A Christmas Shadow, page 5
“Have you and Mr Woodhouse been in business together long?” he asked, wondering how on earth they managed to operate in such chaos.
“We got this place about eight months ago, but we couldn’t open for a couple of months because I kept flunking the alcohol licence exam,” said Toby, who had followed them down into the basement. “I’ve always been rubbish at exams. Joe’s the brains of the operation. We were at school together here in York. We were both boarders at St John’s, so we’ve known each other for years. We grew up together.”
“What are all these empty bottles for?” asked Shadow, turning his attention to the large table that dominated the room.
“We buy olive oil, peanut oil and balsamic vinegar in bulk, then decant them into these smaller, artisan-style bottles,” explained Joe.
“So, was this where Mr Smith was sitting?” asked Jimmy, pointing to the two chairs that were tucked under the table.
“Yes, that’s right. He was sitting next to those bottles of peanut oil for almost an hour. There’s no way he had an allergy,” Joe insisted.
“Do you keep records of who bought the Greco Salice Salentino?” asked Shadow, without much hope. He couldn’t recall when he’d last visited such an unprofessional business.
Joe shook his head. “No, sorry, Chief Inspector,” he apologised again.
“We’ve sold loads of the stuff. You can’t expect us to remember all our customers,” said Toby, “I told you about Canon Marchman already,” said Toby, “oh, and the hen-pecked husband bought a couple of bottles,” he added with a laugh.
“Who’s that?” asked Jimmy, looking puzzled.
“Neville Prentis. We call him the hen-pecked husband because he’s terrified of his wife. Poor sod!” Toby chuckled.
“Prentis? Would that be the husband of Marjorie Prentis?” asked Shadow.
“That’s the one! If you’ve met her, you’ll know what I mean.”
Shadow checked Jimmy was still noting all this down but didn’t want to start gossiping about the Minster’s fearsome administrator with these two young men. He decided to change tack.
“Is it true you were offering that particular wine to local Italian restaurants at a below the market price?”
“That was meant to be an introductory offer. A sweetener. Something to entice them to order from us in the future,” said Toby. Shadow raised an eyebrow. The young man with his habit of over explaining everything was starting to irritate him.
“It was Toby’s idea, but unfortunately, nobody took us up on it,” explained Joe.
“Maybe I should have listened to Joe – he wasn’t keen on the scheme. Like I said, he’s the brains of the operation. If it was up to him, we’d be playing Vivaldi all day and have called this place something Latin.”
“I studied the classics,” said Joe, looking embarrassed. “Toby’s more of a people person. He’s better at dealing with customers.”
Right on cue, the bell of the shop door rang, and Toby’s bulky frame quickly disappeared back up the stairs as Joe went to replace the receipt in the file. Shadow felt a sharp poke in the ribs. He turned to see Jimmy pointing at a large box standing on the floor next to the door to the courtyard.
“Boric acid – it’s used as a cutting agent for cocaine,” Jimmy whispered. “They told me all about it when I was in Leeds.”
Shadow tutted and shook his head. Not Leeds again!
“Now which one of us is clutching at straws?” he hissed back.
At that moment, Joseph turned around and saw what they were looking at.
“That’s a delivery we took in for Mr Patel, one of our neighbours,” he explained. “Is there anything else I can help you with, gentlemen?”
“No, that’s all for now, thank you, Mr Ingham,” replied Shadow. “We are having the wine the dean drank analysed. We’ll be in touch if we find anything untoward.”
“Then I’ll show you out,” said Joe with a look of relief.
The young man led the two detectives back up the stairs and they nodded goodbye to Toby, who was busying serving a customer. As Shadow followed Jimmy out of the door, he almost bumped into a glamorous-looking woman with long black hair. She was wearing a full-length fur coat, bright red lipstick and an expression of utter fury on her face. Shadow apologised, stepped aside and held the door open for her, but she barely acknowledged him.
“Where is he?” she demanded as she stormed into the shop. “I told you to keep an eye on him, and you’ve let him wander off again.”
“It’s not my fault,” protested Toby immediately. “He doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Italian. How am I meant to stop him?”
Unfortunately, Shadow couldn’t hear any more of the conversation as the door swung shut behind the angry woman, so a little reluctantly he followed Jimmy down the steps into the courtyard.
“What do you think, Chief?”
“That Messrs Ingham and Woodhouse are a pair of halfwits playing at being businessmen. I’ll be amazed if this place is still operating in six months,” replied Shadow tersely.
“At least we found out that Mr Smith got his bottle of wine from here,” said Jimmy, who was already shivering and pulling on his gloves.
“But we still don’t know if his death is at all suspicious and it would have been helpful to have the test results on that wine from our friends in forensics.”
“Should we get back to the office and see if they or Sophie have anything to report?” asked his sergeant, obviously keen to return to the warmth of the station.
“Good idea. You do that, then we’ll go and have a chat with Mr Prentis. Let’s see if he has any of the wine he bought here. I’m going to get some lunch.”
Jimmy hurried back up the cobbled path and Shadow ducked into Lendal Cellars. He ordered a steak and ale pie and a pint of Old Speckled Hen before taking a seat at one of the tables that lined the walls beneath the low vaulted brick ceilings. He sipped his pint and considered the morning’s events and his visit to La Dolce Vita. The shop basement was a disgrace, and he was sure the food standards agency would have something to say about the way cooking oils were being decanted on that grubby table, but had Woodhouse and Ingham committed a crime? His first instinct was that they were trying to pass off cheap wine as something more expensive, but he had no solid proof.
According to the receipt he saw, they had received twenty-four bottles from Luisa’s family. If Canon Marchman had taken twelve and there were six on the shop shelf and Mr Prentis taken a couple that meant there should only be four left over at the most, but Toby claimed they had sold loads. Was that simply bluster? The young man was certainly more talkative than his partner. He had also admitted quite happily that Joe was the more intelligent of the two. If that was the case, why hadn’t Joe taken the licensing exams? That would have made more sense than missing out on two months’ worth of sales.
Then there was Mr David Smith. If he was a local accountant, visiting Joe Ingham as a free initial consultation, why was he found in a hotel? Shadow took another sip of beer. It didn’t make much sense and he still had no idea if this wine business had anything to do with the letters the dean had been receiving. All that was becoming clear was that it looked like he wouldn’t be able to avoid contacting Luisa’s family. At that moment, his food arrived, but before he could tuck in, Jimmy slid into the seat opposite him.
“News?” asked Shadow by way of a greeting. “Have Ben and Ollie come up with anything?
“No, not yet, Chief.”
“I thought I was being optimistic,” muttered Shadow as he broke the crust of the golden pastry with his fork.
“But Sophie called me. She wondered if we wanted to go and see Mr Smith when you’ve finished here?”
Shadow stared at his sergeant in horror, his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Seriously? Straight after lunch? I’ll be ill.”
“I said you’d probably say that,” replied Jimmy with a grin.
“Has she found something?”
“She thinks so. She started reading Donaldson’s notes. It seems Mr Smith was discovered in the bathroom of his suite at the Maison du Fleuve. He was wearing his robe and the floor was wet. It was assumed by the hotel staff who found him that he’d slipped and banged his head after having a shower and Donaldson concurred. The body is still in the morgue. It seems they are having difficulty tracing his next of kin. As nobody had claimed his body, Sophie thought she’d take a quick look. She didn’t do a full examination, of course, but she did notice that the deceased still had ink on one of his index fingers. She thought that was weird if he’d just had a shower and there was no mention of it the original notes. Also, if he’d fallen, she would have expected there to be bruising to his back, as well as to his head, but there was nothing.”
“Sounds like Donaldson could have messed up,” said Shadow, not without pleasure. There was no love lost between himself and Sophie’s pompous colleague. “Could Sophie tell if David Smith showed any signs of having any sort of allergic reaction?”
“She didn’t think so and she checked the list of personal effects found at the hotel, there was no EpiPen or anything like that.”
“Do we know anything else about him?”
Jimmy removed his electronic notebook from his pocket and began scrolling through.
“Mid to late fifties, average height and build, dark hair. He was a smoker and a drinker, but no underlying health conditions. There was alcohol in his blood but not an excessive amount.”
Shadow held up his hand in protest. Jimmy grinned and reached over to help himself to one of the chips from Shadow’s plate.
“You know, you could always order something yourself, Sergeant,” growled Shadow.
“No, I shouldn’t really, Chief. I’m supposed on a bit of a health kick before the wedding. You know, so I look my best,” Jimmy replied, taking another chip. Shadow raised an eyebrow. His sergeant barely drank, didn’t smoke and went running every morning. His only vices were an addiction to expensive trainers and takeaway coffees.
“Did Sophie say anything else?”
“Not really. She was a bit surprised when I said he was an accountant. She thought he would have done something a bit more glamorous.”
“Why’s that?”
“He used a sunbed, got regular manicures and he had a flash watch and wore quite a bit of gold jewellery. Not that any of that stops him being an accountant, but it was Sophie’s first reaction.”
Shadow nodded thoughtfully as he took his last mouthful.
“Why don’t you speak to Tom? Ask him to look into this David Smith and check out his personal effects properly. Depending on what he finds, we can always ask the coroner to give Sophie permission to carry out another post-mortem.”
“Donaldson won’t like his work being questioned,” said Jimmy as he began to dial Tom’s number on his phone.
“No, he won’t,” agreed Shadow, his lips almost twitching into a smile.
*
Although it was a cold day, it was at least dry, so Shadow insisted on walking the two and a half miles out to Rawcliffe, a suburb to the north of the city. Jimmy had discovered this was where Mr and Mrs Prentis lived. Shadow would have preferred to spend the time alone, working out what he was going to say when he phoned Luisa’s family, but instead he had Jimmy trotting along next to him, wrapped up in hat, scarf and gloves and chatting away about his forthcoming nuptials.
“So, Chief, I’ve been thinking about my wedding speech. Any tips?”
“Keep it brief.”
“Do you think I should open with a joke?”
“No, not unless it’s a funny one.”
“I’ll work on a draft and run it by you.”
“If you feel you must.”
*
The last of the afternoon light was beginning to fade when a long hour later, they arrived at the Prentises’ home. It was a red-brick semi-detached house, half hidden behind a privet hedge. Several garden gnomes were dotted along the edge of the short path that led to the front door. Jimmy took a moment to locate the door knocker behind the large Christmas wreath, before giving it a cheerful rat-a-tat-tat. A few seconds later, it was opened by a thin, nervous-looking man with a neat grey moustache.
“Mr Neville Prentis?” enquired Shadow. The man nodded his head. “I am Chief Inspector Shadow, and this is Sergeant Chang. We are here regarding some wine you bought recently.” Shadow stopped suddenly as the man raised a finger to his lips, stepped outside and gently pulled the door closed behind him.
“Shush, come with me,” he whispered, beckoning Jimmy and Shadow to follow him as he tiptoed around the house and through another small, wooden gate. The two detectives exchanged a confused glance but did as he said. Neville led them into the back garden. The curtains in the house were still open and as the bright lights shone out it was possible to make out a patio, lawn and neatly planted flower beds. In the corner of the garden was a white painted shed. Neville paused briefly and cast an anxious look back at the house before hurrying over to the shed and unlocking the door. He quickly ushered Shadow and Jimmy inside before locking the door after them.
The shed was much bigger inside than it appeared on the outside and as Shadow looked around, it gave him the feeling of being a refuge rather than simply a place of storage. Granted there were several gleaming forks, spades and hoes hooked on to nails on the back of the door and a watering can in the corner, but there was also a comfortable-looking armchair and net curtains hanging at the window. A large table held an old-fashioned record player, several small pots of paint and glue, and a row of neatly arranged paintbrushes. The back wall was covered in shelves holding model aeroplanes, which Shadow assumed Neville had built. More importantly, in the far corner there was also a wine rack holding at least a dozen bottles.
“Sorry, gentlemen, but I didn’t want Marjorie, my wife, to hear us.”
“Isn’t she at work? We met her earlier at the Minster,” explained Shadow.
“No, she only works mornings and helps out when the Minster has a special event. She’s on the phone to her sister. Hopefully she won’t notice I’ve gone.”
“May I ask why you didn’t want her to hear us?” enquired Shadow.
“Well, you said you wanted to talk about my wine,” replied Neville, gesturing to the bottles behind him.
“Doesn’t she know that you have bought the wine?” asked Jimmy before Shadow had a chance to reply. “Is she teetotal or something?”
Neville shuffled his feet and looked awkward. “No, not exactly. I mean she likes a sweet sherry on a Sunday and the odd glass of Baileys at Christmas, but the thing is Marjorie is in charge of the money, our accounts and bills, you see. It’s always been that way, even when I was working, I never had a credit card or a chequebook. Marjorie takes care of everything and then gives me some spending money each week.”
“Spending money?” queried Jimmy as he began taking notes.
“Yes, so I can treat myself,” explained Neville as he opened the net curtains half an inch and peered out back towards the house.
“Treat yourself to model aeroplanes and wine?” suggested Shadow, who had been studying the mainly classical record collection and the labels on the wine. They were all Italian and certainly not your average cheap supermarket plonk. More importantly there were two bottles of the Greco Salice Salentino.
“Exactly, my two great loves,” agreed Neville, before looking embarrassed again, “but you see the thing is I have to give all the receipts to Marjorie and, well, she wouldn’t approve if I spent too much on wine. I’ve always believed you get what you pay for, but she has very strict ideas on these things, and she doesn’t think a bottle of wine should cost more than eight pounds.”
Shadow raised an eyebrow. He knew for a fact that several bottles in the rack cost more than double that.
“So?” he prompted.
“Well, I used to have to wait until the supermarkets had the decent bottles on sale, but then I found a new place next to Lendal Cellars.”
“La Dolce Vita?” asked Jimmy, earning himself a scowl from Shadow, who hated it when witnesses were interrupted.
“That’s it,” agreed Neville. “They had a lovely selection of wine and the two lads in there seemed nice, so I explained my predicament and they agreed to help me out with a little creative accounting.”
“Creative how?” asked Shadow.
“I pay the asking price in cash and they write me a receipt for seven or eight pounds. They know I won’t be bringing it back and Marjorie is none the wiser, so everyone is happy.”
Shadow wasn’t sure the tax man would be at all happy with this arrangement, but he refrained from saying so.
“It has meant I’ve had to forgo some of the modelling kits I would have liked, but I think it’s worth it,” continued Neville with a small smile as he glanced lovingly at the wine rack.
“Were all these bottles purchased from La Dolce Vita?” asked Shadow.
“Yes,” replied Neville, “I’m building up quite a collection. I haven’t opened any yet though. I’m going to wait until Christmas, a little present to myself. On Christmas Eve, while Marjorie is busy as the Minster, I shall be in here with a bottle or two, listening to my favourite recording of Handel’s Messiah.”
“Do you suffer from any allergies, Mr Prentis?” enquired Shadow.
Neville looked a little startled. “Like the dean, you mean? Marjorie told me what happened. Is that what this is about?”
“We are still making enquiries, but we have reason to believe the wine you bought may be contaminated. As part of our investigation, I’d like to take one of the bottles of Greco Salice Salentino now and arrange to have the council’s trading standards officers call to collect the rest of the bottles to be tested.”
“But I don’t have allergies and what will I tell Marjorie? She’ll start asking questions,” stammered Neville, who had turned very pale. Shadow, having met Marjorie Prentis, wasn’t entirely unsympathetic.
“We’ll ask the trading standards team to visit you tomorrow morning while your wife is at work,” he said, nodding to Jimmy, who took out his phone to call the council department. “They’ll be in an unmarked car, so your neighbours won’t have any cause to think anything untoward is happening. How does that sound?”
