The Longest Pleasure

by Douglas Clark

  “We seem to have resolved that point. And you know what the second one is, don’t you?”

  “You are saying that the chances are that the botulinum bacteria that have been used in all these tins came originally from a tin of fish.”

  “Don’t you think so?”

  “Of course I do. Now I’ve read these papers, I’d bet on it. And fish comes in strip-cans—sardines, herrings, mackerel . . .”

  “I’ve got a strip-can of cod’s roe in my pantry.”

  “There you are then, my poppet—a working conclusion at last.”

  “Is it going to help?” she asked in amazement. “How on earth can the fact that the horrible person who is causing all this trouble started it in a tin of fish be going to help you solve this crime?”

  “It’s not only that . . .” began Masters. The telephone interrupted him before he could complete the sentence.

  “Who can that be at this time of night?” asked Wanda, a little irritated by the intrusion.

  Masters got to his feet. “There’s only one way to find out, my sweet.”

  “George?”

  “Yes, it’s me. What’s up, Bill?”

  “My missus connived with yours before she left your house today.”

  “What about?”

  “Food. What they were going to give us to eat.”

  “Oh, yes? You had fish, too, did you?”

  “I did.”

  “And you ate it?”

  “Lapped it up.”

  “But something is worrying you?”

  Green’s voice was more sombre than usual as he replied.

  “My trouble is I’ve got a long memory, George. I can remember reading that the outbreak of botulism in Brum in seventy-eight was caused by salmon canned in Alaska.”

  “True. Did you recall that before or after you ate supper?”

  “After.”

  “And that is causing you to feel a bit queasy?”

  Green snorted. “I’ve been married the best part of thirty years, and nothing Doris has cooked in all that time has ever upset me.”

  “I’m sure. But the thought of botulism and fish . . .?”

  “No. Nothing like that. I called because I thought it might help you if I reminded you fish could be implicated even though we haven’t come across it in any of the four outbreaks. I don’t know what lines you’re thinking along, or what all that bumf you took home tonight is telling you—if anything—but I thought that if you had fish to take into consideration as well, it might help to solve some problem or spark some idea.”

  Masters didn’t reply for a moment or two. The silence was, in fact, so prolonged that Green demanded to know if his colleague was still listening.

  “Listening?” asked Masters. “Listening, Bill, and thinking furiously.”

  “About what I’ve said?”

  “Just that, chum.”

  “You mean it’s of some use?”

  “Invaluable—probably.”

  “Probably? In what way?”

  “Steady on. I’m thinking it through.”

  “Thinking what through?”

  Masters grimaced at Wanda, who had joined him in the hall, and then replied. “Well, Bill, suppose the whole thing started in a contaminated tin of fish—like the Alaskan salmon you’ve just reminded me about—and our man recognised it, it would mean that he would have his bacteria ready-made. And that overcomes the problem of how he could have cultured it without producing other nasties like salmonella at the same time.”

  “He’d have to be a bit of a scientific wizard to recognise it, wouldn’t he?”

  “Of course. But that only confirms our belief that the chap we are looking for is a pretty high-powered boffin.”

  “He’d have to be more high-powered to recognise it than to culture it. After all, American housewives culture it every year without thinking about it.”

  “True enough. Our own people ought to be able to tell us how it could be recognised, and who would be likely to do so.”

  Green grunted sceptically.

  “You don’t think so? Ah, well, that’s what sprang to my mind when you mentioned fish. Perhaps by tomorrow I might have some other thoughts about it. Thank you for ringing, Bill.”

  “So long. Don’t work too hard.”

  As Masters put the phone down, Wanda said: “You old fraud, George. You let Bill think that the fish idea had not occurred to you before he rang.”

  “Why not, my sweet? It will encourage him to let him think he was first with the news. If I’d said that I had travelled along that particular road before he rang, it would either have dampened his enthusiasm or—worse—he could have disbelieved me, thinking I was trying to hog all the credit for myself.”

  “Surely not? Not Bill?”

  Masters grinned. “He’s human, poppet. We all like our ideas to be first and best.”

  “In that case, why did you let him think he was teaching you something? You’re human, too.”

  “We’re both on the same side,” he said simply.

  She came across to him and perched on his knee like a child. With her arms round his neck, she clung to him, giving physical, tactile approval of his attitude.

  After a moment or two—

  “Are you going to do any more reading tonight?”

  “Not reading,” he said enigmatically, but the words were not so allusive as to obscure their hidden meaning from her. She smiled contentedly.

  *

  Everybody was early in the office the next morning. Thankfully, Masters realised that the sense of urgency he had tried to inspire was now pervading all their minds, including those of Lake and his two helpers who had, he learned, kept a night-long watch between them.

  “Thought any more about the fish, George?” asked Green.

  Masters nodded.

  “Come on then. Out with it.”

  “Out with what?”

  “Your conclusions, mate.”

  “I didn’t say I’d reached any conclusions. I just said I’d thought about fish. So much so that you gave me a virtually sleepless night.”

  “Come off it.”

  Masters took out his pipe and tin of Warlock Flake.

  “I’m not joking, Bill.”

  “You are, you know,” replied Green. “Somewhere along the line you are. You may have had a sleepless night. But if you did, you’ll have reached some conclusions, because you simply do not think for hours on end without producing some result. So which is false? The claim to have had a sleepless night or the claim that you reached no conclusion?”

  Berger and Reed seemed to be waiting for his reply as anxiously as Green. Masters filled his pipe slowly. At last—

  “Bill, what I was most concerned about was something you said.”

  “About the fish?”

  “Not that. Yesterday afternoon you said that a countrywide search for somebody with a grievance against Redcoke was not our scene.”

  “Right. It isn’t. But if we have to we’ll do it.”

  “It’ll take a long time though,” added Reed.

  Masters nodded. “Too long. And without any guarantee of success in the end. But it is what is expected of us—hence this Incident Centre and the steps we have taken so far. Even if we fail, we’ll have done the job the right way and nobody will be able to fault us.”

  “Hang on, hang on,” said Green. “George, you’ve been trumpeting on about not thinking of failure, and here you are now, introducing it as if it were a distinct possibility.”

  “True.”

  “After less than forty-eight hours.”

  “True again.”

  Green looked at him closely. “George, you’re being too smooth. Too easy by half. You’re up to something, you old bastard. I know you are.”

  “If I am, it’s only because you encouraged me. After you said this sort of investigation was not our scene, you urged me to revert to our usual method of working. You actually said . . .”

  “I remember. I said tha
t you are a fast worker and you should give us something else—some other way of finding a solution.” Green eyed him shrewdly. “That’s what you’ve been working on. You lost your sleep over trying to find an alternative approach.”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “What would you say to trying a long shot?”

  “How long?”

  “As long as they come.”

  Masters was conscious of the fact that his words had caused a stir of expectancy. Reed and Berger were watching him intently, tensely, as though afraid to speak lest this faint chance should take fright and disappear again for ever. Green was eyeing him shrewdly: weighing the matter up as nearly as he could with so little to go on.

  “We drop everything for it?” asked Green at last.

  “No. We do what we have to do this morning. Then this afternoon we try the long shot.”

  “Right. What is it?”

  “Do you mind if . . . look, Bill, I don’t want to hold back, but I don’t want to go off at half-cock either. I haven’t got it completely worked out. As a matter of fact, I did stay awake a long time, with no conclusions, as I told you. I had given up the struggle and was just dropping off when this glimmer of an idea came to me. I think I felt so satisfied—mentally—that something should at last have appeared over the horizon that my mind gasped with relief and I fell asleep without working things out. I must do that before we can act on it. Can I leave it there?”

  Green shrugged. “If you’re sure you remembered what it was. Ideas that come just as you’re falling asleep have a happy knack of disappearing before morning.”

  “I remember it. I grabbed it firmly by the tail to prevent it popping back into its hole.”

  “In that case . . .”

  “Thanks. Reed, we shall need the car for this afternoon and our overnight bags.”

  “We’re travelling, Chief?”

  “We’re travelling. Now back to routine. Berger, you help Inspector Lake to collate any replies that have arrived in answer to the DCI’s enquiries. Reed, you bring your bags of tins and accompany the DCI and myself to Messrs Redcoke. We’re going to appeal to reason, and we’ve got to get a bit of co-operation before Dr Moller holds his eleven o’clock press conference.”

  They got to their feet as Lake came across to them. “A message has just come in from Taunton, sir. Mr Burnham died in the night.”

  “Thank you. That’s the father and younger child. Any word of the mother and elder child?”

  “They are both gravely ill, sir. Everybody else—those in Derby, Colchester and Bournemouth—is still alive, and all three hospitals are hopeful that they can save them all.”

  “Thank heaven for that.”

  “I’ve always said you have the luck of the devil, George,” said Green heavily.

  “You usually put it slightly differently,” retorted Masters. “As I recall, you invariably refer to me as a jammy bastard.”

  “No matter. Whichever it is, the luck or the jam had better be spread pretty thick on this idea of yours, because when I think of some nutter going around killing whole families, I begin to get a bit restive. As it is, when we find him, I don’t reckon I’ll be able to keep my hands off him.”

  Masters didn’t reply, and they left the office.

  *

  The Redcoke head office was one of those buildings of which the original Georgian façade had been preserved, while everything behind the front wall had been rebuilt in the modern egg-box style.

  Masters, Green and Reed made their way up the two old stone steps to the huge wooden door, double-leaved with great brass knobs centrally placed on each half. The glass screen door was manned by a female commissionaire: an efficient, well-spoken woman, dressed—though not looking like—an air hostess in outdoor suit and hat. Her face—as Green later described it—reminded him of a photograph he had once seen of an ace Russian shot-putter, supposedly female.

  “Have you an appointment with the Managing Director?”

  “No, but this is extremely urgent. There has been no time to make an appointment.”

  “I will ask his personal assistant if she will see you.” The attitude was not one which endeared itself to Masters, and when they were met on the third floor by the PA, another middle-aged woman of forbidding mien, he was rather taken aback, but she led them promptly to the office of the Managing Director.

  “Mr Stratton, these are the . . . er . . . men who demanded to see you.”

  Green hung back as Masters walked in. “Gentlemen, darling,” said Green to the PA. “If we weren’t, I’d be making rude remarks about your face reminding me of one I once saw on a girl who was walking about as if she had an open safety pin in the seat of her knickers. It hurt me to look at her phisog, too.”

  By the time Green had carefully shut the door in the face of the outraged PA, Masters was shaking hands with Stratton.

  “I’m a busy man, Chief Superintendent.”

  “So am I, sir.”

  Stratton gestured towards chairs and then asked: “What’s it all about?”

  “You mean you don’t know, sir?”

  “Have I done something criminal?”

  “You have heard that there have been four outbreaks of botulism?”

  “Yes, I’d heard there was a scare. Four cases, you say?”

  “Four outbreaks, sir, twenty or more cases, and so far two deaths.”

  Stratton held up both hands. “Please, Chief Superintendent, get to the point. What has this to do with me?”

  Masters said heavily: “They had all eaten products bought in your shops and our forensic people have recovered all the tins and have cultured botulism from scrapings taken from them.”

  Stratton sat motionless for a moment.

  “Nonsense,” he stuttered at last. “Absolute nonsense. This is defamatory.”

  “Do you really think,” asked Masters quietly, “that I would be wasting my time here if what I have said is not true?”

  “But . . . but it is impossible. Our standards of hygiene . . .”

  “Let us clear the decks,” interrupted Masters. “I have the greatest admiration for your shops and your hygiene and your marketing activities. That is why I am here, now, instead of applying for an injunction to close you down.”

  “Close me down? Close nearly two hundred shops and supermarkets? You’d never get an injunction.”

  Masters nodded. “If the High Court didn’t close you, the public would, Mr Stratton—once the knowledge was out. And let me assure you that the peccant tins—with your price labels on them—are sitting on a bench at the forensic laboratory, waiting to be displayed at a press conference at eleven o’clock this morning. We won’t even have to mention the name Redcoke. The photographers will do it all for us, unless I ask for the tins to be kept under wraps.”

  Stratton considered this for a moment and then got to his feet. It seemed as though the action made him a different man.

  “Right,” he said incisively. “What you’ve said has shocked me. Now we’ve got to decide what to do. And quickly. Two people dead! Whether they are dead from eating Redcoke products or not is immaterial if you think they are.” He swung round on Masters. “What have we to do?”

  “First off,” said Masters, liking this new man, “we must ensure that Redcoke is not harmed in any way if we can avoid it. We all regard your stores as a national asset and we have no desire to call them into disrepute.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “To this end, can DCI Green use your phone to call Dr Moller at the forensic laboratory, to tell him to get the cans out of sight before the press starts to arrive?”

  “Of course.”

  “How secure is it? I don’t want some telephonist to get a hint . . .”

  “There’s a call box—one of those bubble things fastened to the wall—on the next floor down. It is a direct phone—bypasses the house exchange—here. I’ve got some coins.”

  “Ta,” said Green, accepting some two-pen
ce pieces. “Will Miss Scratch-me-backside outside mind showing me where to go?”

  Stratton touched a button. “Nora, Mr Green is coming out to use the coin-box phone. Please show him where it is.”

  “Now,” said Masters when Green had gone, “I believe somebody is trying to work off a grudge against Redcoke by implicating your shops in these outbreaks.”

  “You mean some crack-brained bastard is killing people off to ease a grudge against Redcoke?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “By impregnating the contents of tins of food bought in your shops—and then returning them to the shelves.”

  “He’s doing it in the shops?”

  “I think not. It’s a laboratory job. He buys tins, takes them home, doctors them and then takes them back—probably to different branches—for some unsuspecting shopper to buy.”

  “Indiscriminately?”

  “Absolutely—or so we believe, and we base that on the knowledge that contaminated tins have been bought in four of your widely-separated branches.”

  “So there may be poisoned tins in a hundred shops! We could never deal with that. There must be at the very least over a hundred thousand tins on display at any given moment in our bigger outlets.”

  “Quite. The problem is vast. But we have been working on it for a day and a half now. Certain things have emerged. The most significant from your point of view is that the murderer appears to be using—exclusively—cans of meat or fish that are opened with keys. Strip-cans, but not those you pull the lid off with a lifting ring.”

  Stratton eyed him. “You’re sure of this?”

  “As far as we know at the moment.”

  “Because all the tins you’ve got are of that type? Not much to go on is it? Four tins?”

  “Not a big sample, to be sure. But we and the forensic scientists believe we know the method that is being used to pierce and reseal the cans. It’s a tricky job, and has to be done in the absence of oxygen or air. Why, doesn’t matter. What is important is that the injecting has to be done at a weak spot in the can . . .”

  “Where it is half-scored through so that it tears easily?”

  “Exactly. And also where it can be hidden from view. That is, under the flap which takes the key.”