Tuesday's Gone

Thirty-two

Living Wood was based in a small industrial unit in Dalston, occupying the bottom floor of a building that also housed an animal charity, a company making hats and a manufacturer of signs. Inside there was a different world. Wooden planks leaned against every inch of the walls. In the middle of the room there were large machines, saws and planes, one of which was being run by a young man in a white vest, stooped over his work with sweat on his bare shoulders. The rich smell of resin hung in the air. Yvette had to shout to make herself heard. The man turned off the machine and stood up, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead.

She held up her badge. ‘Are you in charge of this company?’

‘That’s my dad. He’s away. You can ask me.’

The man looked at Munster, who was examining a machine, perhaps a vice, with a huge heavy blade.

‘Careful,’ said the man. ‘That’ll have your arm off if you press the wrong button.’

‘We have a list of names,’ said Yvette. ‘I want to ask you if they mean anything to you.’

‘All right.’

She handed him the typed list. He glanced at it. ‘They’re customers,’ he said. ‘A couple of them I don’t recognize. I’d have to check on the computer but they might be as well.’ He went over to a small space, partitioned off from the rest of the room, where there was a filing cabinet and a computer. He sat at it, tapped at the keys, opened a file of names and scrolled down it.

‘All except the last,’ he said. ‘Sally Lea. I don’t know her and she’s not on our computer. We’ve made things for the others, some of them more than once. The Coles, for instance, we made them a bed out of an old ash tree that had blown down. Beautiful bit of wood. It took months.’

‘So you’re saying they all bought things you made.’

‘We’re not a shop, as you can see. People bring us wood from their garden and we turn it into objects. Usually bowls and chopping boards – but anything actually. Mrs Orton – we made her an urn for her husband’s ashes.’

‘How do your customers find you?’

‘We’ve got ads in a couple of magazines. Magazines for people who’re doing up their homes.’

‘Was someone called Robert Poole a customer?’ said Yvette.

‘Robbie?’ He looked at them curiously. ‘No. He wasn’t a customer. He worked here.’

‘Did he? When?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Beginning of last year, just for a few months.’ Another man pushed open the door of the workroom with his shoulder and came in carrying two cardboard cups of coffee. ‘Darren, these two are detectives. They’re asking about Robbie Poole.’

‘Why did he leave?’ asked Yvette.

The two men exchanged looks.

‘Is there a problem?’ said Darren. ‘We don’t want to cause any trouble.’

‘There’s been a crime.’

‘It ended badly,’ said the young man. ‘Some money went missing. I felt really rotten about it.’

‘You thought it was him?’

‘We thought it might have been. It seemed the only explanation. We confronted him and he was in a real state about it. It was bad. For everyone.’

‘But he left.’

‘I gave him a couple of weeks’ wages to tide him over. Is he OK?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘What?’

‘He was murdered.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Fuck,’ repeated Darren, with awe. ‘Fucking fuck.’

‘We found these names in his flat.’

‘Jesus. Why?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’

‘Dead!’

‘You’ve been very helpful. We might be back in touch.’ Yvette smiled at him. ‘But I don’t think you should feel guilty about letting him go,’ she said.