by Janet Neel
‘The point, John, if I may get back to it, is that some of the chaps who are fixing steel at Bertrand Terrace have worked on the Western Underpass site, and some of them also worked on a Vernon site in the Barbican. I know this because I tend to have tea with them all in the morning, pour encourager, you know.’
His sister observed that this simple human action must provide enormous inspiration to the men, and McLeish told her to shut up and let Perry get on.
‘Anyway, they were telling the usual tall stories about the trade, and the lead steel-fixer said not only half the men but also much of the steel being used in London for a couple of weeks earlier this year had come off the Barbican site, and they’d all had another welcome load of cheap steel about three weeks ago off the Western Underpass. A lot of rebar – that’s reinforcing bar, John – and some RSJs in standard sizes. All right, Fran, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m paying the full price, I bet you, and no one told me at the time. Well, I thought it might be important, John, so I made everyone another cup of tea.’
Very possible to imagine the scene, McLeish thought – the gang flattered by having a celebrity waiting on them and eager to hold his interest.
‘It all took rather a long time to come out, but it appears that the steel walked off the site on the back of several lorries in the middle of the night on to little sites where it was received gratefully by assorted steel-fixers and scaffolders. And all this was done with the full authority of a bent gaffer.’
‘Well, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?’ his sister said scornfully. ‘I mean, that’s a major operation, it’s not just a few bags of cement in the back of a van.’
John McLeish had stopped eating, remembering what Robert Vernon had said about theft from the Western Underpass site. ‘The steel vanished on to a dozen little sites, then?’ he enquired, seeing in his mind’s eye the heavily laden flatbed lorries pulling out of the main gate.
‘So my conversation about people taking a few days off big sites may not have been at all irrelevant,’ Francesca said, triumphantly. ‘The scaffolders, steel-fixers, whatever, were involved in the scam. They organized their material off a big site, and then took a few days off to fix the steel on whatever site it went to. John, darling, do eat – you’ll have to go in ten minutes.’
‘That’s theft,’ McLeish said, soberly. ‘And on a large scale. What was all that worth, Perry, did they say?’
‘No. But I pay bills so I know what steel costs – you’re talking in the hundred thousands rather than the tens.’
‘The site accounting system should tell you,’ Francesca pointed out.
‘Hang on, Perry, how does the steel get off the site? I mean, who loads it up, and doesn’t anyone notice?’
‘I don’t know, actually.’
‘I do.’ Francesca was sounding smug. ‘It never got on site.’
Her brother and her lover looked at her blankly.
‘It’s the classic lorry fiddle. It’s terribly simple – eight lorries leave the depot, only seven arrive on site. Deliveries to central London sites tend to be made at night or very early in the morning because of the traffic, so there aren’t that many people there, anyway. All you need is someone to sign for eight lorries. By the time it’s all unloaded it’s pretty difficult to sort out how many brought it.’
‘And lorry number eight is offloading somewhere else?’
‘That’s right. But a staff man has to sign the lorries in, so someone reasonably senior has to be in on the fiddle. I helped check lorries one night with a boyfriend on the site, that’s how I know.’
‘I’d like to talk to these lads of yours, Perry,’ McLeish said longingly, ‘but I guess all that would happen is that you’d turn out to have misunderstood every word said to you, and half an hour later you wouldn’t have a labour force.’
‘For you, John, I’ll risk that. I do understand that having a sister take up with a senior copper involves certain responsibilities.’
‘I’m honoured. No, I don’t need to do that yet. I’ll get the site records checked, see if anyone on the steel-fixing or scaffolding side was working late any time in that month and who left the site around then.’
‘You may not find them again, John; it’s that kind of trade. The Irish will be off at the first hint of trouble, for a start,’ Perry observed.
‘I’ll find the staff bloke who covered for them, if no one else. No?’ He looked enquiringly at Francesca who was frowning doubtfully.
‘Well, darling, staff don’t clock on or off. No nonsense about democracy on a building site, it’s them and us. Also, of course, staff don’t get overtime. I mean, whoever was on duty checking lorries then might well not have been recorded as being there.’
‘I’ll have to start with the clock records, anyway. It was a scaffolder, after all, who was murdered.’
He looked across at Francesca who was drinking tea. She nodded. ‘The trades are to some extent interchangeable. I mean a scaffolder can certainly fix RSJs. I was just wondering who you were going to turn up.’
‘Yes, I was too.’ He finished his coffee and hesitated, watching Perry who was getting himself another drink.
‘I’ve gone, sorry John. Ruined your evening, but I thought you’d better know. Nice to have seen you.’ He vanished upstairs with his glass.
‘I hope Alan wasn’t in it.’ Francesca was looking anxious.
‘So do I. I don’t like the timing – he was killed just before he could have a drink with me, and I’d had to tell the site management I was police in order to get a message to him. This one’s a bit close to home for us, isn’t it?’
‘Worse for you. I wasn’t as fond of him as you were.’
‘You think he’d have been in a major theft?’
‘Well, he only wanted to climb, didn’t he? I mean nothing else quite mattered enough to him. So, if he saw a reasonably risk-free way of making some cash, then yes, it wouldn’t amaze me.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘I don’t quite know what would have happened with Perry, if he hadn’t always been able to do exactly what he wanted. He only wants to be a successful singer, nothing else matters when push comes to shove. Tristram’s the same – we’ll just have to hope he can get there easily, like Perry.’
McLeish moved to sit next to her and put an arm round her. ‘Why aren’t you like that?’
‘Maybe because I’m not talented enough in any one thing. I don’t feel like that about anything – you know, that I must have it, at all costs.’
No, McLeish thought, you don’t, do you? You don’t feel like that about any one person either, more’s the pity. He got heavily to his feet, trying to concentrate his mind on the coming interview with Bill Vernon.
‘Can you come back afterwards?’ Francesca was putting a packet in the pocket of his jacket. ‘It’s just an apple and a biscuit.’
‘Please not one of the biscuits you gave me yesterday. I felt like the prodigal son.’
He laughed at her as she frowned in concentration.
‘Ah, the husks that the swine would not eat. They aren’t that bad, you ungrateful monster.’
‘No, just a bit husky. Thanks for supper – I’ll try and come back, not too late.’ He kissed her and got into his car, and waved as he went, but she had already gone back into the house. Perhaps no one who wanted things or people passionately and exclusively could be married to a policeman; the job would be too much of a rival. In that sense he was lucky: he did not have to worry, as so many of his colleagues did, about a wife sitting at home waiting longingly for him to arrive. Fran would be with her brothers, or working at the Department, or organizing the College Appeal, or something of that order. It ought to be a thoroughly satisfactory arrangement, but he sometimes felt a few tears and reproaches when he was late or absent would not come amiss.
He drove into the New Scotland Yard car park and checked his office, finding Bruce Davidson waiting for him.
‘Got some dinner in, or was she too cross with you?’
‘Yes. She wasn’t all that bothered, the brothers were there. Peregrine had some useful information too.’ McLeish brought Bruce Davidson swiftly up to date.
‘Well, if Fraser was in it, so was Hamilton, wasn’t he? Or could Hamilton have been running a wee bit of private enterprise, and then killed Fraser to prevent him telling the sponsors?’
Both of them considered this.
‘I don’t think so, Bruce. They’re partners. The records ought to give us a lead, but I think they were either both in it or neither was. Hamilton could have killed him for a bigger share, though.’
‘What about the gaffer, whoever he was?’
‘I’ll pick that up tomorrow with Mr Makin. Oh, thank you, Sergeant – Bill Vernon’s here, Bruce.’
McLeish went ahead of Davidson into one of the small interview rooms and greeted Bill Vernon, who was looking vaguer and more gangling than ever. McLeish went through the usual preamble, explaining that the case was now beyond doubt one of murder and linked to an earlier attempt in Scotland.
Vernon nodded. ‘I can’t quite remember where I was the day that Fraser had that fall in Scotland,’ he said, anxiously. ‘I know I was in the bar about seven-thirty because I can remember hearing about it then. I was fishing in the afternoon, but I packed that up early and just mooched about, had some tea on the hill … I really couldn’t be exact about any of the times.’
‘It was about five-thirty that Fraser fell.’
‘I’m sorry, I really couldn’t be sure where I was, but I was a good couple of miles from the Wall.’
Another missing alibi, McLeish thought; but it wasn’t unreasonable, given the nature of people’s occupations on a holiday in the Highlands. Mooching about was one of the great pleasures of the place for a good walker – and all the Vernons were that, including Dorothy, who would walk miles to fish the hill lochs. He turned his attention to the events at the Western Underpass site.
‘The estimators didn’t put in nearly enough for the Section I groundworks, and there’s obviously been some misunderstanding. I’m a quantity surveyor and responsible for measuring what actually does get in, and it’s not our fault. But Nigel Makin, who is running very fast to the top, behaves as if we had personally got the figures wrong. We’re working together to see if we can claw any of it back from the client,’ he finished importantly.
‘How is all that going?’
‘Not too bad. I don’t mind old Nigel, he’s all right when you know him, and we’ve found quite a lot of room to manoeuvre.’
McLeish, who had perceived Nigel Makin as a hard man, decided he must also be a good manager of people; he was obviously getting the best of what there was out of this not very competent employee.
‘You’ve been on the Western Underpass site from the beginning, then?’
‘Yes, since April. I was on our other major London civil engineering site at the Barbican before that, but not for very long.’
‘I understand from your father that there is some concern on this site about possible theft?’
‘That’s always a problem on a major site, particularly in London.’
‘I’m asking, because it might in this case have some bearing on Alan Fraser’s murder. Anything you can tell me may be useful. I’ll take it up, of course, with Mr Makin but I’ve not had a full discussion with him yet.’
The tall man opposite looked back at him blankly. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything useful. I know Nigel has been very worried about theft from the site. I don’t quite know what his specific worry is. I don’t even know if he thinks Fraser was involved.’
McLeish decided this avenue of enquiry was proving unremunerative and proceeded to ask about the Vernon family relationships. ‘I believe that you are the son of Robert Vernon and his first wife?’
‘Yes, I am. My mother has not remarried so she is Mrs Vernon, too. Very confusing. What has that to do with Alan Fraser’s death?’
Not as green as he’s cabbage-looking, McLeish thought sourly in the argot of his childhood.
‘Alan Fraser seems to have been fairly involved with the Vernon family; I was trying to establish how they all fitted together.’
‘You’ve talked to Sally, and you therefore know she’s pregnant – possibly by Fraser?’
‘Yes. When did she tell you?’
‘Two or three days ago, I suppose. I was very sorry for her. She’d obviously got herself into a real mess.’
And her half-brother was not at all displeased, McLeish noted; the undercurrent of satisfaction was unmistakable.
‘Did you offer her any advice?’ he asked, with interest.
‘No, no, it was obviously a situation beyond advice. She’d told Alan, and he’d said he really didn’t want to marry her, he wanted to go to K6. He’s always only wanted to go to K6; he’d do anything to get there and I would have thought she knew that. She’d have been much better to stick to Nigel Makin – he’s going to take over from Robert in the fulness of time and she’ll have it all that way. Not that she needs it: Robert’s settled money on both of us already.’
‘Is it a substantial amount?’
‘I’d call two million-odd substantial, yes. It’s going to buy me a decent-sized farm. Sally got the same – in fact she’s got it already; my settlement’s still going through. I had a small sum before, but Robert has decided to give me the same as Sally.’
‘Was this recently?’
‘I don’t know when he decided. He told me when we were all in Scotland, and the lawyers are still messing around with the detail.’
‘That must have been a very pleasant piece of news.’
‘It was indeed. I’d been hoping to get out of construction and into running a farm, but I thought it was going to take a very long time. I’m going to buy in the Borders when the lawyers get through – it’s hill land, of course, but the people there make a very decent living, and it’s a very pleasant way of life. Lots of hunting. My mother’s people came from there.’
McLeish considered him with interest; he had relaxed and was obviously happy. He wondered idly whether Bill was going to be a good farmer where he had not been particularly successful as a quantity surveyor. Disconcertingly, Bill read his mind.
‘I’m good with animals,’ he said. ‘And I love the country. My mother pushed me into being a quantity surveyor because she thought it would please Robert. He has enough sense, does Robert, not to care whether he has a son to follow him; he’s got Nigel – or he had Nigel – and that’s all he needs.’
‘You think that Nigel – Mr Makin – will want to do something else now?’
‘Well, I would, wouldn’t you? I don’t think I’d want to stay in the same company as my fiancée who’d got herself pregnant by someone else, ambitious bugger though he is. No, I’d expect him to be off.’
‘Even in the middle of an investigation of theft on site?’
‘Well, I don’t think he’ll get very far with that. One usually doesn’t, you know; everyone involved tends to drift away.’
‘Or to fall from a scaffolding tower.’ McLeish spoke more sharply than he had meant to, and the man opposite blinked.
‘I’m sorry? Are you saying Alan Fraser was involved?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I’m afraid it’s possible.’ Bill Vernon sounded uncomfortable, bending his head so the dark cow-lick fell into his eyes. ‘He only wanted to climb, you see, and he desperately needed money. If it was easy for him, he might have been involved. But I don’t know, and I oughtn’t to be speculating like this – poor Alan is dead, after all.’ He gazed at them both reproachfully, obviously distressed by the line the questioning had taken, and McLeish looked back at him thoughtfully.
‘It’s been suggested to me that there was a lorry fiddle.’
Bill Vernon looked at him, blankly. ‘Oh, sorry, yes, see what you mean. Where not all the lorries unload. That is the easy way of stealing materials, yes.’
‘Who would have been responsible for checking the lorr
ies?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to ask Nigel Makin that, or Jimmy Stewart. That’s a matter of site management, if Nigel’s still interested enough.’ He bit his thumbnail thoughtfully. ‘I can’t believe that he will be, though.’
McLeish persevered for a few minutes more, then thanked Vernon and left him with Davidson to get the statement typed up and signed. The Western Underpass site was on his way home, and he decided to stop there. The site was not working but the fence was brightly lit and there were lights in the Section I offices. The tower from which Alan Fraser had fallen had grown to an unrecognizable shape but it was still possible to see on the ground the remnants of the chalk outline he had drawn round Fraser’s body, even though the pile of steel over which Fraser had broken his back had been moved. As he watched, the big gates of Section I opened to admit two lorries, loaded with some sort of steel. He moved closer to look and found himself a few yards from Jimmy Stewart, clipboard in hand, conferring with the first driver.
McLeish nodded to him and waited patiently till the lorries were through.
‘Good evening Chief Inspector.’ Stewart was looking wary.
McLeish greeted him and chatted idly about the site until the man had relaxed.
‘Do you always check the lorries in yourself, then?’ he asked, following a general question about progress.
‘No. Some of our steel went walkies before it ever got here, so I’m checking. I’m not having theft on my site, so I’m here to make sure everyone gets the message. The sub-agents can do it from next week, though, I hope. I don’t want to have to do this right to the end of the job.’
McLeish expressed polite pleasure that Stewart’s burden would be eased in the near future. The system of checking loads had plainly been inadequate and Stewart had done exactly as McLeish or a senior policeman would have in the circumstances – made certain that for the future responsibility rested unequivocally in senior hands.
‘Is Hamilton back with you on the scaffolding or is he still away?’ he asked, out of curiosity.
‘Came back this afternoon, but only to ask about his pay. He’s got an interview tomorrow, hasn’t he? But he’ll not be back, he said. The Doolans, well, they’re Paddies, aren’t they? They’ve gone, they’re too superstitious to carry on, now.’