Death in Distribution Read online

  Death in Distribution

  A Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery (#11)

  David W Robinson

  Copyright © 2017 by David W Robinson

  Cover Photography by Adobe Stock © DiViArts

  Design by soqoqo

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Books except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United Kingdom

  First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Books. 2017

  Discover us online:

  www.crookedcatbooks.com

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  www.facebook.com/crookedcatbooks

  My thanks go firstly to Nicola Robinson,

  a former colleague, who gave me the idea.

  And secondly to Paula Guy,

  who won the Crooked Cat

  competition to have herself included

  as a character in the tale.

  The Author

  David Robinson is a Yorkshireman now living in Manchester. Driven by a huge, cynical sense of humour, he’s been a writer for over thirty years having begun with magazine articles before moving on to novels and TV scripts.

  He has little to do with his life other than write, as a consequence of which his output is prodigious. Thankfully most of it is never seen by the great reading public of the world.

  He has worked closely with Crooked Cat Books since 2012, when The Filey Connection, the very first Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, was published.

  Describing himself as the Doyen of Domestic Disasters he can be found blogging at www.dwrob.com and he appears frequently on video (written, produced and starring himself) dispensing his mocking humour at www.youtube.com/user/Dwrob96/videos

  By the same author

  The STAC Mystery series:

  1. The Filey Connection

  2. The I-Spy Murders

  3. A Halloween Homicide

  4. A Murder for Christmas

  5. Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

  6. My Deadly Valentine

  7. The Chocolate Egg Murders

  8. The Summer Wedding Murder

  9. Costa del Murder

  10. Christmas Crackers

  11. Death in Distribution

  12. A Killing in the Family

  13. A Theatrical Murder

  14. Trial by Fire

  15. Peril in Palmanova

  The SPOOKIES Mystery series

  The Haunting of Melmerby Manor

  The Man in Black

  Death in Distribution

  A Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery (#11)

  

  Chapter One

  In an effort to put maximum stress on his words, Joe Murray laid his palms flat on the desk and growled, “The answer is still no.”

  Opposite him, safe behind his desk, Irwin Queenan, Chief Planning Officer for Sanford Borough Council, looked down at his gnarled hands. With no view through his window, other than the rear car park of Sanford Town Hall, it was easier to concentrate on fiddling with a silver-barrelled Schaeffer ballpoint than to look Joe in the eye.

  As far as Joe was concerned, Queenan looked and acted every inch the local government officer. From the cut of his tailored, navy blue suit and his crisp white shirt, cleaved perfectly in two by a plain, grey tie, to the innate order and tidiness of his desk, the man gave out an aura of pointless organisation and assumed efficiency, which was not matched by any actual work, but which, from an administrative point of view, could not be faulted.

  Down the several decades Joe had been running his café, he had had many arguments with the various Town Hall Departments, but this was the first time he could recall facing the head of any office.

  Not that Queenan’s rank cut any ice. Joe was no more intimidated by Chief Planning Officer than he would be a junior clerk on the reception desk.

  Making an attempt to establish some control, Queenan declared, “Yours is the only business left on Britannia Parade. The Laundrette closed down last year, Toni’s Hairdressing early in January, Dennis Walmsley’s DIY store and Patel’s minimarket closed last month. All those empty premises must be affecting your business.”

  “My trade is passing,” Joe argued. “It doesn’t matter to the draymen of Sanford Brewery or the truckers driving by whether I’m alone or in the middle of the High Street. All they’re interested in is breakfast. And unlike the other traders, I don’t rent my place, I own it. My old dad bought it just after the war. I am not selling, and that’s that.”

  “You’ve been offered the market price, Mr Murray,” said the third man in the office.

  Sat alongside Queenan, Gerard Vaughan, the managing director of Gleason Holdings, shuffled in his seat. About forty years of age, the cut of his grey suit a marked improvement on Queenan’s, the glint of a Rolex Oyster peeping out from behind pristine white cuffs and pearl cufflinks, everything about him said ‘wealth’. When he and Joe had shaken hands, Joe noticed the finely manicured nails, and the soft skin, a stark contrast to Joe’s own battered mitts. The man exuded an air of quiet confidence, manifest in his candid gaze and superior smile.

  In the half hour since Joe had entered the office, Vaughan had said almost nothing, other than to introduce himself, but even when shaking hands Joe had taken an instant dislike to him, and his first contribution to the debate did nothing to assuage that feeling.

  “This isn’t about money,” Joe retorted. “It’s about business. Carrying on trading. What use is all that money to me? I’ve a good ten years to my pension, longer if the bloody government has its way, and I have no other skills than catering; feeding truckers and shoppers. And I live above the café.”

  “You’ve been offered alternative living accommodation.” Queenan jumped in.

  “A council flat on Leeds Road estate,” Joe snapped.

  “You’ve been offered alternative trading premises,” Vaughan pointed out. “Help with relocation and setting up your business again. All of which my company is quite happy to finance.”

  “What you mean is, you’re willing to abide by your legal obligations,” Joe countered. “And the place you’ve offered me is on the other side of the road.”

  Vaughan picked a stray thread from his jacket sleeve. “Directly opposite your current location. So your customers will have to cross the road. If your places is as good as you say, where’s the problem?”

  Joe’s contempt for him welled up and flooded over. “Do you actually know what you’re talking about? I mean, have you seen the parade? Have you actually been there, seen its situation? Or did you just pick it out on Google Maps and think yeah, I’ll knock that down?”

  Spots of colour came to Vaughan’s cheeks, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. “For your information, I was born right here in Sanford.”

  “Yeah. On the east side.”

  “Like you, I inherited the business from my father.”

  “The difference being that your daddy was already a property developer, whereas my old man worked behind the same counter I do. Let me tell you something, Mr Sanford born and raised millionaire, Britannia Parade is a sort of layby off Doncaster Road. It’s been like that since they made the road a dual carriageway. It’s on the southbound side. The bulk of my trade comes from the north, the town centre area. The Brewery, van drivers from the engineering factories and smaller manufacturers. I get some from the industrial estate where you want to move me, and the rest are shoppers from Sanford Retail P
ark who don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for a cup of tea and a bun. If I move to the northbound side, onto the industrial estate, like you want me to, I lose the draymen, the van drivers and truckers making for the motorway. They won’t stop and cross the road, and even if they wanted to, once your builders move in, they’ll have nowhere to park. Likewise, the shoppers, who don’t mind coming to my place from the retail park, won’t bother if they have to cross Doncaster Road. If I move to the industrial estate, I lose sixty to seventy percent of my business. That’s hundreds of pounds a day I’ll be losing.”

  Vaughan leaned forward and jabbed an irritated finger into the desk. “Right now, I’m losing anything up to a thousand pounds a day due to delays caused by your obstinacy.”

  “So it’s all right for me, but not for you? Well, pardon me if I don’t burst into tears.”

  With the look of a man determined not to be left out, Queenan pressed again, more forcefully this time. “Britannia Parade is an eyesore and it will be demolished.”

  “It’s your development that will be an eyesore,” Joe snapped. “The Parade was built. It wasn’t thrown up in two months. The buildings were put up by craftsmen. They’ve lasted a hundred years or more. The crap you want to put in its place won’t stand fifty. I am not selling and that’s that.”

  “That is not that,” Queenan assured him. “If you persist in your refusal, then we’ll take out a compulsory purchase order on the property.”

  Joe had been expecting it. In fact, he had been surprised that Sanford Borough Council had not made the move earlier.

  “Do you take me for a complete idiot, Queenan? Do you think that just because I cater for truckers that I don’t do my homework? You go for your CPO and I’ll tell you what will happen. I’ll appeal. You know what that means don’t you? You’ll have to set up a public inquiry. Costs a damn fortune. And do you think I won’t have the best barrister on the case? I can afford him or her. And it all adds to sonny Jim’s delays.” He jerked a thumb at Vaughan. “He’ll pull in the legal bigwigs, too, but they’ll cost him an arm and a leg, as well as his grand a day in delays. And it’ll drag on for weeks and weeks. I’ll make sure of that. Not only that, but I’ll speak with Ian Lofthouse at the Gazette and see just how far we can drag your name,” he pointed at Queenan, then swung his accusing finger onto Vaughan, “and yours, through the mud.”

  Queenan shook his head, let out a loud sigh of irritation, and spun his chair so that he was facing the window, looking out onto warm, April sunshine.

  Joe’s gaze followed him. Like Queenan, he would prefer to be out of this stuffy office, and out there, enjoying the spring sunshine. He wanted to cut and run, back to his café on Doncaster Road, where he could be himself, laughing, joking and griping with the people he knew best. But he could not back down. He knew he would lose somewhere along the line, but if he was to secure the best deal possible for himself, for his crew, for his most loyal customers, he needed to stand his ground.

  Vaughan put it into words. “You can call all the inquiries you want, Murray. You will lose. We will have that place demolished and more modern buildings put in place. As for my costs, well, I can bear them. A lot better than you can. Why not cut out now, while you’re ahead?”

  Joe steeled himself against the persuasive assurance in Vaughan’s tones. “There is a way round all this, you know. A way in which we can all get what we want.”

  Queenan swung back to face him, his eyes suddenly alert. “Go on?”

  “Something you’ve persistently refused even to discuss. Pay me what you’re offering, but instead of leaving me on the industrial estate, let me have one of the new units you’re putting up at an advantageous rent for, say, two years, just to re-establish myself. Do that and I’ll sign right now.”

  Queenan shot a sideways glance at Vaughan who leaned back in his seat and shook his head.

  “That won’t be possible. We’re putting up bespoke premises aimed at larger businesses than yours. Architects, solicitors, IT specialists, even,” he smiled thinly, “business consultants. A truckers’ café wouldn’t sit too well in such a block.”

  “What you mean is, you wanna screw these people to the wall with exorbitant rents, and you don’t want thirty tonne trucks spoiling the view… that’s assuming you leave them anywhere to park.” Joe stood up. “No deal. I’m going to Blackpool with the Sanford 3rd Age Club for the weekend. I’m back Tuesday morning, and if all I hear from you by then is a compulsory purchase order, I’ll be talking to my lawyers … and the Sanford Gazette. See y’around, losers.”

  ***

  Dave Kane, Transport Manager at Ballantyne Distribution, watched as Stan Crowther heaped a fifth teaspoon of sugar into his beaker of tea and stirred vigorously.

  Kane had been with Ballantynes for almost thirty years, having started on the loading bays and gradually worked his way up to his present position. In that time he had been confronted with every conceivable problem, including personality clashes, but he had never come across an issue where the clash involved two employees from across the management/crew divide. He had been trying to find an amicable solution to it for the better part of ten years, and short of one of the two men leaving – voluntarily or otherwise – he could see no answer.

  Alongside Kane was his number two, Peter Cruikshank, a slender and athletic man approaching his fiftieth birthday, and the target of Crowther’s complaint. Cruikshank was the other end of this long-running and bitter battle, as tough, obdurate and resolute as Crowther, determined not to give way. He gave out an air of disinterest, which fooled no one, not least Kane. He knew what was coming, yet he remained outwardly confident of winning the argument.

  Crowther was the same age as Cruikshank. Indeed, the pair had been in the army together, but where Cruikshank had kept up his fitness regime, Crowther had let it slip, and the result was a portly waist. Too much sugar and not enough exercise, Kane had long since diagnosed.

  Sat beside Crowther was Amy Willows, union steward for the drivers and traffic department staff. In her late forties, like Cruikshank, she had looked after herself, keeping herself fit, active, and slim, and her years acting as an arbiter between management and crew had not taken as much a toll on her as Kane’s management position had on him, yet Kane suspected that she, too, was tired of this cat and mouse war of attrition between the two men. Still, she had to be seen to act on behalf of her member, and no amount of quiet words in Stan Crowther’s ears would persuade him to back off.

  Crowther sipped at his tea. “That’s better. Got some taste to it, now.” He put the cup down. “It’s perfectly simple, Dave. It’s Easter this coming weekend. I asked if I could have the weekend off, I was told I couldn’t. I’d had Christmas off and to be fair to the other drivers, I had to work my Friday and Saturday schedules, and I’m due in Monday, too. Fair enough. I accept that. Last week, I asked if I could have an early start over the Easter weekend. Let me get finished at a reasonable time. I’ve got summat on this Friday and Saturday. The girls in the dispatch office told me to leave it with them.” Crowther pointed a bony finger at Cruikshank. “Then he poked his nose in and gave me a half nine start, half six finish Friday, Saturday and Monday.”

  If Cruikshank was concerned, he didn’t show it. He maintained that air of nonchalance which was his hallmark. “You got what was available. When I checked the schedules, half past nine in the morning was the earliest start I could find for you.”

  “Rubbish,” Crowther sneered and gulped down more tea. “You saw it was me and made sure I got exactly the opposite of what I’d asked for.”

  Before either Kane or Cruikshank could speak, Amy said, “I checked the schedules, and it could have been arranged.”

  Again, Kane checked on his assistant, but Cruikshank still betrayed no other emotion than boredom.

  “How?” Kane asked.

  “We have a temp driver coming in to cover a four a.m. start. It runs Sunderland, to Middlesbrough, and back here. Then standby until three in the af
ternoon. My question is simple. Why are we using temporary labour to cover a premium shift like that, when we have a permanent crew member asking for an early start?”

  Kane threw the question to his junior. “Peter?”

  Cruikshank made a show of clearing his throat. “To begin with, arrangements with the temp agency were probably made over a month ago, and secondly, I didn’t notice it. Today is Tuesday, and I don’t know if we have enough time to change it.”

  While Crowther drank more tea, finishing off the cup, Amy wagged a disapproving index finger at both managers. “Three years ago, as part of a pay deal, you asked our members to be more flexible when it came to shift patterns. We agreed, and as far as I’m aware, there have been no problems. A part of that agreement was the use of temporary labour where shifts can’t be covered for whatever reason, and we demanded that those temps must be as flexible as our drivers. Don’t give us this, ‘too late to change it’ business, Peter. They’re agency. They’re temps. They don’t work here, and when we invite them in, it should be on our terms, not theirs. If the agency in question is unwilling to alter their employees’ working times, then go to another agency.”

  “And face penalty charges?” Cruikshank threw back.

  Crowther put his cup down, and sat upright. “This is all hot air, the lot of it. It’s because it’s me. If it was anyone else, it’d be done, but because it’s me, you decided it’s not worth it.”

  For the first time, Cruikshank reacted, sitting forward, glaring. “If I wanted to get at you, Crowther, I’d be doing a lot more than spoil your Easter weekend.”

  Crowther half rose and peeled back the sleeves of his uniform jacket. “Any time you like, pal.”

  “That’ll do, gentlemen,” Kane intervened.

  Amy placed a restraining hand on Crowther’s arm and he sat down again. “The ball is in the management court,” she declared.