Siren Song (Harrison Jones and Amy Bell Mystery Book 1)

by Rebecca McKinney

  She swallowed the last cold crust of toast and picked up the telephone. It rang before she even touched the screen, and Harrison’s name appeared.

  ‘Okay, that’s just creepy,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was literally just about to ring you.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Listen, I’ve found out a thing or two. Our boy is called Tim Cartwright. I’ll send you a link to his photo. The charity they were connected with is called LASAR-Net: Lothian Asylum Seeker and Refugee Network, but he doesn’t appear to have been on the staff list there. Neither does Lucy. They’ve played a few gigs together around town, but nothing in the last eighteen months.’

  ‘Brilliant, Amy. I might go over there after my seminar tomorrow morning. You want to come?’

  ‘Sure. I’m not working until the evening.’

  ‘Anyway, I just wanted to check you’re okay.’

  ‘Aye, I’m grand, Professor.’

  ‘You know I’m not a professor, right?’

  ‘You know I’m only teasing you, right?’

  ‘All quiet on the Ricky front?’

  ‘No sightings, but I feel a disturbance in the Force.’

  ‘The Force ...’ he paused and she could tell he was holding back a comment. Maybe he was too cerebral for repeated Star Wars analogies, but the comparison comforted her. It suggested happy endings and triumphant music.

  ‘Are you worried? Do you want me to come over?’ he asked.

  She tried to imagine Harrison Jones squaring off with Ricky. She couldn’t imagine him squaring off with anybody. ‘Thank you for offering, but it’s fine.’ She peered out the window at the damp empty street. ‘I can handle him.’

  FOURTEEN

  Professor Gordon Leigh-Davies was the head of the social anthropology department, and widely tipped to be the next Dean of Faculty. He was also inappropriately preoccupied by the feminine curves of more or less any woman who crossed his path. He especially liked them on the plump side, young and dark-skinned: more or less the polar opposite of his wife Gwyneth. Lately, the principal object of his desire was Aziza Maalouf, a twenty-four-year-old PhD student from Cairo.

  Harrison found Monday morning postgraduate seminars torturous at the best of times, but the waves of lust emanating from Gordon while Aziza stumbled through the outline of her thesis-in-progress made this one unbearable. He’d arrived five minutes too late and all the seats in the room had been taken except the one beside Gordon. The seminar room was cramped and Gordon kept jabbing Harrison with his elbow and bumping him with his knee under the table. Every time they touched, Harrison received another flood of Gordon’s hormonal imagination. The vibes he put out ought to be enough to merit jail time.

  The contents of any man’s mind could be pretty sordid. Gordon wasn’t unique in this. It wasn’t fair to demonise the man. Gordon didn’t know, and couldn’t help, that Harrison was reading him like a morning tabloid.

  Harrison willed himself to concentrate on Aziza’s talk. Like most PhD papers, it was heavy on theory and tangled in angst. Aziza had done some excellent research among women peace activists in Palestine, but the material almost disappeared amongst the jargon. Gordon and his cronies kept the seminar going far longer than it needed to, with questions, which weren’t really questions at all, but cleverly-engineered displays of their own brilliance. Harrison glanced at his watch and turned his shoulder toward Gordon.

  When the interminable session finally ended, Harrison attempted to make a clean getaway. He’d arranged to pick up Amy at one and it was now nearly half-past twelve. Gordon cobbled him.

  ‘Harri, do you have a minute?’

  ‘A quick one. I have an appointment.’ He followed Gordon to his office and shut the door. Thankfully, now that there were no women in sight, Gordon’s state of arousal had returned to acceptable levels: terror threat level reduced to moderate.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’d like you to take over supervising Aziza, if you can possibly fit her in. I know you’re busy.’

  ‘How come?’ The question was unnecessary for any reason except keeping up appearances.

  ‘I believe she would benefit better from the wisdom of your particular approach and ... ehm ... youth, I suppose.’

  ‘Youth?’

  Gordon held out his hands. ‘It’s all relative, of course.’

  ‘She came here specifically to study with you.’ Silently he added, You lecherous old bastard, and hoped Gordon would pick it up.

  ‘I’ve discussed this with her and she’s amenable. I’ll be open with you, Harri. She and I have some differences of opinion. I believe she’s too close to her material. Too passionate, shall we say.’

  Or not passionate enough. ‘And that’s a bad thing because ...’

  ‘It compromises intellectual rigour. You know that.’

  ‘It’s a sin you’ve accused me of on many occasions. We’re writing about living, breathing, struggling people.’

  ‘In an attempt to elicit wider human truths.’

  ‘I thought it was to recognise their lives, for their sakes.’

  ‘And therein lies our problem. Maybe it’s a generational thing.’ Gordon gave one of his mild, patronising smiles. ‘This is exactly why I thought of you for Aziza. I believe you’ll give her the space and support she needs for writing up as quickly as possible.’

  ‘So you can clear her out of here.’

  ‘Let’s be honest, she’s never going to set the world alight.’

  ‘Jesus, Gordon, could you be a bigger misogynist if you tried?’

  Gordon laughed. ‘Oh, Harrison. Aren’t we all misogynists, if we’re honest with ourselves?’

  ‘Not all of us.’

  ‘No, of course you’re not. But you’re the man for Aziza. You’re the best teacher we have. The students love you.’

  ‘Being loved by students isn’t always seen as the mark of a successful academic.’

  Gordon’s chair creaked as he leaned back. In the cold fluorescent light, he looked florid and deeply frustrated. ‘Harrison, forgive me for saying this, but sometimes I get the feeling you’d rather be doing other things. Travelling in other realms, shall we say?’

  Harrison didn’t try to deny this statement. ‘Well I was hoping to get back to Bolivia next year.’

  ‘If you don’t take Aziza, she may be forced to find a place with another university. It wouldn’t be the best for our reputation, internationally.’

  ‘Rich parents might send their tuition cheques elsewhere.’

  ‘Harri ...’

  ‘Okay, Gordon. I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I’ll take her on, it’s fine.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Aye. There’s a good thesis in her, I’m confident of that.’

  ‘Good man.’

  Harrison checked the time again. ‘I’m going to be late.’

  ‘Is it a medical appointment? Nothing of concern, I hope?’

  ‘Eh ... no. Nothing of concern.’

  LASAR-Net occupied a tiny shop space in Niddrie, between a tanning salon and a boarded-up butcher shop. Graffiti adorned the cladding to the left of the door: terrorist scum.

  ‘Nice,’ Amy muttered, slamming the car door.

  Harrison glanced at her. ‘How do you feel about asking the questions?’

  ‘Okay. Why?’

  ‘I think you’ll be better at it than me today. I just want to listen.’

  ‘I’m expecting a fifty per-cent cut, Professor,’ she said.

  She was teasing again, but he wasn’t in the mood. He stepped away from her impatiently. ‘Amy, I fully intend to pay you for your contribution.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m not ... I wasn’t expecting you to. I’m just along for the ride out of curiosity.’

  ‘You’re doing a job; you deserve to be paid for it.’

  ‘We can discuss this later. Are we going in or not?’

  The woman at the desk inside was looking out at them. She was plump, with purple hair
piled in a tangled nest on top of her head and piercings in her nose, lip and eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, we’re going in. Take a direct approach, tell her who we are and trust yourself.’

  Amy pushed the door open and smiled at the woman. ‘Hello.’

  ‘How can I help you?’ the woman asked. There was a silver stud in her tongue. To Harrison’s surprise, she was local and broad-spoken. He’d been expecting another posh dropout.

  ‘Is there a manager in today?’ Amy asked in return.

  ‘Aye, I’m Nessa Walker, I’m the manager.’

  ‘I’m Amy and this is Harrison. We’re hoping you can help us find a couple of people who used to work here. Possibly they were volunteers? Lucy Merriweather and Tim Cartwright.’

  ‘Lucy and Tim haven’t…’ she cut herself off, as if realising she’d given away too much already. ‘And who are you, like?’

  ‘We’re private investigators.’

  ‘Private investigators.’ She smothered a sceptical laugh. ‘Who hired you?’

  ‘Elizabeth Merriweather. Lucy’s mother.’

  Nessa Walker’s pierced eyebrows arched and her smile faded. ‘Oh aye.’

  ‘I take it you know her.’

  ‘Only by reputation. You’d best sit down. You want a coffee? Tea?’

  ‘Tea would be grand, thanks.’

  ‘Aye, tea for me as well, ta.’ Harrison said, allowing himself to slide into a broader accent. He could tell already that Nessa would respond better to that version of him than she would to the university don. He spread his hands on her desk and images flickered past him, a film trailer of her life. University had been a childhood dream for her, but the reality had not worked out so well. It had taken her the better part of twenty years to fight back from the breakdown she’d had there.

  Nessa reappeared with three mugs. ‘Here we are. Are they in trouble?’

  Amy glanced at Harrison, wondering what to say.

  ‘We hope not,’ he said. ‘Lucy’s mum is pretty worried. Have you seen them recently?’

  Nessa’s expression turned to worry. ‘No. What’s going on?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Amy said.

  ‘Right. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ Amy waved away her apology. ‘How were they involved with the charity? Were they employees of yours?’

  ‘No, they were volunteers. Tim Cartwright got involved first. He was young and a bit ...’ she twiddled an eyebrow ring as she considered her wording, ‘earnest, you know, but he was committed and he had good ideas. He was decent at raising money, which we needed badly.’

  She stood up, took a leaflet out of a file box and handed it to Amy. ‘That’ll tell you all about us, if you want to know more.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Amy glanced at it and put it down. ‘Go on. What did Tim do to raise funds?’

  Nessa sipped her tea. ‘He liked organising gigs and performance nights, and they always pulled in a few hundred. He was good at that. I mean, I know he was trying to get his musical career off the ground at the same time, like, but that was no skin off my nose.’

  Harrison picked up a purple pen from the desk and rolled it between his hands, focusing in on the little vibrations and stirrings of memory it held. It spoke of unfulfilled intelligence, anger at the injustices of the world, deep personal commitment, and a profound fear of returning to her previous darkness. Nessa Walker was straight up and honest. It made a welcome change.

  ‘How about Lucy?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Lucy did some volunteer work with us. She did the gigs with Tim. A bonny singer. I’m telling you, that girl could have been a superstar. But she was troubled, I always felt.’

  ‘Troubled?’ Amy reflected this and leaned forward slightly, seeking Nessa’s gaze. ‘How?’

  She was good at this, Harrison observed silently. There was a reassuring but compelling tone in her voice that kept the distractible Nessa on topic.

  Nessa’s eyes flicked to Amy and then to Harrison. She seemed unsure of how much she should share. ‘I don’t know. I always knew there was some history there, like, but she never told me the full details. She could be in your face and totally clingy one minute, and the next minute flying into a rage over nothing. I always got the impression that she was pretty damaged. Poor attachments and all that.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where she is now?’

  ‘Last I knew, she was still in Greece.’

  ‘Greece?’ Amy glanced at Harrison, mirroring his annoyance.

  ‘Aye. They went over together, the pair of them. That’s a story itself. She was obsessed with Kostas Gianopoulos. Poor Tim, I knew she’d chuck him in the end.’

  ‘Kostas ...’

  ‘You’ve not heard of him? I’m surprised Mrs Merriweather didn’t mention him. He’s a friend of hers and Mr Merriweather’s. So Lucy said, anyway. A businessman of some description. I met him last year when he was in town for a few weeks, negotiating some deal.’

  ‘What kind of a businessman?’ Harrison interrupted sharply.

  Nessa sat up straighter in her chair, startled by his abrupt tone. ‘I couldn’t say for sure.’

  ‘A dodgy one?’ Amy pressed.

  She shrugged and relaxed again. ‘As far as I’m concerned, they’re all dodgy, but maybe that’s just me. He might be a property developer or something like that. I thought he had something to do with a chain of hotels, but I never asked for details.’

  Nessa turned her eyes to Harrison. ‘I don’t know anything else about him. Lucy brought him to the office a few times. He was never anything but nice when he was here, like. Charming, handsome, and very generous with his money. He bought clothes for some of our clients, toys for the bairns, bags of food and all that.’

  ‘Did that seem genuine to you?’ Harrison asked.

  Nessa’s fat brows drew together. ‘He came over as pretty genuine. Or he seemed it, but ...’ She paused, blew across the surface of her tea. ‘I have to say, I never trusted him. We’re just a wee charity. I never understood why he was so interested in us, or why he wanted to help us.’

  ‘How did he help you?’

  She hesitated briefly, before saying, ‘He gave us a big donation.’

  ‘That was nice of him,’ Harrison commented.

  ‘Aye, it was, but…’ She radiated guilt and uncertainty, like she was afraid of being discovered to have done something corrupt. ‘Do you ever just get a feeling about someone?’

  ‘All the time,’ said Harrison. ‘Tell me about that. What did you feel?’

  ‘That he was after something in return.’

  ‘From the charity? From Lucy? What?’

  ‘I couldn’t honestly say. Anyway, he went home and the next thing I know, Tim resigns from the board and tells us that he and Lucy are going travelling.’

  ‘When was this?’ Amy asked.

  ‘A year ago, thereabouts.’

  ‘Lucy Merriweather’s mother doesn’t seem to know she left the country.’

  ‘No? Well, I’m not that surprised. Lucy was quite open about the fact that she hated everything her parents represented. She was adamant.’

  ‘And so off they went and you haven’t heard from them since?’

  ‘I got an email from Tim a while ago. September sometime. He sounded really down. He said he and Lucy had been volunteering with some kind of co-operative in Athens, helping refugees, but that Kostas Gianopoulos had invited them to his home to do a gig for his friends. I can just imagine Tim with all those rich buggers.’ She laughed softly, untied her hair and ran her fingers through it, so that it looked like a halo of aubergine-coloured candyfloss. Then she gathered it back into the band again.

  ‘Next thing he knew, they were going there every weekend, and Kostas was buying Lucy clothes and promising to launch her singing career. Tim thought Lucy was possibly sleeping with Kostas. He said it had all been just one big party and admitted that he’d been smoking a lot of hash and snorting lines. Lucy broke up with him, which I can’t say surprise
d me. Tim said he didn’t know what he was going to do, or where he was going to go, but he felt he had to leave Athens. He had wanted to come back home with Lucy, but not without her.’ She held her hands open in a helpless gesture. ‘And that was the last I heard.’

  ‘So that was September,’ Amy said, obviously trying to piece together a timeline. ‘Tim and Lucy broke up, and she went off with this guy. Kostas …?’

  ‘Gianopoulos. Aye. Poor Tim, he was pretty disgusted with the whole situation. I feel bad for him, eh. She broke his heart, like, properly.’

  ‘Did you write back to him?’

  ‘Aye. I said he’d always be welcome back here, but he never replied. I hope he hasn’t gone off the deep end. He could be pretty depressive at times.’

  ‘Do you think he might do himself damage?’ Amy asked.

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Did he come back to Britain?’

  ‘Not sure. Like I said, he never replied to me.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know how to get in contact with his family, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know…he never mentioned them much.’

  ‘He’s from Birmingham, is that right?’

  ‘Coventry.’

  ‘Ah, right.’ Amy wrote this down.

  ‘That’s all I know.’

  ‘Nessa, you’ve been incredibly helpful,’ Harrison said, indicating that the questioning had finished. ‘Do you still have that email from Tim?’

  ‘Aye …’ she paused to think for a moment, holding her mug under her chin and looking at them through the thin shimmer of steam. ‘I could print out a copy for you, I guess.’

  ‘That would be great, thank you.’

  She made a few clicks on her computer, and the printer behind her whirred to life. ‘Here you go.’ She handed over the sheet. ‘It’s not very ethical, giving you this, but…I am a wee bit worried if I’m honest. I don’t know what it is about Kostas Gianopoulos, but I think he’s dangerous.’

  ‘You don’t happen to have a phone number for Tim, do you?’

  Nessa shook her head. ‘The number I had for him isn’t working anymore. I did try to ring him a few times. I’ve sent him messages on Facebook, but he hasn’t replied to anything. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s holed up somewhere, extremely depressed. I just hope it’s nothing worse than that.’