by Sibel Hodge
Ricky was at home when I phoned him.
‘Hello again, Amber. What are you going to tell me now? That I’m adopted?’ he said.
I sat forward, my voice high and urgent. ‘Ricky, do you remember telling me you were at the party that Vinnie held for Levi the night he won his first title fight?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you stay until the end? Do you remember Levi driving home?’
He paused for a while. All I heard was his breath on the other end. Then: ‘No, I left about one in the morning. Levi was still there. He was having a good time, drinking plenty of champagne, and was pretty merry.’
I grabbed the photo of the car accident from Hacker’s desk, staring at the dead woman. ‘I’m trying to trace a woman who may have been at the party that night. She looks about forty. She had long, wavy dark hair with a clip in the front of it with a rose on.’
‘It was four years ago. There were hundreds of women there getting up to all sorts of wild things.’
Oh, God, this wasn’t helping me much. ‘She wore a red, sequined, strapless cocktail dress. She looked classy. Does it ring any bells?’
Another pause. ‘Sorry, I really can’t remember. There were a lot of socialites and celebrities there. She could’ve been anyone, really.’
I knew Ricky had said that he’d lost touch with Levi after that night, but I had to ask him anyway, ‘Do you know where Levi would go if he wanted to hide out?’
‘No. The only time I’ve seen him to talk to is at our match on Saturday night and at the pre-fight weigh in, but we didn’t talk about personal stuff. We haven’t seen each other socially in a long time. Is Levi in some kind of trouble?’
I exhaled a breath and stared at the ceiling. I didn’t want to show Ricky the picture of the dead woman to see if he could ID her because I couldn’t risk Vinnie finding out I had it in my possession until I’d made sure Levi was safe. I didn’t know Ricky well enough to trust him to keep quiet. ‘Yes, I think he is. If you remember anything else about that night, can you let me know? It’s really important.’
‘Sure.’
I hung up and immediately punched in another phone number. If anyone would know where Levi was hiding, it would be Terry.
Terry picked up on the fifth ring.
‘I think Levi is in serious danger,’ I said, filling him in on my suspicions so far. ‘Do you have any idea where he might be?’
‘I think I need to sit down,’ he said.
I heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor.
‘I can’t believe it. Levi involved in a hit and run? Are you sure?’
I glanced at the photos again. ‘Positive. I’ve got photos that show Levi slumped at the wheel of his Range Rover and a very dead woman pretty much buried in the bonnet of it.’
‘And he’s kept it a secret all this time?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Were you at that party four years ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know who this woman could be?’ I described her again for Terry.
‘No. There were hundreds of women there. A girl with long hair in a party dress – it could be any of them.’
‘Can I come and show you the picture of her.’
‘Of course. I’m at home at the moment.’ He rattled off his address.
‘Terry, did you see Levi drive the car that night when he was drunk?’
A long pause and then: ‘That’s the thing, though. Levi wasn’t driving the car when he left.’
Chapter 15
I sat forward in my chair, suddenly breathless. ‘What do you mean? Who was driving that night, then?’
‘Levi couldn’t even walk when he left. There was no way he could drive,’ Terry said. ‘Charles was driving.’
‘Who’s Charles?’
‘Vinnie’s bald sidekick.’
I’d never have figured Thuggy to be a Charles. Go figure. ‘So what happened?’
‘It was about four in the morning, and I was one of the last people there. I went outside to have a cigar and saw Charles drive off in Levi’s new car. Levi was slumped in the front passenger seat, pretty much unconscious by that stage, and Vinnie was in the back seat. I don’t drink so I know exactly what I saw.’
I gasped.
‘Did Vinnie and Charles see you?’
‘No. There were a few cars still there, but I didn’t see anyone else around.’
‘So do you know where Levi could be now? Anywhere he could be hiding out?’
‘I…no. I can’t think of anywhere.’
‘OK, thanks, Terry. I’m coming over to show you the photo. Don’t go anywhere and please don’t tell anyone anything about this at the moment.’ I hung up and rushed into Brad’s office.
‘Levi didn’t kill the girl,’ I said, bringing Brad up to date in a garbled rush.
He stood up and walked to the window, gazing down to the car park below. ‘Well, that’s good news for Levi. I was dreading telling EJ what was going on.’
‘It’s good news unless Vinnie gets to him first. I’m pretty sure Vinnie will know by now that Levi was going to spill the beans about what happened that night and expose Vinnie’s dodgy dealings. Also, it won’t be long before Vinnie discovers Levi’s worth has run out because he can’t box again and he won’t be able to manipulate Levi anymore. Hacker’s trying to find out who the dead woman is, and I’m going to show the photos to Terry to see if he recognizes her from the party. I think, somehow, she’s connected to Carl Thomas.’
‘OK, so what’s next?’ he turned to face me.
‘I’ll swing by Terry’s, and then I’m going to see Eleanor Jones and find out what was really in her safety deposit box.’
‘Want me to come, too?’
I smiled. ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll catch up with you later.’
‘I’ll go to your apartment and get some more of your stuff then and make sure there are no spiders alive anywhere.’
‘Thanks. I can’t face going back there at the moment.’
He walked towards me, backing me into the wall. I sucked in a breath as he loomed over me and brushed his lips against mine. ‘What will you do for me in return?’
My heart danced in my chest, and I couldn’t get the words out. I wanted to say I’d marry him in return. I wanted to scream “YES” from the top of my voice and rush out to the jewellers straight away, searching for engagement rings.
I wanted to, but I didn’t.
****
When I pulled up outside Terry’s small house, he was looking out of the window, watching for my arrival. I let myself in through his wrought iron gate and rushed up the path to his front door.
‘Hi.’ He smiled at me, then nodded to the photo clutched in my hand. ‘You want me to take a look?’ He perched some reading glasses on his nose and took the photo from me.
His mouth gaped into an “O” shape. He glanced up at me briefly before settling his eyes back on the picture.
‘Levi couldn’t have done this. Like I said, he couldn’t even stand, let alone drive.’ He brought the photo closer to his face.
‘Do you recognize her? Was she at the party?’
He closed his eyes for a moment as if trying to visualize that night. When he opened them again, he looked at the photo one more time before handing it back to me. ‘I think I remember her being there. It’s a bit hazy, though. It was a long time ago and there were so many women in party dresses.’
‘Take your time.’
Terry carried on staring at the picture, a dark look of concentration on his face. ‘Yes, I remember her now. She was pretty drunk, too. Because it was Valentine’s Night, the bar staff had made all these red cocktails, and every time I saw her she had a new one in her hand. Later, she was dancing on tables and generally making a bit of a fool out of herself. I think she was some sort of rich IT girl. She was hanging out with some other celebrity types.’
‘Do you know who she was?’
Terry sighed. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’
&n
bsp; I took the photo and stared at it myself, hoping to see some sort of clue to her identity that I’d missed.
‘What can I do to help Levi? You said he was in danger.’ Terry clutched my hand that held the photo.
I jumped, surprised, and the photo drifted onto the floor.
‘Sorry. I…I want to do what I can to help him. There’s no telling what Vinnie will do when someone crosses him.’
I bent down and picked up the picture. ‘I know, Terry. But unless you can think of anywhere he might be hiding out, there’s not much you can do at the moment to help him.’
He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a while, he shook his head. ‘I really don’t know where he could be.’
‘OK, thanks. You’ve been very helpful. If you think of anything else let me know.’ I hurried back down the path and left him standing there with a helpless frown.
****
Eleanor Jones wore all black. The only spot of colour was the flash of white pearls around her neck. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, but her eyes were puffy and her face pale. She didn’t seem surprised to find me on her doorstep again.
‘I knew you’d be back.’ She pulled the door open in a defeated gesture. ‘Come in.’
‘I know you and Deborah were lovers,’ I said when I’d sat down opposite her.
She glanced at the floor briefly, then back up at me, fiddling with her hands resting in her lap. Then she wrapped her arms around her stomach. ‘She was my life.’ She stared vacantly at the floor. ‘We met at Cambridge University and we just clicked straight away. You know there are some people you meet in your life and you just feel comfortable with them as soon as you meet them? You know what the other one is thinking, and it feels like you’re meant to be together forever.’ A brief smile flitted across her face.
I knew better than she realized. She could’ve been talking about Brad and me.
‘Of course in those days, our kind of relationship was frowned upon. You couldn’t even mention the word lesbian in our circles. Both Deborah’s and my parents were, let’s just say, very upper class. Old money, I suppose you’d call it, where a whiff of scandal would absolutely devastate them. Her father was a High Court Judge. Very straight-laced and old school.’ She gave a small shake of her head. ‘When the faculty at Cambridge found out about us, we nearly got expelled.’
‘But you carried on the affair anyway?’
She nodded. ‘Deborah didn’t want anyone to know about it. She thought our families would disown us. She got a brilliant job at Kinghorn Thomas after university. Back then women just didn’t get jobs like that. It was a man’s world, and she didn’t want anything to jeopardize her career. Deborah was very career minded.’
‘She pretended to be heterosexual so they wouldn’t have an excuse to get rid of her?’
Eleanor nodded.
‘That must’ve been very difficult for you both.’ I gave her a sympathetic smile.
A brief shrug and then: ‘That’s just the way it was. I either had to accept it or lose her.’
‘Did she marry Carl as a front then? That way she’d fit in with the corporate world and not raise any alarm bells.’ I asked the question, but I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
‘That’s the way it had to be. When they got married she left the bank. She was fond of Carl, but obviously, she wasn’t in love with him. She didn’t want to spend every day at work with him as well as at home. If he saw her sneaking out at lunchtime or after work to meet me, he would’ve suspected something, so she left Kinghorn Thomas and got an even better job, working for a huge insurance company. Although attitudes have changed a lot over the years, Deborah still didn’t want to let anyone know about us in case it affected her work.’
‘I’m really sorry for your loss,’ I said, even though I knew no condolences that I offered would make her feel any better. They say time’s a healer and maybe that’s true. Time hadn’t healed the gaping wound Brad had left inside me – it only made it worse. But then Brad was still alive, and I had the chance to go back and make things work a second time around. Eleanor didn’t have that luxury. I desperately hoped time would be a healer for her.
A hand flew to her pearls and she fiddled with them instead.
‘Thank you.’ She stared blankly at me. ‘We were going to come out and tell people when she got her divorce settlement from Carl, you know. She thought it would be enough to provide us with an income so she could take early retirement.’ She glanced at the floor. ‘Then we wouldn’t have to worry what people thought anymore.’ She held her thumb and forefinger inches apart. ‘We were this close to finally having a normal relationship without hiding and sneaking around.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. She ignored it as it snaked its way down her face and dropped onto her lap.
‘You put something in your safety deposit box for her, didn’t you?’
She hesitated, like she was going to say something, but she kept quiet.
‘Eleanor, I want to catch whoever is responsible for Deborah’s death, so I need you to tell me what was in that box.’
She sighed. ‘Yes, she asked me to put something in there for safekeeping. It was a disc.’ Her voice had dropped to barely a whisper, and I had to sit forward, my ears straining to hear.
‘She had evidence about illegal betting going on at the bank, didn’t she?’
She wiped away more tears with a delicate finger. ‘Yes. She set up the security system in the bank, and when she was going through the divorce, she hacked into their computers to try and get evidence of Carl’s assets. Instead, she discovered that someone at the bank – either Carl or Edward or both of them – were using their clients’ money for illegal sports betting and hiding it in the books. She kept all the evidence on a disc and had me hide it in a safety box at Kinghorn Thomas.’
I frowned. ‘But why hide it in their bank? Why not take it to another one?’
‘I did suggest that, but Deborah thought it was too obvious to be discovered. She thought they’d never think of looking in their own bank for the evidence. Obviously, she was wrong. When she told Carl about the evidence she had, he went crazy. Then he said he’d give her what she wanted as long as she handed over the disc. She agreed.’ She paused. ‘She was waiting for Carl to sign the divorce settlement agreement when he was murdered.
My brain whirred away under the surface like one of Hacker’s monitors. Carl had agreed to it, but instead he was probably buying time to carry out the safety box robbery and get the evidence back himself. I wondered if he’d told Edward what Deborah had found out. Or had she told him herself? A big mistake on her part if she had, since it had cost her life. Carl couldn’t have killed her to shut her up since he had already been murdered at that point, unless, of course, he arranged it before he died. Other than that, I was only left with Edward, but could a guy in a wheelchair have overpowered Deborah? Maybe he had another accomplice involved, or maybe he’d got Vinnie to do his dirty work for him.
My phone rang then, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Excuse me.’ I gave Eleanor a solemn smile.
‘Yo. You need to come back to the office. I have something for you.’
‘On my way.’
****
Hacker had Levi’s boxing match on screen when I strode towards his desk. He was watching the scene where Carl was shouting at Levi. The sound was low, but still loud enough to hear.
‘Have you worked out what Carl’s shouting?’ I asked.
Hacker turned away from the screen. ‘No, not yet. But I know who the dead woman is.’
‘Who?’
‘I found another accident report filed by Janice Skipper. Janice said she came across a dead body at four-thirty in the morning of the fifteenth of February out on a country road in Tewin. She said it was a hit-and-run with no leads or witnesses. The victim was Lisa Thomas – Carl’s sister.’ He nodded and his plaits developed a mind of their own, wobbling away on top of his head.
‘Wow.’ I plonked myself on the edge of his
desk as Tia came up behind us, studying Levi’s screen with narrowed eyes.
‘I managed to find out that Carl and Edward weren’t even at the party that night. They’d been invited to speak at a local Chamber of Commerce dinner,’ Hacker said.
‘You know, there was always one thing that kept niggling at me,’ I said. ‘Carl knew Deborah had evidence against him about the betting, and I’m certain now that he was about to disappear to South Africa. I knew there had to be a good reason he’d delay going in order to turn up at the boxing match and confront Levi about something. If he found out Levi had killed his sister, it’s not surprising he flew off the handle. Things are starting to click into place. And Janice Skipper rears her ugly head again. She shouldn’t have been at the scene of a hit-and-run, either. She should’ve left it to the traffic cops to deal with.’
‘Apparently Lisa Thomas was some sort of socialite who used to hang out at celebrity parties.’
‘No wonder Carl left all the money to his niece, Amy, if her mum was murdered. Ooh, I could kick myself. When I found out Carl left his estate to Amy, I should’ve looked into her family more.’ I watched Tia watching the screen. Her mouth moving silently in time with Carl shouting at Levi. ‘What are you doing?’ I said to Tia.
She nodded to herself. ‘He’s saying, “I know what you did to Lisa.”’
‘What?’ My voice came out higher than I anticipated. ‘Can you lip read?’
She grinned. ‘Yes. I’m a woman of many talents.’
A brief smile curled on Hacker’s face like he was privy to a few secret talents himself.
I threw a hand in the air. ‘Why didn’t you say anything before? We could’ve worked it out much earlier.’
‘You didn’t ask me!’ A hurt frown settled on her face.
‘What other talents have you got apart from lip reading, knowing everything about fashion, being psychic, and doing weird spells that blow things up?’ I asked her, then looked at Hacker whose smile turned into a grin. ‘I’m not asking you.’ I chuckled at him.