Hung Out To Die: Lukas Boston - Private Investigator Book Two

by Logan May

  ‘Lukas, is that you?’

  Lukas jumped. He had no reason to feel guilty about being in the office or even searching it—this was supposed to be a part of what he’d been hired to do. All the same, Lukas tried to look as if nothing was going on when Theresa stepped through the door.

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘Have you found anything new out?’

  Your niece enjoys being tied up naked.

  ‘Not really, I’m following some different ideas, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh? What sort of ideas?’

  Lukas came to a quick decision. He still liked Ted for the theft more than anyone else—it made the best sense. Agatha was a scheming, manipulating witch, but with the responsibilities she held in her father’s business surely Agatha would find better ways to siphon off funds than pinching them out of a wall safe? Job was a lazy, good-for-nothing failure who hung around pool halls—too stupid to cleverly steal anything. That left Corrine, who Lukas figured was already his ally of sorts and Theresa, who could be useful too, if he played his cards right.

  It might work in his favour, if he gave Theresa a secret to share.

  ‘Have you seen your father’s recorder lately?’ he asked her meaningfully.

  ‘His recorder?’ Theresa hurried across the room to be nearer Lukas, putting herself within easy reach.

  ‘You know, that tape machine he carried everywhere with him? Edward recorded every meeting, just in case.’

  ‘Oh, right. That thing. I’d forgotten all about it. We all stopped worrying over it years ago. Nothing ever came of his damned recordings that I know of,’ Theresa said, sucking her finger thoughtfully. Lukas tried not to stare.

  ‘So you don’t know where it is?’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been in his pocket?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Lukas lied. He was certain Goodall would have mentioned it, if the recorder was found on the corpse.

  ‘Is it important?’ Theresa’s liquid eyes turned up to Lukas’ beseeching him for the truth and, he was quite convinced, perhaps a long weekend on a tropical island, both of them naked and rolling in the surf, before playing together in a hot spa with champagne and oysters Kilpatrick…

  ‘It might be,’ Lukas choked his imagination into behaving. ‘I suspect it might have been stolen along with the cash from the safe. In fact,’ he lowered his voice even more, ‘It might even be more valuable than the missing money. I think your father really wanted me to recover the recorder, not the cash.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Theresa breathed.

  Exactly what your niece was recently saying—quite a lot.

  ‘Oh my God, indeed.’

  ‘What’s on it, Lukas?’

  ‘Ah, that I don’t know, I’m afraid. We need to find it. So can you promise to keep an eye out for it? Don’t tell anyone else, of course. This is between you and me.’

  ‘Of course, you can ask me to do anything, Lukas. Anything at all.’

  He gave her The Smile even though other parts of his anatomy began to protest for overtime penalty rates and unfair work practices, should it bring results. ‘I’ll remember that, Theresa.’

  ‘Can you stay for a drink?’

  ‘I’d love to, but I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘Surely, just one can’t do any harm?’

  ‘Really, I have to go.’ Lukas was saved by the front door bell. He shrugged at Theresa regretfully. ‘See? So do you, by the sounds of it.’

  She was annoyed at the intrusion. Reluctantly she followed Lukas out into the hall to the entranceway. There he ran into Detective Constable Reynolds, who’d been let in by a fawning Dwayne.

  ‘Hello Elizabeth,’ Lukas said easily.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Boston,’ Beth said properly. ‘I’m here to collect statements from the family. It’s just a formality,’ she added to Theresa more kindly.

  Lukas told Theresa, ‘Beth and I work together regularly. She’s sort of like my police liaison officer.’

  Beth responded to this with a dry smile.

  ‘Lucky you,’ Theresa said to her.

  ‘Not really. Not even close.’

  Corrine called down from the stairs. Like before, she was leaning against the balustrade like some 1950’s Hollywood starlet. Corrine wore the lace dress again, but she’d not bothered re-installing the panties.

  ‘Lukas, is this yours?’ she asked sweetly, holding up a mobile phone.

  Automatically he patted his jacket, finding his phone. ‘Ah, no… not mine.’

  ‘Are you sure? I thought it might have fallen out of your pants pocket.’

  ‘No, it’s definitely not mine, thanks,’ Lukas said unhappily, feeling the twin red-hot bores of Beth’s eyes drilling into his skull. Theresa was making small choking noises.

  ‘Oh wait, it’s mine.’ Corrine pealed with laughter. ‘My old one. Silly me, forget I ever asked.’ She turned and swept up the stairs to the landing.

  A vice-like grip crushed Lukas’ arm and he was dragged to a corner of the foyer.

  Beth hissed in his face, ‘So this is why you asked to conduct your own investigation? So you can put to use your very personal interrogation techniques of screwing the entire family for information?’

  ‘I know you don’t mean that,’ Lukas whispered back hoarsely. ‘Especially when you’ve seen Agatha, for God’s sake. Anyway, I was seduced and didn’t have any choice. If I’d refused, the whole investigation might have been blown.’ Beth glared at him murderously. He added hastily, ‘I could have put that a better way.’

  ‘You won’t be hearing the last of this.’

  ‘Look, it’s not what you think. Why don’t we have dinner tonight? I’ll explain everything.’

  ‘Where’s my Mace spray…’ Beth searched her pockets.

  ‘All right, I’m going. Take it easy.’

  They both turned to present smiling, professional faces to the Rewolds.

  Lukas said, ‘I’ll leave you with Detective Constable Reynolds. She’ll look after everything.’

  Theresa wasn’t listening, staring angrily towards the upper landing. Dwayne looked pleased.

  ‘You can arrest me, if you like,’ he told Beth.

  Lukas noticed Beth’s fingers twitching for the Mace again.

  TEN

  Outside, Lukas leaned against his car and gratefully lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke up at the sky and asking the gods just why he was being treated so badly. For an answer it started to rain, soaking him in seconds as he rushed to escape the downpour.

  His phone rang as he got behind the wheel.

  ‘Lukas Boston,’ he said, puffing madly to keep the cigarette burning.

  ‘Lukas, it’s me.’

  Lukas said irritably, cold water tricking down his neck, ‘You’d surprised at how many people call themselves “me”. Can you tell me more?’

  ‘It’s me, Carrie.’

  ‘Oh, right. Sorry, I didn’t recognise your voice. I’m in a really noisy place.’ He looked around for something to make a racket and thumped the dashboard a few times, rattling the coins on the console.

  ‘Where are you? Is it far away?’

  ‘No, not far. What’s wrong?’ Lukas wondered if Stuart might have sold one of his cat paintings. That would need the Major Crime Squad at least. Who handled art forgery and shit like that? The Vice Squad? What the hell, just call in a drug raid.

  ‘There’s been an explosion, Lukas,’ Carrie broke into his thoughts.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Some kind of explosion. In the fish and chip shop.’

  ‘Shit, I’m on my way.’

  Lukas began to suspect that things weren’t quite so dramatic as he neared the harbour and couldn’t see any emergency units, fire brigade and police cars. There was no plume of smoke in the sky. No crowd of rubber-necking onlookers.

  Reaching the Wharftown Markets he saw things were calm. The warehouse was in one piece and devoid of any bloodstained, tourist’s corpses littering the jetty or floating in the water. Lukas parked
his car and walked briskly, figuring the situation didn’t merit any unseemly running.

  Carrie was sitting in her back room. She was shaken, clutching a cup of tea, and got up to give Lukas a fierce hug, pressing hard against him when he came in. This was a vast improvement over the peck on the cheek he’d gotten for spending a fortune at Romanov’s restaurant. Exploding fish and chip shops had their advantages.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, reluctantly letting her go.

  ‘It was very frightening.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t really know. Only I heard this loud sort of bang and people started shouting and screaming.’

  ‘Okay, I’m assuming nobody was seriously hurt? There’s no police or ambulance.’

  ‘No, Sam didn’t want to make a fuss since no one was really injured. It could have been a lot worse. Go and look for yourself.’

  ‘All right, I won’t be long.’

  Lukas went to the end of the markets and Sam And Ella’s. At first nothing looked much different, then Lukas noticed that oil and bits of food had been sprayed across the walls and roof. A piece of fish was stuck to the ceiling. Sam was alone, wiping forlornly at a chopping board with a dish cloth.

  ‘Too much vinegar in the batter?’ Lukas asked him.

  ‘What? What are you saying?’ Sam glared up at him.

  ‘Sorry, just kidding. What happened?’

  ‘Who the fuck are you, the police? I don’t need no fucking police.’

  ‘I’m a friend of Carrie’s. She’s asked me to come down and see if I can help.’ Lukas fervently hoped that wouldn’t be interpreted as helping to clean up the oily mess or actually do anything at all. He just wanted to know what exploded.

  Sam still regarded him suspiciously, but said, ‘One of my cooking vats blew up. Just went poof like that,’ he demonstrated with his hands. ‘Shit went everywhere.’

  ‘Oh, you mean food went everywhere?’

  Sam missed the point. ‘Only the oil, I wasn’t cooking anything yet. Someone could have been killed.’

  Lukas pointed at the fish splattered on the roof. ‘Then where did that come from?’

  Frowning, Sam looked at it and used a spatula to scrape it off, dropping the fish into a waste bin. ‘Someone could have been killed,’ he said again.

  ‘Was it an accident?’

  ‘No, this was sabotage. Somebody is trying to ruin my business. They want to send me bankrupt, close down my shop. I don’t give in so easily.’ Sam picked up a knife, slamming it into the chopping board. It stayed quivering upright for a moment, before toppling off and clattering to the floor.

  ‘Have you any idea who might have done this?’

  Sam was beginning to figure he’d been talking too much. He held up his hand. ‘I don’t need your help, Mr Carrie’s Friend. Where I come from we take care of our own problems.’

  ‘You’re not the only one, you know. Other people in the markets have been harassed. I’m pretty sure that I know who’s behind it, so maybe I can help.’

  Sam bent over and picked up the knife. He tossed it towards a large sink filled with dishwater. The knife struck the edge, ricocheted spectacularly into the air before dropping back to the floor with loud clanging noise.

  ‘I don’t need your help,’ Sam said, half-closing his eyes to look dangerous. ‘Leave me alone. Mind your own business.’

  ‘Okay, I can see that,’ Lukas said, waving as he backed away. ‘But I will tell you one thing—’ he pointed a finger. ‘Putting some actual fish in your fishcakes would be a big improvement.’

  Lukas turned his back on Sam and walked away, expecting to hear a torrent of abuse following him. He said mildly, ‘Ungrateful prick.’ Nothing happened. Maybe Sam was too surprised to respond or perhaps he appreciated genuine customer feedback? Then a potato cannoned off the wall near Lukas and rolled along the floor.

  ‘Only trying to help,’ Lukas called over his shoulder.

  Another potato hit the opposite wall.

  Lukas went back to Carrie’s stall.

  ‘How’d you go?’ she asked him.

  ‘He threw a spud at me—two, actually. I might have been killed.’

  ‘Sam does that all the time. He never hits anyone. Besides, you must have done something to upset him. Why’d you do that? He’s got enough problems.’

  Lukas shrugged. ‘I offered to help, he told me to piss off. So I suggested his fishcakes sucked, he got angry and started chucking vegetables at me. I was only offering constructive criticism and the customer’s always right, right?’

  ‘Wrong, when the customer’s a smart-arse like you. Poor Sam, did you see the animal shop?’

  ‘You mean the stuffed toy stall? No, I came in the other way.’

  ‘Someone’s cut all the heads off the bears. That’s terrible, why do they have to be so awful?’ Carrie’s bottom lip quivered.

  Lukas positioned himself for another hug. It didn’t work.

  Damn it.

  ‘What about Stuart’s Cat Art Gallery?’

  Carrie shook her head. ‘No, they left him alone this time.’

  ‘Useless sods.’

  She sighed at him.

  Lukas looked grim. ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s your new landlords hoping to force you to quit the lease. I went to their office and read them the riot act, tried to scare them off, but it obviously hasn’t worked. You know, those corporate bastards responsible are so far removed from what’s actually happening here, we’ll never be able to pin anything on them unless we get hold of whoever’s doing the dirty work. Make them admit who’s calling the shots.’

  ‘Are you saying catch them in the act and force them to talk? Like, torture them?’ Carrie was wide-eyed.

  ‘Spanking usually works,’ Lukas said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Have you tried it?’

  ‘You can be so impressive and then disappointing at the same time, Lukas.’

  ‘It was worth a shot. Okay, I need to come up with a plan. Don’t worry, I’ll figure out a way to fix all this.’ Lukas hoped again for a hug, even flapping his arms slightly to encourage the idea.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll call you, if anything else happens.’ Carrie didn’t move.

  ‘Right, so… I’ll be going.’

  ‘Okay, thanks again.’ Carrie waited, looking at him. ‘Is there something else?’

  ‘No, just thinking. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Bye, Lukas.’

  It was raining more as Lukas trudged, lost in thought, across the car park to his Ford. Working out a plan to catch the vandals was easier said than done. The markets were a far cry from being properly secure and the culprit must be easily sneaking in and out at will. They’d probably even been given a key by someone at the Wharf Tourist Retail Corporation. The other possibility was somebody already inside the markets, someone with their own key, was a mole working for the landlords. Either way, the dastardly deeds were being carried out in the dead of night or very early in the mornings and since the markets had no CCT or even a proper alarm the only real option was to camp overnight in the building and wait to catch the villains red-handed.

  Maybe Carrie would stay with him?

  They could bring some blankets and make a big, soft bed out of all the stuffed toys, make sure there were a couple of bottles of nice red to keep them warm—no, champagne of course—and some whisky. Steal a box of chocolates from the Sweet Heaven stall, order in a pizza…

  It was starting to sound like a plan. Lukas pondered more details, particularly about how many blankets might be required if no one was wearing any clothes. He started the car and put it into gear.

  The Ford’s engine roared instantly to full throttle and rocketed forwards. Lukas yelled in surprise and stomped on the brake pedal—it pushed uselessly to the floor. As he reached for the ignition key the car hit a high concrete curb bordering the parking area and bounced upwards violently, throwing Lukas around. Now the Ford ploughed across the short beach and plunged into the ocean, driving deep
into the water until it reached the base of the windscreen. Only then the motor stalled and everything was abruptly silent.

  Shocked, Lukas stared at the waves lapping at the wipers.

  A trickling noise began, then like a pipe bursting sea water gushed into the footwells and sprayed from the door seals. It was freezing—as Lukas already knew—and it galvanized him into action.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ he gasped at the cold, hauling on the door handle. It worked, but the pressure of the water made it hard to open. Lukas forced himself not to panic. Outside it wasn’t deep and he wouldn’t drown. It was a matter of waiting until enough water was inside the car and he could shift the door.

  The sea was up to Lukas’ waist when he got the door wide enough to climb out, fighting against a fresh surge pouring through the opening. His shoes sank into soft sand and he stood with his arms on the car roof, the water at his chest now. Free and feeling safer, Lukas took a moment to decide if he needed to rescue anything even though it looked hopeless.

  It was hopeless and Lukas indulged himself by resting his head on his forearms on top of the car. ‘I’ll qualify for a swimming badge soon,’ he told a paper cup floating past.

  Lukas heard the familiar putt-putt of an outboard motor and looked up, seeing the Indian fisherman maneuvering his dinghy close.

  ‘You were never going to get your car far enough into the water,’ the fisherman called, explaining the process with his hand. ‘It’s the electrics, you see. The water will short-circuit the electrical current and the motor will stop instantly. You should have driven off the end of the pier, where the water is much deeper.’

  Lukas groaned loudly, ‘I am not trying to kill myself, I told you that before. Someone is attempting to kill me—again.’

  ‘Then I’m very glad to hear it. In that case, can I recommend my brother-in-law? He is a very fine mechanic who works at very reasonable rates. I can give you his phone number.’

  ‘I think I need a tug boat, not a mechanic.’

  The fisherman looked disappointed. He didn’t have any relatives who owned a tug boat.

  *****

  ‘You’re soaking wet again, Mr Boston,’ Irene trumpeted from her doorway after Lukas had done his best to creep past.