Be Careful What You Wish For (15 page)

Tia came into the room carrying a tray of drinks. Coffee for Tia and me, and some kind of yucky herbal tea for the boys that looked like iguana piss.

I held the box out to her. ‘Doughnut?’

‘Cool!’ She grabbed one with a paper napkin and nibbled on it.

By the time she was half way through hers I’d already wolfed down mine and was getting stuck into seconds. ‘So Levi’s having an affair with a famous author. I feel sorry for Letitia,’ I said in between mouthfuls. ‘I wonder how long it’s been going on. Maybe this really is all about an affair. Maybe Levi’s been seeing her for the past four years and he’d do anything to stop people finding out, including getting Carl killed. Or maybe Levi wasn’t worried about someone finding out about him having an affair, but Amanda was worried it would affect her reputation instead.’ I didn’t really believe that. I was just throwing out wild theories in the hope that one of them would be the right one.

‘I love her books. They’re awesome,’ Tia said.

‘Well, you’re a dark horse.’ I grinned at her. ‘I had you more pegged as a cute, cosy mystery lover, not an erotic romance lover.’

Tia glanced at Hacker and blushed.

‘I like the bodice rippers myself,’ Brad said, giving me a look that said he’d like to rip my bodice off. Not that I was wearing one, of course, but if I was, he’d definitely want to rip it off.

I changed the subject sharpish. ‘Is there anything unusual about her?’ I held the doughnut box out to Brad and Hacker.

Hacker ignored it and pulled out a plastic tub of fruit salad.

Brad nodded to my doughnut. ‘Is that your third one?’

I was of the firm opinion that there was no such thing as too many doughnuts.

‘How can you eat that?’ Brad asked me.

‘Easy. I’ll give you a demonstration.’ I took a huge bite, getting sugar all over my nose, and chewed. ‘See.’

Brad shook his head. ‘You are what you eat. You need to look after your diet and eat more healthy food.’

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I pretended I hadn’t heard him and concentrated on Hacker.

‘No. There’s nothing unusual about her.’ Hacker spooned in a mouthful of kiwi fruit. ‘Her finances all seem to check out. She earns a pretty package a year from her novels. She bought Swallow Mews ten years ago. She owns a Porsche. No children, no ex-husband anywhere. She seems pretty clean. When she was burgled, she contacted her insurance company to claim for a stolen laptop. They told her she had to report it to the police first and get a crime number, but so far she hasn’t.’

I pursed my lips and thought about this. ‘Maybe her burglary was someone trying to steal her latest erotic romance novel before it came out in print.’

‘Yeah, that could happen. Amanda Forsythe sells more copies than J.K. Rowling,’ Tia said. ‘It would be like someone trying to steal the new Harry Potter book before it comes out.’

‘But why didn’t she report it to the police?’ I asked. ‘I think I need to get that answer from her.’

‘The only odd thing about her is that she doesn’t give out too many interviews.’ Hacker chewed on an orange segment. ‘That’s pretty weird for a best-selling author.’

‘Maybe she’s just a really private person, like Dad is,’ Tia said.

Tia’s dad was a famous fashion designer, but he’d shied away from the paparazzi because he’d had a big secret to hide for a long time. Did Amanda have a big secret other than her affair with Levi?

‘If she’s selling more than J.K. Rowling, maybe she doesn’t need to give out interviews.’ I licked my fingers and caught Brad eyeing me with appreciation, so I stopped abruptly and wiped them on a tissue. ‘Did you find anything else about Levi yet? Anything that happened four years ago?’

Hacker shook his head. ‘I can’t find anything. Not a whiff of anything scandalous that Vinnie could blackmail him over.’

‘Can you check into Letitia’s background, too?’ I asked Hacker. ‘Maybe it’s something to do with her, not Levi.’

‘Sure thing.’

‘How did you get on with your list of safety deposit box owners?’ Brad asked me.

I sat forward in my chair. ‘Pretty rubbish. Until…’ I did a drum roll. ‘I got to the last one. Eleanor Jones had something interesting in her box.’

‘What?’ Tia said.

‘Jewellery.’ I grinned.

Tia looked confused. ‘But there must’ve been a lot of jewellery in those boxes. What was special about hers?’

‘Because it wasn’t really jewellery.’ My grin widened.

‘Huh?’ Tia said.

‘She
said
there was jewellery in there, but she was lying. And she said she didn’t know Deborah Thomas, but she was lying about that, too.’

‘How do you know?’ Tia asked. ‘Can you teach me that? I’d like to know when people are lying.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘It’s not fair. I need a superhuman power.’ I pointed to Hacker. ‘You can do Voodoo and Reiki; Tia’s psychic and can do spells; and Brad can kill people by probably just looking at them. If I can’t be the Invisible Woman, then knowing when people are lying is going to be my superhuman power.’ Actually, Brad had a few other superhuman powers, too. He could do funny things to me, and I also suspected that Action Man was modelled on him – Eagle-Eyes Action Man, Karate Combat Action Man, Operation Jungle Action Man. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture.

‘Hey! Maybe we should do a spell for this case.’ Tia shot out of her chair. ‘Shall I get my spell book?’

I groaned. ‘No. But if you have some psychic premonition about the case you’d like to share then I’m all ears.’

She held her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, she shook her head. ‘No. I’m not getting anything.’

‘Bummer,’ I said. ‘Did you get anything from your list?’ I asked Brad.

‘Nothing useful.’

‘Did you find any movement on Craig Hanson’s bank accounts since he left his wife?’ I peered up at Hacker.

He glanced at one of the computer screens on his desk. ‘Come and have a look at this.’

I stood behind Hacker and looked over his shoulder at the screen. Two mini snapshots were open showing two different bank accounts. As Hacker scrolled through the screen, various transactions appeared on them spanning the last six years.

‘OK, this one is a joint account for Craig and his wife.’ Hacker pointed to the screen.

Numerous regular withdrawals and debit card payments had been made to supermarkets, women’s boutiques, hairdressers, and beauty salons. The last payment was yesterday to A Snip in Time – a local hairdresser that charged my whole month’s salary for a cut and highlights. Craig’s wife was spending enough on beauty treatments to keep John Frieda in business single-handedly. Which reminded me, I seriously needed to get my hair trimmed. I shoved a wayward curl behind my ear and turned my attention to the other bank account, which was solely in Craig’s name.

He’d been getting regular pay cheques from a company called Plumb Fix for the past four years, but the last cheque paid in was dated eight weeks ago. It looked like Craig had a regular job for the last four years, but he was also paying thousands of pounds in cash every week into his bank account. Had he really turned his back on a life of crime to go legit? Judging by the cash payments, either he was doing a hell of a lot of plumbing jobs on the side, or he was getting money from other sources, and I was betting Craig was into something illegal. And why did the cheques from Plumb Fix suddenly stop a few weeks before the robbery? Could the tempting lure of a bank job have been too much for him? Of course, people could change, but Craig didn’t seem to be the changing type.

Craig was also obsessed with poker and made regular daily payments to an online gambling site called Poker King. The payments added up to about three hundred pounds worth of poker games per day. All the online payments stopped six weeks ago.

Brad and I exchanged a suspicious glance.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Brad asked me.

I nodded. ‘His wife said he went out for cigarettes six weeks ago and never came back. Judging by his wages, he hasn’t been turning up for work, either. And he hasn’t been indulging in his poker addiction lately. I think Craig’s finally had what’s coming to him and he’s gone to the big old felons’ prison in the sky.’ I chewed my bottom lip. ‘Another dead end then,’ I said. ‘Oops, excuse the pun.’

‘I think you’re right, but I’ll put up a flag on his account anyway,’ Hacker said. ‘If he starts using it again, I’ll let you know.’

‘Can you check out this Eleanor Jones as well, Hacker? I asked.

Hacker put the tub of fruit on the edge of his desk, cracked his knuckles and typed up a storm.

‘Romeo said the police tech guys didn’t find any kind of illegal activity showing up on the bank’s computers.’ I turned my attention to the coffee on my desk and drained it.

Hacker looked up. ‘It’s easy to make their computers look like nothing illegal is happening on the surface. You can hide a whole heap of dodgy stuff inside and a quick check wouldn’t reveal it. I’m still trying to get into it. Whoever designed it was pretty good, but I should get in soon.’

I glanced out the window, thinking. ‘Deborah was the one who set up their security system.’ Another coincidence? I seriously doubted it. ‘And speaking of Deborah, I need to go and speak to her about her connection with Eleanor Jones’s safety box.’

****

There was no answer to my repeated knocking at Ashcombe House. I peered in the windows at the front but couldn’t see Deborah anywhere, and I couldn’t hear the chimes of classical music this time either. Her silver Merc was in the driveway, and it didn’t look like it had been moved since the last time I was there.

I made my way through the side gate to see if she was in the garden, but the only form of life out there were a couple of rabbits munching on the grass. Considering her garden seemed to be her pride and joy, I didn’t think Deborah would be too pleased about the mammal interference.

I climbed over the flowerbeds to have a look-see through the rear windows and French doors. The bag of fertilizer was still there, spilling out yellowy-green pellets all over the ground. Cupping my hands over my eyes, I peered through the glass.

Nothing but empty rooms. Had Deborah done a runner?

I was just debating this, and whether to use Brad’s open sesame lock-picking tool, when Hacker rang.

‘Yo. I checked into Letitia’s background like you asked, but I can’t see anything strange that happened to her or that she was involved in four years ago.’

I exhaled a monster of a sigh. Another dead end. ‘Thanks for trying.’

‘I also checked out Eleanor Jones. There was a bit of a hoo-ha when she was at Cambridge University in the 60s.’

I wandered back through the gate. ‘Ooh, I’m all ears. Are you sure it’s a hoo-ha, or a to-do or a kerfuffle?’

‘Maybe I should let you decide? Eleanor and Deborah were caught having an affair. Back in the 60s, there was a rule that said students couldn’t have a relationship with each other. And lesbian relationships were particularly frowned upon. They nearly got kicked out.’

‘Interesting.’ My mind was on full steam ahead with this new information.

‘They were only allowed to stay after they promised to break it off,’ Hacker went on.

‘Maybe they never did break it off. Maybe they’re still seeing each other.’ I thought again of the pearls around Eleanor’s neck. They looked like a matching set to the ones Deborah was wearing when I met her. A little lovers gift to each other perhaps? ‘I think Eleanor knows more about the robbery than she’s letting on.’ I put the Toyota in first and headed out the drive. ‘I’ll come back and speak to Deborah later. In the meantime, I have to see an author about some erotica. What insurance company did you say she had her house insurance with?’

‘Alliance Mutual.’

‘Cool.’ I pulled up outside Swallow Mews.

****

Amanda Forsythe opened the door wearing a pink jogging suit and subtle makeup. When I’d seen her from a distance before, she’d looked to be in her early thirties, but close up she looked more early forties, although she seemed to wear her years well. I guess there was no accounting for who you fell in love with, but to me, Letitia was more attractive than Amanda. As long as you discounted her red-rimmed eyes and penchant for drinking. But then what did I know? With my track record, I was hardly a relationship expert.