‘Ay called down, “are you all rayte, Kenneth?” Ay thought he’d maybe slipped over, hurt himself. He didn’t answer. Ay went to the top of the stairs. Ay said, “are you all rayte?” And he still didn’t answer, so Ay went down there… he could have stopped me seeing,’ said Pamela bitterly. ‘He could have warned me… it was dreadful. Ay still have nayghtmares.… did Kenneth tell you? About Wrayght’s hands being missing, and… and everything?’
‘A little bit,’ said Robin. ‘It must have been awful.’
‘It was ghastly – and then John turned up. Ay’d just come back upstairs, to call the police. Ay nearly passed out in front of John. Ay’d just said to the operator, “there’s a body, we’ve found a body,” and then Ay had to sit down. John left – Ay can’t blame him, who’d want to be mixed up in that? Then Kenneth came upstairs, babbling, and Todd came up, too. He’d seen, of course. He’d been cleaning the bathroom when Kenneth went down there. Horrible man,’ said Pamela, with another shudder. ‘Horrible.’
‘Jim Todd, you mean?’ asked Robin.
‘Yes. Ay don’t like him at all. Ay don’t think he’s trustworthy.’
‘Really?’
‘Something very sneaky about him. Kenneth has appalling judgement,’ said Pamela, becoming suddenly heated again. ‘All the people Kenneth hired… he only cares if they’re cheap!’
‘Was Wright cheap?’ Robin asked.
‘Yes, and that’s a perfect example of what Ay’m talking about!’ said Pamela, in frustration. ‘They were paying their first security chap next to nothing, so naturally, he took the first job offer he got, and because they were losing money hand over fist, they didn’t replace him. But Ay didn’t want to be there alone when Ay went to help out, Ay couldn’t manage carrying everything up and downstairs, and how Rachel was supposed to do it, if she ever gets well enough – so Kenneth advertised for a sort of jack-of-all-trades, a salesman who could do heavy lifting and security.’
‘He said there weren’t many applicants,’ said Robin.
‘No, of course not, not on the salary he was offering! There weren’t many applicants. Ay told him Ay didn’t think much of Wrayght’s CV. Misspellings all over it.’
‘Misspellings,’ repeated Robin.
‘Yes. And then he layed.’
‘Wright did?’ said Robin.
‘No, Kenneth! He agreed we shouldn’t interview Wrayght, then sneaked his email address on to the list and Ay didn’t realise until Wrayght turned up that Kenneth had hoodwinked me into offering the man an interview. And then,’ said Pamela furiously, ‘he accused me of making the mistake, me of adding his email address to the list, bay mistake!’
‘That seems very unfair,’ said Robin, who was most interested in this information. ‘How many people did you end up interviewing?’
‘Just three – well, two. One of them didn’t turn up – the one Ay thought mayt be quite good. Ay suppose he had a better offer. So it was just Wrayght and this boy who was seventeen and looked as though he couldn’t fayt his way out of a paper bag. So, of course, with the physical requirements, Wrayght was the only choice.’
‘He claimed to be from Doncaster, didn’t he?’ said Robin. ‘Did he have a Yorkshire accent?’
‘Ay don’t really know. He didn’t sound very refayned… polite enough,’ said Pamela grudgingly, ‘but Ay knew straight away he knew nothing about silver or antiques, whatever he’d said at interview. Not even a basic understanding. He asked me what the lion passant meant!’
‘What does it mean?’ asked Robin.
‘The lion passant,’ repeated Pamela, with slight disbelief at Robin’s own lack of knowledge. ‘The most basic, common British hallmark. It means the item is sterling silver: point nine two five purity. When Ay explained that to Wrayght, he said “that’s funny”.’
‘“That’s funny,”’ repeated Robin. ‘What was funny about it?’
‘Ay’ve no idea,’ said Pamela. ‘But afterwards, when we found out he was Knowles, Ay thought, Ay should have known, from the name “William Wrayght”. They’re a well-known firm in Sheffield. They make silverware for hospitality. That’ll be where Knowles got the idea. Ay felt so silly for not seeing it.’
‘Mr Ramsay says Wright used the work computer to look things up,’ said Robin.
‘Yes, he visited “Truth About Freemasons” or some such sayte. Ay suppose you could argue he was traying to learn, but there’s no proper information on silverware on a sayte layke that. Just conspiracy nonsense, and people going on there to discuss masonic plots, and Freemasons arguing with them – nothing about masonic objects.’
‘Mr Ramsay’s given us the camera footage from the day the Murdoch silver arrived, but we haven’t had a chance to look at it yet,’ Robin fibbed. ‘Was it a normal kind of day?’
‘Yes,’ said Pamela, but there was a slight wariness in her tone. ‘Well – not with the Murdoch silver arrayving. But otherwayse it was normal.’
‘Mr Ramsay told us the silver arrived late,’ said Robin.
