Be Careful What You Wish For (11 page)

I quickly debated whether to tell her that Levi had agreed to throw his fight, then I decided equally as quickly not to. She was depressed enough without finding out that her husband was a cheat in the ring as well as possibly in the bedroom.

‘Do you know Carl Thomas or Edward Kinghorn?’ I asked.

She thought about it for a moment before shaking her head.

I stood up and delved into my rucksack for a business card. ‘Here.’ I handed it to her. ‘If you need anything, just ring me.’ I stood and left her there, staring into the remnants of her glass.

I got in my car parked half way down the road and called Romeo.

‘Hey, Amber.’ His voice was tense. Strained.

‘Hey, any leads on Carl Thomas’s murder?’

‘Not yet. I’m kind of rushed off my feet. Did you want something special?’

I didn’t know if that was a hint or not, but judging by the tone of his harassed voice, I doubted it. But the fact that he wanted to get me off the line still kind of rattled me a bit. ‘Levi Carter said he was at a health farm in Scotland at the time of the Kinghorn Thomas robbery. Can you check it out for me?’

‘Sure. Anything else?’

‘I’m pretty convinced Vinnie and his cronies were betting big on Levi losing the fight in the eighth round. None of the bets were placed through Lee’s bookies, so I’m thinking they were definitely involved. If it was genuine betting going on, Bet-it would’ve had some of them, too. Vinnie should be due for another investigation into illegal sports betting. With Janice Skipper out the way this time, hopefully you can get something on him that actually sticks.’

‘Thanks. And by the way, no corpses have turned up without noses.’

‘OK, thanks.’

I’d just hung up when I saw Levi hurrying out his front door with a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. He glanced quickly up and down the road, and I slouched down in my seat. Satisfied with what he saw, he ducked into his garage, emerging a few seconds later in a black Aston Martin.

Is that where the money was going? Maybe Levi had a weakness for luxury cars, but if so, where were the rest of them? Did he have a fleet of expensive cars hiding somewhere?

I fired up the engine, ready to follow him as he reversed at speed down the drive, narrowly missing an oncoming Mini.

My stomach gurgled loudly as I tailed behind him. God, I was starving. I was just thinking about ordering a juicy chicken burger and large fries, heavy on the mayo, when he crunched to a stop on the driveway of an expensive mews style house.

I drove past the house and clocked the address. 50 Swallow Mews. I pulled up a few houses away, killed the engine, and grabbed my camera from my rucksack.

Hang on a sec. I know that address. Where’ve I heard that recently?

Levi jumped out of his car, glancing nervously around. He rang the doorbell and fidgeted with the peak of the baseball cap.

I zoomed in on him, finger poised over the button, trying to wrack my brains when it suddenly came to me. This was one of the houses that Mum said had been broken into recently. The amount of
coincidences
stacking up on the case now was beyond bizarre.

A blonde woman in her early thirties opened the door. She wore a tight fitting dress and her hair was styled in a sleek ponytail. Her eyes lit up when she saw him and a smile widened on her face. Levi kissed her on the cheek before she pulled him inside.

Click.
My camera recorded the event.

She did one quick scan up and down the street and then slammed the door shut.

I called Hacker and Brad picked up his phone. ‘Speak,’ Brad said.

Answering the phone like that was probably the only annoying habit that Brad had, which was why I could never resist winding him up.

‘Red Fox to Brown Bear. Come in Brown Bear.’ I made static noises down the phone. ‘I have the briefcase, do you have the money?’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Well, stop answering the phone like that! Where’s Hacker?’ I kept my eyes on the house.

‘Yo.’ Hacker came on the line.

‘Can you run a check on 50 Swallow Mews. I need to know who lives there, who owns it, and anything else you can find out.’

‘Sure. I still haven’t managed to pinpoint the audio from Levi’s fight, and I’m still trying to get into the Kinghorn Thomas computers.’

‘Thanks. Yo.’ I hung up as my stomach rumbled.

Well, well, well, Levi, what do we have here?

He’d looked pretty cosy with her on the doorstep in an affair kind of way. Is this where he was coming when Letitia said he’d been sneaking out of the house? Maybe this was where all Levi’s money had gone. He could’ve bought his girlfriend a fancy house and was keeping her in a luxurious lifestyle. Maybe he was living some kind of double life with her. Was that what Carl had been shouting about?
I know what you did with that woman?
And had Levi arranged for Carl to be killed to shut him up?

I waited half an hour to see if they reappeared. Finally, hunger got the better of me, and I left with more questions buzzing in my head than the Spanish Inquisition.

Chapter 7

Two chicken burgers, large fries, and a chocolate thick-shake later, I let myself into my parents’ house. I know, I know, slightly piggish, but all this brain activity was making me ravenous.

‘Hello? Anyone home?’ I called out.

‘I’m in the kitchen,’ Dad said.

I waltzed into the kitchen and had to do a double take at the sight of him standing at the island, munching on a sausage roll. I’d seen him in his fair share of disguises lately doing observations on the neighbourhood, but this one was by far the worst.

I scrunched up my face and wafted a hand under my nose, taking in his homeless tramp outfit. Week-old stubble on his face, muddy trousers, tied at the waist with a piece of fraying string; a grey T-shirt that used to be white; a filthy rain coat with – God, what were those stains on it? I dreaded to think – and a battered trilby hat. That wasn’t the worst part, though. He smelled like he’d been rolling around in the local rubbish dump for a week. Gross. But I had to admire him; he didn’t do anything by halves.

He looked down at himself, grinning. ‘Good disguise, eh?’

Luckily, I was saved from answering by Sabre bounding into the room. He jumped up and planted his paws on my shoulders. I wasn’t ready for it and he knocked me to the ground, licking my face.

‘Urgh! Get off.’ I lay on my back, trying to push him away as the big lump of fur sat on me, but he wasn’t having any of it.

‘Stupid dog.’ Dad grabbed a doggy treat and hurled it across the room, which got Sabre flying off me pretty quick.

I dusted myself down and stood up, keeping a firm eye on Sabre. ‘Sabre needs an Anti-social Behaviour Order on him.’

‘Want a coffee?’ he asked.

‘Sorry, I haven’t got time. I’ve got tons to do.’

He switched the kettle on and spooned coffee into a mug. ‘Your mother won’t let me sit on the furniture in this get up.’ He pulled a can-you-believe-it face.

I wasn’t surprised. I wouldn’t even let him in the house in it, but there you go.

‘Dad, don’t you think you’re going a bit above and beyond the call of duty with all this neighbourhood watch stuff? When I suggested it to you, I thought you’d just do it as a kind of part-time hobby, not get completely obsessed with it.’

I felt the absence of Mum. She’d had to put up with forty years of Dad in the police force, hardly ever being home. She’d always managed to cope with it well, but was it all taking its toll now? She’d been unlike her usual, bouncy self yesterday when I saw her. Had she finally had enough of living like a cop widow? Oh, God, what if they were going to get a divorce! Despite Dad’s long absences over the years, Mum had found things in her own life to fill the void. But what if she’d finally got fed up with it all and wanted out?

You see, this was exactly why I had commitment issues. All the little “what ifs”
that niggled away at me. What if Brad and I got together again and we split up? How could I cope with it a second time? What if I decided to move in with Romeo and then realized I’d made a mistake? What if I had my heart broken again? What if, what if, what if.

Maybe I should become a nun.

Dad pointed the spoon at me. ‘You of all people should know I can’t just sit around here all day doing nothing.’

Well, yes, he had a point. We’d both lived for our careers as cops, and since neither of us were cops anymore, I guess we’d transferred our workaholicness onto the next best thing.

‘Since I retired, this is the only thing I’ve got.’ He poured in some milk and gave it a forceful stir.

‘You’ve got Mum, too, though,’ I said.

Sabre yawned and sat up, looking for some other mischief to get into it. He stared at me, head cocked, before trotting over to sit next to me. He nudged my hand with his wet nose. I patted his head and glared at Dad.

‘OK, OK, maybe I am getting a bit obsessed with it.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, how’s Romeo? Have you decided to move in with him yet?’ He quickly tried to divert the attention away from himself.

I didn’t fancy answering questions about my life either so I did the divert trick, too. ‘I came to see you about these burglaries in the neighbourhood, actually. Have you been taking any surveillance photos?’

‘Why, what’s Brad got you working on now?’

‘Well, it started off to do with a possible medical insurance claim by Levi Carter and now it’s turned into a whole heap of something that I can’t work out yet.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ll get there.’ He smiled at me and undid the buttons on the raincoat. Hidden beneath, hanging around his neck was a digital camera. He pulled the strap over his head and scrolled through the photos on the screen until he’d found what he wanted. ‘OK, there have been five burglaries so far. After I heard about the first three, I started recording any strange activity in the area, just in case. There was one at Ashcombe House and one at 50 Swallow Mews.’ He handed me the camera. ‘That’s one of the guys I was watching.’

On screen was a picture of Levi emerging from number 50 Swallow Mews. The baseball cap was firmly in place again, pulled low over his forehead.

‘Has he been acting suspiciously, then?’ I stared at it.

‘He turns up at the house at all hours. The first time I saw him, I thought maybe he was responsible for the burglaries. He kept looking surreptitiously up and down the street before he approached the front door and just generally acted suspicious.’ Dad shrugged. ‘But after some more obs, I realized that he and the owner of the house knew each other pretty well, if you get my drift.’

‘This is Levi Carter, the boxer.’

‘Is it?’ Dad squinted at the screen.

He pressed the
forward
button, and I saw another photo of Levi and the blonde woman locked in an embrace on the front step. Poor Letitia. My heart went out to her. This was probably enough to tip her completely over the edge.

‘The next picture is of a guy I saw coming out of the rear gate at Ashcombe House. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen him around,’ Dad said.

I stared at the next photo which was out of focus. It had been raining hard outside, so the light wasn’t that good. The man was white, tall, skinny, and he also had a baseball cap on, the peak obscuring a lot of his face. The only thing I could make out in the fuzzy blur was the tip of his nose. The picture could’ve been of anybody.

‘Was this taken before the burglary at Ashcombe House, or after?’

‘It was taken the same day. I’m pretty sure this is the guy responsible.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t do a citizen’s arrest on him.’ I grinned at Dad.

He shrugged. ‘I didn’t hear about the burglary until after I took the picture. I was just recording anything suspicious in case the police needed it.’

‘Have you given a copy to the police?’

Dad nodded. ‘Yes, they’ve got it on their files in case he ever turns up again, but since Deborah Thomas never reported the break-in to the police, there’s not much they can do with it.’

‘Can I take the memory card? I need to get some copies of this.’

‘Of course.’ Dad slid open the casing underneath the camera and pulled out the memory card. ‘Here.’ He held it out to me, but before I could take it, Sabre jumped in the air and swallowed it in one quick-flash gulp.

‘Sabre!’ I yelled and prised his mouth open, hoping it was still there.

Nope, it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The memory card was winging its way down to his stomach.

‘Great! That could’ve been my big break on this case.’ I threw a hand in the air.

‘It might be OK. You’ll just have to wait for it to come out the other end,’ Dad said.

‘Yuck.’ I pulled a face. I didn’t particularly fancy being a poop inspector, but I’d done worse things in my time in order to solve a case. Strangely, the last messy thing also involved Sabre.

****

A boring two hours later, I’d checked out five of the safety deposit box owners from my list to try and find out what they’d had stashed inside, and whether or not they could’ve been specifically targeted by the robbers. Not surprisingly, I didn’t get very far. The answers were either evasive or rude, ranging from “Piss off” to “No way”, although one lovely old dear delighted in telling me that hers held mementoes from World War II that could be incredibly valuable one day if she sold them on eBay. I had another six left on my list and one of them was Vinnie Dawson. Not that I was expecting Vinnie to give up what he had stashed in there either, but it might just rattle his cage a bit.

‘How many have you done on your list?’ I asked Brad as we jumped into his black Hummer.

‘Eight. I’ve got another three to go, but I’m not expecting to find out much. None of them want to tell me what they had in their boxes.’

‘No, Romeo hasn’t had much luck finding anything out, either,’ I said, sneaking a side-glance at Brad.

A frown briefly flashed across his face at the mention of Romeo’s name before he headed out of the Hi-Tec car park and towards Vinnie’s house. ‘So, Levi really has been having an affair?’ he said.

‘Well, that’s what it looks like.’ I remembered the embrace between him and the blonde woman. ‘It could be that Carl found out about it, too, and that’s why he turned up at the fight. Maybe Carl was going to expose Levi for some reason.’

‘What, and Levi killed Carl to shut him up?’

I shook my head. ‘No, Levi was in hospital after the fight. He couldn’t have done it himself. But maybe Vinnie did.’

‘Vinnie did look worried about whatever it was that Carl was blabbing about at the fight.’

I replayed the scene from the fight in my head again. ‘But something about that feels off to me. I mean, why would Carl care about Levi having an affair? Millions of people in the public eye have affairs all the time. It’s not exactly anything new to shout about, is it? No…’ I trailed off, staring out the window as the world sped by. ‘I think Carl found out something else about Levi, and I’m guessing it was to do with whatever made Levi sign the contract with Vinnie. I just need to figure out what it was.’

We pulled up outside electric iron gates in front of a large mock-Tudor house, set way back from the road. The gates were closed but there was an intercom with a numbered keypad. The house was the only one on the street for a few hundred metres. A thick line of fir trees spanned the entire front wall of the property. No prying eyes would be getting a peek into Vinnie’s modest front garden.

‘Let me do the talking when we get in there,’ I said.

‘Why should you have all the fun?’

‘Because Vinnie hates me. If I wind him up enough, he might make a mistake and give us a lead.’

‘OK, it’s your call.’ Brad leaned his arm out the window and punched in a code. The gates swung open.

I grinned at him. ‘Let me guess – Hacker got the code from the computer at Vinnie’s security company?’

Brad grinned back. ‘I think I need to give Hacker a pay rise.’

‘What about me? I could do with a pay rise.’

He twisted his torso to face me and reached out a hand, tracing his forefinger softly down my cheek.

I jerked in my seat at the voltage suddenly zapping through my nerve endings.

Oh, God.
  

‘I have something else in mind for you.’ A brief hint of a flirtatious smile flickered on his lips before he faced front again and put the Hummer into first, crunching over the gravel up the winding driveway and past sprawling lawns of velvet grass.

I swallowed hard and stared at the house, recording details in my head so I wouldn’t have to think about Brad’s not so subtle innuendoes.

Stained glass windows, magnolia walls with wooden beams that were supposed to look old, but really looked like the fake two-by-fours they were. Tacky giant white lion statues either side of the pillared doorway. Eighties underworld chic.

We pulled to a stop in front of the lions and got out. I clocked a CCTV camera above the door and various other ones on different parts of the house.

I said, ‘I’m guessing someone will open that door in three, two, one…’

Thuggy opened the front door and stood menacingly on the doorstep. Well, he tried to be menacing, puffing out his chest. The only effect it had was making his gut look bigger. Today his oversized body was stuffed into skintight jeans and a clinging white T-shirt. Over the top of the T-shirt he wore black braces. I had an irresistible urge to twang them.