Like Father, Like Son

by Sarah Masters

  Nice tailoring, that suit. Off-the-rack but nice all the same. I need to buy a couple more new ones. Mine are going bare at the elbows. Fuck’s sake.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if that turns out to be the case. Just the one fella’s fingers, I mean,” Matt said. “The fingers being hacked off lately have belonged to only the one person, haven’t they.” Not a question, a fact. Several had been discovered the last couple of days in public places, all of varying lengths. This one was the longest yet.

  “Bloody frustrating that we can’t find who used to have them on his hand.” Aaron grimaced. The expression spoiled his good looks. “Then again, he’s a criminal, however loosely the term applies to him, so he’s possibly in hiding, providing whoever’s removing his digits has finished torturing him. And it can’t be anything else but torture. A way to make him speak, give up his secrets and whatnot. Punish him.”

  “Forensics say he’s alive when the fingers are cut off, so I’d say he’s still with whoever he’s pissed off. This is the fifth finger. Three more to go, plus two thumbs. Or maybe the other ones haven’t been found yet.”

  “Maybe.”

  Matt thought about the fingerless criminal in question. Robby Zeus, some young lad who reckoned he was a hotshot. Went around the city as though he owned the place, strutting about scaring a few people here and there, suspected of collecting drug money, the usual low-level gang member who had aspirations to climb the ladder to the top. Or as close to it as he could get, anyway. Typical egotistical tosser, but one Matt had always had a soft spot for. The lad, despite the vibe he gave off, was a fish out of water, really, playing at being one of the big boys. It didn’t suit him, and Matt wondered how long it would be before Zeus realized there were better things to do with his time.

  Or if he ever will.

  “Zeus isn’t exactly your hardcore criminal, though, is he?” Matt said. “Deep down, I think he’s all outward bravado. Just some kid messed up because his father wasn’t in the family home from when Zeus was young. I understand how he feels on that score—a father disappearing on you can have quite an effect on how you view life.”

  “Yeah, but a father pissing off doesn’t mean you have to turn out bad, does it? Look at you. You’re all right. You got past it.”

  Matt nodded. “I did, but it still hurts from time to time. Wondering where he went. Why he just vanished like he did—why he didn’t get help. Anyway, enough of that.” Matt was well-aware of how he’d compartmentalized his past. There were things he’d rather not think about. He was also aware of how he’d romanticized things, making them fit his ideal better. In short, he’d lied to himself a lot just to get through. Better that than dwell on unpleasantness. Better to imagine his father hadn’t had a choice when he’d fucked off. “Back to business. The gang Zeus is with don’t cause that much fuss. Don’t dip their toes into the bigger waters where The Hardarms swim. And anyway, why would The Hardarms want to hurt Zeus? What’s he been up to in order to be on their radar? If that’s even the case.”

  The Hardarms. Who the fuck makes these gang names up?

  “Hmm.” Aaron nodded. “The Jugulars—always makes me want to laugh, that one—tend to stay on the fringes, don’t they. Although I did hear word earlier that they want to expand their horizons. Take over a bit more of the city. There’s even been talk of a half and half split, although I doubt The Hardarms will allow that. Not when they have it in mind to take over the whole city and nudge The Jugulars out. Maybe The Hardarms got wind of the gossip and took exception. Maybe Zeus has been the one doing the gossiping.”

  “Now there’s a thought…” Matt shook his head. “Like I haven’t pondered all that myself.”

  “Bit of a grumpy shit this morning, are we?” Aaron said, his grin infuriating, his wink even more so.

  “Who likes having a phone call immediately after a good shag?” Matt said quietly. “I know I bloody don’t. Interrupts the post-coital glow, and that never makes me happy. Then there’s this kind of shit.” He gestured to the reception desk, to the fingertip. “Hardly the kind of thing I thought I’d be signing up for when I joined the police force.”

  “Hazard of the job, having sex interrupted—or no sex at all. And what the hell did you think you’d signed up for? A picnic in the bloody park?” Aaron stared down at his shoes.

  Black. Shiny. Custom-made on account of Aaron having wide feet and fallen arches. Nothing in the shops gave him comfort, so he’d said, and being on his feet all day, the man apparently needed comfort.

  “Is something else bothering you, making you moody?” Aaron asked. “Arse sore, is it?”

  Matt stiffened his spine. This man of his. Jesus… “Keep your sodding voice down, will you?”

  Aaron laughed and strode away, toward the receptionist. Matt sighed and followed. Interviewing her might well end up being a trial, what with the state she seemed to be in and the minxy mood Aaron seemed to be in. She held a crumpled pink tissue, worrying it with both hands. Her eyes were red-rimmed, lashes wet, her mouth downturned as if she’d been given a free pass into the fairground of horror. He reminded himself that the average person didn’t take well to seeing body parts that weren’t attached to people.

  Tends to give a bit of a fright, that.

  “Thanks, Jacobs,” Matt said. “You can man the door now until someone else turns up to relieve you.”

  PC Jacobs rose and gave Matt the kind of glance that expressed caution might be in order while talking to the woman. Matt nodded his thanks for the heads-up then perched beside her. The sofa might be soft, but being seated chafed his arse.

  “Olivia Anderson, isn’t it?” he asked.

  She turned to him. Shit, she was beautiful close up—about thirty, skin flawless, eyes a lovely deep blue. Her bottom lip quivered, smoothing out of the pout he’d clocked earlier. Poor cow probably needed a damn good hug but Matt wasn’t the man to give it. Jacobs was the bloke for that kind of thing.

  “Yes,” she said, “that’s right.”

  “Can you just talk me through your morning so far? Sorry if you’re going to be repeating yourself, but I’d like to know what happened from your perspective.”

  Matt glanced up at Aaron, who was supposed to have his notebook in hand but didn’t. Matt widened his eyes to prompt his partner to get it out. Aaron ignored him, the fucker, widening his own eyes in response.

  Him and his bloody challenges against authority.

  “I came in as usual,” Olivia said.

  Matt returned his attention to her.

  “I hung my coat up out the back in the room behind my desk. It’s kind of like a staff room. I made a cup of coffee. Signed the employee log book.” She counted off on her fingers. “Then I came out here to relieve Katrina from the night shift but she wasn’t there.”

  “Is that unusual?” Matt asked.

  “No.” A telltale micro expression, a tic beside her eye—Olivia wasn’t happy with Katrina, probably never had been. “She… It seems she goes off shift whenever it takes her fancy, like she’s allowed to do that without having to check with management first. She’d signed the logbook as having left at eight, but she’d obviously gone earlier. I should have known she’d done that again—her car wasn’t in the parking lot out the back.”

  If this finger discovery were an isolated case, Matt might have been suspicious about that. But it wasn’t isolated, and Katrina’s behavior was probably just what it appeared—some woman sneaking off work early after a long, boring night, nothing more.

  “Carry on,” Matt said. “But take your time. If you need a moment to pause, just say so. You’ve had a shock and you might need to have a breather.”

  “Okay. Thank you. I didn’t see it at first.” Olivia shuddered. “The finger. I was… I was too busy fuming about Katrina and wondering whether I should grass her up to the overall manager this time, not just the shift manager. He’s called Mr. Catlow and he’s…not really management material. And she doesn’t take her job seriously, and it makes m
e cross. Because we don’t have any passwords or log in pages, anyone could go behind the desk and look things up on our computer when there’s no one manning reception, couldn’t they? Credit card information, addresses, things like that. Things that ought to be private. What if someone had their details stolen? It’s hardly good for our reputation, is it?”

  Rambling. Shock. And as for the hotel’s reputation… This place has one, but not for being somewhere you’d want to book in to.

  “All right, forget about Katrina for a minute,” Matt said. “What happened next?”

  She shuffled as though to get more comfortable. “Well, I sat down ready to see who’d checked out before I’d arrived so I knew which rooms needed a maid, and it caught my eye. So I looked up at the higher part of the reception desk and…saw it.”

  “Bit of a nasty surprise I imagine, eh?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t know what it was, couldn’t work it out. At first I thought it was… Oh, God, this is going to sound so stupid. A sausage. I thought it was the end of a raw sausage.”

  Matt bit his bottom lip. He couldn’t be doing with laughing in a situation like this. It wasn’t bloody funny, but the image of a raw sausage in his head and the idea of someone randomly putting it on a desk wasn’t helping him to remain composed. If he looked at Aaron now…

  He cleared his throat. “Easy thing to think.”

  “So, I thought Katrina had decided to play one of her tricks,” Olivia said. “She does them a lot. Childish, she is, and she tries to wind me up every day and I don’t know why. Maybe she’s bored or something. Because doing the night shift is boring. I’ve done it before and didn’t like it.” She sighed. “I’m so tired of her, you know?”

  “I imagine working with a trickster can be tiring.” Matt glanced up at Aaron, giving him a pointed stare, not that it would do any good. “Still, this isn’t one of her jokes, although I suspect you wish it was.”

  “Do I ever.” She sniffed. “I just want to rewind, you know? Start the day again. Anyway, when I realized it was a finger, I thought it was one of those rubber things left over from Halloween. We had a party here, see—it was a brilliant night.” She smiled, staring into the middle distance as though memories of the night in question floated through her head. “And I was about to pick it up and throw it in the bin but something stopped me. It looked too real. And then there was the ruler beside it, and that was really odd, so I… I rang the police. Something inside me knew this wasn’t right.”

  “Is there no manager here this morning? Is that why you telephoned the police instead of reporting it to your superior first?” Matt asked.

  Olivia pursed her lips into that pout again. “No, no manager as yet. Although he’s supposed to be here. He’s…well, he’s probably in one of the rooms with Katrina. She’ll have moved her car so I’ll think she’s gone home, but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen her sneaking out long after she’s meant to have already left. Then Mr. Catlow miraculously appears and—”

  “I get the picture.”

  Oh, the lives people lead…

  “Two seconds, love,” he said then turned to Thax. “Get a uniform or two to check all the rooms, please.” He smiled at Olivia. “Carry on.”

  “There was no one around,” Olivia went on. “No other staff member, which means they’re all bloody late. Again. And no one had checked out since yesterday afternoon.”

  Matt had a moment where he felt pity for her. “Do you feel you may as well run this place by yourself?”

  “Yes, and I’m getting sick of it, to be honest.”

  “I’m sure you are. Now, is there CCTV we can take a look at?”

  “No. Cameras, but they’re just for show.”

  Shit.

  “So there aren’t any where you leave your vehicle, or out the back in the customer car park?”

  “No.” The tissue rustled between her ever-moving fingers. “You will catch whoever left that finger there, won’t you? I’m scared they’ll come back. With something else. Something…more.”

  “We’ll do our best, Miss Anderson. Is there someone who can be with you today? I doubt very much you’ll be doing much work. We’ll have forensics here shortly, and the reception will be closed off to the public for a while.”

  “Morning, Olivia!” someone said, bright and breezy.

  “That’s Mr. Catlow,” Olivia whispered.

  Ah, bright and breezy after shagging the receptionist, no doubt.

  “You stay there,” Matt said. “I’ll deal with him.”

  Matt rose and approached Mr. Catlow, who gave Matt a beaming smile—one designed to put customers at ease?—but his tombstone teeth gave Matt the fucking creeps. The bloke was rail slim, his features narrow and pointed. A sweep of thinning brown hair liberally doused in some kind of product had been combed across the top of his head, the shiny scalp visible beneath. He looked like he’d be well at home playing a sinister character in a pantomime, not a hotel manager.

  “Detective Inspector Blacksmith,” Matt said, holding out the obligatory hand but wishing he hadn’t.

  Catlow took it, his skin clammy, and Matt told himself the man had recently washed his hands and the dampness wasn’t the result of anything else.

  “Oh.” Catlow’s smile disappeared. “What can I help you with?”

  Matt jerked his head in the direction of the desk. “As you can see, someone’s left a present.”

  Catlow let go of Matt’s hand—thank God for that—and turned to stare at the desk.

  “Oh,” he said again. “Oh dear.”

  Matt wiped his palm on his suit jacket, warning himself not to shudder. “I’m afraid this is part of an ongoing investigation. This area of the hotel will be off-limits for a few hours.”

  Catlow gave Matt his attention. “That’s unfortunate.”

  “Just a little.” And, because he didn’t like what he’d seen and heard of Catlow so far, Matt decided to take a leaf out of Katrina’s book. Let a little of whatever devil resided in her, reside in him. “Where were you between the hours of six and eight this morning, sir?”

  “What?” Catlow widened his eyes. “You can’t seriously think I put that finger there, can you?”

  Matt glared at him. “Just answer the question, Mr. Catlow.”

  “I was…well, I most certainly wasn’t down here, I can assure you.” Catlow was the type to go on the defensive when flustered, it seemed.

  “Can you give me proof of that?” Matt asked, narrowing his eyes on purpose. “I’ve been informed there’s no CCTV, so you’ll need an alibi.”

  “Pardon?” Catlow’s mouth sagged. He licked his bottom lip, leaving a wet sheen.

  “I said—”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Catlow sighed. He leaned forward so his mouth was close to Matt’s ear. “I was upstairs with…um…with an employee. We’re uh… Well, you know how it is. My wife…she can’t know.”

  Matt took a step back and gave what he hoped was a disgusted glare. “I see. Hmm. And this employee is where now?”

  “She’s gone. I imagine she left before I came in here, like she always does.”

  “Katrina by any chance?” Matt asked.

  Catlow’s mouth opened and closed several times. “Oh, God, how did you know?”

  Was the man dim-witted? Could he not put two and two together? Matt had been talking to Olivia when Catlow had waltzed in. It didn’t take a rocket scientist…

  “I guessed,” Matt said. “She wasn’t at the desk when Miss Anderson arrived, and neither were you.”

  Catlow scrubbed a hand down his face. Funny how the appearance of a chopped-off finger was the last thing on the shift manager’s mind. He was too busy wanting to save his own skin rather than have sympathy for the person the finger had belonged to.

  Wankers, so many of them in the world.

  Bored with playing, Matt said, “We’ll need to speak to her. Verify your whereabouts. I want you to give her contact details to PC Jacobs, over by the door there, so h
e can follow this up for me. In the meantime, you have a job on your hands making sure guests do not come in here to check out. Some other way of doing that will have to be arranged, and they can only leave if given the go-ahead by an officer. And I want you to give a list of people staying at the hotel to PC Jacobs.” He turned from Catlow, saying over his shoulder, “Oh, and Miss Anderson here will need a few days off. Paid leave would be advisable. She’s had a terrible shock.”

  Olivia gawped at him then switched her gaze to Catlow, who eyed her with something akin to annoyance. Did the man not give a shit about anyone except for himself? Then she shifted her attention to Matt. He winked at her. Time away from this place seemed just what she needed.

  “If you think of anything else, Miss Anderson, don’t hesitate to get in touch.” Matt handed her his card and, with Aaron chuckling behind him, he left the hotel.

  Chapter Two

  Sod’s law. If something went wrong, it went wrong with the worst possible outcome. Robby Zeus had heard his ma say the phrase a lot, and he hadn’t really understood it until six of his fingers had been lopped off.

  His hands throbbed like a son of a bitch. Last time he’d seen them they’d been bloated and red. What was left of his digits were now swaddled in bandages. At least they’d had the decency to do that. The Hardarms had a reputation for being hard bastards—hence the name—yet although Robby had been tortured, there’d still been an element of humanity about a couple of members who had come to check on him over the past few days.

  Robby would prefer to work for The Hardarms if he were honest—it had been his aim all along. The Jugulars were all right, but they didn’t have much oomph, even though they boasted they’d go for the jugular every time.

  Do they fuck.

  Robby was unsatisfied with the way things were going with the gang. He needed a bit more meat to his work bones, not the thin phalanges he currently had to deal with. It was like getting chicken wings on his plate when he’d ordered a breast. Nothing he could sink his teeth into. No enjoyment.