by Sibel Hodge
‘Your wish is my command,’ he said as I perched there, looking over his shoulder as he typed in the information.
I called Romeo while we waited for the results but he didn’t answer, so I left a message asking him to call me back and hung up. The results finally popped up and Hacker pointed at the screen. The three cars from the Cohens’ warehouse came back to legitimate numbers. No surprise there. The Purple People Eater jeep belonged to a Celia James. I wracked my brain trying to remember whether or not I’d ever come across that name before. Nope, nothing doing.
‘Who’s Celia James?’ Hacker asked.
‘I don’t know. But Fandango’s disappeared, my car’s been broken into, and Celia James has been following me. Methinks all this cannot be a coincidence.’
5
The next morning I woke up bright and early, raring to go. Now that I had something to sink my teeth into, I could feel the old familiar buzz of adrenaline surging through my veins. Amber Fox, Miss Hot-Shit Investigator, was well and truly on her way back!
I stood outside Fandango’s offices, checking out the view as I waited for the business to open. There were two houses in the vicinity of the old flour mill that could have had a view of what happened. I needed to talk to the owners, but first I wanted to speak to Fandango’s assistant, and I was betting that if it was London Fashion Week soon, they’d still have an immense amount of work to be getting on with, even though their boss was missing.
I didn’t have to wait long. At eight-thirty, she pulled up beside me in her spanking-new Beemer. I waited until she had poked her skinny legs out the car door before I got out of my own vehicle. She rolled her eyes when she saw me.
‘Morning.’ I beamed at her.
‘Hunh,’ she snorted, with an expression that clearly suggested I’d personally ruined her morning. Obviously the whack on her head hadn’t improved her manners.
‘I didn’t catch your name the other day,’ I said, falling into step along side her.
A blank expression stared back at me.
‘Your name?’ I prompted.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ she asked, scowling.
I whistled. ‘Wow, that’s a long name.’
She muttered something under her breath.
‘Well, since I’m investigating the disappearance of Umberto Fandango, I’d say it had quite a lot to do with me.’
‘Heather Brown,’ she finally snapped, frosty vibes rolling off her tongue in my direction. No, frosty was too warm a word. More like glacial.
‘I need to have a look around, and ask you a few questions.’
She didn’t bother to respond as she unlocked the offices and flipped on the lights. I hurried along behind her as she clacked her way toward the office she shared with Fandango, her Jimmy Choos sending out an unhappy snap with every step.
I studied her as she took a deep breath at the sight of the bullet hole in the doorframe, the dried smears of blood on the floor, and the residue of fingerprint powder which covered most of the surfaces in the office. She stepped over the bloodstains and placed her briefcase on her desk, glaring at me with defiant eyes. Ms. Ice Queen Brown didn’t seem all that upset about the fact that her boss was missing and possibly dead. Then again, she didn’t seem the type to let anything upset her.
‘How’s your head?’ I asked, studying the angle of the bullet hole and taking in the rest of the scene.
‘It’s still there.’
‘Well, that’s a bonus. Are you sure you’re up to working?’
‘I’m only staying for a few hours to sort out some things that can’t wait.’ She shot me a dismissive look.
‘So, what happened yesterday?’
She sighed and lit a cigarette. Tilting her head back, she exposed her scrawny neck and took a slow drag. Seeing I wasn’t just going to move on, she blew a line of blue-grey smoke in my direction and answered. ‘I don’t know. Someone hit me over the head. I got knocked out and I can’t remember.’ She curled her lips in a nasty half-smile and leaned skinny forearms on her desk.
‘How unfortunate,’ I said in a tone that implied I didn’t believe her in the slightest, and as I waited for her to continue, she flipped open her laptop and stared at the screen.
‘Did you see or hear anything before you were knocked out?’ I sat down in front of her, starting to understand why someone would hit her over the head. Much more of this and I would be taking a swing at her, myself.
‘No.’ This time she didn’t even bother to look at me when she answered. She rested her cigarette in an ashtray on her desk and typed away, avoiding my steady gaze.
‘What’s the last thing you do remember?’
‘I was here, at my desk. When I woke up again, I was lying on the floor, there,’ she said in a flat monotone as she pointed to the space between the back of her desk and the wall.
‘What time was that?’
‘About seven p.m.’
‘Who else was in the building at that time?’
‘It was just me and Umberto.’
‘Was the place locked up and alarmed while you were in here?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. The door alarms were probably on.’
‘And the entire fashion collection has been stolen from this building?’
‘Looks like it.’ She shrugged.
‘Any idea how they got in if the alarm was set?’
Her head swiveled around and she narrowed her blue eyes at me in a piercing gaze. ‘No idea. So maybe the alarm wasn’t on after all.’
I sighed, meeting her stare head on, while I thought. What I really needed was a good, nosy look at their computers. If anything suspicious had been going on, I was betting on the fact that there was a trail. There usually was. I reviewed my choices. I could ask Heather if I could take a look, but I thought she’d give me a big, fat no, and I didn’t want to tip her off. The other choice was that I could come back after she’d gone.
‘Can you think of anything else that might be helpful?’ I asked.
‘No.’
I stood up. ‘Well, you take it easy then.’
I wandered around the runway area and checked the dressing rooms that were next door to it before I headed to the upstairs storage area. I wanted to check for myself that the fashion collection was gone. Sure enough, the only thing left in the space was a lonely rhinestone lying on the floor. I slipped it inside a clear plastic bag and put it in my rucksack. By the time I came back down to the main floor, the receptionist had appeared. She sat at her desk, sobbing into a damp tissue.
‘It’s terrible,’ she sniffed when she saw me. As she wiped her eyes, I sent her a sympathetic smile.
‘The disappearance? I know. It’s awful. Were you here when it happened?’
The question brought on a fresh burst of waterworks. ‘No.’ She pulled a fresh tissue from her bag and blew her nose hard. ‘I finish at six. It happened after I left. Gosh, I feel dreadful about this.’ She glanced at the bloody drips on the floor with a shudder. They trailed from Heather’s office all the way past the reception area and out the doors. ‘Do you think he’s been k-k-killed?’
‘I hope not.’ I gave her shoulder a sympathetic rub and leaned in closer as she continued.
‘Umberto was such a wonderful person. A true gentleman, you know? He wasn’t one of those rich people where fame and money goes to their heads, and they forget about the little people. And he was such a good boss, too,’ she added hastily, but not before I had noted the adoration in her voice.
I wondered if she might be in love with him. And if so, were the feelings reciprocated? Because if they weren’t, could this simply be a case of unrequited love? Could this young woman who sat crying in front of me have been so obsessed with Umberto Fandango that she didn’t want anyone else to have him, and would see him dead before that happened? No. I dismissed the idea as soon as it popped into my head. This seemed far too elaborate a plan for a crime of passion.
Seeing that she had calmed down, I
decided to try another tack. ‘What’s his assistant like?’ I asked, my voice dropping down to a whisper.
She looked me squarely in the eye. ‘She’s a bitch.’
Yes, that just about summed up my impression, as well. I chatted with the receptionist for a few more minutes, but she didn’t reveal anything useful.
As I left, I thought about what I knew so far. Fandango must’ve been injured and dragged out through the front doors. At the same time, the entire fashion collection must’ve been bundled into a large enough vehicle waiting in the parking lot. This had happened around seven p.m., so it would be dark by then, but possibly early enough still for someone to have heard the shots fired. There were street lights outside the building, so it would’ve been light enough to see the vehicle leaving.
The occupants of the house which sat to the right side of the old flour mill hadn’t seen a thing, so I tried the other large, detached house opposite Fandango’s. As I rapped on the door, a black woman who looked to be in her mid-sixties answered.
‘Hi, I’m Amber Fox, and I’m investigating the theft and possible kidnapping that took place last night at the old flour mill.’
‘I’ve already spoken to the police and told them everything. I was the one that reported it,’ she said, starting to close the door.
I held my hand out to stop her. ‘Actually, I’m from Mr. Fandango’s insurance company, and we have to investigate any possible claim. Can you tell me what you saw?’
‘I’d just finished dinner and I heard a loud bang. BANG!’ she yelled, making me jump. ‘Like that.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘I thought it was a car backfiring or something, but when I looked out the window, I saw a white van speeding away from the warehouse.’
I turned around and looked from her front door across the street. She had a birds-eye view of the parking area. ‘Did you get the registration number?’
‘No, but I know exactly who was driving.’ She gave me a knowing smile and waited.
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Barack Obama.’
My first thought was that I didn’t know whether to laugh my head off or drag her down to the funny-farm. ‘You’re telling me that Barack Obama was driving the van? Don’t you think he’s a bit too busy for a little trip to Hertfordshire? I’m sure he’s got lots of other presidential things to be getting on with.’
If looks could kill, I’d have been a goner.
‘I know perfectly well what I saw, and it was Obama. I’ve been waiting for a man like that to come to power ever since Martin Luther King got himself shot. He’s a savior – and he’s really cute, too.’
‘Did you notice anything else about him?’
She paused and screwed her eyes up in thought. ‘When he drove up the road, he threw a cigarette out the window, which I thought was a bit strange. I didn’t think Obama smoked. I thought he was a bit of a health freak.’
And then I got it. There’s a big difference between what people think they see, and what they really do see.
I thanked her and headed back to the car to phone Brad.
‘Speak,’ he said.
‘Have you ever wondered how construction cranes are erected? Does another crane have to put up the first crane? And if so, how did they make that crane? And so on and so on. It could go on for ever, and–’
‘Stop talking rubbish, Foxy,’ Brad said.
‘Well, stop answering the phone like that, then!’
‘What have you found out?’
‘I’ve solved the crime already. Apparently, Barack Obama was driving the getaway vehicle. Can we contact the CIA and get them to pay a visit to the White House?’
A silent pause. And then: ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘The driver wore an Obama mask, which seems a bit strange. I wouldn’t have thought that the mob would be into wearing masks. Aren’t they more into suits and Trilby hats?’ I asked. ‘Unless the modern mafia are members of the Democratic appreciation society, of course.’
‘Anything’s possible these days. Did you get anything out of his assistant?’
‘She’s developed amnesia. I’m guessing it’s selective.’
****
I had a couple of hours to kill before I returned to Fandango’s to try and check out the computers, so I decided to head over to Paul Clark’s house. I called Romeo again on the way. It rang, and the tone echoed through my hands-free earpiece while I replayed our last conversation in my head. I’d distinctly heard the voice of my arch-enemy, Detective Chief Inspector Janice Skipper, in the background, and I had the nearly irresistible urge to go over to the police station and punch her lights out. I admit it sounds a touch drama-queenish, but I had something she wanted – Romeo – and somehow she just couldn’t get over it. She’d been trying to get her pointy little claws into him for as long as I could remember. Just because we were together didn’t mean she respected that or stopped trying, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.
As voicemail kicked in, I snapped the phone shut and said the F word in quite a few variations. By then, I was in Clark’s neighborhood and I did a drive-by of his house, hoping to catch a quickie picture of him doing acrobatics in the front garden, but there was no sign of life. I headed over and did a quick once-over in Asda, with no success there, either. Eventually, I double-backed and drove toward the Cohens’ warehouse. Maybe the other fish were biting today.
****
Wouldn’t you know it? I’d been sitting in the same position as yesterday, overlooking the warehouse, ready and waiting with my finger poised over the snapshot button for an hour, and not a single hot vehicle had driven in. I was in the middle of deciding whether to call it a day when I heard a rustling sound coming from the woods behind me, and lots of ‘ahs’ and ‘damns’ in a high pitched American accent.
I twisted around and saw Miss Conspicuous weaving her way toward me through the trees, trying to avoid the low hanging branches.
It was too late to dive behind the nearest oak tree as she’d already seen me, so I leapt to my feet and hurried toward her before she could come any further and completely blow my cover. In her glaring red top, pink leggings, and a furry bag, which could only be described as squashed squirrel color, she stood out in the woods like an eyesore. Hell, she would stand out anywhere like an eyesore. I bet her earrings alone cost more than my whole year’s salary. If I had to sum her up in two words, I would use ‘serial shopper’.
I grabbed her arm and yanked her back toward the housing estate.
‘Hey!’ she yelled in a voice loud enough to wake up the dead. ‘Get your hands off me, you crazy woman.’
I ignored her and frog-marched her back toward the Purple People Eater, which was parked behind my car.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I gave her my best nasty-eyed death glare as I sized her up. She was a fragile-looking thing, with blonde ringlets and not a hair out of place, despite her trek through the woods. She had a heart-shaped face, and her lips glossed in a shiny pink. I guessed she was in her early twenties. Her innocent-looking eyes, carefully enhanced with eyeliner and mascara, blinked back at me.
I stood there, hands on hips, pushing out my C cups as I waited for an answer. ‘Who are you and why are you following me?’
‘I’m trying to find my dad.’
‘And who is your dad?’
‘Umberto Fandango,’ she said, and then her face just seemed to melt. Her nose wrinkled up, her lower lip trembled, and she burst into noisy tears. She launched herself into my arms, her own going around my neck. Clinging on like a limpet, she blubbed all over my T-shirt.
As I awkwardly patted her on the back, I groaned. ‘Oh, God.’
6
Ten tissues and a red nose later, we sat in Starbucks, eating lunch – well, I was eating. She hadn’t touched hers.
‘I thought if I followed you, maybe I could find out what happened to him,’ Tia Fandango said in between heart-broken sniffs.
�
��I didn’t even know he had a daughter. There’s never been any mention of you in the papers, and you’re not listed in our files.’
‘Dad’s a very private person. He likes to keep his life out of the limelight.’
I peered at her over my mug of cappuccino. ‘You don’t look like him.’
‘I must take after my mother’s side.’ She looked up at me through damp eyelashes. ‘Do you think he’s…dead?’
I reached out and rested my hand on her arm. ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out, I promise you.’ OK, so I wasn’t a police officer any more, but this was my case now, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I was going to seize every clue, however small, however insignificant it appeared, and pounce on it, keeping it in my grasp until I could put the whole picture together. Until I knew the truth.
I told her what I knew so far, which, as you can imagine, went down like a stripper at a Vicar’s tea party, and produced another round of blubbing.
She excused herself and fled to the toilets. When she returned, she had a determined glint in her eye. ‘I want to help you. I could work with you. I’m psychic, you know, and I think I can help you find out what happened. And if we work together, we’ve got a double chance of finding him.’
I shook my head and pushed away my plate with the half-eaten sausage baguette. ‘That’s a definite no-no.’
‘Please.’ Her eyes implored me.
I looked her up and down. ‘Look, Tia, I don’t want to be rude, but you stand out like a psychedelic flamingo. You can help by telling me what you know. Who is Celia James?’
A surprised look registered on her face. ‘She’s just a friend who loaned me her car. I’ve been studying at university in the States for a long time, so I don’t have one of my own.’
‘Why not borrow one of your dad’s? According to our file, he’s got a couple of vehicles insured with us.’
‘I went to his house, but I couldn’t find the keys.’
‘You said “his house”. Does that mean you live somewhere else when you’re not studying in the States?’