‘Head office?’ I said. ‘Didn’t Larry Trent own the place?’
‘Er...’ said the assistant unhappily. ‘I really don’t know. Mr Trent never said he didn’t, I mean, I thought he did. But when I got here this morning the telephone was ringing, and it was head office. That’s what he said, anyway. He wanted to speak to the manager, and when I explained he said he would send someone along straight away.’
‘Who ran things last night?’ Ridger demanded.
‘What? Oh... we’re closed, Sunday nights.’
‘And yesterday lunchtime?’
‘The assistant manager was here, but he’d got ‘flu. He went home to bed as soon as we closed. And of course Mr Trent had been here until opening time, seeing that everything was all right before he went to Mr Hawthorn’s party.’
All three looked demoralised but at the same time slightly defiant, seeing the policeman as their natural enemy. Relations scarcely improved when Ridger’s reinforcements rolled up: two uniformed constables bringing tape and labels for sealing all the bottles.
I diffidently suggested to Ridger that he should extend his suspicions to the wines.
‘Wines?’ he frowned. ‘Yes, if you like, but we’ve got enough with the spirits.’
‘All the same,’ I murmured, and Ridger told the assistant to show me where they kept the wine, and to help me and one of his constables bring any bottles I wanted into the bar. The assistant, deciding that helpfulness would establish his driven-snow innocence, put no obstacles in my way, and in due course, and after consulting the wine list, the assistant, the constable and I returned to the bar carrying two large baskets full of bottles.
The spirits bottles all having been sealed, there was at our return a lull of activity in the Silver Moondance Saloon. I unloaded the bottles onto two tables, six white wine on one, six red on another, and from my jacket pocket produced my favourite corkscrew.
‘Hey,’ the barman protested. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘Every bottle I open will be paid for,’ I said, matter-of-factly. ‘And what’s it to you?’
The barman shrugged. ‘Give me twelve glasses,’ I said, ‘and one of those pewter tankards,’ and he did. I opened the six bottles of varying white wines and under the interested gaze of six pairs of eyes poured a little of the first into a glass. Niersteiner, it said on the labeclass="underline" and Niersteiner it was. I spat the tasted mouthful into the pewter tankard, to disgusted reaction from the audience.
‘Do you want him to get drunk?’ Ridger demanded, belatedly understanding. ‘The evidence of a drunk taster wouldn’t be acceptable.’
I tasted the second white. Chablis, as it should have been.
The third was similarly O.K., a Pouilly Fuissé.
By the time I’d finished the sixth, a Sauternes, the barman had greatly relaxed.
‘Nothing wrong with them?’ Ridger asked, not worried.
‘Nothing,’ I agreed, stuffing the corks back. ‘I’ll try the reds.’
The reds were a St Emilion, a St Estôphe, a Måcon, a Valpolicella, a Volnay and a Nuits St Georges, all dated 1979. I smelled and tasted each one carefully, spitting and waiting a few moments in between sips so that each wine should be fresh on the tongue, and by the time I’d finished everyone else was restive.
‘Well,’ Ridger demanded, ‘are they all right?’
‘They’re quite pleasant,’ I said, ‘but they’re all the same.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ I said, ‘that notwithstanding all those pretty labels, the wine in all of these bottles is none of them. It’s a blend. Mostly Italian, I would say, mixed with some French and possibly some Yugoslav, but it could be anything.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the barman said impatiently. ‘We have people every day saying how good the wines are.’
‘Mm,’ I said neutrally. ‘Perhaps you do.’
‘Are you positive?’ Ridger asked me. ‘They’re all the same?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded as if that settled it and instructed the constables to seal and label the six reds with the date, time and place of confiscation. Then he told the barman to find two boxes to hold all the labelled bottles, which brought a toss of the head, a mulish petulance and a slow and grudging compliance.
I kept my word and paid for all the wine, the only action of mine which pleased the barman from first to last. I got him to itemise every bottle on a Silver Moondance billhead and sign it ‘Received in full’, and then I paid him by credit card, tucking away the receipts.
Ridger seemed to think paying was unnecessary, but then shrugged, and he and the contable began putting the wine into one of the boxes and the whiskies into the other; and into this sullenly orderly scene erupted the man from head office.
Five
The man from head office was not at first sight intimidating. Short, fortyish, dark-haired, of medium build and wearing glasses, he walked enquiringly into the saloon in a grey worsted business suit as if not sure of the way.
Ridger, taking him, as I did, for a customer, raised his voice and said, ‘The bar is closed, sir.’
The man took no notice but advanced more purposefully until he stood near enough to see the bottles in the boxes. He frowned at them and glanced at the policeman, and I could see in him a distinct change of mental gear. A tightening of muscles; a sharpening of attention: cruise to overdrive in three seconds.
‘I’m a police officer,’ said Ridger firmly, producing his authorisation. The bar is closed until further notice.’
‘Is it indeed?’ said the newcomer ominously. ‘Be so good as to explain why.’ The first impression was wrong, I thought. This man could intimidate quite easily.
Ridger blinked. ‘It’s a police matter,’ he said. ‘It’s no concern of yours.’
‘Every concern,’ said the man shortly. ‘I’ve come from head office to take over. So just what exactly is going on?’ His voice had the edge of one not simply used to command but used to instant action when he spoke. His accent, so far as he had one, was straightforward business-English, devoid both of regional vowels and swallowed consonants, but also without timbre. Good plain grain, I thought; not malt.
‘Your name, sir?’ asked Ridger stolidly, ignoring the sharp tone as if he hadn’t heard it, which I was sure he had.
The man from head office looked him up and down, assessing the altogether statement of brushed hair, belted raincoat, polished shoes. Ridger reacted to that aggressively, his spine stiffening, the desire to be the dominator growing unmistakably in the set of his jaw. Interesting, I thought.
The man from head office allowed the pause to lengthen until it was clear to everyone that he was giving his name as a result of thought, not out of obedience to Ridger.
‘My name is Paul Young,’ he said finally, with weight. ‘I represent the company of which this restaurant is a subsidiary. And now, what exactly is going on here?’
Ridger’s manner remained combative as he began announcing in his notebook terminology that the Silver Moondance would be prosecuted for contraventions of the Sale of Goods Act.
Paul Young from head office interrupted brusquely. ‘Cut the jargon and be precise.’
Ridger glared at him. Paul Young grew impatient. Neither would visibly defer to the other, but Ridger did in the end explain what he was removing in the boxes.
Paul Young listened with fast growing anger, but this time not aiming it at Ridger himself. He turned his glare instead on the barman (who did his best to shelter behind his pimples), and thunderously demanded to know who was responsible for selling substitutions. From the barman, the waitress and the assistant assistant in turn he got weak disclaiming shakes of the head and none of the defiance that they had shown to Ridger.