by JL Simpson
The sound of his ringtone filled the silence. Daisy slammed the door and headed to the kitchen to make a coffee. She needed to sober up and get back to work.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Daisy made two cups of coffee. Solomon only had instant but it would have to do. The closest supplier of real coffee was the cafe across the street, which was a good ten minute hobble away. She considered it, but her ankle wasn't up to the task, and Solomon didn't seem to be in the mood to do her any favors.
Being careful not to spill the drinks on the carpet, she limped back into the office. She placed her cup on her desk and crossed the room to Solomon. He sat in his chair, feet on the desk, staring out the window at the brick wall outside. The window was a waste of time. It opened onto a tiny bit of concrete that was barely wide enough to walk along. His phone was resting in his lap.
“Solomon?”
He turned to face her. His smile never reached his eyes. She offered him the cup. “Who was on the phone?”
“It's not important.”
“Was it bad news?”
He shook his head. “Not at all.”
She guessed it was Belinda, but if she came out and asked, he'd know she knew Belinda was going to dump him. Had he ever been dumped before? Did he even really care about Belinda? He hadn't asked Daisy to call her in a while. He wasn't sobbing into his coffee so maybe he'd gotten over her.
If Belinda had dumped him then he had no reason to keep Daisy around anymore. He could kick her to the curb before they had even found out the truth about Tomas Jenks. As much as she wanted to avoid the subject, she had no choice.
She sipped her coffee and then placed her cup on the desk. “I called Belinda.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It’s none of my business, but if you really want her then you need to fight for her. Maybe you’re not both on the same page, but if you slow things down and take it a day at a time, who knows where you’ll end up?”
“Like you and Paul?”
Daisy sighed. “Why not? She could be the one.”
Solomon grunted and turned his attention to his computer. Apparently, he wasn’t ready to discuss his feelings with her. Belinda could have held off dumping him until Daisy had her case sown up. He wasn’t going to be in the right frame of mind to help her if he was heartbroken, assuming he had a heart. At least she had her car back. And there was another thing, the mysterious case of the disappearing car.
He placed his cup on the desk.
“Solomon?”
“What?”
“Did you steal my car? I promise I won't be mad.”
He chuckled. “I'll not be falling for that.”
“So you won't tell me because you know I'll get angry if you did. That must mean that you did steal it or else why not say so?”
“Ah, the logic of women. It's a wonderful thing.”
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, Princess. Why don't we take a second to debrief before we get back to work?”
Daisy glared at him. “You mean to tell me you're actually wearing briefs today?”
Solomon lifted an eyebrow. “Are you meaning to tell me you're interested in what lies beneath my suit pants?”
“Nope.” Her face warmed and she knew she was blushing.
Solomon smiled. “I've missed you, Daisy Dunlop.”
“You have?” Her heart rate increased. Had he missed working with her, or was it the various compromising situations they constantly seemed to get themselves into that he missed? They did have a certain chemistry, not a sexual thing, a working thing. They sparked off each other. He motivated her to do better to prove he was wrong about her and when she was around, he sometimes showed flashes of humanity.
“You're a beacon in a dark world.”
“A beacon of hope?”
“I was thinking more like the ones they used to light on the top of cliffs around here to lure ships to their doom so they could steal their cargo.”
Daisy snorted. Of course he wouldn't have anything pleasant to say about her. She should stop hoping that he'd changed and accept that he was and always would be an evil Irish git. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“I've been almost everywhere.”
Daisy frowned, not sure what to make of his comment. “I hope that doesn't mean what I think it means.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I think it's time to get back to work.”
Solomon's mouth kicked up in a lopsided smile. “True enough. So, did you find anything useful this morning?”
“Yes and no.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
“Before you get mad, I just need you to note that I am safe and in one piece.”
“Why would I get mad?”
“I met with Fletch.”
Solomon scowled. “At the club?”
“At a perfectly respectable cafe off the high street.”
“What did he want?”
Daisy made her way to her desk and lifted up the bank statements. “To give me these. You'll never guess who Tomas Jenks was paying.”
“Who?”
“Maura's brother, Cameron.”
“So why are you not meeting with Cameron to see what he knows? Were you waiting for me to go with you?”
“No. I was waiting until I could find out where he lived. The address on the statements is a PO Box and he's not on the electoral roll.”
Solomon drummed his fingers on his desk. “Interesting. The man must be hiding for a reason.”
“Do you know if the police found Maura?”
“No, but I've another question.”
“What's that?”
“How did you pay Fletch?”
Daisy shrugged. “Someone lent me the money but it's all good. I'll have it back to them as soon as we find Tomas Jenks' sister.” Daisy eased herself onto the edge of Solomon's desk. “So, where were you all morning?”
“I was on the trail of Tomas Jenks' computer.”
“Did you find it?”
“No. I know who stole it, and who they sold it to, but then the trail went cold.”
Daisy sighed. “So we've got nothing. What am I going to tell Liam on Monday?”
“Surely you're not giving up so easily?”
Daisy took a deep breath. “You're right. I'll think of something.”
“Pass me some of those bank statements and I'll help you.”
Daisy gave him the first six months and she concentrated on the other half of the year. Other than the sound of Solomon tapping away on his keyboard, they worked in silence. Determined to find something useful, Daisy had made a list of all the places that deposited money into the account and all the places that were paid out of the account. Unlike Tomas Jenks' meager statements, Cameron had it all going on. Purchases from all sorts of online shopping sites, deposits from Paypal and a regular payment to a Stills and Sons for two hundred pounds a month. She tugged her computer toward her and brought up Google. When she typed in the name, she was rewarded with a business listing in a local online directory. Apparently they rented out storage space.
“Solomon? Have you seen the payments to Stills and Sons?”
Solomon looked up from his keyboard. “Did you notice that all the payments from Paypal and the online shopping sites match some of the boxes we found in Jenks' attic?”
“What if the key Tomas Jenks had opened a lockup garage being rented by Cameron from Stills and Sons?”
“You think they might be working together?”
Daisy shrugged. “It's all I've got.”
Solomon pushed to his feet. “Time to go and investigate.”
“Where?”
“I emailed Stills and Sons twenty minutes ago pretending to be interested in renting a premises from them.”
“And?”
Solomon slipped his arms into the sleeves of his full-length leather coat. “And, they just emailed the addresses of all the places where t
hey currently have lockups.”
* * * * *
Solomon slowed and pulled the car to a stop outside a group of garages just off the estate where Tomas Jenks' lived. Daisy undid her seatbelt and eased out of the car; Solomon wasn't far behind. Once Daisy was engaged in an activity, she gave it her all. Even when she was limping, she did it with a sense of purpose. She stopped and waited for him to catch up. Her expression was filled with hope and excitement. When was the last time he'd been excited about solving a case? When was the last time he'd bothered to find a real case that wasn't related to security or snooping on cheating husbands?
He smiled. “Are you ready, Princess?”
She frowned. “You're sure we don't need a warrant?”
“We're not the police. We'd not be getting a warrant even if we wanted one and the police have no interest in Cameron McAlister or what Tomas Jenks might have stored out here.”
“Okay.” She tugged the key from her pocket. “Here goes.”
He hung back keeping a look out. The police might not be interested in Tomas Jenks but other people might be. They could just get lucky and flush out Cameron McAlister. Even if what he was doing with Tomas Jenks was completely above board they still had a use for him. Daisy could double her money. Find Tomas Jenks' sister for Liam Sparks and sign up Cameron as an heir to the estate of Douglas Jameson. Now that Marcus Matthews was dead, the case was waiting for an heir hunter to solve it. Daisy already knew Maura so that would only leave one brother to find and the fee would be hers. All in all, this case could set her up in business.
The thought of Daisy moving out of his office made him pause for a moment. He was surprised to discover he didn't much like the idea of going back to having the place to himself. Maybe he could lease her some of his space. Then if she needed his expertise, he would be on hand. It would be much cheaper than her getting her own office so he'd be doing her a favor. The sound of grating metal shifted his focus from his current occupation of navel gazing to the job in hand.
He turned toward the lockups and Daisy smiled before ducking under the half-open lift-up door to garage number seven.
*
Daisy flicked the light switch and waited for the UV tube to flicker to life. Solomon pulled the lifting door closed before stepping up beside her. She grabbed his arm and gave it a squeeze. Although she was tempted to do a victory dance, her ankle simply wasn't up to it.
He chuckled. “What are you waiting for?”
“Where should we start?”
“Your case, Princess. You should be the one making the decisions.”
Daisy turned her head to look at him. There was no sign of sarcasm in his voice and his face and body language gave no indication that he was being a smart arse. Maybe he was backing off and letting her run the case. Even though he'd been the one to find the address of the lockup, she'd only been one step behind him.
Boxes were stacked in neat piles. A desk was pushed up against one wall. Solomon might have been on the trail of Tomas Jenks' computer but it appeared Cameron's computer was just sitting waiting for her. A space age desktop model, complete with two wide screen monitors, took up most of the top of the pine desk.
Daisy shoved the key to the lockup in her bag. “I'll take a look through the desk and the computer. You can search the boxes.”
Solomon moved to the back of the garage and Daisy frowned. Was it just her imagination or was the man acting out of character? Maybe being nice was his way of dealing with being dumped. Not that she knew he had been dumped. It could have been a coincidence that he got a call from someone just after Daisy hung up with Belinda. Solomon lifted the flaps on the first box and then stepped back.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. The box is empty.”
“Like the ones at Tomas Jenks’ house? Do you think they're all empty?”
“I'll not know until I've opened them all. Did you notice the logos?”
Daisy paid more attention to the stacks of boxes. Some were just plain boxes but some were proudly emblazoned with the logos of the places that sent them. “They're the same as the online stores that were paid from Cameron's account and the boxes at the house.”
“Indeed.”
“So they were shopping at the same online stores?”
Solomon shrugged. “Maybe.”
Daisy frowned. He was being far too casual. “What are you thinking?”
He smiled at her. “I'm thinking we better get moving if we want to search through all of this today.”
He had a point. Although, fingers crossed, they wouldn't need to search through the whole garage before they found something useful, whatever that might be.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Daisy eased herself into the chair as she waited for the computer to boot up. No doubt it would be password protected. Nothing was ever as simple as you might think. The screen flickered to life and she smiled. The man was running an old version of Windows with no password protection. She grabbed the mouse and hesitated, considering where to start. She clicked on a folder and was rewarded with a list of spreadsheets and Word documents to choose from. Daisy was soon engrossed in what she was doing. The first spreadsheet was a ledger of sorts. It showed income from sales on one workbook and expenses on the next. Sales were broken down into various categories: children's toys, collectibles, electronic equipment, books, housewares and entertainment. She flicked from one workbook to the other, noting the sales price and purchase price for half-a-dozen items. She might not know where to find Cameron but one thing was for sure: he was rubbish at business. If he kept trading the way he had been, he would eventually run out of cash. She turned her attention to the next document. A list of suppliers, which included the various companies who had sent the boxes Solomon was currently working his way through.
Half an hour passed and Daisy had trawled through enough documents to work out that Cameron was buying stuff online and selling it via various websites that he owned, and every item he was selling he sold at a loss. All of the websites were active and none of the sales or purchases were particularly big. She did a quick calculation in her head. For the current year alone, he had lost over ten thousand pounds. Without the money he received each month from Tomas Jenks, he would be bankrupt. So why was Tomas propping up a loss-making venture? What was his relationship to Cameron, and why did the key that she'd found at Tomas's house open Cameron's lockup?
How could Tomas Jenks afford to keep paying Cameron? Tomas received a monthly deposit from a trust, which she had assumed was his employer. As well as paying his bills, he transferred an amount to Cameron. Cameron traded at a loss. She tugged Cameron's bank statement from her bag and ran her finger down the page. At the end of every month the account was all but emptied with the funds being transferred out, but where did it go? Not back to Tomas Jenks. She was stumped. There was something weird about the whole arrangement. She was missing something, she was sure of it. Trying to follow the money and work out what was going on was like doing a puzzle without a picture.
Daisy flipped open the desk drawers. Pens, pencils, a stapler, another set of keys and a pile of papers. She considered taking the keys but thought better of it. Cameron would probably miss them. She pulled the papers out and set them on the desk. The sound of footsteps made her turn her head. Solomon was making his way from the back of the garage.
“Did you find anything?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Most of the boxes are empty, and those that aren't have cheap crap that no one would want to buy in them. How about you?”
“I found some interesting spreadsheets. There is something weird going on with money being transferred in and out of accounts but nothing makes sense. I'd really need to look at it all for a couple of hours to get my head around it.”
“We can't be here that long.”
“I know. Cameron could show up.”
Solomon slipped his hand in his pocket. “Would this help?”
He dropped a memory stick in Daisy's hand.
She bent over and shoved it into a USB port. “I don't suppose you've got a photocopier in your pocket?”
“Alas no. Why?'
Daisy pushed the pile of documents toward him. “These could be useful.”
Solomon tugged his phone from his inside pocket. “You save the files and I'll take pictures of the pages that look most interesting.”
They worked in silence. Daisy chewed her thumbnail as the computer took its sweet time saving the files she'd chosen. She should have checked how much data the memory stick could hold but it was too late now.
Once it was done she ejected the stick, closed all the windows and switched off the computer. Solomon was shuffling through the papers. He squared them up and handed them to Daisy. “You'd best be putting these back.”
“Anything useful?”
“Some financial statements.”
Daisy shoved everything back where she'd found them and took one last look through the drawers. Satisfied there was nothing else of interest, they made their way toward the lift up door. The air was suddenly filled with the sound of a car engine before the vehicle spluttered and died. Solomon grabbed Daisy's arm and pulled her behind a stack of boxes as the door to the garage started to lift. She was suffering deja vu. How many more times this week was she going to be squashed into a tiny space with Solomon? It was just as well he didn't suffer from BO. In fact he smelled rather delicious—sandalwood if she wasn't mistaken.
From the sound of footsteps, it seemed two people had entered the garage. Daisy pushed herself up and dared to take a quick peek. Her eyes almost fell out of her head. She had been on the right track from the start. Lovely Linda from the museum with a strange portly middle-aged man Daisy had never seen before were busy unplugging the computer. She moved to stand up but Solomon pulled her back. His hand covered her mouth as he whispered for her to keep still and stay quiet. The Irish git seemed to have forgotten who was in charge of the case again.
*
Solomon held Daisy tight against him. He could only assume that it had slipped her mind that someone connected to her current case had murdered at least one person and possibly two, or if Maura was dead, three. He took his hand from Daisy's mouth and turned her face toward him before placing a finger on her lips to indicate that she needed to stay quiet. Her green eyes flashed with anger but she said nothing. When the sounds stopped and the voices began to fade, he risked taking a quick look. The man and woman were just outside the garage and were busy placing the computer Daisy had been searching into the boot of a large Ford. He recognized the woman. No doubt Daisy had too, which was why she'd seemed poised to reveal herself earlier. Solomon couldn't place the man.
