Kick Back (18 page)

When I got home, my answering machine was flashing. I pressed the playback button. “Kate, Bill here. I've just got back from PharmAce. We need to talk. This is the number where you can reach me this evening after seven.”

He rattled off a Didsbury number, which I failed to recognize. Hardly surprising. Bill changes his girlfriends as often as Rod Stewart in his bachelor days. When I dialled the number, true to form, a woman's voice answered. While I waited for her to fetch Bill, I conjured up the image her voice generated.

“Twenty-five, Home Counties, graduate, blonde, smokes,” I said when Bill answered.

“Well done, Sherlock. You're two years too generous, though,” he said.

“You said we need to talk. Will the phone do, or shall I come over and meet you for a drink?” I asked maliciously.

“The phone will do nicely,” he said. “First, the good news. Brian Chalmers is delighted, and has sacked the senior technician on the spot, with no reference. And tomorrow I'm meeting someone from Knutsford CID to see if they'd like to pursue the company receiving the stolen goods.”

“Fine,” I said. “And the bad news?”

“It wasn't a PharmAce van that ran you off the road. They had a call today from the police in Devon. The van that was stolen from PharmAce was written off in some village on Dartmoor on Friday morning after being used in a supermarket robbery down there. So it couldn't have rammed you on Friday night. Kate, whoever had a go at you on Barton Bridge is still out there.”

I could get used to being waited on hand and foot at breakfast. What I couldn't handle is the early rising that seems to go hand in hand with business briefings over the bacon butties. The following morning, I was back in the dining room of the Portland at Josh's invitation. “I've got someone I want you to meet,” he'd said mysteriously on the phone, refusing to be drawn further.

I approached with caution, since I could see Josh's companion was a woman. I hoped he hadn't dragged me out of bed to tell me he was getting married. That was news I couldn't handle on an empty stomach. I saw Josh spot me and say something to his companion, who glanced over her shoulder at me. She didn't look Josh's type. For a start, she looked in her middle thirties, which made her at least ten years too old. The most striking thing about her was her hair, the color of polished conkers, hanging down her back in a thick plait.

When I reached the table, Josh half-stood and said, “Kate! I'm glad you could make it. Della, this is Kate Brannigan, the private investigator I told you about.”

A potential client, then, I thought. I smiled. Josh continued, “Kate, this is Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice. She's just been transferred to the Regional Crime Squad. We were at Cambridge together, and I thought the pair of you ought to meet.”

I tried not to look as gobsmacked as I felt. There aren't a lot of women who make it to the rank of DCI, especially not at the sharp end of crime. Della Prentice smiled and extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Kate,” she said. “At the risk of making your heart sink, Josh has told me a lot about you.”

“I wish I could say the same about you,” I replied, shaking a dry,
firm hand. I sat down with a bit of a bump. I didn't expect to be dragged out of bed at sparrowfart to meet a copper. Especially not a ranking woman officer. I gave her the quick once-over. Deep-set greenish eyes, good skin, the kind of strong bones that look lumpy in teenagers but become more attractive with every year that passes after the age of thirty.

“He tries to keep me under wraps because I know where the bodies are buried,” she said, as she gave me the same scrutiny. “I could tell you a tale …”

Josh cleared his throat and said hastily, “Della's something of an expert in the kind of fraud you seem to be dealing with in your conservatory case,” he said. “I rather thought she might be of some help to you.”

“I've just done eighteen months with the West Yorkshire Fraud Squad,” Della said. “Now I've been transferred to the RCS to be the operational head of a fraud task force.”

“How are you finding it?” I asked.

“It's always a bit of an uphill struggle, learning to work with a new team.” Of course. She wouldn't have climbed that far up the ladder if she hadn't been something of a diplomat.

“Made five times worse because you're a woman?” I asked.

“Something like that.”

“I can imagine. Plenty of that dumb insolence, literal interpretation of orders and no respect till they decide you've earned it.”

Della's twisted smile said it all. “What we're doing is working with banks and other financial institutions on the kind of small-scale fraud that doesn't warrant the attentions of the Serious Fraud Office. Usually, it involves forgery or the kind of deception where people assume someone else's identity for the purposes of obtaining goods or cash.”

“At the risk of sounding like the punters I meet at parties, that must be fascinating,” I said.

She smiled. “It can be very satisfying to put together the pieces of the jigsaw.”

“Yes, you get a better class of villain in your line of work than your colleagues who get lumbered with the ram raiders and the drug dealers,” I said. “For me, it's a little out of the usual run
of things. I'm more accustomed to poking about in computers' memories than fronting people up.”

Della leaned back in her chair. “Now, that really
must
be fascinating. No, I mean it. I'd love to have the time to learn more about computers. Mind if I smoke?” I shook my head. She took out a pack of Silk Cut and a Zippo lighter. As she lit up she said, “Josh tells me you've got a problem with defaulting mortgagees. Maybe we could do each other a bit of good here. I might be able to shed some light for you and, frankly, if you can stand it up, I could really use the collar.”

I liked Della Prentice's candor. And she came vouched for by Josh, which in my book was the seal of professionalism. So I took a deep breath and said, “This is off the record. Agreed?” I had no authority from Ted to involve the police. Added to which, as yet, I had no real evidence that a crime had been committed, only a lot of circumstantial coincidences.

A waitress appeared and we ordered our breakfasts before Della could reply. When she'd gone, she said, “Off the record.”

I gave Della the bare bones. To her credit, she heard me out in silence. Most of the questions she asked afterwards were sensible and to the point, just as I'd expected. “The banks have got their own investigators, you know,” she said at last. “I'm surprised they haven't been digging around in this one themselves.”

“I don't know that they haven't been,” I said. “But if they have, they've been going at it from a different angle. They're probably trying to prove Ted Barlow is bent, whereas I'm trying to establish the exact opposite.”

She nodded. “I don't mean to sound like I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but I suppose you have considered that your client might be at it?”

“It was the first thing I thought of. But people who know him say he lacks the imagination or the inclination to be that bent. Besides, he's telling the truth about the missing conservatories. Even I can see they were installed originally, and if he was behind it himself, he wouldn't have to bother with that,” I explained.

Della considered while she lit another cigarette. Then she said, “He might have been doing that to cover his own back
when it all came on top. And who better than him to find a new home for the conservatories? After all, he could just recycle them. And he could simply be employing you to make it look good to the bank—and to us, if we're called in eventually by the bank's security crew.”

I shook my head. “It's not Ted. I know it's possible to find an explanation that points the finger at him. But the clincher for me is that he just doesn't match the descriptions I've got of the man who spends the night at these houses.”

“It's an unusual one, Kate,” she said. “Very unusual. But if it really is a scam that's being pulled by one or two people rather than a string of coincidences, then they must have cleared a lot of cash by now.”

“Over half a million after expenses, by my estimates,” I said calmly. “They probably can't believe their luck. If I was them, I'd be planning to pull out before the shit hit the fan.”

“How do you know they haven't?” Della asked.

“I don't. I'm banking on the fact that they haven't. That way, the next time they pull one, I can get on their tail while the trail's still warm.” Much as I liked Della, I wasn't about to tell her that I thought I'd spotted the next target. I was perfectly happy for her to think I was playing a waiting game. It would keep the Regional Crime Squad off my back. Besides, I didn't want to get into a discussion on the subject of illegal phone taps. I hate the sound of people in glass houses throwing stones.

I scooped the last mouthful of scrambled egg on to a triangle of toast and managed to savor it, Della being between cigarettes. “Let me know how you get on. I'm really fascinated by the sound of this one. I'm sure we could help.” She took a card out of the jacket of her charcoal gray suit. “And if they do seem to have done a runner, get in touch anyway. You never know, we might be able to put something together with what you've got.”

“I appreciate that. Soon as I've something concrete, I'll call you. Josh, thanks for introducing us. It's the first time I've met someone you actually shut up for,” I said.

“You don't deserve me, Kate,” he said sadly.

“Thank God for that. Now, if you'll both excuse me, I've got to
run,” I said. I stood up and shook Della Prentice's hand. “I'll be in touch. Oh, and Josh? Thank Julia for that information she dug out for me.” I gave him a peck on the cheek.

 

My guilty conscience over talking to DCI Della Prentice about Ted's problem gave me a severe prick when I walked into the office to find the conservatory builder and the lovestruck secretary with their heads together. Ted Barlow was perched on the edge of Shelley's desk, while she ignored her computer screen and stared instead into his eyes. Before I'd even got my duffel coat off, Ted was apologizing for bothering me and Shelley was twittering about interim reports and mobile phones. I invited Ted into my office and brought him as up to date as I dared. I didn't trust him entirely with full knowledge of my current surveillance. He may have been footing the bill, but he was far too transparent for me to feel comfortable with him knowing my every move. Besides, he was so obviously one of life's honest guys that he might be uncomfortable at the thought of me bending the law on his behalf.

So I told him that I was making progress, and that I was close to working out how it all came together. He seemed satisfied with that. Maybe all he was looking for was some reassurance. When I emerged from my office a couple of minutes after he'd left me, he was still hanging round Shelley's desk looking nervous. I couldn't stand it, so I grabbed my coat and the mobile phone that had arrived that morning and headed for the door.

First stop was the hired Fiesta with the receiving equipment. At first, when I checked the cassettes, my heart sank. Nothing seemed to have been recorded at all since I'd left it the previous evening. When I reset it, I must have made a mistake, I decided. Then I noticed that the first tape wasn't quite empty.

I pulled it out of the machine and smacked it in the car cassette. There was the unmistakable sound of a door slamming, then a phone ringing, unanswered. I breathed a sigh of relief. Neither I nor the machine was faulty. It seemed the woman just hadn't come home. In case she or one of her neighbors was the noticing kind, I drove the Fiesta round the block and reparked it in an obviously different position. I didn't want to be in the embarrassing position
of having the bomb squad called because some civic-minded nosy-parker thought the receiver on the parcel shelf was an IRA car bomb. It happened to Bill last year. Luckily for him, the receiver was switched off at the time. Luckily, because the offense is using the equipment, not possessing it, which is the kind of logic the law specializes in.

I reckoned it still wasn't safe to go back to the office, so I decided to poke a stick into the hornets' nest of Alexis's little problem and see what flew out. It was late morning when I reached Cheetham's office. His obliging secretary told me he was in a meeting, but if I cared to wait …

I took the computer magazine I usually carry out of my handbag and settled down with an article about RAM expansion kits. If I decided we needed something similar, the technique is to leave the magazine lying around the office, open at the appropriate page, and wait for Mortensen the gadget king to fall upon it and embrace it as if it were his own idea. Never fails.

Before I could reach a firm decision, the door to the inner office opened and Cheetham ushered out the woman I'd seen with him in Buxton. He had his arm round her in that familiar, casual way that people use with the kind of partners you sleep with rather than work with. When he saw me, he twitched and dropped his arm as if he'd been jabbed with a cattle prod. “Miss Brannigan,” he said nervously.

Hearing my name, the woman, who until then had been focused on Cheetham, switched her attention to me. She sized me up in an instant, from the top of my wavy auburn hair to the tips of my brown boots. She probably misjudged me, too. She wasn't to know that the reason I was wearing enough make-up to read the six o'clock news was that the bruises on my jaw and cheekbone had gone a fascinating shade of green.

She looked like serious business, groomed to within an inch of artificiality. I hated her. Our mutual scrutiny was interrupted by Cheetham stammering, “If you'd like to come through, Miss Brannigan?”