Rafferty & Llewellyn Boxed Set Books 5-8

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

AFTER MARIAN STEADMAN’S frank revelations, her colleagues, as though anxious to be thought equally as frank, were quick to back her up in her opinion of Barstaple’s character. Even Amy Glossop, whom Rafferty suspected was the office spy given the speed with which the rest of the staff had isolated her, agreed that Barstaple could be ‘a little difficult’.

Rafferty and Llewellyn made a start on taking the individual statements. It quickly became clear that, apart from Linda Luscombe, the rest of the staff had all had ample opportunity to plan and carry out Clive Barstaple’s murder. Linda Luscombe, having only returned to work on the morning of the murder had had a much more limited opportunity. Even this was reduced to zero when her colleagues backed up her statement that she hadn’t entered the kitchen at all that day, it not being her turn on the rota to make the tea or coffee.

Fortunately, she wasn’t the only suspect out of the running. Although Barstaple had chaired a sales meeting in the downstairs conference room with the firm’s sales representatives and had also, in the previous week, instigated the last in a long line of appraisal interviews with these same reps, none of them had ventured into the main office or the kitchen, it being part of Barstaple’s policy not to encourage the usual reps’ idle chat.

Unfortunately, when it came to visits by other employees in the group, the statements were contradictory as to who had visited on what day and whether it had been the previous Thursday or the previous Friday; even Albert Smith, the apparently not over-security conscious security guard, was uncertain as to details. Certainly none of their names appeared in the official visitors’ book.

Rafferty sat back after he’d let Smith go, studied his steepled fingers and observed gruffly, ‘This place seems to have been a veritable Piccadilly Circus in the last week. Isn’t it just our luck?’

‘At least we’ve got their names,’ Llewellyn reminded him.

‘Most of them,’ Rafferty contradicted. ‘There was one visitor whose identity nobody seems too sure about, apart from the probability that he’s something to do with finance at Watts and Cutley’s main office.’ He scowled. ‘I could wring Smith’s neck. If the bloody man had done his job properly ours would be so much simpler.’ He pushed himself to his feet. ‘Come on. I asked Hal Gallagher to wait till last. He should be in the staff room. We’ll interview him there.’

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