by JL Simpson
“I think Maureen and Zut met at a music festival in Germany back in February.”
Solomon glanced up from his own computer screen. “Music festivals are huge. Were they on stage together?”
Daisy shook her head. “Nope.”
“Keep looking.”
She checked a few more links. “Apparently Zut and the Newtonians performed at a pub in Burley last night. Do you live in the New Forest?”
Solomon shrugged.
So, he lived in yuppy heaven. He must be making serious cash as a P.I. if he owned a house in Burley. She glanced at him. He was probably rocking the P.I. image and had a whole wardrobe of the Armani suits he seemed to favor and kept a sports car tucked away in his thatch-roofed garage.
Funny, she thought a large studio apartment with clean lines, steel and chrome everywhere would be more his thing than a cute country cottage. Perhaps he had a pretty wife and lots of baby Solomons stashed in the country. Although a happily married Solomon was unlikely, especially as some crazy bitch had been in the office screaming about him only the day before, and Daisy couldn’t imagine him cheating.
Her phone rang. She checked caller ID, but it said number withheld.
Solomon stepped up behind her. “Who is it?”
“Dunno.”
He held out his hand, and she gave him the phone. If it was the nutter who left the arm in her car she didn’t want to talk to him. She also didn’t want to think about how he could have her number.
Solomon accepted the call and held the phone to his ear. “Hello… She’s here… No problem.”
He handed her the phone. “It’s Dan Maloney.”
Daisy put the phone to her ear. “Dan?”
“I have some news about the owner of the arm. Any chance you can put this on speaker so Solomon can listen in?”
“Sure.”
She did as he asked and placed the phone on her desk before turning to Solomon. “Dan wants you to listen in.”
“We’ve got some more information about the arm. After checking missing persons we matched the tattoos to a twenty-year-old man from Manchester. We need to get a DNA sample from his parents, but I’d be surprised if it was anyone else.”
Solomon sat on the edge of Daisy’s desk and leaned toward the phone. “Who is he?”
“Michael Martin. His family said he went to London looking for work, but they haven’t heard from him for a month. He called home every Sunday, and when he didn’t phone, and they were unable to get a response from the emergency mobile they paid for, they reported him missing. From the discussion we’ve had with our colleagues at Scotland Yard, it seems he was moving from hostel to hostel and left London a week ago to try his luck down south.”
“Is he dead?” Daisy asked. Perhaps he’d been in an accident and the arm had to be amputated. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. The man had barely lived.
“The tests done on the arm say it was cut off postmortem. Solomon, it had been frozen.”
“Fecking hell. What have we walked into?”
Daisy glanced up at Solomon. His blue eyes had turned to steel, his jaw tight. “What don’t I know?”
Solomon shook his head. “Anything else, Dan?”
“No. I think you’ve got the picture. Have you got anything to share?”
Solomon blew out a breath. “I’ve got some suspicions about a Suetonius Ackroyd-Smyth. Otherwise known as Zut Smith, of the band Zut and The Newtonians. I’ll email you what we have. Any plans to offer Daisy protection?”
“Why do I need protection?”
“Solomon, can you explain the details? I can’t afford the manpower to watch her twenty-four seven, but I can get a patrol car to drive past her house as often as they can overnight. Paul needs to know she might have a murderer on her arse.”
Solomon nodded. “Fine. Leave it with me.”
Daisy couldn’t breathe. She grabbed the edge of the desk as the office began to blur and fade around her. A murderer? A murderer?
Her vision contracted to a pinprick, her chest burned as she fought for air, her stomach ached. She barely acknowledged her chair being yanked away from the desk or the warm hand on the back of her neck.
“Head down, Princess. Breathe, darlin’. Slowly…in…out…in…out. That’s my girl.”
Head between her knees, Daisy concentrated on the warm Irish brogue. The almost hypnotic tone and the rhythm of Solomon’s instructions slowed her breathing until she could draw air without pain, and her vision returned.
He removed his hand from her neck, and she slowly lifted her head, wary that the feeling might return. Solomon was squatting beside her. He smiled and pushed a loose curl of hair behind her ear. “That’s it, Princess. Are you back with us?”
“Hello?” Dan’s voice filled the office.
Solomon reached out, grabbed her phone, and put it to his ear. “Sorry. Daisy didn’t react so well to the news. How about we wrap this up? I’ll send you what we have, and then we can talk some more.”
Dan must have agreed. Solomon ended the call and put the phone back on the desk. “How about a cup of tea?”
Daisy gripped Solomon’s arm. “What was Dan talking about?”
“I’ll make us a cup of tea, and then we can talk about it.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Don’t worry, Daisy. No matter what, you’re safe. I would die before I’d let anything happen to you.”
His expression was solemn. She didn’t doubt his sincerity, but Solomon’s behavior was odd and strangely disturbing. She could handle trading insults, and even being polite, but he was morphing into a man she’d never met before. A man she could actually come to like.
“And all this time I had you down as a selfish git who only cared about himself and what he wanted. I never imagined you hid a desire to play knight in shining armor to my damsel in distress. Perhaps I should be offered protection against your charm offensive.”
Solomon lifted the corner of his mouth in a lopsided smile. “Don’t worry yourself, Princess. I’m not interested in seducing you. I’m just worried your old man will kick my arse.”
*
Solomon leaned against the countertop waiting for the kettle to boil. How had things got so bad so quickly? He thought getting Daisy to search for a missing heir would be a waste of time and drive her away; instead it had led to her becoming the focus of attention for a murderer.
Daisy wandered into the kitchen. “Did you go to Ceylon to pick the tea leaves?”
He glanced at the kettle, steam poured from the spout. It must have boiled while he was thinking. “Sorry, miles away.”
She pulled a chair out and sat watching as he took mugs out of the cupboard and made the tea. He shoveled sugar into one of the cups.
“Jeez. Someone has a sweet tooth. Why eat all that healthy crap, and then fill yourself up with sugar?”
Solomon lifted both mugs of tea. “It’s not for me, Princess.”
“I don’t take sugar in tea.”
“You do today. It’s good for shock. Shall we?” He nodded toward the door and waited for her to lead the way back to the office. Once she was sat at her desk he passed her the sweet tea. Leaving his cup on the edge of her desk, he crossed the room and locked the front door.
“Now drink up while I get things organized.”
“What things?”
“You’ll see.”
He grabbed a whiteboard from behind the cupboard and set it up on an easel stand next to Daisy’s desk. After a quick search of his drawers, he had a whiteboard eraser and three different colored markers.
He took a mouthful of tea and rolled his shoulders. “Okay, Princess. We’re going back over what you’ve been doing since Monday. I need to know who you’ve met, and what they know about what you’re doing.”
Daisy put her cup down with a grimace. “What did Dan mean? What don’t I know?”
Solomon inhaled and blew out a breath. “I met Dan the other morning to ask him to look into some information a
bout the insurance scam. We got to discussing the case he’s working on.”
“What case?”
“Two dead bodies have shown up in recent weeks. Young men. The killers went to a deal of trouble to try and hide their identities. They were both homeless and found semi-frozen.”
“Like the arm.” He watched the color drain from her face.
“Do you think I’ve met the killer?”
“Drink the tea, Daisy. I don’t want you keeling over again.”
She did as he said. After placing her cup on the desk she stared up at him, her green eyes vivid in her pale face. “I have, haven’t I? I’ve met whoever’s killing the poor bastards. Fuck.”
“No idea, but we’ve definitely rattled someone’s cage. Someone we’ve spoken to in the last few days knows something.”
She put her hand over her mouth and her huge eyes filled with tears.
If she fell apart now he had a feeling it would be the end of her for the day. They didn’t have time to waste, and if she wanted to work in this business she needed to toughen up. “Don’t you be crying again. I won’t be able to stand the nagging about my lifestyle if I have to ask my cleaner to launder two shirts to get rid of makeup this week.”
Daisy glared at him. “Heartless git.”
He smiled. “As may be, but I’m the heartless git that intends to find out what the feck is going on, and you’re going to help me. So, let’s get back to work.”
“Shouldn’t we just let Dan deal with it?”
“We’ll share our thoughts with the cops, but I can’t sit back and do nothing.”
“Because you want the money?”
“Because I promised Paul I’d look out for you, and so far I don’t appear to be doing a very good job. Although keeping you out of trouble would require the attention of more than one man.”
“I don’t go out looking for trouble.”
Solomon chuckled. “Of course you don’t, Princess.”
“Git.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Daisy stared at the whiteboard. The list of people who knew what she was doing was longer than she expected. Belinda, Cherry, Levi at the music shop, Zut, and she’d forgotten about Clive Lewis. Not to mention the principal of Langdon College.
Solomon tapped the bottom of the black marker against his chin. “Okay, so we have your list and mine.”
He was much more closed mouth. Other than John, the only other people on his list were Maureen and her manager, Jason.
After taking a mouthful of tea that must be almost cold, he stepped closer to the board and selected a blue marker. “Points of connection.”
“What?”
“Who knows who and how?”
“Levi knows Zut, because he put me on to him.”
Solomon drew a line between them and added the number one next to it before writing the connection as a footnote at the bottom of the board.
“Zut knows John and Jason, and John and Jason know each other.”
Solomon drew more lines, but the footnotes for those connections were a question mark.
“Maureen might know Zut.”
Solomon drew the line. “She knows him. We just need to find out how. We also know Zut is connected to Langdon College.”
Another line was added to the board with the footnote former student.
He glanced at her. “What about Clive Lewis?”
“What about him?”
“You worked for him?”
“Not for long.”
“What do you know about him?”
Daisy shrugged. “Not much. He’s a lawyer who specializes in crime. He mostly seems to work for the Maroni family.”
“Maroni? Organized crime Maroni?”
“That would be them.”
“Shite. And you never thought to mention this before?”
“Why would I?”
Solomon got busy writing notes on the white space on the right-hand side of the board.
“What are you doing now?”
“Adding a list of things we don’t know.”
“How can you list what we don’t know?”
“You’ll see.”
“And then what?”
“Then we’ll send what we do know to Dan, and come up with a way to find out what we don’t know.”
Solomon finished writing and stepped back. Daisy got to her feet and stood next to him. He’d added some names in red. Three she recognized as the men whose deaths were being investigated by the insurance company, and one was Lord Mardon. Michael Martin also made the list. Another two just said missing, homeless, mid-twenties. In all there were seven dead bodies, counting the owner of the arm.
Tobias and Elliott Wareham’s names were in the center of the board, along with the Somerset Club. Lines now flowed from name to name, resembling colorful spaghetti.
Daisy grabbed the black marker and added Gilbertson and Bolton, under Langdon College. They might not be connected, but they’d met as part of her investigation, and that boy Gilbertson was a thug.
Solomon pulled his phone from his pocket and took a picture. “I’ll send this to Dan.”
“That’s quite a list of what we don’t know.”
She read the list which included: Is the Ackroyd-Smith who belongs to the Somerset Club connected to Zut? Are Lord Mardon and/or his sons connected to the Somerset Club? Find connection between Jason and John, find connection between Zut, Jason, and John, and find connection between Maureen and Zut. Try to find any points of connection between deaths being investigated by the insurance company and others on the board. Check if Lord Mardon had a life insurance policy. Research Clive Lewis to see what connections he has to anyone else. Who is the father of Maureen’s baby?
Daisy sighed. “Don’t you have some whiz-bang computer program to keep track of all this shit?”
“I do.”
“Where?”
Solomon tapped the side of his head. “However, I also have a spreadsheet we can use, but not today.”
“No?”
“It’s getting late, and you’ve had a stressful day. I think I should be taking you home. Besides, we need to be telling Paul.”
“No, we don’t. If you tell him about me being the target of a murderer he’ll go mental.”
“And what are you planning to tell him about your missing car?”
“That it broke down.”
“And he’ll want to repair it.”
“It was stolen?”
Solomon lifted an eyebrow.
“Okay. I left it at the office, and I’ll collect it tomorrow.”
“And if the police won’t give it back?”
“I’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
“You need to tell him, Daisy.”
“Why can’t you leave it alone? You lied for me before.”
“That was different; no one was in danger. What if they know where you live?”
“If we tell Paul, he’ll stop me from helping you. I’m the key to all of this.”
She waved her arm at the whiteboard. “How can you solve it without me?”
Solomon smiled. “I’ve solved a few crimes in my time without you.”
“Not the point. You know I can help.”
“I still think you need to tell Paul. I’ll run interference and talk him down if he says you have to stop working with me.”
“What if you can’t? Let’s leave it for now. We might solve this before anything else happens. Surely they’re going to wait and see if the scare worked?”
“And when they see you still sniffing around they’ll know it didn’t. What if they try to get to you through your family?”
“That’s a low blow. You’re not playing fair.” She couldn’t risk Sherman and Paul.
“So you’ll tell him, then?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Solomon ran his hand over his short hair. “If you’ll not see sense, I give up. I’ll change out of this suit and be right with you. Don’t move.”
* * * *
Solomon guided his SUV up the driveway at Daisy’s house and pulled to a stop. Even before he’d switched the engine off she’d dived out the door. If she thought he was going to drive away and say nothing to Paul she was fecking stupid. He had the key out of the ignition, the vehicle locked, and was right behind her by the time she’d made it inside. Before she could slam the front door in his face he stuck his foot in the way.
“Thanks for the lift. See you tomorrow.” She shoved the door harder.
Paul appeared in the hallway, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “You’re home.”
Daisy glared at Solomon, before turning to greet Paul. Solomon stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and watched as Paul planted a hot one on his wife.
When they came up for air, Paul smiled at him. “You’re getting to be a regular visitor. I’m making curry. I’m just waiting for Sherman to get in from soccer practice in about half an hour, and then we can eat. Want to stay for dinner?”
Daisy shook her head. “He can’t. He has somewhere else to be.”
“Do I?”
“You do, remember?”
She glared at him, and he sighed. If he told Paul he lost her confidence and risked sending himself back to purgatory where she was concerned. If he kept silent and something happened, not only would Paul be devastated but so would Solomon, when Paul kicked him to the curb. What a fecking mess.
“A beer? Surely the man can stay for a beer?”
“Aye. A beer would be grand.”
Paul wandered back toward the kitchen. “Come through.”
Solomon followed, stopping when Daisy grabbed his arm. “I’m watching you.”
“You know it’s the right thing to do.”
“Not your call.”
“No, but it’s my job,”
“You’re not my keeper.”
“Yes, I am, Princess.”
Paul shouted through, “Are you two coming? I’ve got you a glass of white wine, Daisy.”
Solomon shook her off and strode into the kitchen, accepting the cool bottle of lager Paul offered him. He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. Daisy took the seat next to him and sipped her wine.
Paul stood at the stove stirring his curry, filling the room with its hot spicy scent. “So, how are you two going with finding the missing Lord Toby?”
