Family Business (7 page)

The Old Man couldn't even remember his surname. Certainly wasn't another ‘Harris'. A young Harris might have been all right. But this one, no. Irritating, having to change solicitors, after all these years. In mid-stream.

But wasn't there another solicitor chap about? The Old Man couldn't remember at first. But then he did. Wasn't that chap of Rosetta's a solicitor? Seems a nice enough boy. Young, of course. Maybe not up to it himself, but he could recommend someone. Someone sensible. Someone you could talk to. What was his name, Rosetta's young man? It would come back.

‘What's the name of that solicitor chap of Rosetta's?' the Old Man asked his wife.

‘Walter,' Mama said without missing a knit or a purl.

Mama didn't need to ask why the Old Man wanted to know. He had spoken about enough of the pieces for her to put together the puzzle. But she did not challenge him on his ridiculous notion. She would bide her time. She would pick her moment. She said, ‘How do you like this detective?'

The Old Man looked at the television screen and saw the detective, a young woman in an absurdly short skirt, show her matching knickers as she bent to get into a car. He didn't have a clue what the story was. ‘Boring,' he said.

Before they went to bed Gina and Angelo talked about getting up early to follow Jack Shayler on his route to work.

‘It's got to be me,' Gina said.

‘Why?'

‘Because tomorrow is Thursday.'

Angelo yawned. He couldn't remember the significance of Thursday. ‘What am I forgetting?' he said.

‘Your new computers are being delivered,' Gina said.

Mrs Shayler went to bed on Tuesday night at her normal time. But, what with all the turmoil, as she lay in bed she simply couldn't get into her book. So she waited, straining to hear the activities taking place in the rest of the house.

By the time her husband finally came to bed Mrs Shayler was reasonably sure that he had not opened the back door. And all the plumbing sounds, including the running of water in the kitchen, had occurred in their normal sequence.

However, even though Mrs Shayler had already marked the level on the Horlicks container and would therefore be able to tell in the morning whether further Horlicks had been used, she yielded to impatience. When Jack Shayler came to bed with his ‘hot drink' Eileen Shayler had tried to contrive an incidental look into—or at least sniff of—her husband's mug. She had done it clumsily and he noticed.

‘What are you playing at?' Jack Shayler had said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Thrashing about.'

‘I'm not thrashing.'

‘And you never lie this close.'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘Not on a Tuesday you don't. Now move back to your side.'

Mrs Shayler had moved. But now she would not need to check the Horlicks box in the morning. She had established conclusively that her husband had come to bed carrying a mug of water.

Getting such dramatic information and then trying to sleep as if it were a normal night was impossible. While Mrs Shayler lay awake she could remain motionless and affect the breathing of sleep. But before dawn she finally drifted off and, thus freed, her tension and distress expressed themselves. She tossed and turned and woke her husband up.

‘What's
wrong
with you?' he asked sleepily.

‘Nothing,' she said. ‘Go back to sleep.'

He had done exactly that. But then, in the morning, as Jack Shayler lay in bed gathering his thoughts, Eileen Shayler discovered that when her husband had retired the night before he had left his slippers in the bathroom.
And
, in depositing Tuesday's underpants in the wicker hamper, he had left them hanging on the hamper lip,
and
he hadn't put the hamper lid on properly.

Mrs Shayler could barely continue with her morning routine. It was almost an anti-climax when she found the washing-up liquid bottle standing proud on the work surface exactly where she had left it the night before.

CHAPTER SIX

When she arrived in the office on Thursday morning, the first thing Gina did was check her tray. In it she found Angelo's note about Charlie's phone-call saying that the police had no information about either Jack Shayler or the firm of accountants, Whitfield, Hare and O'Shea.

Once she read the note Gina did not file it. This was because in one of the many empty moments at the Crown Court the previous day she had asked the solicitors she was appearing for if they knew anything about Shayler or his employers. The response from the solicitors, too, was negative but Gina added this information to the original note and dropped it in Angelo's tray. You could never tell what detail might be important later so it was the Lunghis' policy to err on the side of thoroughness.

However, Gina mused, once the new computers were installed these memos would—or at least could—be contained inside electronic ‘mail boxes'. She didn't quite know what she felt about the prospect. Might be fun, might be a nuisance. Might be both.

In her own tray Gina also found the material Adrian Boiling had left with Angelo. Gina thumbed the catalogue and leaflets. The array of gadgets was awesome, all ostensibly designed to assist surveillance work. The fun and nuisance that these implied were dark.

With the catalogue Gina found a sheet of calculations headed, ‘I'll pay for myself in no time!' There was also a sheet headed, ‘Have a seven-day trial, on me!'

What, indeed, had Rosetta got them into?

A few minutes past ten Salvatore arrived. ‘Hello, gorgeous,' he said. ‘Show us yer tits.'

Gina made tea for herself and coffee for Salvatore as he reported on his search for the slimy detective. ‘There's a lot about this guy that seems odd. He's got copies of the woman's photograph, but he doesn't distribute them. And he seems to think he only needs to show her picture to other women.'

‘She is a model,' Gina said. ‘Models spend time with other women.'

‘But why go to pubs? Why not model agencies?'

‘We didn't ask this Kit Bridges if she has an agency,' Gina said. ‘We spent most of the time calming her down. But maybe he doesn't know she's a model.'

‘He's showing a fashion picture,' Salvatore said.

Gina wrinkled her face. ‘Something's wrong about this. Something's wrong. We're missing something.'

‘You want me to go and see this model?' Salvatore said. ‘I could force myself.'

‘Angelo's out already and he'll probably go.'

‘What's he on?'

‘You remember the washing-up liquid?'

‘The case of the century? Of course,' Salvatore said.

‘He's following the husband to work. Then he's got a bank stop but assuming the washing-up doesn't throw anything up he'll have plenty of time to see the model,' Gina said. ‘Unless you
want
to see her.'

‘Just trying to help,' Salvatore said easily.

‘So what's with Muffin?' Gina asked.

‘What about her?'

‘We thought you might take her along last night. She seemed interested in the business.'

‘She had something else to do.'

‘What?' Gina asked.

‘What do you mean, “what?”,' Salvatore said.

‘I thought she was here on holiday.'

‘So?'

‘So what else could she have to do?'

Not long after Salvatore left, the telephone rang. ‘Gina Lunghi.'

‘Have those computers been delivered yet?' Angelo said.

‘By a sweet little old man,' Gina said. ‘It only took him ten minutes to hook everything up and explain how it works. He's only just left.'

‘Wives shouldn't tell lies to their husbands.'

‘We'd starve if they didn't.'

‘I've done the bank. I thought I'd have a word with this Kit Bridges. Has Sally been in yet?'

Gina went through what Salvatore reported.

‘I agree with you,' Angelo said. ‘Something's missing. I'll see what the Bridges woman has to say. Then I'll try to find her friend from the pub.'

Gina said, ‘How was Jack Shayler?'

‘There's something wrong there, too,' Angelo said. ‘He left the house at 7.40 and he went to work. That much is like the wife said. But the route was different.'

‘She said he always goes the same way.'

‘Not today. From Bartlett Street he was supposed to turn at Bennett Street. But he turned at St Andrews Terrace, along the raised pavement.'

‘What's there?'

‘Antiques and pizza on one side. A drop to a row of garages on the other.'

‘And does St Andrews Terrace lead to The Circus?'

‘At the end you turn right, up a passage, and you get to The Circus by carrying on across the forecourt of the Assembly Rooms and turning left on Bennett Street. It's about the same distance. But something else happened,' Angelo said. ‘In front of the Assembly Rooms.'

‘Isn't that where the Costume Museum is?'

‘In the basement, yes.'

‘So what happened,' Gina asked. ‘He tried on a dress?'

‘He sat down on a bench. There's a phone box and a bench. As he walked past the phone box he looked at his watch. Then he sat down on the bench. He stayed there for two minutes. 7.49 to 7.51.'

‘And?'

‘He got up again and walked to his office. He went through the door there at 7.54. Apart from two minutes on the bench he didn't stop, or talk to anyone, or nod or look into a window
or
wave at a girl. He didn't pick up any packages or drop off any envelopes or shoot anybody.'

‘How curious,' Gina said. ‘What do you think?'

‘Why tell his wife that he needs to go the same way every day but then go a different route today? What's the point of lying about things like that? It can't be important, can it?'

‘You mean if a man lies to his wife it should only be about important things?'

‘That's my policy,' Angelo lied.

Kit Bridges lived in a basement flat in one of the crescent terraces which ranged up the city's hillsides like an audience of toothy grins. She was home when Angelo arrived but she was about to leave. She was wearing faded denims and a black singlet and she looked stunning. Angelo was stunned.

‘Are you all right?' Kit Bridges asked.

Angelo nodded. Then he said, ‘We've put together a description of the detective who's looking for you.' Angelo repeated the details Salvatore had given Gina, down to the knobbly hands. ‘Does it sound like anyone you know?'

‘No,' Kit Bridges said. ‘Cheryl described him too, but I can't think of anyone who looks like that.'

Cheryl, the friend who worked part-time behind the bar at the Rose and Crown, had a home address in the East Twerton part of the city. Kit Bridges also supplied Cheryl's phone number and the name of her own modelling agency. Then Angelo walked her to her car.

Mrs Shayler did not come to the office until just after lunch. When she arrived she went straight to a chair by the window with the plants. She looked pale and pained. She said, ‘I can't go on like this. I can't. I've just painted three thatched roofs blue. It's unbearable.'

Gina made tea and even held Mrs Shayler's hand for a few minutes. Although the two women were about the same age Gina treated her client as if they were separated by a generation. Only after watching Mrs Shayler finish her tea and consume a digestive biscuit did Gina ask about events in the Shayler household the previous night.

‘Everything was exactly as per normal. Not a word out of the ordinary. Not a hair out of place.'

‘And did he make a drink?'

‘Horlicks. For sure.'

‘So whatever he's been up to didn't happen.'

‘No.'

‘And did you sleep?'

‘Hardly a wink. Once Jack left this morning I collapsed into my chair.' She demonstrated collapse in the Lunghis' chair.

‘Mrs Shayler,' Gina said, ‘my husband followed your husband to work today. And Mr Shayler did not take the route you gave us.' Gina described Angelo's observations, including the two-minute stop.

Mrs Shayler was devastated. ‘This can't go on, Mrs Lunghi. It will kill me. This has to be resolved. It has to be resolved now.'

Angelo appeared in the office at a few minutes before four. He opened the door slowly. He saw there was no computer terminal on his desk. ‘Is it safe?' he asked.

Gina, who sat at the desk, didn't say anything to her husband.

Angelo entered the room. ‘Has the computer man been?'

‘He's with Rosetta,' Gina said.

‘Is it that Adrian chap?'

‘No. Someone else. He has a moustache.'

‘But he's still here.' Angelo considered. ‘I want to be in position for Jack Shayler at five. I can go early.'

‘No,' Gina said. There was no playfulness in her voice.

‘Gina?'

‘The computer man is running wires through all the walls. Your terminal will be installed tomorrow. We have other business.'

‘You want a cup of tea?'

‘No.'

The signs were of something serious. Angelo sat down.

‘Mrs Shayler,' Gina began. ‘She wants all stops pulled out. She can't bear the uncertainty. Whatever it takes.'

‘So what does it take?' Angelo asked.

‘She wants us to confront him. But first she wants us to put a bug in her telephone.'

‘Did you ring Norse?' Norse Electronics was the company the Lunghis hired their equipment from.

‘No,' Gina said.

‘No?'

‘For six more days we have an Adrian Boiling bug of our own. I took it out of our telephone and I set it up at Mrs Shayler's.'

‘Good,' Angelo said. ‘Good, good.'

‘But,' Gina said, ‘I put in a fresh tape.'

‘We have some cassettes, don't we?'

‘I found them,' Gina said. ‘It's all set up at the Shaylers'.'