The Tangled Web (15 page)

‘What is it?’ Adam queried.

‘New client information sheet.  “Dear Madam,” blah blah
blah…oooh, “My husband and I met while he was still married to his previous
wife and we began our relationship after meeting online.”  I already hate this
woman,’ Flic snarled.

‘Sounds like a nasty piece of work.  What else does it
say?’ Adam asked in a muffled tone while gnawing on his breakfast.

‘She’s going on about having emailed us at the
weekend…thanks us for our prompt response.  I don’t remember seeing a new
client name in the folder,’ Flic furrowed her brow.

Adam stiffened, and stopped chewing for a second.  ‘I
didn’t write any new names in.  Maybe Vicky handled it and forgot to make a
note of it,’ he covered.

‘Maybe.  She’s signed the terms and conditions and sent her
information sheet back to us...she could just have scanned it and emailed it,
silly bugger…hang on…’ she trailed off.

‘What is it?’ Adam wheedled.

‘Um…’ Flic couldn’t find the connection from her brain to
her mouth to explain what she saw to Adam. 

The handwriting in front of her was familiar.  Very
familiar!  She’d seen it and taken the piss out of it umpteen times in another
life. 

“Looks like an old woman’s scrawl,” was what she had said
so often in the past.

She scoured the information sheet for a name and in a
fluster couldn’t find one, even though she had designed the sheet herself.  She
checked the letter for a signature. 

And there it was.  Amy Goodbody.

‘Flic?’ Adam pressed.

‘I’ll look at it later,’ she grimaced, stuffing the
documents back into the envelope ferociously.

She could feel her pulse roaring through her ears and
became disorientated.  She put her hand back to her croissant, but her
co-ordination failed her and her hand missed the pastry by a couple of inches. 

She had to get out of here.

‘I might go and get dressed and then go for a walk,’ she
announced.

‘Alright,’ Adam nodded.  He carried on munching.

Flic was grateful that he wasn’t pushing this and trying to
get more information.  Her breathing was becoming ragged and she knew she had
to leave the room or Adam would suspect something was very wrong.  And he would
be right.

*****

‘I need a word,’ Flic panted, striding towards the desk
where Vicky sat. 

Vicky was ready to attend a funeral.  She was smartly
dressed in a modest black pencil skirt, crisp white shirt and black tie.  Flic
could see that Vicky had traded the jeans and boots she wore when she was off
duty for a pair of ten denier American tan tights and plain black court shoes. 
A black top hat was sitting on her lap.  She usually admired how Vicky didn’t
bother too much with her appearance.  What was it like to leave the house
without make-up and not care?  It was her second shock of the day to see a very
inconspicuous woman looking so smart and striking for a change.  She made a
mental note to advise Vicky at another time that androgynous dressing really
suited her.

‘Now?  Seriously?’  Vicky used her hand to gesture towards
her clothing and silently make her plan for the morning known.  Flic nodded her
response.

‘I need to leave in five minutes,’ Vicky asserted.  Her
voice was hushed and Flic realised Vicky had switched into work mode.

Vicky steered Flic towards the waiting room at the front of
the building.

‘I’m so sorry madam, but clients aren’t allowed in the
office.  If you’ll just come out to the waiting room I’ll get you a tea or a
coffee and a member of our staff will have a chat with you in just a few
minutes,’ Vicky purred in a soothing tone, attempting to put her colleagues off
any suspicions they had regarding Flic’s visit.

She closed the door gently then placed her hands on her
hips.  ‘What’s so important?’

‘I’m sorry I’m going to get you in trouble, but I didn’t
know what to do,’ Flic groaned.

‘What is it?’ Vicky hissed.

Flic inhaled slowly and deeply to steady her voice. 
‘Someone I know has contacted HunE-trap Investigations.’

Vicky shook her head.  ‘We knew this would happen
occasionally.  Inverness isn’t that big a town, and since Peter wrote that
article, it was more of a possibility.’

‘No, no, you don’t understand.  Someone I know from when I
lived in Devon has got in touch with us.’

‘I thought you were from Bristol,’ Vicky cut her off.

‘I am.  I moved to Devon after I got married to start a
business.’

‘You’re married?’ Vicky exclaimed.

‘I was.  I’m divorced.  It’s my ex-husband’s new wife who’s
been in touch,’ Flic quavered.

‘Shut up!’ Vicky scoffed.

Flic pursed her lips together and looked Vicky straight in
the eye.  Didn’t she realise what a problem this was?

‘Oh my God, you’re serious,’ Vicky gasped.  ‘This is too
much of a coincidence.  Someone must have told her about us.’

‘Well it wasn’t me.  I’m not in touch with anyone from Devon
any more.  Only my immediate family know I’m living here and they don’t know
about HunE-trap Investigations.  The only person from my family I’m really in
touch with regularly is my Gran because she lives up here.  It’s just bad
luck,’ Flic decided.

‘No.  Isn’t there something like sixty million people in
this country?  And of all of them, the one who gets in touch is your ex’s new
wife?  Something’s not right about this,’ Vicky determined.

‘Well, it’s not MY doing.  I’m not in touch with anyone who
knows her.  I’m telling you Vicky, the Internet is a very small place.’

‘Can I help you with anything?’ Scarlett asked brightly,
peeking her head around the door.

‘No!’ they halted in unison.

‘Well,’ she began, twisting her whole body through the
barely opened door.  ‘I couldn’t help overhearing…’

‘You sneaky bitch!  You were listening in!  This is a
private conversation!’ Flic snarled.  She did a double take on seeing Scarlett
standing in front of her.  The last time she saw her, Scarlett was a waif.  She
had been pale and willowy and looked like a poor soul.  Something was obviously
making her much happier because she was glowing and had definitely bulked up.

Scarlett wrinkled her nose disdainfully.  ‘As I was saying,
I overheard what you were saying and I don’t see this new wife contacting you
as being a bad thing.’

‘Explain,’ Vicky demanded, clearly losing patience with her
two less than helpful colleagues.

‘Isn’t this why you got into this business?  For revenge?’
Scarlett checked.

‘To give people the chance to make an informed decision
about their future,’ Vicky corrected.

‘And to bring arseholes to justice,’ Flic added.

‘Now’s your chance,’ Scarlett shrugged.

A moment of silence followed while Scarlett’s words
penetrated.  Flic could see her reasoning.  Did it matter who the arsehole in
question was?  She could be professional about this, she assured herself.  She
could do the job and not think about who she was trapping.  She didn’t have to
let anything that had happened in her personal life affect what she did in her
career.  If anything, her inside knowledge of the person to be investigated in
this case might actually help her cause.  She knew what made him tick.  She
knew what kind of woman he was likely to fall for.  She knew everything that
turned him on…

No.  She couldn’t even consider it.  She had come too far. 
She had worked too hard at forgetting him.  And forgetting what he did.

‘Did Peter have anything to do with this?’ Vicky asked.

Flic hadn’t even considered that.  Peter was the one
responsible for the publicity they had gained in the first place, she reminded
herself.  He had smelled a story as soon as he realised he was being
investigated.  Perhaps he smelled a story again – maybe he was trying to find
out the reasons why they were doing the job at all.  He’d found out about her
divorce and the reason her marriage had broken up.  Perhaps he’d smelled
another story.

‘I can’t say yes or no, but I would doubt it strongly. 
He’s been investigating one of Wales’s most infamous gangsters in the last couple
of weeks, so I don’t think he’ll have time to carry on with anything HunE-trap
Investigations related,’ Scarlett whispered with a smile.  The drama of Peter’s
new investigation was clearly satisfying her.

‘This can’t be a coincidence,’ Vicky surmised.  ‘But that’s
irrelevant because we’re not taking this case on.  It’s not worth the risk. 
Are we agreed?’

‘Absolutely,’ Flic nodded.

‘I think you should go home now and email what’s-her-name. 
Tell her something she can’t argue with – something like one of our team is
related to her husband, so there’s a conflict of interest.  And then recommend
someone in her area.  Just Google private investigators in Devon and give her a
couple of phone numbers,’ Vicky instructed.

‘Right.  I can do that,’ Flic assured herself.  She turned
to walk out of the building, feeling slightly dazed and overwhelmed by the
morning’s events. 

As she reached the door, Vicky called out to her.  ‘Flic! 
Are you ok?’

Flic nodded and forced a smile. 

Vicky moved towards her and pulled her into a hug.  ‘Just
send the email and forget about it,’ she advised.

Flic pulled her chin up, lengthened her neck and pushed her
shoulders back.  She had to keep pretending she was a carefree bitch, even if
it wasn’t how she felt.

‘I will.  And then we’ll put it behind us and get on with
all the other investigations,’ she affirmed.

As she put her hand on the door handle, she considered
asking Vicky if there would be any advantages to taking the case on – other
than revenge.  She opened her mouth to speak then caught sight of Scarlett,
still hanging around waiting for juicy titbits to feed her inner drama queen. 
The sight of her reminded Flic of all the trouble they could have been in
because of her.  If it hadn’t been for Magnus and Peter striking a deal, Peter
could have written something very different in his article. 

Vicky and Scarlett looked back at her, waiting to hear what
she had to say.  She couldn’t bring herself to suggest what she was thinking –
to voice her temptations.  So she turned it back around.

‘By the way Scarlett, you’re looking fabulous today.  How
are things with you and Peter now?’ she asked.

‘We’re doing ok.  We’re going to get some professional help
to try and salvage our relationship,’ Scarlett panted.

‘Oh, couples’ counselling?’ Flic wheedled.

‘No.  We’ve applied to go on the Jeremy Kyle Show.’

*****

Flic closed her front door and started to remove her
leather gloves, black fedora and black and gold chenille scarf, still feeling a
little disorientated.  She knew what she had to do.  She just wasn’t ready.

She had spent the whole day drinking hot chocolate in the
Debenhams café in the town centre, watching trains go in and out of the station
from the window.  She thought back to the day she had arrived in Inverness and
how bereft she had felt when she stepped off the train which brought her to the
town.  She’d arrived with no money in her purse at all.  She took a huge amount
of money from George in the divorce, but it had been put in a savings account
and never touched.  She wanted nothing from him.  Everything she had now, she
had built up in the last few years from scratch. 

Flic couldn’t help wondering what George’s life had been
like after she left.  She knew he’d remarried because when she’d signed the
papers to hand over their old house, it had been to him and “Mrs Amy
Goodbody.”  She knew that he and Amy had taken over the business she and George
had run together – managing a block of holiday apartments in a nice area of
Torquay.  She had inherited the large house from her Great-Aunt Betty and
turned it into apartments.  It was her property, her business, her livelihood. 
Yes, she’d kept working as a paralegal, because the income from the summer
wasn’t enough to keep them going during the winter months.  But she had an emotional
attachment to the house that the money he’d paid her in return for the building
hadn’t replaced.

So many times since then, she wished she hadn’t bothered
working.  If she hadn’t gone back out to work, she’d never have met Amy.  And
Amy would never have met George.  And she’d still be happily married.  And
maybe even be a mother by now.

Instead she looked in the mirror each morning and all she
saw was an aging, divorced and bitter woman.  Everything she had, she had
either lost to Amy, or just simply given up so she could get away from her
memories and start afresh.  She could convince everyone else she didn’t care,
but she had a harder time convincing herself.  She’d had a series of dates with
men who were lovely, but they weren’t George.  The only man she’d met who had
the potential to change her point of view was Adam.  She knew that if she
wanted to completely forget George and have a future with Adam, she had to send
that email to Amy refusing to accept her as a client.  If she didn’t, she’d be
swallowed in all those old feelings she’d spent so long trying to quash.