She had a moan about the injustices of the system and we agreed that it was an insoluble problem. Try to do something about it and the children were the ones who paid the price. Dave came through, edging his bulk into the kitchen and rolling his eyes as he saw the mug of tea in my hand. Voices from the other room indicated that the TV was back on. We said thank you and she asked how the poisoned man was. "He'll live," I told her.
"Back to t'nick?" Dave asked as he started the engine.
"Yes please, driver. What did you learn?"
"Aha!" he responded. "Wouldn't you like to know."
"OK. I'll just sit here patiently waiting for a moment when you might find it convenient to fill me in."
"Right. Get this: Becky reckons that all-hands Robshaw is screwing old-cow Mrs Brown."
"Gerraway! All-hands Robshaw. Is she saying that he belongs to the touchy-feely school of management training?"
"Can't leave the girls alone, it would seem."
"And presumably Mrs Brown is the bespectacled lady called Sharon who brought in the complaints book?"
"Head of human resources, based at the Heckley branch."
"You did well."
"There's a bit more. Becky left because she was being bullied. It was OK on the shop floor but started when she was moved to the warehouse. Mrs Brown knew about it but didn't do anything."
After a while I said: "Poor kid. What do you reckon's wrong with her?"
"Don't know. When we went in, after a few seconds, I had this flash that she was Down's syndrome. Then I realised that she wasn't, just — what do we say these days? — has learning difficulties."
"Hmm. I went through the same process." • "Makes me realise how lucky we've been with our two."
"I bet. Have you heard from Sophie yet?"
His shake of the head and ensuing silence were more eloquent than words and I knew I was treading a minefield, so I changed the subject.
"What have you got against Grainger — Sir Morton?" I asked him. "You didn't exactly take to him when we met." "Huh!" "Go on." "I'll tell you in the office."
But he didn't have the chance to tell me. There was a note on my desk from Pete Goodfellow and another saying that Mr Wood wanted to see me ASAP. Pete had done his homework about Sir Morton, as requested. He was a Foreign and Commonwealth Office man, not army, and had held a junior position at some God-forsaken outpost in the Pacific until hurriedly promoted when his boss drowned while snorkelling. He was stationed in Fiji, and when the Queen, on a tour of the more distant corners of the Commonwealth, unexpectedly changed her itinerary to visit her loyal subjects in Tuvalu, Junior Consul Grainger had filled the breach and ensured that everything went along swimmingly. His reward was promotion and promise of a KCMG, whatever that meant. Grainger's older brother had inherited the burgeoning family business, but he was killed while racing a vintage grand prix car in Belgium and the whole lot passed to Morton, or Sir Morton as he became on leaving the FCO.
A line from Dylan's "Idiot Wind" flashed through my mind: And when she died it all came to me, I can't help it if I'm lucky. I walked through into the main office and passed the note to Dave.
"Tuvalu?" he said, after considering the note for nearly a minute.
"Yep."
"Wear the fox hat?"
"It's in the Pacific."
"Thanks. That pins it down. Fancy a pint tonight?"
"Good idea. Gilbert wants me, I'll be upstairs."
Gilbert wasn't alone. A tall man with a navy blue sweater and the resigned expression of a long-term political prisoner was sitting in my chair, nursing a coffee. Gilbert introduced me and confirmed what I'd already deduced by reading the logo on the man's epaulettes: he was an RSPCA inspector.
We shook hands briefly, but then I turned back to Mr Wood, saying: "How's young Freddie?"
Gilbert brightened and shuffled in his seat. "He's fine, thanks, Charlie. As good as new. This morning I had the public health people on to me, about the botulism. I told them it was the result of criminal activity, not a natural outbreak, and that seemed to satisfy them for the moment. Does that sound right?"
"Yes, that's fair enough."
"Good. Now, John here was telling me about the apparent increase in dog fighting. He believes there's an organised ring, and they're into badger baiting, too."
And for the next hour Inspector John regaled us with horror stories about Man's inhumanity to his fellow creatures. The natural world is red in tooth and claw, as we all know, but Man, with his gift of imagination and insatiable desire for excitement, adds a new dimension to the game. I wasn't unsympathetic, and doing unspeakable things to animals is only a small step away from repeating the practise against human beings. It was chicken for tea, in lemon sauce, but I didn't enjoy it.
"This is a pleasant surprise," I said, stooping to give Shirley, Dave's wife, a peck on the cheek. When we go for a midweek drink Dave and I walk to the pub and Shirley usually collects us towards closing time.
"Wouldn't let me out on my own," he complained. "Said you were a bad influence."
I got the drinks, with a packet of crisps for myself, and we made ourselves comfortable at a corner table. "We've got to concentrate on the dog fighting," I said after the first sip of my pint. "There was an RSPCA inspector with the boss and he reckons it's widespread. And badger baiting. Gilbert's promised to divert resources in that direction, whatever that means."
"Send a panda down the lane once a shift," Dave replied.
"Yeah, but it would be good PR if we made a few arrests, and that's what it's all about, these days."
"Why do they do it?" Shirley asked, adding: "They must be sick," to answer her own question.
"Has Dave told you all about our visit to Dob Hall?" I said, changing the subject. "You'd've loved it. Talk about how the other half live."
"No, he never tells me anything."
"That's not true," he protested, and extricated himself from blame by describing in intricate detail the precise geography of the hall, as gathered from studying the scale model.
"It sounds rather grand," Shirley agreed without enthusiasm, adjusting the position of her glass so it was dead central on the beer mat and then slipping her jacket off her shoulders. Dave reached across and helped arrange it on the back of her chair.
"You never finished telling me why you're so fond of Sir Morton," I said, and Dave made a grunting noise and picked up his pint.
When it was firmly back on the table I said: "So?"
He looked uncomfortable, glancing at Shirley, at his pint and back to Shirley. "I was going to tell Charlie about your mum," he said to her.
Shirley reached for her glass, turned it in her fingers and replaced it. "If you want," she said. "It can't hurt Mum now."
Something had happened but I didn't know what. I opened my mouth to say that if it was personal I was happy to be kept in the dark, but before I could find the right words Dave started speaking. "Shirley's mum was done for shoplifting," he said, "six months before she died."
"Oh, I didn't know. She died… what? About a year ago?"
"It will be twelve months on the 18th of August," Shirley said. "The day before my birthday."
"She'd bought a trolley full o' shopping at Grainger's Halifax branch," Dave continued, "including a toothbrush in a plastic tube. It fell through the wire of the trolley a couple of times so she must have put it in her pocket. She was stopped outside and hauled off to the manager's office. They have no discretion, they always call the police and prosecute."
"Discretion requires making a decision," I said.
"Exactly. So, at the age of seventy-two, and never having been as much as a day behind with a payment for anything, she finds herself summoned to Halifax nick for an official caution."
"God, Dave, why didn't you say?"
"It's all right. I had a word and she didn't have to attend. But that's when the decline started and she was dead in six months."