Murder Red-Handed

Book 380: Murder Room

by Richard Grindal

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Unexpectedly sent to Moscow to manage his firm's stand at a world fair, Cristopher Battle feels that he may not be up to the job. Then his chairman is murdered and, after the discovery of a second body, Battle is convinced that the Russian Security Police are trying to kill him. Fearful of violence, Battle goes on the run - and becomes emotionally entangled with a beautiful Russian woman who creates an entirely fresh set of problems . . .

Release date: January 14, 2016

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 176

Sample

BERTRAM TREST, our Chairman and Managing Director, had watery blue eyes. Usually they were cunning and watchful, but at other
times they seemed remote. In my tolerant moments I believed that I could detect behind that watery remoteness feelings that were almost human; loneliness, remorse for his materialism, a fear of
death. In more realistic moods, all I could see was ruthlessness and gin.

Today the eyes were watchful as he looked up at me across his vast executive’s desk.

‘Draw up a chair, Battle.’

Relief coursed through me with all the delicious pleasantness, but without the discomfort, of a strong purgative. Trest only offered underlings a chair in his most affable moments. So it
wasn’t to be a dismissal with ignominy after all.

All the way up the corridor from my office, after receiving his summons, I had felt a constipating anxiety gripping at my stomach. To fight off my cowardice, as I walked I had rapped with my
signet ring on the wall every five paces, for that had always been my own special form of whistling in the dark. I had told myself confidently that I had nothing to fear. Trest was only a man like
me. Why should I be afraid of the sack? After all, I had done nothing. I never did anything; never took decisions, insulted the tea ladies, made passes at directors’ secretaries. But still
the undercurrent of fear had lingered on, perpetuating the ridiculous schoolboy-headmaster relationship that I had never managed to shake off.

‘You never told me you could speak Russian,’ Trest said as I sat down.

I mumbled something about it never having seemed important.

‘Of course it’s important! How many people in this country speak fluent Russian, d’you think? One in a thousand? Not even that. One in ten thousand. Besides, it doesn’t
do to hide your light under a bushel. You should make more of yourself, Battle, with all the advantages you’ve had. University education, languages. That way you could be of more use to the
company.’

I was silent. Not long after I joined the secretariat at Trest Bowker Steels, Trest had gone to some trouble, I remembered, to point out that in industry a university degree meant nothing. I
would be judged – and paid – not on paper qualifications but on my work.

Now he went on, almost plaintively: ‘You must have known the company was taking a stand in this Moscow exhibition next week.’

This I could scarcely deny. Everyone in the London office knew about the fabulous exhibit that was going to represent Trest Bowker Steels in the World Metallurgical Fair to be held in Moscow,
starting the following week. Everyone also knew that the old man and half the senior managers were going over for the opening ceremony; that suites had been reserved in the finest hotels; that a
banquet was being arranged for top Russian officials.

Even though the Iron and Steel Federation was mounting an enormous exhibit on behalf of the whole British steel industry, Trest Bowker Steels had decided to go it on their own. People in the London
office saw it as another symptom of the old man’s growing megalomania.

He went on: ‘Here we have been hiring interpreters at inflated rates and all the time we had you.’ He shook his head almost sadly and his fat red cheeks trembled. ‘But it so
happens that we won’t have to waste your talents after all.’

‘No, sir?’

‘No. The way things have worked out, there’s an important job you’ll be able to do for us, Battle. I want you to fly out on Wednesday.’

For one wild moment I decided he had suddenly been transformed into a human being or slipped into his second childhood and that this was a genial leg-pull. I looked at him, but he was not
smiling.

‘You want me to go to Moscow, sir?’

‘Of course. You can’t run our stand at the exhibition from a desk in London.’

‘Run the stand, sir? But won’t Ness be in charge as usual?’

Ness was the company’s Exhibition Manager. The mention of his name seemed to arouse unwelcome memories for Trest. His blue eyes turned suddenly hard, the water draining away from the
flint.

‘Ness is leaving the company. And I want you to take over. There’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll do a better job of managing the stand than he’s ever done.’

‘But I know nothing about exhibition work, sir!’

‘It’s a simple job of organizing. If a man of Ness’s limitations can do it, presumably you can.’

For some reason that I couldn’t define, my heart began to thump. Part of it was panic, of course; the fear of being suddenly faced with problems that I wouldn’t be able to cope with;
the certainty that I’d make a nonsense of the job. But mingling with the fear was an excitement – unfamiliar and not altogether unpleasant.

‘I’ve always understood it’s a highly specialized field, sir.’

‘I don’t understand your attitude, Battle. Have you no confidence in yourself?’ Traces of a Sheffield accent began to creep back into his voice, as they always did when Trest
was irritated. ‘This is a chance that most young men would jump at. Ten days in Moscow at our expense. New places, new contacts, new responsibilities. Of course, if you don’t fancy
going, I can’t force you. But in that case I shall have to reconsider my ideas about your future prospects in the company.’

The excitement turned to sickness. ‘Oh no, sir! It’s a wonderful opportunity! I’m quite ready to go.’

‘That’s more like it.’

‘And you know I’ll do my best.’

‘Good. And now I can’t waste any more time on this subject.’ He rang for his secretary to show that the interview was at an end. ‘You’ll have to get Ness to brief
you on all the arrangements. He’s already been instructed to fix up a visa for you. I’ll see you in Moscow when I arrive.’

As I walked away down the corridor, I felt a pang of shame for my display of sycophancy and cowardice. Interviews with the Chairman usually left me feeling that way. On the other hand there was
at least an element of truth in what he had said. Ten days abroad at the company’s expense was the kind of prospect that young executives in Trest Bowker Steels dreamed about as they totted
up figures or summarized reports. If only it had been a trip to Brussels or Amsterdam or Hamburg. My mother was a White Russian and from what she had heard Moscow was very different today from the
gay city in which she had spent her early childhood. Even so, there must surely be some kind of night life there; there must be women; there must be wine.

Back in our office Jeff Townsend had two books open on his desk; a volume of trade statistics and a sex novel. He tried to slip the novel into a drawer, until he saw it was only me. As our
Market Research man, Jeff was nothing to do with the secretariat, but as Assistant Secretary, I didn’t rate an office of my own, so we shared an overgrown cupboard with a view over the well
of the building and thought ourselves lucky. He had become my closest friend.

‘I wish to hell you’d knock before you come in,’ he grumbled.

‘I’m going to Russia. On Wednesday.’

Behind the heavy spectacles his eyes opened wide. ‘To Russia? For the exhibition?’

‘Yes. Ness is leaving the company and Trest wants me to go over and manage the stand in his place.’

‘But you don’t know anything about exhibition work.’

‘It’s only a simple organizing job. Besides if a moron like Ness has handled our exhibitions for six years, then I suppose I can.’

I waited for Jeff to congratulate me on my good fortune, but I should have known better. He went back to his sex novel. Then a sudden thought seemed to strike him.

‘How are you going to break the news to June? You two were supposed to be leaving for Spain on Friday. Remember?’

‘Oh, God.’

In the excitement I had forgotten about June. She was my girl friend and what Jeff said was true. We had planned to leave for a holiday on the Costa Brava the following Friday. June had the
plane tickets: everything was booked.

‘June will understand,’ I said uneasily. ‘After all, I could scarcely say “no” to the Chairman, could I?’

Jeff grinned sadistically. ‘I’d love to be there when you tell her. It’s taken that girl five years to screw your courage up to going on holiday with her.’

Though Jeff is my friend, he has two habits which I find insufferable. The first is his ability to take the gloomiest possible view of every situation. The second is that he is almost always
right.

‘Perhaps I should write and tell her,’ I suggested unhappily.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be seeing her tonight?’

‘Yes, but you could ring her up and tell her I’m detained at the office. She’d get my letter in the morning.’

‘I’m not going to be an accessory to the murder of your beautiful affair. For once in your life don’t be a bloody coward. Tell her straight out.’

Given a little time I know I could have contrived a manoeuvre that would have spared embarrassment without loss of honour. God knows I didn’t want to hurt the poor girl’s feelings.
But from that moment time as a commodity began to disappear from the market as far as I was concerned. As the economists would say, my life entered a phase of imbalance.

The first development was that Mrs Foster, the telephone operator, stuck her head round the door of our office.

‘Oh, there you are, Christopher,’ she said to me. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

‘He’s off to Russia,’ Jeff told her.

‘Oh, I know that. On Wednesday.’ She came into the room and shut the door.

Mrs Foster was in her late fifties and plump, but she had still managed to preserve an air of style about her. Her grey hair had been rinsed a gay shade of blue and she wore suits that must have
been tailored in Mayfair and black patent leather shoes. She had been with Trest Bowker Steels for almost forty years and, like most of the other long-serving members of the company, had a
repertoire of interesting stories.

It was history that she had joined the company as Trest’s private secretary in the days when its capital assets were very little more than a couple of sheds behind the Attercliffe Road in
Sheffield. Trest had brought her with him when he opened the London head office and then discarded her for a flat-chested debutante from a fashionable secretarial college. He had demoted her to
switchboard operator in an attempt to force her to leave, but she hung on, determined to draw her pension.

She had taken a liking to Jeff and me and often used to look in on us for a gossip when she was off-duty. The older men in the company called her Patsy and once at an office Christmas party she
had suggested that I should do the same, but I suspected she was tipsy at the time. Anyway to be familiar with a woman of her age would have seemed almost an impertinence.

‘You’ll have to watch your step out in Russia, my boy,’ she told me.

‘Oh, all this talk about the Russians spying on foreigners and the N.K.V.D. is greatly exaggerated,’ I assured her. ‘One shouldn’t take it seriously.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of the Russians, I was thinking of your job as stand manager. You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Feelings are running pretty high among the top brass about this exhibition. There’s been a lot of intrigue.’ Mrs Foster, as everyone knew, had access to information that
otherwise never percolated through the boardroom doors. Probably she acquired it innocently enough by listening in on confidential telephone calls, but Jeff and I liked to believe that she still
had friends in mountainously high places.

‘Come on, Mrs Foster,’ I said eagerly. ‘Give us the low down.’

‘Well, someone has persuaded Bertie to take exhibitions away from the Commercial department where they belong.’ Mrs Foster, on the strength of forty years of mutual hatred, always
referred to the Chairman by the diminutive of his Christian name.

‘And I’ve a good idea who it was,’ she added knowingly.

‘I expect old Alabaster made a pretty good bog of them,’ Jeff said, deliberately mischievous.

‘That isn’t fair! Captain Alabaster has done a wonderful job for this company. Far better than it deserves. Why, when he took over the sales organization we hadn’t sold a ton
of steel overseas. Now T.B. Steels are known all over Europe, not to mention Australia, Israel and South America.’

‘That one-legged pirate should know something about selling,’ Jeff remarked, ‘with all his smuggling experience in Tel Aviv.’

‘There’s no truth in those rumours, and you know it!’

Jeff leered at me. ‘I keep forgetting that she carries a torch for old Ali Bastard.’

‘At least the Captain is a gentleman,’ Mrs Foster said hotly. ‘And that’s more than one can say of most of the top management. Particularly Bertie. Ill-mannered brute! Do
you know I was getting into the lift this morning and he just pushed his way in before me. Never even took off his hat.’

‘What do you expect? As you told us yourself he’s only one generation away from a sweaty melter.’

‘He is; that’s true. I could tell you some tales of the days when I was his secretary.’

The fact that Trest used at one time to make unwelcome advances to Mrs Foster had become an office legend, but I found it difficult to visualize. Trest, five feet four and owner of a stomach
which he had to balance precariously in front of him, had not quite the figure for an office steeplechase. More than once Jeff and I had tried to persuade Mrs Foster to describe the encounters in
greater detail, but she would not be drawn.

‘And to think I joined the company as an innocent girl. Straight from the vicarage in Hathersage,’ Mrs Foster went on.

I interrupted her quickly. ‘If exhibitions have been taken away from Alabaster, does that mean he won’t be going to Moscow?’

‘Of course he will! The Captain has fixed up some important trade talks with the Russians, so he’s got to be there. After all he is Commercial Director.’

‘Who else is going?’ Jeff asked. ‘Apart from the Chairman and his sex-starved sycophant here.’ He jerked his head towards me in what was intended to be a gesture of
disdain but was transparently just a piece of jealousy.

‘Freda Chalk and a metallurgist from the labs in Sheffield named Robson. Oh and C.T. of course.’

Mrs Chalk was the company’s Press Officer. She was a streaky blonde, past her best and a former journalist, but even so not unattractive. A few intrepid men who had made advances but got
their fingers frostbitten, said that the printing ink had been drawn from her veins and replaced by freezing salt. C.T. was a cousin of our chairman. Although he was Assistant Managing Director, it
was not surprising that Mrs Foster had remembered him only as an afterthought. He was that sort of person.

‘Better not get in Frigid Freda’s way,’ Jeff warned me.

‘Oh, I can handle her.’

‘Sometimes I believe you suffer from an inborn death-wish. Why, she’d pass you through her low temperature compartment and throw you to the Eskimos.’

‘You’re mixing your metaphors,’ I replied, feeling I could afford to be lofty.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if she had carved Ness up. I hear they had a flaming row because he didn’t get her V.I.P. treatment at the Leipzig Fair in March.’ Jeff turned to
Mrs Foster. ‘Did he get the bullet?’

‘Ness? Good Lord no! Haven’t you heard? He’s got a job with Rotherham Iron and Steel as exhibition manager.’

‘But surely he’ll have to serve out his month’s notice?’

‘That’s the laugh. When he came here, they would only put him on the weekly staff. He handed in his letter of resignation on Friday at half past five and Bertie didn’t hear
about it till he came in this morning. He was furious. I heard him sounding off that he wasn’t going to be blackmailed by a second-rate clerk. So Ness has been told to clear out tonight, with
a week’s salary in lieu.’

‘Tonight!’ I leapt up in alarm and began crossing towards the door. ‘He’s got to brief me on the exhibition first. I better go and see him at once.’

‘Too late, sweetie,’ Mrs Foster remarked. ‘Ness has gone out to lunch.’

‘To lunch! At eleven-fifteen?’

‘Ah, that’s the exhibition world for y. . .