Gunrunner Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘He seems to spend most of his time here.’
    ‘Perhaps you’d tell me how I can get to his office.’
    ‘No need, sir. That’s him standing on the loading platform.’ The guard pointed to a stocky figure whose gaze was sweeping back and forth across the yard. ‘Either he or Mr Thorpe always like to keep an eye on things.’
    ‘Who is Mr Thorpe?’ I asked.
    ‘He’s the company secretary, sir, but he’s also a director.’
    Dave and I crossed to the loading platform and mounted the short flight of steps at the side.
    ‘Mr Bernard Bligh?’
    ‘That’s me. Who are you?’
    ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock of New Scotland Yard and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’
    ‘What’s this about, then? Illegal immigrants or bootlegged liquor?’ Bligh sounded resigned to it being one or the other.
    ‘Neither, Mr Bligh. It’s about Mrs Hammond.’
    ‘What’s she been up to?’
    ‘It might be better if we went into your office, sir,’ I suggested, having noticed a loader doing a bit of earwigging.
    ‘Yes, right, follow me.’ Bligh led the way up a flight of wooden stairs and into an office that overlooked the loading bay. ‘Always like to keep an eye on the drivers,’ he volunteered. ‘Never know what the buggers are up to otherwise. Now, what’s this about Kerry?’ He gestured towards a sofa upholstered in threadbare corduroy, and took a seat behind his paper-laden desk.
    ‘She was found murdered in her Jaguar in a car park at Heathrow Airport yesterday,’ I said, seeing no reason to avoid the stark truth.
    ‘Good God!’ For a moment or two, Bligh stared at me. ‘Murdered? But what the hell happened?’
    I gave Bligh the brief details of the finding of Kerry Hammond’s body, and that she had been due to fly to New York with her husband on Christmas Eve.
    ‘Do you know of anyone who might’ve held a grudge against Mrs Hammond?’ I asked.
    Bligh laughed. ‘The haulage business is a pretty cut-throat game, Chief Inspector, but I doubt that any of our competitors would resort to murder.’
    ‘Did she have any problems that you know of?’
    ‘Doesn’t everyone? But no, she’d none that I can think of. She was very much a hands-on sort of boss. She took over the company when Dick was killed.’
    ‘That’d be Mr Lucas, I take it?’ queried Dave.
    ‘Yeah. He was killed in a car accident on the M1 about seven years ago. They were devoted to each other. Dick even named the company after her. He worked it up from nothing. Well, we both did, but he was the brains behind it.’
    ‘But I understand that she got married again,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, to Nick Hammond. They got spliced about five years back.’
    ‘Does he have anything to do with the business?’ asked Dave.
    ‘Never comes near the place,’ said Bligh. ‘He runs some sort of poncey estate agent’s outfit in the West End. I don’t think he’s doing too well, mind you. As a matter of fact, I think that Kerry had to bail him out a couple of times.’ He paused and stared at me. ‘Are you sure it was her? I thought she was off to the Big Apple for Christmas. That’s what she told me, anyway.’
    ‘I understand that those were her plans,’ I said, ‘but she only got as far as the airport.’
    ‘D’you think Nick killed her?’ asked Bligh bluntly.
    ‘D’you have a reason for asking that?’
    ‘Not really. I just wondered. They’d had the odd falling out, but no more than most married couples, I suppose.’
    I had a gut feeling that Bligh wasn’t telling us the whole truth. ‘We’ve no idea who murdered her, Mr Bligh,’ I said. ‘It’s early days yet, but our enquiries are continuing.’
    Bligh laughed. ‘That’s what all the detectives on TV say.’
    ‘Probably,’ I said. I have an ingrained dislike of the way in which the CID is portrayed in fiction with, for the most part, airy-fairy pseudo-intellectual chief inspectors and dim sergeants.
    ‘Does the name Gary Dixon mean anything to you, Mr Bligh?’ asked Dave,