Death Of a Temptress

by P. F. Ford

  He cut the call.

  Almost straight away, the phone began to ring. He checked the incoming number. If it was Jenny Radstock, he was going to ignore it. But it wasn’t her number.

  “DS Slater.”

  “Ah, Sergeant. So glad I caught you. It’s Lucinda DeLove here.”

  “What can I do for you Ms DeLove?”

  “Since this all blew up, Jenny and I have had a chance to catch up. She suggested I need to talk to you.”

  Norman arrived back just as Slater was thanking Lucinda DeLove and saying goodbye.

  “We’ve got an even stronger case against Jones now,” Slater told him. “It seems he’s been stinging Ms DeLove for £500 a month too, and she’s more than willing to make a statement. Even if Clinton changes his mind now, it won’t matter.”

  “Game, set and match to us, then.” Norman grinned.

  “Now you sound like Jenny bloody Radstock,” snapped Slater.

  “What have I done now?” said Norman, confused. “All I said was ‘well done us’.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Slater. “It’s just that bloody woman has got to me. All she cares about is getting Clinton. When I pointed out we still hadn’t found out what happened to Ruby, she told me it didn’t matter.”

  “Well, don’t put me in the same box as her,” said Norman, irritated himself now. “I’m not trying to suggest for one minute that we forget about Ruby. Maybe now we’ve cleared some of the rubbish out of the way we can see where we’re going and start making some progress.”

  Slater looked suitably embarrassed, and Norman knew he had regretted snapping.

  “What’s happening with Murray?” he asked.

  “He’s having the likely lads arrested as we speak. They’re going to be chauffeur driven down here and invited to sample our hospitality in adjoining cells overnight. He’s going to start questioning them in the morning. He’s got another DCI joining him, and he’s going to keep Biddeford with him.

  “He says we’re welcome to join them, but I think I’d rather keep away. There are some steep steps down to those cells. I’m not sure I could stop Clinton falling down them. If you see what I mean.”

  “And I’d probably help push him if I was there,” Slater said, smiling. “I think I’d rather keep looking for Ruby, don’t you?”

  “That sounds perfect to me.” Norman nodded enthusiastically. “I think now we’ve got Laurel and Hardy in custody, we need Bob Murray to ask them some questions about Ruby and that video, so how about we have a little conference and go through what we know in light of the two arrests?”

  “Now you’re talking, partner” Slater said. “Where shall we start?”

  Norman considered this for a few moments, his hands cradling his overlarge stomach. Finally, he came to a decision.

  “I think we should start by ordering a takeaway. You know I can’t think properly on an empty stomach.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was a rather bleary-eyed Dave Slater who took an early call next morning from his boss, Bob Murray. It turned out DI Jimmy Jones wasn’t made of very stern stuff. In order to try to save his own skin, he had demanded to see Murray as soon as he’d arrived at Tinton.

  But Murray had no intention of pandering to Jones’ demands and he’d been made to wait until Murray arrived at 7am, whereupon he’d presented Murray with a list of names. These were all people, he assured them, who were paying backhanders to Clinton.

  “I don’t mind telling you,” Murray said, shaking his head. “I find this extremely distasteful. The man’s a coward, trying to save his own neck by incriminating Clinton.”

  “They sound as bad as each other,” Slater said.

  “I haven’t checked out these names yet, but I’m going to email you a copy of the list,” continued Murray. “In case there are any names that might help your inquiry.”

  A few minutes later when Slater fired up his laptop, there was the email as promised. He scanned quickly down the list, not really expecting to see any familiar names, but to his surprise, there was one that immediately grabbed his attention.

  It was nearing 9am when Norman finally arrived, looking even more untidy than usual. His usually unruly mop of curly hair seemed to have been ironed on one side, making his whole head look rather lopsided.

  “What happened to you?” asked Slater, looking him up and down disapprovingly.

  “What d’you mean?” asked Norman.

  “Has your style guru gone on strike?” Slater indicated his clothes. “And what have you done to your hair? Did you sleep on a board?”

  “For some reason I have no water or electricity in my flat this morning. So I have no shower, and no means of ironing my clothes.”

  “You own an iron?” said a surprised Slater. “You’ve certainly kept that a secret up until now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, come on, Norm,” Slater said, laughing. “You normally look like you’re auditioning for Mr. Crumply, the new Mister Man.”

  “So, I have a style all of my own,” said Norman, with dignity. “But the thing is this: if people look at me and think I look like a village idiot that’s fine by me, because it means they won’t be prepared for the razor sharp mind that’s on the inside.”

  “You always have an answer, don’t you?” Slater smiled.

  “Which kinda proves my point about the razor sharp mind, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah. Right.” Slater passed across the printed list of names. “So what does your razor sharp mind make of this? It’s a list of names Clinton is supposed to be collecting payments from.”

  Norman spotted it straight away.

  “Oh my. Now there’s a name I’ve seen before. What a coincidence,” he said.

  “Guess where we’re going this morning?” said Slater.

  “Sounds good,” agreed Norman. “But could I use your shower first?”

  “And the iron?” asked Slater, optimistically.

  “Change my style and spoil my image?” Norman laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure Mr Chan’s even going to be here?” asked Norman as they walked towards Mistral Court. He was intrigued to meet the man after hearing Slater talk about him.

  “This is where he’s based,” Slater said. “He tried to pretend it isn’t, but he’s always here. He’ll be here now. Trust me.”

  To Norman’s great surprise, Mr Chan was not only on the premises, he even agreed to see them. Of course, he thought, if Chan was willing to talk to them it probably meant they weren’t going to get much from him. He then went on to chide himself for being pessimistic, and decided it could just be the case that he was getting more cynical in his old age. But experience told him he was probably right.

  As usual, Mr Chan was very polite and courteous, the smile never wavering for a moment. His young henchman Mr Ling was also present, looking suitably hostile and unimpressed by them.

  “We understand you have been placed in a situation whereby a senior officer has coerced you into making payments,” Slater said.

  “When you say ‘you understand’,” asked Chan. “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means we have information,” explained Slater. “We’ve been told, by a source.”

  “Ah!” Chan’s smile widened. “A source. That means someone has told you something but you have no proof. Am I right?”

  “Err, well,” Slater began. “It’s come to our attention during our enquiries-”

  “Why do police always speak like that?” asked Chan. “Why not speak in words people can easily understand?”

  “What you really mean, I think,” he continued, “is someone has told you I make payments to someone else. Is that correct?”

  “Err, yes. I suppose so,” agreed Slater reluctantly.

  “The thing is,” said Norman, trying to help Slater out. “If what we’ve been told is true, it would mean you have the motive to seek revenge.”

  “First you suggest,” sa
id Chan, the smile fading slightly. “And now you accuse.”

  “No one’s accusing you of anything Mr. Chan,” said Slater hastily. “We’re just trying to establish whether you were being blackmailed or not.”

  “You obviously have no proof of this blackmail,” said Chan. “So you have no reason to jump to conclusions about me seeking revenge. The fact is, you have nothing to link me to any crime either as the victim or the perpetrator. Is this what you might call a ‘fishing trip’? If so, please see yourselves out. I am a busy man.”

  “It concerns an old tenant of yours,” said Slater, Norman smiling at his colleague’s persistence. “You know, the girl who went missing. Ruby Rider.”

  “I have already told you all I know about Miss Rider,” said Chan.

  “But you didn’t tell me she was a hooker, did you?”

  “She must have been very discreet,” said Mr Chan after the briefest of pauses. “I know nothing about that.”

  “She selected a senior police officer,” said Slater. “And seduced him into becoming a regular client. He thought she liked him, but she was setting up a honey trap. A video was made of him in a very compromising situation with her.”

  “And why should this be of interest to me?” asked Chan.

  “Because,” Norman joined in. “If that was the police officer you were having to pay off, getting Ruby to be the bait to help you set the guy up would give you the means to turn the tables on him. You might even have been able to get him to pay you to keep it quiet.”

  By the time he had finished, Chan was laughing quietly. Even Ling’s face broke into something approaching a smile.

  “Forgive me” Chan smiled. “I should not laugh, but you have such fertile imaginations. This is an excellent theory gentlemen, but for one or two little problems.”

  Norman felt uncomfortable, and one glance at Slater told him his colleague felt the same.

  “First,” began Chan. “You have no proof. If you had, you surely would arrest me. Am I right?”

  He looked from one to the other.

  “I thought so.” Chan sighed, sadly.

  “Second,” he continued. “I can assure you I have never seen this ‘video’ you claim I am supposed to have arranged to have made.”

  For the first time, Ling was actually smiling at their collective discomfort.

  “But I like to see imagination at work. It makes for great entertainment. You could perhaps turn your theory into a film script,” Chan suggested, brightening again.

  “Let’s consider how you might develop the story,” he continued. “Of course you could now assume I have something to do with Miss Rider’s disappearance because she double-crossed me over the video.”

  He studied their faces, and then broke into an even broader smile.

  “Ah! So you have already considered this possibility. This is good, very good indeed.”

  He clasped his hands together and considered them for a moment.

  “You have told me an interesting and imaginative story, gentlemen. Now it’s my turn. My story is about a fisherman who struggles, every day, to find enough fish to feed his family. Then one day, right under his nose, he stumbles upon the perfect bait to catch nice big fish. Now he knows he will still need to fish every day, but he will never have to worry again about finding enough fish to feed his family.

  “Sometimes the bait is a little difficult to handle, and tests his patience, but because it works so well he feels it’s worth being tested occasionally.

  “And then one day, our fisherman sees the biggest fish he has ever seen, swimming towards him. To his delight, as soon as this big fish sees the bait it seems unable to resist and is caught without a fight. On that day, the fisherman finally understands he no longer needs to go out fishing every day because he now has the power to catch the biggest of fish anytime he wants. All he has to do is look after his precious bait.”

  He studied both faces again.

  “You understand my point, gentlemen. If you were the fisherman, would you really consider destroying the bait that was guaranteed to land the biggest, most golden fish?”

  He stood up and bowed slightly. Ling stood alongside him glowering. Out of politeness, Slater and Norman stood also.

  “Thank you gentlemen,” said Chan. “I think we’re finished here. If you would like to talk again, please do me the courtesy of calling to arrange an appointment first.”

  He nodded once more and walked from the room, Ling obediently scurrying along behind.

  “Are we going to accept that?” asked Norman.

  “Do we have a choice?” replied Slater, and Norman knew he was annoyed that Mr Chan had got the better of him again. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “Did you buy all that crap about the fisherman?” asked Norman, as they walked back down the road away from Mistral Court.

  “You mean do I think Chan got rid of Ruby? If there really was a bigger fish, and he saw her as a useful asset, he would have plenty of reason to look after her. But then again, maybe the whole fish thing is just another red herring.”

  Norman looked hard at Slater and groaned loudly.

  “Do you have to think hard to come up with such crappy puns? Whatever you do, don’t give up your day job for comedy.”

  They walked on in silence for a while, until Norman spoke again.

  “So who is the bigger fish?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering, too,” Slater said, looking thoughtful.

  A couple more minutes passed.

  “Do you think he’ll testify against Clinton?”

  “Nah!” said Slater. “Not a chance.”

  “Me neither,” agreed Norman. “It wouldn’t do anything for his credibility in the community, would it?”

  After the successes of the last few days, Slater and Norman had every reason to be celebrating, but Slater felt strangely subdued, and he got the impression Norman did too. Even the usual, easy rapport they had developed seemed to elude them, so it was a quiet journey back home.

  Being so brilliantly stone-walled by Mr Chan hadn’t really surprised Slater. He knew that characters like Chan don’t survive in their murky little worlds without learning how to be obstructive and uncooperative, so the fact he had told them so little wasn’t the problem.

  Slater knew the reason they were both quietly brooding was their complete lack of progress in finding out what had happened to Ruby, or Ruth, or whichever of the two was the real her. People don’t just walk out, leave everything behind, and simply disappear. There had to be an answer, but they were no nearer to finding it now than when their inquiry had first started.

  Slater’s unspoken thought, that he was sure Norman shared, was that the reason they hadn’t found an answer yet was simply because they had allowed their desire to catch Jones and Clinton to become the focus of their enquiries. Perhaps a vital clue had been right under their noses all the time, but because they both had revenge in mind they’d missed it.

  They were guilty of letting Ruby down. Slater suggested they should have a weekend off to clear their heads, and Norman agreed. They would start again with renewed vigour on Monday morning.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Slater knew that sometimes the best thing to do when you have a problem on your mind and you’re making no progress is to step away from it for a day or two and focus on something completely different. That’s often the time that you make the most progress because you allow your subconscious to work unhindered.

  However, if you take a weekend off and just carry on focusing on it anyway, you often get nowhere and can even begin to question everything you’ve done so far and start going backwards.

  Shared guilt had caused Slater to do nothing but think about what he and Norman might have missed. One look at Norman on Monday morning confirmed to Slater that they had both had unhappy weekends and, instead of coming back refreshed on Monday morning, Slater thought the pair of them were, if anything, even more jaded.

  It was probably f
ortunate they had Steve Biddeford as the third member of the team, Slater thought. At least he was bright and cheerful. Or at least he was trying to be. After half an hour of listening to the other two complaining about how they were letting everyone down, Slater could see even he was beginning to falter.

  “I know I’m the junior partner in this team,” he said, finally. “And it’s probably not my place to say, but don’t you two think you might achieve more if you were to adopt a more positive attitude?”

  “What?” said Slater, glaring at Biddeford. Norman was looking his way too, but Slater was surprised when he offered some encouragement instead.

  “Go on,” he said. “You are a member of this team, and you are allowed a voice. So go ahead, say what you think.”

  “Well,” began Biddeford, sounding uncomfortable. “I have a lot of respect for you two guys, but have you heard yourselves today? I came in this morning, happy and refreshed, raring to go, and I’ll I’ve done is listen to you two prattle on about how bad you feel and how you should have done better. You’re beginning to depress me. Isn’t this an inquiry about a missing girl? Or is it all about you two and how you feel?”

  Before he could say any more, his phone began to ring. Saved by the bell, thought Slater, knowing his face was like thunder.

  “I’ll just take this,” Biddeford said, indicating his mobile phone, stepping away and turning his back on them.

  “He’s got a point you know,” said Norman to Slater, as Biddeford took his call. “We’re not exactly setting a great example, are we?”

  Slater was struggling to come to terms with yet another person suggesting he was being negative. But the more he thought about it, the more he realised Biddeford was right. Here he was with a missing person to find and all he could do was feel sorry for himself.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, reluctantly. “He is right. But I don’t understand why I’ve become so negative all of a sudden. What’s happening to me?”

  “Now that,” explained Norman. “Is what can happen to you when the world seems to turn against you.”