Clean Break

3

I LEFT ALEXIS TO HASSLE THE POLICE OF SIX COUNTIES IN search of the story we both knew was lurking somewhere and headed back to the office. Shelley was busy on the phone, so I headed straight through to my office. I stopped in my tracks on the threshold. I heard Shelley finish her call and swung round to glare at her. “What exactly is that?” I demanded.

She didn’t look up from the note she was writing. “What does it look like? It’s a weeping fig.”

“It’s fake,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Silk,” she corrected me absently.

“And that makes it okay?”

Shelley finally looked up. “Every six weeks you buy a healthy, thriving, living plant. Five weeks later, it looks like locust heaven. The weeping fig will have paid for itself within six months, and even you can’t kill a silk plant,” she said in matter-of-fact tones that made my fingers itch to get round her throat.

“If I wanted a schneid plant, I’d have bought one,” I said.

“You sound…”

“ ‘Like one of my kids,’ ” I finished, mimicking her calm voice. “You don’t understand, do you? It’s the challenge. One day, I’m going to find a plant that runs riot for me.”

“By which time the planet will be a desert,” Shelley said, tossing her head so that the beads she has plaited into her hair jangled like a bag of marbles.

I didn’t dignify that with a reply. I simply marched into my office, picked up the weeping fig and dropped it next to her desk. “You like it so much, you live with it,” I said, stomping back to my office. If she was going to treat me like one of her teenage kids, I might as well enjoy the tantrum. I pulled the brownish remains of the asparagus fern out of the bin and defiantly dumped it on the windowsill.

Before I could do anything more, my phone rang. “What now?” I barked at Shelley.

“Call for you. A gentleman who refuses to give his name.”

“Did you tell him we don’t do matrimonials?”

“Of course I did. I’m not the one who’s premenstrual.”

I bit back a snarl as Shelley put the call through. “Kate Brannigan,” I said. “How can I help you?”

“I need your help, Ms. Brannigan. It’s an extremely confidential matter. Brian Chalmers from PharmAce recommended you.”

“We’re noted for our client confidentiality,” I reeled off. “As you doubtless know if you’ve spoken to Brian. But I do need to know who I’m talking to.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, long enough for me to hear sufficient background noise to realize my caller was speaking from a bar. “My name’s Trevor Kerr. I think the company I run is being blackmailed, and I need to talk to you about it.”

“Fine,” I said. “Why don’t I come round to your office this afternoon and have a chat about it?”

“Christ, no,” Kerr said, clearly alarmed. “The last thing I want is for the blackmailers to find out I’m talking to a private detective.”

One of the ones that watches too many movies That was all I needed to make my day. “No problem. You come to me.” “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You see, I think they’re watching me.“

Just when you thought it was safe to pick up the phone…

“I know how disturbing threats can be when you’re not accustomed to being on the receiving end,” I tried. “Perhaps we could meet on neutral ground. Say in the lounge of the Midland?“ The reassuring tone hadn’t worked. ”No,“ Kerr said urgently. ”Not in public. It’s got to look completely normal. Have you got a boyfriend, Ms. Brannigan?“

I should have put the phone down then and there, I realized four hours later as I tried to explain to Richard that a crumpled cream linen suit might be fine for going on the razz with Mick Hucknall, but there was no way it would help him to pass as a member of the Round Table. “Bloody hell, Brannigan,” he grumbled. “I’m old enough to dress myself.”

I ignored him and raked through his wardrobe, coming up with a fairly sober double-breasted Italian suit in dark navy. “This is more like it,” I said.

Richard scowled. “I only wear that to funerals.”

I threw it on the bed. “Not true. You wore it to your cousin’s wedding.”

“You forgotten her husband already? Anyway, I don’t see why you’re making me get dressed up like a tailor’s dummy. After the last time I helped you out, you swore you’d never let me near your work again,” he whined as he shrugged out of the linen jacket.

“Believe me, if Bill wasn’t out of the country, I wouldn’t be asking you,” I said grimly. “Besides, not even you can turn a Round Table treasure hunt and potluck supper into a life-threatening situation.”

Richard froze. “That’s a bit below the belt, Brannigan,” he said bitterly.

“Yeah, well. I’m going next door to find something suitably gross in my own wardrobe. Come through when you’re ready.”

I walked down Richard’s hall and cut through his living room to the conservatory. Back in my own house, I allowed myself a few moments of deep breathing to regain my equilibrium. A few months before, I had enlisted Richard’s help in what should have been a straightforward case of car fraud. Only, as they say in all the worst police dramas, it all went pear-shaped. Spectacularly so. Richard ended up behind bars, his life in jeopardy, and I nearly got myself killed tracking down the real villains. As if that hadn’t been enough, I’d also been landed with looking after his eight-year-old son, Davy. And me with the maternal instinct of licorice allsort.

The physical scars had healed pretty quickly, but the real damage was to our relationship. You’d think he’d have been grateful that I sorted everything out. Instead, he’s been distant, sarcastic and out a lot. It’s not been grim all the time, of course. If it had been, I’d have knocked it on the head weeks ago. We still managed to have fun together, and sometimes for nearly a week things would be just like they used to be: lots of laughs, a few nights out, communal Chinese takeaways and spectacular sex. Then the clouds would descend, usually when I was up to the eyeballs in some demanding job.

This was the first time since our run-in with the drug warlords that I’d asked Richard to do anything connected with work. I’d argued with Trevor Kerr that there must be a less complicated way for us to meet, but Clever Trevor was convinced that he was right to take precautions. I nearly asked him why he was hiring a dog and still barking himself, but I bit my tongue. Business hasn’t been so great lately that I can afford to antagonize new clients before they’re actually signed up.

With a sigh, I walked into my own bedroom and considered the options. Richard says I don’t have a wardrobe, just a collection of disguises. Looking at the array of clothes in front of me, I was tempted to agree with him. I pulled out a simple tailored dress in rough russet silk with a matching bolero jacket. I’d bought it while I’d been bodyguarding a Hollywood actress who was over here for a week to record an episode in a Granada drama series. She’d taken one look at the little black number I’d turned up in on the first evening and silently written me a check for £500 to go and buy “something a little more chic, hon.” I’m not proud; I took the money and shopped. Alexis and I hadn’t had so much fun in years.

I stepped into the dress and reached round to zip it up. Richard got there before me. He leaned forward and kissed me behind the ear. I turned to gooseflesh and shivered. “Sorry,” he said. “Bad day. Let’s go and see how the other half lives.”

The address Trevor Kerr had given me was in Whitefield, a suburb of mostly semis just beyond the perennial roadwork on the M62. It’s an area that’s largely a colony of the upwardly mobile but not strictly Orthodox Jews who make up a significant proportion of Manchester ’s population. Beyond the streets of identical between-the-wars semis lay our destination, one of a handful of architect-designed developments where the serious money has gravitated. My plumber got the contract for one of them, and he told me about a conversation with one of his customers. My plumber thought the architect had made a mistake, because the plans showed plumbing for four dishwashers-two in the kitchen and two in the utility room. When he queried it, the customer looked at him as if he was thick as a yard of four-by-two and said, “We keep kosher and we entertain a lot.” There’s nothing you can say to that.

The house I’d been directed to looked more Frankenstein than Frank Lloyd Wright. It had more turrets and crenellations than Windsor Castle, all in bright red Accrington brick. “Sometimes it’s nice to be potless,” Richard remarked as we parked as near to it as we could get. It had a triple garage and a blacktop driveway for half a dozen cars, but tonight was clearly party night. Richard’s hot-pink Volkswagen Beetle convertible looked as out of place as Cinderella at a minute past midnight. When the hostess opened the door, I smiled. “Good evening,” I said. “We’re with Trevor Kerr,” I added.

The frosting on her immaculate coiffure spilled over onto the hostess’s smile. “Do come in,” she said.

The man who’d been hovering in the hall behind her stepped forward and said, “I’m Trevor Kerr.” He signaled with his eyebrows towards the stairs and we followed him up into a den that looked like it had been bought clock, stock and panel from a country house. The only incongruity was the computer and fax machine smack in the middle of the desk. “We won’t be disturbed here,” he said. “It’ll be at least half an hour before the host distributes the clues and we move off. Perhaps your friend would like to go downstairs and help himself to the buffet?”

I could hear Richard’s hackles rising. “Mr. Barclay is a valued associate of Mortensen and Brannigan. Anything you say is safe with him,” I said stiffly. I dreaded to think how many people Richard could upset at a Round Table potluck buffet.

“That’s right,” he drawled. “I’m not just scenery.”

Kerr looked uncomfortable, but he wasn’t really in a position to argue. As he settled himself in an armchair, we studied each other. Not even a hand-stitched suit could hide a body gone ruinously to seed. I was tempted to offer some fashion advice, but I didn’t think he’d welcome the news that this year, bellies are being worn inside the trousers. He couldn’t have been much more than forty, but his eyes would have been the envy of any self-respecting bloodhound and his jowls would have set a bulldog aquiver. The only attractive feature the man possessed was a head of thick, wavy brown hair with a faint silvering at the temples.

“Well, Mr. Kerr?” I said.

He cleared his throat and said, “I run Kerrchem. You probably haven’t heard of us, but we’re quite a large concern. We’ve got a big plant out at Farnworth. We manufacture industrial cleaning materials, and we do one or two domestic products for supermarket own-brands. We pride ourselves on being a family business. Anyway, about a month ago, I got a letter in the post at home. As far as I can remember, it said I could avoid Kerrchem ending up with the same reputation as Tylenol for a very modest sum of money.”

“Product tampering,” Richard said sagely.

Kerr nodded. “That’s what I took it to mean.”

“You said, ‘as far as I can remember,’ ” I remarked.“Does that mean you haven’t got the note?”

Kerr scowled. “That’s right. I thought it was some crank. It looked ridiculous, all those letters cut out of a newspaper and sellotaped down. I binned it. You can’t blame me for that,” he whined.

“No one’s blaming you, Mr. Kerr. It’s just a pity you didn’t keep the note. Has something happened since then to make you think they were serious?”

Kerr looked away and pulled a fat cigar from his inside pocket. As he went through the performance of lighting it, Richard leaned forward in his seat. “A man has died since then, hasn’t he, Mr. Kerr?” I was impressed. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but I was impressed.

A plume of acrid blue smoke obscured Kerr’s eyes as he said, “Technically, yes. But there’s no evidence that there’s any connection.”

“A man dies after opening a sealed container of your products, you’ve had a blackmail note and you don’t believe there’s a connection?” Richard asked, with only mild incredulity.

I could see mischief dancing behind his glasses, so I thought I’d better head this off at the pass. Any minute now, Richard would decide to start enjoying himself, completely oblivious to the fact that not everyone has the blithe disregard for human life that characterizes journalists. “Suppose you give me your version of events, Mr. Kerr.”

He puffed on the cigar and I tried not to cough. “Like I said,

I thought this note was some crank. Then, last week, we had a phone call from the police. They said a publican had dropped down dead at work. It seemed he’d just opened a fresh container of KerrSter. That’s a universal cleanser that we produce. One of our biggest sellers to the trade. Anyway, according to the postmortem, this man had died from breathing in cyanide, which is ridiculous, because cyanide doesn’t go anywhere near the KerrSter process. Nobody at our place could work out how him dying could have had anything to do with the KerrSter,“ he said defensively. ”We weren’t looking forward to the inquest, I’ll be honest, but we didn’t see how we could be held to blame.“

“And?” I prompted him.

Kerr shifted in his seat, moving his weight from one buttock to the other in a movement I hadn’t seen since Dumbo. “I swear I never connected it with the note I’d had. It’d completely slipped my mind. And then this morning, this came.” His pudgy hand slid into his inside pocket again and emerged with a folded sheet of paper. He held it out towards me.

“Has anyone apart from you touched this?” I asked, not reaching for it.

He shook his head. “No. It came to the house, just like the other one.”

“Put it down on the desk,” I said, raking in my bag for a pen and my Swiss Army knife. I took the eyebrow tweezers out of their compartment on the knife and gingerly unfolded the note. It was a sheet from a glue-top A4 pad, hole-punched, narrow rules and margin. Across it, in straggling newsprint letters sellotaped down, I read, “Bet you wish you’d done what you were told. We’ll be in touch. No cops. We’re watching you.” The letters were a mixture of upper- and lowercase, and I recognized the familiar fonts of the Manchester Evening Chronicle. Well, that narrowed it down to a few million bodies.

I looked up and sighed. “On the face of it, it looks like your correspondent carried out his threat. Why haven’t you taken this to the police, Mr. Kerr? Murder and blackmail, that’s what they’re there for.”

Kerr looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t think they’d believe me,” he said awkwardly. “Look at it from their point of view. My company’s products have been implicated in a major tampering scandal. A man’s dead. Can you imagine how much it’s going to cost me to get out from under the lawsuits that are going to be flying around? There’s nothing to show I didn’t cobble this together myself to try and get off the hook. I bet mine are the only fingerprints on that note, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the police aren’t going to waste their time hunting for industrial saboteurs they won’t even believe exist. Anyway, the note says, ‘No cops.’ ”

“So you want me to find your saboteurs for you?” I asked resignedly.

“Can you?” Kerr asked eagerly.

I shrugged. “I can try.”

Before we could discuss it further, there was a knock at the door and our hostess’s head appeared. “Sorry to interrupt, Trevor, but we’re about to distribute the treasure-hunt clues, and I know you’d hate to start at a disadvantage.” She didn’t invite us to join in, I noticed. Clearly, my suit didn’t come up to scratch.

“Be right with you, Charmian,” Trevor said, hauling himself out of his chair. “My office, half past eight tomorrow morning?” he asked.

I had a lot more questions for Trevor Kerr, but they could wait. “I thought you were worried about me coming to the office?” I reminded him.

He barely paused on his way out the door. “I’ll tell my secretary you’re from the Health and Safety Executive,” he said. “Those nosy bastards are always poking round where they’re not wanted.”

I shook my head in despair as he departed. Some clients are like that. Before you’ve agreed to work for them, they’re practically on their knees. Soon as you come on board, they treat you like something nasty on their Gucci loafers. “And I thought heavy-metal bands were arseholes,” Richard mused.

“They are,” I said. “And while we’re on the subject, how come you knew about the KerrSter death?”

Richard winked and produced one of those smiles that got me tangled up with him in the first place. “Not much point in having the Chronicle delivered if you don’t bother reading it, is there?” he asked sweetly.

“Some of us have more important things to do than laze around smoking joints and reading the papers,” I snarled.

Richard pretended to look huffed. At least, I think he was pretending. “Oh well, if that’s the way things are, you won’t be wanting me to take you to dinner, will you?” he said airily.

“Try me,” I said. There are few things in life that don’t look better after aromatic crispy duck. How was I to know Trevor Kerr would be one of them?