Risky Business

by W. Soliman

  Jimmy nodded. “As a whistle.”

  “Any other interesting names connected to Garnet then?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yeah, he has some muscle by the name of Frank Glover. He and Mallet are a bit of a double act but, like I said, Mallet’s the brains and—”

  “—and Glover supplies the brawn.”

  “Yeah.” Jimmy produced a mug shot from his inside jacket pocket. “Know him?”

  I took the picture and studied it. I was fairly certain it was the guy with the ball cap and denim jacket who’d followed me. I leaned back and thought about it for a moment. Why were they worried about me? What didn’t they want me to find out?

  “Yeah, I think our paths crossed once or twice back in the day.”

  “He’s got a record for petty stuff but has been clean for some time.” Jimmy looked at me, his eyes troubled. “What’s this all about anyway?”

  “Well, obviously Garnet’s wife had been to see Miller not long before he died.” I said, striving for a casual tone. “I wondered if there might be a connection.”

  “Nothing to do with Mike Kendall then?”

  “What?”

  Jimmy’s perpetually cheerful expression gave way to a scowl. “Don’t take me for an idiot, Charlie, and don’t keep me in the dark here either. I ain’t a fucking mushroom. And,” he added belligerently, “I’m sticking my neck out for you.”

  “Look, mate, I’m not trying to—”

  “I recognised Cleo Kendall the first time I saw her with you and couldn’t help asking myself why you were hanging out with the daughter of a known con.”

  “Well, if you’ve seen Cleo,” I said, spreading my hands, “the answer’s pretty obvious.”

  But Jimmy wasn’t buying it. “I know you better than that. She’s come to you with some hard-luck story about her dad, you’ve been poking your nose in and now you’re in the shit.” He shook his head. “Besides, my dear Watson, you asked me to look into the original Kendall case.”

  “Yeah, okay, there is something, but it’s probably better that you don’t know.”

  “It’s a bit late to keep me out of it.”

  “I will tell you when I can but if you don’t want to help me, I’ll—”

  “No, it’s okay. I know you’re sound, and if we can get one over on Slater it’ll be worth it.”

  “Thanks.” I lifted my shoulders. “And there just might be a collar in this for you at the end of the day.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We’d finished our drinks and I insisted on paying for the second round even though I’d already got the first. It was the least I could do when Jimmy was putting his career on the line for me.

  “What about that other name I ran past you yesterday?” I asked him, returning to the table with our refills.

  “Angela Bradley?”

  I nodded. “I thought there was something sensational from a couple of years ago. I don’t know exactly what but it’s niggling away.”

  “If there was, it’s not on record. She’s clean.”

  So much for my incubating theory. “Oh well, thanks anyway.”

  “But I got curious so I did a bit more digging, just using the name Bradley.” His eyes lit up and I knew he had something.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “Do you remember the Katrina Simpson case?”

  I slapped my thigh. “Of course! She was the girl who got jailed for defrauding her stockbroker employer out of a shedload of money.”

  “She was indeed.”

  “Okay, so what has Angie to do with Katrina Simpson then?”

  “She’s a long-standing friend. They were at school together. Angie testified on Katrina’s behalf. Insisted she knew she was having an affair with her boss, who talked her into opening the accounts for all that stolen dosh, and that Katrina knew nothing about it. Trouble was, she had no actual proof and the crown prosecutor tore her story to shreds on cross.”

  I felt a surge of excitement. I was on to something. I remembered Hal talking about the Simpson girl at the time. He was involved somehow and conflicted about it. “You might want to delve a little deeper,” I said.

  “Why’s that?” Jimmy paused to take a sup of his ale. “Good drop of bitter this,” he remarked, placing his glass almost reverently in the centre of his drip mat.

  “Well, I can’t be absolutely sure, but I have a feeling that Miller worked in the city at the time and that his name was connected to the case.”

  Jimmy sat bolt upright. “So you think someone from Miller’s past with an axe to grind might have come out of the woodwork seeking revenge.”

  “It’s worth looking at but, like I say, keep it low profile. If it pans out you don’t want Slater stealing all the gory.”

  Jimmy perked up considerably, and I felt I’d repaid him in part, even if there proved to be nothing in it.

  I headed back to the boat, needing to talk to Hal. I managed to get hold of him and didn’t waste time with small talk. “What can you tell me about Katrina Simpson?” I asked.

  If the question surprised him it wasn’t apparent in his voice and he answered me without pausing to think. “She was a junior trader with the firm of stockbrokers I use and was jailed for stealing. Over three million quid went missing from their client accounts.”

  I let out a low whistle. I’d forgotten that so much dosh was involved. “Yes, but you were involved somehow.” I waved a hand, even though he couldn’t see it. “Not with the theft, obviously. Remind me where you fitted in.”

  “I know Katrina’s boss and his wife quite well. Gloria and I socialise with them.” This time Hal did hesitate but I waited him out. “Katrina claimed to be having an affair with Max and that he’d embezzled the money so that they could disappear into the sunset and play happy families. All she did was open the accounts on his instructions, or so she claimed. But there was no evidence that Max was involved, and she didn’t have any proof of an affair.”

  “So if there was an affair, your mate had been careful to cover his tracks.”

  “Actually, Katrina’s defence team asked me to testify that I knew about the affair.”

  “Why?”

  Another hesitation. “Some months before the fraud came to light, I’d arranged for Max to call at my office to discuss a big investment I wanted to make. I got held up, so my secretary put him and Katrina, whom he brought with him, in the small conference room off my office.

  “When I arrived, the door was ajar and I overheard Katrina and Max having a muted yet heated conversation. Max’s back was toward me, so he didn’t know I was there. Katrina was so intent upon the conversation that she didn’t see me for a while, either.” He sighed. “I should have made them aware of my presence, but something held me back. Max was holding her hand, stroking the back of it and assuring her that she didn’t need to do anything other than open the accounts.” Another pause. “That’s when Katrina looked up and saw me.”

  “What conclusion did you draw from that?”

  “I didn’t know what to think. Max laughed it off. Said she had cold feet about a big account he’d given her to handle and he was trying to reassure her. I didn’t think anything more of it, until the theft case hit the headlines.”

  “Do you think there was an affair?”

  “I didn’t at the time. They were friendly, Katrina and Max, but that was never in dispute. She was a knockout, and you can’t blame him for mentoring her, but I never saw or even suspected that there was anything between them, other than that kiss on the wrist. I’ve often wondered about that in the light of subsequent revelations.”

  “Her brief asked you to say what you saw?”

  “Yes, but how could I? I felt bad about it. Katrina comes from a good family and wasn’t the sort to do something like that
without a compelling reason. But I couldn’t kill off Max’s career, to say nothing of his marriage, on such flimsy evidence.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Why did you want to know about her? Has it got something to do with my problems?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” I was unwilling to let him in on my suspicions until I knew more. “It’s just something that someone said to me. I’ll tell you more when I know.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “One more thing, Hal, and then I’ll let you go. Angie Bradley,” I said. “How did you come to employ her?”

  “You suspect her?” he asked, tension in his tone.

  “Not necessarily. For now I just need to know what brought her to your attention.”

  “I needed a hostess for the boat. I advertised in a trade journal and my PA whittled the applicants down to a short list, one of whom was Angie. I interviewed them all but she was head and shoulders the best candidate.”

  If Hal had read about her testimony at Katrina’s trial, he obviously hadn’t made the connection.

  “Has she done that sort of work before?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “But her CV was impressive, I could tell she was intelligent and I figured she’d pick it up quickly enough. And she has. I haven’t had a single complaint against her.”

  “Where did she work before?”

  “She was a masseuse, I think.”

  Adrenaline shot through my veins. “Can you remember where she worked?”

  “Just a moment,” Hal said. I heard the clatter of computer keys. Presumably he had all his employees’ records digitalised. “Yes, a health club in Hove. Her boss gave her a glowing reference.”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess. A guy by the name of Peter Garnet.”

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  Chapter Eleven

  I got off the phone to Hal, promising to answer his questions as soon as I could. In the meantime he agreed not to do anything to alert Angie that she was under suspicion. She couldn’t be in this alone and we needed to find out who her accomplice was. Every which way I turned, it came back to Peter Garnet. How did he manage to have fingers in such a disparate range of pies? And, more to the point, why? Spelling and Miller I kind of got. But what possible link did Angie Bradley have with Garnet?

  My research revealed that at the time of Spelling’s murder Garnet had a few racehorses, a run-down health club off the beaten track in Hove, and was allegedly involved with a couple of betting scams. The police were regular callers, and he must have known it would only be a matter of time before we got him for something. Perhaps that was why, after Spelling’s murder, he changed tack and became legit. He bought his first nightclub about then and set about climbing up the local business ladder. Now he had three thriving nightclubs. He’d also revamped his health club, made it very exclusive and charged a fortune for membership. He enjoyed a position of respect within the local community, was a well-known figure in sporting circles, and still had racehorses in training. Jimmy hadn’t heard about him being involved in anything shady.

  I was still thinking about Garnet the next day when I got a call from Reg Turner. I hadn’t expected to hear from him again so soon, if at all. He sounded agitated and asked if we could meet. I agreed immediately. I rode the Harley to a street close to his local and found the greasy spoon he’d directed me to.

  He lived close by and obviously had his routine down pat. A stroll to the café for a late breakfast, a detour to the betting shop and then straight on to the boozer. No deviations apart from an occasional visit to the dog track, and yet he still managed to know absolutely everything that was going on in the manor.

  I joined him but didn’t risk the food, settling for a strong black coffee.

  “What’s up, Reg?” I asked. “You look a bit shaken.”

  “I had a visit from your lot, didn’t I.”

  “I did warn you that they’d come knocking sooner or later. It wouldn’t normally bother you.”

  “Some god-awful, pushy woman inspector came throwing her weight around.” He pulled an aggrieved face. “What happened to a bit of good old-fashioned professional respect, Mr. H, that’s what I wanna know?”

  “Times are changing, Reg.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed morosely, wiping up dollops of egg yoke with his bread. “And not for the better. Knew where we stood, we did, back in your day.”

  “I’ve only been gone for a bit more than a year, Reg,” I said, amused.

  “Whatever.”

  “You didn’t ask me here to talk about Inspector Slater’s myriad shortcomings.”

  “Kept on and on at me, she did, demanding to know why I’d gone to see Miller. How could I afford his fees?” He glowered at the opposite wall as though he bore it a grudge. “Like it was any of her business, the nosy cow.”

  “She was only doing her job.”

  “Well, someone ought to show her how to do it right. She can’t speak to people like that and expect them to tell her what she wants to know.”

  I chuckled. “You wouldn’t have told her anyway.”

  “That ain’t the point. We could have a nice little thing going. A polite exchange of information, beneficial to both parties, like what I had with you. But not if there’s no respect there.”

  “Okay, Reg, you’ve had a good bitch. Now tell me why I’m here.”

  “It’s about why I went to see Miller.” Fear replaced the sullenness in his expression. “I’ve had a long think about it, and now that he’s gone I reckon I need some insurance.”

  I frowned. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “That’s because it don’t come natural to break confidences but I don’t reckon I’ve got any choice now. If I finish up like Miller, then the truth’ll die with me.”

  I’d never seen Reg so shaken before. “Just tell me. You know I won’t blab.”

  “It’s about Jeff Spelling. He wasn’t going to leave his missus for a barmaid. He wasn’t going to leave her at all, that’s just what Mike told Cleo when he was nicked and she demanded to know what he’d been up to.”

  “Why? What was really going on?”

  Reg rubbed his bristly chin. “He needed money, and fast. When Mike got wind of it and asked him what he was doing, he told him the truth.”

  “What did he need it for?”

  “His daughter.” Reg flashed a mirthless grin, presumably because my expression reflected my surprise. “Yeah, I knew that would shake you. Jeff was dead faithful to his missus. He wasn’t the type to put it about. But he had a thing going before he married her, with—”

  “Don’t tell me. A barmaid.”

  “Right, anyway she had his kid, but Jeff didn’t even know at the time that she was up the duff. He only found out after he’d married Anne.” He paused, lost in reflection. “Now Anne was dead set on having a family,” he said round a mouthful of toast. I recalled all the stuffed toys and pictures of her sister’s kids dotted round her house and could easily believe it. “It never happened but Anne dragged Jeff off for all the tests under the sun. There was him wanking into a plastic cup to make sure all his little soldiers were alive and kicking when he knew full well that he wasn’t firing blanks. Couldn’t tell Anne that though. Not without giving the game away.”

  “Would she have minded knowing that he had a kid with someone else before he met her?”

  “Dunno.” He shrugged. “Jeff must have thought so. Anyway, the kid’s mum asked him not to say. She’d managed to bring the kid up pretty well on her own and didn’t want anyone else sticking their oar in.”

  “So why did she contact Jeff?” I signalled the waitress for a refill. She sashayed over and spent an unnecessarily long time bending over, giving me a good view of her cleavage as she poured.

  Reg chu
ckled. “Reckon you’re in there,” he said.

  “Must be my lucky day.”

  “Anyway, you asked why she contacted Jeff after eight years.” He paused, staring off into the distance. “Apparently the kid was ill. Leukaemia.”

  “Ahh.”

  “Yeah, well, the NHS. You know how it is, even with kids. The treatment she needed was expensive and she wouldn’t necessarily get it straightaway. It was possible for her to get the best of everything abroad but it cost money.”

  “And Jeff gave it to her.”

  “Every penny and more besides. He didn’t hesitate.”

  “Did he actually have the money?”

  “That’s a bit of a grey area, isn’t it. I don’t suppose he did but then he was a bent bookie so it didn’t really make much odds.”

  I wondered if the pun was deliberate. “Unless he skimmed off the top of money that was coming in from Garnet’s scam.”

  Reg nodded. “Glad to see you haven’t lost the edge, Mr. H.”

  “Is that what he was doing?”

  “Dunno, do I, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “And you think Garnet had him done in?”

  “Possibly.” He shot me a glum look. “More than likely. No one crosses Peter Garnet. Not if they’ve got any sense.”

  “Seems a bit extreme.”

  “I’ve thought about it a lot and I suspect it wasn’t meant to go that far. Garnet probably sent that goon Glover round to have a quiet word and things got out of hand. Glover ain’t too bright but he does like his work and gets a bit overenthusiastic sometimes.”

  “Thanks for sharing, Reg.” I didn’t bother to ask him why he hadn’t come to me with his theory at the time instead of letting an innocent man go to jail. He’d obviously been thinking about his own skin. “But it still doesn’t tell me what you were doing at Miller’s.”

  “I was getting to that.” He paused to take a noisy slurp of tea. “Jeff was right taken with being a dad, even if he couldn’t boast about it. The kid had the treatment and Jeff decided he wanted to do something more for her.”

  “Hang on. I thought Garnet caught him skimming and did him in?”