by Roger Hurn
I shrugged. ‘You assume correctly.’
‘But you’ll still be in touch with your client so tell them I want to make a deal. My employer is prepared to pay your guy’s asking price for both the necklace and the letter – providing the price isn’t extortionate.’
I smiled ruefully. ‘Sorry to disappoint you Ms Berry, but your client will have to bid for them at the auction in January when it goes under the hammer at Millibrand’s.’
She frowned. ‘What exactly are you saying? That you’ve already found the necklace and returned it? But you can’t have. You haven’t had time.’
I grinned at her. ‘I haven’t returned it, Ms Berry, but as we sit here talking, Ms Rachel Hapgood of Millibrand’s Auction House is doing precisely that. She’s my mystery client.’
Maureen’s jaw hit her chest and she stared at me wide eyed. It was brilliant seeing the snotty cow struck dumb. I should have known it wouldn’t last – and it didn’t.
‘Please tell me you’re joking,’ she said. ‘Because Robert Hapgood is the managing director of Millibrand’s and I know for a fact that he doesn’t have a wife or a daughter called Rachel. And God knows I should because I had to have dealings with him on a fairly regular basis when I worked for Wartski and we had a brief and not very satisfactory sexual relationship.’
I felt the solid ground I was standing on turn to quicksand. I had a sinking feeling that a lethal combination of self-pity, booze, unexpected sex and wishful thinking had turned my brain to mush over Christmas. But, like a child who refuses to believe that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, I still clung on to my belief in Rachel. ‘I wouldn’t know about you’re sex life, Ms Berry, but I do know Rachel and she told me her boss is a bloke called Mr Clemens. And I know her name is Hapgood because I saw it on her credit card.’
Maureen folded her arms and gave me the kind of look that the gorgon would have envied. ‘Christ, why are you men so bloody gullible?’ The question was obviously hypothetical so I didn’t answer. ‘OK,’ she snapped. ‘Tell me the whole story – but bloody well tell it quickly.’
I did and when I’d finished she shook her head and sighed with exasperation. ‘You’ve been taken for an absolute ride you prat but, don’t worry, it seems like you’re not the only one.’ She stood up and headed determinedly for the door. ‘Come on, we’ve got work to do.’
I abandoned all hope of ever getting my hands on those paracetamols, but it didn’t matter because believe me, no amount of pills were ever going to dull the pain of the hurt pride, stupidity and betrayal I was feeling at that moment.
‘So where are we going?’
‘To pay a call on someone who has been as big a fool as you – Robert Hapgood.’
I didn’t like her calling me a fool. OK, so possibly she’d have seen through Rachel from the word go, but then women never seem to give each other the benefit of the doubt like men do. You know, I can’t help thinking that we blokes are genetically programmed to believe what beautiful women tell us, so we can’t be held responsible if it turns out that they’ve been playing fast and loose with the truth. Anyway, it sounded to me like Robert Hapgood and I had both made bad judgement calls when it came to Rachel, or whatever her name turned out to be, but I’d done so in good faith. I had no idea what Robert Hapgood’s excuse was, but I was keen to find out.
‘All right, that sounds like a plan,’ I said. ‘Just give me five minutes to fix this door ‘cos if I go out and leave it in this state I might just as well paint a sign on it saying, “Hey everybody, come on in and help yourselves!”’
Maureen gave my place a scornful glance. ‘I think you’ll find that burglars, as a general principle, only tend to break into places that have something worth stealing – so I really wouldn’t waste time doing DIY if I were you.’ She was so dry you could’ve slapped a hosepipe ban on her.
I went ahead and jerry-rigged the lock, so that at least it wouldn’t blow open at the first gust of wind, while she sat in her Porsche playing “Let’s wind up Ryan’s neighbours” by revving the engine every couple of seconds. Maureen was definitely very high maintenance and I wasn’t surprised her affair with Robert Hapgood hadn’t gone the distance. In fact, I was amazed it had survived the first night, but then there were things about Ms Berry that I had yet to discover.
Chapter 15
I followed in my Mazda as Maureen drove her Porsche to a smart house in the London suburb known as Blackheath village. It’s only a mile or so from Deptford but it might as well be on a different planet.
There was a light on in an upstairs window, but no one answered when Maureen pressed the bell.
‘It looks like we’ve missed him,’ I said. I wasn’t sorry. My head was splitting and I wanted to go home, crawl into bed and forget that I’d ever met Rachel.
Maureen ignored me and fished a key out of her handbag. It fitted the lock and she opened the door. I did a double take, but she only shrugged. ‘I never got around to giving Robert my key back after we finished with each other and, fortunately, he was obviously too cheap to change the lock.’
I took a wild guess that Ms Berry’s fling with Hapgood hadn’t been quite as brief or as unsatisfactory as she’d led me to believe. But I wasn’t going to stand around on the doorstep berating her about it. I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to because she’d already stepped inside.
She called out Hapgood’s name and we heard a noise coming from one of the bedrooms. I raced up the stairs with Maureen breathing down my neck. The door was open and a strong whiff of urine wafted from the room. I charged in and saw a bloke lying spread-eagled on the damp bed with his hands securely fastened to the cast iron headboard by a pair of industrial strength restraints. His feet were tied to the end of the bed and he was wearing a gimp mask and nothing else. Judging by the state of his privates he was very cold and not at all aroused.
Maureen sighed. ‘Mr Kyd, allow me to introduce you to Robert Hapgood, Managing Director of Millibrand’s Auction House – though possibly not for much longer.’
The keys to the cuffs were on the dressing table and Maureen used them to release him with an ease that I guessed was born of familiarity. As soon as she did so, Hapgood sat up, pulled off the mask and glared at us.
He was the kind of guy my nan would say looked like a proper film star. He was about forty-five with chiselled cheekbones, thick dark hair that was just turning grey at the temples and eyelashes that you could have swept the floor with. But right at that moment he was distinctly dishevelled. His face was so white it was almost blue; his designer stubble looked like a scattering of iron filings on his cheeks and his eyes were bloodshot and raw. In fact, he looked like an extra from Zombie Apocalypse – though I could see why he and Maureen had had a fling. They made a handsome couple, but I was having trouble keeping the image of Ms Berry dolled up like a dominatrix out of my head. Even though I’d only just met her I was prepared to bet she could play the role without rehearsal.
True to form, Maureen didn’t waste any time on pleasantries.
‘For Christ’s sake, Robert, you’ve been letting your cock do your thinking for you again – only this time you’ve really come unstuck.’
He sat there on the damp bed sheets rubbing his wrists. ‘Sod you, Maureen,’ he muttered.
‘Not tonight, Josephine,’ she replied. ‘And talking of Josephine, I know the woman who tied you up has taken your keys plus the combination to the safe and stolen the Empress’s amber necklace from your precious Auction House.’
Hapgood couldn’t have looked any sicker if someone had just force fed him a week’s supply of Brussels sprouts and Christmas pudding in one go.
‘And I suspect she’s pinched it to order for a client who doesn’t fancy getting into a bidding war. Any ideas as to who that might be?’
Hapgood stared at the bed with all his worst fears confirmed. I almost felt his pain. Rachel had made mugs of us both, but at least she hadn’t tied me up. He shook his head slowly.
‘All right then Robert
, at least tell Mr Kyd and me how this whole scam began.’
Hapgood looked up and stared at me. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
I made an allowance for his surly manner. He was having an even worse Christmas than me.
‘I’m Ryan Kyd, a private investigator, and I’m currently working for Ms Berry.’ I was stretching the truth here, but Maureen didn’t contradict me. ‘I’m hoping to retrieve the necklace before any of this becomes public knowledge.’
‘Fat chance.’
He didn’t seem confident of me achieving that aim and I can’t say I blamed him. We’d both had first-hand experience of Rachel and she’d run rings round the pair of us. Still, I wasn’t about to let him know that. ‘Yes, but fat or otherwise it’s the only chance you’ve got, Mr Hapgood. Unless, that is, you want to involve the police.’
He didn’t. Instead he decided to open up.
‘I first met her in a bar in Greenwich. She bumped into me and spilled my drink. She insisted on buying me another and then we got talking.’ He sighed. ‘Yes I know, it’s the oldest trick in the book and I fell for it. Anyway, I took her out to dinner, but she wasn’t up for anything more on that occasion. However, she agreed to see me again and we met up a couple more times.’
Maureen sighed impatiently. ‘Cut to the chase, Robert, for god’s sake.’
Hapgood gave her a look so petulant that he nearly tripped on his bottom lip. ‘Well, Maureen, unlike you, Rebecca wasn’t in an all fired rush to jump into bed with me and, can I say, that made her far more alluring than you ever were.’
Maureen smiled and shook her head. ‘Of course it did. But she wasn’t interested in you for sex – she was playing you for a mark.’
Hapgood’s eyes filled with spite as he stared at Maureen. She was right and he knew it.
‘Yes, well, Rebecca agreed to come and spend Christmas with me and led me to believe that all my Christmases would come at once when she did.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘I think you can guess the rest.’
He and Maureen stared at each other. I wasn’t sure what was going on between them so I decided it was time I took over the situation. ‘OK, Mr Hapgood, this woman told you her name was Rebecca. Did she tell you anything else about herself?’
Hapgood shrugged and turned his gaze on me. ‘I’m not a private investigator, Kyd, and I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but I’m guessing that whatever she told me will have been a lie.’
He was right, but I still had to keep digging. ‘What colour hair did this Rebecca have?’
He gave a ghost of a grin and I could tell that, despite everything she’d done to him, he still found her a turn on. ‘It was blonde and she wore it in a bob.’
I had a flashback to the wig Delroy had been wearing on Christmas Eve. He must have found it in Rachel’s bag along with the rest of the stuff. Then I remembered the box of contact lenses that had also been in her bag. I was pretty sure that she’d used them to disguise her green and gold flecked eyes and not because she had duff eyesight.
‘OK, and her eyes were what colour?’
‘Blue. A very deep shade of blue.’
Bingo! I was right about the lenses, but it didn’t really help. I was still no closer to knowing who or where Rachel/Rebecca really was.
Chapter 16
It was ten o’clock on Christmas Night and I was sitting in Robert Hapgood’s plush living room feeling like death warmed up – but only by a degree or so – and drinking a single malt. Maureen and Hapgood were also getting stuck into the booze, but nobody was feeling very festive.
‘This whole bloody situation is an absolute mess.’ In the short time since I’d met him I’d discovered that Robert Hapgood was as smooth as silk but as synthetic as polyester. He could also whinge for England, but on this occasion he had a point, the situation was an absolute mess. ‘I am well and truly stuffed. If I come clean about everything I’m dead in the water. The insurance company will have a fit and the papers will have a field day. On top of that I’ve tickled up interest in the blasted necklace with buyers world-wide. I’ve got barkers lined up to bid on behalf of half a dozen anonymous collectors and, to top it all, I have no bloody idea what I’m going to tell Sally Shapley about her bloody heirloom and why it’s gone walkabout.’ Hapgood took a huge swallow from his glass then poured himself another sizeable slug of the good stuff.
Maureen gave him a disapproving look. ‘Well, you won’t find any answers in the bottom of a glass I can assure you of that, Robert. So why not give some serious thought as to who might have hired this Rebecca woman? Christ knows there aren’t that many completely unscrupulous collectors of Napoleonic artefacts so let’s start putting some names in the frame.’
Hapgood seemed to give her suggestion some thought. ‘Well, I suppose we can rule out whoever it is you’re working for, Maureen.’
She nodded then added: ‘And I don’t think Van den Bruel is our guy either. If he was he wouldn’t have shown his face at DK’s tonight. He’d have had no need to.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ I said. ‘It could’ve been a double bluff. I mean how come he was in London at just the same time as Rebecca stole the necklace? That was pretty damn convenient.’
‘I suppose it was,’ agreed Maureen.
‘And don’t forget about that financier bloke from New York who was on Skype.’ I said. ‘Those guys never play by the rules.’
Hapgood pulled a wry face. ‘That’s true, but he’s in New York while Van den Bruel is right here. So my money’s on the Belgian bastard.’
Maureen chuckled nastily. ‘Well, good luck with asking him for it back, Robert. But I really don’t give much for your chances.’
Hapgood swallowed hard then glanced in my direction. ‘Could you persuade him to return it to me? Tell him I’ll do a trade. I’ve got some quality pieces stored away that might pique his interest.’
I wanted the job about as much as I wanted an STD, but the guy was desperate and desperate men tend to pay way over the odds. ‘I could try,’ I said. ‘But it may well not be the Belgian – and if Rebecca is acting as a lone wolf and didn’t steal the necklace at the behest of a crooked collector, then she’ll be in the market for a buyer and she could well contact any of the people we’ve mentioned,’ I paused and then said, ‘including you, Maureen.’
Hapgood laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. ‘And if she did contact you, Mo, would you tell me?’
Maureen put her glass to her lips, but didn’t drink. Instead she tapped it gently against her very white teeth. ‘Who knows?’ she said at last. ‘I guess we’ll find out if it happens.’
Then my phone buzzed. Maureen and Hapgood stared at me expectantly, but it was only a text from Carly wishing me a Happy Christmas. She said she hoped I was having fun because she was bored out of her mind watching TV with her Nan. She made no mention of Tyrone, but she did say that she was almost missing me, that’s how bored she was. Then she’d signed off with a smiley face and a big X. I think it was my cue to reply, but I didn’t because Rachel chose that moment to ring me.
‘Hey, Ryan, it’s me.’
I started to speak, but she cut across me. ‘No, Ryan, please just shut up and listen. Look, I’m sorry I did what I did to you, but I had no choice. And neither did you. It was destiny that made you come stumbling out of that pub just as I was being mugged. Anyway, thank you for being there for me when nobody else was. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but most of all I want you to know I’m not a thief. I’m only taking back what is mine.’
She hung up before I could say anything. But it was OK, she’d told me enough for me to know she wasn’t in the market for a buyer. Also I now had a shrewd idea as to why she stole it. Yet somehow I had to find her and persuade her to give Hapgood the necklace back because it wasn’t hers however much she may have wished it otherwise.
‘So who was that?’ asked Maureen.
I grinned at her. I was hoping against hope that neither of them had overheard the call, but I co
uldn’t be sure so I went for a bluff. ‘Oh, it was just my assistant again calling from some party.’ I harrumphed like I thoroughly disapproved. ‘She’s as pissed as a newt.’
‘Well that sounds like a plan to me,’ said Hapgood. ‘So why don’t you guys join me in getting absolutely fucking wasted?’
I stood up. ‘Sorry, Robert, but it’s been a hell of a day. I’m going to go home to get some sleep.’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah, you do that pal.’
I nodded. I knew he didn’t give a toss whether I stayed or not – though it wasn’t a good sign that he’d not pressed me about when I was going to see Van den Bruel.
‘But you’ll stay and keep me company won’t you Mo? If only for old time’s sake?’ He looked at her with puppy dog eyes. Even after all he’d been through he was definitely up for Ms Berry staying on for a nightcap. She must have wielded a really mean whip.
However, Maureen put her glass down firmly on the table and stood up. ‘Sorry, Robert, but that really wouldn’t be a very good idea.’ She smiled a smile that was colder than an Eskimo’s freezer. ‘You see, I have no intention of being a substitute for Rebecca. After all, as you told me yourself, she is so much more alluring than me.’ Then she followed me out of the room and out of the house.
I marched over to my car. I was hoping I was still under the limit because I’d had more than enough hassle for one Christmas and I sure as hell didn’t need to give some bored and resentful copper the chance to play Scrooge. But, just as I was opening my door, Maureen breathed in my ear.
‘You are a dreadful liar, Mr Kyd. But, if you will insist on trying to hoodwink the people who are straining to hear your telephone conversation, do make sure the person who’s calling you speaks more quietly.’
I gave her a blank look, but she hit me with her ice maiden smile. ‘When your caller said she wasn’t a thief I thought, well I hope, someone’s bought you a dictionary for Christmas sweetie because you need to look up the definition, but then of course the penny dropped. Your little chum isn’t a thief in her own eyes, and I understand why she thinks that, but that won’t help her I’m afraid. She’s living in cloud cuckoo land and, by doing what she’s done, she’s upset some very unpleasant people so I fear she’s in for a very nasty awakening.’
