Without saying anything to Patrick I had rung the rectory at Hinton Littlemoor the previous evening. Thankfully, Elspeth and her friend had decided to give the sale a miss.
Carrick continued, ‘Survivors from members of staff have reported that when the fire alarm sounded all senior staff immediately disappeared and they got the impression they left the premises altogether. Questioned further some said they had never seen management taking any kind of leading role during fire practices. The fact that they would appear to have left at an early stage was confirmed early this morning when the underground car park was examined – it virtually escaped damage – and it was obvious that the only significant empty spaces were where you, Ingrid, said the cars drove off from before, the area nearest the exit.’
‘I simply can’t believe anyone with arson in mind would start a fire when the place was full of people!’ Greenway exclaimed. ‘If you’re going to burn the bloody store down why not do it at night?’
‘To make it look as if it wasn’t arson?’ Patrick suggested.
‘If so they must have a very dim view of fire brigade investigators,’ Carrick said disgustedly. ‘No, I reckon they set fire to it during the day as a two-finger salute to the police.’
We digested this for several seconds in silence and then Carrick said, ‘Something useful has emerged from this mess. A woman who suffered minor burns to her hands and face went to the police when she left A and E, said she was Steven Ballinger’s PA and that she wanted to make a statement, to talk to someone senior, in fact. She actually seems to have acted as secretary to quite a few senior staff at the store. I understand she’s being interviewed again this morning but the gist of what I was told last night is that she’d suspected for a while that something wasn’t quite right with the place.’
Patrick butted in with, ‘Is she being given police protection?’
‘Armed protection,’ Carrick answered.
‘I would like her to be brought here,’ Greenway said.
‘I thought you would,’ the DCI said. ‘I understand that Superintendent Reece will contact you this morning following what she says at the local nick to see if you think it worth bringing her all this way, with regard to her injuries and the fact that Miss—’
‘I want her here whatever she says,’ was the uncompromising interruption from Greenway. ‘So Patrick can get the full story out of her.’
‘I’ll go and borrow some thumbscrews from the Tower of London now,’ Patrick said, half-rising from his seat.
Once you have a certain reputation it seems that you can never lose it.
Greenway waved him down. ‘No, no, all right. Sorry. I didn’t mean that you’d beat the woman up.’
‘And the fact that Miss Dean is well over sixty years of age,’ Carrick persevered.
‘So we’d better wait and see what Reece says,’ Greenway decided. ‘Anything else?’ he asked Carrick.
‘Yes. Just before the case’s handover yesterday Reece’s team discovered both Madderly Ritter’s and Kyle Jeffers’ addresses. From a snout they lent on heavily, I understand. I say “addresses” but Ritter had been roughing it in a squat as the girl he had recently moved in with – no, started living off – threw him out. Jeffers had a council flat in the St Pauls area of the city. It appears that a somewhat headstrong sergeant, Cunningham, ignored orders to leave well alone until other people had been consulted – in other words, you sir – and he and a couple of others broke in. The place is like a slaughterhouse – it was where they were tortured and killed. That’s the next decision. Do you want them to send in their scenes-of-crime people or use your own?’
Greenway looked at Patrick who wordlessly intimated that it was Greenway’s decision to make.
‘I can see no reason why they shouldn’t investigate this,’ the SOCA man said slowly. ‘And to put matters straight it wasn’t at my behest that Avon and Somerset was removed from the investigation. Morley was their man so let them get on with it. I shall just need the findings, that’s all.’
Patrick caught my gaze and smiled. This was noticed by the other two who immediately remembered my presence.
‘Any comments, Ingrid?’ Greenway enquired.
‘Only one,’ I said. ‘This man will pull another big stunt, commit another crime. He’s probably raving mad. So if you’re going to send Patrick undercover – F9 or no – then I suggest you do it quickly.’
‘We’ll see what Miss … er …’ Greenway glanced at his notes. ‘Dean, has to say first.’
Miss Phillipa Dean, it transpired, did not want any fuss made of her injuries, which she reckoned to be a minor inconvenience, and as she had a sister in west London would be delighted to talk to SOCA on condition that she was taken to her sister’s home afterwards. When told that she would be taken to a safe house with her minder, plus a woman constable, where her sister could, if she wished, join her there was reluctant acquiescence.
By this time all of us were sick to death of sitting in offices, talking, and later that day, when Miss Dean was shown into the room, a different one, where the interview was to take place I knew we were doing our very best not to appear as world-weary as we felt. James Carrick was not present. It had been felt that four of us was at least one too many inquisitors. He was not far away though, liaising by phone with Paul Reece on the latest findings on the fire.
Greenway made the introductions and everyone sat down. The venue that had been selected was an informal one furnished with armchairs, a low table, reproduction paintings of old scenes of the city on the walls and even a small vase of flowers. Miss Dean was asked if she had been given refreshments but this was for politeness’ sake as we knew already that she had, during which time we had read her statement. Greenway asked about her burns – a small dressing was affixed to her left cheekbone and there were others on the backs of her hands – and was told they were nothing. Further questioning revealed that she had acquired them in trying to push open a fire door in a smoke-filled corridor while clasping her bag to herself only to find that it was red hot. It seemed a miracle that she was here at all.
There was then a mutual eyeing-up.
I reckoned the lady easily to be in her early seventies, her face quite heavily lined, but it had been decided on my suggestion that nobody would be rude enough to ask how old she was. She had moved a little stiffly on entering the room but that could be more to do with sitting in a car for four hours than infirmity. Her hair, brown but greying, was piled on top of her head in an untidy bun, wisps escaping in what was actually a fashionable and engaging manner. And fashionable and poised she was, dressed in an expensive olive green dress and sleeveless jacket with self-coloured embroidery, a heavy amber necklace around her throat and matching earrings. Her eyes were the same colour as the green of her dress and now regarded us shrewdly and steadily.
Although it had also been decided that Patrick would put most of the questions to her Greenway opened the interview with, ‘Thank you for agreeing to come and for making this statement. It is all very businesslike and in it you express your suspicions but we need to flesh it out a little. Please forgive me for asking, but do you still find it necessary to work for financial reasons?’
Miss Dean was not offended. Speaking in her low, soft voice she said, ‘Well, I won’t pretend the money wasn’t useful to me. Adrian, my partner, and I go on holiday to Italy quite a lot. We’re into gardens and architecture. He’s a retired architect.’ She smiled to herself. ‘We met at a nudist camp, as a matter of fact.’
‘So the salary wasn’t the main reason for your going after a job at Slaterford and Sons?’ Patrick asked blandly and heroically not smiling at all, no, not one bit.
‘It was that job I went after,’ she corrected. ‘My typing was still quite good but Adrian taught me to use a computer. I’ve always been good with machines – I used to work at Bletchley Park.’
‘What, the code-breaking place?’ Greenway exclaimed.
She nodded. ‘Yes, for over twenty years. Slaterfor
ds was my last challenge. I told Adrian I didn’t want to go completely to pot yet.’
‘Challenge?’ Patrick echoed.
‘Yes, if ever a shop was run by a bunch of crooks it was that one. You only had to look at them, the senior staff, I mean, with their shifty eyes, to know that something was going on.’
‘So you took the job with a view to finding out more?’ Greenway said.
‘Yes, my father was a detective-sergeant with the Met. But he refused to let me join the police. He said it was a most unsuitable job for a woman. Women belonged in the home, according to him. I have to say I hated him rather.’ She sat up straight and severely addressing us all, added, ‘But this wasn’t me trying to do a Miss Marple, you know.’
‘No, of course not,’ Greenway said quickly.
‘It sounds as though you were very confident about getting the job,’ I said.
‘Only insofar as I had an idea that if there was something illegal going on they’d seek either to employ a young dimwit to do their paperwork for them or a much older person they could write off as too ga-ga to understand anything else. I made out I was computer literate for letters and so forth and that was all. They didn’t want me to get involved with accounts, someone else did that, but it didn’t stop me from having a good nose around the whole IT system. They were so confident in themselves they didn’t even use passwords. And, look, I won’t pretend that I understand all that is there, far from it, because although there was no real security to the system it would appear that nicknames have been given to people and places so it means nothing to an outsider.’
Patrick said, ‘Let me get this straight: you applied for a job at the shop because you thought it dodgy on account of certain shifty-looking individuals. Personally, I think you can go in quite a few organizations and take issue with people’s appearances. Surely there was more to it than that.’
‘Yes, it was Ballinger himself. He killed my neighbour’s little dog when I was out for a walk with her, drove right up onto the pavement to get around another vehicle and ran over it. He almost hit the pair of us. Didn’t stop, just paused long enough to shout obscenities through an open window at her for being in his way.’
‘You recognized him from someone you’d seen in the store?’
‘Yes, he was prowling and poking around when I was in there with Adrian one day previous to that when we were looking for curtain material. Such an odd-looking man. I asked an assistant who he was.’
I was still pondering present tenses in her previous response to a question and said, ‘You said just now that you don’t understand all what is in the database and that it can’t mean anything to an outsider. But surely it’s lost, everything like that must have gone in the fire.’
‘No, it didn’t. By that time – and I hadn’t been there very long – I was more than suspicious after things I’d overheard in conversations and phone calls. It was why I wanted to see someone senior in the police, before I owned up to saving everything on to CD ROMs.’
I thought for a moment that Greenway would burst into tears with gratitude. He said, ‘You wouldn’t by any chance have brought them with you?’
Miss Dean opened her voluminous, designer, pricey, handbag. I wasn’t at all surprised she’d saved it from the fire. ‘Yes, indeed, they’re here.’
The small paper bag and its contents were passed over and immediately delivered into the hands of a computer expert.
‘Tell us about Steven Ballinger,’ Patrick requested when Greenway had come back into the room.
I had noticed that even while responding to Greenway’s questions Miss Dean’s gaze had kept straying to the other man present, with perhaps the smallest hint of apprehension in her expression. He can be intimidating even when not intending to be and I thought it time this was allayed.
‘Please,’ I snapped at him.
He got the message and, although seated, performed a courtly bow, whipping off an imaginary hat. ‘Please,’ he said with a grin.
Miss Dean smiled back at the pair of us. ‘I take it then that Ballinger really is some kind of desperado. I know there was a raid on a Bristol city centre police station and someone was set free. It didn’t say on the news who it was and no one would tell me when I made my statement early this morning.’
‘It was him,’ Patrick confirmed. ‘He’s wanted to answer questions on various serious crimes in the area. What we really need to know is where he lives.’
‘I never knew his address. All his private correspondence was sent to the store. He told me that himself.’
‘And you have absolutely no idea where he went when he left work in the evenings?’
‘No, none. He never mentioned a family either.’
‘Please tell us all you do know about him.’
Miss Dean pondered for a few moments and then said, ‘Well, obviously, I was forewarned of the kind of person he could be and have to say I was nervous on the first morning. I was worried that he might recognize me even though he had given no sign that he did at the interview. But nothing untoward happened and I thought to begin with that I might have been mistaken in my identification of him as the man driving the car. He was actually rather disappointing; a very tall, thin man whose voice was squeaky until he shouted. He appeared oddly nervous of things – spiders, for example and if one was in his office I was called in to deal with it.’
‘Would you say that in some ways he was an ineffectual sort of person?’
‘Yes, that’s a good question; he was. I think that with some men who are deficient in some way, they compensate – like those of short stature who wear metal tips on the soles of their shoes and strut around. Who knows what the problem is – unless it’s his voice, of course – perhaps he’s lacking … in hidden areas.’ Here she smiled broadly at both men as if to assure them that they could not possibly come under this heading and then said, ‘Ballinger compensated for whatever problem he has, consciously or not, by flying into rages. Then the man who had driven on to the pavement and almost knocked down two women emerged.’
‘Go on,’ Patrick said when she paused.
‘To re-cap slightly: nothing that happened initially at Slaterfords excited my suspicions. They were very careful about that. I sent out letters in connection with job applications and things like that, dealt with callers, most of whom were hopeful employees. There were other visitors who were whisked straight past me to see Ballinger. His office was next to mine. Things became interesting when there were arguments and he lost his temper. That is the thing I remember most about him, his dreadful temper. As time went by there always seemed to be rows going on. I could hear them through the wall and out in the main corridor. I came to think that the man was mentally unbalanced as he would fly into a rage over nothing.’
‘Were you ever frightened for your own safety?’ I enquired.
‘Yes, a little. I hate it when people shout. I just kept out of the way or had an early lunch break.’
‘What sort of nothings set him off?’ Patrick wanted to know.
‘I once heard him yelling that no one had told him that it was raining before he went out for something and he’d got wet. All he’d had to do was look out of the window. He seemed to have a lot of disagreements with a man called Bob.’
‘Do you know his surname?’
‘No, no one used surnames. Which was the first thing I found odd, but then again things are much more informal these days.’
‘Did you ever speak to this man yourself?’
‘No, he wasn’t there very often. Oh yes, once. I wished him good morning.’
‘Did he reply?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Would you say he was a Scot?’
‘He might have been.’
Patrick said to Greenway, ‘Professional curiosity makes me want to ask James to come in for a moment.’
Greenway picked up the phone and a minute or so later the DCI arrived.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Dean,’ he said.
�
��Did he speak like that?’ Patrick asked her.
‘Yes, just like that.’ She gave Carrick a scrutinizing stare. ‘In fact you look like him, only younger.’
Patrick told her who he was and then said, ‘Would you mind if he stays or is that too many of us for you?’
She said that she did not mind at all and James seated himself.
‘So what was the general atmosphere like on a day-to-day basis?’ Patrick asked. ‘How did these people behave towards you?’
‘When I first started working there the various men – no other women worked in the admin department except the accounts clerk – spoke to me in a very patronising way, as though talking to a child, possibly on account of my age. One of them was actually a bit sneery and made remarks about geriatrics taking over the planet. I retaliated by correcting all his grammatical errors when he was speaking to me and he soon gave up. They soon realized that I could string a letter together and didn’t wreck the office photocopier so attitudes improved and on the surface all was fairly polite and businesslike. I didn’t deliberately set out to be myself, or too clever, as I wanted to find out what was going on without creating suspicion.’
‘You were Ballinger’s PA as well, I understand,’ Patrick said. ‘What did that entail?’
‘I booked air and rail tickets for him, arranged hotel rooms and acted as a go-between for the members of staff at the store and Ballinger. By that I mean those who worked on the retail side. They were very grateful to me for that. Most of them were scared of those in charge.’
I found this revealing with regard to this lady sitting facing us. Either a bunch of crooks minded their Ps and Qs when she was around or she was much braver than we had first assumed.
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