Illusions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 2)

by Jean Saunders

  ‘You don’t waste much time, do you?’

  ‘You know me, babe,’ he said with a grin. ‘So are we going to this party — or what?’

  ‘We’re going to a party,’ Alex said determinedly.

  She hadn’t wanted to go, but now she did. And she didn’t want to spend the evening fending off Gary Hollis’s tentacle arms. In fact, she didn’t want him at all. The surprise of it hit her forcibly. He was fun. He was sexy. He was great in bed. But she didn’t want him. And if he expected to be sharing her bed later on, he was in for a bigger shock.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said, holding her away from him.

  ‘Nothing. Why?’

  ‘You’re different.’

  ‘I’ve just had the flu, for God’s sake. You can’t expect me to be jumping through hoops.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  She had also forgotten how petulant he could be at times. Like a small boy seeing his treasured toy about to be taken away from him.

  She touched his cheek. ‘Gary, don’t rush me, OK? Let’s just go to a party — and how did you get to be invited, anyway? I didn’t know you knew Charmaine.’

  At his cocky grin, she recognized the Gary of old, on the night she had first met him, all biking leathers and brimming with testosterone.

  She got the weird impression now of the hunter having caught his prey (Charmaine), but still wanting to keep another possibility dangling. Alex.

  ‘Met her a couple of weeks ago, and when she said she had this private di— eye — living in the flat above, and then told me where she lived. I latched on at once. Good bit of detective work, huh?’

  ‘Amazing,’ Alex said, straight-faced. ‘So are we going to this party?’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or nothing.’

  ***

  Four hours later, Alex was thankful that he had latched on to that too. Either that, or the luscious and nubile talent in the flat below was far more to his taste. It was a relief, anyway, and when she managed to yell through the disco noise to Charmaine that she’d really had enough, she was able to get away while the music was still throbbing, and the answering throb in her head was just about bearable.

  ‘It was nice to see you, Alex,’ Charmaine screeched. ‘Take care of that flu now.’

  ‘I will, and say goodbye to Gary for me,’ Alex yelled back, seeing him wrapped around a long-legged girl in a scarlet sheath that was little more than a belt, and hardly able to distinguish which of them was which.

  And she didn’t give a damn. Good luck, Gary, she mouthed at him, before she took the lift up to her flat, and entered its blissful silence. Her answer machine was flashing, and she switched it on automatically.

  ‘Hi, Alex. I guess if you’re out you must be feeling better. Anyway, I forgot to give you that address,’ came Nick’s familiar voice. ‘It’s 84 Battery Mews, Lambeth. See you around.’

  She could have kissed him. She was warm and mellow with wine, and thankful to have shaken off Gary, and here was Nick, in spirit if not in body, giving her the information she wanted without the need for any more subterfuge on her part.

  She could definitely have kissed him. All over. She had even guessed right about Lambeth too, which did her ego good, and if she’d seriously believed in omens, she’d have said Leanora had guided her towards the right location. But she was right off omens for the moment, and preferred to believe in her own instinct and logic.

  But she was still in the lingering haze of too much wine, and she found herself waltzing around the room, wishing Nick was here, so she could show her appreciation.

  Not that she had she ever paid for favours with her body. Well, not seriously. So maybe the feeling had to mean more than that. Wanting to share special moments with one special person had to mean something, didn’t it? She didn’t want to examine that crazy thought too closely, but right at that moment she wanted him with a fever that shook her rigid.

  Because they were mates, for Christ’s sake. Good mates, best mates, even though he’d never made any secret of the fact that he wanted more, and she had always held him off except for one magical night in Worthing.

  But it was never a good idea for people like them to get close. Their jobs were too similar — and too opposite. It never worked. Service occupations were high risks for marriage breakups. The army chucked out higher ranks for consorting with lower ones and mixing business with pleasure. The medical profession frowned on it. And what the devil was she doing, even thinking about marriage? It wasn’t on her agenda.

  The combination of getting over the flu, and tonight’s party -which, for a short while had been more fun than she had expected — and now the bonus of getting Harold Dawes’ address so painlessly — must be filling her head with romantic tosh. A good night’s sleep was what she needed, and tomorrow she vowed to be at her sharpest again.

  So Goodnight Vienna... without warning, one of her father’s favourite old songs floated into her head, as sung by Richard Tauber on a well-scratched gramophone record of 78 rpm vintage, if she remembered correctly, and played on an ancient gramophone that needed winding up. And she had no idea what had made her think of that, when the blare of Blur’s best should still be ringing in her ears.

  Bed, she thought again, before I go completely to pieces.

  ***

  Alex slept in late the next day, but by the time she awoke, her head was clear. The cocktail of wine and music had evidently done its job well, and knocked any remaining bugs out of her system. She was ready to go — and today she was going to Lambeth to check out where Harold Dawes lived.

  She remembered the boisterous arrogance of the major on the cruise ship, and then the damn cheek of him, pretending to be a Special Branch bod when confronted with the constable at Madame L.’s premises. He wasn’t exactly the Brain of Britain when it came to disguises, but she was.

  Instead of wearing her trademark black, she dressed in jeans and a check shirt, twisted her hair on top of her head and bundled it all up under a peaked baseball cap.

  She had no idea if Harold Dawes had been the one to kill Moira, whether or not it was on Mister Big’s instructions. But he was definitely involved somehow, and she couldn’t afford to let him see her, or that she had tracked him down. He would also know her car, she remembered, so she splashed out some of Moira’s money and hired one at a hefty discount from a private hire company where she had done some business in the past. It always paid to know somebody…

  She ate a ploughman’s lunch at a pub near the river, and suffered the catcalls of some building site yobs before heading for Lambeth. The yobs were probably harmless enough, despite their threatening tattoos, and she bet that if she whistled at their bum cleavages they’d run a mile. Maybe. She decided not to risk it.

  She reached Lambeth in the early afternoon. Having studied her A to Z, she had easily sussed out the route to Battery Mews. Nowadays, Mews premises could be hellishly expensive and trendy places, or just dumps. The major would have lived in the former, but Harold Dawes…

  This particular Mews turned out to be a seedy little cobbled backwater in a maze of nondescript streets, but it was thankfully wide enough for parking. The houses were cramped, with tiny front yards, in which there was a motley collection of old bicycle tyres, rusting prams and other debris. From the range of different curtains and tatty window blinds, Alex guessed that some of them were let into flats or bed-sits.

  She drove slowly up the street, glad of several old bangers parked haphazardly so that she had to negotiate them carefully enough not to draw attention to herself, until she located number 84. It was nothing special, and from the look of it, Alex guessed that it was a bed-sit. The net curtains were more grey than white. They still hid any occupant inside, though. He could see out, while no one else could see in.

  She felt a shiver of excitement. Whatever Harold Dawes was up to, she intended watching him. The fact that he had no telephone was annoying, because if he had been the one calling her and sending her the dead flo
wers, she would dearly have liked to play him at his own game.

  But that was not an option. The only thing to do was to play a waiting game — not that she could imagine Mister Big deigning to contact him here, so it figured that if any contact was to be made, he would go to Mister Big.

  Unless, of course, their whole association was now at an end, with the demise of both the Wolstenholme women.

  There was no need now, for Mister Big to fear anything from either of them. And now that the pages of Leanora’s notebook had been removed as well, Alex had no idea whose name was involved.

  It was more than possible that Harold Dawes was now expendable. If so, the trail could easily go cold right here. And Alex could waste a hell of a lot of time sitting around in frustration, when she could be taking on another case.

  But there were several more nagging thoughts in her mind that wouldn’t go away.

  The first was that Harold Dawes might be so vindictive that he would continue targeting her with his feeble stalking methods for the sadistic fun of it.

  The second was that Mister Big might decide not to risk any repercussions from his partner, and get rid of him. Someone who had already masterminded the murder of two women wouldn’t hesitate to deal with a third.

  And there was something else. Despite the warmth of the summer day, the shiver inside her was colder now. She had never really imagined that she was in serious danger, especially since all the evidence in the notebook had been neatly removed. But how did the thief know that she hadn’t already seen it, and noted it, and decided to report all that she knew to the police? And while she was watching Battery Mews now, was somebody else already watching her?

  The Mews was as quiet as the proverbial grave, and at the thought, she switched on the car engine with shaking hands and shot away down the cobbled street and out into the mainstream traffic, her heart thudding. She drove around for ten minutes, keeping a regular watch in the rear view mirror, but no one was following her, and gradually her heartbeats slowed down.

  She parked in a nearby street and called herself a fool for panicking. She had two choices, anyway. Either she could give the whole thing up and forget it ever happened, or she could go to Nick and tell him everything — or she could get on with the bloody job she had been paid to do, and stop acting like a wimp.

  ‘That’s three choices,’ she muttered. ‘And if you want to hold up your head at the end of it you know what you’ve got to do, girl.’

  That was her father speaking again. But at least it wasn’t Leanora. Nor Moira. It was the Barnes stubbornness that said you were only half a person if you gave up on a job. He never had, and nor would she.

  Without realizing it, she saw that she had parked with a reasonable view of Battery Mews. She could make out exactly where number 84 was from here, because of its proximity to the old bangers in the road. It must have been instinct to park where she had, and if nothing else told her she had to go on, that did it.

  She stayed for half an hour with no sign of Harold Dawes, or anyone else. In the meantime she had made a few sketches of the whole location. She took some camera shots too, but the sketches were more immediate, and were enough for her needs. Only if Dawes appeared, or had any visitors, would she need to take more photos.

  God, this was boring, she thought, some while later when the sun grew higher in the sky, and it became uncomfortably hot in the car. The Mews was far enough out of the city not to warrant a one-way system, and she had already noted that it was open-ended, so cars could approach from either end, but today it all seemed as quiet as the proverbial.

  He could be a night owl, of course. After a fruitless wait, Alex decided it was time to go away and come back after dark. In any case, if she intended taking a closer look around the premises and the area, it would be safer to do it at night. He knew her, so there was no way she could go right up to his door in daylight and pretend to be somebody doing a mail order survey or canvassing for double glazing.

  Gary could, though. He’d helped her out before, and she knew he’d do it again, even though he’d expect payment in kind for his trouble. But she didn’t really want to get him involved, and she put the idea on hold unless it became absolutely necessary.

  Just as she was about to switch on the car engine again, there was some movement from number 84. Alex sank down in her car seat and pretended to be fiddling with something in the glove pocket. But it was definitely him, and he was coming this way.

  She was shocked at the sight of him. He was unshaven, and shabbier than she ever remembered him, and a world away from the brash and boisterous major on board the cruise ship. Whatever money Mister Big was paying him, it certainly wasn’t doing him a lot of good.

  He came around the corner of the Mews to where there was an off-licence, and disappeared inside. A few minutes later he came out with a carrier bag that obviously contained a quantity of bottles. So that was where his money went, and from the look of him now, he was probably an alky.

  Alex thought rapidly. From any Mister Big’s point of view, alkies were dangerous. Alkies would do anything for money. But if their regular suppliers dried up, they would be just as ready to turn snout to the police for payment. Alex wondered just how far down the slopes Harold Dawes had already gone.

  And if his Mister Big was aware of it, she didn’t give much for his chances.

  Especially if he had been the one to kill Moira. Maybe the memory of actually doing the ultimate crime had tipped him over the edge, the way it had finished Trevor Unwin.

  And maybe it was time for her to confront Harold herself, and offer him some of Moira’s money, in return for giving her a name. Even if it meant that he — and whoever was working his strings — knew for sure that she was on to them.

  She would be putting herself in a highly dangerous position, considering that two women had already been killed, and one man had committed suicide because of his part in it.

  It was such a huge decision to make that she could no longer think straight. Her heart was beating erratically as she drove off at speed, needing her own four walls around her like a security blanket as she tried to work out the best course of action.

  Chapter 11

  The temptation to call Nick Frobisher and have the power of the police behind her had never been so strong as it was right then. But she still felt it would be letting Moira down if she did so, and there was still a part of herself that said she wanted the power and glory of solving this crime. It would definitely be one up for woman power.

  It might also send her to an early grave, Alex thought grimly, but she wouldn’t let herself worry about that. Instead, while she waited for darkness, she carefully dusted the pages of Leanora’s notebook adjacent to the missing ones. With the aid of a very large magnifying glass and a very strong light behind her, she could make out the faint indentations of Leanora’s handwriting.

  It was surprisingly strong. Some of the indentations were quite deep. There was a capital L, then a small gap, then a capital I and a longer gap. Or it could be a J. Or even another L. There could also be two words after the first L.

  ‘Damn it, Leanora, why couldn’t you have been more explicit!’ Alex said out loud. ‘Is it Les, or Liam, or Luke? Or is it Lord? Lord somebody starting with I or J or L?’

  She felt the adrenalin begin to tingle. Someone who had arranged two killings and hidden his tracks so cleverly, wasn’t going to be somebody run-of-the-mill.

  Remembering the large amounts with which he’d paid off Trevor Unwin, he had to be a Somebody, with plenty of money and influence.

  Would Harold Dawes have been paid a similar amount for getting rid of Moira, or did his puppet-master have such a hold over him now that he could afford to pay him far less? Which would account for the fact that Harold looked such a miserable figure compared to his jauntiness as Major Deveraux. MB would presumably have paid for his cruise passage, in order for him to keep an eye on Leanora.

  There were two strands to MB’s operation, Alex decided.
One involved Harold Dawes, and the other involved Trevor Unwin. She doubted that either knew of the other’s existence. And Alex doubted that Mister Big was an ordinary mister at all. So she was looking somewhere much higher up the social scale than your average next-door neighbour.

  ‘Maybe it wouldn’t be such a crazy idea to have a few words with you, major dear,’ she muttered. ‘Especially with a few bottles of whisky as an enticement, and waving a few quid of Moira’s money at you while we got quietly sloshed and mused over old times. Or at least, while you did.’

  She still felt guilty over Moira’s retainer. She had already been paid a far larger sum in advance than she had expected, and then there was the bonus of the five hundred pounds. But her conscience wouldn’t let her do other than follow Moira’s wishes through.

  ‘It’s the Audrey Barnes syndrome,’ she told herself. ‘It will always catch me out when I least expect it. But at least Dad would be proud of me.’

  And she was probably never going to be as ruthless as a hard-nosed copper...

  ***

  She had never needed to look up Debrett’s Peerage before, and she had nothing more substantial than a general Who’s Who on her shelves. But she knew she could find the information at the reference library that stayed open late.

  It had to be her first stop, before she surprised Harold, armed with whisky and cash. She remembered he had drunk heavily on the cruise. But she still didn’t know whether or not it was a sensible thing to do. Harold was presumably a murderer — and she could be putting her life on the line.

  It would certainly surprise him to discover she had tracked him down, she thought uneasily, and maybe it was the craziest idea she had had yet. But she was counting on the fact that once he knew she was aware that he had made the phone call to her, and sent her the dead flowers, it would shock him into telling her more.

  Especially if he thought she had contacted the police... as the ideas spun haphazardly in her head and got her nowhere, she pushed them away and concentrated on the immediacy of the job in hand.