by Sibel Hodge
‘We’ll all have to catch up soon,’ Hacker said to EJ and then glanced at Brad, meaning he was included in any future SAS reunion.
‘For sure.’ EJ nodded at us all and left.
Hacker sat on the edge of Brad’s desk. ‘I’ve got an update for you. I’m still trying to get into the computers at the bank to see what was going on there. As you’d expect, the security is pretty high, so it may take me a while. Don’t worry, though. I haven’t met a computer system I couldn’t crack yet.’ He grinned and a gold tooth shone back at me. ‘Now, since the Kinghorn Thomas Bank wasn’t insured with us, I checked out their insurance company to see which customers contacted them about making claims on their safety deposit boxes after the robbery.’ Hacker glanced between us and waved a computer printout at us. ‘Who wants this?’
‘Me,’ I said at the same time as Brad.
Hacker handed it to me. ‘Ladies first.’
I scanned the list of names and addresses. Twenty-two names. Romeo said that there were six hundred boxes and eighty were broken into. Is this all there is?’ I glanced at Hacker.
‘Yep.’ He nodded. ‘After the initial contact with the insurance company to see what evidence they had to provide for a claim, most of the safety box holders didn’t go on to actually file a claim.’
I sighed. That just made my job even harder. ‘Well, I suppose there’s going to be a lot of stuff in the boxes that the owners don’t want anyone else to know about. They won’t exactly be making insurance claims, will they?’ I slowly perused the list. The only name I recognized was Vinnie Dawson. I looked up at Brad with a huge smile plastered on my face.
‘What?’ Brad asked.
‘Vinnie Dawson had a safety box at Carl’s bank,’ I said. ‘Well that proves a link between Carl Thomas and Vinnie. We already know Edward Kinghorn was placing big bets on the fight, so there’s a link to Vinnie and Edward as well, but what’s the link between Carl and Levi? What did Carl mean when he said, “I know what you…”? Somehow there’s a connection between Levi and what happened at the bank.’ It was more of a statement than a question. I was still busy trying to digest all the information so far and come up with a plausible reason for everything. ‘Hacker, can you look into Levi’s spending habits? He hasn’t got a lot to show for all those heavyweight title fights. He should’ve had stacks of money coming in.’ I twirled a curl around my finger, deep in thought. ‘So either the contract he had with Vinnie didn’t pay him much of percentage of the winnings, or he’s got some extravagant spending habit we don’t know about.’
Brad gave me a sexy grin. I wasn’t sure if it was a response to the hair twirling or my thoughts on Levi’s lack of cash, though.
‘If Levi did have some extravagant vice, maybe he arranged the bank robbery,’ Hacker said.
‘We can’t rule anything out at this stage,’ Brad said.
‘I think I need to pay a little visit to Vinnie.’ I stopped twirling, just in case.
‘Don’t go and see Vinnie without me.’ Brad’s eyes flashed with a hint of steel.
‘Why not? I’ve got a stun gun and my SIG. I once fried someone’s nuts with a stun gun.’
‘It’s not that I don’t think you can handle Vinnie, it’s purely for my own selfish reasons that I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’ve got a meeting this morning, but we can go and see him this afternoon.’
I gave Brad a salute. ‘Yes, boss.’
‘Promise me?’ He gave me a wary look.
I made a crossing my heart sign. ‘Promise.’
‘Let me have a look at the list.’ Brad held his hand out and I passed it to him.
‘We’ll split the names and I’ll do half,’ Brad said.
‘Hi,’ Tia wandered into the room. Today she wore orange leggings, a baggy orange jumper with an orange belt, and orange pumps. This much orange should only be allowed on an actual orange. Still, what did I know? I expected she was wearing one of her dad’s creations, and I’m sure he knew best. She blushed and did a goofy grin when she saw Hacker. ‘This just came for you, Amber.’ She handed me a brown Jiffy bag package as Hacker made goo-goo eyes at her. Young love!
I took the package and ripped it open. Inside was a small pink box with a pink bow. It was the kind of box you’d get jewellery in.
I sucked in a breath. Was this from Romeo? Had he decided to ignore his ultimatum and just propose instead? ‘Wow, and it’s not even my birthday.’ I tried to mask my panic at the scary thought that this could be an engagement ring. I wondered for the squillionth time why I couldn’t just commit to him. Then I realized the main reason was sitting right in front of me.
Brad leaned forward over his desk for a better look. A muscle ticked away in his jaw.
I opened the lid. Then my eyes nearly popped out of my head.
I dropped the box on the floor and leaped out of my chair.
‘What?’ Tia cried, craning her neck to get a better view of the box.
I stood and pointed to the box on the floor. ‘It’s a nose! Someone’s sent me a real nose!’ I clutched my chest, trying to breathe normally.
Shit, crap, and buggeringhell. Not to mention fuckety fuck! It wasn’t that I was scared of a nose. I’d seen enough post-mortems to last a lifetime. It was just that I was a bit shocked. I was expecting a diamond ring, not a bloody nose.
Brad picked up the box, staring at the nose nestled in white tissue paper. The tic was getting more pronounced now.
‘Holy crap!’ Tia turned her face away from the box and slapped her hands over her eyes. ‘Who would send you a nose?’
‘Psychos.’ Hacker nodded gravely and his plaits wobbled. ‘Sometime people doing Voodoo send noses as well.’
I flopped back down onto my chair, staring at the box in Brad’s hand. ‘Great, now I might have a Voodoo curse, too.’
‘It’s a message,’ Brad said.
‘No kidding!’ I flapped my hands in the direction of the nose box and slumped back in my chair.
‘Who sends a nose as a message?’ Tia slid her fingers wide over her face so her eyes just about poked out. ‘I guess we could keep a look out for people walking around with no nose. Then we’d have our culprit.’
I stared at Tia, agog.
‘What?’ She dropped her hands completely, looking confused.
‘Whoever’s nose that is doesn’t belong to a living person,’ I elaborated.
She scrunched up her flushed face, fanning it with her hand. ‘Ew! That is so gross.’
Hacker draped a protective arm around her shoulder.
‘Well that narrows it down, Hacker, seeing as I always seem to be dealing with psychos.’ I took a few deep breaths to steady myself.
Brad frowned at me. ‘It’s Vinnie. I’d bet anything it’s from Vinnie.’ Brad set the nose on his desk and put the lid back on.
I examined the jiffy envelope, hoping for some kind of clue as to the sender. A return address would be a big one, but there was nothing on it except for my name and address scrawled in capital letters that looked like a five year old had written it. Bummer.
‘Hey, there’s no stamp on this.’ I looked up at Tia.
‘There’s a postal strike on at the moment. This came by courier,’ Tia said. ‘Do you want me to phone them and see if they’ve got an address for the sender?’
‘It would be a waste of time.’ I shook my head. ‘Well, if he thinks it’s going to scare me, he’d be dead wrong.’ I eyed the nose and thought maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the D word.
‘Maybe I should go and see him alone,’ Brad said.
‘No!’ I leaped out of my chair, ready for action. ‘I’m not scared of him.’ OK, I was, maybe just an eensy weensy bit, but I wasn’t going to let Vinnie know that. ‘I’m definitely coming with you later.’
Luckily, my phone rang before Brad could protest further. I escaped his office and sat at my desk opposite Hacker’s.
‘Hey, Amber,’ Romeo said.
Since he was being formal, I did the sa
me. ‘Hey, Romeo. How are you?’
‘I’m good. I called to tell you there was nothing useful on Carl’s laptop.’
‘Damn.’ I picked up a pen and doodled on my pad. ‘Did you know that Carl and Deborah were in the middle of a messy divorce?’
‘Yes. But I didn’t really think it had a bearing on the bank robbery.’
‘Probably not.’ I carried on doodling. ‘And if Carl died, his estate went to his niece, Amy, not Deborah.’
‘I’ve already checked out that angle. Amy has a rock solid alibi. The pathologist who did the autopsy on Carl said he died late on Saturday night. Amy had been staying with a friend from university from Friday night until we spoke to her today. The friend’s parents backed her up. She’s been there studying the whole time.’
‘Double damn. That’s another theory out the window.’ I tapped my pen against my lips. ‘So Carl was killed shortly after he turned up at the fight, then.’
‘Yes. And speaking of alibis, Lee has one for the time of the robbery, too,’ Romeo said. ‘I found out he was away in Spain for the weekend when the robbery took place.’
‘Very convenient. It doesn’t mean he didn’t mastermind the whole thing, though.’
‘No. But we’re no further forward on the case. I’m still waiting for forensics and tech to come up with anything useful.’
‘So you haven’t found anything suspicious from the bank’s computers yet?’ I glanced up at Hacker who’d just sat down. I wasn’t about to tell Romeo that Hacker was looking into that, too. I was betting Hacker would get that information before the police tech guys did.
‘Not yet.’
‘Did you know Carl had five million pounds in an offshore account in South Africa?’ I went into doodling overdrive.
‘No.’
Hmm. Tech guys nil, Hacker one. ‘You saw the passport and suitcase at his house. I think he was probably fleeing.’
‘Too late now, though,’ Romeo said.
‘Do you know what was in the safety deposit boxes that were broken into?’
‘We had a bit of a late start finding out who owned the boxes to begin with. We had to get a court order in the end to force the bank to tell us. They were spouting off about client confidentiality and all that rubbish.’
‘No surprise there,’ I said. ‘I bet there was a whole heap of dodgy stuff in those boxes.’
‘I finally got the list through from the bank this morning,’ Romeo said. ‘We’ve managed to check out a handful of box owners, but most of them said there was nothing in there of any value and refused to tell us what they had hidden in them.’
‘Triple damn.’ Well, that wasn’t going to stop me trying with my list. I waited for Romeo to tell me about Vinnie’s safety box. He didn’t, and I wondered what else he was keeping from me in this investigation. Obviously, our usual information swapping system was waning since we weren’t discussing it in the bedroom any more. ‘Has anyone been found dead with a missing nose?’ I asked casually.
‘A what?’ he practically shrieked at me.
‘You know – the thing on the front of your face that you smell with.’
There was a silence, and I imagined him staring at the ceiling before trusting himself to speak. ‘What have you got yourself into now?’
‘Not much, really. I just got sent a nose in the post.’
There was a pause that went on so long I thought he’d hung up. ‘Sometimes I don’t get you at all,’ he said.
I didn’t know if he meant that in a good way or a bad way, but I suspected it was the latter. It wasn’t exactly my fault, though, was it? I mean, it wasn’t like I’d asked someone to send me a nose. I could think of much nicer presents. A holiday home in Hawaii perhaps, or, failing that, a lifetime’s supply of chocolate.
‘I’ll look into it. And, Amber – I know I say this every time – but be careful.’ Then he hung up.
I glanced down at the pad I’d been doodling on and realized it was full of hearts. What did that mean? Did hearts really mean hearts if you doodled them absent-mindedly, or were they really a code for something else?
I ripped off the sheet of paper and threw it in the bin.
Hacker eyed me over the desk. ‘Problem?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘When is my life not a problem?’
‘I found out about the other big bets placed on the Levi fight.’
‘Great.’
‘Well, not so great. None of the names check out. Apart from Edward Kinghorn’s bets, none of the others placed were from real people. None of them actually existed.’
I chewed on my lip. ‘Hmm. Have they all been claimed?’
Hacker nodded.
‘Where were the bets placed?’
‘All over the country. I’ve double-checked and none were placed at Bet-it.’ Hacker smiled – a flash of white and gold.
‘I think it’s pretty safe to say they were all done on behalf of Vinnie and his cronies then. Vinnie wouldn’t put bets on at Lee’s bookies if he knew he was getting a massive payout and Lee would be out of pocket.’ I raised an eyebrow and grabbed my rucksack. ‘I’m going to see Ricky Jackson. He might have heard what Carl Thomas was shouting at Levi.’
****
Ricky Jackson was having a massage at his gym when I tracked him down. I only had to wait a few minutes before he appeared from a side room, dressed in shorts and trainers with a towel draped around his neck. Everything I knew about boxing could be written on a gnat’s eyelid, but even I could see he wasn’t a match for Levi. From what I’d seen of Ricky so far, he didn’t look as fit, his punches weren’t as powerful, and he didn’t look as good in satin shorts.
I wondered if he knew Levi was going to throw the fight and that’s why Ricky decided to go head-to-head with him. I suspected he would’ve got his ass whooped in any other circumstances.
Ricky’s trainer handed him a bottle of water. He took it and had a quick glug before walking towards me.
‘Hi, Ricky. I’m Amber from Levi’s insurance company. Can I ask you a few questions about the fight on Saturday?’
‘Sure.’ Ricky wiped at his forehead with the towel.
‘Did you see the guy who turned up outside the ring, shouting at Levi?’
‘No. I was too busy trying to get Levi with a right hook. I heard a commotion, but…’ he shrugged, ‘I’ve been trained not to let anything outside of the ring distract me. When I get inside the ring, I’ve got my tunnel vision thing going on.’
Exactly. So what was so important that it distracted Levi? ‘You didn’t hear what the guy said, then?’
He stopped rubbing and hung onto the edges of the towel. ‘No. I didn’t hear a thing.’
‘Did you know Levi was supposed to throw the fight?’ I kept my eyes locked on his face, ready for any telltale sign that he was lying.
Ricky’s jaw fell open. ‘What?’ He shook his head in an angry gesture. ‘No way. I won it fair and square. Levi was slightly up on points before he went down, but I would’ve knocked him out eventually. No. I don’t believe it. This is a joke, right?’ Either Ricky was an Oscar winning actor in his spare time or it had come as a big shock to him.
‘No. I wish it was,’ I said.
His facial muscles hardened and he walked away. ‘You’re crazy.’
‘It’s true, Ricky,’ I said to his back.
He stopped and spun around. ‘So, you’re really trying to say I won by accident? That shouting thing was staged so I’d be able to knock him out?’ Ricky’s voice got louder and his eyes widened. ‘Well, what the…’ He trailed off, thinking. ‘No. I don’t get it. Levi is probably the best boxer I know. He hasn’t been heavyweight champion for four years for nothing. Why would he do that? He’s only twenty-four. He’s got tons more fights left in him. Why risk getting caught intentionally throwing a fight and being banned for life?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. But the thing is…Levi was supposed to throw it in the eighth round, not the sixth.’
Ric
ky’s forehead scrunched up. ‘So why did he go down in the sixth? You’ve got to be wrong about this. Levi would never throw a fight. And I can’t believe I didn’t win it fairly.’
‘I’m thinking that the distraction caused by Carl Thomas shouting wasn’t planned at all. It was very real, and it caused Levi to lose his concentration.’ I paused, giving this some thought. ‘What do you know about Levi?’
‘I can’t take this in. I’m in shock.’ He sighed. ‘Levi’s a great guy. He’s honest, reliable, dedicated to boxing, and he’s a family man. I just…can’t believe he’d intentionally throw a fight.’
‘Why not? Everyone has their price, don’t they?’
‘Not Levi. Boxing was his life. If there was even a sniff that he’d been acting improperly, the British Boxing Board would’ve pulled his license to fight.’ Levi sat down on a weight bench and glanced up at me. ‘I used to train with Levi back when we were kids. I tell you, he had so much determination to be world heavyweight champ. It’s all he ever wanted. Whatever his reason for throwing that fight, if he did, it must’ve been pretty important.’
‘Has Levi ever spoken to you about the contract he has with Vinnie Dawson?’ I asked.
‘As far as I knew, Levi signed a great deal with Vinnie. Levi should’ve been made for life if he carried on winning.’
I tilted my head and thought about what he’d just said. Something didn’t make sense, because Terry seemed to think Levi signed a contract that wasn’t in his favour. And if that was the case, where had all the money gone? ‘His trainer thinks that Levi was manipulated into signing a dodgy contract.’
A light bulb seemed to click on behind Ricky’s eyes. ‘Oh, yes. That’s right.’ Ricky nodded to himself. ‘I think that was afterwards.’
‘After what?’
‘I haven’t spoken to Levi properly in years. We were close friends when we were younger. He turned pro right around the same time as me, and we kind of lost touch after that.’ He glanced around the gym. Two fighters sparred in the ring. You could feel the heat and tension coming off them a mile away. Ricky watched them work while he talked. ‘You don’t have much spare time when you’re trying to stay on top of your game. After Levi signed the original contract with Vinnie, he got his first shot at the heavyweight title. But after he won, Levi seemed to change.’