A Handsome Stranger

by P. F. Ford

  ‘Doesn’t seem to tell us anything we don’t already know,’ he said, disappointed. ‘There’s a name that might mean something to someone, but it means nothing to me. It’s probably a waste of time but here, see what you think.’

  He handed the fax back to Slater and retreated to his own desk. Slater set the fax down on his desk and read it through carefully. There was the name – Senka Ilic. Apparently she was significant in Slick Tony’s life at some stage but she had vanished without trace some years ago.

  ‘What is it with these people?’ he said to Jones. ‘This Senka Ilic is as bad as him. They’re all disappearing and then reappearing as someone else. Why would they do that?’

  ‘In my experience, people don’t disappear unless they’ve got something to hide, or they’re running away from something,’ said Jones, looking up from his desk. ‘So your question should be, what’s Senka Ilic hiding or running from, and where did she go?’

  ‘Suppose she’s here in Tinton? Perhaps that’s why Slick Tony’s here.’

  Jones looked at him as if he were slightly deranged. ‘Well, well. How could we all have been so stupid? We’ve all been scratching our heads wondering what to do, and all we had to do was check the phone directory for a local resident called Senka Ilic!’

  ‘Okay, okay. I was only thinking out loud,’ said Slater, defensively. ‘No need to get all sarcastic on me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jones, gloomily. ‘I just wish it was that easy. It’s like you said, why would he come to a tinpot little place like Tinton? It makes no bloody sense. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the real reason why.’

  Something was nagging away in the back of Slater’s mind. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but somewhere deep in the depths of his memory an alarm bell was beginning to ring. But why? What was he missing here?

  ‘Can I ask you something, guv?’

  ‘Go on, fire away,’ said Jones.

  ‘Do you trust your hunches?’

  ‘Of course I do. Our job relies on us having instincts and hunches. You should always listen to your gut.’

  ‘Well, my gut’s telling me Senka Ilic is important. It’s telling me I’m missing something that’s right under my nose. It’s-’ His mouth dropped open. The penny had dropped. He knew who Senka Ilic was.

  ‘Stupid bloody moron,’ he swore to himself.

  ‘Sergeant?’ said Jones indignantly.

  ‘Sorry. Not you, sir. It’s me. I’m the bloody moron. I knew that name rang a bell.’

  ‘You’re losing me.’ Jones’ irritation was clear.

  ‘The woman, sir. Senka Ilic. I know who she is. I’ve met her. She lives right here in Tinton.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. She has a new identity now. Her name’s Sophia Ingliss. She’s Alfie Bowman’s girlfriend.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  It’s a weird thing – even though Sophia and I were next door neighbours, we sometimes went for days without seeing each other. We didn’t plan it that way, that’s just how it was, and it never really bothered me before. However, now we had made a conscious agreement to keep away from each other for a few days, it did bother me. It bothered me a lot.

  I had spent most of the day trying to write, but there was no chance of doing that all the time my head was full of concern for Sophia. I felt sure she was in danger and that I should be there by her side. But if I was with her, would it put her in even greater danger? Arrggh! What the hell should I do? It had only been one day and it was driving me mad already.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my doorbell ringing. I suppose I was hoping it would be Sophia at the door, so I was rather disappointed to find Dave Slater and Jimmy Jones facing me as I opened the door. There were no smiles on their faces.

  ‘I take it this isn’t a social call?’

  ‘Can we come in, Alfie?’ asked Dave Slater. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘We do?’

  ‘Please,’ he said. He looked genuinely worried, and I knew they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t think it was important.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ I said, stepping back to let them in. Slater led the way through to my lounge. I closed the door and followed.

  ‘So what’s this about?’ I asked.

  ‘Is Sophia Ingliss here, Mr Bowman?’ It was Jones who asked the question.

  ‘This is all a bit formal, isn’t it?’ I was beginning to feel uneasy now.

  ‘Is Ms Ingliss here?’ he insisted.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ I answered, my irritation quite clear. ‘What’s this all about?’

  Slater could obviously sense that DI Jones was getting my back up.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘let’s all sit down and I’ll explain why we’re here.’

  Jones exchanged a look with him that suggested they would be having words later, but Slater ignored the silent threat and focused his attention on me. Once we were comfortable, he told me what they’d discovered.

  ‘We came over to speak to Sophia,’ he finished, ‘but her niece told us she came round to see you about half an hour ago.’

  ‘No. She’s not here. I haven’t seen her since yesterday evening.’

  This was a worrying turn of events. Where had Sophia gone? And why would she lie to Jelena about where she was going?

  ‘Are you sure about all this?’ I asked.

  ‘We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t sure, Alfie, now would we?’

  No, I realised, of course they wouldn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just come as a bit of a shock, that’s all. But now a lot of things start to make sense.’

  ‘What things?’ asked Jones.

  ‘Well, it started on the night I first saw Slick Tony. Remember I told you he made the finger gun and pointed it at me?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Well, when I got home I didn’t have my keys. Sophia has a spare so I went round there to borrow it. She was upset about something. I thought it was just because I had got her out of bed, but it turns out she’d had a phone call from her ex-husband.’

  ‘She’s been talking to Slick Tony and you didn’t tell us?’ Jones was aghast.

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t know it was him at the time, did I? As far as I knew it was just some bloke hassling his ex-wife.’

  ‘Go on, Alfie. What happened next?’ said Slater, stepping in to avert an argument.

  ‘Next, I got a threatening phone call warning me to keep away from Sophia because she’s married and her husband isn’t happy about our relationship. He didn’t threaten anything specific but he said we’d both come to harm if I didn’t end it.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I went round to see Sophia to ask her what the hell was going on. That’s when she told me about the phone call she’d had in the beginning. We also realised that for him to know so much about us he must have someone watching us. He even said he would know if I had been round to see her.’

  ‘So where’s Sophia now?’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue. When I left her last night, we agreed we’d not see each other for a few days so that if we are being watched, it will look as though we’re doing as we’ve been told. In the meantime, we were going to try to figure out what we could do about it.’

  ‘All this bloody time,’ said Jones, his annoyance crystal clear, ‘you and Ms Ingliss have been talking to the man we’re watching?’

  Now it was my turn to be annoyed.

  ‘Hang on a minute with the attitude, will you?’ I said. ‘I just told you I didn’t know it was the same guy. I don’t think even Sophia knows who he really is. She believes he used a fake identity to get into this country. She knows who he was, but not who he is now.’

  ‘Let’s all calm down, shall we?’ Slater was playing peacemaker again. ‘What we need to figure out is why he’s come here when he’s on the run, and why he’s been in touch with Sophia.’

  ‘I can’t tell you exactly what they’ve said, but I know she’s not happy he’s here. She
feels threatened by him, and he’s obviously threatened me, so presumably he must regard me as some sort of threat to him. She did tell me he always regarded her as some sort of possession. Maybe he still does.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jones, decisively. ‘Let’s look at the possible scenarios. One: Slick Tony has come to re-possess Sophia Ingliss. Two: he’s come to do harm her.’ He looked across at me. ‘And maybe harm you as well. Three: she’s been in league with him all along and she plans to leave with him.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that number three is complete bollocks!’ I snapped. ‘There is no way-’

  ‘I appreciate how you feel about Ms Ingliss,’ interrupted Jones, ‘but to do my job I have to be objective, even if it does hurt your feelings.’

  ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree, if you think she’d willingly associate with him,’ I repeated. ‘If he’s come to do anything it’s most likely number one: re-possess her.’

  ‘Look, Alfie,’ said Slater, apparently beginning to tire of the role of peacemaker, ‘you’re probably right, but we have to consider all possibilities, no matter how unlikely we think they are. I’ve met Sophia, and I also know how much she means to you. Whichever scenario is correct, she’s in danger, and so are you. When a guy like Slick Tony makes a gun at you, it’s not just a warning. It’s a threat!’

  In the silence that followed, I could see that what he said was true. Whatever was going to happen next, Sophia was in danger.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ I asked, feeling pretty helpless.

  ‘You stay here, out of harm’s way,’ warned Jones.

  ‘It’s okay, Alfie,’ reassured Slater. ‘We’ll find out where she is, and we’ll make sure she comes to no harm.’ He looked at his watch. ‘But we need to get a move on.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  I did try to let the police do their job and to keep out of their way. But my resolve lasted less than five minutes. I mean, come on, get real. I cared deeply about this woman. There was no way I could just sit there and do nothing, was there? But where should I start? The obvious place, of course, was her flat.

  I rang her doorbell and waited. The door opened just a crack and Sophia’s niece, Jelena, peered out.

  ‘You are alone?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, wondering who she thought I might have brought with me.

  ‘Police gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you can come in.’

  She swung the door open to let me in.

  ‘Sorry I sent police,’ she said. ‘I knew she not with you, but could not think what to tell. So I say she with you.’ Her normally happy, smiley face had been replaced with a frown. She looked desperately worried.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘don’t worry about that. They just want to ask her some questions about her ex-husband.’

  I wasn’t sure how much Jelena knew, so I thought I needed to tread a bit carefully.

  ‘I worry for Aunt Sophia,’ she said. ‘She act strange all week, and now vanish. Something big problem for sure.’

  The poor girl was obviously worried sick, so I figured now was not the time to treat her like a child. She needed to know what was going on, so I quickly explained. When I had finished she looked horrified.

  ‘This bad,’ she muttered. ‘Even more worse than bad.’

  ‘Jelena, what do you know that I need to know?’ I was getting an uneasy feeling.

  ‘Come,’ she said. ‘We need check.’

  Not sure what she was talking about, I followed her to Sophia’s bedroom. She ran straight to the bedside cabinet and pulled open a small drawer at the bottom, carefully lifting out a box. She slid the lid off and let out an anguished groan.

  ‘Oh no, Sophia,’ she said. ‘What have you done?’

  I was genuinely alarmed now. ‘What? What has she done?’

  ‘She keep gun in box. It gone, she gone. Is bad!’

  ‘A gun? She has a gun? What does she need a gun for?’

  She looked at me as though I were an idiot. ‘Why you think she need gun?’

  She had a point. There were doubtless enemies from Sophia’s past who would love to find her. Jelena had proved only recently that a new identity couldn’t stop a really determined hunter. Of course, she had been looking for Sophia for all the right reasons. Now Slick Tony had proved she could also be found for the wrong reasons.

  ‘But if she keeps the gun here to defend herself, where is it?’

  ‘Sometime, you very clever,’ said Jelena, giving me that idiot look again. ‘But other time you not clever at all.’

  ‘Yeah, but why would she take it with her? I mean, where would she be going that she needed a g…’

  As I spoke, I began to realise what Jelena was suggesting. To make sure, she filled the blanks in for me.

  ‘This man. This Tony. He make threat at you, yes?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure it was just empty threats.’

  ‘You have to understand. Sophia know this man. She know he mean what he say. She have to stop him.’

  ‘You mean she’ll kill him?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘If need, yes.’

  ‘But this is crazy. What if he kills her? And anyway the police are just about to catch him. There’s no need for-’

  ‘Police will not catch,’ she interrupted. ‘Sophia know this. And he make threat you. She rather die.’

  I felt my mouth open, but for a moment I couldn’t speak. She was going to take this guy on because he had threatened me.

  ‘I tell you enough time she love you,’ said Jelena, sighing. ‘Maybe now you believe me.’

  ‘But she doesn’t need to do this. We’ve got to stop her.’

  ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes I do.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was two am when everything started to go wrong. There was obviously no point in simply driving onto The Valleys estate and heading for number 38 where Slick Tony was supposedly hiding out. The man himself would see us coming, and I knew the police had surveillance in position so they would see us coming too. So, I’d figured if we could get around the back of the house, we could maybe sneak up unnoticed.

  Yeah, I know – I can be seriously naive at times, especially when I’m stressed, and right then I was seriously stressed, so my decision making left a lot to be desired. Even the dimmest person should have been able to figure out that the police would be watching the back of the house as well as the front.

  We were doing fine, right up to the point where we had got to the fence at the end of the garden at number 38. It was a six-foot wooden fence with trellis on the top, making it almost eight feet in total. We decided the best thing would be for Jelena to sit on my shoulders so she could see over the top and get an idea of the layout. Then we’d figure out what to do next.

  I got down on my hands and knees and Jelena swung a leg across my shoulders and shuffled into position.

  ‘Okay,’ she whispered.

  I put my hands up to her legs to steady her, and then slowly and carefully I began to raise myself. She was small and slender like Sophia, so she seemed to weigh hardly anything. I stood taller and taller, until I was just about three quarters of the way to being upright.

  ‘What can you see?’ I hissed.

  ‘Two people about to be arrested,’ hissed a man’s voice in reply from behind us. ‘Just stay right where you are.’

  I froze, my nose just far enough away from the fence to keep Jelena’s knees from grazing it. Although she wasn’t heavy, stopping in this position wasn’t doing my back any good. I began to rise higher again.

  ‘I said stay still,’ the voice hissed, right in my ear this time.

  I stopped again just to keep the owner of the voice happy, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold this position. I either had to stand up straight, or get back down and let Jelena off my shoulders.

  ‘Turn around,’ commanded the voice.

&n
bsp; Very much aware of Jelena’s safety, I carefully turned around, using this as an opportunity to stand up straight and remove the strain from my aching muscles. A sergeant and two police constables were facing us.

  ‘And what do we have here?’ asked the sergeant. ‘Practising for when the circus comes into town, are we?’

  ‘Err, I can explain,’ I began. ‘But can I put the young lady down first?’

  ‘By all means put the young lady down,’ he replied, ‘but you can save your explanations until later. Right now, I don’t want to hear it. I just want you out of the way.’

  I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but I thought it best to solve these problems one at a time. Gratefully, I lowered Jelena back to the ground.

  ‘As I was saying,’ I said, struggling back to my feet, ‘I can explain.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you can,’ said the sergeant, wearily, ‘and you’ll have plenty of time to do exactly that. But right now, we have something rather more important to attend to.’ He looked at the two constables. ‘Lock these two in the back of the van. We’ll deal with them later.’

  ‘Hang on a minute!’ I said. ‘You can’t do that. I need to speak to DS Slater. Or DI Jones. They both know who I am.’

  ‘I must congratulate you on the quality of your friends,’ said the sergeant. ‘But it makes no difference. I can assure you they’re both very busy right now and they don’t have time to chat. Now, if you’d just go with the two constables, you and your young lady friend can get comfortable in the back of our van.’

  Despite my protests, we were led away and, as promised, we found ourselves locked in the back of a police van. Jelena hadn’t said a single word since we had been so rudely interrupted, but her face told me everything I needed to know as we were marched across to the waiting van. It wasn’t until we had been locked away and the two officers had gone, she actually volunteered her opinion.

  ‘Is fuckup bad, yes?’

  I thought, as summaries went, it was pretty much spot on.

  I knew from what Dave Slater and Jimmy Jones had told me that the boys in blue had a big job on their hands, so I could understand they’d want us out of their way, but they’d been in such a hurry to sweep us out of sight they’d forgotten to search either of us. I still had my mobile phone.