Death Warmed Up

by John Paxton Sheriff

‘Yes, but isn’t the boat Wise owns a Sunseeker 66? Worth a bloody fortune. If he’s short of cash surely he could sell that rather than turn to a life of crime.’

  ‘Except that what I just said was a trifle misleading. Charlie doesn’t actually own the boat; he had one that was much smaller but apparently there’s some sort of arrangement in place. Whether that’s straightforward leasing, or the use of the Sunseeker for certain services rendered… .’

  Reg shrugged his shoulders. He picked up the old drink, drained it and leaned back in his chair holding the one in which fresh ice tinkled in time with his pulse.

  ‘So who’s the boat’s real owner?’ Sian said.

  Reg grinned.

  ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘Not Bernie Rickman?’

  ‘Who else? But that’s just another snippet of useless information. Interesting, yes, but I’ve been merrily digressing and you still haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Pru,’ I said slowly, ‘is Prudence Wise.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Reg said.

  ‘Yes, Charlie Wise is her father, as you’ve no doubt twigged, and what she’s been doing is taking risky photographs on board Rickman’s Sea Wind.’

  ‘Which brings us to why we’re here,’ Sian said. ‘We’ve been ribbing you something cruel, Reg, but you know damn well we look on you as a respected father figure, a seasoned campaigner on the international financial and art markets, so let’s put that to the test. Pru took pictures of a man aboard Rickman’s yacht. Since then she’s been threatened. We thought you might recognize him, so we brought along her computer.’

  The laptop clicked. Sian swung it open, pressed a couple of buttons and patted the seat next to her. Reg looked at me, winked. He went and sat as close to Sian as he could, placed an arm around her shoulders, squeezed.

  ‘By the way, I failed to mention that you’re also an incorrigible womanizer unwilling to admit he’s over the hill and well down the slippery slope,’ Sian said, and pointed at the screen. ‘That’s him, on Rickman’s boat, sitting in the shade. What d’you think?’

  ‘I think it’s amazing you’ve come all this way.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, if you click on the BBC News website, you’ll see why.’

  Sian did as instructed, waited a few moments – then her eyes widened.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she said, and cast a startled look in my direction. ‘That bloke Pru photographed is someone called Karl Creeny. This is an old picture they’ve dug up, looks like a mug shot, but it’s him all right. He’s a Liverpool hoodlum, Jack, and he’s wanted in connection with a recent robbery. Two million quid’s worth of precious gems was stolen from a well-known diamond merchant in Liverpool city centre.’

  ‘You know,’ Reg said, ‘you two really must be very, very careful.’

  ‘Us?’ I looked at Sian in mock amazement. ‘Really, Reg, I think you’re the one who should be watching his back.’

  Reg looked stunned. ‘Go on, tell me why.’

  ‘You operate on the fringes of a murky world and must run the most awful risks. Haven’t you ever badly miscalculated and brought the wrath of underworld villains down on your head? Gone desperately running for cover?’

  ‘The short answer is that perhaps I have, but I’m still here and in no danger, whereas at the moment you two are exposed and vulnerable.’

  ‘This is Gibraltar, Reg,’ Sian said, ‘sun-soaked outpost of the British Empire, tax haven—’

  ‘Yes, all right, safe as houses and I know you’re the bee’s knees, the dream team and all that rot, but sooner or later you’re going to come to grief. Everybody tends to snigger at those ex-pat crooks living in their white villas on the sunny Spanish Costas but, you know, they’re all pretty unsavoury characters. That’s how they make their dough. No scruples, and bloody vicious to boot.’

  ‘But we’ve done nothing to upset them, Reg.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Well… .’

  ‘Rickman’s after that young woman’s blood. He’s desperate to get his hands on those pictures she’s taken. That tells me he’s bound to be having her watched.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Sian said, grimacing. ‘So the watchers watching her will know we’ve got her laptop and they’ll now be watching us.’

  ‘Which explains the rusty Datsun,’ I said.

  Reg raised questioning eyebrows.

  ‘It sped past, headlights full on, the driver grinning like someone bloodthirsty looking forward to a killing. When we stopped here it pulled in ahead of us, turned around. It’s probably still there … waiting.’

  ‘There you are then,’ Reg said bluntly. ‘So, forgetting for the moment that your lives are in danger, what about it, old boy? Do you believe her story?’

  We’d already told Reg about our eventful evening, starting with Prudence Wise approaching me at the bar in the Eliott hotel, and finishing as the lift doors slid to behind her and Sian and I walked out into the night with her laptop. Reg’s sharp blue eyes had got brighter and brighter as the hint of intrigue began lifting him out of the minor doldrums, and he’d listened attentively to everything I said.

  And now he’d come up with a good question – the same one, in fact, that I’d asked myself a little earlier in the Eliott. We’d listened patiently to Pru Wise, smiled and nodded acceptance and understanding – but were we foolish to take her word for what was going on?

  ‘Well, the one thing we can’t dispute,’ I said, ‘is that she’s got photographs of Karl Creeny. So she was on Rickman’s yacht, she spent a couple of hours in the sun for which she got paid three thousand quid, and there’s no reason to doubt that the commission was arranged for her by Charlie.’

  ‘Yes, but if I’m right,’ Reg said, ‘then Charlie Wise is a bit of a shady character. Let’s assume Pru did take those pictures, and since then she’s been threatened. If the negotiations for the photographic session were done for her by her father, it would be interesting to know who first brought up the idea of a photo shoot.’

  ‘You mean did Rickman approach Charlie Wise, or was it the other way round?’

  ‘Exactly. And if it was Charlie’s idea, then we have to ask why he wanted his daughter clicking away on board Rickman’s yacht.’

  ‘If he had somehow heard in advance that Karl Creeny was, at some point, likely to be on board,’ Sian said slowly, ‘then an innocent young woman taking pics in the sun would be an excellent way of getting confirmation. She wouldn’t need to know her dad’s motives for getting her the job. She’d just merrily take a series of photographs. In the course of doing that, her dad hoped she’d provide him with proof that Creeny was there. Which she did.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Reg said, ‘but that brings me back to the point about believing the young woman. If Charlie did want photographs of Creeny, then surely hoping his daughter would get them by accident was a bit hit and miss? So, did she accidentally take those shots of Creeny lurking in the background, or was she working with her dad from the outset, and know exactly what she was after?’

  ‘And whether she was or she wasn’t,’ Sian said, ‘we already know why the photographs were taken, don’t we? Karl Creeny was involved in a Liverpool jewel robbery, was almost certainly Mr Big, the mastermind. So there can be only one reason for his sudden appearance here in Gibraltar.’

  ‘Because, one way or another,’ I said, ‘this is where the diamonds are going to turn up.’

  ‘And they,’ Reg said, ‘are what Charlie Wise is after.’

  ‘All very logical, very straightforward,’ I said. ‘But if Charlie Wise is after those stolen gems, what the hell are he and Adele doing umpteen miles away in Tangier?’

  Reg downed his drink, rattled the ice and looked thoughtful.

  ‘According to those news reports, Karl Creeny is known to have left the UK before the police could block all exits. He used his own passport, boarded a plane at Manchester, and he’s now reckoned to be somewhere in Morocco.’

  ‘Except that he’s not,’ Sian said, ‘but
Charlie Wise is. So, same question: if Charlie really is after those diamonds,’ she said, ‘then what the hell is going on?’

  Three

  Reg phoned for a taxi to take us back into town. Then we all descended the steps from the house. Trailing fronds of bougainvillea glistening with night dew brushed our shoulders, planted cool wet kisses on our cheeks. We emerged on the tiny off-road parking area, and sneaked a look to our right. The Datsun was still there. Reg stepped out into the road, stretched to his full height, and gave it the finger. The headlights flashed mockingly. Reg chuckled.

  ‘I wonder if it’s the local vicar waiting for his maiden aunt to finish a rubber of bridge?’ I said, grinning at Reg.

  ‘Wearing a bush hat, and driving a rust bucket with a souped-up engine?’ Sian said. ‘Yes, very likely.’

  Somehow, that short exchange between Reg and the Datsun had dispelled any sense of danger. Reg kissed Sian, slapped my shoulder and went back home while we waited under the stars in the scented cool of his off-road parking area. Sian gazed up at the luminous night skies, enchanted. They seemed to be rotating lazily above the Rock’s heights, and she swayed dizzily against me with a warm, tipsy giggle. I hugged her, my face nuzzling the warm silk of her hair.

  The cab arrived, different vehicle, different driver. The nearly new minibus with sliding side doors took perhaps three or four minutes to whisk us from Reg’s house down the long hill past the Rock Hotel to Main Street. On foot it would have taken at least four times as long, and at that time of night Europa Road was deserted. With the rusty Datsun purring somewhere behind us and the threat of hoodlums lurking in the shadows, it was definitely not worth the risk.

  At the taxi stand by Trafalgar Cemetery we left the cab. I dropped a jingle of pound coins into the driver’s palm and, feeling much safer in the bright lights of town, we walked without haste through the old stone arches of Southport Gates and along Main Street. There were plenty of people about, the air alive with talk and laughter, heady with the fragrance of flowering wisteria, trailing bougainvillea, and body lotion that had been liberally splashed on the heated skin of both sexes.

  Opposite Library Street, the Copacabana restaurant and bar was warmly lit and buzzing with life. Insisting she needed the exercise to clear her head, Sian pushed me down at one of the outside tables and set off briskly for the Eliott Hotel.

  By the time the two espressos I’d ordered had been placed in front of me on dainty paper doilies, she was back. Still carrying the laptop.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I said as Sian dropped into her seat, ‘Pru’s asleep, she wouldn’t answer the phone.’

  ‘Guess again.’

  ‘Different receptionist. You couldn’t convince her you were legit, and she refused to phone the room.’

  ‘You’re right, she wouldn’t. But why should she? The room’s empty. Unoccupied. There’s nobody there.’

  Daintily, Sian sipped her espresso and wiggled her eyebrows at me.

  ‘You’re kidding. You mean she’s checked out?’

  ‘I mean she’d already checked out when she was talking to us.’

  ‘So, when I was ordering drinks and she came tip-tapping over to lean close and appeal for help…?’

  ‘It was all part of a well-orchestrated scheme. As was her pretence at taking the lift. Her one piece of luggage was in a room behind reception. As soon as she thought we were clear of the hotel she collected it and walked out.’

  ‘Going where?’

  ‘Christ knows, but wherever it is she’s going by car. She had a hired Nissan Micra tucked away under the trees in the hotel’s small car park in Library Square.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know where the Micra’s taking devious Pru Wise, but it seems pretty clear we’ve been taken for a ride.’

  ‘Played like fish.’

  ‘Netted, landed, left pop-eyed and gasping.’

  ‘But not gaffed,’ Sian said, shuddering.

  ‘Don’t speak too soon.’ I grimaced. ‘That Datsun wasn’t hanging about for nothing. And you heard Reg. He’s convinced there are some evil characters out there, and thanks to Pru we’ve still got our sticky little hands on an incriminating laptop.’

  ‘But why did she do it?’ Sian said. ‘What was her game, what was it all in aid of?’

  ‘That’s more or less the same question you asked when we were leaving Reg. Her latest antics leave us even further away from the answer.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘What we don’t do is stroll casually down to Marina Bay. Rickman’s Sea Wind is moored next to Tim’s canoe. Flashing the Toshiba that close to the mob would be asking for trouble.’

  Sian chuckled. ‘The mob, he says, blasé. So, all right, what do we do, get rid of it? And I don’t mean drop it in the sea.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘It’s almost eleven. Think he’ll still be in his office?’

  ‘You know Romero. He considers any time before midnight to be early afternoon.’

  ‘Then let’s go to Irish Town and disturb his extended siesta,’ I said, and reached for my mobile phone.

  The heavy brass inkwells on DI Luis Romero’s antique mahogany desk glinted like tarnished gold in the green light from his banker’s lamp. The dapper Gibraltarian detective was sitting back in his leather swivel chair, just outside the circle of light. The shadows emphasized the expensive grey suit and crisp white shirt, his glossy black hair, the intelligent eyes with all the comforting softness of shiny agate.

  The laptop was open on his desk. The light from the screen flattened the hard planes of his lean face. It had taken us just a few minutes to tell him how we’d spent our evening. He had now been staring pensively at the photograph on the screen for more than a minute, one hand toying absently with the gold pen on his blotter.

  ‘It is a pity,’ he said at last, ‘that you did not bring this to us much earlier in the day.’

  ‘Couldn’t,’ Sian said. ‘If you’d been listening, darling, you’d know we didn’t get it ourselves till after dinner.’

  I was sitting in a hard chair some way back from Romero’s desk. Sian was curled languidly in one of the comfortably padded rattan chairs up against the dusty bamboo Venetian blinds covering the window. Her blue eyes were dancing. She was gently mocking Romero. He smiled benignly at her, shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘In any case,’ he said, ‘I am talking a lot of hot air. If, as you say, these pictures were taken yesterday and their existence quickly discovered, the jewel thief Karl Creeny will no longer be with us, the bird will have flown.’

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, yes, of course, there is this young woman… .’

  ‘Her name is Prudence Wise.’

  That got an unexpected reaction. Romero shot me a surprised glance, then a deep crease formed between his dark eyebrows as he frowned. He rocked his head from side to side, lips pursed, and there was a distant look in his eyes.

  ‘And this … Prudence,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘she was here in Gibraltar especially to take these photographs, and was staying at the Eliott hotel?’

  ‘I can’t be sure of anything. If what she was telling us was all a pack of lies— ’

  ‘Actually,’ Sian said, ‘we don’t know that she has lied to us at all. She told us her story, and at least part of it is backed up by those photographs Luis has been studying. Also, she looked really scared, and I’d say that was genuine. Okay, so she didn’t tell us she was checking out – but why should she? I mean, can’t you imagine the way her mind was working? She probably thought, sod this, if there’s somebody out looking for me with a razor, I’m going home.’

  Romero raised his eyebrows. ‘And she set off to drive all the way to England?’

  ‘I thought Malaga,’ Sian said. ‘There are more flights from there, and if it’s a Hertz rental she’s driving she could leave the car at the airport.’

  ‘What about this?’ Romero said. He flapped a hand at the computer, look
ed questioningly at me.

  I dismissed it with a shrug. ‘The photographs she needs will be on the camera’s memory card, and she’ll have them backed up on a flash drive. That Toshiba’s an old model. Prudence has been well paid, so why not dump it? It would get Rickman and that Liverpool villain off her back, which is what she wants.’

  ‘But it has not been dumped. She has given it to you, and with it, a big problem. I know for sure that Rickman is a crook who employs others who delight in using violence. If he is desperate to get his hands on these incriminating pictures—’

  ‘He’s out of luck. The problem is now sitting in the middle of your desk.’

  Romero snorted. ‘My desk is already overcrowded. I am here tonight because a body was discovered near the airport. The death was suspicious; there is the question of identification of victim and perpetrators.’ Again he shrugged. ‘But that is neither here nor there, it is not your concern. This, however’ – he flicked a finger at the screen – ‘despite your casual dismissal, is not something you can easily walk away from.’

  ‘Eleanor will be out of hospital tomorrow,’ I said carefully. ‘As far as I can see, with my dear old mother’s leg on the mend there’s nothing stopping us from returning to the UK.’

  ‘Are you foolish enough to imagine that, by leaving Gibraltar, you can put all of this behind you?’

  Sian sighed heavily.

  ‘Damn,’ she said softly. ‘It was bloody obvious that girl was up to something. We couldn’t work it out, thought she needed a couple of bodyguards for an hour or so – something like that. Were we miles out? Is there much more to it?’

  ‘Perhaps when looking for an answer you should take into consideration her parents.’

  ‘Charlie and Adele.’ Sian nodded. ‘She mentioned them – and I must admit she looked either acutely embarrassed, or plain blooming guilty. Jack and I were trying to work out why. Well, you’re acquainted with ex-diplomat Reg Fitz-Norton. That crafty old sod has his fingers in all sorts of pies, some of them with nasty smells, and Reg has Charlie down as seriously broke. With that in mind, Pru getting aboard Sea Wind to take pics just when this bloke Creeny was on board seemed like too much of a coincidence. We know her dad fixed it, so we were beginning to think Charlie might be after those stolen gemstones.’