Illusions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 2)

by Jean Saunders

  Or having to stand by while some grieving relative identified a loved one. Somebody had to do it, and she knew she had the reputation among the local plods for being as cold as ice on such occasions. But she wasn’t. Inside, she was always falling apart.

  ***

  The phone was ringing as she was drying her hair and waiting for the toaster to pop up with her wholemeal slice. She wasn’t the world’s tidiest person, and her kitchen was in its usual state of chaos, but the area where she lived now reflected her pride in building A BETTER LIFE for herself by her own efforts. Her life was definitely upwardly mobile since Audrey had become Alexandra. Despite the chaos.

  ‘Alexandra Best,’ she said into the phone.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Best. I hope I’m not too early. This is Norman Price. If you’re prepared to continue with the investigation, I’m happy to retain you. So would you meet me at my daughter’s cottage at twelve o’clock? And I apologize for any lack of finesse on my part last night. I’d like to make up for it by buying you lunch.’

  ‘Thank you. I accept,’ Alex said at once, registering the polished smoothness in the voice now.

  Oh yes, this was the real McCoy all right, and last night’s show had been just to capture her sympathy. But she was wise to that game. As a pathetic old man, lost without his daughter, it hadn’t rung true.

  She didn’t accept his lunch invitation for the joy of eating with the slob, but because informal meetings often gave out the unwitting clues the clients were too inhibited to reveal otherwise. She quickly noted down the address of Greenwell Cottage. It sounded rural and picturesque, and was situated in a small village north of Bishop’s Stortford.

  And she was on a very healthy retainer. Alex’s normally good spirits lifted still more, visualizing a trip to the country on expenses, and her cruise becoming even more of a reality. But first, she had some detective work to do.

  Dressed in a casual trouser suit in her trademark black, she left her flat and drove to the building where she had her office.

  She felt the familiar glow at seeing the gleaming gilt lettering on the nameplate, Alexandra Best, Private Investigator. She unlocked her glass-panelled door and went inside, picking up the mail as she did so and tossing it into a wire tray after a cursory glance at the envelopes. There was nothing that couldn’t wait until later.

  First, she switched on her computer and opened the file for Caroline Price. She ran down the usual leads to follow, checked the necessary volumes of Who’s Who and other directories on her shelf, and spent some time making phone calls. Her frown had deepened by the time she had finished.

  None of the big newspaper groups or magazines had ever heard of a crossword compiler called Caroline Price. Nor had any of the literary agencies she tried as a last resort, though she hardly expected them to be interested in such small commission stuff.

  Even if the woman used a pseudonym, those people would have known her real name. And not even the additional tag of being a deaf woman could identify her. Alex checked the local hospitals, but no woman of that name had been admitted during the past two weeks. She checked the airports and ferry terminals and again she got nowhere.

  It seemed that Caroline Price had simply vanished off the face of the earth. Transported by aliens, maybe... which was crazy, and just the kind of thing that Alexandra in her dumbest mode might imagine, Alex thought in sudden annoyance. But she was shrewder than that.

  Caroline had to be somewhere. People didn’t just vanish. People must know her. People must be missing her. Unless it was Norman Price himself who was crazy, and there was no daughter, and no inheritance at all.

  And Alex had just arranged to meet him alone in a cottage in a remote Hertfordshire village at noon.

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