Lost Hours

by Alex Walters

  ‘He didn’t end up with her, though, this other woman?’

  ‘Dad was a bit vague about that. Said it hadn’t worked out quite the way he’d expected. I had the sense that he felt he’d somehow been used. I could imagine that. For all his scheming, Dad was always a bit innocent in the ways of the world. He probably wouldn’t have missed a trick in a union negotiation, but he’d believe anything if a woman fluttered her eyelashes at him.’ Andrew stopped. ‘Sorry. That sounded sexist. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘I can imagine. You don’t know the identity of this woman, I don’t suppose?’ Annie wasn’t even sure why she was asking, but her instincts were telling her there was something worth pursuing here.

  ‘Not a clue, I’m afraid.’ He gestured towards the ceiling, where they could hear the sounds of the two officers moving around as they checked through Keith Chalmers’ possessions. ‘I told your colleagues to do what they wanted with his papers, so I guess they might find the answer in there somewhere. I felt it wasn’t my business, so I never pushed him to say any more than he wanted to.’

  ‘How was he recently? Did you have any sense he was anxious about anything?’

  ‘Not really. He always seemed paranoid about the work stuff. He was prone to seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. Wasn’t comfortable trusting anyone, including those who were supposedly on his own side. But I thought that was just how he was, or just how he was in recent years anyway. I didn’t imagine anybody might be really out to get him.’

  ‘We don’t know that they were. We don’t know the circumstances of his death or what might have led to it. It might have been connected to his work, or it might have been something completely different. All we can do at this stage is consider every avenue. Had you noticed any change in his manner in recent weeks? Did he seem more nervous or worried?’

  ‘Thinking about it, I think he seemed a bit more anxious over the last few months. More anxious about the future, mainly. I just thought it was because he was fed up with the job. He wanted to get out, but he wasn’t keen to forgo any of his pension. He kept talking about wanting to get more cash behind him so that he could make a clean break of it, but it wasn’t clear to me how he was going to do that. Just wishful thinking, I suppose.’

  Annie was about to offer a response when they were interrupted by the sound of the two DCs descending the stairs in the hallway. A moment later, the first, a young member of Annie’s team called Colin Palmer, appeared in the doorway of the living room. He was clearly about to speak to Chalmers, and did a visible double-take as he caught sight of Annie. ‘Oh, didn’t realise you were here, Annie.’

  ‘I was planning to come and talk to you once Mr Chalmers and I were finished. How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine, though I can’t say we’ve discovered anything particularly informative so far.’ He turned to Andrew Chalmers. ‘We’ve gathered together a boxful of documents we found that we thought might merit a more detailed look. Some of them look to be work files and suchlike, but there are also some more personal items – a few old diaries and notebooks. Are you happy for us to take those away for further examination?’

  ‘Take whatever you like,’ Andrew said.

  ‘We’ll inventory all of it and give you a proof of receipt. We should be able to let you have it back pretty quickly, unless we think any of it’s worth holding on to for evidential reasons. We’d also like to take your father’s laptop and tablet, if that’s okay. We can let our techies have a look at them to see if they can access the data. There might conceivably be something relevant on there.’

  Annie was impressed by Palmer. It was too soon to say what potential he might have, but from what she’d seen so far he seemed thorough and professional.

  ‘I can’t think what, though,’ Andrew Chalmers said. ‘Dad had his flaws but I still can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill him.’

  ‘It’s always hard to imagine,’ Annie said. ‘Murder seems such an extreme act that we always assume it must have been prompted by extreme motives, but it’s not always the case. Sometimes it can result from the most trivial of actions or feelings – jealousy, a passing anger, wounded pride. At the moment, we just don’t know.’ And yet, inside, Annie suspected that she did know – or, at least, she had an inkling. Somehow Chalmers felt like a secondary figure, even in his own life. He didn’t seem like someone who would have been targeted because of anything he’d actually done or said. And if he hadn’t been targeted, that suggested his death might have been nothing more than tragic collateral damage.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘Chalmers?’ Peter Hardy said. ‘You mean Chalmers the union guy?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Michelle Wentworth said. They were sitting at the kitchen table. The weather was as hot as ever, although the thickness of the old stone walls provided some protection from the extremes outside.

  ‘And they dumped the body outside your gates?’

  She nodded wearily. She’d already told Peter all of this over the phone, but he seemed intent on repeating back the edited highlights to her. ‘Last night. After you’d gone. I had the police here, and they were out there most of the night.’

  ‘But why the hell didn’t you call me?’

  She took a breath. ‘Why do you think, Peter? First, because I had those two detectives round again, that Delamere and the other one who’s supposed to be the Family Liaison Officer.’ She gave a mocking intonation to the last three words. ‘They were asking enough questions. They both strike me as pretty bloody smart and I don’t want to give them any more opportunity to dig around.’

  ‘All the more reason why I should have been here.’

  ‘I can look after myself, Peter. I did it very successfully for years before you were on the scene. You’ve a lot of skills I lack, but fending off nosy fucking police isn’t one of them. I just didn’t want to give them any reason to wonder why you were here, what the nature of our relationship might be, or anything else.’ She paused. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re already suspicious of that list of potential suspects we gave them.’

  ‘Why would they be?’

  ‘Well, I wonder why. Could it be that they might think we gave them a list of largely random names from my past to distract them from looking more closely into my present?’

  ‘You’ve had run-ins with all of those people over the years. Any one of them could be a suspect in Justin’s murder.’

  Wentworth rolled her eyes. ‘Most of them probably don’t even have a bloody clue that Justin exists. Some of them probably don’t even remember me. I’ve not even had contact with a few of them for years. It’s not much more than a scattergun list of everyone I’ve ever met in a business context.’

  Hardy shrugged. ‘That’s what they asked for. They just asked us to produce a list of anyone who might have reason to want to harm you.’

  ‘I’m just saying we need to be careful not to underestimate them.’

  ‘You can fend them off easily enough, surely.’

  ‘I can as long as we manage not to give them anything more to sniff at.’

  Hardy held up his hands. ‘Okay. I get the message. Tread carefully. That’s what I always do, Mickey.’

  She wanted to tell him to stop calling her Mickey. It was what she allowed her few remaining family members and one or two close friends to call her. Peter had learned about it and adopted the diminutive almost immediately. It was no doubt all part of his plan to slip unobtrusively into her inner circle. She hadn’t really cared at first, but now she wanted to keep him at a greater distance and somehow the use of the nickname no longer seemed appropriate. ‘I know, Peter, and you’re very good at it. But I’m perfectly capable of dealing with the long arm of the law.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Mickey.’ It sounded almost like a threat. Hardy was silent for a moment and then went on, ‘But why Chalmers? We hardly knew him.’

  ‘I’ve known him for ages. Years.’

  ‘But only as someone to sit fac
ing over a negotiating table. You didn’t know him. He wasn’t part of your business circle.’

  ‘Neither was Justin.’

  ‘No, but…’ Hardy clearly realised he was running into a dead end. ‘But if these really are intended as some kind of threat or warning, why would they target your son and some nondescript trade union rep?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Wentworth said. ‘It feels as if they’re just trying to attack me from different directions.’

  ‘I can understand Justin. That’s obviously hitting you where it’s likely to hurt you most. Or at least it would be if you were like any other mother—’

  ‘Don’t push it, Peter.’ Wentworth’s voice was quiet, but carried an unmistakeable note of anger.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just meant that people don’t appreciate how resilient you are. Anyway, the point is that I don’t understand why Chalmers. Why would you even care about him? If anything, it makes our work slightly easier. One more potential thorn in the side removed.’

  ‘I don’t know, Peter,’ she said, more patiently. ‘If I knew who exactly was behind this or how their bloody minds worked, I’d tell you. But I don’t and I don’t, so I can’t help you.’

  ‘But we think this is connected with our new project?’

  ‘It must be, mustn’t it? We’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. The odd protest, petty vandalism—’

  ‘A trashed BMW. But I take your point.’

  ‘Chalmers thought we were behind that, apparently.’

  ‘Trashing our own car?’

  ‘Roger Pallance said so when we spoke the other day. But Chalmers was adamant that no one among his membership would have done it.’

  ‘Maybe he needs to get to know his membership better. Oh, sorry, too late now.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Peter.’

  ‘It’s just that these holier-than-thou lefties make me sick. Always leaping on the moral high ground. You’re really trying to tell me that none of those yobs on the picket lines would have been capable of doing something like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. But even that was something bigger than we’ve ever faced before. Maybe Chalmers had a point.’

  ‘I think I’d have known if we’d asked someone to trash one of our own cars.’

  ‘We wouldn’t. But maybe someone did, and maybe that someone wasn’t from the trade union.’

  ‘You mean the same person who’s responsible for the killings?’ Hardy said. ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘It’s a different level from murder, but it’s still more cost and inconvenience to us. And it raised the temperature in the dispute. From what Pallance tells me, behind the scenes Chalmers wasn’t far from capitulating. He knew they couldn’t stay out on strike for long, and he knew we were planning to rejig things to make further action virtually impossible. Chalmers was trying to finalise some kind of face-saving outcome that would let the strikers think they’d not been completely wasting their time. But the car thing raised the stakes again. I was talking to Pallance about it. He thought that if we agreed something now, it would look as if we were surrendering to violence and intimidation. So it had kiboshed any immediate chance of a settlement.’

  ‘All for the best as far as I’m concerned. We should just tell the unions where to stick their deals.’

  ‘And that’s why I’ve never let you anywhere near our union negotiations. Yes, they’re a pain in the arse and I’d far rather we didn’t have to go through the charade. But, at least for the moment, we do, particularly with our public sector contracts. And we’ve done it systematically so we weaken their hand with every deal we sign.’ She sighed. ‘You know all that, Peter. You just like playing the hard man. But it’s not the point, anyway. The point is that the trashing of the car, although it was only small beer, was yet another thing that made us look bad. Made us look as though we weren’t fully in control.’

  ‘So you think this is all connected?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I just know that we seem to be facing a bigger threat than we’ve ever faced before in the business. I’ve made a good few enemies over the years but I’ve always made sure I’m well and truly in control. Now I’m beginning to feel as if things are slipping away from me and I don’t like it.’

  Hardy was nervously drumming his fingers on the table. ‘I think we’re in too deep to pull back now, Mickey. I don’t think our partners would appreciate it.’

  ‘That’s another thing I don’t like. I don’t like the fact that the only contact I’ve got with our so-called partners is through you. That’s another reason I don’t feel on top of any of this.’

  ‘We’ve talked about this. It’s partly to protect you. If this should go pear-shaped for any reason – not that it’s going to – you’re not too deeply embroiled. You can deny all knowledge of the funding.’

  ‘And I went along with that. But I’m beginning to think it’s bollocks. If this does go tits-up and that funding turns out to be as dodgy as I suspect it is, then I’m as deep in the shit as you are. Nobody’s going to believe I didn’t know the full story. And the fact is that I do know the story, or at least enough of it. So don’t give me any crap about protecting me. It’s just that I have to depend on you to act as the conduit.’

  ‘And, as you know, that’s also partly because they insisted on it. I’ve worked with some of these people for years. They know me and they trust me. That’s why they were prepared to deal with me in the first place.’

  ‘Has it over occurred to you that maybe they’re dealing with you because no one else is prepared to deal with them?’

  ‘Now you’re the one talking bollocks, Mickey. With respect. They could deal with anyone they wanted to. They’re dealing with us because they know we’re good at what we do.’

  ‘I still don’t like not being in control.’ She was aware that a note of petulance was creeping into her voice. That was another thing about Peter, she thought. He had a habit of taking on a quasi-paternal role with her, which meant that she slipped, often without realising it, into a state almost of dependency. It was another way he’d insinuated himself into her life, by creating the illusion that she couldn’t manage without him. It was nonsense, of course. She’d never been dependent on anyone in her life, and she had no intention of changing now.

  There was no question, though, that for the moment she needed Hardy. He was right that they were now too deeply caught up in all this to withdraw. In any case, she had no idea what the consequences of withdrawing might be, although she imagined their unnamed partners would not take it with good grace. As long as they continued, she needed Hardy’s knowledge and experience. There’d come a time, though, and it wouldn’t be too far distant, when she’d discard him in the same way she’d discarded everyone else who’d believed they were indispensable to her. If she was going to do that, first she had to claw back full control of the business.

  ‘It’s about delegation,’ Hardy went on. ‘That’s all. You’re just delegating that aspect of the business relationship to me.’

  Patronising git, she thought. Out loud, she said, ‘It’s not good enough, Peter. I’ve been thinking this through since last night. This is my business, and I’m taking a big risk with it.’

  ‘For big rewards.’

  ‘Potentially for big rewards, yes, or so you tell me. But none of that’s guaranteed, and if this goes badly wrong we could end up very seriously exposed. At the moment, I don’t really even know what the consequences of that might be.’ She paused, watching his face. ‘The thing is, Peter – the really important thing – at present it’s showing all the signs of going badly wrong.’

  ‘We’ve barely even started yet, for Christ’s sake. We haven’t even begun to pitch for a lot of this work. How can it be going wrong?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m asking myself. We’ve hardly even begun this and my bloody son’s been murdered. Not to mention Keith Chalmers. How can that be?’

  ‘We don’t know th
at that’s anything to do with all this.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting? That it’s all just a great big bloody coincidence?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘But what, Peter? Somebody’s targeting me. I don’t know who or why, but I do know this kind of thing hasn’t happened to me before. Then there was that threatening call you took last night. It could be me next, Peter.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘I want to know what I’m really getting into here. I want to take back some control of it. I’m not looking to throw my weight around, but, with the best will in the world, I can’t do a decent job if I don’t know what it is I’m dealing with.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘I want to meet them, Peter. I want to meet these mysterious partners of ours. I want to be sure that they’re dealing in good faith.’

  ‘You can’t do that, Mickey. Anyway, why wouldn’t they be dealing in good faith? They put up the money with no conditions attached. No strings.’

  ‘Except that they expect to see a suitable return on their investments. Oh, and they’ve told us which sectors and which contracts to pitch for.’

  Hardy shook his head, as if exasperated at her failure to understand. ‘Of course they want a decent return on their investment. They’re business people. They’re not just going to throw money down the drain. And, yes, they’ve opened doors for us, introduced us to sectors and companies we couldn’t have got near before.’

  ‘But how?’ Wentworth said. ‘If these people are as publicity-shy as you keep telling me, Peter, how come they’ve got all these big business contacts?’

  ‘That’s how it works, isn’t it? You’re not naive, Mickey. They’ve got all kinds of people on the payroll. That’s part of the point.’

  ‘Including us, now.’

  ‘If you want to put it like that.’

  ‘There’s no other way to put it. That’s where we are. And that’s why I want to meet them.’

  ‘I don’t know—’