Abigail: Chapter 21
I parked in the same stretch of dirt as I had on my first visit and went straight to Bill’s office. I knocked on the door, waited a couple of seconds, and when no-one called me in, went in anyway. Bill was sat behind his desk, glued to the phone. He looked up when he saw me and smiled. He waved for me to take a seat opposite his desk.
“Yep, yep, that all sounds superb. Listen, got to go. Something’s come up. I’ll call you later. Bye.” Call over he turned to me. “Sorry about that. The wife wants to organise a Christmas party for some of the neighbours. Anyway, you didn’t come to hear about that. What can I do for you?”
I didn’t return his smile and instead gave him my ‘I mean business’ face. “I need you to be straight with me Bill.”
“Of course. When haven’t I been?”
I ignored his question. “What do you know about Toby’s business debts?”
“Business debts? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Abigail Rogers was visited by bailiffs today. Drawing up a list of assets they can remove if she doesn’t pay the forty-eight thousand pounds owed by Toby.” I kept my eyes fixed on Bill, looking for any hint of recognition.
His eyes flickered to the floor, just for a split-second. If I hadn’t been watching him so carefully I’d have totally missed it but it had definitely been there in his eyes. Fear. And something else. Guilt? Gotcha!
I decided to go in for the jugular. “Can you imagine what that would do to a person? Bad enough she has her children crying because they miss their daddy, with Christmas coming and they don’t even know if they’ll see him again. The pressure of raising two young children single-handedly. Do you have any idea what that’s like Bill? And now, to top it all, her home is at risk.” I paused to draw a breath.
“What do you want me to say?” He looked like a man defeated.
“It would help if you’d start by telling me what you know about Toby’s business affairs. How is it possible for a man to wrack up that kind of a debt without his wife knowing about it? What was he spending the money on?”
“How am I meant to know that?” He shook his head. “He’d visit the site, do his work, have a bit of a laugh with the lads, but we’d never talk about money.”
“The bailiffs were very specific Bill. This was work related debt. How could you not have known?”
I sighed. Whatever he knew, he wasn’t about to tell me.
“I need to speak to the guys on site. Who was Toby working with?”
Bill took a clipboard from his desk and flicked through the pages. “Hard to say exactly. I can give you a few names but I doubt they’d know anything.”
“Names would be great, thanks.”
I waited while he wrote three names on a piece of paper.
“Start with these three. They’re the general supervisors. They’ll be able to tell you who else Toby was in contact with.”
I took the list and stood up.
“Charlie?”
“What?”
“Just be careful how you go.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I didn’t like his tone.
“I just meant, it’s a building site, so watch your step.”
Yeah right. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
I felt Bill watching me through the window as I picked my way across the site towards a group of labourers. The men stopped what they were doing when they saw me.
“You alright there love?”
I growled inwardly. What was it about men in packs that meant they had to revert to caveman-like behaviour? Now was not the time to help them learn the finer points of speaking to women, I needed to win them over so they’d be more inclined to help me, so I plastered a smile on my face.
I looked down at my list. “I’m looking for Andrew Jones, Mike Lemming and …” I consulted the list again. “Peter Faraday.”
“Woohoo boys, it’s my lucky day!” One of the men nudged the guy next to him then raised his hand. “Mike Lemming.”
He walked towards me, grinning from ear to ear. When he reached my side he lowered his voice. “What’s all this about then?”
“Is there somewhere we can go to chat?” I glanced over his shoulder at the men still watching us. “It’s about Toby Rogers.”
“Yeah.” He called over to the other men. “Find Andy and Pete, okay? It’s about Toby.”
Clearly everyone on site knew about Toby’s disappearance and judging by Mike’s reaction, were keen to do anything they could to help find him. That bode well for my enquires but I had my doubts about how involved in any work related debts they might be. Unlike Bill, Mike looked the picture of openness. I followed Mike to a van where he opened the door and offered me the passenger seat.
“In here okay for you?”
“Sure.” I climbed in. “Look Mike, I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve been hired by Toby’s wife to find him and I need your help.” I handed him my card.
He took the card and read it. “Charlie Diamond. Plumber.”
“Oops, sorry, wrong card.” I snatched it from him and handed him my other card.
“You’re a plumber? And a private investigator? How’d you get into that?”
“I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.” I smiled and gave him a wink. “So listen, how much do you know about Toby?”
“What do you want to know?”
“At this stage, anything. I’m trying to get a picture of his movements in the lead up to his disappearance. Did you ever see him with people you didn’t recognise? Anything unusual about his behaviour?”
“Hard to say. He was always a bit odd. Too clever, you know? Like he had stuff in his head too big to share with the rest of us little people.”
“Sounds like a right charmer.” I laughed.
“He was nice enough with it though. Just, kinda private. Sorry, I’m not being much help am I. Maybe you’d be better off talking to Mr Winkleman. He knew him better than us.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just the way they were together. Always having a laugh. Probably cos of the car share.”
“Car share?”
“Oh yeah, they’d always ride into work together. The days Toby was here at least. I guess you get to know a person if you spend time together like that.”
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind an alarm sounded. Bill definitely hadn’t mentioned anything about a car share which was odd, under the circumstances. Curiouser and curiouser.