One Week in the Private House (4 page)

averting her face to hide her eyes behind the long veil of her hair.

Lucy was enthralled. WPC Pritchard had milk-white skin peppered with freckles, a slim, incurving stomach, and a pair of small round breasts barely concealed by a thin lace-trimmed bra. Lucy's eyes drank in the sight of the anxious rise and fall of those two pert orbs and the sweep of ethereal hair that hung down to a point between them. With her head half-turned and her arms lifted to hold open her blouse, the Welsh girl seemed a perfect vision of wanton surrender. It was several minutes before Lucy regained her composure.

'Pritchard. Come here.'

Now the Welsh girl was only inches away. Lucy resisted the urge to touch her. Make her do it herself, she thought. Get her used to it.

That bra contravenes regulations,' she said, it hardly covers your nipples. Well? Don't just stand there. Where are your nipples?'

Lucy could see the large pink aureoles very clearly through the thin material, but she still felt a thrill at the sight of Pritchard placing a tense fingertip on the point of each cup of the bra.

⁴
Very witty, Constable,' Lucy sneered, pretending that her shaking was the result of suppressed anger, i know where they are, you stupid girl. I want you to show them to me!'

With trembling hands, Pritchard pulled aside the flimsy cups of the bra, exposing her firm, white, freckled, pink-tipped breasts. And at last she dared to look shyly up into the Inspector's face.

'Very good, Constable,' Lucy snapped. 'Leave them like that. Lift your skirt. Higher than that, you little fool. Up to your waist. And keep those tits uncovered.'

Pritchard's stockings were black and seamless, held up by a plain black suspender belt. Her panties were of black cotton. The flesh between her stockings and her panties looked, by comparison, completely white and smooth. Lucy was seized with a desire to fall to her knees and kiss that cool pale skin, but she mastered herself.

'Don't squeeze your legs together, girl, you'll fall over. Come on, knees apart. Wider than that. That's better. Now then: what do you mean by wearing knickers on duty?'

'But - But surely ... I mean - Well, goodness gracious, it can't be against regulations to wear a pair of knickers, now, can it?'

'Constable, are you trying to tell me I don't know the rules? Well?'

'No, Inspector.'

'Just as well for you. I've got regulations specific to my team, Constable. One of which is that my driver doesn't wear knickers. Understood?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'Well don't just bloody well stand there, Pritchard. Get them off!'

Lucy couldn't decide where to look: at the slowly revealed bush of blonde curls, with the hint of a pink slit showing as the girl struggled to step out of the black panties; at the little breasts, jiggling so prettily; or at Pritchard's face, with its flaming cheeks, tear-filled eyes, and perfect upper teeth biting into the lower lip.

I can't let her off the hook, Lucy thought, but it's time to let the line run out a little. 'Very good, Constable,' she said. 'Clothing inspection over. Button yourself up, and we'll be on our way.'

'Knickers, Inspector?'

'Knickers to you, Constable. Leave them here - No, we mustn't litter the countryside. Give them to me. You won't be needing them again until you go off duty. Regulations must be obeyed. And what are you doing with your skirt? Did I tell you to put it back? Lift it up again - right up. You'll stay like that until we reach Hendon; you'll look perfectly respectable sitting behind the wheel. I'm sure you'll get to like the feel of leather on your bare bottom. Now jump to it!'

They had returned to^the motorway, and had driven in silence for some time. Lucy leant forward, blew gently on the back of her driver's neck, and ran a scarlet fingernail along her driver's stockinged thigh. The Rover swerved, then straightened.

'Steady, Constable,' Lucy whispered. 'You've got to pay attention if you want to succeed with me. And you do want to succeed with me, don't you?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'Good girl. We do understand each other, then. And, of course, you understand that I'll have to punish you for wearing knickers on duty?'

'But Inspector, J didn't know -'

ignorance is no excuse, my dear.'

'But I've got a clean sheet, Inspector. I've never had a disciplinary report before, and -'

'Calm yourself, Constable. I'm sure we can avoid that outcome. I have a rather less drastic form of punishment in mind.'

'Oh, thank you, Inspector.'

'I think we might both rather enjoy it. Come to my office after we've got back from Hendon.'

'Of course, Inspector.'

A thick file labelled
Grantham Tower
dropped into the waste paper bin. Jem sighed. So much for the biggest potential account; the only worthwhile business on the horizon, in fact. She stood at her desk absent-mindedly rubbing her bottom and watching the computer screen as the cursor ran down the names of the few sales leads remaining in her database. She became aware of the sounds of the other employees of Executive Environments arriving in their offices; her secretary would arrive at any moment. There must be time for one more look, Jem thought, and, twisting her head over her right shoulder, she used one hand to pull up her pleated skirt and the other to squeeze her knickers into the crease between her buttocks. The lines had almost disappeared; the smooth, rounded inverted heart of which she was justly proud looked as good as new.

The telephone rang; automatically she picked it up.

'Sales office,' Jem said, readjusting her clothes.

'Jem, is that you? It's Mike.' 'Yes, Mr McKenzie, it's me.'

'Are you alone?'

'Yes. Yes, Tracey hasn't shown yet.'

'Good. I need to see you. Right away.'

'In your office?'

'No. I'm in the car park. I'm calling from the car. Can you get down here straight away?'

'Sure thing, MM. I'll be right there.'

Jem took a swig of black coffee, turned off the computer, fluffed her hair, touched up her lipstick, and made for the door. When the Managing Director wants you in his office first thing Monday morning, it's important, she thought. But when he wants you in the car park, it's serious.

As Jem stepped out of her office, she saw Lesley threading her way between the seating units that were artistically scattered across the carpeted reception area. Lesley looked demure in a pink pencil skirt and a white cardigan.

'Good morning, Lesley,' Jem called out. 'I'm glad to see you've decided to forgo your weekend taste in clothes.' Jem felt immediately guilty as the tall blonde blushed, stammered a greeting, and fled into Mike McKenzie's outer office. Maybe I should tell her she looks great in leather, Jem thought as she continued towards the smoked-glass front doors.

'Hold it there.' Inspector Larson interrupted the civilian boffin, who was beginning to expound on the theoretical relations between fields of data that had been stored under differing software applications. 'Let me get this straight. You were operating outside the parameters of your brief, right?'

'Strictly speaking, yes. But I did it in my own time, and -'

'Never mind about that. Who else knows about this?'

'No one. Your Chief Inspector didn't seem particularly interested.'

'He told me it was a wild goose chase. I think perhaps he was wrong. Let's ge{ back to the cases. All missing persons. All unrelated. So what's interesting about that? If they're unrelated -'

'Apparently unrelated,' the young man broke in, his spectacles wobbling excitedly on his nose. That's the whole point. I was trying to use the relational aspects of HOLMES 2 to discover a pattern behind apparently unconnected data.'

'And you found one, I take it.'

'HOLMES found it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that missing persons are often investigated a little less ... I mean, sometimes you don't really bother to ...'

'We've got better things to do than to waste our time looking for runaway kids, bored husbands, and people who probably don't want to be found anyway.'

'Exactly. No one looks at the old files, of course. Closed cases. And you're right - I've asked HOLMES to check -most of the missing persons are teenagers, old people, recidivist criminals, middle-aged men. HOLMES couldn't find a pattern there.'

'But?' Lucy was becoming impatient.

'But there is a pattern within one particular sub-group of missing persons. Women, aged twenty to thirty-five, married, social group AB. Not a large sub-group. So far HOLMES has printed out details of only three individuals.'

'And every single one of them ...?'

'Every single one of them has paid at least one visit to a health club known as the Private House.'

it's serious, Jem.' Mike McKenzie was slumped against the door of his Daimler; he was haggard and unshaven, and for the first time Jem considered that he looked as old as his forty-three years. 'Sorry to drag you down here, but I can't talk inside. Walls have ears. Even company cars can be bugged.'

it's another fine day, MM. You sit on your company Daimler. I'll sit on my company Golf. What's the problem?'

'You mean you haven't noticed?'

'Oh. That problem. New business drying up, debtors reluctant to settle their accounts, suppliers screwing down our credit limits, the bank calling in our overdraft, and nasty rumours about us in the trade press.'

'Very perceptive. Some of that information is supposed to be confidential. If there was any point worrying about it, Td start worrying about the ambitions of my over-intelligent Sales Manager. But there isn't any point, so I'll ask her a favour instead.'

'What sort of favour?'

'Dirty work. I want you to be my secret agent.'

'Tell me about it.'

'Where do I start? Jem, the company's in a mess. Starting about three months ago, everything went wrong at once.'

'Last year was good. Sales up fifty per cent.'

i know. A lot of that was your doing, too, Jem. We were maybe overtrading a little, and that hasn't helped now the crunch has come. Suddenly, we're being attacked on all sides: contracts cancelled, customers not paying, suppliers not delivering, rumours flying all over the place. At first I thought it was coincidence - just a patch of lousy luck.'

'And now?'

'Now I've been approached to sell the company. For a ludicrously low figure.'

'Don't you own the shares?'

'I have the largest slice. My brother has some, also my wife. The executive directors have a few each. And a big chunk of the equity is held by the bank. If I sell, the company changes hands, that's for sure.'

'So who is making this offer you can't refuse?'

'Jem, you'll never believe it.'

Inspector Larson minced no words when telling the bespectacled boffin that he had wasted his own time and, even more reprehensively, that he had dragged a senior plainclothes policewoman down to Hendon on exactly the wild goose chase that her Ch'ief had predicted. But she took the print-outs and made a mental note of the address of the

Private House before she stormed out of the computer centre.

She commandeered a vacant office in the nearby Police Training School, and had lifted the telephone before the door had had time to slam behind her.

That's the address, Bert. Now give me the name that goes with it. And I don't want the name of the sitting tenant, or the holding company, or the caretaker's dog. I want the name of the man who owns this Private House, OK? ... It's
who
? Terence Headman?
The
Terence Headman? ... Well, I'll be damned.'

'You've got it, Jem.
The
Terence Headman. He made the bid through one of his subsidiary companies, of course, but I did some homework. He's behind it.'

'What does a property tycoon want with Executive Environments, MM?'

'Beats me, Jem. But his interests are wider than the press reports tell us. I've been digging up information about him. The trouble is, I can't dig up any dirt.'

'And you think he's behind the problems we've been having?'

'His representatives as good as admitted it. Bragged about it. They seem to know about every move I make. That's why I'm so paranoid - why we're talking out here. I'm almost convinced my office is bugged. It's like Headman has someone looking over my shoulder all the time. And he's certainly got the clout to bugger up our business. I'm sure it's him. And if he keeps up the pressure, we'll go under. We can't last much longer. I'll be forced to sell.'

'So you want me to dig up some dirt?'

'I don't know that there is any dirt, Jem. That's why I have to ask you to do this as a favour. It's a little delicate...'

'Spit it out, MM.'

'Well. You're single, am I right? And unattached? And you're also, in my humble opinion, the company's most attractive employee. In fact, Jem, I think you're just about the sexiest little vixen I've ever seen. You don't mind me saying that, do you? Good. And well, I get the impression that you're not exactly - What I mean is, you seem to be fairly broadminded, easygoing, and ..