Peridale Cafe Mystery 20 - Cocktails and Cowardice

by Agatha Frost

  Julia double-clicked the image, and a picture of a chicken popped up for a split second before the screen turned black. Julia stared at the dark screen, her confusion reflected back at her.

  “I bring you a glorious omelette,” Barker announced as he walked in carrying a tray with two plates. “Threw some chips into the deep fat fryer too, although I might have overdone them a little.”

  “Even I know how to not burn chips,” Jessie said, plucking one from the plate before closing the door. “How kind of you to bring me food.”

  “It’s not for you.” He put the tray onto the dressing table, pushing the dead laptop away from Julia. “I thought you were going to lie down?”

  “I was,” Julia said, staring down at the messy omelette Barker had cobbled together. “Jessie came in with Lisa’s laptop. Did you check her sent emails?”

  “It didn’t occur to me. Why?”

  “Old people.” Jessie rolled her eyes and pulled a key card from the pocket of her denim shorts. She tossed it to Barker. “You might want to watch your pockets more carefully. It wasn’t even difficult.”

  “I was looking everywhere for this!” He caught it and scowled at Jessie. “That’s why the chips are burnt.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Likely story.” Jessie playfully punched him in the arm. “Did you see the picture, Mum?”

  “A chicken.”

  “Random, right?” Jessie leaned across and snatched a handful of chips off the plate. “I didn’t really get it either. I translated the email address too, and it came out as ‘chicken or egg’ – which makes just as much sense as the picture. None.”

  Chickens.

  Eggs.

  Julia looked up at the investigation wall above the dressing table, her eyes landing on the translated business name around which Barker had drawn a giant circle and several question marks.

  “What Came First,” she said, eyes still trained on the wall. “Chicken or egg?”

  “I’m far too tired and far too sober for this kind of debate,” Jessie muttered through a mouthful of chips. “But I think the egg. Has to be. How else did a chicken hatch?”

  “But what laid the egg?” Barker asked, sitting next to her on the edge of the bed. “A chicken.”

  Julia stood and ripped the paper off the wall. She stared down at it, her hands shaking as her mind raced and missing pieces fell into place.

  “It wasn’t a question,” she said, turning to show them the paper. “What Came First. It’s the name of the company you traced thirteen of those email addresses to.”

  “Twenty-eight now,” he corrected, accepting the paper. “I can’t get any deeper into who owns it, though.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Julia sat down and stared at the omelette. “Lisa figured out who The Buyer was and she paid the price. Instead of an email, they delivered the message via a knife in the stomach.”

  “Wait, what message?” Barker frowned. “What emails?”

  “Miss a minute, miss a lot.” Jessie patted him on the shoulder. “I’m keeping up, Mum. Keep going. You have that look in your eyes.”

  “What look?”

  “Same crazy look Dot gets when she thinks she’s about to get one over on someone.” Jessie reached out and scooped up the last of the chips. “If you’re about to tell me you’ve figured out who The Buyer is over a bunch of chicken stuff, I have to hear it.”

  “You weren’t here when he brought the eggs,” Julia said, glancing at the omelette. “If you had been, you might have made the connection yourself.”

  “Who?”

  “Rodger.”

  “That posh old bloke?” Jessie laughed as she licked the salt from her fingers. “You think he’s The Buyer? He’s as loopy as Minnie.”

  After feeling so out of her element for so much of the investigation, Julia wasn’t prepared to dismiss the first genuine lightbulb moment she’d felt since her gran and Percy vanished into thin air. Chickens were too bizarre to be a coincidence.

  “I think it’s worth a conversation at least.” Julia glanced at the omelette one last time. “The worst-case scenario is we look like idiots for making such a tenuous link. Barker?”

  “Worth a shot.” He stood and checked his watch. “He was still downstairs when I came up. You two stay here and—”

  “Fat chance!” Jessie jumped up and headed straight for the door. “You two never would have found those emails or made any chicken-related assumptions without me. I was the one who found the eggs, and I want to be there when you make the chicken cluck!”

  Before Barker could go through his usual routine of insisting Julia stay behind for pregnancy-related reasons, she followed Jessie through the bedroom door, glad to piggyback on her daughter’s gutsy nature.

  They took the lift to the ground floor, where they found Minnie alone in the dining room, swaying to the increased volume of the plucky music. Her eyes were closed, and she clutched a full glass of sangria to her chest.

  “I’ll get the music,” Jessie said, already cutting across to the bar.

  Rather than turning it down, she turned it off entirely. Minnie’s eyes opened wearily, and an easy smile filled her face when she saw Julia.

  “Sweet Julia,” she said, holding out her arms for a hug. Sangria sloshed out of the glass, but Minnie didn’t seem to notice. “Come and dance with your auntie. It’s my last night here, after all.”

  Julia gave Minnie a quick hug but stepped away again before the dancing could begin. “Where’s Rodger gone?”

  “Just left.” She clamped a hand against Julia’s hips and rocked her side to side while she slurped sangria with the other. “Loosen up! The world will still be ending tomorrow. Pour yourself a glass of sangria and have fun with me.”

  “I’m pregnant,” Julia reminded her as she pulled away. “Please, Minnie. Focus. Do you know where Rodger went?”

  Minnie looked Julia up and down and frowned. She stumbled back on her heels, catching herself on the edge of the table they’d been sat at for most of the night.

  “Where’s the contract?” Barker asked just as Julia was opening her mouth to ask the same thing.

  “Rodger took it,” she called, wafting her hand in the direction of the door as she sloppily dragged out a chair. “He said he’d drop it off for me. He’s good like that. Knows I don’t like going out.” Her expression crumpled into an exaggerated pout. “Hoped he’d stay longer, but it seems it’s his turn for trouble.”

  “What trouble?” Julia asked.

  “Smashed window at his hotel,” she said as she topped her glass up from the bottle of sangria Rodger had left on the table. “That’s what the inspector man said.”

  “Inspector Hillard was here?”

  “You just missed them.” She waved in the general direction of the door again. “The inspector ran in all huffing and puffing and said he needed to talk to Rodger about something urgent. Said he’d been trying to call him, but Rodger couldn’t find his phone. Rodger said some kids had smashed a window at his hotel, and nothing gets fixed if you don’t report it, does—”

  “Did you say we just missed him?” Barker interjected.

  “That’s what I said.” She slammed the bottle on the table. “Is someone going to turn the music back on, or do I have to do it myself?”

  The three of them ran for the front door, and the music turned on behind them, even louder than before. They broke out into the night and up the steps into the dark alley.

  “Which way is Rodger’s hotel?” Barker asked as he looked in each direction.

  “I don’t know,” Julia admitted, joining him in looking. “Minnie just said he had the hotel next door.”

  “You two really are blind, aren’t you?” Jessie nudged Julia and pointed into the blurry darkness. “They’re walking in that direction. I don’t know what you would do without me, honestly.” She looked Julia’s bright yellow maxi dress up and down. “Couldn’t have worn a more inconspicuous colour, could you? You’re practically glowing in the dark.” She turn
ed her gaze to Barker. “And tropical shorts? Really? Are you twelve?”

  “We’ll talk fashion later,” he said, already crossing the street. “We’ll follow behind this row of cars. They shouldn’t see us if we stay down.”

  With Barker leading the charge, Julia took the rear, behind Jessie, ducking as low as she could – though the bump hindered her attempt. Unless their long-distance vision was as bad as hers, if Rodger or Inspector Hillard so much as glanced over their shoulders, they’d spot her. She hoped Rodger’s glasses were for reading only.

  Since hiding was out of the question, Julia decided to use it to her advantage. She watched the two men hurry down the tight lane until they stopped outside a building almost identical to Minnie’s hotel. Unlike Minnie’s, however, the front doors were entirely frosted, as were all the other windows. There didn’t even appear to be a sign, and the only writing Julia could see was a ‘NO VACANIES’ notice written in Spanish and English stuck in the window next to the door.

  “This is Rodger’s hotel?” Jessie whispered as they slowed to a halt. “Looks more like an office block.”

  Julia peeked over the top of the car and watched as Rodger punched a code into a keypad in the door. He looked over his shoulder, and Julia ducked down so quickly she nearly landed flat on her bottom. Barker put out a steadying hand. She held her breath and waited, but nothing happened.

  “They’ve gone inside,” she whispered as she dared to peek over the top again. “Lights are on. What now?”

  “We go and listen at the door?” Jessie suggested. “Admittedly not my best plan, but—”

  “Shhh!” Barker held his finger up to his mouth as something further down the street seemed to catch his attention. “I don’t think we’re the only ones here.”

  Julia peeked over the top of the car just in time to see a figure dressed in black from head to toe pop up from behind a car on the other side of the street and slip down an alley between the hotel and the next building over.

  “Stay here!” Barker ordered, pointing at them both. “I mean it this time.”

  Before either of them could argue, Barker darted across the road in a crouch and disappeared down the same alley the stranger had just vanished into. Julia and Jessie glanced at each other, nodding decisively at one another. They hurried across the road, only straightening up when they reached the alley.

  Jessie bumped right into Barker, who hadn’t gone any further than the opening. He and the mystery figure stood across from each other, each looking as perplexed as the other. Even with the black hat and the change in outfit, Julia recognised the man at once.

  “Sub-Inspector Castro?” she whispered.

  The sub-inspector held a finger to lips, and his gaze was steely enough to tell Julia not to speak again until prompted. The officer pulled a small device from his pocket and plugged it into his phone. It was fluffy and grey, and looked like a recording device of some kind. After a few taps on the screen, he held it up to an air vent above their heads.

  His finger went back to his lips.

  Seconds seemed to drag out into hours before Julia heard a series of doors open inside the hotel. The sound of opening doors grew closer and closer until the one leading to the room on the other side of the vent opened and closed.

  “Are you stupid?” Rodger’s voice cried. “Did you think about how any of that would look to Minnie? She was already having second thoughts! I practically had to snatch the contract from her.”

  “It was urgent,” Hillard replied. “Did you send this text message?”

  Silence.

  “Well?”

  “No.” Rodger’s voice was firm. “Obviously I would never send out a message like that. Where did it come from?”

  “Your phone.”

  “I told you,” said Rodger, pausing to exhale in irritation, “I’ve lost my phone.”

  “Lost? Or was it stolen?” Hillard paused and laughed. “It’s him, isn’t it? Your little pet project?”

  “Rafa wouldn’t do this.”

  “Rafa let them escape!” Hillard cried. “You put too much trust in the boy. I’m his uncle, I should know. He’s never been cut out for this—”

  Hillard’s voice cut off abruptly, and Julia didn’t need to see through the wall to know what happened next. She was well aware of what it sounded like when a man was punched in the face.

  “Remember your place, Inspector,” Rodger snapped. “Everything is under control. I have six armed men up there making sure those old idiots don’t get another chance to mess this up. I’ve commanded them to shoot on sight, which will save me a job.”

  Jessie’s hand tightened around Julia’s.

  “You’re going to kill them?”

  She squeezed tightly.

  “They’ve seen my face,” said Rodger. “It’s not worth the risk. They might give a description that makes a connection. I wanted to keep them alive until I at least had the contract incase the old idiot next door needed more proof, but she never bothered asking.”

  “And how do I explain their deaths at the station?” Hillard replied. “The British authorities are already starting to sniff around. That idiot PI has been making calls. Do you really want this to go to Interpol? To become an international incident?” Hillard sighed noisily; Julia could picture him rolling his eyes. “You keep complicating things! Setting some fires and smashing some windows to scare people into selling was one thing, but ransom? Attempted murder? This situation has gone too far!”

  “I say when things have gone too far!” Rodger cried, followed by the sound of another punch. “Minnie was always going to be the hardest to convince. She thinks her dead husband is fused into the walls! Putting her family at risk was the only way to get through to her.”

  “And Lisa?” Hillard’s words were becoming more slurred. “Was that part of the plan?”

  “She figured it out!” Another punch. “Of course I had to sort her out. Now that I have the paperwork, I’ll send some men to finish what I started. Nothing can go wrong now.”

  “Unless,” slurred Hillard, sounding like he was further away now, “the men you’re going to send to the hospital got the same text I did. And what about those six keeping watch at the villa? Text came through nearly an hour ago. How d’you know they’re not all long gone?”

  “An hour?”

  “How many more times must I explain? I looked everywhere for you before I went to La Casa.” Hillard made a sound somewhere between laughter and a gurgle. Julia’s stomach twisted as she imagined the blood in Hillard’s mouth. “Not one of your men knows your face. You’ve trained them to obey first and ask questions never. I imagine one text from The Buyer sent half running for the harbour and the rest to the airport.” Hillard laughed again, hard and bitter. “There you go, Rodger. All the power you ever wanted, undone by a teenaged boy. Isn’t this when you pack up, run away, change your name, and start this whole game over? Think you’ll live long enough to win, this time?” Hillard coughed wetly and spat. “Whatever you do, I’m done doing your dirty work. And I’ll do everything I can to convince my mother not to follow you, either.”

  “Let her stay,” said Rodger, scoffing. “I only married her because of her easily corruptible son in the police. You’re all useless. Worthless.”

  The silence dragged out.

  “Is this the part where you kill me, too?”

  Rodger uttered a bark of sharp, cruel laughter. “You’re not worth the bullet. Do it yourself.”

  A door slammed, and after a series of other doors deep in the building followed, the front door of the hotel opened. Moments later, Rodger jumped into a rundown pickup truck full of empty cages. He sped off without looking in their direction. Through the air vent, Hillard’s maniacal laughter turned to sobs, and then the unmistakable sound of a man smashing up the contents of a room.

  “You have heard far too much,” Castro whispered as he unplugged the device from his phone and pocketed both. “Speak of this to no one, or you will blow the whole c
ase.”

  “How did you know to come here?” Julia asked.

  “They always go there,” he replied, holding back a pleased smile. “I stumbled upon it by an accident. Rodger thinks he cannot be heard from his office.”

  “You’re undercover, aren’t you?” Barker whispered back. “I knew it! Well, I didn’t know it exactly, but I knew you were one of the good—”

  “Yes, Mr Brown,” he replied, holding up his hand for silence. “I am undercover. I have been building this corruption case for over one year now. Hillard led me down a much darker path. My superiors, they need hard evidence, and I have just recorded everything I need to prove this is no conspiracy theory. I have been following Hillard since he received that text message and bolted out of the station. I had a feeling he would run to Rodger.” He checked his watch. “We need to move quickly. We have not very much time to find your missing relatives.”

  “And how do we do that?” Jessie hissed. “Rodger has already bolted and—”

  A door on the other side of the vent slammed, and seconds later, Hillard burst through the hotel’s front door. His face was as beaten and bloody as the sounds of punches and slurring words had led Julia to imagine. He climbed into his car and sped off in the same direction Rodger had gone.

  “We’ve lost another one!” Jessie cried. After all the hushed whispering, Jessie at full volume made Julia jump. “Now we’ll never—” Jessie stopped mid-sentence when Castro held up his phone screen. “Oh, a tracker. Nice. See, you’re good at this. No yellow maxi dresses and tropical shorts for you.”

  “We must move quickly,” Castro said as he slipped past them and through the opening of the tight alley. “Mr Brown, are you coming?”

  “Me?”

  “You are a former detective?” Castro clicked a key and the car they’d hidden behind across the street lit up with a reassuring beep. “I could spend the next half hour trying to convince my superiors to act, or I can act immediately. But I need back up, and you are—”

  “Of course, I’ll do it!” Barker said before Castro could finish, already heading towards the car. Turning to Julia, he said, “Stay here. I’ll sort this out. I’ll bring them home, I promise.”