As Good as Dead

by Ben Westerham

  “And you.”

  I looked at Angela. There was that twinkle in her eyes again.

  “Don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to sound like I was offended. “At least I tracked her down to that other hotel.”

  “Very well done. A gold star for you.” The sarcasm was so thick you could have spread it on toast.

  “Thanks, I’ll add it to my collector’s card.”

  “Will I be seeing you this evening? Or has your professional ego been too bruised today?”

  “My ego’s not big enough to be bruised. In fact, it’s so small, you’d have trouble finding it.”

  “Sounds like a challenge to me. Maybe I can spend the evening exploring, very carefully.”

  “Good job your staff don’t know what sort of woman you really are. They’d run a mile if they knew the truth.”

  “Who says they don’t know? Seven o’clock, in the restaurant. Drinks at my place afterwards.”

  She gave me a little wink and an added flick of the hips as she turned and walked back towards reception. I had a feeling my evening was going to be packed with more fun than was probably good for me. I could hardly wait.

  *

  Angela did a very thorough job searching for my ego and there can’t have been much she didn’t do to restore it’s glow, so to speak, though it was definitely something I’d not be in a hurry to do too often. Not sure I’d be able to withstand such treatment on a regular basis.

  When I woke up the next morning, she was lying on the bed next to me, perched up on one elbow, looking down at my handsome features. God, what a sight that must have been, especially as the clock hadn’t even made it as far as seven of the morning. I have to admit, I’m not at my best early in the day. Night owl, that’s me.

  “What’s up?” I mumbled, my mouth short of saliva. I swallowed a couple of times and felt a bit better. “I can’t help it, I always look like this in the morning.”

  “I know. You’ve woken up in this bed most mornings this last week, may I remind you.” She tapped me gently on the end of the hooter with a long, pointy finger. “I was just wondering what I’m going to do for entertainment once you’re gone. Since I’ve already scraped the bottom of the barrel bringing you back here, I’m wondering what else can possibly be left.”

  “Cheeky sod. I’m at least halfway up the barrel. There’s plenty more desperate than me, you can go hunting for.”

  “So now you think I’m desperate,” she snapped, making out she was offended.

  This time she used two fingers, rigid as steel, to jab me in the ribs.

  “Ouch. I thought all the kinky stuff was over, for now.”

  “You should be so lucky. You’ll pay for your rudeness tonight.”

  “Who says I’m staying?”

  “Seriously?” She laughed. “Where else will you go?”

  “My mum. She still loves me. I’m her little David. Still cute and loveable, after all these years.”

  “If only she knew what you get up to now you’re all grown up. Maybe I should call her. Tell her what a wonderful performance you put on, when you’re given the right encouragement.”

  “She wouldn’t believe you. Reckon you were off your rocker and put the phone down on you.”

  Angela sat up, sweeping her legs underneath her, and leaned back against the headboard.

  “Anyway, you can’t leave yet, you’ve still to catch my thief. The bastard’s been busy again while you’ve been running around all over town looking for your other fancy woman.”

  “Other? Didn’t know there was a first one.”

  A pillow bounced off my face.

  “He, or she, took a pair of matching his and hers gold watches this time. The couple they belonged to were very upset when I spoke to them. They might even be upset enough to hand over a reward to the talented private investigator who recovers the stolen items.”

  “Nothing like a little reward to get me up and at ’em. Stolen from their room, were they?”

  “Yes. While the couple were out visiting the Pavilion.”

  “In that case, I’ll make it my top priority for the day, just as soon as I’ve had some breakfast.” I sat up, re-arranged the quilt so it covered the lower half of my body, then rubbed my hands together in mock anticipation. “Bacon and eggs should do the trick.”

  “Nice try. You can make us some toast while I have a shower.” She slipped off the side of the bed and on to her feet, standing there in all her lush nakedness. “Don’t burn it and remember it’s one sugar in the tea, not two.”

  “No wonder your butler left. Poor sod must have been worn out.”

  I watched her large, round backside wiggle its way out the door and down the corridor to the bathroom, wondering how long I could draw out my efforts at catching the thief before Angela threw me out of the building.

  *

  It turned out I wasn’t the only one who’d made an early start to the day, because a bit before half nine, Durham showed up again, full of beans. It was something he put down to having already consumed three large coffees. He had another update for me and had called in on his way to take a look at a warehouse that had been emptied of a good deal of stock overnight. Not usually his sort of job, so he claimed, but they were short-handed, apparently, so the gov’nor had chucked the case his way.

  We stood alone on the hotel’s terrace, looking out at the sea, which was so calm even the waves breaking on the beach were tiny little things that didn’t really seem worth the effort. It was sunny too, only a few wispy clouds dotting the sky. Beautiful, you might say.

  “We’ve found out where she went,” he said, jingling some change in a trouser pocket.

  “Alex?”

  “That’s her.”

  “That was quick work. You must have been keen.”

  “Well, while there was still a chance we might pick her up, I had to give it a serious go. Had a group of blokes up all night looking through security camera footage from all the major airports in the South East. Would have cast the net further afield, but didn’t have the manpower for that.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “Gatwick. She boarded a flight to Spain, travelling on a false passport, of course. Even dyed her hair to try and put us off, but an eagle-eyed sergeant spotted her all the same.”

  “Spain. I suppose she was hardly likely to end up going anywhere else. Isn’t that where all our crooks end up, if they don’t get caught first?”

  “The ones with money, you mean? Yes. And she’s got lots of that, if what she told you is true.”

  “I suppose two-and-a-half-million quid counts as lots. The interest on that would count as lots to me.”

  “And there’s another thing. Would you believe she was on that plane even before Andrew Longmeadow should have been on his flight to Mexico?”

  “Funny, isn’t it, how she’s turned out to be every bit as well organised and ruthless as that former boyfriend of hers, Tony Groves? She obviously didn’t let the chance go by to learn all she could from him. Don’t suppose there’s any chance of the Spanish police picking her up?”

  “We’re trying. Well, I say, we’re trying, it’s all in the hands of the Met now. They’ve shoved us out of the way. We’re the little country cousins, who don’t know how to do anything except nick people for shoplifting and sheep rustling.”

  “You sound like you’re a bit pissed off, Inspector?”

  “Does it show?”

  I cocked an eye. How could I have failed to notice? His words were heavily laced with bitterness and resentment.

  “Well, you’re probably better off not having to waste any more time on this one. I’ve got a feeling no one is going to find Alex Rudd, or whatever it is she’s calling herself now. She’s far too clever for the likes of you and me.”

  “Yes, that had occurred to me. All the same, I hate being shoved around by that lot from the capital.”

  We both said nothing for a while, just looked out at the sea, watching the shi
fting patterns and colours in the surface of the water. After a while, the blare of a car horn snapped us out of it.

  “Well, I’d better be getting on,” said Durham. “Been a pleasure, Good. Give me a call when you’re next in town and I’ll buy you a drink. We can reminisce about old times, when a good looking woman with a big brain gave us the runaround.”

  “Good working with you too, Durham.”

  He strolled off down the steps and climbed into the back of a waiting car. As it pulled away, a bloody great big seagull crapped on the car’s roof. Probably some sort of sign from Heaven, I thought, though what it might mean, I couldn’t fashion. I turned round and walked back into the hotel. I had a busy day ahead of me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Since I had nothing else to distract me, I was able to devote some serious time to tracking down the hotel’s thief. First of all, I spent the best part of twenty minutes going through every theft with Angela, making sure I knew exactly what had been pinched, when and where from. Two things stood out. Firstly, all the thefts had taken place during the day. Not a single one had occurred after dark. Secondly, in every case, the goods had been lifted from the victim’s hotel room while they were elsewhere.

  This meant two things. One, the thief had to know when people were away and, two, they had to have easy access to the hotel’s rooms because none of them had been broken into. Angela told me that, in addition to the full set of room keys kept on reception, there were four other sets. One she kept in her office, for emergency use. The other three sets were used by the cleaners, who picked them up from reception at the start of their rounds and returned them as soon as they had finished.

  The cleaning staff had to be among the suspects, that much I’d already worked out, but it was perfectly possible someone else had either sorted out a way to get access to an existing set of keys or had even gone so far as to get a duplicate set made.

  But there was one other thing my little chat with Angela highlighted and that was every room that had been burgled was either on floor two or floor three. I scratched my head at first as to why this would be, but Angela spotted the likely reason straight off. You see, on those two floors, and only those two, you could access the corridor from an old service lift at the far end. It was normally only used when furniture was being moved in or out of rooms, so as to keep the main lifts clear for guests. There was a basement entrance to this service lift, which any member of staff had access to. So long as you were careful, it wouldn’t be difficult to use it without being seen.

  Having narrowed things down a good deal, I decided what I needed next was some nice juicy bait. Something bright, shiny and worth a few quid would fit the bill. As it happened, Angela had just the thing. Her parents had bought her an expensive pair of earrings for her eighteenth birthday and she’d looked after them carefully ever since, knowing full well they had cost more than a few bob. I hesitated to take up her offer at first, worried I might screw things up and she’d end up never seeing those earrings again, but she insisted. I’d already worked out by then that if Angela insisted on something, it was best to drop into line; so I did. Mind you, she did then tell me that if I lost her earrings, she’d make sure I lost a pair of something valuable too; only in my case, it would be a physically painful experience. No pressure there, then.

  The set-up was simple after that. I tootled off to the shops for an hour or so, then, when I got back to the hotel, I made a right old show of telling every member of staff I bumped into that I’d just bought my girlfriend the most expensive pair of earrings I’d ever shelled out for. Gorgeous they were, I went on. Sure to be well appreciated.

  Having then been criminally careless enough to apparently leave the boxed-up earrings on the bedside table in my room on the second floor, I made another show of leaving the hotel a second time, announcing I was heading to the pier for an hour or two. In fact, I slipped round the back of the hotel, sneaked up the back stairs and let myself into the room opposite mine, which Angela had made sure stayed empty. After that, it was just a matter of time. With my fingers crossed for a speedy end to things, I sat there behind the door, peering through the peephole at every sign of movement in the corridor.

  You get those stakeouts where you spend days on end, bored to bloody tears, waiting, waiting, waiting and, in the end, bugger all happens. I’ve pissed into empty lemonade bottles to avoid having to leave my position for even a few minutes, I’ve been drenched right through when the weather man has got his forecast seriously wrong, causing me to leave my coat at home, and I’ve had to fend off an angry dog hell bent on giving my position away. Life as a private investigator isn’t always sea views and shagging.

  On the other hand, there are those times when you couldn’t ask for more; when everything drops into place just like it had in your wildest dreams. I love those times. They make you look like some sort of detective genius, capable of sorting out the biggest mess. My latest stakeout, I was about to discover, was going to be just such a miraculous occasion.

  I’d been there barely half an hour, fully expecting I’d be there for a lot longer. An old couple in matching his and her outfits had left their room and headed off to the main lifts almost as soon as I’d sat down, then a middle-aged bloke who kept yawning had returned to his room carrying a mountain of shopping, all clothes by the looks of things. It was fifteen minutes after he’d shut his door that things got interesting.

  I’d noticed that the doors on the service lift made a nasty squeaking sound as they opened and closed. That was very handy, because, even behind a closed door halfway along the corridor, I could easily make out the sound of the doors opening and get ready in plenty of time to see what was occurring. It was the sound of those doors that had me on tenterhooks, left eye pinned to the peephole.

  The best angle I could get through the peephole meant I couldn’t see anyone until they were almost level with my room. However, that didn’t stop me being able to hear the firm tread of footsteps on the corridor carpet as someone approached from the direction of the service lift. A familiar tingle ran up my spine as the tension began to build.

  The bloke who stopped in front of the door opposite was tall and thin, his hair a mess of straw-like blonde imperfection. I couldn’t remember having seen him about the place before, so I’d no idea when it came to a name. He looked up and down the corridor before slipping a set of keys out of a trouser pocket. A few seconds later, he was letting himself into my room. I grinned from ear-to-ear.

  He’d have no trouble finding the earrings, which I’d left in their original box. I was hoping he’d want the box too, thinking it might make an easier or more valuable sale. If so, I’d be far more likely to spot him holding the box when he left my room, doing away with any need for me to check my room if I wanted confirmation he’d grabbed the earrings.

  Hardly two minutes later, the door opposite re-opened and a smiling face stepped out into the corridor, before pulling the door closed behind him. A shifty look back at the main lifts, a little pat on a jacket pocket, which I could easily see was now housing something suspiciously like the box for the earrings, and off he went, at a rapid pace this time, towards the service lift.

  As soon as I heard the lift door close, I was off, legging it down the main stairs and out through the basement exit, finally coming to a halt in front of a pair of swing doors with glass-panelled tops, through which I could see the service lift. Panting more than I should have been, I watched and waited, keen as could be for my quarry to re-appear. A moment later, there he was, still smiling as he stepped out of the lift.

  I had no way of knowing, of course, if he was in the habit of off-loading his stolen goods pronto or if he preferred to stash them away until later, but on this occasion he didn’t seem to be hanging around. I followed him out the back of the hotel, then along half a dozen streets to one of the pawnbrokers I’d visited before.

  I left him alone inside, with what I took to be the owner, while they did business, and watched him scuttle
off back towards the hotel fifteen minutes after arriving. My next move, I knew, wouldn’t be a difficult one to pull off. The owner of the pawnbroker’s was only too happy to cooperate when I informed him where his latest purchase had come from and how my friend, Inspector Durham, was very keen to put a stop to this thieving spree. Of course, I said, there was always the quieter and easier option of handing back the earrings and writing the experience off as a lesson well learned. It was an offer too good to turn down, he decided.

  It’s not my job in these cases to decide what happens next. I do the job my client has paid me to do, hand them the evidence, or whatever other information it is they were after, and let them take things from there. Where it’s relationships at the heart of things, it’s up to the offended party to decide if they want to boot out their misbehaving other half, or make them squirm for a stretch before letting them back into their lives.

  Criminal stuff is another matter. Mostly that tends to be things like insurance fraud or theft. Most insurers or business owners will call in the cops as often as not, but individuals who’ve hired me are usually mainly bothered about getting their gear back, especially if it’s something with sentimental value. Sometimes they can’t face the prospect of a court appearance and decide to pocket their property and leave it at that. Doesn’t bother me. It’s their choice. This was one of those times where the client got to make the decision. It was Angela’s shout, not mine.

  I’d given Angela a good description of the bloke I’d seen lifting her earrings and she had no trouble at all in identifying him, which was handy. The alternative would have meant more work and I was keen to get down to the sharp end of the business, namely giving the bloke the good news that he’d been rumbled.

  The two of us sat there in reception, waiting. I wasn’t sure for a while if Angela was getting bored or properly angry, but she went a stretch without saying a word and gave off vibes that made it clear I should keep my own gob shut. It was only as Mark Barker walked into the foyer, through the staff entrance behind reception, that Angela finally broker her silence.