Fault Line - Retail (46 page)

She was in shock, of course. To some extent, so was I. The dressings on my legs and hands slowed me down and the drugs the doctor had put me on made me drowsy. I shambled around pitifully, feeling my age, and was grateful when Pete volunteered to run a few errands for me. University commitments delayed Fay’s arrival until the end of the week, which consigned us all to limbo. No date was fixed for the funeral. The possibility remained that Lashley would rouse himself and fly in to confront the consequences of his son’s suicide. I half expected it to happen. But, as the days passed without word from him, it seemed less and less likely.

I’d booked Fay Whitworth into the White Hart, at IK’s expense. She arrived on Friday afternoon and met me for dinner after
checking
in with the police. Solicitous though she was about my injuries and what Vivien and I had been through, she made no effort to deny her eagerness to see what the records held.

‘It’s clear, I think, that they must contain something pretty sensational. Otherwise why would Adam Lashley have stolen them in the first place?’

‘We don’t actually know Adam stole them, Fay. Only that he was storing them.’

‘Hiding them, you mean.’

‘OK. Hiding.’ I shrugged. I had no energy to waste on debating turns of phrase.

‘I’m surprised you want to minimize his behaviour. He did try to kill you, after all.’

‘I know. It’s just …’

‘What?’

‘The whole thing seems so … inexplicable.’

‘Well, I’m here to explicate the apparently inexplicable.’

‘And will you let me know what you find out? Or will that be deemed
sub judice
?’

‘I don’t see why. Adam’s dead. There isn’t going to be a trial.’

‘Not of Adam, no.’

She frowned at me. ‘That’s an interesting remark, Jonathan. What are you afraid might come out?’

‘I’m not afraid. I’m … wary.’

‘Well, we’ll soon know whether you have good cause to be.’

‘How soon?’

‘I’ve agreed to present my findings to the police on Monday. But I reckon a solid day’s work tomorrow will get the job done.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes. So if I were you, I wouldn’t stray far.’

I had no intention of straying. Pete drove me over to his sister’s house on Saturday morning and I told Vivien what Fay’s timetable was likely to be. She seemed philosophical about the outcome, but she was still so numbed by what had happened that it was difficult to tell what she was really thinking. I suspected it was similar to
what
I was thinking myself. It was almost impossible to believe we might be about to learn, after so many years, why and for what Oliver had died. The past was shifting ground beneath our feet. But the truth was no longer necessarily out of reach.

Pete took me down to Charlestown for lunch at the Harbourside Inn and set out his stall. ‘If any shit is going to fly fanwards because of what the doc digs up, Jon, I want early warning. I think having a gun waggled in my face by the late lamented barking mad Adam Lashley puts me ahead of the likes of Presley Beaumont in the queue for info.’

I didn’t argue. In fact, I agreed with him. One hundred per cent.

Late that afternoon, I was resting in my room at the White Hart when there was a knock at the door. I can’t have been a glorious sight when I opened it, but Fay Whitworth didn’t seem to notice as she strode in.

‘I could use some coffee,’ she said, flapping her notebook meaningfully. ‘It’s been a hard day.’

‘But rewarding?’

‘You could say that.’

Seeing me fumbling with the kettle, she took charge and told me to sit down, pointing to the armchair rather than the upright by the desk. I had the impression she wanted that for herself.

While she made the coffee, she complained about the vending machine at the police station and the grim lighting in the room they’d allocated to her. I waited patiently, gazing through the window at the wind-stirred trees in the churchyard on the other side of the road. I felt no eagerness for the truth. If it was coming, it would come. And I would hear it.

‘It wasn’t what I was expecting, Jonathan,’ Fay said, settling herself at the desk and taking a first sip of coffee. ‘Not that I knew what to expect, of course. But this …’ She shook her head. ‘It was a surprise.’

‘Are you going to tell me what it amounts to?’

‘That’s as much for you to say as me. I can give you the facts. What they amount to is to a large degree conjectural. I suppose it depends on how far you want to take it. Maybe it’s more than what it appears to be.’

‘And what does it appear to be?’

‘Fraud, of a subtle kind. I haven’t had time to study every single document, but the conclusion to be drawn from those I have examined is clear. Oliver Foster has been my guide. There are lots of notes in his hand and his distinctive green ink – like on the memo you abstracted – and lots more underlining and asterisking by him that identify the key figures and passages in invoices and letters that would be easy to miss otherwise. He was a clever boy. Very clever. Very … analytical. A chess player, you said?’

‘Yes. A good one.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. Though he’d probably have admitted he was up against a better one.’

‘Who?’

‘Greville Lashley.’

I’d known she was going to name him. It had seemed inevitable, even if it was still – for a little longer – incomprehensible. ‘You’re accusing our mutual employer of fraud?’

‘I shan’t be accusing anyone of anything. And I doubt the police will be interested in pursuing a nonagenarian expatriate based on the kind of evidence the records contain. They might’ve wanted to ask him a few questions, though. If he was in the country.’

‘He’s too ill to travel.’

‘So they tell me.’

‘What exactly are you saying he did?’

‘Nothing that the untrained observer – or even the incurious accountant – would notice. But Oliver Foster knew what he was looking for. And he found it.’

‘Which was?’

‘Over the twelve years covered by the files – 1956 to 1968 – Greville Lashley slowly but surely ruined Wren’s.’

‘Ruined them?’

‘They were viable as an independent outfit and could have gone
on
being viable. That’s one of the surprises. They didn’t have to sell out. Lashley forced it on them.’

‘How?’

‘By manoeuvring the company into buying new equipment when the old was still serviceable, paying more than they needed to for supplies and services, bidding excessively low to secure contracts, purchasing land they had no immediate use for and generally throwing good money after bad. The Trudgeon deal was a case in point. Wren’s had always paid Trudgeon’s more than the going rate, on the grounds that CCC would gobble Trudgeon’s up if they didn’t have Wren’s business and there was no one else with sufficient experience of loading operations at Charlestown. It was a weak argument, but George Wren was a weak man. And a poor reasoner. Lashley regularly bamboozled him. When they finally bought Trudgeon’s to acquire an A licence for transport of their own, they paid far too much. And that’s not the worst. It looks like they’d regularly paid Trudgeon’s two or three times over for the same work. Lashley was a master of tricksy paperwork. But Oliver tracked him through the maze he’d constructed. And I’ve followed Oliver. There’s really no doubt that what I’m saying is true.’

‘Trudgeon’s must have connived at this.’

‘I imagine they must.’

‘Gordon Strake was the go-between, wasn’t he?’

‘Oliver certainly thought so, based on the note he wrote on the copy of the letter Lashley sent to Strake at the time of his dismissal. Even pliable George Wren had finally had enough of the man and insisted he be got rid of. But what does Lashley say in the letter? “Your loyalty and discretion remain greatly appreciated.” “I’ll bet”, Oliver scrawled next to that. With multiple exclamation marks.’

‘Why would Lashley want to run Wren’s into the ground, Fay? What was the object of the fraud?’

‘I assumed at first he was taking cuts of the overpayments and undercharging – backhanders from Wren’s suppliers and customers. But no. It was cleverer than that – and worse. There’s no actual proof, but the warm tone of letters Lashley received from
Percy
Faull, managing director of CCC and chairman of the china clay trade association, gives the game away. Wren’s had a good workforce and some of the most productive pits. Properly managed and developed, they could have been profitable enough to rival CCC and Faull knew it. So, he engaged Lashley to sabotage Wren’s. His reward was to be a prominent position in the merged operations, with a promise of further elevation in due course. Faull adopted Lashley as his successor at CCC and pushed the appointment through the board when he retired. That’s no secret. But why he favoured an outsider has puzzled me from the start of my researches. Now I have the answer. In a handwritten postscript to one letter, he says to Lashley, “Keep up the good work.” Oliver gives that double underlining and an asterisk. He knew what it meant. Thanks to him, so do I.’

‘You’re sure about this?’

‘Having seen what I’ve seen today, yes. Greville Lashley was employed by Wren’s. But he was working for Cornish China Clays. And he seems to have recruited Gordon Strake to assist him. The extent of Strake’s role is hard to discern, of course. That’s where we enter the realm of speculation.’

‘Go on, then. Speculate.’

‘There are memos from Kenneth Foster in the early months of 1959 that suggest he’d smelt a rat. Then, conveniently for Lashley, he killed himself. George Wren was fobbed off with smooth assurances that Foster’s concerns amounted to nothing and Lashley went on his merry way.’

‘Are you suggesting Strake had a hand in Kenneth Foster’s death?’

‘I’m suggesting Strake was Lashley’s fixer. And the problem with Kenneth Foster was fixed. Except that his son, Oliver, wouldn’t leave it alone and dug and dug until he worked out what was going on. Then he wound up dead too. Like Strake himself, within a year of the takeover. By then, I suppose, he’d outlived his usefulness.’

‘Francis Wren killed Strake, Fay. I know that for a fact. Strake was blackmailing him. It doesn’t matter what with. It was nothing to do with what you’ve uncovered.’

‘Really?’

‘Fraud’s one thing. Murder’s quite another. I can’t imagine Lashley resorting to that.’

‘Can’t you? Well, I bow to your superior knowledge where Strake’s death is concerned, but Kenneth and Oliver Foster both posed a threat to Lashley. And they both died before they could bring him down.’

‘Maybe so, but—’

‘All this has set me wondering about Muriel Lashley’s death, too.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘It freed Lashley to make a very advantageous marriage to Jacqueline Hudson, didn’t it? You could see that as part of his master plan if you were so inclined.’

‘Are you so inclined?’

‘Maybe Muriel became suspicious about how her first husband and their son had died. Maybe she was asking too many questions.’

Or maybe she was planning to have Fred Thompson ask some questions on her behalf. There was more to support Fay’s theory than she knew. But still I couldn’t credit what she was saying. ‘If you’re right, why on earth would Lashley hire you – or anyone – to write a history of the company, knowing what might come out?’

‘Perhaps vanity got the better of him. Perhaps he thought I’d ignore the gap in their records.’

‘Then why send me to find out what had happened when you didn’t ignore it? And why not destroy the records, rather than have his unreliable son hide them – a son he was trusting with some pretty devastating information, if your speculations are correct? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘No. It doesn’t, does it? Yet it’s what he seems to have done.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘I think you may have to.’

‘But why? Why would he do that?’

Fay shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine. I’d like to ask him, naturally.’ She leant forward, fixing me with her gaze. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

I stood up then, opened the window and leant out, breathing in
the
cool spring air. I felt stifled by the sense that I’d been a part, however unwitting, of Lashley’s machinations. I wasn’t sure yet what they amounted to – whether they really could have encompassed murder. But I was going to have to find out. I was going to have to force the truth into the open – the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I felt Fay’s hand on my shoulder. ‘What will you do, Jonathan?’ she asked.

I looked round at her. ‘I’ll see him.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as possible.’

‘I’ve undertaken to present my findings to the police on Monday. I won’t be doing any speculating for them. But I suppose they might do some of their own.’

‘That’s up to them.’

‘Will you be telling anyone else what I’ve told you? About the fraud, I mean. I imagine you’ll want to keep the rest to yourself, at least for the time being.’

‘I’ll put Pete Newlove in the picture.’ Seeing her raise her eyebrows, I added, ‘He’s earned it.’

‘What about Vivien?’

‘I need to speak to her stepfather before I say anything to her.’

‘Are you sure
he
’ll speak to
you
?’

‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I don’t intend to give him any choice in the matter.’

FORTY-TWO

THE VILLA ORCHIS HAD
changed little in the twenty-six years since I’d last been there, though perhaps the pergola was even more heavily draped in wisteria. It was Monday afternoon when I arrived. The light was mellow, the air fragrant. It wasn’t hard to understand why Greville Lashley should want to spend his declining years in such a place, nor why, at his age, he would be reluctant to leave it for any reason. But he’d have to be iller than I guessed he was to miss his son’s funeral, unless, as Fay Whitworth’s speculations had implied, there were other reasons why he didn’t want to return to his homeland.

I’d done a lot of thinking since setting off from St Austell. None of it had clinched the issue in my mind. A fraudster? Evidently, Lashley was that. And, in a way, given the uncanny dexterity he’d always shown as a businessman, that wasn’t so surprising. But a murderer? I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. If not, though, how was I to account for all the unnatural deaths that had smoothed his path and now seemed, in the light of what Fay had discovered, so obviously suspicious? More to the point, perhaps, how was
he
to account for them?