Page 25 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Is something up? Everything went to plan, actually. We had everyone out before two, and that’s a feat. No problems at all.”
“So you were in attendance?”
“Sure. Did a lot of drink mixing—there’s a separate bar for events. You’ve seen the ballroom?”
They hadn’t, and he was keen to show them. MacAdams left Green to await Ms. Wagner and followed the young man down a corridor awash in daylight.
“Is this all part of an annex?” he asked.
“We wereinthe annex; this is actually the original club on this side. Needed a lot of doing up over the years.”
He pushed through a set of double doors, and whatever the building had been before, its afterlife presented only the shell. Bare stone walls reached two—maybe three—stories tall but with no floors between. The square wooden beam braces remained, securing the structure together, but seemingly without a roof. The timbers had been replaced by a vaulted glass ceiling, as though they stood in an enormous greenhouse.
A bit gutted, maybe, but far from empty; tables stretched down the length of both sides and several young women were draping them in linen.
“Rented out for a golf club awards ceremony on Tuesday,” the bartender-turned-tour-guide offered. “Then a wedding at the weekend. A stage goes up over there, and the rear doors are for the band. Tidy little setup, if I do say so.”
“You are surprisingly knowledgeable about the workings.”
“I should be! I manage the events.”
“And you tend bar?” MacAdams asked.
“When I’m needed,” he said, a smile breaking forth. “I’m Simon—Simon Wagner. I do a lot of the runabout for the family. Sophie Wagner is my mum. So, if something’s up, I like to know what.”
This perhaps made sense of the unusually helpful demeaner; he wanted to keep an eye on the prying police officers, no doubt. But someone else was keeping an eye on them, too. One of the women laying table service had been casting glances back at MacAdams.
“Anyone else here family?” he asked, subtly tilting his head in her direction.
“No, sir. You’re looking at Anje. She came through the charity.”
“Come again?”
“We sponsor refugees as a part of our employment program.”
“I thought there was supposed to be some separation between those who sponsor and the actual labor of sponsored refugees,” MacAdams said. “Otherwise itmightlook like you are bringing people over for your own benefit and profit.”
“Tsk. Do you know how difficult it is to start over again in another country, Detective?”
This reply came not from Simon, but from a voice behind him.
Sophie Wagner walked breezily through the rows of tables in a jewel colored kaftan with Sheila Green in her wake. A comfortable-looking woman, probably midfifties, with a pair of sunglasses hanging rather precipitously from an ample bosom; he gathered she suffered no fools.
“Many don’t speak English, or not well enough. And then you have racism, classism, visa bureaucracy and all the rest. Imagine trying to get gainful employment with all of that against you.” It was delivered flawlessly, artfully almost. MacAdams had the distinct impression she had given this speech before.
“Anje here and her mother both work for us; they also take courses to learn the language. And we have Dmytro and Artemas well. All four from Ukraine. So you see, Detective, we are trying to do our part, using wealth for the greater good.”
MacAdams heard all the words, but it was hard to miss what shewasn’tsaying, too.We, the upper crust, the better half, reaching out to the lowly.
“No conflict of interest being the head of a charity and the lead employer of those you bring through?” MacAdams asked.
Sophie gave an easy laugh. “We aren’t the only employer—there are businesses all over Newcastle who support the work by bringing on wage earners. Is that what you’re here about? Another upstanding citizen upset they got their tea from an immigrant?”
It occurred to MacAdams that Fresh Start must have faced its share of bad press. Perhaps this was an attempt at a more magnanimous veneer?
“Not today, Ms. Wagner. I want to ask you about Stanley Burnhope—to start. You had a gathering here on Friday; did he attend?”
The laugh returned, renewed. “Stanley and Iranthe event. He gave the opening and closing speech, an honor granted by his unwavering support for everything we do.”
