No Going Back (The Kent Fisher Murder Mysteries Book 7), page 2
“If he was drunk and fell into a swimming pool, why do you need a post mortem?”
“The Coroner will want to consider anything that may have contributed to Harry’s death. Like the texts he sent you.” Ashley pulls out a business card. “Forward them to me.”
Sarah takes the business card and hurries down the stairs. She almost overbalances as she pulls on her wellies and rushes out of the door. Ashley watches through the window. “Did she tell you about the party?”
“No. What party?”
“Councillor Gregory Rathbone invited his well-heeled friends and cronies to a party on Saturday night. The councillor who’s now responsible for your department was there.”
“Stephanie Richmond?”
Ashley nods. “She dived into the pool and brought Harry Lawson to the surface. She tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. Not quite how you want to remember your engagement party, is it?”
“Rathbone’s getting married?”
“Didn’t Sarah tell you?”
I shake my head, wondering what else Sarah hasn’t told me.
Three
Ashley declines a cup of tea and ruffles Columbo’s fur. “You could come and live with me anytime, but with the hours I keep, it wouldn’t be fair. I’d prefer a man, but good ones are a bit thin on the ground.”
“I thought you’d finished with men.”
“I was hoping to meet one of your hunky colleagues on Friday, but you didn’t invite me to your leaving bash.”
“I didn’t leave.”
“Come again?”
“I’m no longer an employee, but I haven’t left.”
She pauses at the top of the stairs. “It’s too early for riddles, Kent.”
“Last Monday, the Food Standards Agency rang, unhappy with our inspection shortfall, the merger into Planning, the lack of a plan to deal with another potential shortfall this year. The Agency is carrying out a full audit in five weeks.”
“The council asked you to stay on to deal with the audit?”
“No, they assigned Gemma to deal with it.”
“She’s not an EHO.”
“Neither does she have the necessary experience. Every local authority has to appoint a suitably qualified, competent officer to manage its food safety function.”
“You.” She sets off down the stairs, Columbo racing ahead. “I hope you screwed them for a pay rise.”
“I negotiated a six month contract where I work three days a week. Rathbone and his lapdog, Stephanie Richmond, who’s Chair of the Planning Committee, only agreed because I factored in inspections of the high risk businesses we didn’t visit last year. I also offered to train Gemma so she can continue the work when I’ve finished.”
“Now we’re getting to the real reason. You can’t bear to be apart from Gemma. I thought you were supposed to be running the visitor centre and café here.”
“I still have four days a week with the weekend. A couple of our new volunteers have catering experience.”
She opens the door to let Columbo out. “It doesn’t leave much time for sleuthing.”
“I’ll talk to Rathbone tomorrow. He’s assigned Kelly to help me one day a week, which is odd.”
“Sounds sensible to me. You and Kelly have worked together for years.”
I inherited Kelly when the previous Head of Environmental Health resigned. She had no trouble slipping into the role of my PA when I took over running the department for six months.
But I have a feeling all is not well with Kelly.
“Yeah, but Rathbone didn’t want me back,” I say. “Then last Friday, without telling me, he pulled Kelly out of the call centre. Her line manager sent me a shirty email, telling me I can’t poach her staff.”
“I’d say he wants Kelly to keep tabs on you, Kent. Maybe you should use her to keep tabs on him.”
While Columbo weaves his way through the grass, nose to the ground, we follow the path to the car park. When we draw closer to the Mike Turner Visitor Centre, named in honour of my best friend, who was tragically killed almost four months ago, she stops beneath the sign.
“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” she says, blinking back the tears. “I’ve hardly thought about anything else these past few months, questioning what we did, what we could have done.”
“We couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”
“I know, but it’s made me think about life, my job, what I want. I’m 44 years old, Kent. I’m single, living in a rented cottage, and married to a job they’re going to take from me.”
“They won’t move you, Ashley. You’re a great detective.”
She looks at me and sighs. “I got careless, Kent. I let my emotions get the better of me. Now I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes.”
“You’ll soon be running investigations again.” I place my hands on her shoulders and give her an encouraging smile. “You’re fitter and healthier than you’ve ever been. You look fabulous too. You’re going to knock them dead.”
“Thank you. Why don’t you come over for a pizza tonight? We can watch Back to the Future.”
“Make it Star Wars and you’ve got a date.”
She sighs. “You and Carrie Fisher. You’re so predictable. Okay, I’ll indulge your fantasies, but there’s something I want you to do first.”
“Buy you a gold bikini?”
“In your dreams, Fisher. No, have another word with Sarah Wheeler. Meet her for lunch. Seeing Harry on the slab might loosen her tongue a little.”
“Anything specific you want me to find out?”
Ashley holds up her phone to show me a photograph. “This is Sarah’s party frock, left on the back seat of her Volvo.”
“She was called out on an emergency and changed into work clothes.”
“She didn’t go home to change though. She brought her work clothes with her. Coincidence, or was she expecting to be called out?”
I shake my head. “Maybe she keeps a spare set of clothes in her car for emergencies.”
“And maybe she could have told you about Rathbone’s party, but she didn’t.”
Four
Sarah meets me for lunch in Hampden Park, a short drive from Eastbourne District General Hospital. She’s sitting on a bench overlooking the lake, a Pepsi Max in her hand, a packet of sandwiches by her side. Her sleeveless blouse and short skirt show off the deep tan on her arms and legs. When I arrive, she slides a takeaway tea towards me. “I left the bag in.”
Careful to avoid the bird poo on the back of the bench, I sit beside her. “How did it go at the mortuary?”
“You were never one for small talk, were you?”
“And you didn’t buy me a sandwich.”
“I’ve no idea what you eat these days. I’m not sure I know you anymore.”
She never knew me before, despite what Harry’s texts suggest.
“When I saw Harry lying in the mortuary, it became real. His death, I mean.” She takes a sip of Pepsi, staring out across the lake. “He once told me if he had to die he wanted to go on a battlefield, reporting on the atrocities of war. He wanted to be a hero, not a drunken corpse at the bottom of a swimming pool.”
She pulls a chicken salad sandwich out of its packaging and checks the amount of filling. “That’s the trouble with dreams – they remind us what failures we are.”
She glares at the mothers who walk past with their buggies and pushchairs, forcing her to pull her feet out of the way. Beyond, more mothers help their infants feed the ducks and swans, which stand little chance against the brash gulls. At least most parents purchase seed from the café rather than feeding bread to the birds.
“I didn’t know where he lived, worked or socialised,” Sarah’s saying. “That’s how important Harry Lawson was.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the party?”
“What difference does it make?” Sarah finishes eating the first sandwich, unaware of the crows and jackdaws massing around us. “I was called out and missed all the action.”
“Ashley spotted your party frock on the back seat.”
Sarah nods. “I keep some old clothes in the boot for emergencies, like you keep your running kit in yours.”
“Why were you at Rathbone’s engagement party? You don’t like the bloke.”
“He didn’t invite me. My partner, Stephanie Richmond, did.”
“You’re in a relationship with the chair of Downland’s Planning Committee?”
She laughs. “Gemma looked at me in disgust when I told her my partner was another woman. You’re more concerned about Steph being the councillor you have to report to.”
I’m more concerned about the alliance I’m facing.
Frank Dean, the Chief Executive, is Sarah’s brother and Gemma’s uncle. He’s working with Gregory Rathbone, a friend of Stephanie Richmond, who also chairs the Planning Committee. As well as dating Sarah, Stephanie has considerable influence over my new boss in Planning.
It’s like an extended family with Rathbone at the head of the table.
“Why was Harry at the party?”
Sarah finishes her sandwich. “He must have talked his way into the house. He was drenched from the storm, dripping water everywhere. When he spotted me, he strolled up with that cocky sneer of his and asked me why I was fraternising with the enemy.”
“Did you ask him about the texts?”
“Yes, but Steph came up to rescue me at that point. You should have seen his face when she kissed me. It was like I’d kicked him in the guts.”
“Did Harry know you’d be at the party?”
“He said he came to see Gregory’s child bride. Katya’s in her thirties, for God’s sake. She’s from Belarus or Latvia, but you’d never know. She speaks good English with hardly any accent. They met at the doctors’ surgery when Gregory sprained his wrist earlier this year.”
After signing too many redundancy notices, no doubt.
“Now she runs his hotel near Herstmonceux. The Travellers, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Why was Harry interested in Katya?”
“You know Harry – always stirring the shit with a stick. He told me to choose my friends with more care and skulked off.”
“Do you remember when he arrived?”
She shrugs. “Ten forty-five or thereabouts?”
“I understand he argued with Rathbone.”
“It was a few minutes after eleven. I’d had a call about an injured heifer. I saw Gregory rush into the study and slam the door. I heard raised voices, but I couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. It was over in a minute, maybe less. Gregory came out, looking his normal charming self.”
“How about Harry?”
“No idea. I was on the doorstep, saying goodbye to Steph by then. I saw him come out of the front door a few minutes later while I was driving away.”
“Did you see where he went?”
“It was raining stair rods. I could hardly see through the windscreen.”
While I’ve never been inside Rathbone’s house, I know the swimming pool is in the rear garden, which is enclosed by a brick wall about two metres high. Harry would have had to walk around the house and find a way into the rear garden to get to the pool.
Why would he do that?
“Is there anything else you remember?” I ask. “Something Harry said? Someone he spoke to?”
She flattens the sandwich carton while she thinks. “He was clutching something to his chest – something under his jacket. He didn’t have it when he came out of the front door.”
“I thought you couldn’t see because of the rain.”
“He was turning up his collar with both hands.”
Five
On Monday morning, I arrive early at Tollingdon Town Hall, parking my Ford Fusion in the bay I’ve used for the past nine months. While my old job no longer exists, I’ve retained my office. There’s no space for us within the Planning office, so the rest of the team remain next door. Only Kelly’s desk has gone, joining her in the call centre, I imagine.
It feels strange, entering the office I should have left last Friday. Not that I’m a fan of my predecessor’s obsession with lavender, which extends to the colour of the walls, the sofa in the meeting area and stationery items like letter trays and staplers. Then I notice Kelly’s desk, facing mine. She’s on her hands and knees in the footwell.
“I don’t think either of us imagined we’d be back so soon.”
She shuffles out and brushes the fluff from her sleeves. She’s swapped her high heels, short skirt and snug blouse for a more traditional blue suit and sensible shoes, which reduce the saucy swagger in her hips. The bold makeup has gone, draining the fun from her face.
She gives my polo shirt and chinos the once over. “Is this how contractors dress?”
“I’m not ruining a good suit inspecting hot, steamy kitchens with greasy floors.”
“You don’t have a good suit.”
“I thought you’d be pleased to have a break from the call centre.”
She presses the button to start her computer. “I don’t like being instructed to work for you.”
“No one else has your knowledge and grasp of our systems.”
“Gemma does.” When her computer fails to boot, Kelly glares at me, as if I’m to blame. “But she’s far too important to be your assistant. No, send for Kelly. She’s only working in the call centre. It’s only one day a week.”
“Kelly, I can’t do the audit without you.” I pause as she dives under her desk. “Rathbone’s determined to make me take the blame for the inspection shortfall. We can show it was a failure to replace staff and appoint a second contractor that led to the shortfall.”
“Shouldn’t you be working together to present a united front?”
“That might be difficult as Rathbone doesn’t want me here.”
“No one wants you here.” She emerges, brushing cobwebs from her hair. “Your feud with Gregory Rathbone destroyed this department. It cost Danni her job when she was making a difference. Nigel left because you were spending more time sleuthing than looking after your team. And then you let Gemma back.” She clambers to her feet, anger in her eyes. “How could you do that to us?”
“I thought you and Gemma were best friends.”
“You’re in love with her, Kent. You don’t give a shit about our feelings.”
“I fought to protect and improve Environmental Health.”
She stares at the blank monitor and sighs. “There you go again, always fighting.”
“When councillors like Rathbone attack me and the people I care about, the job I love, I’m not going to let them destroy everything.”
“What good did all the fighting do? Environmental Health no longer exists.” She gives me a sad shake of the head. “Then, when we needed you most, you quit.”
“My post was made redundant.”
“A post you never wanted. Why did you take it, Kent? You hated senior management. You spent six months antagonising them, knowing you could walk away and go back to your sanctuary and your wealthy father.”
It’s a damning indictment of my six months as Acting Head of Environmental Health.
“Then why am I here now, trying to protect the reputation of the team and the valuable work we do?”
“You’re here to make sure no one blames you for your failures.”
*
On the first floor, the Leader of the Council has an office next to the Chief Executive. They share the same sumptuous carpet, which sinks beneath my feet. I take in the smell of oak panelling, tradition and wealth. The walls, with their Regency style wallpaper and landscape paintings in gilded frames, hark back to a time when the council was a significant player in local affairs.
Gregory Rathbone sits behind a large desk that gleams like a showroom model. He prefers a laptop to a PC, a mobile to a landline and a single letter tray, piled high with folders and papers. This austerity echoes his simple suit, shirt and tie. His thin face is smooth, belying his age, though his black hair, greased and flattened hard against his skull, struggles to mask a bald spot. Naturally, he doesn’t have time for small talk. He flaps an indifferent hand at the expensive machine in the corner.
“Grab a real coffee, Kent. Steph’s with Neville. She’ll be a few minutes.”
Neville Priddy, the Head of Planning and Development, is ten years younger than me. His talent for talking the same language as councillors, combined with a ruthless desire to give them exactly what they want, reveals the shortcomings of my approach to management. Now he has his eye on Gemma, hoping to get cosy with the Chief Executive’s niece.
I sit at the meeting table. “I heard about the drowning at your house. I hope your fiancée wasn’t too distressed.”
Rathbone’s back stiffens. He places his pen on the desk, regarding me with small, dark eyes. “We’re here to discuss the Food Standards Agency audit, not Harry Lawson. But as he was an old friend of yours, you need to know he wasn’t invited to my party. I don’t know how he got in, or how he found his way to the bottom of my pool.”
“Did you tell the police about your encounters with Harry over the years?”
He rises from his grand, almost baronial chair. “I haven’t seen or spoken to Harry Lawson for at least ten years.”
“Yet he turns up at your house in the middle of a storm.”
Rathbone walks across to the window and looks down on Tollingdon High Street. “When I was informed of his presence, I asked him to leave, politely, of course.”
“An argument in the study doesn’t sound polite.”
He turns to face me, his smile as false as the colour of his hair. “Is this is another of your investigations?”
My smile is so sweet it should come with a health warning. “I’m interested in everything you do, Councillor Rathbone.”
“Harry Lawson was drunk and sopping wet. He’d already antagonised several of my guests. I escorted him to the front door and made sure he left without a fuss.”
“The Coroner will want to consider anything that may have contributed to Harry’s death. Like the texts he sent you.” Ashley pulls out a business card. “Forward them to me.”
Sarah takes the business card and hurries down the stairs. She almost overbalances as she pulls on her wellies and rushes out of the door. Ashley watches through the window. “Did she tell you about the party?”
“No. What party?”
“Councillor Gregory Rathbone invited his well-heeled friends and cronies to a party on Saturday night. The councillor who’s now responsible for your department was there.”
“Stephanie Richmond?”
Ashley nods. “She dived into the pool and brought Harry Lawson to the surface. She tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. Not quite how you want to remember your engagement party, is it?”
“Rathbone’s getting married?”
“Didn’t Sarah tell you?”
I shake my head, wondering what else Sarah hasn’t told me.
Three
Ashley declines a cup of tea and ruffles Columbo’s fur. “You could come and live with me anytime, but with the hours I keep, it wouldn’t be fair. I’d prefer a man, but good ones are a bit thin on the ground.”
“I thought you’d finished with men.”
“I was hoping to meet one of your hunky colleagues on Friday, but you didn’t invite me to your leaving bash.”
“I didn’t leave.”
“Come again?”
“I’m no longer an employee, but I haven’t left.”
She pauses at the top of the stairs. “It’s too early for riddles, Kent.”
“Last Monday, the Food Standards Agency rang, unhappy with our inspection shortfall, the merger into Planning, the lack of a plan to deal with another potential shortfall this year. The Agency is carrying out a full audit in five weeks.”
“The council asked you to stay on to deal with the audit?”
“No, they assigned Gemma to deal with it.”
“She’s not an EHO.”
“Neither does she have the necessary experience. Every local authority has to appoint a suitably qualified, competent officer to manage its food safety function.”
“You.” She sets off down the stairs, Columbo racing ahead. “I hope you screwed them for a pay rise.”
“I negotiated a six month contract where I work three days a week. Rathbone and his lapdog, Stephanie Richmond, who’s Chair of the Planning Committee, only agreed because I factored in inspections of the high risk businesses we didn’t visit last year. I also offered to train Gemma so she can continue the work when I’ve finished.”
“Now we’re getting to the real reason. You can’t bear to be apart from Gemma. I thought you were supposed to be running the visitor centre and café here.”
“I still have four days a week with the weekend. A couple of our new volunteers have catering experience.”
She opens the door to let Columbo out. “It doesn’t leave much time for sleuthing.”
“I’ll talk to Rathbone tomorrow. He’s assigned Kelly to help me one day a week, which is odd.”
“Sounds sensible to me. You and Kelly have worked together for years.”
I inherited Kelly when the previous Head of Environmental Health resigned. She had no trouble slipping into the role of my PA when I took over running the department for six months.
But I have a feeling all is not well with Kelly.
“Yeah, but Rathbone didn’t want me back,” I say. “Then last Friday, without telling me, he pulled Kelly out of the call centre. Her line manager sent me a shirty email, telling me I can’t poach her staff.”
“I’d say he wants Kelly to keep tabs on you, Kent. Maybe you should use her to keep tabs on him.”
While Columbo weaves his way through the grass, nose to the ground, we follow the path to the car park. When we draw closer to the Mike Turner Visitor Centre, named in honour of my best friend, who was tragically killed almost four months ago, she stops beneath the sign.
“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” she says, blinking back the tears. “I’ve hardly thought about anything else these past few months, questioning what we did, what we could have done.”
“We couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”
“I know, but it’s made me think about life, my job, what I want. I’m 44 years old, Kent. I’m single, living in a rented cottage, and married to a job they’re going to take from me.”
“They won’t move you, Ashley. You’re a great detective.”
She looks at me and sighs. “I got careless, Kent. I let my emotions get the better of me. Now I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes.”
“You’ll soon be running investigations again.” I place my hands on her shoulders and give her an encouraging smile. “You’re fitter and healthier than you’ve ever been. You look fabulous too. You’re going to knock them dead.”
“Thank you. Why don’t you come over for a pizza tonight? We can watch Back to the Future.”
“Make it Star Wars and you’ve got a date.”
She sighs. “You and Carrie Fisher. You’re so predictable. Okay, I’ll indulge your fantasies, but there’s something I want you to do first.”
“Buy you a gold bikini?”
“In your dreams, Fisher. No, have another word with Sarah Wheeler. Meet her for lunch. Seeing Harry on the slab might loosen her tongue a little.”
“Anything specific you want me to find out?”
Ashley holds up her phone to show me a photograph. “This is Sarah’s party frock, left on the back seat of her Volvo.”
“She was called out on an emergency and changed into work clothes.”
“She didn’t go home to change though. She brought her work clothes with her. Coincidence, or was she expecting to be called out?”
I shake my head. “Maybe she keeps a spare set of clothes in her car for emergencies.”
“And maybe she could have told you about Rathbone’s party, but she didn’t.”
Four
Sarah meets me for lunch in Hampden Park, a short drive from Eastbourne District General Hospital. She’s sitting on a bench overlooking the lake, a Pepsi Max in her hand, a packet of sandwiches by her side. Her sleeveless blouse and short skirt show off the deep tan on her arms and legs. When I arrive, she slides a takeaway tea towards me. “I left the bag in.”
Careful to avoid the bird poo on the back of the bench, I sit beside her. “How did it go at the mortuary?”
“You were never one for small talk, were you?”
“And you didn’t buy me a sandwich.”
“I’ve no idea what you eat these days. I’m not sure I know you anymore.”
She never knew me before, despite what Harry’s texts suggest.
“When I saw Harry lying in the mortuary, it became real. His death, I mean.” She takes a sip of Pepsi, staring out across the lake. “He once told me if he had to die he wanted to go on a battlefield, reporting on the atrocities of war. He wanted to be a hero, not a drunken corpse at the bottom of a swimming pool.”
She pulls a chicken salad sandwich out of its packaging and checks the amount of filling. “That’s the trouble with dreams – they remind us what failures we are.”
She glares at the mothers who walk past with their buggies and pushchairs, forcing her to pull her feet out of the way. Beyond, more mothers help their infants feed the ducks and swans, which stand little chance against the brash gulls. At least most parents purchase seed from the café rather than feeding bread to the birds.
“I didn’t know where he lived, worked or socialised,” Sarah’s saying. “That’s how important Harry Lawson was.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the party?”
“What difference does it make?” Sarah finishes eating the first sandwich, unaware of the crows and jackdaws massing around us. “I was called out and missed all the action.”
“Ashley spotted your party frock on the back seat.”
Sarah nods. “I keep some old clothes in the boot for emergencies, like you keep your running kit in yours.”
“Why were you at Rathbone’s engagement party? You don’t like the bloke.”
“He didn’t invite me. My partner, Stephanie Richmond, did.”
“You’re in a relationship with the chair of Downland’s Planning Committee?”
She laughs. “Gemma looked at me in disgust when I told her my partner was another woman. You’re more concerned about Steph being the councillor you have to report to.”
I’m more concerned about the alliance I’m facing.
Frank Dean, the Chief Executive, is Sarah’s brother and Gemma’s uncle. He’s working with Gregory Rathbone, a friend of Stephanie Richmond, who also chairs the Planning Committee. As well as dating Sarah, Stephanie has considerable influence over my new boss in Planning.
It’s like an extended family with Rathbone at the head of the table.
“Why was Harry at the party?”
Sarah finishes her sandwich. “He must have talked his way into the house. He was drenched from the storm, dripping water everywhere. When he spotted me, he strolled up with that cocky sneer of his and asked me why I was fraternising with the enemy.”
“Did you ask him about the texts?”
“Yes, but Steph came up to rescue me at that point. You should have seen his face when she kissed me. It was like I’d kicked him in the guts.”
“Did Harry know you’d be at the party?”
“He said he came to see Gregory’s child bride. Katya’s in her thirties, for God’s sake. She’s from Belarus or Latvia, but you’d never know. She speaks good English with hardly any accent. They met at the doctors’ surgery when Gregory sprained his wrist earlier this year.”
After signing too many redundancy notices, no doubt.
“Now she runs his hotel near Herstmonceux. The Travellers, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Why was Harry interested in Katya?”
“You know Harry – always stirring the shit with a stick. He told me to choose my friends with more care and skulked off.”
“Do you remember when he arrived?”
She shrugs. “Ten forty-five or thereabouts?”
“I understand he argued with Rathbone.”
“It was a few minutes after eleven. I’d had a call about an injured heifer. I saw Gregory rush into the study and slam the door. I heard raised voices, but I couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. It was over in a minute, maybe less. Gregory came out, looking his normal charming self.”
“How about Harry?”
“No idea. I was on the doorstep, saying goodbye to Steph by then. I saw him come out of the front door a few minutes later while I was driving away.”
“Did you see where he went?”
“It was raining stair rods. I could hardly see through the windscreen.”
While I’ve never been inside Rathbone’s house, I know the swimming pool is in the rear garden, which is enclosed by a brick wall about two metres high. Harry would have had to walk around the house and find a way into the rear garden to get to the pool.
Why would he do that?
“Is there anything else you remember?” I ask. “Something Harry said? Someone he spoke to?”
She flattens the sandwich carton while she thinks. “He was clutching something to his chest – something under his jacket. He didn’t have it when he came out of the front door.”
“I thought you couldn’t see because of the rain.”
“He was turning up his collar with both hands.”
Five
On Monday morning, I arrive early at Tollingdon Town Hall, parking my Ford Fusion in the bay I’ve used for the past nine months. While my old job no longer exists, I’ve retained my office. There’s no space for us within the Planning office, so the rest of the team remain next door. Only Kelly’s desk has gone, joining her in the call centre, I imagine.
It feels strange, entering the office I should have left last Friday. Not that I’m a fan of my predecessor’s obsession with lavender, which extends to the colour of the walls, the sofa in the meeting area and stationery items like letter trays and staplers. Then I notice Kelly’s desk, facing mine. She’s on her hands and knees in the footwell.
“I don’t think either of us imagined we’d be back so soon.”
She shuffles out and brushes the fluff from her sleeves. She’s swapped her high heels, short skirt and snug blouse for a more traditional blue suit and sensible shoes, which reduce the saucy swagger in her hips. The bold makeup has gone, draining the fun from her face.
She gives my polo shirt and chinos the once over. “Is this how contractors dress?”
“I’m not ruining a good suit inspecting hot, steamy kitchens with greasy floors.”
“You don’t have a good suit.”
“I thought you’d be pleased to have a break from the call centre.”
She presses the button to start her computer. “I don’t like being instructed to work for you.”
“No one else has your knowledge and grasp of our systems.”
“Gemma does.” When her computer fails to boot, Kelly glares at me, as if I’m to blame. “But she’s far too important to be your assistant. No, send for Kelly. She’s only working in the call centre. It’s only one day a week.”
“Kelly, I can’t do the audit without you.” I pause as she dives under her desk. “Rathbone’s determined to make me take the blame for the inspection shortfall. We can show it was a failure to replace staff and appoint a second contractor that led to the shortfall.”
“Shouldn’t you be working together to present a united front?”
“That might be difficult as Rathbone doesn’t want me here.”
“No one wants you here.” She emerges, brushing cobwebs from her hair. “Your feud with Gregory Rathbone destroyed this department. It cost Danni her job when she was making a difference. Nigel left because you were spending more time sleuthing than looking after your team. And then you let Gemma back.” She clambers to her feet, anger in her eyes. “How could you do that to us?”
“I thought you and Gemma were best friends.”
“You’re in love with her, Kent. You don’t give a shit about our feelings.”
“I fought to protect and improve Environmental Health.”
She stares at the blank monitor and sighs. “There you go again, always fighting.”
“When councillors like Rathbone attack me and the people I care about, the job I love, I’m not going to let them destroy everything.”
“What good did all the fighting do? Environmental Health no longer exists.” She gives me a sad shake of the head. “Then, when we needed you most, you quit.”
“My post was made redundant.”
“A post you never wanted. Why did you take it, Kent? You hated senior management. You spent six months antagonising them, knowing you could walk away and go back to your sanctuary and your wealthy father.”
It’s a damning indictment of my six months as Acting Head of Environmental Health.
“Then why am I here now, trying to protect the reputation of the team and the valuable work we do?”
“You’re here to make sure no one blames you for your failures.”
*
On the first floor, the Leader of the Council has an office next to the Chief Executive. They share the same sumptuous carpet, which sinks beneath my feet. I take in the smell of oak panelling, tradition and wealth. The walls, with their Regency style wallpaper and landscape paintings in gilded frames, hark back to a time when the council was a significant player in local affairs.
Gregory Rathbone sits behind a large desk that gleams like a showroom model. He prefers a laptop to a PC, a mobile to a landline and a single letter tray, piled high with folders and papers. This austerity echoes his simple suit, shirt and tie. His thin face is smooth, belying his age, though his black hair, greased and flattened hard against his skull, struggles to mask a bald spot. Naturally, he doesn’t have time for small talk. He flaps an indifferent hand at the expensive machine in the corner.
“Grab a real coffee, Kent. Steph’s with Neville. She’ll be a few minutes.”
Neville Priddy, the Head of Planning and Development, is ten years younger than me. His talent for talking the same language as councillors, combined with a ruthless desire to give them exactly what they want, reveals the shortcomings of my approach to management. Now he has his eye on Gemma, hoping to get cosy with the Chief Executive’s niece.
I sit at the meeting table. “I heard about the drowning at your house. I hope your fiancée wasn’t too distressed.”
Rathbone’s back stiffens. He places his pen on the desk, regarding me with small, dark eyes. “We’re here to discuss the Food Standards Agency audit, not Harry Lawson. But as he was an old friend of yours, you need to know he wasn’t invited to my party. I don’t know how he got in, or how he found his way to the bottom of my pool.”
“Did you tell the police about your encounters with Harry over the years?”
He rises from his grand, almost baronial chair. “I haven’t seen or spoken to Harry Lawson for at least ten years.”
“Yet he turns up at your house in the middle of a storm.”
Rathbone walks across to the window and looks down on Tollingdon High Street. “When I was informed of his presence, I asked him to leave, politely, of course.”
“An argument in the study doesn’t sound polite.”
He turns to face me, his smile as false as the colour of his hair. “Is this is another of your investigations?”
My smile is so sweet it should come with a health warning. “I’m interested in everything you do, Councillor Rathbone.”
“Harry Lawson was drunk and sopping wet. He’d already antagonised several of my guests. I escorted him to the front door and made sure he left without a fuss.”
