Dalby was a roly-poly sort of fellow in a rough Swaledale jumper, with a ruddy complexion and a shock of grey hair. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Sit down. I apologise the place is such a mess, but I don’t get a lot of visitors.’
Annie had wondered about that when she had parked in the visitors area. It certainly wasn’t very large, she had noticed. There were two orange plastic moulded chairs, and Annie and Doug sat on them. Dalby went behind his desk. Through the window, over his shoulder, Annie could see the moors rolling off into the grey distance. It was a calming view.
‘I’ve just been speaking with a DC Masterson,’ said Dalby. ‘Nice lady. Terrible business, this, though. One wonders where to begin.’
‘How large is this operation?’ Annie asked first, when Doug had taken out his notebook.
‘Stirwall’s is a large abattoir,’ Dalby replied, leaning back in his swivel chair and linking his hands behind his neck. ‘We employ about a hundred personnel, sometimes more when things are especially busy in autumn.’
The lambs, Annie thought. The Silence of the Lambs. ‘That’s a lot of people,’ she said.
‘We manage to keep busy. We’ve a good number of meat processors to supply. Not to mention butchers and supermarkets.’
‘As you’re aware,’ Annie went on, ‘we’re interested in an incident of theft that took place here around two years ago.’
‘That’s right,’ said Dalby, nodding gravely. ‘We did report the theft to the police at the time.’
‘What exactly were the circumstances?’
‘It was a penetrating bolt pistol. This model.’ He took a loose-leaf binder from his desk and flipped to a picture for her. It was exactly the same as the kind the forensics people said had killed Morgan Spencer.
‘Where was it kept?’
‘There’s a metal cabinet fixed to the wall down on the floor where we keep all our stun guns.’
‘Locked?’
‘Of course.’
‘Who has keys?’
‘Well, I do. The supervisors do. And the knockermen and slaughtermen, of course. I mean, to be honest, almost anyone down there can get to them if he wants.’
‘That sounds very secure.’
Dalby gave her a suspicious look. She knew her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. Nor was it appreciated. ‘It worked,’ he said. ‘We’ve only had the one theft in sixty years.’
‘It’s enough,’ said Annie, ‘if it was used to kill someone. A human being, I mean.’
Dalby narrowed his eyes and peered at her. He didn’t look so roly-poly any more. ‘You don’t approve of what we do, do you?’
‘Whether I approve or not is irrelevant.’
‘Right. Yes. I thought so. You’re one of them there vegan tree-huggers, aren’t you?’
Annie flushed. ‘Mr Dalby. Can we please get back to the matter in hand? The bolt gun.’
‘Right, the bolt gun. Well, as I said, it’s the penetrating kind.’ He leered. ‘Know what that means?’
Annie said nothing.
Doug Wilson looked up from his notes. ‘I wouldn’t use innuendos like that with the boss,’ he said. ‘She’s been known to get quite nasty.’
Dalby looked at Annie and swallowed. ‘Aye… well… We don’t use those much any more.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Annie. ‘You stopped using them because they can cause brain matter to enter the bloodstream, and these days people are all so worried about mad cow disease.’
‘My, my. You have done your homework. Anyway, we now rely mostly on the non-penetrating kind, which stuns the animal. It works without puncturing the skull.’
‘The one that killed our man put a hole in his head,’ said Annie.
‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it? It was a penetrating bolt gun. In some cases, even a non-penetrating gun can put a hole in a human’s skull, if it’s positioned correctly.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind. Back to the stolen pistol.’
‘Yes, well, as I said, we reported it stolen at the time. Nothing happened.’
‘I’m sure the officers followed up.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they did, but it would be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, wouldn’t it, if you didn’t even know where to start.’
‘Could it just have been lost? Mislaid?’
‘We might be a bit sloppy on occasion, but we’re more careful than that. It was stolen.’
‘Did you have any suspects?’
‘No. Well, not technically, at any rate.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nobody saw anyone take it, and nobody knew anyone who had expressed an intent to take it. We don’t even know exactly how long it had been missing before the loss was discovered.’
‘You don’t check them often?’
‘Once in a while. Stocktaking.’
‘So it could have been missing for some time?’
‘Not more than a couple of weeks. After your boss called, I checked the files and discovered we had let two people go around that time, either of whom could have stolen the pistol. I’m not saying they did. That’s what I meant by “not technically”. For all I know, the person who did it could still be working here. But she said she was interested in disgruntled employees, perhaps with a grudge, and those two fit the bill.’
‘Thanks for doing that,’ said Annie. She meant it, and she could tell that Dalby knew she did. It seemed to embarrass him.
‘Well, we take this sort of thing seriously,’ he said.
‘She’s not my boss, by the way.’
‘What?’
‘The detective who called. She’s not my boss.’
Dalby glanced at Doug Wilson. ‘No, I should have gathered that much from him. You’re the boss. My mistake.’
‘No problem. So why did you fire those two people?’ Annie asked, feeling a bit silly. Was it really important enough to make a point of her rank with Dalby?
‘Why do you usually fire someone?’
‘There could be any number of reasons. In your business, I don’t know.’
‘My business is the same as any other. You fire people for incompetence, for stealing, for persistent absenteeism, for failing to follow correct procedures, for insubordination.’
‘OK. So what did those two do wrong?’
‘They weren’t connected at all. It was two separate incidents, a couple of weeks apart. The first one was a skinner, and I suppose you could say he was just too sensitive. He shouldn’t have been doing the job. This kind of work isn’t for the faint-hearted.’
‘Then how did he get it in the first place? I mean, don’t you have to have psychological tests to weed out psychos who get their jollies from killing? So you can employ them, that is.’
Doug Wilson gave Annie a horrified and chastising glance.
‘Sorry,’ she said, holding her hands up.
Dalby paused and spoke slowly. ‘All employers make mistakes sometimes,’ he said. ‘Even the police, I should imagine. It’s why we all have probationary periods.’
‘This worker didn’t make it past his probation?’
‘No. The official problem was absenteeism and drunkenness on the job.’
‘I imagine that would help in—’
‘Yes, the drink helped him. He couldn’t handle the job so he took to drink to dull his mind. But do you have the slightest idea how dangerous it is to be intoxicated around some of the equipment we have in here? And not only for the one who’s drunk.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Annie.
Dalby grunted. ‘Aye. It worked, to an extent. Sometimes he’d be so badly hungover he didn’t come to work for two days.’
‘So you fired him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wasn’t there any counselling or anything available?’
Dalby gave her a scathing look.
‘Can you give us his name and address?’ she asked.