Personal Protection (11 page)

I calmed her down. I was just wondering where to go from here when she said, “Would you mind if I invited the girls over? I’m sure they’ll want to talk about this. If the
police do come looking for us, it would be better if we were all in one place, don’t you think?”

Actually, I didn’t. The local constabulary might not be Scotland Yard, but even they would wonder if it wasn’t an attempt by the perpetrator to set their story straight or establish
an alibi. I wasn’t going to tell her that. If she hadn’t thought of it herself, I wasn’t going to suggest anyone she knew might be a murderer as well as a rapist. And her outrage
and indignation would be genuine when the detectives who questioned her suggested as much.

So I agreed. I even ferried them over.

I was tempted to stay, surrounded by this ocean of beauty, but I remembered the trouble that had got me into last night. The smell of conflicting perfumes became cloying, and there were too many
people in the room. I began to feel claustrophobic. And girl talk? I can’t do girl talk. I made my goodbyes and left, secure in the thought that, even if the killer was amongst them,
surrounded by so many people Tori would be safe.

As often happened, I ran into Cecily on the landing. I swear she sits behind the door and watches through the spy-eye for me coming and going alone. I mean, where was she when Tori was seeing me
off with a passionate thank-you for fetching her friends? And why wasn’t the bitch at work?

“An orgy, Randall? I’d never have guessed that milksop Victoria could make you so bold! Or is it just that you were the only man in the room?”

“Go fuck yourself, Cecily.”

“I do, Randall, I do, when Ashley’s not around to do it for me. You wouldn’t believe the number of vibrators I’ve burned out, the batteries I’ve exhausted, dreaming
of you.”

Shit, what do you say to something like that?

She stroked her lacquered talons, lilac today, over the creamy expanse of flesh at her throat, towards the pearl buttons of her shimmering satin shirt.

My eyes followed their progress of their own volition. I forced them back to her face. She was – damn her – smiling. The job, the situation I found myself in, was leaving me in an
almost constant state of arousal. Her signature perfume Samsara stole over me making it worse. Cecily read me easily and took advantage of the situation.

“Poor baby! Has Tori sent you away while she plays? Is that why you’re frustrated? You can come and play with me.”

“Some of us have to work.”

“Some of us get to choose when we work from home.”

I straightened my back, turned and walked towards the stairs. Off guard, Cecily was too slow to block my way. Not to be outdone, her voice drifted after me as I descended.

“The strong silent type. I’ve always liked that about you, Randall.”

Coming from her the compliment tasted like ashes. At least I had the satisfaction of slamming the door on her as she had on me the day before. Yet it felt like a hollow victory.

I changed gear with more force than it deserved. I was rewarded with an unpleasant grinding sound, as the car protested at my taking out my own shortcomings on the gearbox.

Fuck it! I had more important things to worry about than my screwed-up desires.

Finding a parking space in this town after midday is impossible. I finally left the Porsche clone in the multistorey on top of Wilkinson’s. I wasn’t sanguine about my chances of it
being in one piece when I got back, but I didn’t have much choice. I hiked back through the drizzling rain to the office.

Rain and the Illuminations. It never fails.

Dean was hard at work, typing a report on my desktop PC while he argued about something completely different over the hands-free phone.

There was nobody was in the tiny waiting room and the appointment diary showed me there were no client consultations for at least the next hour. I stuck a Back In Ten Minutes sign on the door to
discourage potential drop-ins and waited until he was free.

Stabbing the cut-off button, he threw the headset into the waste paper basket with a curse vituperative enough to curl hair, pounded a few more words on to the keyboard, then spun his swivel
chair to face me.

“I wasn’t expecting you today. They let you out early at the zoo?”

I rescued the headset and hit Save with the mouse in passing.

“Nope. I didn’t get home till after four. I thought I’d come down and buy you lunch.”

He snorted.

“Aside from the fact that your idea of lunch is Chinese take-away, the only time you ever volunteer to pay is when you need a favour.”

“They don’t call you a detective for nothing. I’m speechless at your awesome powers! I cower in the shadow of your wisdom! Teach me, master!”

“Fuck off, Randall! You’re not getting round me that easily. Besides I’ve already eaten. As if you didn’t know.”

I grinned. The take-out I’d picked up on my way was in the waiting room. I fetched it, and watched Dean grimace as I broke open the disposable plastic chopsticks and opened a carton of
stir-fried bean sprouts with noodles. I could see I’d got his attention as well as piqued his curiosity.

Between mouthfuls I filled him in on what had happened last night while the printer chattered out his report in the background. His expression became grimmer as I went on. When I reached the
part about this morning’s news about the missing (now deceased) dancer, he got up and began to pace.

“Do you think they’ll employ us to investigate this officially?”

“I hope so. Tori’s having a council of war with the ladies in my living room right now. I’ll try and get her name on the contract. If it comes to it, I’ll sign it
myself.”

“Don’t be stupid, Randall, you know you can’t. Legally, we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. And with this latest wrinkle we’ll probably need all the help we can
get.”

My business partner was no happier with the idea of getting caught up in a murder enquiry than I was. And not because of the possible danger to his own life and limbs. The police really do hate
‘amateurs’ messing about in (or messing up) investigations, and the local plod has less cause to like us than most.

In summer we’d taken on a case that looked like industrial espionage, only to have it blow up in our faces. Several people died. If I hadn’t abseiled off the Tower in a bid to save
Dean’s neck and draw the murderer out, I might have been in prison myself. Dean had been careful not to take on ugly cases, or step on any of the Constabulary’s toes since then.

“Make sure one of the girls signs the contract. And it would be better if it wasn’t Tori. Make sure we get a firm commitment from them to pay us. Cash or cheque in advance if you can
get it. I know you’ve got a personal stake in this. Hell! I like Tori, even if I don’t agree with what she does for a living. She’s good for you! But we can’t afford to work
for free.”

“Message received and understood.”

“From what you’ve told me, the incidents might not be connected. It’s seldom that someone vandalises, stalks, makes an attack in so public a fashion, commits murder and then
rapes. Unless they wanted to throw someone off the scent. The events can’t have been reported in chronological order.”

He scrubbed his hand over his close clipped hair and poured himself a tiny cup of his personal addiction: Turkish coffee, strong, sweet and thick.

Dean liked the idea of the hard boiled PI image as propounded by Dire Straits song
Private Investigations.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t cut out for it. He couldn’t stand whisky
and he thought Venetian blinds were passé.

Instead for ambience he relied on the smell of coffee strong enough to stand your spoon up in, bought from a European café across the road and kept in an insulated jug that looked
remarkably like an authentic ragweh. (And as it happened, sold by a very cute guy. Dean doesn’t fancy him at all, but the idea that he might keeps Craig attentive. A plus I’m sure he
thought of in advance.)

He took a small sip, savoured the brew and slowly let it trickle down his throat as he ordered his thoughts. He’s not a psychologist, but he is a student of human nature, a careful
observer and very good at what he does. I’ve learned to rely on his instincts.

“The murder must have happened before Tori was raped, not afterwards. For the neighbours to be reporting the smell of decomposition, the body must have been there for some time. We know
the girl had definitely been missing for five days?”

I nodded. He had me give him precise details from the TV broadcast again. He scribbled hasty computations on a yellow legal pad, a hold-over from his time as a solicitor.

“She must have dropped out of sight before that. Like the reporter said, with no friends or family to check up on her, that’s easily done. It sounds as if she’s been dead more
than a week. Which places her murder long before Tori’s rape – that’s if both crimes were committed by the same person.”

He tapped the mechanical pencil against his perfect teeth. “And I’m not convinced they were. I’m not saying women are incapable of murder, we both know that isn’t true!
They’re just less likely to kill. And they use subtle things like poison. Found weapons like scissors. Heavy household appliances. Or a weapon that has meaning to the victim. A favourite
golfing trophy or paperweight. The victim was bound, gagged and badly mutilated, according to the news report?” I nodded. “Then she would have struggled. If the crime had been committed
in her home, someone would have heard something. She lives in a flat. Their walls are paper thin.”

“I’d agree with you if I hadn’t seen the state of Tori’s place. That looked like a bomb had hit it and no one reported hearing anything about that.”

He waved that away.

“Smashing or breaking sounds can be muted by determined vandals. Carefully timed. Done when everyone was out. Disguised as furniture moving. Unlike Tori’s place, Waterloo Road flats
are holiday lets, OAP bed-sits and accommodation for the unemployed. There is someone at home in most of the buildings in that area nearly all the time. It’s unlikely she was killed in situ.
Someone would have seen or heard something. And the smell of blood would have come through a great deal faster than the smell of a decomposing body.”

I bagged the remains of my lunch and bulls-eyed the waste paper basket, appetite gone.

Dean continued, “I’ll ask my friends at the Evening Post and Gazette for the low-down. Perhaps they’ll be able to shed more light on how she died. Give us a time line. If Mrs
Stokes is the typical Blackpool landlady, rather than being cagey she’ll be playing it for all it’s worth.”

That was probably true. The police would have more trouble shutting her up than getting a statement. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame.

In deference to my digestion, he changed the subject. “How are you managing at the club?”

I considered my answer.

“It’s not as straightforward as I first thought. Physically, it’s less demanding than I’m used to. Mentally and emotionally, it’s something else.”

“Rather you than me! I couldn’t manage to work in a male strip joint, even if I wasn’t going out with one of the dancers. Craig and I would last about five minutes. You have my
admiration for your self-control and willpower.”

I wondered what he would have said if he could have seen the mess I’d got into last night. Dean’s good impression of me means a great deal, so I said nothing.

Which brought me full circle to face my frustration. There was nothing we could do about the dead girl, or the other attacks at the club, until we got the contract signed. On the other
hand…

“Look, I know we haven’t got the official go-ahead to investigate this, but I was wondering… Even though Tori maintains she can’t remember much about what happened to
her, she smelled of perfume that wasn’t hers and was raped with things other than what nature provided. I know this could mean the guy’s impotent, or just wanted to be even more cruel,
but do you suppose it might be worth looking at her ex-girlfriends? There were only two and…”

“I thought you might say something like that, so I took the liberty.”

He looked back mildly as I stared at him.

“I couldn’t have you haring about ripping their arms and legs off before we knew if they were involved. This is your girlfriend we’re talking about! You haven’t got
enough perspective. I saw you at her flat the other night, remember?”

I had to fight the urge to hit something again, which I suppose proved Dean’s point. I swallowed my chagrin that he’d taken this away from me and asked, “And?”

“They couldn’t have done it. One’s out of the country till Friday. On holiday with her parents, on a cruise for the last three weeks. The other has moved away, and I have it on
good authority that she’s been in hospital with multiple broken bones since the day before Tori’s attack. Climbing accident. She fell off the side of a mountain. I’ve checked
everything as thoroughly as I can. There’s no way, Randall. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll try and talk to Tori. See if she remembers anything that might help. If I can think of a way to do it without upsetting her.”

“Don’t be too hard on her, Randall. That kind of experience is something you want to block out. You can’t blame her if she just wants to put it behind her and get on with her
life.”

She’d said as much to me the other day.

Dean sipped his coffee, stacked his report and watched with thinly disguised amusement as I sat spinning my wheels. He knows I’m not much for hanging about doing nothing. Finally I asked
him whether there was any business here that needed my attention.

“Your former client phoned and apologised for wasting our time. He’s paid us the minimum fee for staying on standby.”

That was good to know. Money for nothin’. Just how I liked it.

“The other actual investigations we’ve got on hand are ticking over without any help from either of us.”

In other words, we were at the ‘awaiting developments’ stage. It sometimes seems to me that ninety percent of the detective game involves sitting around waiting for something to
happen.

Just as I thought I’d have to brave the wet streets and squeeze back into my crowded apartment for an hour or two before checking out Tori’s flat, he threw me a bone.