Ring and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 6)

by Stella Whitelaw

  “Dog-nappers, that’s what they are,” she said, stirring some vile concoction. “They steal to order. My dogs are valuable pedigree animals and obviously they have been taken for breeding. Two were prize-winning males, both got seconds at Crufts, one was a bitch already mated, and the fourth was a darling baby, an absolute prize-winner, going to sweep Crufts.”

  “How dreadful.” I murmured, making notes.

  “It’s a black-market trade, a ring, a gang, you know,” she went on. “They’ve got someone in mind before they steal. Not like the old days when kids would steal dogs and try to sell them off in pubs for drug money or alcohol. This is big money.”

  “How much?”

  “The boys are worth over six hundred pounds each. The mated bitch is worth more and the puppy, my little Angel, is priceless.”

  “Nearly £3,000,” I said, my maths not being GCSE standard.

  “Some rare breeds are worth £3,000 each…” said Mrs Gregson, starting to look really upset. “I just hope they are treating them well. My Angel will be pining for me.”

  “Poor little Angel,” I said. “Have you got any photographs?”

  The floodgates opened. Did Daphne Gregson have photographs… if the cups were piled to the ceiling then the photographs were piled to the roof. Album after album came out on to the kitchen table. I went cross-eyed with photos of little dogs jumping up, little dogs jumping down, dogs on leads, dogs on cushions.

  “And which are the ones that have been stolen?” I asked, bewildered. If this was an organized rustling gang, then Mrs Gregson’s four dogs might be the tip of an iceberg. “Have they got identity chips?”

  “Of course,” said Mrs Gregson, miffed. “Except Angel. She’s too young. Here they are: Jodie, Mel, Jude and Angel.”

  “All film stars’ names.”

  “Naturally. They are all stars in the dog world.”

  I took some of the photographs. Angel was indeed a sweet bundle of fluff. “Do you want me to contact FCI, the lost pet agency? I can’t promise results but I can try. Are the local police involved?”

  “I reported it to them but they don’t have much time for valuable stolen dogs. They are too busy chasing motorists who drive at thirty-one miles an hour past Latching’s cameras.”

  I got out my contract form and explained the hourly and daily rates. She was very practical about it all.

  “I’ll pay the hourly fee,” she said. “I doubt if you’ll spend a whole day at a time looking for my dogs. You’ll have other things to do.”

  Like disappearing fishing rods, I thought. “You’ll get a proper invoice,” I said.

  “I should expect it,” said Mrs Gregson, putting away the photographs. “The very least.”

  “May I see what security you have in place? Alarms etc,” I said. “And show me how the thieves got in.”

  “Of course. It’s all high-tech. I don’t know how they got in or out.”

  It was still raining. I pulled up my anorak hood. The kennels were out the back, well-built wooden buildings in a yard. The yapping was a lot louder, as if supper time was imminent.

  “I hope you like dogs,” said Mrs Gregson, a spring in her step, a gleam in her eye. “They’ll give you a wonderful welcome, my little darlings. They don’t bite.”

  It was not so much a welcome as a stampede of little feet. Thank goodness the dogs were only ankle-high. Mrs Gregson said they did not bite but they certainly enjoyed taking a few chunks out of my jeans.

  Two

  The sign on the door of my shop. First Class Junk, said CLOSED FOR LUNCH. It had been a long lunch hour, maybe one of those gourmet feasts that businessmen call power lunching. But I’d had nothing more than assorted coffees and nuts. Hardly a balanced meal.

  My corner shop used to be an old-fashioned optician’s. None of this two for the price of one and free sunglasses thrown in. It had small octangular windows on both sides, which suited me as I am not into window dressing.

  The front window currently displays an array of cute china cats in silky stillness. There are also two sepia photographs of a little girl with golden hair, cuddling a lively kitten. The delight on the child’s face is worth my six pound price ticket. Everything has a six pound price. It saves time.

  The side window is into old comics this week. The Eagle, Dandy, Boy’s Own. There were copies going back to WWII. Some grown-up boy will come along and buy the lot.

  But there were no customers waiting for me to open. No mail, no calls on my answerphone, no food, not even a wrinkled orange. It was time to call on Doris, my source of nourishment, at her shop two doors down.

  “I’m just closing,” she said as I put my head round the door. She was painting her nails a hideous dried blood red. I’d seen enough of that red on roads in my WPC days.

  “I’m starving,” I said, stepping inside. Doris sold everything, except exactly what you wanted. If you wanted mushroom soup, she’d only got tomato. If you wanted brown rolls, then she’d only got day-old bagels.

  “You should have come in earlier,” she said. “I’ve been open all day.”

  Doris is a very good friend. She looks out for me, but it is part of her remit that she can tell me off as much as she likes. It’s a kind of ritual.

  “You can help yourself,” she went on. “Put the money in the till. I daren’t touch anything till this dries.”

  “Going somewhere nice?”

  “Mavis and I are going dancing at the Pavilion tonight,” she said. “You don’t need a partner. There’s plenty of spare men. They may not be able to dance but they each have two legs.”

  “I don’t dance,” I said, roaming the shelves. I gathered lentil soup, Marmite, yogurts from the cooler, a bag of satsumas. I added up the total and put the money in the till. I tried not to notice that Doris had not done well that day. Her grocer’s shop was too far off the beaten track and the big supermarket was taking all the trade.

  “Some of the sea anglers go dancing.” said Doris. “The ones that don’t have a home to go to. You might be able to pick up something about the missing rods.”

  “How do you know about the missing rods?”

  “Mavis. Her latest fisherman told her. Bruno’s got a big boat and he’s a dishy man. The best of the bunch, I should say. Not too young, brown, muscular and very sexed-up. That’s the phrase these days, isn’t it? I’m not sexed-up, I’m sexed-down. You’re not sexed in any direction.”

  “Thank you, Doris, for those kind words. I’ll retreat to my shop and see if I can find a well-thumbed sex manual that will help my morale.”

  The words rankled. They touched a raw nerve. Every day, I thought about DS Ben Evans and his death. If I had changed the train of events, maybe I could have prevented the accident.

  Guilt is an odd thing. I was guilty of not loving him, but letting him think that I did. If I had gone on that holiday to Cyprus instead of accidentally missing the plane, maybe DI James would have felt primeval jealousy and had Ben posted. Then Ben might not have been killed in a car chase.

  There were endless if and maybe permutations. I thought up a new one every day. Sometimes, I lean over the pier railing and send thoughts into the night sky, recounting my failings, my weakness, my guilt and shame. I didn’t believe he would suddenly appear at my side, wreathed in misty vapor. But I did hope thoughts locked on to his wavelength.

  All I got were seagulls, screeching overhead, using me as target practise.

  I had a rough list of the anglers who fished from the pier. Seven of them reported rods disappearing while they ate their sandwiches or went to buy a coffee. I had searched the secondhand shops. It was weird. Who would want to steal rods with all those gruesome bits of bait on hooks?

  I made up my notes about Jodie, Mel, Jude and darling Angel and pinned up their photos. My notes were meticulous. A tiny detail that meant nothing can suddenly reveal exactly what you want to know. I ate yogurt and a satsuma. Fishing rods and diminutive dogs do not add up to a thriving investigative business. I neede
d some real work.

  So some anglers went dancing. I rustled through my charity box to find something suitable for dancing. The girls going to the nightclubs wore tiny skirts and crop tops. I was young enough and slim enough but not stupid enough. It was freezing outside, mid-winter, and I had no mind to collect chilblains on my rear.

  I found the long flowered skirt I’d worn once as a social worker cover. It looked okay with a plain black top and sandals. I tied my hair back with ribbon and set out on my late-onset dancing career. Too tall, ever, to find a partner.

  It was bitterly cold, a north-easterly attacking the shrouded palms along the front. I huddled into anorak and scarf and cursed the Hebridean draught blowing up the skirt.

  The music sounded good, lots of standards. I paid for a ticket and went into the pavilion ballroom. The warmth and sound hit me like a fuzzy blanket. It was canned music hosted by a DJ on the stage, not my big band jazz but foot-tapping tunes. The polished oval floor was crowded with couples dancing. Most of them knew what they were doing, fancy steps and holding each other in the proper ballroom stance. I went into the bar and bought orange juice. It was time to cruise the boards.

  Spare men? I couldn’t see any spare men. Doris must have double vision. She was dancing with a rotund partner who was light enough on his feet. Mavis was locked in the arms of her new fisherman, Bruno. They were barely moving.

  The ballroom was a well-proportioned room, long velvet curtains at the pier windows, the stage proscenium arch decorated with garlands, cherubs and quotations from Shakespeare. The glass-domed ceiling was spectacular. It was covered at night but the curves gave the promise of endless sky above. I come here to listen to jazz, when famous names descend on Latching to play a one-nighter. My trumpter had played here with a big band. He gave me a free ticket.

  “Like to dance, Jordan?”

  It was the voice that would go with me to the grave. I did not have to turn but I did because I wanted to see his face. My own expression did not change. It paid not to let Detective Inspector James know how I felt about him. It was better to wear this year’s mask.

  “James. What a surprise. Do you come here often?”

  “Not if I can help it. Dancing is not my scene.”

  “Then this is work and you want me as a cover?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay by me, but I might call in a favor myself some time.”

  “I can do this quickstep.”

  He lead me on to the floor. He had never held me in his arms socially. The hold was politically correct and the dancing lone-ranger stuff. He did his steps and I did mine. Basic movements. But he was close enough for me to smell his skin, to see how finely his dark hair was crew-cut to his head, to notice the lashes that flickered over those hard granite-blue eyes.

  “Am I allowed to ask why you are here?” I said.

  “You can ask but I may not answer.”

  “I’ll tell you why I am here.”

  “I’m rivetted,” he said without feeling. “I thought maybe this was time off in lieu of good behavior or Mavis had fixed you up with a blind date.”

  “This is work. I’m hoping to talk to some anglers. I know it’s small fry – joke, James – compared to your cases, but I have to earn a living somehow.”

  The music ended and people clapped. Who were they clapping? The taped music, themselves or the cleaner who polished the floor? James relaxed his hold but did not move away. Were we going to dance a second time? The heavens had decided to shower me with joy. James was wearing his usual black shirt and black belted jeans. I guessed the black jacket was on the back of some chair.

  “The stolen fishing rods? Yes, they came into the station but we don’t have the resources to follow’ it up.”

  “Too busy chasing motorists?”

  “Not fair, Jordan. I don’t make the rules.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “To dance with the prettiest girl on the floor.” His voice was emotionless. He was looking everywhere except at me. Something had happened to his family a long time ago and it had made him remote and bitter.

  “Bollocks,” I said. “I’m not the prettiest girl.” I’d never be pretty. My hair is lawny red and my five foot eight means I need a man who is taller. My face is normal, no spots or acne. And this was a black mascara night.

  “I didn’t say it was you.”

  I would have walked off and left him standing, but the next tune was “Someone to Watch Over Me” by Gershwin. I love Gershwin. James did not change his hold. No cheek to cheek, no folded hand against his beating chest, as I had often dreamed. Bruno was eating Mavis’s ear. Doris was sitting this one out, making her drink last.

  When my jazz trumpeter played this number, it had soul. But this version was terminal, chemical. I knew the words. Perhaps if I sang them, James would melt. But I couldn’t find my voice. It was stuck halfway down my throat.

  “So who, among these assorted dancers, are you watching?” I rambled on. “Is the gorgeous Bruno smuggling drugs across the Channel in cod stomachs? Does the DJ run a ring of phone-girls from his mobile caravan? I know, it’s Mavis. She has contravened some ruling from Brussels and the Fat Squad are threatening to close Maeve’s Cafe.”

  “Do you always talk such nonsense? Yes, you do. Please be quiet and let me concentrate on my dancing.”

  “If this is concentrated dancing then I’d hate to be around when you’re relaxed.”

  His mouth twitched. It was the nearest he got to a smile that evening. He was still searching the floor.

  “Doris said that some of the anglers come here to dance. A few beers and they might talk to me.”

  “They are part of a brotherhood. A brotherhood of messy bait, extreme cold, stiffness, cramp and patience.”

  “Perhaps I ought to sniff around.”

  “They wash and use deodorants. Superdrug give them a discount for quantity.”

  The music ended and I drew away from James. I lost his warmth. I could have danced all night.

  “Thank you,” I said. “But I have work to do.”

  He nodded and walked away. I stood, marooned among the dancers, wondering where I had parked my orange juice. My feelings had been under control for weeks. Now the longing and craving were back, coupled with the dread that he might be posted to some outpost in the north. He’d been in sunny Latching longer than most. He was due a grunge posting.

  I found my juice. If not mine, then I was drinking someone else’s germs. The movable theater seats were grouped around the edge of the floor and I found a good view. Doris was dancing with a very tall partner who was obviously treading on her feet. Mavis was wrapped round Bruno. I envied her addiction to fishermen. Not an age spot in sight.

  “Miss Lacey?”

  It was a man in a green fleece sweater and brown slacks, not normal dancing gear. He had a ruddy face and hair that disobeyed every rule in the comb book.

  “Hello,” I said. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Dick Mann. I fish off the pier, all weathers. Mad about fishing. My mate, Arnie, has spoken to you about the rods being whipped. Can I have a word with you?”

  “Of course, Mr Mann. Sit down.”

  “You may have seen me,” said Dick Mann, putting his glass of beer on the table, slopping the froth. “I always fish in the same spot, second stretch, east side, facing the skyscrapers of Brighton and the Seven Sisters.”

  “Ah, yes, I know the spot. I walk the pier in all weathers.”

  “We know. We’ve noticed you. Nothing much to look at when you’re fishing, a lot of sea and a lot of sky. You tend to get to know the regular walkers.”

  “But anglers tend to look the same,” I said. “Huddled in waterproofs and hoods. You must get very cold.”

  “Enough to freeze the… off you, begging your pardon, miss.” He took a quick gulp of beer and coughed on it. Dodgy chest too. “Arnie says you’re looking into this rod business and we’re all chipping in to pay for you. So it’s up to u
s to give you as much information, right?”

  “Right? What do you know?”

  “Well, I was fishing just the other morning. I work shifts at the hospital and I’d done a night shift. I had two rods out and the fish were running well. I’d a couple of flounders and a nice bass. The bass was going to be my supper with a bit of bread and butter.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was crouched down, cleaning the bass, out of the wind, when suddenly my rod was jerked off the pier. It went up in the air like a whiplash and fell into the sea. I rushed to look over the rail and it had disappeared. I couldn’t believe it. Vanished in seconds. Rods float, they don’t sink. Something had pulled it down like a whale or a shark.”

  “Or a small boy? We don’t get whales or sharks lurking off the Sussex coast,” I said.

  “That’s what’s so odd. I’m only telling you what I saw. We all thought it was a gang of boys thieving for a lark but I reckon it’s summat more sinister.”

  “Sinister? You mean like a Latching monster or south-coast jaws? We might make national headlines.”

  “Rods are expensive. There’s little insurance to cover fishing equipment.”

  “Perhaps I’ll come fishing with you, Mr Mann, catch a sighting of this monster. When would be a good time?”

  Fish surveillance. It might be better than sitting in a car for hours, watching an empty house. But it would be cold. Both thermal vests on, Jordan.

  “How about tomorrow afternoon? It’s my half day. Wrap up warm. I’ll bring a thermos and some sandwiches.”

  “Okay,” I said, resigning myself to a cold, wet afternoon. There was no shelter on the open deck. “I’ll see you on the pier, east side.”

  Dick Mann finished his beer and stood up. “Want another?” He nodded towards my orange juice.

  “No, thank you. I need to circulate.”

  He ambled off towards the bar, to the men who were there to drink and not to dance. I didn’t want to talk to any more anglers. I wanted to talk to Bruno.