The Fashion Police (Amber Fox Mystery No 1)

by Sibel Hodge

  ‘That’s it, just Hi-Tec Insurance. There’s no “and” after it,’ I said.

  The woman rolled her eyes. ‘What do you want?’ Her voice sharpened, and she frowned at me; the really wicked, twitchy-eye, wrinkly forehead kind, except her forehead didn’t wrinkle when she did it.

  ‘Hey, you’re fun! Isn’t Botox amazing?’ I asked, fascinated by her un-wrinkly forehead.

  This earned me something eerily close to a snarl. ‘What do you want? We’re very busy.’

  Properly chastised, I answered. ‘I just need a few moments with Umberto Fandango. It’s about his insurance.’

  ‘What about it?’

  Good question. Here comes the BS.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’m just checking out the business premises for security reasons. Obviously, you have some very expensive and high-profile merchandise here, so I need to have a look around the entire area, as well as inspect your alarm system to make sure there’s no possible breach of security. Don’t worry, it’s just routine information for our files.’ I gave her my most sincere smile, pulling out my camera to make my claim look authentic.

  She weighed my words with an icy stare. ‘Hmm.’ A pause. Then: ‘Follow me.’ And off she clicked toward a corridor at the far end of the reception area.

  I made use of my trigger finger, snapping off a few pictures as I followed behind her. We stopped when she paused outside a door at the end and punched in a sequence of numbers on a keypad.

  The door clicked. ‘Wait here,’ she said. She slipped inside the room, returning a few seconds later. ‘Mr. Fandango will see you now.’

  I followed her into the ultra-modern office, which was decked out with a chrome and glass desk, chrome and leather chairs, a chrome lamp, chrome pen tidy, and a silver leather sofa. Wow, when this guy liked something, he really went to town. I quickly sneaked a peek at the pen tidy, crammed full of biros, as a man dressed in a purple smoking jacket stood behind his desk and pumped my hand. I didn’t think smoking jackets existed in real life, I thought it was just a myth, but no, they were alive and well and living in Hertfordshire. And this guy had to be in his fifties, far too young for a smoking jacket, in my opinion.

  ‘I’m Umberto. What can I do for you, honey?’ he asked in a weird, Lloyd Grossman mix of an American and English accent. He was on the short side, with thick, dark brown hair that was swept back with a touch of gel, dark brown eyes, and a spray-on tan that bordered on the Tango variety. Although he was clean shaven, he had a hint of five o’clock shadow, and I suspected he would have to shave more than once a day to keep his beard in check.

  I went through my spiel again and gave him a dazzling smile for good luck, all the while casually gripping one of the bug pens in my pocket.

  ‘Knock yourself out. Just make sure you don’t get in the models’ way, or I’ll have one hell of a cat fight on my hands. Actually, I’ve got a few spare minutes, so why don’t I show you around?’ He flashed me a bleached-tooth grin and led the way out of his office.

  In a split second, pen number two was secretly stashed in his pen tidy, and I was following behind him. The Ice Queen bared her teeth in an imitation of a smile, examining me like I was a piece of road kill stuck to her thousand pound shoes as she sat down at the desk opposite Fandango’s.

  I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out.

  As Umberto led me through the offices and the huge storage area upstairs which housed his fashion collection, I took notes and photos galore.

  ‘So, waddaya think?’ he asked as we entered the runway area, where the stiletto-heeled He-She was busy screeching at one of the models.

  ‘I think I need to see the bags before I make my mind up,’ I told him. Maybe he’d give me a freebie while I was here.

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘You know – those gorgeous handbags you make. Can I have a little peek at them? They’re so cool. I love the ones with–’

  ‘Sorry, honey, we don’t make the bags here, they’re all sent in from the States.’

  ‘Oh,’ I muttered with disappointment. Well, it had been worth a try.

  ‘Waddaya think of the security then?’ he asked.

  ‘It looks pretty secure to me.’

  ‘Aw, shit!’ Fandango looked across the sea of prancing female models toward a dark-haired man in a crisp blue shirt and an expensive-looking suit. He was pretty hot, too. In fact, if I had to rate him out of ten, he’d be a nine and three-quarters. The man wore an air of expectation, and I watched as Fandango’s demeanor changed abruptly. ‘OK, that’s your lot, honey. You need to leave now.’ As he made his way over to Mr. Hottie, I took the opportunity to drop a pen to the floor, casually kicking it under the runway. Based on the way Fandango had reacted, I assumed the man in the suit was a model.

  A Kodak moment of a yummy model and a famous fashion designer seemed too good to miss, so I snapped a few pictures while I studied them through the viewfinder. They seemed to be involved in a heated argument about something. Maybe someone had forgotten to put all-white lilies in Mr. Hottie’s dressing room, or the blue M&M’s had been left in his chocolate selection by mistake. Oh, well, I thought, it’s not my problem. Operation Bug was complete, which was all that mattered to me. I smiled as I headed out of the building. Way to go, Amber. Bring on the chocolate muffins. My first assignment had been a success. Nothing could possibly go wrong now.

  Could it?

  2

  I stumbled through the doors of Hi-Tec’s plush Hertford office with my rucksack threatening to slide off my shoulder. I juggled two mochacinos and four chocolate muffins with extra chocolate sprinkles in one hand, and two mozzarella paninis and a bottle of sparkling water in the other hand. I’ll admit that the sparkling water was going a bit overboard, but this was a celebration after all.

  After I made my way through the empty reception area, which was decked out in soft creams and browns with matching sofas, I swung a left down the corridor that ran past the busy underwriter’s office. Hacker called out a ‘Yo’ as I weaved past him and deposited my feast on my desk – if you could call it a desk; it was more like a slightly oversized coffee table. He sat surrounded by various monitors and computer equipment, arranged in an arc in front of him. It looked like something from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

  Hacker had to be the least techy-looking guy I’d ever seen. He was black, over six and a half feet tall, with two plaits sticking straight out from the top of his head and a goatee beard. He wore a hoodie three sizes too big, jeans that were so baggy they defied the laws of gravity, and he looked more like a gangster rapper than a computer expert. I’d heard that Brad met him when they were in the SAS together, and he was from somewhere like Haiti or Tahiti – I always got those two mixed up. Rumor had it that even though Brad had started Hi-Tec, he was still involved in his Secret Army Stuff from time to time. I didn’t believe it was just a rumor, though. I knew first-hand about Brad disappearing for months on end.

  ‘Yo back. Want a mochacino?’ I wiggled a cup in his direction.

  Hacker stopped tapping on his keyboard and glanced over at my desk. ‘Don’t you know that stuff will kill you? Your body is a temple.’ He circled his arms in the air and pressed his palms together, slowly bringing his hands to the center of his body, doing some kind of yoga deep breathing.

  More for me then, yay. ‘Sparkling water?’

  ‘That’s more like it.’ He grinned, and a gold tooth shined back at me. ‘How do you stay so thin, eating like that?’

  ‘I guess I’m just lucky that I’ve got skinny genes,’ I said as I tossed him the water, which he caught with a swift flick of the wrist. ‘Is Brad here?’ I glanced across the corridor to Brad’s empty office.

  ‘No, he’s at a secret meeting,’ Hacker said as he fiddled around with a weird-looking electronic contraption in front of him, which looked a lot like a mixing deck one might expect to find in a recording studio. ‘He left those files on your desk.’

  I picked up the two folders. One
was for a Callum Bates, and the other was for a guy named Paul Clark. I’d never heard of Clark, but Callum Bates was a very familiar name. I’d come across him in my days as a young police officer, way back before I’d joined the special operations team. If anything was going down in the area that involved car crime – jacking, theft, cloning, you name it – Callum was involved. I studied the file and chuckled. He’d recently put in an insurance claim for a stolen van. No wonder Brad wanted me to check it out to make sure it was genuine. Callum had probably nicked it himself.

  Setting aside the Bates file for now, I perused my way through the Clark information. Apparently, Mr. Clark had put in a claim for a disability insurance payout, asserting that he’d hurt his back in a warehouse accident and couldn’t work again. Brad wanted me to do some observations on him to make sure Clark wasn’t faking it. OK, so the work wasn’t exactly exciting special police operations, but at least I could afford my apartment now.

  Standing up, I stuffed the files in my rucksack. I couldn’t eat a celebratory lunch on my own, so I gathered everything together once again and struggled back out the door.

  ‘Yo,’ Hacker said as I left.

  I popped my head back around the door. ‘Does that mean hello or goodbye?’

  ‘Anything you want it to mean. It’s pretty universal.’

  You learned something new everyday. ‘Cool. By the way, why isn’t there a receptionist here?’

  ‘Brad fired her. She kept making mistakes. He’s looking for another one.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Yo, then.’

  ****

  After a slight accident of spilled mochacino on my passenger seat, I arrived at my parents’ house. Mum’s sporty Mini wasn’t in the driveway – no change there, really. She was always gallivanting off with her mates. Not that I blamed her, really. I mean, Dad had lived and breathed for his job as a police officer, and she had to find something to occupy her time all these years when he wasn’t there. Just because he was now retired, she saw no reason to change her routine.

  On the other hand, Dad’s reliable old Land Rover was in the same position it’d been in since he’d retired from the force. He hadn’t left the house for months, and it was getting just a little too weird now. An uneasy feeling crept up my spine and I remembered having read some survey once that said as soon as workaholic police officers retired, they tended to keel over and go to that big police station in the sky. OK, maybe not exactly the day after, but it was pretty clear that the ones who were obsessed with work started to unravel as soon as they went back to a normal civilian life.

  I let myself in with the key I’d had since I was a kid and dumped my rucksack on the floor, wandering into the living room.

  ‘Dad?’

  Once an energetic, confident man, Dad now spent his days slumped in his favorite armchair. He stared out at the neglected garden with blank eyes, a barely touched cup of tea held loosely in his hand. He looked disheveled and old, and he wore tatty old slippers on his feet. I drew closer and grimaced at the sight of the stained cardigan he was wearing. God, what were those stains? Fried egg, I thought. At least, I hoped it was fried egg.

  ‘DAD!’ I repeated loudly as I unwrapped his hand from around the mug.

  He turned toward me, as if noticing my arrival for the first time.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘Walking the dog,’ he said.

  ‘What, in the car?’

  He gave a helpless shrug.

  ‘Right, first you’re going to eat something, and then we’re going to have a little chat.’ I waltzed into the kitchen, dropped off the mug, and grabbed a couple of plates. Back in the living room, I handed him a panini. ‘Here.’

  ‘I’m not hungry, love.’

  ‘Sorry, not taking no for an answer.’ I glared at him until he started nibbling around the edges, and soon he was devouring the sandwich.

  ‘You need to get a hobby, Dad,’ I told him when we finished eating. ‘You can’t just sit around the house all day moping. I know it’s tough, giving up the job. No one knows that better than me, and I didn’t even give it up voluntarily. But if I can get over it, then you can, too.’

  ‘And what sort of hobby am I going to do? I don’t know anything else except policing.’

  I racked my brains, trying to think. ‘What about origami?’

  ‘Boring.’

  ‘Tiddlywinks? They have tiddlywinks in the Olympics now.’

  He yawned.

  ‘Cookery?’ I said.

  ‘Have you tasted my cooking?’

  Hmm, probably not a good idea. Dad’s cooking was so bad, he had even managed to burn the toaster somehow. No, not the toast – the actual toaster. My parents had been through about twenty toasters in my lifetime. ‘How about train spotting? That’s a bit safer.’

  ‘That would just remind me of the job.’

  ‘How would train spotting remind you of the police?’

  ‘When I was about thirteen, I used to go train spotting with my old friend, Jeremy. I have such fond memories of us noting down all the train numbers. We would bet each other on whether the trains would be on time or not, wagering cookies, candies and the like. Unfortunately, Jeremy had suicidal tendencies, and decided to impale himself on the front of the three-thirty to Paddington. Anyway, that was what made me want to join up, and why train spotting reminds me of the job.’ He let out a heavy sigh.

  I blinked. ‘OK, well what about…’ I paused, looking around the room for inspiration. Flower arranging? No, too girly. Crocheting? No, too grannified. ‘Aha! What about this?’ I grabbed a neighborhood watch leaflet. The group was advertising for volunteers. I waved it in front of his face.

  He snatched it from my hand to prevent having his eye poked out with it.

  ‘That’s just what you need.’

  He read the leaflet slowly, a spark igniting in his sleepy eyes. ‘Yes!’ He leapt out of the chair. ‘I can teach them proper surveillance techniques instead of the usual old twaddle they try and do. We used to make fun out of them down at the station, but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?’

  ‘See, there you go. You just need something to keep you active.’

  ‘Yes, I can see it now. This is going to be the best neighborhood watch program in…’

  ‘The neighborhood?’ I volunteered.

  ‘Yes! Why don’t we celebrate? I’ve got a nice bottle of bubbly in the fridge.’

  I kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’d love to, Dad, but I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’d better sort out my surveillance kit then.’ He rushed off upstairs.

  I let myself out to the sound of Dad banging around in the cupboards with excitement.

  ****

  I parked my car outside Paul Clark’s house, where I had a good view into his 1920s semi-detached house, and studied the photo in his file. Unless you looked closely, it was hard to tell the difference between Clark and the Honey Monster. The only distinguishing feature I could see was that his bushy beard and mop of hair wasn’t quite as yellow as the Honey Monster’s. He was huge – well over six feet tall – with bug-eyes and a wide, gaping mouth. Apparently, he had five children – five, ouch! – and he’d worked at a warehouse for ten years before his accident. He had fallen off the forklift while unloading a palette of baked beans, which caused damage to his lumbar vertebrae. A doctor’s report said he wasn’t able to work again, but for some reason, Brad had doubts. Was Clark telling the truth or not? That’s what I was here to find out. I sat back in my seat and waited.

  After an hour, and with no sign of life in the house, I decided to speak to the neighbors. Grabbing a clipboard and a cap with British Gas written on it, I made my way up to the other half of the semi and knocked on the door.

  A young woman answered, a cigarette hung precariously between her lips. She was carrying a screaming baby on her hip.

  ‘Aaaagh!’ the baby wailed, loud enough to crack a dent in my eardrum.

  ‘Shut up!’ the woman snapped at the baby. ‘Bl
oody kids.’

  ‘Hi, I’m from British Gas.’ I smiled, even though the overwhelming smell of baby poop forced my throat to constrict. I eyed the full-to-bursting nappy on the baby’s bottom. This was going to put me off peanut butter for life. ‘I’m looking for your neighbor, Paul Clark. Do you know where he is?’

  She snorted. ‘What’s he done this time? He’s always up to something. Sneaky little buggers, those Clarks. Five kids they’ve got, and they can’t look after any of them. If you ask me, his wife’s a few pork pies short of a picnic, if you know what I mean.’ As she wiggled her lips, a lump of ash fell off the end of her cigarette and landed on her stained top.

  ‘There’s just a small problem with his gas bill payments, probably because he’s not working at the moment. I just need to verify a few things with him.’

  ‘He is working. I’ve seen him going off to work every day.’

  ‘Oh, really? Do you know where?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. He works at that big Asda supermarket in town. You’ll find him stocking shelves somewhere.’

  ‘Great, thanks, you’ve been a big help.’ I nodded at her and hurried my way back to the car, where the air was clear of deadly toxins.

  ****

  This was going to be a piece of cake. I would just sneak around, posing as an inconspicuous shopper, and snap a few pictures of Clark stacking shelves. Why had I been so worried about this job? It was ridiculously easy.

  I heaved through the horde of shoppers, scanning the crowd for signs of any shelf-stocking activity. There was nothing going on in the fruit and veggie aisle, so I picked up a bag of bananas and wandered off in search of Clark. The bakery section was quiet and boring, except for the yummy smell of freshly baked bread. Ditto for the condiments aisle, the dairy aisle, and the cereal aisle. Maybe there was a special time of day when all the shelf-stockers were let out in a frenzy, and I’d missed it.

  I stood in front of the toiletries with the idea that if I stood there long enough, Clark would come to me. I could wait until closing time if need be, no problem.

  As it turned out, I lasted about ten minutes. I was reading the directions on a box of teeth-whitening strips when I heard a rustling sound coming from my bag of bananas. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bananas begin to move.