Family Business

by Mark Eklid

  He nodded. ‘You’re right. I can do that. I’ve always researched the past rather than the present, but the principles are the same. It should be easier, if anything.’

  ‘Talk to people. Find whatever you can online. Try to get to the bottom of all this. It might make sense then.’

  ‘Yeah. I always used to tell people they shouldn’t be afraid of finding skeletons in the cupboard because it’s all an important part of the full story, so I shouldn’t hide from the truth now. I’ve just got to find out what the truth is.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘It’s funny, you know. I’ve helped lots of people do their family histories and some of them are actually quite keen to find a bit of scandal among their ancestors. A proper black sheep. They get really disappointed when they can’t find an adulterer or a conman or whatever in their pasts but here I am, hoping to discover that there aren’t any skeletons in the cupboard. I suppose you could call that ironic.’

  Janet laughed with him, glad that they were both looking ahead again.

  ‘I’ll find out whatever I can and then we’ll be better placed to decide what we want to do next. Let’s go back to Derby this weekend and we can look at what we know, add in what the police might disclose over the next few days and the picture will be a lot clearer. Let’s do that.’

  ‘Sounds like a good plan to me,’ Janet replied with enthusiasm. ‘Best case scenario, we establish that Andreas is not mixed up in any of this and we carry on working here and getting to know him properly. Worst case scenario – well, at least we’ll know.’

  ‘You’re right. Thanks, love.’

  He leaned in to kiss her, intending only an affectionate peck on the lips, but she took hold of him around the neck to commit him to something far more lingering.

  ‘Love you,’ she said as they broke the contact.

  ‘Love you, too,’ he responded.

  ‘Do you want to know something else that came into my mind last weekend?’

  She was intrigued. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You know when friends who have kids used to say things as if they were trying to make us feel better about not having kids ourselves – like we don’t know how much trouble they can be and how they cause you a lot of stress and we don’t realise how lucky we are, crap like that?’

  ‘I know!’ she laughed.

  ‘Do you think this is what they had in mind?’

  Graham fired up the laptop as soon as they got home. There had been a sober, quietened atmosphere in the building through the rest of the afternoon. There were no attempts at banter from the drivers. The news of the murder had shaken them all. Even the phones were respectfully silent. Neither Andreas nor Rebecca emerged from their offices.

  There had been plenty for Graham to do as he tracked the drivers out on the road through the Trams traffic management system and fired off emails to customers but he had also found time to plan his strategy. He had to work out what he needed to find, where he had to look and in what order he wanted to search for it. In the end, he decided to begin with looking into the road accident that claimed the lives of Lena and her husband.

  He knew nothing about the accident except for the little Andreas had told him and he hadn’t thought it appropriate to ask for details. If he wanted to know more, he knew from past experience that the best starting point was to see if the local paper had reported the inquest. There was sure to have been an inquest and, because one of the victims was a prominent local businessman, Graham was confident the paper would have found it newsworthy.

  Harry Johnson Lena Sheffield inquest.

  He typed the keywords into Google and pressed return. There it was. A report from The Star dated February 7.

  Haulage company owner and his wife died in unexplained road accident, inquest hears.

  Graham clicked on the link and started reading.

  The cause of a road accident which claimed the lives of the ‘highly respected’ owner of a Sheffield haulage company and his wife still cannot be explained, an inquest was told.

  Harry Johnson, 59, of Aughton, and his 56-year-old wife, Elena

  Elena? He didn’t know that was her full name.

  Harry Johnson, 59, of Aughton, and his 56-year-old wife, Elena, died when the MG sports car they were travelling in swerved off the road close to the hamlet of Upper Whiston and hit a tree. The impact almost certainly killed them instantly, Sheffield Coroner’s Court heard.

  There was some comfort in that. At least they didn’t suffer.

  Graham scan-read through much of what followed. What he wanted to find was if there was any mention of a motorbike being involved. Here we go.

  There were no witnesses to the crash but South Yorkshire Police put out an appeal shortly after the accident, which happened on September 13 last year, to try to find the rider of a motorbike which was seen heading in the opposite direction by the couple who arrived on the scene moments later.

  The appeal failed to prompt the potential witness to come forward.

  So that’s where a motorbike came into the story.

  The rest of the inquest report did not expand on why else the motorbike rider might be of significance, so he went back to Google. There might be a report from closer to the time of the accident about the appeal.

  Mystery biker may hold the key to cause of death of Sheffield couple.

  He clicked on the link.

  South Yorkshire Police have appealed for information about a motorcycle rider who was seen heading away from the scene of a road accident which killed the owner of a Sheffield haulage company and his wife this month.

  This must be the one. He skipped the next couple of paragraphs.

  The Police Serious Collision Investigation team have been looking into the possibility that the motorcyclist may have drifted to the wrong side of the road as it approached the car driven by Mr Johnson, causing him to swerve and leave the road.

  Oh really?

  Graham eased back in his chair. That explained why they wanted to track down the motorcyclist but how did Yates think that tied in with Andreas? Was he suggesting Andreas was the mystery biker? More to the point, was he suggesting Andreas deliberately rode a motorbike on the wrong side of the road to make his dad swerve off the road?

  How would that make any sense? Why on earth would anybody deliberately do such a thing, especially when you knew it might lead to the death or serious injury of your mum and dad?

  He shook his head. No. The suggestion was ludicrous.

  At least now he knew more about how Lena and Harry died.

  He reflected for a moment. The terror they must have felt in those final moments. What a horrible way to go. Poor sods.

  While he was in investigative mode, Graham decided to see if there was an update on The Star website about the Yates murder. He tapped the name of the paper into the search box and clicked to the home page.

  The murder had taken second billing to a story about a 21-year-old man who had got his head stuck in a microwave oven trying to win a bet, but it was a headline just underneath the murder report which caught his eye.

  Rother Valley Country Park dog snatcher suspect is arrested.

  Rother Valley Country Park. Isn’t that near where Bentley was beaten up?

  He clicked on the link.

  A man thought to be responsible for several dog snatchings and for terrifying their distraught owners has been arrested by South Yorkshire Police.

  The man, believed to be behind a gang which steals valuable pet dogs on demand, is thought to have carried out five attacks in the area in the past month. Dogs were taken in four of the attacks while, in the other, a victim was left badly beaten and in need of hospital treatment.

  Now that has got to be too much of a coincidence.

  Graham cupped his hands behind his head. If the man in this report who was attacked was Bentley, that would mean there was no way Andreas was involved. Not unless he was involved in peddling stolen pooches.

  He smiled. That’s good.

>   The prospect of Andreas being implicated in the death of his mum and dad was ridiculous and he probably didn’t order a hit on Bentley. That was a huge relief.

  He felt bad about suspecting his son in the first place, but there was still the suggestion, also raised by Yates, that there was illegal activity going on at the firm. Could Andreas be behind that?

  It would take a lot more detective work to find out the truth either way. That would have to wait for another day, but Graham felt he could face Andreas now.

  He picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts list.

  ‘Graham, how are you? I’m sorry we didn’t see much of each other at work today. It was a bit of a nightmare.’

  ‘No, that’s OK, Andreas, I had plenty on myself and everybody was a bit distracted today after the news. It must have been a lot for you to handle. Are you OK?’

  There was silence at the other end of the phone for a few moments.

  ‘Fine, fine. It was a shock. Chris Yates was with the company for a long time and I know it ended badly for him here but...’

  His voice tailed off again.

  ‘It was just a shock and the police. I could do without having to deal with more police.’

  Graham thought he sounded strained.

  ‘I won’t keep you tonight, Andreas, but I wondered, can I come to see you tomorrow for a word? It’s important.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to Southampton in the morning. I’m just packing a bag. Can it wait?’

  ‘Not really.’ That was only a small overstatement. He really did want to get answers sooner rather than later.

  ‘OK then. There’s a McDonald’s at a leisure park just off the roundabout between the road to Derby and the dual carriageway heading to the M1 at Chesterfield. Do you know the one?’

  ‘Yeah, I know it. The roundabout with the sculpture?’

  ‘That’s it. Meet me in the car park there at seven.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll see you there.’

  They ended the conversation and hung up.

  Graham started to plan the next part of his investigation.

  14

  Graham got there quarter of an hour early, parked up and went to buy a cup of tea. Even at that time, McDonald’s was busy, with plenty of people at the tables eating over-processed breakfast meals from paper wrappings. He did not feel tempted to join them.

  It was shaping up as a beautiful mid-August morning and he found a spot in the revitalising glow of the awakening sun to sit on a bollard and watch for when Andreas arrived for their liaison. Most of the rest of the previous evening, after he had arranged this morning meeting, had been spent on the laptop finding whatever information he could about Yates’s murder and Andreas’s business. The searches into Harry Johnson Global Logistics didn’t tell him much that he did not already know. There was nothing obviously untoward on the Companies House or the London Gazette websites, which was where he usually searched for the sort of information that didn’t always come to light in the mainstream media. Hardly any detail had been released about the murder as yet either.

  That was not unexpected. Sometimes, you have to dig deeper to find what you are looking for. It can be a matter of knowing where to search. His first step was to talk to Andreas.

  The silver Jaguar pulled into the car park at just before seven. Graham walked slowly towards it as Andreas straightened up and turned off the ignition.

  ‘Do you want a cuppa?’ Graham held up his 100% recyclable beverage cup to illustrate what was on offer.

  ‘No, no, I’m fine. Thanks. Come and sit in the car.’ Andreas appeared edgy, distracted.

  ‘I won’t keep you long,’ he said as he lowered himself into the passenger seat. ‘It’s this business with Chris Yates. I just wanted to know if there was anything I should be aware of in case the police come back to interview any of us at the depot. I don’t really know anything about him and I wanted to, you know, present a united front.’

  Andreas sighed and stared ahead, blankly, through the windscreen.

  ‘There was not much I could tell them myself. I had to lose him and, less than a week later, he is murdered. I can understand why they came to see me but I have no idea why anyone would have wanted to kill him. It is a wretched thing to have happened.’

  ‘But why did you have to let him go? Everybody I talked to said he could be a bit odd but he was completely reliable as a driver. Sacking him caught everybody by surprise.’

  ‘Chris Yates was a good worker. He had been with the company for many years and hardly missed a day. He was as reliable as the day is long.’ He spoke the words forcefully. This was no empty eulogy.

  ‘Look, I do not want this to become common knowledge around the company. It would be an insult to his memory but I had to tell the police the full story and so it may come out in time, but I don’t want everyone to know until then.’

  Andreas had turned to face Graham to spell out his message. It was understood.

  ‘Anything you tell me is purely between me and you, Andreas, you know that.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Rebecca came to me a couple of weeks ago because she had noticed discrepancies and an unexplained pattern of behaviour in Chris Yates’s data on one of his regular continental runs. We always use the Rotterdam to Hull route when we deliver to the northern continent from Sheffield and that’s an easy run back to the depot at the end – two and a half hours max. Most drivers I know would want to come straight back after spending three, four, five days away but Rebecca noticed that Yates had taken a break at a spot off the M18 before Doncaster. He was well within his four and a half hours before he had to take a mandatory break and she could see no record of a reason for the stop – no reported hold-up or mechanical problem, anything like that. She checked back over his previous continentals and looked at his tacho records and he was making the same stop on the same run every four weeks coming back from Hull and no record of a problem. She became suspicious and brought it to me.

  ‘I called on a favour from a customer I know very well in the Netherlands. His was the last drop-off and pick-up before Yates drove on to Rotterdam on his last run and I asked him to count how many pallets were on the load when Yates left his depot and checked that alongside how many were on the load when he arrived back in Sheffield. He was carrying a couple of pallets more than he should when he left the Netherlands but arrived here with the correct number, so that indicated to us Yates was doing a bit on the side and dropping off the extra pallets somewhere between Hull and the depot.

  ‘I called him to the office to ask him about these discrepancies and he became very aggressive. I asked him if he was doing a little sideline business and the odd part was that he didn’t seem upset at the accusation of wrongdoing and started threatening me! He told me that if I interfered I would be creating huge trouble for myself and I would be better off if I turned a blind eye, but I could not tolerate that.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me what he was mixed up in but, whatever it was, he was damaging the good name of this company and I won’t have that. I had to sack him.’

  Andreas leaned his head against the headrest and drew a deep breath.

  ‘When I lost my mama and pappa on that terrible night, I thought I would die. I thought my world had ended, but I vowed that the best way I could honour their memories would be to devote myself to this company and make it a success beyond anything they ever planned. I was in the office the day after the accident and every day after that, even on the day of their funeral, so that I could fully prepare myself. My pappa had already taught me so much but I learned everything about the business and developed a strategy to make it grow. I want them to be so proud of me and I cannot allow anything which might compromise the integrity of the company. Yates had to go. Simple as that. Now that has cost him his life and I have to carry that burden.’

  Graham took hold of the hand Andreas had kept on the gear lever all the way through his explanation and squeezed it, comfortingly.

  ‘Whatever i
t was Yates was up to, it isn’t your fault he was killed for it. That was his choice. If you thought he might be up to something that would rebound back on you, you had to sack him. You did the right thing.’

  Andreas nodded slowly. He clearly had no doubts about the actions, only regrets at the consequences.

  ‘Have you considered ...’ Graham hesitated. A thought was forming. ‘Have you considered that whatever it was Yates was caught up in might be connected to the arson attacks at the depot?’

  The words jolted Andreas out of his contemplation.

  ‘I mean, you just kind of assumed Doug Bentley was behind the fires but he flatly denied he was when you went to see him, didn’t he?’

  ‘He did but ...’

  ‘What if he was telling the truth? What if the arson attacks were not aimed to hurt you at all but were some sort of misdirected attempt to put the frighteners on Chris Yates?’

  Andreas attempted to digest the thought.

  ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  ‘There was something I found out last night,’ Graham added. ‘I think whoever assaulted Bentley the other week was targeting his dog rather than him.’

  ‘His dog?’

  ‘It was online on The Star site yesterday that somebody had been arrested for dog-snatching, stealing valuable dogs to sell on illegally, and that one of the people had been put in hospital when he tried to fight back.’

  ‘That fucker accused me!’ Andreas’s temper quickly flared. ‘He told the police I was responsible! I will have that bastard!’

  Graham grabbed his arm and leaned closer, demanding eye contact.

  ‘He told the police you threatened him – which you did.’

  Andreas’s silence was concession enough. His anger visibly cooled.

  ‘Listen to me, Andreas. I know it’s a bit late in the day for me to be playing the parental advice card but this thing with you and Bentley, it has to stop now. What I’m suggesting is that while you’re down in Southampton I arrange to go to see Bentley, to talk to him. I’ll patch up this spat between you and then you can both get on with running your businesses – and you and I can get on with finding out who really is behind the arson attacks and why they are doing it. That’s the real issue here.’