“Alasdair doesn’t judge,” she says. “He knows what it’s like. His wife, Angelina, died after a long illness about eighteen months ago. He still misses her as if it was yesterday. That’s why we talk.”
“Therapy, you mean?”
She squeezes my hand. “Gemma knows what it’s like to lose a father. Okay, he walked out when she was a child, but the loss is the same.”
“I’m fine,” I say, getting to my feet. “If it helps to talk to Dav … Alasdair, then I’m cool with that. But what if he wants more than talk?”
She considers for a moment. “What if I do?”
***
At work on Thursday morning, I struggle to concentrate. My talk with Niamh resolved nothing. If anything, it made me realise how bogged down I am. Gemma needs to know I’m over her, though that might be difficult to believe after my outburst of undying love at Tombstone.
Maybe I can show her I’ve moved on by inviting her and Richard to dinner at the sanctuary to celebrate their engagement. And if I invite Davenport, I can make peace with Niamh.
Pleased with my idea, I focus on Todd Walters, who may have supplied meat to Colin Miller. According to the database, Walters has run his butchery business for a long time, resisting the all-conquering supermarkets. He didn’t like anyone in a suit, I seem to recall. I only met him once about 10 years ago when I was a district inspector, or DI as Nigel likes to call it. When he answers the phone, ‘DI Long speaking’, I wonder if he’s a frustrated police officer.
He’s certainly frustrating me. The inspection of Walters’ shop was due seven months ago.
“You awarded him a Food Hygiene Rating of ‘2’, Nigel.” We’re in Toasted, a coffee shop along the High Street from the Town Hall. “Why have you let the inspection slip?”
His stammer frustrates him. He closes his eyes tight shut and reprimands himself with an angry shake of the head. Then he takes out his wallet and stares at the photograph of his wife, who died when their children were at school.
“When Emily was here, I … I … I never worried about anything,” he says. “I knew everything w… w… would work out fine. The district was a different place then. No one challenged what we said because they knew we were helping them.”
He looks up, his eyes mournful beneath their bushy brows. “Now, it’s f… f… f… freedom of information requests, complaints about inspectors, smear campaigns on Facebook. Honestly, Kent, I spend most nights worrying someone’s found something I missed.”
“Like an overdue inspection?”
“W… W… Walters assaulted a VAT inspector. Put him in hospital.”
“When was this?” I ask, wondering why it’s not recorded on the file to warn others.
“About a year ago?”
“Is that why you haven’t inspected him?”
“No. Yes. Well, no, not directly. Since Emily died, I’ve had to look after my girls. They were all that mattered.”
“And you did a great job,” I say, wondering where he’s heading.
“Yes, but they’re in Australia now. We Skype and they’re coming over this Christmas, but I… I… I’m lonely.” He blushes and sips more coffee. “I never thought anyone would be interested. Look at me. I look like my clothes come from a charity shop. I’m clumsy. I… I… I… can’t speak when I get nervous. But she didn’t care.”
“Who didn’t care?”
He swallows and looks at the floor. “Stacey Walters.”
“Todd Walters’ wife?”
Nigel shushes me as my voice rises. He leans closer, sweat beading on his forehead. “The moment I saw her in the shop… She wore tight jeans, a white tee shirt and an apron tied around her waist. She had amazing …” His cupped hands tell me all I need to know. “She used to be a model and there she was, coming on to me while her husband chopped meat in the back room.”
He thrusts his wallet back into his pocket.
“She stood so close, brushing against me. In the storeroom, she said she was hot and took off her apron.”
He stares into his cup, his cheeks burning.
“What happened?” I ask, fearing the worst.
“I wanted her to pull off her top and seduce me, but all I could hear was her husband, chopping up meat. Somehow, I finished the inspection and told him what needed doing. As I left, Stacey asked if I’d be coming back to check on them.”
From the flush of his cheeks, I don’t need to ask if he returned.
“I Googled her,” he says. “She had a different name as a model, but I found photographs of her. I spent every evening, fantasising about her. But when I plucked up the courage to go back, the shop was closed. A neighbour said Todd Walters put an inspector in hospital for messing around with Stacey.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “You think that would have frightened me off, but I went back a few weeks later. Walters went ballistic when I asked after his wife. He stood there, shouting at me, cleaver in hand, going on about someone taking his Stacey away. I don’t know why I said it wasn’t me, but he pinned me to the wall.”
Nigel runs a finger under his collar, clearly distressed. “I thought I was going to die. Then he fell apart and started sobbing, so I legged it.”
“Why didn’t you put a note on file?”
“What if he accused me of sleeping with his wife?”
“You didn’t.”
“No one would have believed me, would they? You know what management are like, Kent. Why would someone complain unless it was true?”
I nod, well aware of what it’s like to have no management support. “But what if Gemma or Lucy visit? They could be in danger.”
“I w… w… w… was going to tell you, Kent, but Walters rang me to apologise.”
“Nigel, he put someone in hospital.”
“I know. I know,” he says, shaking his hands. “I thought if I did the next inspection no one would be at risk.”
“But you haven’t, have you?”
He shrinks into the sofa. “Are you going to report me?”
I should, but after some of my escapades it would be hypocritical. Fortunately, no one’s come to any harm and he knows how badly he behaved. Danni won’t see it like that, and she’d be right, of course, but with jobs on the line, I don’t want to sacrifice Nigel.
“I’ll do the inspection, Nigel. You need to tackle your backlog. That means working evenings for the next few weeks, okay?”
He nods and rises. “No problem. I’m sorry.”
“Next time, you report it right away and put a warning on file.”
He nods and slinks away.
While I wonder whether I was too lenient, Gemma rings. “Kent, you need to see this place. It’s a dump.”
I reach for my pen. “Where are you?”
“Walters’ Butchers in Mayfield. He’s not a happy bunny.”
Eleven
Gemma’s waiting on the pavement in front of St Dunstan’s Church in Mayfield High Street. She huddles beside the stone wall, the collar of her pale blue fleece turned up against the wind.
“You took your time,” she says, scurrying over, white coat in hand.
“Not so fast. You shouldn’t have gone in there.”
“Because I’m not experienced enough to inspect a butcher?”
“Todd Walters assaulted a VAT inspector.”
Doubt defuses the defiance in her eyes. “There’s no warning on the file.”
“You read the file then.”
She glares at me. “If you’d put a warning on file, I wouldn’t have gone in, would I?”
“You shouldn’t have gone in without talking to me first.”
“I’m not psychic, Kent. How the hell can I do my job when you never tell me anything?”
“I would if you’d stop rushing off to do your own thing.”
She stares at me in disbelief. “We wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t dragged you to see the Colonel. If I hadn’t found the printer you wouldn’t know about Walters.”
“And if you’d
spoken to Nigel, the last officer to inspect this place, you’d have discovered Walters has a violent streak.”
“You won’t admit you’re wrong, will you?” When I don’t answer, she turns. “In that case, I’m off to organise my wedding. That’s one thing you can’t screw up.”
She marches down the street, narrowly avoiding a waste bin. When she reaches the coffee shop, she stops, mutters and then marches back. “Okay, so I forgot where I parked.”
“Sometimes you need to take a breath,” I say, stepping in front of her. “What did you say to set Walters off?”
“I saw how grubby the place was when I walked in. I was about to come out and call you when he asked who I was. When I told him, he blew a fuse, so I came out and rang you.”
“Well done. So, do you want to hear what Walters has to say about Colin Miller or not?”
J.T. Walters and Son was established in 1951, according to the faded, traditional sign above the shop. The film of dirt on the glass, and the flaking paint, make me wonder if the windows have been neglected since that date. Inside, the stainless steel display cabinets offer a half-hearted selection of fresh meats and sausages, adding to the impression of a shop on its last legs. The battered blackboards on either side of the entrance reveal the latest offers and conceal the crumbling render on the walls. The door creaks and groans when I push it, setting off a bell as it springs open.
The smell of meat, rancid fat and damp wood greet us. A blend of sawdust, dirt, and waste food coats the bare floorboards. The painted walls are cracked and blistering, bare apart from a couple of faded posters showing various cuts of meat. Behind the counter, which consists of two glass-fronted display cabinets and a worn wooden chopping block, the walls are tiled and lined with a metal rail, used to hang game. Not that there are any birds there. There’s not much meat on display either, which is hardly surprising. I can imagine some of the elderly residents, who remember Mr Walters Senior, remaining loyal, but for how much longer? It’s a shame because we need independent butchers, making proper sausages and burgers, offering us meat that’s to our liking rather than bulk wrapped in plastic.
Todd Walters, a short, muscular man with a neck like a bull, finishes rolling and tying a pork joint on a chopping block that’s as bloody as it is old. He turns, his small, suspicious eyes studying me. He wipes his hands on his filthy white coat and winks at Gemma.
“Brought the boss, have you?”
“Kent Fisher,” I say, holding up my ID.
“I know who you are.” He lifts the lid of a chest freezer and peers inside. “I had a body in here, but I’ve turned it into burgers.”
“Was it a VAT inspector?”
He thuds the lid shut. “What do you want?”
I peer behind the counter at the dirty floor, lined with greasy sheets of cardboard. Several days of sawdust and blood have accumulated in the junction between the floor and the wall and beneath the display cabinets. Mingled into this debris are a couple of pencils, some trampled polystyrene trays, and enough scraps of meat to keep the local rat population happy.
“I’m tempted to close you down,” I reply.
“Then you’d be doing me a favour.”
His weary voice tells me he’s not joking. “Don’t you have an assistant?” I ask.
“Do I look like I can afford an assistant? Unless you want to lend me yours,” he says, looking Gemma up and down. “I think you’d rather like my sweetbreads.”
“I prefer them warm and still attached,” she says.
He grins and starts to undo his coat. “My Stacey liked my sweetbreads.”
“Where is she?” I ask, grabbing the opportunity he’s dangling before me. “According to the last inspection, she ran the shop.”
“Well, as you can see, she’s not here.”
The tension in his voice and stance warns me to back off. I stroll over to the window and look down at the solitary string of sausages, alone on the refrigerated stainless steel plate.
“Must be hard working on your own,” I say. “I’m surprised you’re still trading.”
“I have my regulars.”
“Was Colin Miller a regular?”
Without warning, he grabs a cleaver from a hook on the wall. Gemma screams as he smashes the cleaver into the top of the display cabinet. The glass shatters, collapsing in a shower of fragments on the meat below. Packets of herbs and stuffing leap from the shelf to land on the floor among the rest of the broken glass.
Walters stares at the mess, his chest rising and falling. His eyes bulge as he raises his arm once more.
“Put the cleaver down, Mr Walters.” I keep my voice calm and my eyes on the cleaver. “I only want to talk about Colin Miller.”
“His name’s Mellor. Colin Mellor. He stole my Stacey.”
He brings the cleaver thudding into the Formica shelf at the back of the cabinet, missing the electronic scales by a whisker. Tongs fly into the air and clatter to the floor. The neat pile of wrapping paper cascades in a steady stream.
Thankfully, the cleaver’s stuck fast in the shelf.
I glance across to check on Gemma, back pressed against the door, phone in hand. “Step away, Mr Walters,” I say, crunching through the glass, “and tell me about Stacey.”
He tugs at the cleaver once more, determined to wrench it free. When he fails, his thick fingers curl into a fist. A strangled sound starts deep in his throat and erupts into a despairing roar.
“NO!”
He smashes his fist down on the scales. Then he hurls them at the wall, but the electric cable yanks them back. They crash into the side of the cabinet and fall to the floor. Walters, chest heaving, his breath rasping, stares at them until he notices the blood on his knuckles. His shoulders sag and his head falls forward.
I breathe once more. “Everything’s fine, Gemma. No need to ring the police.”
Her expression suggests otherwise.
“Lock the door so no one interrupts us. Mr Walters, where do you keep your first aid kit?”
He looks up, a little dazed. “Upstairs. Why, are you hurt?”
“I was thinking about your hand.”
He glances down and snaps out of his trance. “Shit,” he says, striding towards the butcher’s curtain at the rear of the shop. He pushes through the clear plastic strips, smeared with fat, grease and dirt, and clatters into something on the other side, leading to more expletives.
“It’s okay,” I tell Gemma, who’s still rooted by the door. “He’s upset about losing his wife. And this place, I guess. It must be haemorrhaging money.”
“We should go. He’s unstable.”
“He accused Miller of stealing his wife. Sound familiar?”
“And when you mention Miller, he could go mental again.”
“It’s Mellor,” he calls from the back.
“See, he wants to talk,” I say, suddenly an expert in solving emotional problems. “He’s probably bottled up his feelings since his wife left.”
She glances at the mess on the floor. “You don’t say.”
“If you’re worried, wait for me outside.”
I push through the curtain into the passageway, almost crashing into a twisted stainless steel wash basin, hanging from the wall. Some of the shrink-wrapped bales of plastic trays and containers underneath have scattered across the floor. Though there’s only a faint light from behind, I make out aprons, coats and hats on hooks above a wooden bench, covered with parts from a mincing machine.
At the end of the corridor, I duck under the cobwebs into a musty-smelling room that’s tiled from floor to ceiling. Two letterbox windows high on the far wall cast a subdued light on a bowl chopper, and a sausage making machine, mounted on an adjacent stainless steel table. An industrial sized mincer, minus its innards, sits on another table. Though clean, it doesn’t look like the room or the machines are used much.
The sound of running water takes me to the opposite side of the room, where a spider scrambles to escape one of the two deep sinks. I gr
ab some paper towels from the dispenser above the washbasin and wipe the blood from the cold tap before turning it off. There’s more blood on the side of the basin and on a couple of crumpled paper towels on the floor.
“Gross!” Gemma stops at the door, flapping her hands at the cobwebs.
“I thought you were going to wait.”
“I heard a rat under the floor.”
She ducks under the cobwebs, pushes her hair back and looks around. “What’s this?” she asks, peering inside the bowl chopper.
“It mixes the sausage meat,” I reply. “When we’ve got more time, I’ll tell you all about butchery.”
“As long as you skip the sweetbreads,” she says with a grin. “I’ve seen plenty.”
I push through the door in the corner and head up uncarpeted stairs, covered on one side with exercise books. They’re Walters’ accounts, going back decades it seems. They continue along the right hand side of the landing, breaking only for doors, stripped of paint. A door on the left opens into a living room, which reeks of curry, courtesy of the mountain of trays on the dining table. Two sofas, which look ready for the tip, form an L-shape that cordons off an old TV on a pedestal and a small hi fi stack.
Walters stands by the fireplace, rubbing cream into his knuckles from a container on the mantelpiece. The recess to one side contains fitted pine cupboards with louvre doors. The recess on the other side contains a frame for a cupboard. The partially stripped wallpaper and holes and cracks plugged with filler, suggest some kind of renovation, now defeated by mess and neglect.
Maybe the makeover stopped when Stacey left.
“I’m sorry about …” Walters replaces the lid on the container and stomps across to the window. He pulls back the grubby net curtain and looks out at the High Street. “I’ve lived here all my life. No mortgage, no loans, no debts. Then Colin Mellor turned me over.”
Gemma tenses as Walters’ fingers curl into fists.
“My suppliers want to take me to court,” he says, turning. “I told them to go ahead. I have nothing, so they’re welcome to as much as they want. Even the furniture’s worthless,” he says, kicking one of the sofas. “Place looks like a tip, doesn’t it?”
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