Rough Treatment by John Harvey

Author:John Harvey [Harvey, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780805054965
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1990-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

When the phone rang, Harold Roy was sitting with a tomato juice, trying to concentrate on his camera script. If it wasn’t going to take them half the morning to take out that flat, it was worth putting in a third camera to get the reverse close-ups. At least that would give the vision mixer something else to do, aside from the Independent crossword and buffing her nails.

“Yes,” he said into the receiver, responding to Alan Stafford’s voice. “Yes, of course I’m listening.”

So, from beyond the doorway, was Maria, though there was little enough for her to hear. What she could see was her husband wiping away the sweat that formed on his hands, dabbing along his trouser leg. Within less than two minutes, the conversation was over and all Harold had said had been “Yes,” another four times.

“Harold …?”

Maria stepped in front of him, blocking his path to the front door. The look he gave her was harder, more strained than she could recall seeing before. Maybe this, all of this, was pushing him too far.

“Harold …”

“What?”

“When you, go, I mean, to talk to him … It is going to be all right?”

“Are you going to stand there in that thing all day?” he asked. “Or is there a chance you might get as far as the bathroom and swab down?”

“Milton Keynes,” Grabianski was saying, “the kind of deals they were offering, it would have been stupid to stay put. Brand new premises, low rates, corporation grants, credits—as against that there was this factory in Leicester, ventilation problems, heating, it would have taken us so far into the red putting it right, I doubt we’d ever have got out again.”

“So you relocated?”

“Lock, stock and machinery. Down to the land of the concrete cows.”

“Regrets?”

Grabianski shook his head. “The walking’s not what it was, but aside from that …”

“Walking?”

Grabianski settled back in the chair the inspector had offered him; relaxing into this, enjoying it. Another fifteen minutes or so and he would be in the car and on his way out to see Maria. Less than an hour and they’d be in bed. “Rambling, I suppose you’d call it. Hiking. Up the M1 from Leicester and you’d be in Monsal Dale before the mist had burnt off the hills.”

“That’s not what you’re here for now, here in the city?”

Grabianski smiled. “Wish it was. No: business, I’m afraid.” He sat forward again, an elbow resting on his knee. “We’ve still got connections up here, outlets. Sheffield, Manchester. Every so often I have to make the trip.”

“You do it all yourself? The traveling?”

“My partner or myself, depending.”

“You’ve got a partner?”

“Since I started, more or less.”

“Not the man you were with in the restaurant?”

“Last night? Yes.”

“You were both here, then? This time.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said …”

“It depends. There was a lot to do, people to see.”

“Wholesalers.”

“That’s right. Sometimes it’s easier to spread the load.”

“While the factory runs itself in sunny Milton Keynes.”

“Like silk. Well, more like cotton. To be accurate.”

“Look,” said Resnick, “I mustn’t keep you.

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