But she could make up for that later.
‘Look, I do appreciate your concern, Nick,’ she said, knowing that his feelings were genuine, but I really can take care of myself.’
‘That’s what they all say. I’ll see you around then.’
He blew her a kiss and sauntered out. Too late, she remembered she was going to ask him to do a check on Norman Price, but she’d get around to that later, too.
She moved the file away from the two theatre tickets and smiled. She was on to something. She was sure of it. And apart from the fact that Gary was coming to the concert with her, she was perfectly capable of handling it without involving him. But she knew his unlikely presence at a classical concert would divert any unnecessary attention from herself, and that was something she was depending on.
***
Nick Frobisher had a photographic memory. He could picture the two theatre tickets as if he had them in front of him. He had quickly noted down the details, and once back in his office he started checking out a few things.
The theatre in question wasn’t in the West End — far from it — and the name of the ensemble wasn’t a familiar one. His thoughts followed their usual logical trail.
Alex liked middle-of-the-road music, same as himself. Radio Two wasn’t a dirty word in his language, nor in hers. So why would anyone send her two tickets to a classical concert and, more significantly, why had she been careful to conceal them from him?
It had to be something to do with this case she was on, and she definitely intended going to the concert, otherwise the tickets would have quickly found their way to her waste-paper bin. He didn’t trouble to query who she might be going with. It wasn’t him, that was for sure.
He called in his WPC assistant.
‘Mary, do a check for me, will you? See if there’s anything on a Jeremy Laver. A musician, I gather.’
‘Will do,’ she said, and Nick sat back with his hands behind his head, awaiting results. It was amazing what files could turn up these days. Information from various sources passed around the network and spread like butter, and he was pretty sure he’d soon get the picture as far as this Jeremy Laver was concerned. What he was going to do with it once he got it was another matter.
‘Well, well,’ he said slowly, a long while later, when he had studied the papers in front of him. ‘So young Jeremy gave a charmer called Norman Price as a reference on a theatre lease, did he? Now, there’s an interesting connection.’
‘Is it?’ the WPC said. ‘Who’s Norman Price then?’
Nick was thoughtful. ‘It’s a name that’s cropped up a few times in the past. Nothing major, mostly piddling motoring offences. But the manner of his responses leave nothing in the way of civility. Thinks himself above the law, does that one. I seem to remember he owned some factory or other. Do a check on him as well, Mary. Just to humour me.’
***
Nick burst into Alex’s office that afternoon.
‘What’s going on?’
She screamed back at him, ‘What the hell do you mean, what’s going on? I’m going to give that doorman a piece of my mind, letting you in here as if you own the bloody place and frightening the life out of me again—’
‘What’s your connection with Norman Price of Price Chemicals?’
She flinched. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You bloody well do know what I mean.’
He stared her out coldly. He was bluffing, but she didn’t have to know that. It was part of the cat-and-mouse game they all played. And he was banking on her inexperience to cave in.
‘If your little domestic case is going to ruin a police investigation, I’ll have your licence taken away so fast you’ll wonder what hit you.’
‘Nick, stop it!’ Alex stood up, her back rigid, fists on the desk, her knuckles white. The reference to her little domestic case had momentarily enraged her, but there was too much at stake to mess about with bruised egos.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘I don’t know anything about any police investigation, but nothing would surprise me,’ she said wildly. ‘I do know he’s a nasty piece of work — and he’s probably up to something. His kind usually are. So what have you got on him?’
He gave a sudden grin. ‘Nothing — yet. So why don’t you tell me everything you know, especially if there’s anything I should know.’
Alex stared at him, her eyes blazing.
‘You bastard! You tricked me.’
He came around the desk and pulled her into his arms.
‘God, you’re beautiful when you’re angry.’
‘And that’s the corniest line I’ve heard in years.’
‘Who said it was a line?’ Before she could struggle out of his iron-hard embrace, his mouth had come down on hers, silencing her fury in a savage kiss.
He had kissed her before. Sometimes enthusiastic, New-Year’s-Eve kind of kisses; sometimes brotherly, comforting kind of kisses; but never like this: savagely possessive to begin with, and slowly melting into the erotic. One hand was caressing the softness of her hair, while the other held her as tightly to him as if he owned her...
‘I mean it, you know,’ he said, still a whisper away from her lips. ‘You’re the most beautiful woman on earth, and you should be sitting at home knitting bootees instead of getting involved in a world you know nothing about—’
She pushed him away from her so fast he almost lost his balance. ‘That’s just the kind of sexist remark I might have expected from a copper,’ she said furiously.
All the same, she had to sit down again, because his erotic onslaught had affected her far more than she was prepared to let on. He was a mate, damn him, not a potential lover, or so she had always believed. Business and pleasure should be kept strictly apart. Now, she wasn’t so sure what she thought.
He sat on the chair on the other side of her desk and folded his arms, clearly not prepared to move. As immovable as the bloody Sphinx, Alex found herself thinking.
‘So are we going to compare notes?’ he said calmly, just as if the fact that she had just been so deliciously and seductively held in his arms hadn’t affected him at all, when his raging libido was telling him something very different.
‘Why should we?’
‘Because, my dear sweet and lovely Miss Best, it’s time. I don’t know what you’re up to yet. but your little charade of calling me up at three in the morning just for a friendly chat doesn’t wash any more. I know when there’s desperation in somebody’s voice and I heard it in yours. Trust me, Alex.’
If she hadn’t felt so emotional she could almost have laughed. She was trusting Gary and she didn’t know whether she should do so or not.
By her personal knowledge of Nick’s code of ethics — give or take the deviousness which went with both their jobs — she knew she could trust him. But she still wasn’t sure if there was any benefit in doing so.
Chapter 6
‘So just what do you know about Norman Price?’
She might have known he wouldn’t give up easily, and Alex’s nerves twitched again at the question. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she had been rumbled, to use the telly jargon. He didn’t know if there was any real connection between herself and Norman Price yet — and she didn’t know what his connection was, either.
She had been going to ask him to do a check on the man but his own question had effectively blocked the way for that, if she wanted to keep her case to herself. Which she did. She most emphatically did.
‘All right. I know he owns a chemical factory out of town,’ she recited, as if thinking about it. ‘It’s pretty run-down from the look of the outside, but I’ve never been inside the place. Why do you want to know, anyway?’
That was better. Throw the questioning back at him while she got her thoughts together. That was technique.
‘Just a passing interest. No more.’
Oh yes? Tell that to the birds. For a certain person’s name to crop up for both of
them had to make it more than a passing interest. She would dearly like to be more probing but she knew very well it would only rebound on her.
‘What’s he done?’ Nick pressed on.
‘You tell me. You started this, remember?’ she said coolly and on the upper hand. He’d obviously got wind of something to do with Price, but he’d bluffed her once and she wasn’t going to let it happen again. She guessed there was no official police investigation going on, and Price himself had been so adamant about no police involvement regarding Caroline that she was determined to observe his wishes. Client respect went with the job. Even for a client like Price...
She airily overlooked the fact that she’d been nearly as adamant in wanting Nick in when the cottage had been ransacked and she had got so jittery about it. But that was then, and this was now, and she no longer wanted him in.
She had Jeremy in her sights now. She was gut-sure — almost — that he was somehow involved in Caroline’s disappearance, and providing she could prove it she was intent on solving the mystery herself. One-upmanship wasn’t confined to the guys.
She stared at Nick unblinkingly, resisting the thought that that kiss had been spectacularly erotic, and that he really was super-looking when he got that intense look in his eyes that wasn’t wholly to do with police-work.
She waited for the next bit of questioning, sure that he hadn’t done with her regarding Norman Price yet. Cat-and-mouse-like as ever, he’d come up with something else. Baiting her. Waiting to pounce. But the silence went on too long, making her nervous. And when she was nervous, she talked.
‘I really don’t know anything more about him,’ she said quickly. ‘Nothing of importance, anyway.’
The moment she said it, she knew she’d given herself away. Now he would know she was on to something. Or that she was investigating Price. But he still didn’t know the nature of her case, and she was damned if she was going to tell him. She waited for him to seize on her words.
‘What are you doing a week next Friday?’ he said casually. Alex visibly jumped, and prayed that he wouldn’t see it. Even if he did, he couldn’t possibly know the reason for it.
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got two free tickets—’
She felt her heart begin to pound, and she was literally holding her breath. He didn’t — he couldn’t know anything about Jeremy Laver.
‘—for that new film at the Odeon. Do you fancy it?’
Alex let out her breath without realizing she had been holding it in so tightly. Her chest ached with the effort.
‘Nick, I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something else on. I’m sorry, truly. It would have been nice—’
‘What is it?’
‘What?’
‘Where you’re going on the 18th?’
‘Oh. Nowhere very interesting,’ she said cagily.
He gave a short laugh. ‘Well, that puts me in my place, doesn’t it? “Nowhere very interesting” is obviously far more interesting than coming out with me.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that at all and you know it. It’s just something that I can’t put off. But if you’ve got free tickets to the cinema you can always take somebody else. Why not ask that nice WPC in your office? Mary, isn’t it?’
Even as she said it, she felt a sliver of unreasonable jealousy shoot through her. Mary was small and blonde and a cute little compact package — according to some of Nick’s more moronic colleagues. And why should she care about Mary snuggling up to Nick in a warm, darkened cinema, anyway?
‘Mary’s getting married at the end of the year, and I don’t imagine her hunk of a fiancé would appreciate my asking her out. It doesn’t matter. Another time maybe.’
To Alex’s relief he finally turned to go. She liked his company, but now wasn’t the time. She had work to do.
And she brushed aside the thought that maybe in a year or two Mary would be content to be knitting bootees the way Nick had described it earlier, all cosy and wifey. Alex had no argument with that, if it was what Mary wanted. Not that she had a clue whether she did or not. Some women wanted nothing more than the homely life, others didn’t.
She might even fancy it herself in a few years’ time, Alex mused, letting her work-concentration waver for a moment. There was a sweet domesticity about the thought, though for the life of her, she couldn’t visualize herself pushing a pram in the park. Someday maybe. Maybe not. And certainly not now.
***
She put the idea out of her mind and concentrated on the reasons behind Nick’s visit. He was curious about Norman Price, but she realized he had given away nothing about his interest. He was a clever devil all right. But he hadn’t mentioned Jeremy Laver. He had no idea of the connection there — at least, she had to presume that he didn’t. With Frobisher, you just never knew.
For the briefest moment, she wished he wasn’t so bloody devious. And then she grinned, because she knew very well he thought exactly the same about her.
She gave up worrying about it. The 18th was still more than a week away and she prayed that Gary wasn’t going to lose his nerve about going to the concert with her. His kind of inverted snobbery said that if something was beyond his comprehension he simply sneered at it and called it rubbish.
She wasn’t a snob or particularly well read, but she was fairly liberal regarding other people’s morals and lifestyles, which was what made her good at her job, in her opinion. An investigator had to see the world through other people’s eyes, and not through her own blinkered ones.
Hey, that was pretty good, she thought. Maybe, I was a philosopher in another life.
The phone rang, making her jump, and her hand reached out for it automatically.
‘Alexandra Best—’
‘I need your help on a sexual matter, Miss Best,’ she heard the husky voice say. ‘Can you meet me at midnight at Westminster Bridge, wearing something black and slinky—’
‘Get off the line, Gary,’ she snapped, recognizing the disguised voice with ease. ‘I’ve got work to do and I can’t waste time playing games.’
He was petulant at once. ‘All right, keep your knickers on — though I’d much rather have ‘em off.’
He gave his characteristic whistle as she sent an expressive oath down the line, and then chuckled.
‘You’ve no idea how such language turns me on, coming from a classy lady like you. But we’ll forget that for the moment. I’m on business too. I’ve got another package to deliver to Price Chemicals. Do you want to come along?’
But despite the chuckle, she could tell that he was ruffled now. He was a boy, for all his macho biker image and his manly attributes — and they were quite something. He’d always be the leader of the gang, if he had a gang, but she wasn’t the type to comply with every changing mood of a boy.
‘I don’t, thanks,’ she said. ‘There’s no point, and I’ve got other leads to follow. Price isn’t one of them.’
‘Oh yes? What’s new then?’
There was that eagerness again, the nosiness she still didn’t quite trust. She sighed, wishing that she did. Wishing she didn’t always have to suspect every word, every tone of voice. But that was what she did, damn it. It was part of the role she had given herself. The Job.
‘Nothing too clever if you must know,’ she admitted.
That was true. What other leads did she have to follow? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. And time was moving on. Caroline had to be found if she was to claim her inheritance and thwart her father. And maybe Jeremy Laver too.
‘See you later then?’ Gary went on.
‘No. Leave it for now, Gary. I’ve got to go out of town for a few days, so I’ll see you the day of the concert. OK?’
She hung up before he could argue, and then switched her phone to answering machine. Then she stared at Caroline Price’s file on the desk in front of her. It looked pathetically slim. So far she was doing a pretty poor job.
Sherlock would have been well on to the case by now, and she had practically noth
ing to show. Nothing to follow up until she met Jeremy Laver a week on Friday and began a careful quizzing of the cousin.
Except... maybe she hadn’t followed through the crossword angle seriously enough. Once she had eliminated every possibility of agenting or publishing, she had got precisely nowhere. But Caroline must sell the damn things or why would she continue doing them? It wasn’t being done for fun. Alex was sure of that. Some of the clues were cryptic to the point of being far too obscure for the casual solver to work out.
No, the crosswords must go somewhere, and from the professional appearance of her work desk at the cottage they had to be a huge part of Caroline’s life — the central part, if you ignored the erotic association with the mysterious M.
Crossword compiling would seem to be all she did: refusing all communication with the outside world, even the locals in whose midst she had become the odd recluse; cutting her father out of her life as much as possible — and Alex didn’t blame her one bit for that; just sitting at that bloody computer all day long and figuring out words and clues and filling in the grids.
It sounded hideously boring to somebody who led a normal life — whatever a normal life was.
Much against her will, she tried to think how Nick Frobisher would tackle the problem. She could almost hear his voice in her head.
‘If you’ve tried all the bigger angles and the more obvious ones, then try the smaller ones. The ones nobody would consider. That’s often where the clues are.’
She stared sightlessly into the far wall of her office. The smaller angles. What were they? She couldn’t even bring to mind the bigger ones, for God’s sake. She pulled her thoughts around to the two things she knew for certain. One was that Caroline was missing. The other was that her crosswords presumably — probably — appeared in some adult newspaper or magazine. The crosswords were definitely too sophisticated for kids’ comic-book stuff.
She had tried all the major media. She drew in her breath, her eyes coming back into focus.
‘Freebies!’ she said out loud.
Thicker Than Water (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 1) Page 10