Black Daffodil (Trevor Joseph Detective series)

Published by Accent Press 2012

Copyright © 2008 Katherine John

ISBN 9781908917775

The right of Katherine John to be identified

as the author of this work has been

asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher: Accent Press, The Old School, Upper High Street, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6SA

Cover design by Anna Torborg 

The publisher acknowledges the financial support of the Welsh Books Council

ALSO BY KATHERINE JOHN

Trevor Joseph Mysteries

WITHOUT TRACE

MIDNIGHT MURDERS

MURDER OF A DEAD MAN

THE CORPSE’S TALE (Quick read):

A WELL-DESERVED MURDER

ISBN 9781906125141 £6.99

Other Books

THE AMBER KNIGHT

BY ANY NAME

www.accentpress.co.uk

For all the Kellys and Alecs in South Wales, especially the Valleys. I hope that one day they will get the help they so desperately need and deserve before we lose any more young lives.

Chapter One

The night porter who manned the desk in the foyer of the luxury block of flats told everyone who would listen that he was a student. But he rarely opened the text books he carried. Tonight, he’d read the
Sun
that the day porter had left, cover to cover.

He turned back to page 3, studied the topless model girl and wondered what exactly the two ‘lady friends’ of Mr Jones in Nine were doing to him. Usually they were in and out in an hour. Tonight it had been … he looked at the clock. Ten past twelve. Three hours and ten minutes .He pictured the scene … Mr Jones stretched out on his bed, the girls bending over him topless, wearing only stockings and suspenders … red or black …

But there might not have been two of them because he thought he had seen the blonde sneaking up the service stairs to a higher floor. He couldn’t be sure because the CCTV had blacked out. The cameras on the service stairs and top floor were always blacking out. The day shift porter insisted Miss Smith from the top floor tampered with them so they wouldn’t record the ‘clients’ she entertained in her apartment, although some of them were in and out of the building in a matter of minutes. He didn’t believe it, or half the things the day porter said. A fantasist, the man also insisted he’d once enjoyed a threesome with two young actresses who’d been featured in
Doctor Who
, although no one who worked in the building had ever seen him with a woman.

The automated glass front doors slid open. He started guiltily. He was supposed to lock them at midnight to keep out what management called ‘riff-raff’. The residents had keys. Not that they had to use them with twenty-four hour porterage and security.

Fortunately the woman who swept in wasn’t one of the miseries who complained every time he left the desk to make himself a cup of tea. He suspected that some tuned the security monitors in their apartments to cover reception, in the hope of catching him breaking his rules of employment.

He gave the attractive blonde the full benefit of the toothy smile he practised in front of the mirror every afternoon.

‘Good evening, Miss Smith.’

Tall, slender, dressed in a hip-hugging mini-skirt and shoestring-strapped black vest, a tan leather jacket slung over her shoulder, her legs encased in matching thigh-high boots, Amber Smith exuded sex. Tantalizing, exotic, anything goes – pornographic day-and-night-long sex. The blood coursed headily, swiftly through his veins as she approached him. He was grateful the desk was high enough to conceal the bulge in his trousers.

Preoccupied, she walked past him without a look or a muttered, ‘Hi.’

No smile. No ‘How’s it going, George?’ Not that his name was George, or he’d ever corrected her. Not even ‘Hi.’

Hurt by her indifference, he watched her hit the button for the lift. He could see by the lights it was already on its way down. The door opened and Mr Jones’s ‘lady friends’ emerged. He could never make up his mind which he preferred, the six-foot redhead or the petite blonde.

‘Amber, darling, long time no see.’ The blonde kissed the air either side of Amber’s face. The redhead followed suit.

‘Come for a drink with us?’ the redhead invited.

‘Some other time, Cyn, Lucy.’ Amber entered the lift and pressed the button.

‘Hello, ladies.’ The porter eyed the enormous bags they carried. Not for the first time he speculated on their contents. He had even drawn up a list after an afternoon spent in a sex shop.

‘Hello, gorgeous.’ The redhead chucked him under the chin and followed the blonde out of the building. He locked the doors after them.

Disappointed, restless, he returned to his desk and the page three girl. He decided she couldn’t hold a candle to Miss Amber Smith from Flat 36 – or the redhead – or the blonde …

Amber Smith stared blindly at her reflection in the mirrors that walled the lift and mulled over the meeting that had cut her evening short. She knew she’d been stupid to hand over her spare key. There was no predicting what she’d find behind her front door. But what else could she have done? Blood was thicker than water – except in the case of the mother who’d given her and her sisters less thought than a cat did kittens after she’d spawned them.

The lift hit her floor. She walked out into the corridor to her pride and joy – her top floor apartment. In estate agents’ terms it was ‘compact’ but, the way she was making money, it wouldn’t be long before she’d be able to move on to bigger and better – her own – not rented.

She inserted her key in the lock and tried to turn it. It seemed reluctant to open. She set her shoulder against the door and pushed.

The explosion shook the building, rocking the foyer ten floors down and activating the fire alarm. The porter forgot his training in emergency procedures and rushed to the lift. He reeled back when black smoke clouded out of the doors, fogging the air and scalding his lungs. He staggered back to his desk, picked up his mobile phone and master keys, left his text books, unlocked the doors and rushed outside. People were hurtling down the staircases. Screams and cries mingled with the wails of sirens in the streets. Within seconds the tranquil marble, steel and mirror-panelled reception area was transformed into smut-filled bedlam.

Emergency vehicles and personnel encircled the building within five minutes. The residents were concerned with preserving themselves and their possessions, the porter with counting the residents, the fire crews and police with saving lives. No one looked at the bank of security monitors above the porter’s desk. If they had, they might have spotted a hooded figure running down the service staircase to the basement. There, it lurked in the shadows behind the pillars that flanked the steel doors, designed to keep vagrants out of the underground car park.

When Mr Edwards from Flat 15 ran down to save his beloved Porsche, they might also have seen the figure rolling out, under the barrier, after Mr Edwards drove out.

Head down, the figure walked quickly – but not too quickly so as to get noticed – up to the street level, wove through the gathering crowd and out onto the pavement skirting the dual carriageway. There was an underpass. Within seconds even the figure’s shadow had melted into the night.

Kelly Smith exchanged the sweltering heat and noise of the packed interior of the penthouse for the comparative cool of one of the balconies that encircled the open-plan living area. Closing the patio doors against the ear-shattering music of the live band, she leant against the railings and stared down at the rows of pristine white yachts moored in the marina, fifteen stories below. At ninety-five feet, the largest and most luxurious,
Lucky Star
dwarfed the smaller craft,
Lucky Me
and
Lucky Charm
that were berthed either side of it.
Lucky Star
had three ‘state rooms’, a Jacuzzi on the fly bridge, and had recently benefited from a no-expense-spared, luxury refit. Kelly had been given a tour but the memory was too recent and raw for her to want to dwell on the experience.

She turned to the concrete shoreline that crusted the Bay. Lights glittered, their reflections dancing in the shimmering waters, illuminating the tides of people that ebbed and flowed in and out of the café bars and restaurants that thronged the water’s edge. Snatches of music drifted in the still, warm air as doors opened and closed. She felt a sudden desire to be down there, with nothing more on her mind than which bar to wander into and, how to catch the eye of the first boy she fancied. A blast of music sent her nerves jangling. The living room door opened behind her.

‘Hi.’ Jake Phillips closed the doors before handing her one of the cans of beer he’d filched from the ice chest built into the Jacuzzi. ‘You’re one of the Smith girls, aren’t you? Keira?’

‘Kelly,’ she corrected.

‘Jake Phillips. I was in school with Marissa and I knew Amber well. I always thought of her as a bright, pretty girl who would go far. I’m sorry about what happened to her.’

‘Isn’t everyone?’ Kelly shrugged. Tears started in her eyes.

‘I hadn’t seen her in years. How is Marissa?’

‘We haven’t kept in touch.’

Jake didn’t have to ask why. Marissa’s nickname in school had been Snow White. It had nothing to do with the fairy tale and everything to do with the amount of white powder she could pack up her nose. ‘Last I heard she was living here, on the Bay,’ he said.

‘That must have been more than two years ago. She lost her job, couldn’t make the rent.’

Jake picked up on Kelly’s reluctance to talk, but he persisted. ‘You look like Amber.’

‘It’s the hair. Me and Amber used to steal Marissa’s hair dye when we were kids. I never bothered to change the colour.’ She ripped open her can.

He stood beside her. ‘Fabulous view. Every day I wake up in this place, I’m glad I’m alive. Doesn’t it make you feel as though you’re on top of the world?’

She glanced through the glass doors into the marbled splendour of the open-plan living area. ‘You live here?’

‘I do.’

‘Lucky you. Amber always said you’d do well.’

‘Not that well. I’m Damian Darrow’s lodger and I pay way below the going rate.’ He noted her reaction. ‘You know him?’

‘Everyone knows Damian.’

‘You don’t like him?’ Jake guessed from her tone.

‘I’m not stupid enough to slag him off to his lodger. And everyone knows he’s paying for this party to launch his new band.’

Jake watched the band through the glass doors. Dressed in Victorian corsets and white silk stockings they were gyrating their way through a cover of the 1960s hit,
Little Children
, which, given that they were all girls, lent the lyrics about ‘kissing your sister’ a whole new meaning. ‘They’re not bad.’

Kelly made a face. ‘They’re not good either.’

‘You know Damian well?’

‘What’s with the questions?’

‘Making conversation.’

‘Sounds like a police interview to me.’

‘I owe Damian,’ he explained. ‘Not just because he charges me below the going rate for a room in this place. But I know he can rub people up the wrong way.’

‘Damian’s all right,’ she murmured unconvincingly.

‘He knows how to have fun and he likes having people around.’ He touched his can to hers. ‘To us and the steep climb up.’

‘You made it, Jake, not me.’

‘You’re at the best party with the best people.’ He flicked a comma of thick black hair from his eyes and preened theatrically, tongue in cheek. ‘Not to mention
moi
.’

‘You know why I’m here?’

‘Because you’re invited?’

‘Like most of the girls, I’m here because I’m bought and paid for.’

Stung by her bitterness, he said. ‘Don’t put yourself down. We all sell ourselves to a greater or lesser extent.’

‘When did you last let someone fuck you for money?’ she snapped.

‘Showing your temper again, Kelly.’ Mike Knight left the living room and joined them. ‘I warned you an hour ago, sour face never won brave knight.’

‘I see no bloody knights here.’

Mike pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket. ‘My darling Kelly, you’ve a body that would stop the traffic on the M4 if only you smiled. As it is, one look from you is enough to make any man reach for the indigestion pills. You’re what – eighteen?’

‘Sixteen.’

Jake flicked through his memory. ‘Amber was eighteen, Marissa twenty-two. You’re …’

‘Sixteen last month,’ she reiterated sharply.

Jake did a quick calculation. The youngest of the three Smith girls would be fourteen, but, as Mike had left the door to the living room open, he kept his thoughts to himself. The band had finished their number and were taking a break. A hubbub of conversation had replaced the throbbing music but they might be overheard and, if whoever had hired the girls – probably Damian, discovered that Kelly was under-age, she’d be blasted for breaking a law that could attract police attention to a party where he’d seen enough minor dealers operating to keep the courts busy for a month.

Mike took a tube of vodka from his well-stocked shirt pocket and upended it into his mouth. ‘I told you what to do if you’re unhappy in your work, Kelly.’

She turned back to the view of the bay. ‘Servicing rugby teams after a match is bloody hard and bruising work.’

‘A chef can’t pick and choose his customers, darling. Neither can you. As it is, you’re vastly overpaid.’ Mike was the prop forward for the film-school rugby team.

‘You’ve never paid for my services.’

‘Can I help it if people love me enough to cover my expenses?’ He looked into the living room. A redhead, Cynara, and Mira, a blonde, were stripping to the accompaniment of wolf whistles and jeers from a crowd of jostling men who were fighting to push bank notes into their G-strings. ‘Given the look on your face, it’s no wonder you’re out here and the other girls are picking up tips in there.’

‘I’m taking a break. I work hard for my money.’ Kelly lifted her chin defiantly.

Jake attempted to cool the atmosphere. ‘Kelly and I come from the same neck of the woods.’

‘Backwoods?’ Mike mocked.

Jake winked at Kelly. ‘Let’s say it’s a place that fosters ambition.’

‘Marissa was stupid. She made good money for a couple of years but she spent every penny, unlike Amber who died in her own place. And like Amber I’ll be moving into my own flat right here on the Bay in a couple of years.’ Kelly eyed Mike, daring him to contradict her. ‘You’ll see.’

Jake commented before Mike could. ‘I’ll be your first visitor.’

Whether Kelly would succeed in her ambition to buy a place on the Bay or not, Jake knew about the desperation that drove people to do whatever it took to get off the estate they had grown up on. Determined to give him a better start in life than his friends, his mother had held down three jobs to pay for tutors to supplement the inadequate education offered by the local comprehensive. He had won a place at university and, unlike Amber, thanks to his mother’s foresight, her modest savings and help from his uncle, he’d been able to take it. Now he was earning enough to keep himself and to slip his mother a hundred quid a month; it had enabled her to rent a flat in a quiet street close to the city centre.