Spin and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 3)

by Whitelaw, Stella

  Spin and Die

  Stella Whitelaw

  © Stella Whitelaw 2002

  Stella Whitelaw has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2002 by Severn House Publishers Ltd.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  To Diana and David with love, as always

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  One

  Winter was biting hard and I needed work. Silence drained away the last of autumn warmth. Latching pier leaned on shrunken legs. The sea was a grim grey, lashed with steely foam. Snow was not expected as it rarely snowed in Latching. It had not snowed since 1937 when toddlers looked at the white world in bemused amazement and small children shrieked with excitement, believing that aliens had whitewashed the globe.

  I even bought a second undervest. One on and one in the wash. Some days I wore both.

  ‘Jordan Lacey, you are becoming a two undervest woman,’ I shivered as I dressed, crouched against the wall radiator in the bedroom of my two bedsits in a muffled embrace. ‘Any minute now I’ll be wearing long johns.’

  I’d bought a car, my spoiled ladybird Morris Minor. She ate money, spewing out the oxides, but cycling was no fun when the wind took one’s breath away and fingers froze on the handlebars.

  I walked the pier every day, careful not to slip on the skating rink that passed for a deck, hanging onto rails at the far end, buffeted by the wind. The sea had no memory, nor had the wind.

  It was a day off. The shop, First Class Junk, was closed for renovations (new shelf). I’d just seen the show, Little Shop of Horrors, at the Pier Theatre and the music was pounding in my brain. Not quite my beloved big band jazz, but near enough. First Class Investigations, my private eye business, was also closed temporarily, due to lack of business. So I’d had given myself an early Christmas shopping day.

  This was a laugh. My Christmas shopping list could be written on the back of two postage stamps. Cleo Carling and Leroy Anderson: decent presents. Mrs Fenwick and Mrs Drury: token presents. Joshua: zero. Derek: zero. My jazz trumpeter: zero, as he was not around. DI James: I wanted to give him the biggest, bestest present I could afford that would not give away my state of mind or frighten him off, i.e. a diary?

  Money was less of a problem since an unexpected cheque had arrived from Italy as the result of a recent case I’d been involved in. It seemed that a wealthy Italian family had put up a huge sum in euros for the capture of the Scarlatti brothers, and somehow (a DI James intervention?) a percentage of it had filtered through to me. Hallelujah. As my bank did not hyperventilate at the conversion of euros into pounds, I banked it, paid all outstanding bills and was now embarking on my marathon shop.

  Since I had decided the two decent presents could only come from Guilberts Department Store, the classiest shop in Latching, I wore my indigo jeans, black polo-necked jersey, black leather jacket and boots. I tied my tawny hair up into a bunch. My normal clean but scruffy look would not do. I did not want to be picked up as a shoplifter.

  ‘So go act rich,’ I told my mirror reflection. ‘And don’t count the change.’

  Guilberts Department Store was easily the largest shop in Latching, a treble-fronted sandstone building, four storeys high, on the corner of the old high street. It was still family owned. It sold clothes for men, women and children, and in the basement was a household and electrical department. If you wanted furniture, you had to go to their other branch in Brighton. It also sold cosmetics and perfume. I was guilty of slipping in for a free squirt. Squirt now, buy later … very much later.

  The store was mega busy. People, laden with bags, kept bumping into me. I tacked the crowd like some rudderless dingy, little runs and pauses.

  ‘Sorry, doctor,’ I said in Little Shop of Horrors mode. The phrase was catching.

  I can shop for fruit and yogurt, hit on charity goods for my shop and clothes for surveillance. But finding these presents sent my brain into a spin. My taste is on a level with Miss Piggy’s.

  Two silk scarves seemed the answer. Both expensive, both beautiful, each a different design. I would decide later which suited who. The two older friends were more difficult. I’d already found a pre-war flowered teapot in a charity shop for Mrs Drury’s spout and handle collection. Mrs Fenwick had everything, except a husband.

  It was as I was cruising the basement of Guilberts, wondering if Mrs Fenwick had any use for egg coddlers, that I saw a young woman slip a tin opener into her pocket. She was in torn jeans, a backpack on her shoulders, hair in blonde dreadlocks. Not your average customer at Guilberts.

  Dilemma: accuse, inform, or turn a blind eye?

  I slid up to her, wondering if I might get a sock on the jaw. The young are unpredictable. I said in my best Bogart voice, ‘Buy ring pull cans, babe.’

  She went white, turned on her heel and fled up the stairs faster than a missile. There was no catching her. She was out on the street and lost in the crowds before I had time to rearrange my face. It was sad. She’d get caught one day and DI James would haul her in, handcuffed, pul her in a cell and read her her rights. If it was a first offence, that is, the first time she had been caught, she’d probably get community service and probation. Shopping for old ladies would not be suitable.

  The pier beckoned me. I was kicking myself for the feeble response. I should have been more commanding, taken charge of the situation. There was no solace in the waves. They were angry and cold. It was if they were storing up hatred for the entire human race. What had we done, apart from polluting the seas with every form of poison known to man?

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ 1 said, hanging over the far rails. ‘I don’t even spit.’ Somewhere across the horizon was France. One day I would go there on the ferry. Perhaps DI James might take me, purely on a shopping trip. I could drop hints. Brick-sized, lint-lined, disguised as a learning curve.

  Jack, the owner of the amusement arcade, waved to me from behind his bulletproof kiosk. He was busy. It was the get-rich-quick season. He did not have time to talk. Pity, because I could have done with a cup of his awful coffee. Anything to warm me up. My goose pimples were getting pimples.

  The solution was to open up my shop and change the two tiny windows into festive scenes. First Class Junk sold only the bestjunk around. There was a couple of hours to closing time. I might get lucky and snare a customer. I took down the sign, switched on the lights and tried to invoke the festive season with Mr Acker Bilk playing ‘Tuxedo Rag’. Not exactly a carol but it depended on your base.

  I also brewed a pot of my good coffee. The aroma filled the shop air. It fired the veins. And I hadn’t eaten. What would I do on Christmas Day? Listen to the Queen’s speech with a paper hat on, eating a tuna sandwich?

  A man edging thirty came into the shop. I didn’t know him. He was a sharp dresser, pinstriped navy suit, white shirt, subdued tie. The shoulders said, don’t mess with me, buster. But his hair was stressed, his expression hung harrassed and he had a tendency to fiddle with the watch on his wrist. A bit like Prince Charles adjusting his sleeve cuffs. Half an inch
out and he might lose the throne.

  ‘Miss Lacey?’ the man asked.

  ‘Er … yes.’ I am always cagey these days after the Italian brothers went to work on me. He did not look like a customer. His eyes flickered over my window displays with a glimmer of amusement.

  ‘Ah, competition …’ he murmured.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I asked on the edge of a retort.

  ‘This is a private matter. Confidential. May we talk in your office?’

  I took the man through into my back office where First Class Investigations interviewed clients. He sat on my Victorian button-back velvet chair and murmured, ‘Nice.’ I warmed to my visitor. He nodded approvingly at the circular Persian mat, its faded jewel colours still warm and rich. He could have a cup of my best coffee.

  ‘You may be wondering why I have come to see you,’ he said, crossing a well-trousered leg, hitching the crease. ‘Or how I came to hear of you.’

  ‘I’m sure you are going to tell me,’ I said, putting bone china mugs, chocolate digestive biscuits and a pot of coffee on a tray. The aroma of coffee and chocolate was decadent. I suppose he was about my age or a bit older, teetering around thirty plus. I was twenty-seven.

  ‘My name’s Oliver Guilbert of Guilberts Department Store. I see you shop with us.’ He’d spotted the mauve carrier bag on my desk.

  ‘Occasionally.’ Note: keep bag, classy prop.

  ‘You were recommended to me by a friend, Miss Leroy Anderson, who thinks highly of your services. And you make good coffee, if I may say so.’

  Again I was glad I was dolled up. He might have been less impressed by slob gear. ‘Ah, Leroy,’ I said, giving nothing away. I had no idea if he knew about her sister’s sticky death and my part in the investigation. ‘So you have some problem?’

  ‘The store does … not me personally, although I am the General Manager. My father owns and runs the store. Let me explain. Some months ago a customer, a Mrs Sonia Spiller, slipped whilst shopping in the basement department. She fell, twisted her ankle and dislocated her shoulder.’

  ‘Nasty.’

  ‘We did all the right things, called our first-aider, then an ambulance and she was taken to Latching Hospital. I believe they kept her in overnight in case of concussion, but she was allowed to go home the next morning. We sent a letter of apology and offered to pay any out-of-pocket expenses.’

  ‘Such as?’ I was making notes.

  ‘Taxis, help in the house. Just till her ankle was fit to walk on.’

  ‘Sounds very generous.’

  ‘So we thought,’ said Oliver Guilbert. ‘But apparently not. We expected that to be the end of the incident. Then out of the blue we get a letter from a solicitor saying Sonia Spiller is going to sue us for negligence to the tune of £150,000. Her dislocated shoulder has prevented her from going back to work and she’s suing us for loss of earnings, pain, trauma, and loss of social life.’

  ‘No more bingo.’

  ‘She says she used to play county class squash, go scubadiving and jive dancing. Frankly we just don’t believe her. She’s taking us to the cleaners and it’s all a scam.’

  ‘Isn’t Guilberts insured for customer accidents?’

  ‘Yes, of course, we’ve comprehensive insurance but we’ve never had any claim like this. Before we pay out we want to make sure that the claim is genuine. That’s where we want you to help. We want you to watch this woman and film every step she takes.’

  A nerve end tingled somewhere round the back of my neck. Work and regular … for a period. My damned honesty piped up before I could stop it. ‘I don’t have video equipment.’

  ‘We can lend you all the equipment you need from our electrical department. It’s no problem. Leroy says your fees arc very reasonable.’

  Arithmetic flashed through my head, straight through and out the other side. Nine to five one person surveillance is a lot more time consuming than your average sleuthing. I normally charge £50 a day when I’m on a case, but surveillance means all day, every minute of it, no slipping out on some other investigation or doing some shop-keeping in between.

  ‘It’s £100 a day, one person prime-time surveillance, that is for a twelve hour stint, seven to seven, eight to eight, whatever you suggest.’ Making it twelve hours calmed my conscience. It was a bit drastic, doubling my fee on the spot but it was boring work and I’d be out in all weathers. My ladybird would be spotted instantly. (Joke) Shopping list: sheepskin coat, Claret, brandy, handwarmers. Well, perhaps not the sheepskin. No need to go overboard.

  Oliver Guilbert was doing calculations in his head. ‘So a week’s work would be £700?’

  ‘If you feel that is a bit steep, I have an hourly rate but that’s hardly a full cover. Mrs Spiller might well skip out for a game of squash just as I packed up,’ I added.

  ‘No … no,’ Oliver Guilbert said hastily. ‘Your daily rate is quite acceptable, especially if you save us £150,000. Less than half a percent. But I would like to have a daily report from you on what you have observed.’

  ‘Naturally. But I should prefer to phone in a report. It would not be a good idea for me to come to Guilberts or call at your office. Mrs Spiller might get wind of what is happening.’

  Also I do not want to be up half the night typing on my old portable, I could have said.

  ‘And I can rely on your absolute discretion and loyalty in this instance, can’t I?’ he said, looking embarrassed.

  ‘Heavens! What do you mean? My discretion is one hundred and ten percent. If you can’t trust a private detective, who can you trust?’

  ‘I just thought that Mrs Spiller might come to you and offer you a bigger fee for not following her. After all, you could just hang about somewhere and film a hedge for a week.’

  ‘Mr Guilbert,’ I said, slowly, counting to ten. I don’t have red streaks in my hair for nothing. ‘If you don’t trust me, then I can’t work for you. You’d better find someone else.’

  I couldn’t believe I was saying this, but I was. I was turning down paid work. I was tipping the Christmas Claret and brandy down the drain. It was back to hot chocolate and a small box of mints.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Lacey. I didn’t quite mean what that sounded like. I’ve got suspicious of everyone. This business has really upset me. You don’t know who to trust. Of course, I want you to take on the work. Come into the store tomorrow morning and chose what equipment you need. You can borrow it for as long as it takes.’

  I let his apology sink in. It seemed genuine. His stressed hair was standing on end, like a small boy at the end of his first day at school. He had pleasant hazel eyes, flecked with winter sun. I wondered if Leroy liked him.

  ‘What has made you suspect that Mrs Spiller could be on the make?’ I asked.

  ‘One of my staff saw Mrs Spiller out walking her dog. It’s a young, boistrous dog, but the point is that the dog was on a lead and she held the lead in her right hand. Now, it was her right shoulder that she injured in the fall. It would hurt too much to allow a young dog to tug and pull at it.’

  ‘Very true. All right, I will take on this undercover filming, initially for one week. I’ll vary the timing of the twelve hours according to what seems appropriate for her lifestyle. She may well be a night bird.’

  Oliver Guilbert breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good. Thank you. I’ll give you a note for the equipment. Just hand it to the cashier. I won’t say what it’s for, just sign my authority for the loan. And this is my mobile number for your daily report. Phone anytime.’

  I got out a client contract form from the filing cabinet and asked him to fill it in and sign. He used a fountain pen, a Mont Blanc, one of Guilberts’ best. Then he finished his coffee and stood up. This was probably the best case that had ever come my way. It beat lost tortoises and trashed wedding cakes. I’d better not screw it up.

  He shook my hand. Nice, firm grip. No sweat. ‘I have every confidence in you,’ he said, trying to make up for his previous gaffe.

  ‘I saw someo
ne nick a tin opener in your store today,’ I said.

  He nodded with resignation. ‘They’ll take anything that’s not bolted to the floor.’

  As soon as he was out of the door and had driven off in a racy red car, I was on the phone to Latching police station, asking for Detective Inspector James.

  His world-weary voice answered as if the day had been a long line of burglaries, assaults, drunks, RTAs and road rage. Yet, that gravelly voice was enough to bring sanity into my life and a reason for living.

  ‘It’s Jordan Lacey. Sorry, James, I know you’re busy. Don’t ask me why because I’m not going to tell you, but can anyone at the station give me a quick ten minute briefing on how to use a video camera? I need to know fast, like by tomorrow morning.’

  I heard his sharp intake of breath, waited for the invective.

  But the reply was mild, as if soothing a ten-year-old.

  ‘I’ll put you through to Sergeant Rawlings. He’ll give you the number of a film expert who works outside the police force. It’ll probably cost you a bottle of Scotch.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you why.’

  ‘I’m not exactly agog to know.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, wondering how I could keep him talking when I was obviously being dismissed. ‘… er … Happy Christmas.’

  ‘And a Happy Christmas to you, Jordan. Don’t choke on your mince pie.’

  I heard him transferring the call. He didn’t even say goodbye. But neither had he bawled me out. I suppose that could be called progress.

  Two

  The man who owns the best camera shop in Latching was polite even though it was seven o’clock and technically he had closed. It was a novelty to have a meek female on his doorstep, practically begging for help.

  ‘I have to know how to use a video camera,’ I said. ‘It’s a big occasion. Very big. You know, something special …’ I was making it sound like the wedding of the year. ‘I also need to know how to load and unload the … er, film.’