Rachel’s shop was still open and both assistants turned towards the door as the old-fashioned bell jingled. A smile of recognition crossed their faces when they saw Owen. He’d been part of the team to search the premises previously, seeking clues as to Rachel’s whereabouts, and he now introduced his DI.
‘This is Val and Pauline,’ he said. ‘I see you’re managing to keep the shop open, ladies.’
Pauline spoke for both of them. ‘We don’t know what else to do, but we can’t go on like this indefinitely. There’s no one here to fill prescriptions and that’s where most of the business is, so if Ms Roberts doesn’t come back soon, we’ll have to close up and put a note on the door, and what about our jobs?’
‘That’s a decision you may need to make as I don’t think Ms Roberts will be returning to work, even if we do locate her soon.’ Jack was guarded in what he could say as technically Rachel was still only a suspect in her father’s disappearance and Millie’s neglect. ‘You mentioned prescriptions, and that’s what we’d like to ask you about. Was there another dispensing pharmacist who worked here as well, or perhaps a temporary locum?’
Pauline enlightened them. ‘There was until a few weeks ago. Scott Lambert worked part-time, a day and a half each week and the occasional Saturday, but he stopped coming, out of the blue, like. When we asked about him, Ms Roberts just said he’d resigned. If he’d still been around, I suppose he could have filled in for her now.’
‘And you were never given a reason for his sudden resignation?’ Owen asked.
‘No, only like, that’d he’d not be back again.’
‘Do you have any contact details for Mr Lambert?’ Owen continued. ‘We’d like to speak to him.’
‘Hang on… Val, love, can you go and get his address and number, now please, not tomorrow.’ Pauline shook her head as the younger girl sauntered through to the back of the shop.
‘You didn’t mention this Scott when I was here the other day, Pauline. Are there are any other employees who might have left within the last few weeks or months?’ Owen continued the discussion with Pauline while Jack familiarised himself with the shop.
Pauline shook her head. ‘No, no one else but him.’
‘Could I have a quick look around?’ Jack asked.
As Val returned with the information on Scott Lambert, Pauline showed Jack around the shop. Apart from the retail space, there were four other rooms, all accessed from behind the counter. To the right were a small but adequate staff room, a bathroom next to it, and an office and large walk-in storeroom to the left. Unfortunately, the latter two were both locked, but Pauline produced keys and showed Jack inside.
‘Does anyone use the office and storeroom other than Rachel?’ he asked.
‘Not the office, that’s very much her domain, but Scott had access to the storeroom where all the meds are to fill the prescriptions. He used that little shelf to do his paperwork, and there’s a ledger he filled in. Val and I never came in here. In fact, we had the devil of a job finding keys to these rooms when your lot came before, thought you were going to have to break in.’
Jack thanked the ladies for their help and then set off with Owen to visit Scott Lambert.
* * *
The address was only a couple of miles from the shop and the two detectives were optimistic of finding Scott at home as it was apparently one of the days he used to work for Rachel Roberts. The house was in a row of pre-war semi-detached properties, small but neat, with a forecourt garden and a low wrought-iron fence. A tall thin man answered the door, his face immediately taking on the expression of a startled deer, even before his visitors announced themselves.
Lambert showed Jack and Owen into the lounge, hurriedly moving piles of newspapers and magazines and removing the residue of what looked like the previous day’s takeaway.
‘Can I get you a coffee or something?’ he asked before even establishing why he merited a visit from the police.
Jack answered for them both. ‘No, thank you, we’re fine. We’ll try not to keep you long, Mr Lambert. We’d just like to ask you a few questions.’
‘Yes, of course. What’s it about then?’
‘We’re making enquiries as to the whereabouts of your employer, Rachel Roberts. It’s imperative that we find her quickly and we wondered if you could help us in any way.’
‘Rachel? But I haven’t seen her for about four weeks now. I don’t work for her anymore.’
‘We realise that, yet any information you can give us about her whereabouts would be helpful. Perhaps you’d tell us why you left her employment?’
‘It was a disagreement, a clash of personalities, you could say.’ Scott lowered his eyes, as if uncomfortable with the subject. ‘Is Rachel in any danger? Do you think something’s happened to her?’
Jack persisted. ‘We know very little at the moment, except that we need to locate her as soon as possible. So what was the disagreement about, Mr Lambert?’
‘Something and nothing really, I’m sure it hasn’t anything to do with her disappearance.’
‘It must have been significant for you to leave your job?’ Owen chipped in. ‘Was it a personal matter or a professional one?’
Scott was squirming with their persistence and obviously didn’t want to share the details of his falling out with Rachel. ‘Is she in any kind of trouble?’ he asked after a thoughtful pause.
‘Will you please just answer our questions, Mr Lambert, or perhaps you’d like to come down to the station to continue this discussion there.’ Jack’s eyes bored into Scott, making the younger man turn away to look down at his feet. After a pause, he decided to co-operate.
‘Okay, it was a thing at work. Rachel’s not an easy person to work for and expects her pound of flesh – and more. She often leaves me mountains of prescriptions to check, which she knows will take far longer than the hours for which I’m contracted. Rachel also gets me to do all the MURs, that’s medical use reviews, with the patients. I don’t think she likes dealing with the public, but again she expects too much. Then there’s the stocktaking to keep on top of too. I can tell you, I work as a locum for two other pharmacists and neither is as demanding as Rachel. Do you know, I trained for five years to qualify? Mostly locum work is great; you get to choose your own hours and days off, but the pressure and expectations are mounting, and the pay certainly isn’t.’
Owen appeared bored listening to the man’s grievances. ‘So, was it your working conditions that caused this disagreement?’
‘Not exactly. It was to do with irregularities in the stock. When Rachel was away, a rather large order for a residential care home needed filling, and while I was in the storeroom, I had a good mooch around just to see if what we had tallied with the ledger. I started by checking the top shelf, where I found several items not on the list. Most of it was stuff we don’t have any call for, so I decided to ask Rachel about them when she returned.
‘She called in before I left and I mentioned it to her, but as the girls were still around, Rachel seemed reluctant to discuss it. Then, out of the blue, she invited me round to dinner at her place later that night, quite a surprise and rather out of character for her. She’s a good-looking woman, I wasn’t going to refuse the chance to get to know her better, so I accepted.’
‘And when was this exactly?’ Owen asked, for clarification.
‘It’ll be four weeks gone Friday. I remember the date as it was my last day of employment with her.’ Scott became pensive again.
Jack encouraged him to continue. ‘The dinner didn’t go well then?’
Scott took a huge breath, letting it out slowly as if summoning up the courage to carry on. ‘No, not well at all. When I arrived, Rachel was very polite and offered me a drink. She’d made an effort with her appearance and I felt pretty buoyed. I’d never thought that a woman like her would look twice at me, but she was actually flirting.
‘Neither of us seemed to want to bring up the subject of the drugs I’d found and I wasn’t going to be the one to break the mood. We had a couple of drinks, well, maybe more than a couple, and then she came on to me. I couldn’t believe my luck, and as we’re both single, consenting adults, I let her lead me upstairs…’ Scott was blushing. There must be more to the story than a pleasant roll in bed if he’d ended up losing his job and seemingly not getting any dinner.
‘It seemed to be going okay until she became somewhat demanding. Rachel said she liked it rough and asked me to er, well, to smack her around a bit. I wasn’t keen, but she insisted and gave as good as she got, I can tell you. It was over all too quickly then Rachel disappeared into the bathroom for a shower. My mind was whirring. I couldn’t take in what had just happened, whether she liked me or not, or even if I wanted her anymore.
‘She came out of the shower, fully clothed, and told me to get dressed. Rachel went downstairs and I followed her. Her face said it all. She was angry but somehow triumphant, and before I had the chance to speak, she told me that she no longer wanted me working at the pharmacy – and I wasn’t to mention the irregularity with the drugs to anyone.
‘I was angry myself by then and asked her what the hell she thought she was playing at. Perhaps I came over a bit heavy-handed and told her that I’d a good mind to report her to the authorities.’
‘And why didn’t you, Mr Lambert?’ Owen asked.
‘The bitch laughed in my face. She said that if I even thought about it again, she’d go to the police and tell them that I raped her! She even got her phone out and started taking selfies of the marks on her face and body. Then she said she’d keep the sheets for DNA evidence. I couldn’t believe it, the gall of the woman! There was nothing I could do after that, so I left and came home.’
‘With hindsight, Mr Lambert, did you not think about going to the authorities later?’ Jack asked.
‘With the threat of rape hanging over me, no bloody way!’
‘But these were serious breaches. Did you not wonder what she was doing with the drugs?’
‘I tried to put the whole debacle out of my mind. I don’t know what the woman was doing with the bloody stuff, but what’s it to me?’ Scott’s temper was rising, but so was Owen Hardy’s as he countered with equal intensity.
‘Were you aware that there was a child in the house while you were with Ms Roberts?’
Scott’s mood was instantly deflated; he shook his head and frowned. ‘There wasn’t a child there, whose child do you mean?’
Owen stared the man down. ‘Rachel Roberts’ five-year-old daughter was in the next bedroom, probably drugged with those drugs that mean nothing to you.’
‘Mr Lambert, do you have any idea at all where Rachel Roberts might be? Is there a holiday home or a favourite place she’s mentioned at work, perhaps?’ Jack aimed to diffuse the tension in the room and bring the interview to a close. Interesting though this may be, and it had undoubtedly shown another facet to their suspect’s character, it wasn’t getting them anywhere.
‘No, nowhere, Rachel was never one to engage in small talk with the staff.’ Scott sounded weary.
Jack stood to go. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Lambert. We’ll finish this interview for now, but if you think of anything at all that could help us, please get in touch straight away.’
‘Right, I will… will I er, be in any trouble over this?’ Lambert asked nervously.
Owen was quick to answer. ‘It’s too early to say.’
* * *
‘You were a bit hard on him in there.’ Jack said when they were in the car heading back to Hunter’s Lane.
‘Nothing more than he deserves. I want the man to stew, to think over his actions and hopefully show a little more remorse. If only the bastard had come forward sooner, Tom Roberts might still be at home with his wife, and he could have prevented Millie’s close call too.’
‘True, but ‘if only’ is a hypothetical phrase and, in my opinion, one of the saddest phrases in the English language.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Owen snapped.
‘We all say ‘if only’, and usually it’s with hindsight when we’re all much wiser. Don’t you think that if Scott Lambert knew what the immediate future was going to look like, he’d have reported his boss? And he too didn’t know that Rachel had a child. None of her colleagues was aware of that little fact.’
‘But he should have reported it anyway, don’t they swear some kind of Hippocratic oath like doctors do?’
‘No, I don’t think it’s mandatory for pharmacists, but according to Dan, my youngest, they’re encouraged to swear a similar oath when they finish their degrees.’
‘There you are then; he should be struck off or whatever they do. He’s breached a moral code if nothing else, so are we going to charge him, boss?’
‘Charge him with what?’
‘Withholding information, failing to report drug misuse, surely there must be a list of crimes we could charge him with?’
‘Let’s see how things work out for now. Finding Tom Roberts has to be our priority and Scott Lambert isn’t going anywhere, Owen.’
Owen wriggled back in his seat, thoughtful or sulking Jack couldn’t decide. He appreciated his DS’s passion for his job and justice, but he was still young. Hopefully, a few more years would mellow his attitude and he would begin to see that not all cases were black or white. If only it were as simple as that.
