Clean Break

A plume of acrid blue smoke obscured Kerr’s eyes as he said, “Technically, yes. But there’s no evidence that there’s any co

“A man dies after opening a sealed container of your products, you’ve had a blackmail note and you don’t believe there’s a co

I could see mischief dancing behind his glasses, so I thought I’d better head this off at the pass. Any minute now, Richard would decide to start enjoying himself, completely oblivious to the fact that not everyone has the blithe disregard for human life that characterizes journalists. “Suppose you give me your version of events, Mr. Kerr.”

He puffed on the cigar and I tried not to cough. “Like I said,

I thought this note was some crank. Then, last week, we had a phone call from the police. They said a publican had dropped down dead at work. It seemed he’d just opened a fresh container of KerrSter. That’s a universal cleanser that we produce. One of our biggest sellers to the trade. Anyway, according to the postmortem, this man had died from breathing in cyanide, which is ridiculous, because cyanide doesn’t go anywhere near the KerrSter process. Nobody at our place could work out how him dying could have had anything to do with the KerrSter,“ he said defensively. ”We weren’t looking forward to the inquest, I’ll be honest, but we didn’t see how we could be held to blame.“

“And?” I prompted him.

Kerr shifted in his seat, moving his weight from one buttock to the other in a movement I hadn’t seen since Dumbo. “I swear I never co

“Has anyone apart from you touched this?” I asked, not reaching for it.

He shook his head. “No. It came to the house, just like the other one.”

“Put it down on the desk,” I said, raking in my bag for a pen and my Swiss Army knife. I took the eyebrow tweezers out of their compartment on the knife and gingerly unfolded the note. It was a sheet from a glue-top A4 pad, hole-punched, narrow rules and margin. Across it, in straggling newsprint letters sellotaped down, I read, “Bet you wish you’d done what you were told. We’ll be in touch. No cops. We’re watching you.” The letters were a mixture of upper- and lowercase, and I recognized the familiar fonts of the Manchester Evening Chronicle. Well, that narrowed it down to a few million bodies.

I looked up and sighed. “On the face of it, it looks like your correspondent carried out his threat. Why haven’t you taken this to the police, Mr. Kerr? Murder and blackmail, that’s what they’re there for.”

Kerr looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t think they’d believe me,” he said awkwardly. “Look at it from their point of view. My company’s products have been implicated in a major tampering scandal. A man’s dead. Can you imagine how much it’s going to cost me to get out from under the lawsuits that are going to be flying around? There’s nothing to show I didn’t cobble this together myself to try and get off the hook. I bet mine are the only fingerprints on that note, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the police aren’t going to waste their time hunting for industrial saboteurs they won’t even believe exist. Anyway, the note says, ‘No cops.’ ”

“So you want me to find your saboteurs for you?” I asked resignedly.

“Can you?” Kerr asked eagerly.

I shrugged. “I can try.”

Before we could discuss it further, there was a knock at the door and our hostess’s head appeared. “Sorry to interrupt, Trevor, but we’re about to distribute the treasure-hunt clues, and I know you’d hate to start at a disadvantage.” She didn’t invite us to join in, I noticed. Clearly, my suit didn’t come up to scratch.

“Be right with you, Charmian,” Trevor said, hauling himself out of his chair. “My office, half past eight tomorrow morning?” he asked.

I had a lot more questions for Trevor Kerr, but they could wait. “I thought you were worried about me coming to the office?” I reminded him.

He barely paused on his way out the door. “I’ll tell my secretary you’re from the Health and Safety Executive,” he said. “Those nosy bastards are always poking round where they’re not wanted.”

I shook my head in despair as he departed. Some clients are like that. Before you’ve agreed to work for them, they’re practically on their knees. Soon as you come on board, they treat you like something nasty on their Gucci loafers. “And I thought heavy-metal bands were arseholes,” Richard mused.

“They are,” I said. “And while we’re on the subject, how come you knew about the KerrSter death?”

Richard winked and produced one of those smiles that got me tangled up with him in the first place. “Not much point in having the Chronicle delivered if you don’t bother reading it, is there?” he asked sweetly.

“Some of us have more important things to do than laze around smoking joints and reading the papers,” I snarled.

Richard pretended to look huffed. At least, I think he was pretending. “Oh well, if that’s the way things are, you won’t be wanting me to take you to di

“Try me,” I said. There are few things in life that don’t look better after aromatic crispy duck. How was I to know Trevor Kerr would be one of them?

4

AS I WAITED FOB THE SECURITY GUARD IN CHARGE OP THE barrier at Kerrchem’s car park to check that I wasn’t some devious industrial spy trying to sneak in to steal their secrets, I stared across the car park at the sprawling factory, its red brick smudged black by years of industrial pollution. Somewhere inside there I’d find the end of the ball of string that would unravel to reveal a killer.

Eventually, he let me in and directed me to the administration offices. Trevor Kerr’s secretary was already at her desk when I walked in at twenty-five past eight. Unfortunately, her boss wasn’t. I introduced myself. “Mr. Kerr’s expecting me,” I added.

She’d clearly been hired for her efficiency rather than her charm. “Health and Safety Executive,” she said in the same tone of voice I’d have used for the VAT inspector. “Take a seat. Mr. Kerr will be here soon.” She returned to her word processor, attacking the keys with the ferocity of someone playing Mortal Kombat.

I looked around. Neither of the two chairs looked as if it had been chosen for comfort. The only available reading material was some trade journal that I wouldn’t have picked up even on a twelve-hour flight with a Sylvester Stallone film as the inflight movie. “Maybe I could make a start on the documents I need to see?” I said. “To save wasting time.”

“Only Mr. Kerr can authorize the release of company information to a third party,” she said coldly. “He knows you’re coming. I’m sure he won’t keep you waiting for long.”

I wished I shared her conviction. I tried to make myself comfortable and used the time to review the limited information I’d gleaned so far. After Richard and I had stuffed ourselves in a small Chinese restaurant in Whitefield, where we’d both felt seriously overdressed, I’d sat down with the previous weeks’ papers and brought myself up to speed. Richard, meanwhile, had changed and gone off to some dive in Longsight to hear some local techno band who’d just landed a record deal. Frankly, I felt I’d got the best end of the bargain.

On my way through the stuttering early rush-hour traffic, I’d stopped by the office to fax my local friendly financial services expert. I needed some background on Trevor Kerr and his company, and if there was dirt to be dug, Josh Gilbert was the man. Josh and I have an arrangement: he supplies me with financial information, and I buy him expensive di