‘Mike, they have sold seventy million dollars’ worth of pay-per-view subscriptions so far. If this show is called off Everett is a dead man with the television networks, and GWA is bust. Whoever’s been out to get him, that person will have won, thanks to you. Do you want to explain that to Everett’s pal, Lord Provost Gantry — or his daughter?’
He gulped; a quick swallow of air. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe not.’
I seized an advantage. ‘Look, we’re hiring extra security for Wednesday, specifically to protect the public. You tell your boss, of course, and have a presence there, but don’t let him or anyone else dream of calling the thing off.
‘Try this one on. If I gave you details of everyone on the GWA payroll, could you feed them into the police national computer and see what it tells you?’
Dylan nodded. ‘Name, date and place or country of birth, National Insurance number, passport numbers for the foreigners: give me that sort of stuff and I should be able to come up with something.’
‘Now we’re talking. I’ll speak to Everett and get as much as we have to you as soon as possible.’
I finished my lager, walked over to the bar and ordered another round. Mike was grinning when I got back to the table. ‘I knew you were up to something with the big man. Ring announcer, my arse.’
I decided to wipe the smile off his face. ‘Since you’re the great detective, Michael,’ I said, ‘try this one on.
‘The night before she died, my wife was working on papers from the files of The Gantry Group; health care division. I know this because she told me when I phoned her from Barcelona. It was the last thing she ever told me in fact.’ I watched his face, saw my voice slice into him.
‘Next morning, she went to the hairdresser’s, as she usually did every second Saturday. Afterwards she went shopping; for Jan, that would mean the St Enoch Centre, a bit of lunch, Princes Square, maybe Habitat or somewhere else for household stuff — an afternoon’s worth.
‘Then she came home, and she was killed. She switched on the fucking washing machine and she was killed. You with me so far?’
‘Yes, Oz,’ he whispered, discomfort all over his coupon.
‘That’s good. In that case, I’d like your help with something. I’d like you to tell me who took the Gantry papers from Jan’s filing drawer and put them back into the company records, and who took her notes on the health care division and made them disappear. Because I didn’t, and I know Jan didn’t.
‘While you’re working that out, maybe your experts can have another look at that bloody appliance, and tell you whether they agree with the manufacturer that it could have been rigged to kill my wife the moment she went to empty it.’
Dylan looked at me. He tried to speak, but went into a fit of coughing and spluttering. ‘Do you realise what you’re saying?’ he asked me.
‘Yes Mike. I’m saying there’s a chance that my wife was murdered because she had found out about something that’s going on within The Gantry Group — the company your girlfriend runs.
‘The company where Mr Joseph Donn has just been reinstalled as Finance Director,’ I took a deep breath, and stared at him, ‘over Jan’s dead body, you might say.’
I was an expert in the task of breaking bad news, so putting my friendly detective inspector on the spot didn’t bother me one bit.
For a few seconds he was absolutely speechless. ‘You’re not saying Susie’s involved, are you?’ he gasped, as he began to recover himself.
‘Not for one minute, Mike. But someone in her company is, of that I’m certain. Also, I would love to know what our friend Joe Donn was doing on the weekend Jan died.’
‘What the hell am I supposed to do about it? Why tell me about this, Oz?’
‘Well for one thing, if I go to any other copper; say, for example, the boys who investigated Jan’s death; they’ll investigate hard, they’ll walk all over Susie, and you’ll be seriously embarrassed, maybe even out of a job. Remember Ricky Ross?’ As I looked at him, he did, and he shuddered.
‘For another thing,’ I continued, ‘you might be a flash bastard, but I trust you. Now ask yourself this. What would you do if any other company was involved?’
He answered without a second’s thought. ‘I’d go to my boss and ask permission to seek a warrant to seize the documents involved.’
‘Well in this case, why don’t you go to your other boss? Ask Susie to let you have those papers back.’ I checked myself. ‘No, on second thoughts, ask her for photocopies. We don’t want anyone to know that we’re still looking into this.’
‘But what’ll I tell her when she asks why I want them?’
‘Tell her what you like, mate, but make damn sure you tell her to keep her mouth shut.’
Chapter 51
‘You can trust this buddy of yours not to make too many waves, can you?’ Everett was still not reconciled to the idea of bringing the police in on his problems.
‘He understands the situation okay, and the sort of money involved. I spoke to Mike this morning before I came here. He’s advised his boss of the situation and he’s got the green light to handle it himself. He’ll be there tomorrow night with a couple more CID men, but there’ll be no heavy uniform involvement, nothing like that.
‘Have you hired the security firm, as we discussed?’
The big man nodded. ‘Yeah, I did that yesterday afternoon. I went for the biggest and best. They’ve promised me a specialist team on site all day tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘Will you still make it through tonight for the first rehearsals?’
‘Sure. No reason why not.’
‘That’s good. Everything’s gotta be word and move-perfect tomorrow; there’s no scope for mistakes, so everyone has to rehearse as often as it takes — including you.’
I threw him a look. ‘I could shove a brush up my arse and sweep the floor at the same time,’ I offered.
Everett grinned. ‘I’ll bear that in mind, should the need arise. Meantime, let’s go and sort out this information your policeman friend needs.’
The GWA contractual work was all handled by the McPhillips law firm, but Everett employed a personnel manager to deal with the routine aspects of people management. He led me straight into her room. ‘Want to look at the files, Hazel,’ he said.
He crossed to one of three steel filing cabinets which stood against the far wall, opened a drawer, pulled out a file, apparently at random, and handed it to me. It belonged to Diane, and listed her birthplace, Decatur, Illinois, her date of birth, which was one day after mine, her maiden name, Boone, her US and UK social security numbers and her permanent address and telephone number.
‘That be enough for you?’
I nodded. ‘Looks ideal. Are they all in this format?’
‘They’re all computer stored, so I guess they will be. Hazel, I need you to do something.’The dark-haired woman, who was in her mid-twenties, looked up from her desk. ‘Print out the top sheet of every file and bring them to me. Don’t ask why, and don’t tell anyone.’
She nodded, without a word, and we went back to Everett’s office. One mug of coffee and two doughnuts later — he had five — she knocked lightly on the door, stepped inside and laid a brown A4 envelope on the glass table.
‘That’s whit yis wanted,’ she said, in a broad Glasgow accent, turned on her heel and left. I watched the door as it closed.
Everett was grinning as I turned back towards him. ‘Hazel doesn’t say a word she doesn’t have to, but she keeps tabs on everyone in the business. I like her, like her a lot. I’m just waiting for the day she smiles at me.’
I was back home by midday, half an hour before Dylan arrived to pick up the documents. I spent the time glancing through them; they were completely up-to-date, for they included forms for Al Hendrix and the unpronounceable Japanese tag team.
‘How long will that lot take to process?’ I asked Mike, as he flicked through the thick bundle.
‘Depends on access to the computer,’ he replied. ‘We’ll have to do some checking across the Atlantic and in Europe, and that’ll take time. I hope it’ll be wrapped up by close of play tomorrow, but I can’t promise anything.’