“Yes.” I had no choice but to admit it.
“So…what happened?”
It was a fair question. I couldn’t have supplied a complete answer even if I’d wanted to. Syd already knew more about my affairs than was good for him. Far more than I knew about his. Some judicious pruning of the facts was called for. “Denis was obviously upset when I spoke to him. He was probably already feeling unwell. He’d keeled over by the time I got to him. There was nothing I could do.”
“He was the bookie in Long Odds, wasn’t he?” Syd asked.
“You have a good memory.”
“Names and faces.” He tapped his forehead. “They’ve always stuck. Aud and I were sorry you had to dash off like that. If we’d—” He broke off as the door opened behind me. “Watch out. Here’s Gav.” Then he added, in a hasty whisper, “Best not mention the untimely to him, hey? Might jangle his nerves.”
I was still puzzling over Syd’s reasoning when he commenced a grinning introduction. Gavin Colborn failed to reciprocate with a grin of his own, my impression being that he’d need lessons before attempting one. His narrow, bony face was set in sombre lines beneath a jutting brow. He was as thin as a rail and slightly stooped, dressed in a frayed grey suit and black rollneck beneath the sort of raincoat Harold Wilson used to wear. He’d lost most of his hair and the only similarity to his nephew was to be found in the bizarrely beautiful sapphire blue of his deep-socketed eyes. The idea that we needed to worry about making him nervous seemed utterly absurd.
“Great to see you, Gav,” Syd enthused irrepressibly between the practicalities of ordering drinks. “It’s been too long. Far too long.”
“I don’t get out so much these days,” said Colborn, a gust of sour whisky reaching me on his breath.
“You’ll have seen Tobe’s face on the poster at the Royal.”
“I’ve not passed that way recently. I’m no theatregoer, Mr. Flood.”
“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea,” I responded, speculating idly on what Gavin Colborn’s cup of tea could possibly be.
“I gather you want to discuss my nephew.”
“Small talk’s never been Gav’s speciality,” said Syd as we carried our drinks to the fireside table that was rapidly becoming our regular berth. “I’ve told him it’s the key to success with the ladies, but he takes no notice.”
“I assume you’re a busy man, Mr. Flood,” said Colborn, lighting up a cigarette. “I don’t want to bore you.”
If this remark was meant as a put-down, it signally failed. “We’re on first names here, Gav,” said Syd. “Isn’t that right, Tobe?”
“Yes, Syd,” I said with self-conscious emphasis.
“Well, then…Toby,” said Colborn, “let me see if I understand the situation. Syd tells me you’re seeking to assess my nephew Roger’s suitability as a husband for your ex-wife, about whose welfare you’re still…concerned.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Yes.”
“How did he strike you?”
“They didn’t come to blows, Gav,” put in Syd.
Colborn said nothing, letting his question hang in the air while Syd got a chortle out of his system. “He’s obviously intelligent,” I eventually replied. “And charming. Attractive to women, as well, I imagine.”
“Yes,” said Colborn deliberatively. “He’s certainly all of those things.”
“But is he honest?”
“That’s the essence of your inquiry, is it…Toby?” (He still didn’t seem at ease with my Christian name.) “Is Roger an honourable man?”
“Well, is he?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m…inclined to doubt it.”
“So you should.”
“Any…particular reason?”
“Several. But I must declare an interest. Or rather a grievance. I have Roger to thank for my present situation. Penury’s a miserable experience and it grows more miserable with age. You can be poor, happy and young. So they tell me, anyway. But poor, happy and old? That you cannot be.”
“You should have backed more of my tips over the years, Gav,” said Syd. “You’ve got to speculate to accumulate.”
“I wouldn’t need to if Roger hadn’t shafted me.” There was bitterness in Colborn’s voice now. He was no doting uncle.
“How did he do that?”
“By manipulating his father—my elder brother, Walter—who took over the running of the family firm, Colbonite, when our father stepped down. He thought he could do a better job without me on board. I was…eased out.” A rough calculation suggested that Roger could only have been a child at the time Gavin was describing and in no position to manipulate anyone, but I didn’t contest the point. Soon enough, I sensed, we’d come on to meatier stuff. “I had some company shares, held in trust during our father’s lifetime and subsequently mine to do with as I pleased. The same arrangement was made for our sister, Delia. They weren’t worth a lot. Or so I thought. Roger went straight into Colbonite from university. In the mid-eighties, he…persuaded me to sell him my shares. He chose his moment well. I was…going through a bad patch. I needed the money. I found out later he’d pulled the same trick with Delia. What neither of us knew was that he’d already started encouraging Walter to wind up the business. Closing Colbonite down freed them to sell the company’s most valuable asset—a dyeing patent. That set Roger up very nicely. Having bought Delia’s shares as well as mine, his slice of the pie was that much bigger. And Delia and I got no slice at all. Do you know what he said when I confronted him? ‘It was nothing personal, Uncle,’ he said. ‘It was just a matter of business.’ A matter of business? The bastard. It was a matter of two and a half million pounds.”
“Christ!” Syd choked on his beer. “I never knew it was that much.”
“You know now.”
“No wonder you were seriously dischuffed.”
“I had no legal claim, you understand, Toby,” Colborn went on. “I could only ask for what Roger described as a hand-out. I could only…beg. Which I did. To no avail. He wouldn’t pay me a penny.”
“What about your brother?”
“Walter said it was up to Roger. After all, it was Roger who’d bought my shares. So, Walter settled into a comfortable retirement at Wickhurst Manor, Roger slid off to Jersey to dodge the taxman and I…got by as best I could.”
“Delia too, presumably.”
“No. Delia got lucky. She met a rich man and married him. It was wine and roses for her too. I was the only one on bread and water. Still am.”
“Roger more or less admitted he hadn’t been above a bit of sharp practice in the past,” I said. “He claims to be a reformed character since meeting Jenny.”
“The love of a good woman can work miracles,” said Syd with a sickly smile.
“Believe that if you want to,” Gavin retorted. “Roger will certainly want you to. He was an evil child. And he’s grown into a devious, self-serving man.”
“We’re into leopard-and-spots territory here, are we, Gav?” Syd enquired.
“Put it this way.” Gavin’s voice dropped to a sandpapery rasp. “If Roger’s suddenly developed a soft centre, how come he’s failed to put right any of the strokes he’s pulled? A hand-out to his impecunious uncle wouldn’t go amiss, considering how he ripped me off sixteen years ago, but there’s been bugger-all sign of it. And what about all those poor sods who’ve had their lives shortened by working for Colbonite? What’s he done for them, eh?” Gavin made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “That’s what.”
“Are you talking about…the cancer victims, Gavin?” I tentatively asked.
“You’re better informed than I thought,” he replied, treating me to a meaningful stare.
“I mentioned them,” said Syd.
“I wasn’t aware you knew either.” Gavin’s stare swivelled round to his old school chum in a less than chummy fashion.
“I keep my ear to the ground and my nos
e to the wind. It’s amazing what you pick up.” (Especially if your girlfriend’s secretary to an oncology consultant, I reflected.)
“Is there a definite connection between these cancer cases and Colbonite?” I asked.
“Not as a scientifically proven certainty, no. Walter and Roger hired a chemistry boffin at the University to tie the argument up in knots. Most of the people affected are dead now anyway. There’d be their next of kin, of course. If they could make the case stick, they’d be entitled to compensation.”
“Stacking up to more than two and a half mill?” put in Syd.
“No doubt a lot more. As I understand it, the carcinogen was a curing agent used in a dyeing process. The patented method required its use in a dangerously unstable form. Inhalation of the fumes over a period of years…was a death sentence.”
“Did Roger and your brother know that?” I asked.
“I suspect so, yes. Not at the beginning. But before the end. They sold the patent and closed the company down not because it was unprofitable but because they were afraid the cancer scare would slash its value. Technically, Colbonite didn’t go into liquidation. It was sold to a shell company that was wound up shortly afterwards. Roger’s idea, I’m sure of it.”
“You’re going to have to explain that ploy to us high-finance duds, Gav,” said Syd.
“It means that even if a case for compensation was made out, Roger couldn’t be billed for it, because the responsible party, Colbonite, last belonged to somebody else.”
“So he’s in the clear?” I asked.
“Not quite. If he knew about the risk and failed to disclose it to the purchaser of the patent, he’s guilty of fraud.”
“And who was the purchaser?”
“A South Korean conglomerate.”
“Who’d be just as anxious to dodge compensation.”
“That’s true.”
“So they’re hardly likely to sue Roger.”
“No. But a criminal case could be brought against him in this country.”
“Theoretically.”
“I admit it’s…improbable.”
“Looks like you’ll just have to dream on, Gav,” said Syd.
“Indeed. But that’s hardly the point you’re interested in, is it…Toby? You wanted to know the moral calibre of the man. Now you do.”
“Think this’ll put the missus off him, Tobe?” Syd asked.
“If she believes it, yes.”
“Then I hope you can convince her,” said Gavin.
I looked enquiringly at him. “Some proof would help.” Then I remembered The Plastic Men. And Roger’s stubborn refusal to read it. Maybe there was proof, in the least expected quarter.
Gavin, of course, knew nothing of Derek Oswin and his painstaking history of Colbonite. But that didn’t mean there weren’t any pointers he could put my way. “I don’t know what kind of evidence is likely to sway your wife. Roger has a gift for deceiving people, as I’ve learned to my cost. She probably wouldn’t believe anything I said. You could ask Delia to speak to her, I suppose. One woman to another. But Delia’s grasp of the facts is…limited.”
“How could I contact her?”
“I’ll give you her telephone number.” He reached for Syd’s newspaper, tore an edge off the front page and wrote a name and number on it, then handed the scrap to me. “If you do speak to her, send her…my regards.”
The Colborn family was clearly no warm and harmonious unit. Syd raised an eyebrow at me as I pocketed the note. A brief silence fell.
Then Gavin said, “There’s something else you could mention to your wife. Walter’s death…left a lot of unanswered questions.”
“Car smash, wasn’t it?” Syd asked with a frown.
“Walter was hit by a car while walking along a lane near Wickhurst Manor. The driver was charged with manslaughter.”
“I never knew that,” said Syd. “I thought it was just…an accident. But…manslaughter?”
“The case never came to court. The driver died while awaiting trial.”
“How does that help me convince Jenny that Roger covered up the cancer connection?” I asked.
“The driver died of cancer,” Gavin replied. “He was a former employee of Colbonite. And he was terminally ill when he drove Walter down. If you want my opinion, he held Walter responsible for his illness.”
“You mean…he murdered your brother?”
“In effect, yes.”
“Good God.”
“I can’t say I blame him.”
“Maybe not. But…when did this happen?”
“November, nineteen ninety-five.”
“Was their…working relationship…reported at the time?”
“I don’t recall. I knew of it. As did others. Whether it made the pages of the Argus…” Gavin shrugged. “Roger’s a great puller of strings.”
“You could check that, though, Tobe,” said Syd. “They’ll have the Argus back to eighteen hundred and God-knows-when up at the Library.”
“Yes,” I mused. “So they will.”
“I hope I’ve been of some help,” said Gavin.
“You have. Yes. Thanks.” My mind drifted to the contents of Derek’s book. How had the introduction concluded? “The closing chapters will analyse the circumstances leading to the closure of the company in 1989 and the fate of those who found themselves out of work as a result.” The word fate took on a sharper meaning in the light of Gavin’s revelations. Derek had to know about the cancer. He couldn’t very well have avoided writing about it. His history of Colbonite amounted to a charge sheet against Sir Walter and Roger Colborn. No wonder Roger didn’t want to help him get it published. I could only wish in that moment that I hadn’t sent it off unread to Moira. I could get it back from her, of course. And even sooner I could speak to the author himself.
“Did Colbonite have a pension scheme?” Syd suddenly asked.
“I don’t know,” Gavin replied brusquely. “What does it matter?”
“I was just thinking it could have been a bargain operation for Sir Walt and Roger the compensation dodger. Half the staff claimed by the big C before they could make any inroads into the fund? Sounds like one long contributions holiday.”
“It has to be said, Gavin,” I remarked, “that your brother doesn’t seem to have been any more scrupulous than your nephew.”
“Walter didn’t cheat me out of my shares.”
“No. But he cheated a lot of his workers out of a long and healthy retirement.”
“Under Roger’s influence. He thought the boy could do no wrong. He never saw his true nature. Besides…” Gavin took a long pull on his cigarette. “Walter didn’t have a long and healthy retirement himself, did he? He was made to pay for what he’d done.”
“Unlike Roger.”
“Yes. Unlike Roger.” Gavin stared morosely into his glass, then looked up at me. “So far.”
Inventing an appointment at the theatre in order to extricate myself, I left Syd and Gavin to chew over old times if they had a mind to and headed for the taxi rank in East Street. A cab was soon speeding me north to a tower block beyond the station, a lower floor of which houses Brighton Central Library.
Where I discovered, to my chagrin, that my taxi driver wasn’t a regular patron of the library service. Either that or he was singularly bloody-minded. Because, after paying him off and mounting the steps, I found the door firmly locked. Brighton Central Library is closed on Wednesdays.
I sheltered in the porch, cursing the bureaucrat responsible for such a stupefyingly inconvenient arrangement. Then I noticed the soaring roofline of St. Bartholomew’s Church to the south and realized just how close I was to Viaduct Road. Maybe, I thought, this wasn’t a wasted journey after all.
There was no immediate response to my knock at the door of number 77. But the top sash of the ground-floor window was open by several inches. Derek surely wouldn’t have gone out leaving it like that. I knocked again, more firmly.
I thought I heard Derek’
s voice from the other side of the door. But a lorry thundered by, drowning out every other sound for several seconds. I knocked once more. Then I did hear his voice, pitched at a panicky falsetto.
“Go away. Leave me alone.”
“Derek,” I shouted. “It’s me. Toby Flood.”
There was a silence. Then: “Mr. Flood?” Panic seemed to be subsiding.
“Please let me in, Derek. It’s wet out here.”
“Are you…alone?”
“Just me and fifty cars a minute.”
The door opened and Derek peered out at me like a water vole apprehensively observing a river in spate. “Sorry, Mr. Flood,” he said. “I didn’t…well, I thought…he might have come back.”
“Who?”
Derek ushered me hurriedly in and closed the door. He pushed firmly against the latch to make sure it had fully engaged, then pointed me towards the sitting room, my question having apparently escaped his attention.
“Who did you think might have returned, Derek?”
“Mr…. C-Colborn.”
“Roger Colborn’s been here?”
“Y-yes.” The stress of a visit from his former boss had evidently introduced a stammer into Derek’s already hesitant delivery.
“What did he want?”
“Please…go through.” He was still pointing to the sitting room.
I went in and nodded towards the lowered window. “If you’re worried about a return visit, shouldn’t you close that?”
“Oh God, yes.” He moved past me, yanked the window shut and turned to me with a wavering smile. “Sorry. I’m a l-l-little…on edge.”
“So I see.”
“Mr. Colborn shouted at me. I don’t like…shouting.”
“I’m not going to shout.”
“No. Of course not. Please…sit down.” For the moment at least, the stammer had subsided. We sat down either side of the fireplace. Derek kneaded his hands together, frowning down at them. Then he looked across at me and said, “Is it true…that Mr. Maple’s dead?”
The question was oddly phrased. He could either not know or be in no doubt on the point. “Yes,” I replied cautiously.
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