The Fashion Police (6 page)

I had a couple of hours to kill before I returned to Fandango’s to try and check out the computers, so I decided to head over to Paul Clark’s house. I called Romeo again on the way. It rang, and the tone echoed through my hands-free earpiece while I replayed our last conversation in my head. I’d distinctly heard the voice of my arch-enemy, Detective Chief Inspector Janice Skipper, in the background, and I had the nearly irresistible urge to go over to the police station and punch her lights out. I admit it sounds a touch drama-queenish, but I had something she wanted – Romeo – and somehow she just couldn’t get over it. She’d been trying to get her pointy little claws into him for as long as I could remember. Just because we were together didn’t mean she respected that or stopped trying, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

As voicemail kicked in, I snapped the phone shut and said the F word in quite a few variations. By then, I was in Clark’s neighborhood and I did a drive-by of his house, hoping to catch a quickie picture of him doing acrobatics in the front garden, but there was no sign of life. I headed over and did a quick once-over in Asda, with no success  there, either. Eventually, I double-backed and drove toward the Cohens’ warehouse.  Maybe the other fish were biting today. 

****

Wouldn’t you know it? I’d been sitting in the same position as yesterday, overlooking the warehouse, ready and waiting with my finger poised over the snapshot button for an hour, and not a single hot vehicle had driven in. I was in the middle of deciding whether to call it a day when I heard a rustling sound coming from the woods behind me, and lots of ‘ahs’ and ‘damns’ in a high pitched American accent.

I twisted around and saw Miss Conspicuous weaving her way toward me through the trees, trying to avoid the low hanging branches.

It was too late to dive behind the nearest oak tree as she’d already seen me, so I leapt to my feet and hurried toward her before she could come any further and completely blow my cover. In her glaring red top, pink leggings, and a furry bag, which could only be described as squashed squirrel color, she stood out in the woods like an eyesore. Hell, she would stand out anywhere like an eyesore. I bet her earrings alone cost more than my whole year’s salary. If I had to sum her up in two words, I would use ‘serial shopper’.

I grabbed her arm and yanked her back toward the housing estate.

‘Hey!’ she yelled in a voice loud enough to wake up the dead. ‘Get your hands off me, you crazy woman.’

I ignored her and frog-marched her back toward the Purple People Eater, which was parked behind my car.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I gave her my best nasty-eyed death glare as I sized her up. She was a fragile-looking thing, with blonde ringlets and not a hair out of place, despite her trek through the woods. She had a heart-shaped face, and her lips glossed in a shiny pink. I guessed she was in her early twenties. Her innocent-looking eyes, carefully enhanced with eyeliner and mascara, blinked back at me. 

I stood there, hands on hips, pushing out my C cups as I waited for an answer. ‘Who are you and why are you following me?’

‘I’m trying to find my dad.’

‘And who is your dad?’

‘Umberto Fandango,’ she said, and then her face just seemed to melt. Her nose wrinkled up, her lower lip trembled, and she burst into noisy tears. She launched herself into my arms, her own going around my neck. Clinging on like a limpet, she blubbed all over my T-shirt.

As I awkwardly patted her on the back, I groaned. ‘Oh, God.’

6

Ten tissues and a red nose later, we sat in Starbucks, eating lunch – well, I was eating. She hadn’t touched hers.

‘I thought if I followed you, maybe I could find out what happened to him,’ Tia Fandango said in between heart-broken sniffs.

‘I didn’t even know he had a daughter. There’s never been any mention of you in the papers, and you’re not listed in our files.’

‘Dad’s a very private person. He likes to keep his life out of the limelight.’

I peered at her over my mug of cappuccino. ‘You don’t look like him.’

‘I must take after my mother’s side.’ She looked up at me through damp eyelashes. ‘Do you think he’s…dead?’

I reached out and rested my hand on her arm. ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out, I promise you.’ OK, so I wasn’t a police officer any more, but this was my case now, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I was going to seize every clue, however small, however insignificant it appeared, and pounce on it, keeping it in my grasp until I could put the whole picture together. Until I knew the truth.

I told her what I knew so far, which, as you can imagine, went down like a stripper at a Vicar’s tea party, and produced another round of blubbing.

She excused herself and fled to the toilets. When she returned, she had a determined glint in her eye. ‘I want to help you. I could work with you. I’m psychic, you know, and I think I can help you find out what happened. And if we work together, we’ve got a double chance of finding him.’

I shook my head and pushed away my plate with the half-eaten sausage baguette. ‘That’s a definite no-no.’

‘Please.’ Her eyes implored me.

I looked her up and down. ‘Look, Tia, I don’t want to be rude, but you stand out like a psychedelic flamingo. You can help by telling me what you know. Who is Celia James?’

A surprised look registered on her face. ‘She’s just a friend who loaned me her car. I’ve been studying at university in the States for a long time, so I don’t have one of my own.’

‘Why not borrow one of your dad’s? According to our file, he’s got a couple of vehicles insured with us.’

‘I went to his house, but I couldn’t find the keys.’

‘You said “his house”. Does that mean you live somewhere else when you’re not studying in the States?’

‘Yes. Dad bought an apartment, which is in the company name, and I stay there when I’m in the UK.’ She scribbled on a napkin. ‘That’s the address.’

I took the napkin and looked at the address, and then pulled the Fandango file out of my bag to check it against the information I had. It was a match. Fandango had insured that apartment along with his home and business addresses. ‘If you’re psychic, what’s going to happen to me tomorrow?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘OK, what are the winning lottery numbers?’

Tia shot me a slightly aggrieved look. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘So how does it work?’

‘I just get flashes of things – feelings and stuff. I think Dad’s being held in an Italian restaurant somewhere.’

I had just taken a swig of coffee, and I nearly spurted it out at her words. ‘What?’

‘I’m getting some kind of connection with pasta,’ she said.

‘Pasta?’ I raised a skeptical eyebrow.  She shrugged again.

‘I know, it sounds completely kooky, but that’s what I’m getting.’

‘Even if you’re right, that’s got to narrow it down to about a gazillion restaurants in the world.’

Her eyes welled up again and I sighed.

I slid a stack of napkins toward her. ‘Let’s start somewhere else. Do you know if he had any enemies?’

She wiped her eyes and shook her head. ‘Not that I know of.’

‘How about any business problems or arguments with any of his staff?’

‘I don’t think so.’

I thought for a moment and then plowed ahead. Why not? I had to ask it. ‘Was he involved in anything…illegal?’

A guarded look came over her face. ‘What do you mean?’

 ‘Well, anything to do with the mob, for example?’

She gasped. ‘Are you talking about the mafia?’ She began shredding the napkins.

‘Yes.’ I sank back in the chair, observing her carefully.

She blinked at me, astonished. ‘No! Dad would never do anything like that.’

‘Is there a Mrs. Fandango?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Well, if anything has happened to him, I’m just trying to establish who stands to inherit his vast fortune.’

She dabbed at her eyes with a tiny morsel of shredded tissue. ‘That would be me.’

‘Do you know where he kept his will?’

‘Probably in the office safe, at his house.’

‘Do you know the name of his lawyer?’

She sniffled. ‘No…oh, wait a minute. I think the name sounded a bit like a cake.’ She pursed her lips together and stared into space for a moment. ‘No, sorry. I can’t remember.’ She patted her eyes and looked down at the shredded remains of her paper napkin like she couldn’t remember doing it.

‘Well, can you think of anything else that might help?’

She thought long and hard, finally giving me a firm shake of her head.

I paid the bill and ducked out of Starbucks while Tia rearranged her make-up in the restroom, just in case she decided to follow me. Either she really didn’t know anything and was genuinely upset, or she was a good actress. I hadn’t made up my mind yet.  For all I knew, she might not even be Fandango’s daughter. I’d know more after I made a few phone calls.

****

It was late afternoon when I arrived back at the old flour mill. The car park was empty, and the building looked unoccupied. From my tour with Fandango, I knew all the security codes for the keypad entry system, so after checking to make sure the coast was clear, I let myself in.

My first stop was Fandango’s office. I sat at his desk, switched on his computer, and had started rifling through the papers on the desk when I heard a door slam somewhere outside. I froze for a second in disbelief when I heard the familiar clack of heels on the floor outside the office. No doubt, they were coming my way. My heart flip-flopped around in my chest as I looked for somewhere to hide. The desk was made of glass, so, unless I could make myself invisible, hiding underneath it would be a dead giveaway.

Crappy-doo-dah! I was going to get busted. I frantically scanned the room, hoping for a big black hole to suddenly open up and swallow me. Two seconds later, it still hadn’t, and I heard the beeps of the keypad lock on the other side of the door.

I launched myself behind the silver sofa as the door clicked and swung open. I could hear my breath rushing in and out and, as the heel-wearer came into the office, I caught a whiff of the now familiar, otherwise unusual perfume. It was the same stuff I’d smelled earlier in the day.

Shooting up from behind the couch, I came face to face with Tia.

‘Aagh!’ she screeched, rearing back in surprise.

Three thoughts ignited in my brain. One, she was here to batter me to death with the furry rodent bag. Two, she was trying to cover her tracks by getting rid of evidence, or three, she was doing the same as me – trying to find the missing fashion designer.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I hissed.

‘Looking for a clue,’ she hissed back.

‘I thought I told you not to follow me!’

She looked like she was about to cry any second. I felt bad for even suspecting her of wanting to do me harm. I threw my hands up in the air in a hopeless gesture. ‘Well, seeing as you’re here, you can stand guard.’ I sat back down at Fandango’s desk and tapped away on the keyboard, looking on his computer for anything that said
clue
in big, bold letters on it.

‘I can help you look.’ She picked something up off the desk. ‘What about this?’

I glanced over at what she held in her hand. ‘It’s a paperweight, and that is exactly the reason you can’t help me look. Just out of interest, what were you studying in the States?’

‘Neurosurgery.’

‘You’re kidding.’ Whoa, scary!

She did a snorty little giggle that sounded like a hyena with a blocked nose. ‘Yes, of course I’m kidding.’

I breathed a mental sigh of relief for all the poor brains in the world. ‘Shh!’ I pressed my forefinger against my lips.

‘Sorry. I was studying fashion, of course,’ she whispered.

I screwed up my eyes and frowned at the computer screen. ‘Damn, all his files have been wiped. There’s nothing on here.’ I turned it off and rummaged around in his desk. The only thing I could find was a file tucked right at the back that contained some papers that looked a lot like financial spreadsheets. I stuffed it in my rucksack and moved on to Heather’s desk.

Her laptop was nowhere to be seen.  I went through the desk from top to bottom, and the only thing I found that was of any interest was a piece of paper taped to the bottom of her top drawer. It had the words
CB £5 Million
scribbled on it. ‘Does this mean anything to you?’ I showed it to Tia.

‘No.’

I pocketed the note, and we checked out the other offices, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, so we called it a day.

‘You gave me your number, Tia. I’ll let you know if I find anything. Promise me you won’t follow me any more,’ I said as we got in our vehicles.

‘OK.’ She gave me an unconvincing smile, and I just knew I’d be seeing more of her before I was ready to.