Page 22 of Twisted Lies
‘There ay no one,’ he said, glancing back to where the sawing and hammering had resumed. ‘Smurf, who whistled your colleague here, he’s worked with me for nine months. I know his wife’s name is Gloria, and they’ve got a teenage daughter who stays out too late but gets straight As at school. Spike, my carpenter, has been with me for just under six months. His girlfriend is named Sandy, and he’s saving his money to buy a ring to propose at Christmas. Noodle, who eats nothing but pasta, still lives at home, and I reckon he likes the boys, but he dow say nothing and neither do I. He’s been with me almost a year. I employed Keith Phipps almost three years ago, and I dow even know his wife’s name.’ He frowned and scratched his head. ‘Come to think of it, he never even told me he was married. I assumed he was cos of his lunchbox.’
‘His what?’ Kim asked.
‘His grub, his lunch. Most guys who bring a sarnie box have a missus, whereas the single guys will nip to the café or grab a Greggs. I mean, I don’t mean to generalise but—’
‘Seems a decent indicator to me,’ Bryant said.
‘So he didn’t talk about himself much?’ Kim asked.
‘Not at all. Not one thing. Never came on a night out to the dogs or the Christmas meal. When invited he’d just shake his head and say thanks for asking. Always on time, never missed a shift and I was joking when I said he was fired. It was the first shift he’d missed.’
‘When?’ Kim asked.
‘Saturday morning. Had to give ’em all Friday off cos of the storm that was forecast, but they were all supposed to be here for a few hours catch-up at eight o’clock sharp. He was the only one didn’t come.’
Kim did the calculations between the last time Diane had seen him on Saturday morning and Keats’s rough estimation of time of death some time on Sunday, and guessed that Keith Phipps would have far preferred to have been on the job site, instead of enduring his fate.
‘Any enemies?’
‘Not one that I know of. Kept himself to himself, sat on his own on breaks – guys stopped asking him after a while and let him get on with it. He was a solid worker and couldn’t do enough to help out. Other guys got used to him in the end. To be honest, I can’t imagine Keith having a cross word with anybody. He just wasn’t the type.’
Kim was having trouble establishing just what ‘type’ Keith Phipps was.
‘Okay, well if you think of anything else, give me a call,’ she said, handing him a card. ‘And I want you to know that your efforts to join the equality of the twenty-first century are appreciated.’
She expected a smile in return or an acknowledgment, but Bill was frowning.
‘You know, I remember something from the early days. It’s probably nothing but…’
‘Please, anything,’ she said.
‘Well, like I say, it was early on and the other guys were a bit weirded out by him, and I gotta say that a group of men gossip just as much as a group of women. Rumours start and before you know it the blokes had him down as a paedo.’
‘Why that assumption?’ Kim asked.
He shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s cos he never asked one single question of anyone else. Like he was scared they’d return the favour and ask him a question back. He didn’t want to engage with anyone.’
‘So there was nothing to suggest that was the case; no inappropriate comments or sharing of images?’
‘Nah, nothing like that. It was just clear to the lads he was hiding something, and that was the worse something they could imagine, so I did my job and pulled him aside. Asked him if he’d lied on his application form. His face reddened up brighter than a bricklayer’s arm. Looked right terrified. My heart was going like the clappers. For a minute, I thought he was a paedo, so I asked him outright. He shook his head and swore he wasn’t. To be fair, I checked the sex register anyway, but it was really strange now that I remember it clearly.’
‘What was strange?’ Kim asked.
‘Well, here’s me asking him outright if he’s a paedophile, and the guy seemed relieved that that was the question I was asking.’
Sixteen
It was three o’clock before Frost got to knock on the door of her boss, Glenn Fitzroy – or Fitz, as he was known to them all.
The man’s career path had followed a similar route to her own, except he had spent twenty-seven years in the nation’s capital.
Unfortunately for him, he’d been a casualty of a national newspaper that had closed down amidst the phone-hacking scandal. Editor of a local daily paper was a far cry from the career he’d once had, but she’d found him to be a half-decent boss.
‘Hey, Fitz, got a minute?’ she asked, putting her head around the door.
‘I’d best say yes, seeing as you’ve been watching my door for the last half hour.’
She stepped in and closed the door, blocking out the sound of phones ringing and people talking. It wasn’t the environment of a chaotic newsroom that people imagine; it was just a very small office with eight hot desks being used by around fifteen staff from reporters to photographers and a couple of admin staff. Luckily, they weren’t all there at the same time, but now and again it was two to a desk.
