Grey recalled then another face he may have just glimpsed in the turmoiclass="underline" Philip Long, the dead man’s father. He would be speaking to him again soon, but not just now; as with a solemnity that would have shocked anyone here a minute or two ago, the ways parted and the car drove very slowly forwards.
Chapter 33 — Within the Citadel
Once through, there was barely room for Grey to park and leave space for the large doors to be swung shut behind them. The big Jaguar filled the aisle of the squashed courtyard, the modern Audis and Mercedes of the administrators going nowhere soon.
As the doors were being closed, Grey heard from behind them the resumption of the earlier disturbance from the men, but with nothing like the same urgency. The brick archway Isobel and he were stood in now resounded mainly to the clatter of the doors themselves being re-secured.
Yet however complex the issues being discussed outside, within the shaded archway Grey felt calm and secure, assured that though the world was in chaos there were still barriers behind which small pools of stillness could exist. For what was civilisation if not the making of a space for thought and contemplation? But he couldn’t help thinking of the protesters. ‘Poor devils,’ he heard himself saying, ‘what’s a working man without work? If he can’t provide for his family?’
‘Easy,’ Isobel chided, ‘you’re beginning to sound like an episode of Newsnight. You are still with us, Inspector? Haven’t we got things to do?’ She stood beside him, returning him to his surroundings — perhaps events were finally getting to him? If his senses required further gathering though he would have to contemplate on the hoof, for there was still much to sort out.
‘Inspector!’ called Shauna Reece, stood at the door within the arch that led to her reception, ‘And Isobel Semple, Southney’s Snowdrop.’ In an act of female solidarity as powerful as the brotherhood enacted outside, Shauna took the hands of the woman she had never met and had only known before through posters and appeals, and smiled with a warmth that couldn’t be faked. ‘So the Inspector found you?’ she asked rhetorically, her warm gaze turning to Grey.
‘He did indeed,’ Isobel replied happily, Grey considering that whatever Isobel thought about this concern others felt for her, she seemed to leave the people expressing it feeling good about themselves, and this was a kindness. Not that she cared how she spoke to him.
‘How come you are here?’ asked Grey of Shauna. ‘Didn’t you get caught up in all the trouble?’
‘I just turned up for work as usual. Mr Wutherton had asked me to do extra hours, so I was here before the men came. And we have power in the office, so there’s no problem there.
‘So much to do!’ continued Shauna as she led them through, ‘so many calls to answer since the news broke. And I didn’t mind working over when there’s only me at home to cook for.’
‘So you haven’t had any trouble? That is a relief,’ Grey answered.
‘I’m working in the main room today — it seemed lonely down here with the doors closed,’ she said as they passed through the unlit reception, further darkened by the board put up across the outside of the window. That this flimsy panel was part of the same line of defence as those stout and sturdy doors struck Grey not only as absurd, but also offered a commentary on the plant’s current state — that its foundations may be deep, but the walls were made of chipboard. He could forget his earlier observation, for there was no security in this citadel.
‘We saw you getting through the crowd from up here,’ said Shauna guiding them up toward the main office, ‘I can’t believe you made it! It was so exciting. And right after that other car came through. He must be somebody important — are you with him? He went straight through to the far office, he’s in there now.’
‘How long have you worked here, did you say?’ asked Grey quickly.
‘Six months, no seven now.’
‘Yes, of course, you did tell me. For some of the men rather longer, I expect?’
Isobel smiled as she guessed where the Inspector was going with this.
‘Oh, half a lifetime,’ answered Shauna. ‘ Man and boy, as they say, man and boy…’
At the top of the stairs by the empty rooms, Isobel, who seemed to know where she was going as well as their guide, spoke to Grey,
‘Am I coming in there with you?’
‘Would you pay any attention if I tried to stop you?’
That the room was filled with mostly non-locals who wouldn’t have known Isobel Semple from Eve, Wuthertons not being a Southney firm, rather detracted for Grey from the shock effect of arriving in places in the company of the town’s golden girl.
‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to play our trick any more,’ she said so quietly that only he would hear.
‘No, we might have to rely on our natural charm from here on in.’
‘What was all that fuss about downstairs? Who are you?’ asked a stout young man as he came forward. He stood out among the mainly young men in spivvy dark suits who made up the administration staff, in looking rather more like a scrubbed up farm labourer in rolled-up shirtsleeves. Grey wondered if it wasn’t this fellow’s unspoken role to act as bouncer? For he imagined that they often had trouble with the natives. Grey looked across the host of men, some of them blearily eyed if not actively wrecked from the night before — but this was par for the course with the junior staff of financial firms. He watched the way they leant manfully over desks strewn with papers.
‘I am Inspector Rase of Southney Station,’ he announced. ‘I am here in connection with a very serious crime, and…’ He felt for his badge, then remembered that his suit jacket was in an evidence bag. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have my warrant card with me, but I can easily…’
‘He is an Inspector,’ confirmed Isobel.
‘And who might you be, Miss?’ asked the stout fellow no more cordially.
‘That’s Isobel Semple!’ called a woman’s voice from the back of the room — Gail Marsh of the office staff, who Grey recalled had been so helpful earlier in the week. ‘Dear Isobel, I used to work with your mother you know, before she had you. I remember meeting you when were this high.’
‘Yes, by the shops. We hid under the awning when it rained.’
‘You remember that?’ said Gail, evidently charmed.
‘Hello, Mrs Marsh,’ added Grey, ‘So they have kept you on too?’
‘Oh yes, there is far too much paperwork not to,’ she answered, evidently nonplussed at the situation, and quite ignoring the glowering lump of gristle beside her. ‘Although poor Cynthia has gone — her agency wrote to say they could no longer offer her to your firm, when we do not know we would be paid for her services; so they found her another placement. It is a shame, she was a good worker, and I miss her company.’
‘Inspector!’ came another jovial voice from the same end of the room, this time Keith Pitt of Southney’s computing consultants, looking towards Grey and the figure beside him. ‘And look who you’re with. How good to see you both, and for such different reasons.’
With every positive reaction Isobel received to her return, Grey hoped this process of reintroduction to Southney society could develop into a new life for her here, things slowly returning to normal. But nor could he forget how she had spoken to him in the canteen: her frustrations, her anger, the lengths she would go do. Not that it bothered him as such, but it revealed her complex nature, a nature not satisfied by town life before, so why would it be now? As yet few had seen that other side of her.
‘And guess who else is here?’ announced Gail, ‘You’d better come with me.’ She led them down the long room, quite ignoring the stolid dolt attempting to look ominous.