The Fashion Police (27 page)

We moved back to the spot where I’d been watching the warehouse all those nights and stared down at the towering inferno as I called the fire brigade. Choking black smoke billowed out through the open window, drifting into the sky and turning it a charcoal color.

‘Please tell me that the spider’s gone,’ I said, feeling nauseous.

‘It wasn’t a spider, it was a bat.’

‘Ew!’ I bowed my head toward her. ‘Did it poop on me?’

Tia peered into my hair. ‘No.’

‘Er…if anyone asks, it’s probably best not to mention we were involved in all of this,’ I said. ‘We’ll just tell them that we were nearby, and it spontaneously combusted.’

‘My lips are sealed.’ Tia mimed zipping up her lips and throwing away the key.

23

‘There’s no such thing as spontaneous combustion.’ Brad leaned back in his office chair, swiveling it slowly from side to side, and shot me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look.

‘Yes there is. I watched a program about it once where people turned into human wicks and blew up.’ I eased myself down in the chair opposite him and ran a hand through my frizzy, scarecrow-like hair. Mental note: heat was so not good for curly waves that had a mind of their own. My lips felt dry and chapped too. I licked them slowly, and then stopped myself in case Brad thought it was some kind of come on.

‘But the warehouse is a building, not a person.’ Brad raised a questioning eyebrow. I wasn’t sure if it was in response to the lip-licking or my thoughts on human wicks.

Damn, he had me on that one. ‘OK, maybe it wasn’t exactly spontaneous combustion. Maybe it was more like an accident. Actually, it was an accident waiting to happen. That warehouse contained more combustible oil than the North Sea. Even if I wasn’t there, it probably would’ve happened anyway, or the arsonist might’ve turned up unexpectedly at any point and done it himself.’ I hung my head in shame. ‘I’m really sorry.’ Feeling Brad’s eyes boring into me, I looked up again.

He gazed at me in silence for a while, giving me a look that had an element of sarcasm in it. Finally, he said, ‘You’re unbelievable.’

I couldn’t tell if he meant that in a good way or a bad way, but I suspected it was the latter. I opened my mouth. I was about to say that being unbelievable wasn’t a crime, and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either, but then I had second thoughts. I shut my mouth again. I’d already caused enough damage today. Instead, I pretended to be fascinated with the oak flooring, staring at it until my eyes watered.

‘If the fire investigation rules it as an accident, I’ll have to pay out the insurance claim to the Cohens. But if they rule it as arson, we can tie up any insurance claim by the Cohens for years. Don’t worry about it, Foxy. I’m just happy that you got out unscathed,’ Brad said.

I flushed with relief. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

I lifted up my legs, showing him the melted soles on the bottom of my sneakers. ‘Not quite unscathed.’ I stood up and smiled. ‘Thanks again.’ I plodded out of the door and went to seek out Hacker.

I’d just perched myself on his desk when my mobile rang.

‘Hey, darling,’ Romeo said.

I felt instantly nervous. Would he be able to tell that I’d spent the night with Brad from phone vibes? ‘H…hi,’

‘I take it you’re still alive.’ He had an edge to his voice, but I couldn’t tell if it was concern or whether the phone vibes were working. ‘Did you have anything to do with the fire at the Cohens’?’

‘No.’ If in doubt, deny everything.

‘Thanks for the tip about them shipping out the stolen cars.’

I stayed quiet, which was quite an achievement for me.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said, trying to sound like my heart wasn’t hammering away with panic, like I wasn’t shaking with nerves, like I hadn’t done the ‘nasty thing’ with Brad. If I gave itty-bitty answers maybe he wouldn’t hear the guilt filtering through my voice. I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot by giving anything away.

‘The whole station is talking about your meeting with Janice Skipper,’ Romeo said.

‘Fab.’

‘What?’

I could sense him pulling the phone away from his ear, looking at it in disbelief. ‘Fabulous,’ I said.

‘Do you want to know what they’re saying?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘OK, now I know something’s wrong.’

‘Not.’ I ground my teeth, then realized what I was doing and stopped.

‘Is.’

‘Not!’ The words burst out of my mouth a lot louder and faster than I intended.

‘Apparently the DNA test has come back, and the blood found at Fandango’s office is a match to Fandango. It looks like he’s dead.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Janice is going to charge Samantha James with his murder.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Right, now I know something is definitely wrong. Who are you and what have you done with the woman I love?’

Fuckety fuck! A major guilt trip squeezed at my insides.

‘Maybe we need to talk about you and Brad.’

Oh, God. He knows. My heart froze. I did some deep breathing, preparing myself for the accusation to follow. Where he’d tell me in a hurt voice that he knew I’d slept with Brad, and that it was over between us. He’d tell me that I’d broken his heart, that I’d betrayed him, and that I was a nasty person. Cold horror slipped through my stomach. I didn’t want to lose Romeo. But then if I was honest, truly honest, I didn’t want to lose Brad, either.

I couldn’t take the risk of Romeo quizzing me further so I made a static noise on the phone. ‘You’re breaking up. I can’t–’ I snapped the phone shut mid-flow so it seemed more authentic, leaving him dangling on the line.

‘Yo.’ Hacker glanced up at me, staring at my frizzy hair. ‘Bad day?’

‘More like a bad life. My hair is frazzled, I stink of smoke, I’m in desperate need of a shower, and–’ I stopped before my mouth ran away with me. ‘Have you found anything on Carlos Bagliero yet?’

‘No, but I think I’m getting close.’

‘I don’t think Fandango was involved in drugs after all, which probably means he’s not this new, secret mafia boss. It also means that I’m back to square one. Either Fandango’s involvement with Fetuccini was really about money laundering all along, or Fandango did kidnap Tia from a mob family, Fetuccini found out and decided to blackmail him.’ I rubbed away the tension in the back of my neck. ‘I’ve been thinking about Heather’s involvement in all of this. Perhaps she was the one trying to smuggle drugs with the collection and Fandango found out about it, so she killed him.’

‘But who killed Heather?’

‘Carlos Bagliero, Fetuccini, the Goon Girls, Samantha James? It could be any of them.’ I groaned. ‘I’m going to see Samantha. The police want to arrest her, and I need to ask her a few more questions first.’

****

Samantha had the same red-rimmed eyes and exhausted demeanor as before. She looked like she was dead on her feet. We sat in the kitchen, only this time she made coffee. I noticed the aroma of brandy emanating from her mug. She probably noticed the smell of stale bonfires emanating from me, but neither of us let on.

‘You told me that Fandango called you on the day he disappeared and asked you to sign divorce papers, but that’s not true, is it?’

Her lungs deflated, and her shoulders slumped. She stared into the depths of her mug. ‘No. I didn’t want anyone to think that I had something to do with his death, so I made up the story about the divorce papers. I knew he’d left me a lot of money in his will as long as we were married. If the police thought I was getting divorced, then they wouldn’t suspect me. I’ve got enough on my plate without all this extra pressure.’

‘So why did you call him?’

‘I had a few financial problems, and I asked him for money.’

‘So the ten thousand pounds he withdrew from his account on the day he disappeared was for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You also borrowed money from a loan shark, didn’t you?’ I took a sip of coffee and swallowed.

She glanced up at me and rested her mug on the floor. ‘Charlie Biggs. We made an arrangement, and then all of a sudden Mr. Biggs upped the interest, and I couldn’t repay my installments to him. Umberto used to give me cash every month – a monthly allowance, if you like. I was paying the loan back from this, but when I couldn’t manage the increase, Umberto gave me the difference to pay off the whole loan once and for all.’

‘But why didn’t you just pay the ten thousand pounds Fandango gave you directly to the loan shark instead of depositing it into your bank account?’

‘I tried to find Charlie Biggs to give him the money, but he’d gone out of town for a few days. I didn’t want to leave that kind of money around the house, so I put it in my account to keep safe until I could meet up with Charlie and pay off the debt.’

‘Why did you take out a loan in the first place?’

She retrieved a handkerchief from up her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. ‘My son, Andrew, is very ill. He has a rare form of leukemia, and the doctors here weren’t getting any results. I took him to a specialist in America for treatment, but it was very expensive. Umberto has done so much for me over the years, so I didn’t want to ask him for more money. I tried to get a bank loan. Of course, they wouldn’t loan me money for medical expenses. In the end, I went to a loan shark instead. After the treatment, we returned to the UK, but Andrew has taken a turn for the worse, and he’s now back in hospital. Then Charlie Biggs raised the interest and I didn’t have it. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t get it. The only choice I had was to get it from Umberto.’

‘I’m really sorry about Andrew,’ I said. ‘I know it must be incredibly difficult.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Is Andrew Umberto’s son?’

She shook her head quickly. ‘No. I don’t seem to be very lucky in the romantic department. Andrew was the result of a brief rebound fling I had after Umberto.’

‘What was your arrangement with Umberto when you got married?’

‘I wasn’t stupid. I knew that he was running from something or someone, but I also knew that he was a good person. And believe it or not, I did love him. I fell for him very hard, very quickly. But look at me.’ She looked down at herself with distaste. ‘I knew he couldn’t be in love with someone like me. I think I just fooled myself into believing that maybe I could make him love me. He wanted to get married so he could obtain British citizenship. I was young. I thought if I gave him what he wanted, in time he would feel the same about me.’ She laughed, but I could hear the hurt underneath it.

‘Judging by his actions, I’d say that he did love you, Samantha. Just not the way you wanted him to.’

A rueful smile quivered on her lips. ‘Umberto insisted that we keep the marriage a secret all these years.’

I thought about secrets, wondering if the world would be a better place if we had no secrets, if we were all transparent. Would it just create chaos and anarchy if everyone knew the truth? I guess it depended on what the secret was.

Everybody’s hiding something.

‘Did he ever tell you what he was running from?’ I asked.

She glanced up, staring me straight in the eye. ‘No. He wouldn’t talk about it, but…’ she trailed off.

‘But what?’ I prompted her when she’d fallen silent for a few minutes.

‘I guessed it was something pretty serious.’

‘Why did you buy the warehouse?’

‘Umberto bought it, but he wanted me to put it in my name so no one would connect it to him.’

‘Have you ever been there?’

‘No, I had no reason to go there.’

‘The police think you killed Umberto so you could collect the inheritance money from his will.’

She gasped.

I locked my eyes firmly on hers, waiting for her reaction. ‘Did you kill him, Samantha?’

She raised her chin slightly and shook her head without any hesitation. ‘No.’

Over the years, thousands of people have told me thousands of lies for thousands of reasons, criminals and innocents alike. Small lies, white lies, or great big whoppers. An important part of my job was spotting the falsehoods. There are things people do when they lie that makes it a dead giveaway. Averting their eyes, repeatedly touching a part of their body, a nervous tick, or changing the subject are all tell-tale signs. Of course, there are some people who are so adept at lying, or they truly believe their lies, it makes it hard to tell. But when I looked in Samantha’s eyes, I knew she was telling the truth. And not only that, it made sense, as well. Samantha was getting a monthly allowance from Fandango so there was no need for her to blackmail him. She had no motive to kill him for the inheritance if he was supporting her financially all these years, anyway.