‘He always goes the same way. It helps him organize his mind for the day's work. I don't want to leave you with the impression that my Jack is never spontaneous or is a machine. But he does know what he likes. And he does know what he needs. And at the start of a new day he needs to be organized.'

Gina nodded and said, ‘When you tried to remember whether he had a hot drink last night, what did you decide?'

‘He had his mug as per normal,' Mrs Shayler said. ‘Of that I'm certain. But what was
in
it, and whether it was hot, that I can't remember for the life of me.'

‘I see,' Gina said.

‘Sometimes I notice the little steams rising up. Or I smell the Horlicks if he's made his extra strong recipe because he's working on accounts for an important client. But last night, I simply don't recall, and I wouldn't want to make it up when I didn't really remember. To tell the truth I was so wrapped up in my book that I just didn't notice. I should have, but I didn't. I'm a bad and neglectful wife.'

‘So what's the bottom line?' Salvatore asked. ‘What put this guy off his stroke and made him leave the bottle out?'

‘That's the critical question,' Angelo said.

‘The critical question,' the Old Man said, ‘is will she pay? An accountant's clerk? I hope you weren't soft-soaped by saying how clever you are?'

‘She left a substantial retainer, Papa,' Angelo said.

‘How much?'

‘She left five hundred pounds.'

‘Five hundred,' the Old Man said. He was not displeased. ‘So where does she get this five hundred?'

‘She works, Papa,' Angelo said. ‘She paints ceramic cottages. Do you know them? The “quaint” cottages in the tourist shops?'

‘These she paints?' the Old Man said.

‘She does them at home. She saved the money for our retainer from that.'

‘Cottages,' the Old Man said. ‘They never get the colour of the stone right, the warmth. Huh!'

‘But Dad,' David said, ‘what are you going to do for her?'

‘She wants a strategy that will find out what Jack's problem is.'

‘The problem,' the Old Man said, ‘is this wife doesn't have enough cottages to paint so she spends her time counting bottles in, counting bottles out.'

‘She struck us as genuinely worried, Papa. And we've got to take the facts as the client presents them.'

‘That's what you always say to do, isn't it, Grandad?' Marie said.

It was. The Old Man opened his hands. ‘I'm a lucky man, my age, that some of my descendants listen to me.' Although he did not look at Salvatore everyone but Muffin knew that Salvatore was the covert subject of the remark.

Angelo said, ‘Mrs Shayler thinks there's something seriously wrong, and she's willing to spend her money on it. So we assume there's something wrong.'

‘But what?' David asked.

Mama said, ‘It could be his work. Work can preoccupy a man. Heaven knows, I'm an expert.'

Angelo said, ‘Yes. Maybe there's something upsetting at work, though Mrs Shayler says in the past he's never brought a work problem home.'

‘Or he could be preoccupied, but by something else,' Muffin said. ‘Is it all right for me to talk?'

‘Why of course, my dear,' Mama said.

‘Preoccupations
can
be about anything. And they don't have to make sense to anybody else. It could be something like … like he's seen a girl in a store as he walks past it. And this girl catches his eye once and she notices him looking, and waves, and now he waves to her every day and he even hangs around outside the window until she waves and gradually he thinks and thinks about her and now he can't control it any more and he thinks about her absolutely all the time.'

The detail of the hypothesis caught the adults at the table by surprise. Mama said, ‘Do you possibly speak from personal experience, my dear?'

Muffin lowered her head for a moment. ‘It's true. Something like that did happen in a lab I worked in. And it became embarrassing. Worse than embarrassing. But I wasn't bringing it up because it happened to me. I was just saying it doesn't need to be really important for something to upset somebody.'

There was a pause. Salvatore moved thoughts from Muffin's lab back to Mr Shayler by saying, ‘It's a possibility—his problem could involve a woman.'

Angelo said, ‘Distraction, preoccupation, that could be. But maybe what happened last night was that he didn't make his hot drink at all.'

‘I don't understand, Dad,' David said.

‘You don't understand anything,' Marie said.

‘You explain if you're so smart,' David said.

‘I would but you're too thick to take it in,' Marie said.

‘Basta!' Angelo said.

Salvatore said, ‘What are you saying, bubba? That the guy did something else when his wife thought he was making his drink?'

‘That's it,' Angelo said. ‘And then, because he needed to look like he'd made the drink maybe he filled his mug with water from the tap. That way he wouldn't have used the work surface, so maybe that's why he didn't notice the bottle.'

‘So what's this husband doing instead of making his hot drink?' Mama asked.

‘He might have met someone at the back door,' Salvatore said. ‘Do they have a back door?'

‘I don't know,' Angelo said. ‘I'll find out.'

‘Maybe he was making a telephone call,' Marie said.

‘Good,' Angelo said. ‘Your mum asked about the telephone and Mrs Shayler can't hear the phone being used downstairs if she's in the bedroom.'

‘So who's he calling?' Mama asked.

‘Has he got a girlfriend? Is that it?' Marie asked.

‘Back to women,' Salvatore said.

Angelo said, ‘Possible.'

‘Usually they go out for that,' the Old Man said.

‘For what, Grandad?' Marie asked.

‘Careful,' Mama said.

‘To ring their fancy women. That's all I meant,' the Old Man said. ‘Take it from me. A lifetime in the business. Suppose you see a man walk a dog. He stops at a phone box. He comes out smiling. That poor dog won't get much exercise. Take it from me.'

‘Do they have a dog, Dad?' David asked.

‘Mr Shayler might have made a late-night phone call from his house about something other than a woman,' Muffin said. ‘Maybe he has money troubles.'

‘Money troubles,' the Old Man said. ‘That's more like it. He's up to the neck with a bookie. He gambles with clients' money. Or the stock market. Yes, this Jack Shayler sounds more like a money problem.'

Salvatore leaned to whisper into Muffin's ear, ‘My father is obsessed by money.'

‘What's he saying?' the Old Man said. ‘What's he talking about me?'

‘Salvatore, don't be rude,' Mama said.

‘Sorry, Mama,' Salvatore said. ‘I was agreeing about the money problem.'

‘You have a money problem?' the Old Man said. ‘Is that what he said? Work for a living, that solves it. Huh!'

‘So what happens next, Dad?' David asked. ‘Do you want me to tail Mr Shayler tomorrow morning? I could do it. It's only English first lesson.'

‘We're not following anybody yet. But what do you think we
are
doing?' The question was addressed to David but with a sweep of his hands Angelo opened it to the rest of the table.

‘Bug their telephone?' Marie suggested.

‘Good,' the Old Man said.

‘But not yet,' Angelo said.

‘Someone small could hide in the house and watch him,' David said.

‘Small brains aren't enough,' Marie said with a toss of her hair.

‘Meet Shayler yourselves?' Salvatore said. ‘Or go through their rubbish and see if you can find secrets on paper?'

‘All this investigation is expensive,' the Old Man said. ‘Five hundred won't last long. What does she say about when that runs out?'

‘She says she'll pay whatever it takes,' Angelo said. ‘And that she trusts us.'

‘Spare no expense,' the Old Man said. ‘Cottages. Huh.' He rubbed his hands together. ‘All painters should make such money.'

Muffin said, ‘Isn't this cloak-and-dagger stuff a little premature, Angelo, if I may say so?'

‘Go on.'

‘Well, it seems to me that your client is drawing a lot of conclusions from one tiny episode. I accept that she's the best person to judge whether the incident is important or not. But surely you and she need more information before you start tapping telephones or following people or sorting through the trash.'

Angelo smiled broadly. ‘Exactly,' he said. ‘Good. Good. Good.'

‘So what
are
you doing, bubba?' Salvatore asked.

‘Two things. Number one, this afternoon I rang Charlie.'

‘A friend of the family,' Salvatore told Muffin, ‘who is a policeman.'

‘Charlie will run all the names,' Angelo said. ‘But more important …' Angelo nodded to Dr Muffin, ‘number two, tonight Mrs Shayler will leave the bottle of washing-up liquid out again. And she'll try to sniff her husband's mug.'

Salvatore turned to Muffin. ‘There's nothing quite so glamorous as being private eyes,' he said.

CHAPTER FOUR

Angelo was alone when he opened his office at nine on Wednesday morning. Gina, required as a witness in a Crown Court trial, had driven to Bristol immediately after breakfast.

The previous night, in bed, Angelo had asked about Rosetta. ‘So what's upsetting her?'

‘We didn't talk about it,' Gina said.

‘Oh,' Angelo said.

‘She went to the glass porch and sat looking across the river. When I went in she said, “Don't ask,” so I didn't. I said, “May I sit with you?” and she said, “If you want,” so I did.'

‘That doesn't sound like Rose,' Angelo said. ‘She's always so …'

‘Deferential?'

‘I was going to say “polite” but that wasn't quite right. Maybe “accommodating”. But yeah, all right, deferential.' He paused to give Gina a chance to comment. When she didn't he said, ‘What did you talk about?'

‘She said she's bored to death cooking curries every Tuesday night.' Gina switched out the light.

Angelo said, ‘It was her idea to change from pasta.'

Again Gina said nothing.

‘You were out there a long time for talking curries.'

Gina rolled toward her husband. ‘Well, first you chop the chicken, but you've got to have the marinade ready …'

‘OK. OK. OK,' Angelo said.

‘Rosetta's upset about her life. She thinks she hasn't achieved anything. Not like you and Salvatore have. By the way, did you ask Salvatore if he'll be available to work this week?'

‘He said yes.'

‘Good. And Rosetta thinks we don't value her, and that makes it all harder.'

‘Don't value her?' Angelo said. ‘We buy her computers whenever she wants them.'

‘That's not what she means, and you know it.'

Angelo shrugged in the dark. ‘What does she want to “achieve”?'

‘It's not as specific as becoming a brain surgeon.'

Angelo considered. ‘And what have I achieved, anyway?'

‘Don't you start to curdle too. One at a time,' Gina said.

‘I'll wait for you to call my number.'

‘Rosetta
is
nearly thirty.'

‘One foot in the grave,' Angelo said. He wiggled a foot. ‘So you talked about her life, but not “it”, whatever “it” is.'

‘That's right.'