by Sibel Hodge
She nodded, but didn’t offer up any further information.
‘Didn’t you think that was a bit of a coincidence?’ I said, watching the red patch get bigger. It was coincidence city around here today.
‘No. Nothing was stolen here so I can’t see what the connection could possibly be.’ She dusted off her hands in an impatient gesture. ‘You’ll need to speak to Carl about the bank robbery. I don’t know anything about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ She pointed towards the gate I’d come through.
I smiled. ‘Well, thanks for your help.’
I retraced my steps and made my way back to the car to call Hacker.
‘Yo,’ he answered on the second ring.
‘Yo. Can you check into any insurance claims made by Carl Thomas or his wife for a break in at Ashcombe House? Carl’s not living there at the moment, but it was burgled before his bank got robbed and methinks it’s not a coincidence.’
‘Sure, do you know who they were insured with?
‘No, sorry.’
I heard Hacker’s fingers clacking over his keyboard. ‘OK, I’ll call you back.’
‘Yo.’ I hung up and motored over to Carl’s rented house on the other side of town.
****
It was smaller than Ashcombe House, but no less impressive. I pulled up outside a red-brick Victorian house covered in ivy and stared up at it. All the curtains at the sash windows in front were closed.
I glanced at my watch. 3 p.m. Even though it was Sunday, it was a bit late for a lie in. Maybe he had a bit of a privacy obsession.
Hacker phoned me back as I was staring up at the windows. ‘Yo.’
‘Deborah Thomas is his wife’s name. She phoned her insurance company on the day of the burglary to report a break-in, but she didn’t make any claim. She said there was just a bit of damage to the rear door where they broke in, but apparently nothing was stolen.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ I said. People didn’t usually break into a house worth that much and steal nothing, unless they were looking for something. The question is, what were they looking for and was it related to the bank robbery? ‘Thanks. Yo.’ I hung up.
I walked up the gravel driveway past a black Porsche with CT 1 on the private number plate and banged on the heavy oak door of the house.
Five bangs later, there was still no answer and the house was silent, so as Nosy was my middle name, I made my way around to the back of the house.
The curtains were all closed at the rear as well. I knocked on the back door but still no one answered.
I tried the handle. It turned with an echoing click.
That didn’t give me a particularly warm and fuzzy feeling.
I swung the door open and peered inside.
Through the gloom, I saw a kitchen decked out in lots of stainless steel and red. It was pretty safe to say that the red wasn’t part of the original design, though, seeing as it was coming from a gaping slit in Carl Thomas’s throat.
Chapter 4
Dead people didn’t freak me out. Granted, being in a kitchen with a dead guy wasn’t one of my favourite pastimes, but I’d seen enough of them during my seventeen years in the police force to get used to it. The thing that was really freaking me out was that I’d have to call Romeo and let him know Carl Thomas was as dead as a sabre-toothed tiger. I hadn’t spoken to him for over a week since his ultimatum, and I kind of wanted to be in denial about the whole thing.
I punched in his number on my mobile and glanced around the kitchen for anything screaming CLUE in big letters.
Carl lay on his back on the floor next to a shiny stainless steel cooker, his eyes closed and his throat wide open. Splatters of blood covered the cooker, the steel worktop, the surrounding white cupboards, and a pool of blood spread out on the floor around him. I hoped the stainless steel lived up to its promises, although I suspected the blood would be leaving a nasty mark. He wore the same clothes he’d been wearing when he turned up at the boxing match the night before. The only difference was they were stained bright red. A half-empty cocktail glass was on the worktop with some sort of red liquid in it. I took a sniff – a cosmopolitan. I could smell the vodka and cranberry juice.
‘Hi, Amber.’ Romeo’s voice sounded tense, and since he usually called me darling, not Amber, that was a dead giveaway, as well.
‘Hi! How are you? What’ve you been up to?’ I gushed, not quite knowing why. I wasn’t a gushy girl so why was I suddenly gush central? I cringed to myself.
‘What’s up?’
‘Oh, not much. I’m just standing in a kitchen with a dead guy.’
A pause where I pictured him doing some deep breathing, then: ‘The weird thing is, that doesn’t even sound weird coming from you. Where are you, and who’s the dead guy?’
‘I’m at Carl Thomas’s house – the owner of Kinghorn Thomas Bank. Carl’s had his throat slit.’ I glanced at Carl again, hoping for his sake that I’d just imagined the whole thing and really he was just having a little nap after a fight with some red food dye or a gallon of cranberry cosmopolitans.
Nope. He was still dead.
‘What?’ Romeo took a moment to let that sink in. ‘I’m working the safety deposit box robbery case at his bank.’
‘I know. That’s why I called you.’
‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ Romeo hung up.
Before he arrived, I took the opportunity to poke around in the house. OK, technically I wasn’t supposed to. Technically, I should’ve waited for the scene of crime officers to do their stuff, but I was very careful, and technically my curiosity was now in overdrive.
The back door hadn’t been forced. The glass panel and lock hadn’t been damaged in any way, and there were no other signs of forced entry. That didn’t tell me a great deal, though. It could mean that Carl had opened the door to his attacker, or the back door was already unlocked. Or it could simply mean that whoever had killed him was an expert at picking locks.
The kitchen was tidy, unless you counted the blood stains. There was only one cocktail glass so there were no signs that Carl had been entertaining anyone recently. I grabbed some latex gloves from my rucksack and pulled them on, poking in drawers and cupboards for anything that might help me find out who was responsible. The only slightly interesting thing was a fresh packet of doughnuts in the fridge. They were apple ones, too! Apple was healthy, right? That poster at the hospital said so. Since bad news always gave me an appetite, I thought about scoffing one down but I didn’t have much time. I resisted the urge and turned my attention to the rest of the house instead.
I wandered through the dining room and lounge with a critical eye. The house was rented so I didn’t pay that much attention to the fixtures and fittings.
Nothing had been ransacked. Nothing had been smashed or left in a mess. So far, it didn’t look like a burglary that had gone wrong. The ginormous flat screen TV and expensive stereo system were still in place, and there was a laptop sitting on an elegant mahogany office desk in the corner on full display.
Damn. I won’t have time to look at it before Romeo gets here.
I climbed the soft, carpeted stairs to the bedrooms. There were four in all but it looked like only the master bedroom was in use. A half-empty suitcase was on the floor, filled with shirts, boxers, shorts, and socks. Several suit-carrying bags hung in the wardrobe filled with suits that probably would’ve cost my whole year’s salary. On top of the bedside cabinet was a passport. I opened it and flicked through. It was Carl’s – no great surprise there.
I poked in the en suite bathroom but didn’t find anything odd, unless you counted some Just for Men hair dye. Personally, I thought men got more distinguished when they started going grey. I mean, look at Richard Gere. He looked pretty damn sexy with a head full of grey hair. An image of Brad pinged into my mind. His hair was now turning grey around the temples and sideburns, which just made him look more rugged and manly to me.
I shook my head, clearing it of ran
dom, sexy Brad thoughts, and took one last look around the room as Romeo called my name from downstairs.
‘Hi.’ I smiled as I entered the kitchen, but it wobbled a bit on my face.
He looked gorgeous. His dark brown hair had been freshly clippered. His hazel eyes looked bright and sparkly, and his cinnamon skin looked good enough to lick.
Oh, shut up, brain! There’s a dead guy in the kitchen and you’re thinking about skin-licking.
What was wrong with me? Maybe I was turning into a nympho and needed some serious professional help.
Courtesy of a mix of Spanish and English parents, Romeo was searingly hot. And before you get any weird ideas about his name, I think that Posh and Becks actually stole the idea from my Romeo!
Oh! Did I just say my Romeo? He’s not my Romeo right now. We’re on a break. Right, no lusty licking thoughts when we’re on a break. Get a grip, girl!
Romeo was crouched down in front of Carl, examining the death scene. He glanced up at me and smiled. A beautiful smile that revealed his perfect white teeth. ‘Hi, Amber, how’ve you been?’
He stood up, keeping a metre gap between us.
‘Er…I’m OK. How are you?’ I tilted my head, surreptitiously checking him out.
‘I’m good, thanks. Busy with work, you know how it is.’
There was no anger or hurt in his voice. He didn’t seem to be falling apart at the absence of me in his life. It was probably a bit selfish, but part of me wanted him to be missing me.
‘So, how come you ended up in Carl’s kitchen? Are you working on a case?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘I’m investigating Levi Carter’s boxing match.’
‘Why?’
I shrugged. ‘He’s got medical insurance with us, and Brad wanted me to check out the injury to his eye.’
He folded his arms. ‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with Carl Thomas?’
I was saved from answering by the arrival of the SOCOs and the Coroner’s Officer Carole Blake.
‘Hey, girl!’ Carole gave me a huge smile. ‘Long time no see. How are you?’ She gave a tentative glance between Romeo and me. Obviously the police station grapevine had heard that we’d split up. Oops, I mean, we were on a break. Or was that a Freudian slip, I wondered?
‘I’m great.’ I hugged her.
‘We must grab a drink one night. It’s been ages,’ she said.
‘Absolutely.’ I smiled back.
‘So, what’ve we got here?’ She pulled on some latex gloves as the SOCO team set down boxes full of equipment on the floor and surveyed the scene.
‘Carl Thomas.’ Romeo nodded towards the body. ‘I need an update on anything you find ASAP. I’m working on the robbery case at his bank, and somehow I don’t think this is a coincidence,’ he said to them.
‘No problem.’ Carol bent down and examined Carl’s slash wound.
‘Well, we’ll get out of your hair.’ Romeo grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the back door. When we were outside, he said, ‘OK, you have some explaining to do. I think we need to have a chat about things.’
My stomach lurched. I really didn’t want to get into our personal thing at this moment in time. I still hadn’t made up my mind what to do about Romeo or Brad, and this was hardly the time or place.
‘Well…’ I trailed off. ‘You know I’m not very good with ultimatums.’ I suddenly found the concrete step I was standing on really fascinating and stared at it. ‘Things are…complicated.’
‘I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about Levi and Carl.’ His voice was steady and in control.
I looked up sharply, my face hot with embarrassment. ‘Oh! Right. Yes.’ Even though I didn’t want to talk about us, part of me felt disappointed that he didn’t want to talk about us. Weird woman logic, huh?
‘Meet me in Starbucks in ten minutes.’ He strode towards his car.
****
I grabbed a monster double chocolate chip muffin, which looked droolingly gorgeous, and a latte before searching out Romeo who was sitting in a corner booth, swirling his coffee around and staring into it.
I sat down and picked out the chocolate chips without meeting his steady gaze. I’d already embarrassed myself enough for one day so I thought I’d let him speak first.
‘So, spill the beans.’ Romeo sipped his cappuccino and gazed at me over the rim of the mug.
‘I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.’ I shoved a handful of chocolate chips in my mouth. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing if you fill me in on the Kinghorn Thomas robbery.’
He folded his arms and nodded. ‘OK. You go first.’
Where did I start? I’d only been on this case one day and I already had all sorts of information running around in my brain that didn’t make sense. ‘Well.’ I put the rest of the muffin down and leaned my elbows on the table. ‘It all started with the boxing match between Levi Carter and Ricky Jackson. Brad thought there was something off with the fight and he wanted me to look into it.’
Romeo flinched slightly at the mention of Brad’s name.
I pretended I hadn’t noticed and carried on. ‘Carl Thomas turned up at the fight in the sixth round and started shouting something at Levi. Whatever it was got Levi really scared, and he was distracted by it enough to get knocked out, because Ricky managed to punch Levi in the eye, giving him a huge cut and a torn retina. The referee stopped the fight and declared Ricky the winner.’ I took a slug of latte. ‘Now, this is where it gets interesting…Levi’s promoter and manager is Vinnie Dawson.’
Romeo whistled.
‘Apparently, years ago when Levi was just starting out, he signed a contract with Vinnie which wasn’t exactly favourable to him. Levi’s trainer, Terry, told me he’d recently overheard them rowing about the contracts. Now, Levi and his wife aren’t exactly living in luxury. They have a house worth around a million with nothing flashy or expensive in it. Levi should’ve got about twenty million from last night’s fight alone, so I’m pretty sure that this contract is dodgy.’
‘I’m not surprised if Vinnie is involved in it.’
‘During this row, Levi’s trainer thought Vinnie was ordering Levi to deliberately throw the fight. Vinnie’s cousin, Lee, has now got a betting shop called Bet-It, and the interesting thing about the fight is there were some unusual betting patterns. Hacker’s still looking into the details, but huge bets were placed on Levi going down in the eighth round.
Romeo frowned. ‘Hang on a minute…I thought you said Levi got knocked out in the sixth round.’
I sat back and crossed my arms. ‘Exactly! So my thoughts are that Carl Thomas turning up at the fight like that wasn’t planned or staged to cause the distraction that made Levi drop his guard. Something else was going on, but I don’t know what yet.’
‘That makes sense. What else?’
‘Apparently, Levi has been acting out of character lately, saying he needs to make things right and live up to his responsibilities,’ I said.
Romeo thought about that for a moment. ‘Well, if he’s willing to throw his fights, then that could explain those comments.’
I swallowed my now cool coffee and poked my finger in, dabbing up the milky foam stuck to the sides. ‘It could. His wife thinks he’s having an affair, so he could’ve been talking about that, too.’ I sucked my finger. ‘Also, I put Lee away for armed robbery years ago, and Carl Thomas’s bank was robbed last week.’ I raised an eyebrow for emphasis.
‘Interesting.’ Romeo looked off into the distance. ‘Yes, I remember now. The First National Bank robbery. But that was about ten years ago, wasn’t it? Do you think Lee’s still up to his old tricks?’
‘Anything’s possible when you’re dealing with lowlife scumbags.’ I shrugged.
‘I’ll see if Lee has an alibi for the time of the robbery. I’ve already checked any offenders we have in the system who’ve used a similar MO as the safety box robbery before, but so far I’ve come up with zilch.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Why do you think C
arl turned up at Levi’s fight, and what was he shouting?’
‘I don’t know yet. I’m still working on that. But I’ve got the name of one of the people who put on large bets. Guess who it is?’
Romeo shrugged. ‘Carl Thomas?’
I grinned. ‘Close. It was Edward Kinghorn – joint owner of Kinghorn Thomas Bank with Carl Thomas.’
Romeo stared out the window, letting this sink in. ‘So you think that Vinnie has been feeding Carl or Edward insider tip-off information about sporting events so they can place big bets on it?’ He turned back to me.
I nodded. ‘That’s how it looks. The question is, are they using their own money or are they using the bank’s money without their clients knowing?’
‘Good point.’
‘Now we know there’s obviously some sort of connection between Carl, Edward, and Vinnie with these bets, but when Carl turned up at the fight he was shouting directly at Levi. Levi knew what he was saying, although he lied to me and told me he didn’t. Vinnie, who was sitting close to Carl at the time, heard what he was saying and he looked pretty worried, too.’ I nibbled another chocolate chip.
‘So what was Carl shouting at Levi?’
‘Hacker managed to work out the first part, but he’s still working on the rest of it. Carl said, “I know what you…”.’
Romeo pursed his lips. ‘“I know what you…”?’
‘That’s all we’ve got to work with so far.’
‘Not a lot to go on. It could mean anything.’ Romeo sat back and rested his arm along the back of the booth, tapping it absent-mindedly.
‘It could, but I think it means Carl knew something about Levi that both Levi and Vinnie didn’t want him to know.’
‘Well that would make sense seeing as Carl is now dead.’
I stared into my empty cup, wishing it was a crystal ball, wondering what it was that Carl knew. ‘Maybe it has to do with this contract that Levi signed with Vinnie. Terry said that Levi signed it when he was young and hungry to be heavyweight champion of the world. He thinks Levi was easily manipulated into signing it. I mean, it makes sense. If you’re just starting out as a professional fighter, you would be more willing to take an unfavourable deal that perhaps wasn’t really in your best interests, wouldn’t you? You hear about it a lot with sportsmen and artists who later go on to sue their managers.’ I paused. ‘But what if there was some other reason for signing it?’
