Free The Consignment by Grant Sutherland Page A

raised a hand. “You know what? Let’s just find ourselves somewhere to sit, you can have a look at the papers you asked for.”
    We found ourselves an isolated bench. She opened her briefcase and showed me some of the paperwork on those earlier orders from Trevanian, the ones Dimitri had shepherded through Fettners. She also showed me copies of the End User Certificates. Nigerian. The orders weren’t half the size of the one he seemed to have placed with Haplon. She lingered with some bitterness over her failed attempts to have Channon lean on Dimitri. After fifteen minutes she came to the end of her story. “Channon said I was imagining things. The arms got loaded on a ship bound for Nigeria, the ship sailed, and that was it.”
    “They got to Nigeria?”
    “According to the paperwork.”
    “Then they were re-exported?”
    She said that my guess was as good as hers. She lifted her hands, who knows? I had a last rummage through the paperwork, then returned it to her briefcase. She clipped the case closed, and we sat silent awhile. Her earlier troubled mood had returned, she was thoughtful as I walked her across to her car. But when we reached the car, she suddenly pivoted.
    “Do you know why Dimitri was murdered?”
    “No,” I said, startled.
    “Do you know who killed him?”
    “What kind of question is that?”
    “That’s not any kind of answer.”
    “Of course I don’t know.”
    She studied me a second. Finally she tugged open the door of her ancient Corvette and tossed in her briefcase. “Back at the office right now, my boss is waiting for me to come and give him the inside story from Haplon. Your story.” She climbed in and wound down the window. “I’m going to tell him you’ve been sidelined at Haplon. And you’d better tell Channon. Neither one of them is going to be impressed.”
    I tapped my pocket, the torn page from her notepad, all her carefully prepared questions. I told her I’d get the answers for her. Enough to keep her boss happy, I said.
    She hit the ignition. “Speaking as a Customs agent, that sounds just great, Ned.” She pulled hard left on the wheel, looking out into the traffic and offering me a final thought before she pulled away. “Speaking as me, I’m not so sure it’s so great. Dimitri’s dead. And if you had any brains, you’d just lie down and quit.”

CHAPTER 6
    On the managerial and sales side of Haplon, Rossiter employed around forty people, thirty in R&D, and then another hundred or more doing the grunt work on the assembly lines and warehouses out back. From the vantage of my third-floor office overlooking the parking lot I had a good view of all arrivals and departures from the premises, and that evening after my meeting with Rita Durranti I stayed at my desk and watched the parking lot gradually empty.
    Working late, for me, was not unusual. Paperwork had a way of building up during daylight hours, when I was often traveling, visiting clients, or arranging the Haplon presence at places like Springfield. At least twice a week I stayed till around ten to clear up the backlog, though in truth it wasn’t always necessary. I maintained my nocturnal work pattern in the knowledge that it might one day prove useful should I ever need private, uninterrupted access to anything in the building. On two previous occasions I’d found the cover helpful. This time it was much more than that.
    “Home run,” said Gillian Streiss, putting her head around my door. “Coming down?”
    When I gestured despairingly across my paper-strewn desk, she shot me a sympathetic smile and went on to the elevator.
    Rossiter’s red Lotus was still parked in the reserved bay by the entrance to the lobby, but I hadn’t seen the man himself for over an hour. After shuffling the paperwork around my desk awhile longer, I got up and went out to the hall. It was quiet, but the lights were on down in the big open-plan office where the Haplon sales team was quartered. I strolled along there and