The Dirty Game

by Solomon Carter

  She’d parked a way down the road instead of directly outside the house. It was just a precaution, so if she came back they wouldn’t spot her car. As she walked along the street she saw a tall kid on the other side, pushing a fancy mountain bike. The kid was hunched over so he could stretch to reach both handle bars, his gawky frame looking uncomfortable. He was still a way off at the town end of the road, when Eva realised she’d struck lucky. The hunching and pushing was forcing Nathan Fielding’s eyes to focus on keeping the bike going straight ahead. Eva walked more slowly now, and tried to take in as many details about the young man as she could. Then once she got nearer, she could choose her play.

  His clothes were street casual. He wore navy jogging bottoms with an Evisu brand swoosh the hip. He was wore another big lush hooded top, this one was a Superdry, and not the cheaper variety. It was thick enough for winter wear, its hood was fleece lined and the details were all embroidered. This piece looked worth at least a hundred. She looked at his trainers, too. Eva was no expert, but they were sturdy sport boot trainers, and she saw that they were Nike. They had a gold swoosh tick. These were bling trainers. Last of all the bike. As it came nearer she saw the fancy unusual frame shape, and the badges mounted in the spokes. It was a Claude Butler. The bike alone worth well above the thousand pound mark at Eva’s best guess. A further glance assured her that none of these items were fakes. These were all bona fide top quality brands, and they were not token items, they were the best options available. Nathan Fielding was an unusual boy. A twenty-something jobless autistic man with no means of income beyond disability allowances, pushing a thousand pound bike and wearing clothes which some shops in the area would be knocking out for over a hundred pounds apiece. It was the kind of clothing off-duty footballers wore, the Premiership kind. Where the hell was a boy like Nathan getting that kind of dough? It sure as hell wasn’t his mother’s carer allowance. Did Jane Fielding not notice the expensive brands her son was wearing? The whole thing was getting far too fishy for her liking. But bumping into the boy like this was an opportunity too good to pass up. She’d never worked on an investigation with an autistic before. She wondered how to handle it, and what damage she might do if she said the wrong thing. So at the last second, she opted for the direct route.

  “Nathan, hello, my name is Eva Roberts. I work with your Uncle Jim.”

  “Uncle Jim?” said Nathan looking up at Eva. He stood up straight, stretching out his back. He was taller than she remembered, and in daylight he looked less menacing. He looked awkwardly built, but he also looked self-conscious. His eyes went left and right before they landed on Eva.

  “I want to go home,” said Nathan.

  “That’s fine, Nathan. Absolutely fine. I just want to ask you a few questions. You remember last night, don’t you? You remember meeting me?”

  “That’s too many questions. I want to go home.”

  “How about one question at a time. What were you doing at Uncle Jim’s office last night?”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “You were there, Nathan. I have the evidence on film and I remember you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I can see that, Nathan, but I need you to talk about it.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “You can’t? Why can’t you talk about it?”

  “I can’t,” he said again. Eva pulled up her smartphone and opened the photograph of his face from the night before. “Nathan, look at me. I have the evidence on my computer, and I could submit it to the police. Do you know what that means?”

  Nathan waited a moment before he shook his head.

  “It means they would want to arrest you and investigate whether you had broken in at Alabaster Properties offices. It might mean they would put you in a cell. It wouldn’t be a nice experience, Nathan. It never is.”

  The young man looked at Eva, and his eyes became sad and desperate looking, then he seemed to regain some composure.

  “I want to go home. You can’t stop me.”

  “I don’t want to. Like I said, you’re welcome to go home. But surely you’d like to help a private detective with her inquiries. We’re not the police. And as far as I’m concerned we don’t have to tell the police so long as you help me.”

  Nathan looked beyond Eva to his home. He looked at Eva far below him, and his voice faltered.

  “What is it Nathan?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You know breaking and entering is a serious business. You trespassed into someone’s office. That’s a crime.”

  “I didn’t break and enter.”

  Eva said nothing, she had been trying to bluff him, make him emotional, but evidently the boy was smarter than she gave him credit for. “Trespassing…?” she emphasised the word, gambling for a different response. He looked at her again, like a man winning his point.

  “I didn’t trespass.”

  Eva examined his eyes, and began to understand. An idea was coming to her It was forming, but it was not yet fully formed.

  “You didn’t trespass, did you? You were invited.”

  “I can’t say,” said Nathan more urgently, and pushed on.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll never tell you. It’s a secret…” said the young man, seeming half like a child as he walked away. She let him go, but called after him. “Remember, Nathan, I’ve got evidence, and I’ll find more. You need to come clean on this, for your own sake.”

  “I can’t say,” he said once more as he pushed the Claude Butler across the street. He couldn’t say because someone had told him not to speak. And he didn’t trespass into Alabaster’s offices because someone in those offices had invited him in. This was going to be difficult, but Eva was getting closer. The boy being autistic presented challenges – how could they ever use what he said? For the police and the judicial system it presented worse problems. But for a private detective case this didn’t need to go to court. But Eva’s personality still demanded justice. She badly wanted to uncover the accomplice now. The accomplice – the mastermind– was manipulating this young man for a reason. There was no way this could be covered up. But she couldn’t face Greer with these thoughts until she’d got all the information from Nathan Fielding. The mastermind would be banking everything on the autistic young man keeping his word. Nathan was committed to secrecy, and Eva had to find a way to get the facts from him before Jim Greer cancelled the whole case. It was the worst possible outcome… and yet now, very likely…

  Eighteen

  Dan insisted on driving them to their meeting with Joss Chauncey. The car was comfortable, its leather seats were shiny and lived in, full of creases but not yet torn. Tearing was not far off, but its interior was holding up. The worst aspect of his old black Jag was the noise. It still hadn’t gone away. It clanked and rattled like it wanted to break down, and yet still drove well. As she recounted the tale of Greer, Nathan and Jane Fielding, Eva tried to ignore the car noise. She had the distinct feeling Dan was half listening, his thoughts still spent and chewed up with trying to avenge Laura’s murder. Eva understood, but she found it irritating all the same.

  “So, he’s autistic, he’s got no real income, but he’s got a Claude Butler bike and these really expensive street threads. It doesn’t add up.”

  “It adds up all right. The kid is Rain Man – you know, the old movie with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. Maybe he’s good with numbers and computers, but he’s got no social skills or nous. So the sonofabitch using this kid rewards him with things he can appreciate, like colourful labels and a bike, meanwhile he takes the money for himself.”

  “You think? I mean, that’s the first option on the menu, Dan. And it’s a possibility, but it doesn’t fit. Why would the thief sacrifice such a great proportion of his ill-gotten gains on Nathan? They have taken over seventeen thousand pounds. That’s not even a hundredth of a small lottery win. Why would so
meone steal that little money, risk their job and then reward someone for their help – when in Nathan’s case they probably won’t even understand the value of what they’re getting?”

  “You’re good with questions, Eva. Where are the answers? My head’s got enough questions in it to last me a year already.”

  It started to rain, and Dan flicked on the windscreen wipers. They shuddered and creaked. They stopped talking while they waited for the wipers to fail. They didn’t fail and the panic was over.

  “That’s the thing. We’re not there yet, but Jane Fielding must have noticed Nathan’s new threads… and he said that he didn’t trespass at Alabaster. That’s two question marks.”

  “Maybe one. I think the non-trespassing is what you said before. He was invited by one of three people. Now it’s a process of elimination.”

  “I agree. But rather than eliminate and give our targets a warning, I’d like to get more information from Nathan first. If we can catch our thief, we can shut the case down and save Nathan at the same time – and still get paid before Greer terminates the contract.”

  “You’re risking the pay cheque for this thing?”

  “Yes because I’ve been hanging around with you too long, Dan. That young man needs our help, and I won’t be satisfied until we’ve settled this case.” Her eyes drifted away. “I want to do the right thing here, not just the convenient thing.” I’m on the good side, no matter what Gary Rowntree says, she thought.

  The car pulled up outside a compact office just off the old town square in Rochford village. It was an ex-residential property and very old, much like DMC’s place in the far busier location of central Southend. Rochford was a village compared to Southend. It was a few miles back from the coast. On the one hand Rochford was a small place of old buildings, quiet streets, bakeries and tea rooms, and on the other hand it was the home the London Southend Airport, an expanding operation that brought new noise to the edge of the town. Chauncey Solicitors occupied a ground floor of a converted house beside an estate agent. It was not in good repair. The single glazed window frames were peeling their bottle green paint and the wood looked rotten. Dan looked around at Eva. “Chauncey is in today. I called an hour ago. You found out he’s a jerk, especially with women. In my eyes that’s interesting and relevant, but we need to know more. I want to know if he understands what Balfour meant about this unknown big man.”

  “Yes. Are you ready?”

  Dan nodded. “I’m excited. I think we’re getting closer.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  They walked through a wall of rain and opened a creaking bottle green door. Inside there was a low-ceilinged lobby, which led through to a small reception desk. A woman on the fortyish side, blonde hair and a pretty face was sitting behind it. She had an appointment book open in front of her and she was studying it when the door opened. She looked up and smiled when she saw Dan.

  “Good afternoon,” she said to Dan. “Afternoon,” she said to Eva.

  “We want to see Mr Chauncey if he’s available.”

  “I’ll check for you. What’s it regarding, please?”

  “A conversation about a case.” An old case, but only a new case was of interest to a solicitor. It was the best bait Dan had.

  Eva saw the woman’s eyes linger on Dan as she picked up the phone and dialled. In this environment the poor woman needed to get her kicks somewhere.

  “He’ll see you now. Please go through, Mr…ummmm.”

  “Bradley. And this is Miss Roberts.”

  “Fine. I’ll mark you in the book.”

  Dan smiled, “you do that. And make sure you underline our names. We’re way cooler than anyone else you had in recently.”

  Eva knocked on the old brown varnished door.

  “Enter!” said a deep voice that reminded Eva of the actor Brian Blessed. When she opened the door, she wasn’t disappointed. The room was larger than expected within the context of the cottage it occupied and it was lined with leather bound books. There were stacks of stuffed manila wallet files spilling sheaves of paper, and all the detritus of an old fashioned office. The desk was one of the green leather topped variety, and the leather was wearing as thin as the leather in Dan’s car. There were blown up photographs of holiday type scenes with azure blue skies and turquoise seas. There were Tuscan hills. There were Venetian water ways. Then there was the image of the woman, an artistic sketch of a nude woman in charcoal. It was stylised, but it was a nude all the same, and Eva wondered about the kind of solicitor who had blown up postcard pictures on his wall, and a sketch of a nude woman. Chauncey was ruddy faced with straggly grey hair untamed by brush or comb. He wore a checked shirt, brown, beige and green like an Aquascutum, with an un-matching tie. He was overweight, but in proportion for his age, and must have been older than Eleanor when he had married her. The man looked well fed, lived in, and fiery.

  “And to what do I owe this pleasure?” asked the man in his deep voice. The receptionist had been focused on Dan. Joss Chauncey’s attention was dedicated to Eva. It took an age before he looked in Dan’s direction.

  “You owe the pleasure to the fact you were John Balfour’s brief back in the 90s,” said Dan moving close alongside Eva.

  “Aaaahhh. Yes, John Balfour. Convicted for the brutal killing of Southend prostitute Rhiannon Calderwood. One client I simply couldn’t get off. Now there’s a shame,” said the man without regret. “Lovely name, Rhiannon, don’t you think? Pretty.”

  “Yes. Balfour liked pretty things. Even after completing his sentence,” said Eva. “We saw him go with another prostitute of the same age, build and look as Rhiannon Calderwood only this week. It seems he hadn’t gotten over his original issues,” said Eva.

  “Ah. Really? Now ‘issues’ is one way of putting it, but what you are really talking about is simply his taste in women? All men, and women for that matter, are allowed preferences in the age, type, shape and hair colouring of their sex partners are they not? One man likes girls who look like Catherine Zeta Jones, another man likes blondes with page three assets. It’s how the world works, is it not?”

  “That’s out of context, Mr Chauncey. John Balfour was a murderer,” said Eva, stung by his sexism.

  “Catherine Zeta Jones. You’re showing your age there, Mr Chauncey,” said Dan, grinning. Boys couldn’t help be boys, it seemed, even when a murder case was in the offing. “Nice ‘art’ by the way…”

  “Yes, I do like that piece. I only wish I’d met the model.” The man clapped his hands. “Right then. John Balfour was slain in Southend the other night, I heard. More holes in his back than there were in his alibi the first time round. He’s dead, and so is this this scruffy blonde woman killed a few weeks back, Laura Gosling. What’s all that got to do with me?” said the man in his well-spoken deep voice, throwing out his arms left and right like a Shakespearean luvvie.

  “May we sit?” asked Eva. The man raised his eyebrow at her and smiled.

  “Of course you may, my sweet,” said Chauncey.

  Eva grimaced and took a seat. Dan followed suit slowly. “She wasn’t scruffy, Mr Chauncey. She was well kept and had her own style, a street style, but a style all the same. Laura had a tough life, but had enormous potential. I intended to help her …”

  “Philanthropic sort, are we? After all, helping sex workers doesn’t pay, does it? At least not in legal currency…” the man chuckled. Dan’s face became increasingly tense.

  “We were friends, Mr Chauncey.”

  “Of course you were. It’s would be no skin off my nose if you were both members of the Rochford Golf Club, either. Junkie, wasn’t she?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Dan.

  “It’s supposed to be a question. We tend to ask them in my line of work.”

  “We ask them in our line of work too, Mr Chauncey,” said Eva. “That’s why we are here – to ask you questions about John Balfour and his associates.”

  “I like this one,” said Chauncey, pointin
g to Eva but speaking to Dan. He leaned forward in his chair. “Got spirit, and she’s direct too. You’d make a formidable barrister by my reckoning, Miss.”

  The man was as bad as she’d expected, but not in such a forthright way as this.

  “So, if you are willing to answer some questions, we’ll get on and not waste your time.”

  “Oh, you have my complete attention, I assure you. Fire away.”

  “Eva opened the notepad on her iPhone.”

  “Is that how they do things nowadays? Everything on a screen? What if your batteries run out?”

  “This battery won’t run out, Mr Chauncey. I’m fully charged.”

  “Oh, I can see that already, my dear.”

  Eva’s face flushed with irritation.

  “We believe there is a connection between John Balfour’s recent murder and the murder of Laura Gosling. On the night of his death John Balfour made comments to us about someone who did know what happened to Laura – he said someone ‘big.’ Balfour was in prison for a long time, and he’d only been out a few weeks when he was killed. This big man, Mr Big, whatever you want to call them, must have been known to Balfour prior to his days in prison. It’s not reasonable to suppose he made friends with a Mr Big immediately after release from jail, and within three weeks this Mr Big kills Laura Gosling and confides in John Balfour. That doesn’t make sense, so we believe he was known to Balfour before prison too.”

  “It’s not reasonable to suppose he only knew this Mr Big character after he was released? That’s a leap in the dark, is it not? The kind of filth Balfour lived amongst are just as likely to kill their own mothers and boast about it over lager and crisps the same evening. I’d say anything is possible.”

  Eva’s tone grew firm. “There are few contacts around, and we need a place to start. This is as good as any.”

  “Is it? Do you think? Why didn’t you visit his haunts? Why not find out where he frequented, ate and drank…or speak to those street women? Why bother his solicitor of almost sixteen years ago? That seems a strange choice.”