Kelly stared at her. Tilda Dent had just been brutally honest with her about the history of marketing on human beings, but it left her uncomfortable. Weren’t salespeople just a bunch of professional liars?
‘Was the conference going well?’
Tilda looked back at the flip chart. ‘Jamie secured important backing for us. It’ll be difficult calming the market after this.’
Tilda spoke wistfully, as though talking about Apollo 13 almost being lost forever, and not the contents of a smoothie.
‘You’ll go ahead with the product, then?’ Kelly asked.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hank said. ‘A legacy, if you will.’
Kelly didn’t know what to say. The perversion struck her across the face.
‘Did you know if Jamie had any personal problems, aside from the recreational drug taking? It’s clear his working life was excellent.’ She thought about the porn in his room.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me, Detective. Jamie had restless feet. He had everything he wanted, fast cars, women, holidays, foreign properties, celebrity friends. It wasn’t ever good enough. He sought something he could never have.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Peace.’
‘And you can’t make that into a smoothie?’
Tilda looked at her acidly, but Kelly smiled pleasantly.
‘Are you planning to head off in the next couple of days?’
‘We actually have a few more meetings here in the area. We’ll be staying at Dow Bank; where is it, Hank?’ Tilda asked her colleague. ‘I can drop you a pin, Detective.’
Kelly knew where Dow Bank was.
‘Excellent. Here’s my number.’ She handed Hank a card. ‘You’re free to go.’
She eyed the bodyguards.
‘One more thing, did Jamie have close protection?’ She nodded to the guards.
Hank looked at Tilda.
‘No, he didn’t. Our paid security is for CEOs only,’ she said.
‘Shame. If one of them was watching, we might not be here.’ Kelly paused. ‘Right, all being well, I’ll see you both again tomorrow. I won’t say have a restful night, that would be crass, but if you can think of anything that might be helpful to us, I’d appreciate your input.’
Tilda nodded and dabbed her eyes again. Kelly saw that the tissue was still bone dry.
She reckoned what Tilda Dent meant to say was that Jamie Robbins’ untimely death was a huge loss to their profits. Somehow, she didn’t believe that Jamie’s life was worth as much as his innovation.
Chapter 12
‘So, what is that stuff?’
Melvin Stone joined a group of young-looking professionals at a table outside the Heron Hall Hotel. They fussed over his dog and petted her. Acorn was a docile Labrador who loved attention so everybody was happy.
One of the people he sat with poured a sachet of powder into a glass of water and gulped it. Melvin read the sachet.
‘YouthBlast? You don’t need that! A Cumbrian steak and a glass of stout will see you right. Why do you young’uns trust these powders and potions?’
The young man threw Melvin a look of disdain and he might as well have said,‘Old guy, you know nothing!’
