by Angus McLean
It didn’t make so much sense to her father, however, when her mother mentioned it to her father. John Standen was no fool. Nudging 50 and with 35 years in business behind him, he knew people, and he certainly knew young men. A quick browse through the Yellow Pages had led him to Chase Investigations. A phone call led to an email with a couple of photos of Ben, a deposit was paid over the net, and John Standen rested easy. As far as he was concerned, no amount of money was too much to secure the happiness of his little girl.
Which, of course, led to the team from Chase Investigations deploying a honey trap at Tigers on the next Friday night. A honey trap was a commonly used method in the Cold War for entrapping foreign spies through the deployment of an attractive woman to snare the target and catch him in a compromising position, allowing him to be either blackmailed or killed. Nowadays it was also used, with less lethal intent, by private eyes to catch out philandering partners.
Kerry was away for the weekend with her mother and sister, engineered by Mr Standen. As far as Kerry knew, fiancé Ben was at the rugby in a corporate box with work associates.
‘It’s going to suck,’ he’d told Kerry on the phone that day, ‘all these old guys with too many free beers under their belts making dicks of themselves. Gross.’
He was, however, happily ensconced at Tigers and had been since 8pm.
Molly Crowley was seated at the end of the bar, a fruity mocktail in front of her and her friend Penny Perry beside her. Molly wore a lacy top with plenty of cleavage on show, full make up and had taken her wedding rings off. Penny had a plunging neckline and her hair back, accentuating what was on display. To anyone looking-and there were plenty-they were two 30-something women on the prowl together.
In the 2 hours they had been there, between them they had batted off at least a dozen approaches from different guys, without being too obvious about it. Ben was there, at a leaner a few metres away, a rum and coke at hand and his eyes on swivels. He had danced with a couple of girls, groped one on the bum and been given the cold shoulder by at least 2 others. There was no doubt he was a player, and he was persistent.
‘What a meat market,’ Molly smiled to Penny, who was bobbing her head to the music.
‘Mmm.’ Penny was a semi-regular at Tigers, and had already run into an ex. She seemed to be focussing less on the task at hand and more on what was on offer.
Molly wondered fleetingly how often she actually came here.
The song changed and Penny grabbed Molly’s hand as the opening guitar riffs of Hurts So Good rocked through the giant speakers.
The dance floor quickly filled but Molly managed to manoeuvre them to a spot where Ben had a clear view of them as they danced together.
‘They’re playing Mellencamp,’ Dan Crowley grumbled, ‘I bet they’re dancing. We always dance to John Mellencamp.’
He glanced at the man beside him in the car. Mike Manning was giving him a look of disdain.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘I’ve seen you dance. Looking is the least painful thing you deserve.’
They were parked in a service lane behind Tigers, where staff dumped rubbish and punters came outside to smoke dope or make phone calls. Molly was wired up for sound and Dan had the receiver on his lap, recording every detail. The background noise made some of it hard to hear but it didn’t matter; so far Ben hadn’t even gone within 2 metres of the girls.
The rule with honey traps was that the bee had to approach the honey, thereby avoiding the obvious defence of ‘Hey, she hit on me, I was just being polite.’ It looked like the night might turn into a fizzer.
‘They don’t close for another 4 hours,’ Dan complained. ‘My bum’ll be asleep by then.’
‘Patience is a virtue,’ Mike observed. He thought for a moment. ‘You’re not very virtuous sometimes.’
Dan made a growl in his throat.
‘I just don’t like the idea of my wife being hit on by some sleazy little IT dork.’
‘Jackpot,’ Molly said, as they made their way back to the bar. They re-claimed their seats and a second later Ben elbowed his way to the bar beside them.
‘Hey ladies,’ he grinned, ‘how you doing?’
‘Fine thanks, yourself?’ Molly looked for her drink but it was gone.
‘Yeah, having a good night.’ He caught her look. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
Molly glanced at Penny, and he quickly added, ‘Both of you?’
They both ordered wine and let him pay. When he handed Molly her drink he made sure to let his fingers linger as they brushed against hers.
Outside in the car, Dan and Mike listened intently. They could hear what was going on inside but the girls couldn’t hear them. They were being guided by Molly’s use of pre-arranged code words should there be any trouble, not that it was anticipated. The idea was to get enough evidence to prove the case then get out of there without blowing their cover. They’d done it before, and Molly was so sweet and believable it always went smoothly.
The conversation continued, Molly and Ben had a couple of dances, and even when he brushed his hand against her backside as they weaved through the crowd, she let it slide. He was a smooth talker but too sleazy to be a true player.
Young and stupid, she decided.
‘I’m going to cut a track, babes,’ Penny announced after half an hour. She slid off her stool and gave Molly a kiss on the cheek.
Ben pretended to look disappointed but couldn’t hide a smirk.
‘But before I go, let me get a snap of you two together.’ She took out her cell phone and turned on the camera. ‘She hasn’t been out for a while,’ she confided to Ben, ‘after the break-up, you know. She’s ready for a man, I just didn’t think she’d get someone so young and spunky.’
Ben grinned widely now, his confidence soaring. He pulled Molly in close and gave the camera his best grin.
Molly felt her skin crawl as his hand rested on her thigh. She took his hand in hers and patted it.
‘Easy, sunshine, easy.’ She gave him a coy smile. ‘This is new territory for me, you know.’
‘Baby, you’re in good hands,’ he told her with absolutely no sincerity, ‘I know how to treat a lady.’
Penny disappeared into the crowd and a minute later was sliding into the backseat of Dan’s car.
‘Hello boys.’
Mike grunted. Their marriage was well and truly over and not a civil conversation had been had since. He didn’t like the fact that Penny was still Molly’s best friend, he didn’t like the fact that he often did work for her law firm, and he certainly didn’t like the fact that she was now sitting behind him.
‘All okay in there?’ Dan asked her.
‘Yep. I’d give them five minutes. He’s pretty confident.’
‘It’s very noisy in here,’ Molly said with a frown.
‘You wanna go somewhere quieter?’ Ben leered, touching her elbow. ‘That’d be cool.’
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘How about my place? There’s no one home.’
‘No wife? Girlfriend?’
Ben laughed.
‘Ha! No, no one. I’m single. There’ll be no surprises, trust me.’
‘You know what? I do trust you, Ben. You’re a nice guy.’
As his chest puffed out, she laid her hand on his arm and went for the killer strike.
‘But before we go any further, tell me what you have in mind. I’m kind of old fashioned that way. I don’t want to waste my time if your idea is not the same as mine.’ She looked him in the eye and delicately ran the tip of her tongue across her top lip. ‘So tell me Ben-what have you got in mind?’
He summoned up his best devilish smile and leaned in closer. Nice and close to the sensitive microphone in her necklace.
‘I tell you what darling,’ he cooed, ‘you’re in for the best night of your life. I don’t wanna boast, but I know how to please a lady. I’m going to take you back to my place and prove that to you.’
O
utside, a chorus of groans and hoots sounded from the silver Vectra.
‘Cheesy, man!’
‘Mr Mozzarella!’
Molly smiled coyly again.
‘That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Let me just pop to the ladies’ first, okay?’
‘I’ll be right here waiting.’
He slapped her butt as she walked away and she fought the urge to turn and slap him back.
‘She’s on her way out,’ Dan said almost to himself, pleased it was over.
‘He slapped my butt,’ Molly’s voice came over the speaker, ‘what a sleaze.’
They all laughed and waited for her to appear.
Ben saw Molly move through the crowd, but it wasn’t towards the toilets. She made for the exit door.
With crystal clarity he realised he’d been taken for a ride. He surged off the stool, pushing his way through the crowd, nearly knocking a woman in a white dress to the floor as he bowled past. Her red wine went straight down the front of her dress like her throat had been cut.
Ben ignored the shouts behind him and pushed past the bouncers at the door and out to the street. Molly was just disappearing round the corner.
He charged after her, catching her a few metres past the corner. He grabbed her by the elbow and spun her around towards him.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he hissed, shaking her by the arm. ‘You were just going to dump me?’
Molly recoiled with fright from the incredible intensity in his eyes as he leaned into her.
‘Let go of me!’
Two bouncers came round the corner to investigate the disturbance, the cougar in the white dress behind them. Both big burly guys with no necks, and shoulders the width of cars.
‘That’s him!’ the cougar shrieked, pointing. ‘You jerk, look what you did! This is a Karen Walker!’
‘Um, everything alright here?’ one of the bouncers asked.
‘It’s fine!’ Ben snapped.
‘Help me!’ Molly cried out, trying unsuccessfully to shake his hand free.
The bouncers stepped forward, and suddenly all hell broke loose.
Ben snapped a fist into the face of the first one, flattening his nose, and as that guy dropped to a knee, Ben turned to the second and dodged a swinging roundhouse. He flicked a front kick to the guy’s groin, making him clutch himself and buckle at the waist, then drove a knee into his face and dropped him. Turning to the first guy, Ben kicked him under the chin and knocked him flat on his back, out cold.
Appalled at what she was seeing, Molly couldn’t even scream. She saw a blur of movement come from behind her and then Mike and Dan were all over him. Mike got there first and swept Ben’s legs from behind and as he went down sideways, Dan crash tackled him in the back and drove him into the concrete.
There was a flurry of arms and legs, muted curses and grunting, and a moment later Dan and Mike were kneeling on Ben, holding him face first on the footpath, arms twisted behind his back and blood running down his face.
Penny arrived and stood with Molly, calling 111 on her cell phone but having to shout over the noise from the hysterical cougar, and Molly barely heard a word that was said.
All she could see was the eruption of sudden brutal violence in front of her, and she could still feel Ben’s hand on her arm and hear his voice in her ear.
Chapter Two
Sidney Buckmaster generally enjoyed his job as the Community Constable for Ellerslie. He went to a lot of meetings and sat on a number of committees.
People came to him with complaints about the neighbours and landlords and the hoon down the road who drove too fast and played his music too loud. Buck usually managed to sort these problems out. One problem he couldn’t sort out, and figured he probably never would, was having his former partner based just doors away from his own office.
Chase Investigations was located upstairs on the main street of the village, surrounded by other businesses and with alternate views of the high street on one side and the motorway on the other.
With Dan having been Buck’s partner and mentor in the CIB, back when they were both detectives, Buck invariably found himself being tapped up for favours and assistance that was, as they say, in the grey area of legal. It wasn’t all one-way traffic though, of course.
Molly had a habit of dropping down baking to his tiny office, and the private investigators had access to various avenues of intelligence that the Police didn’t, allowing Buck to have an enviable rate of locating crooks who thought they’d covered their tracks or witnesses who had fallen through the cracks. He had even received information leading to a number of arrests, specifically a couple of active drug houses and several offenders for various fraud and theft matters investigated by the team at Chase.
Today though, Buck was occupied taking statements from all three of them in relation to last night’s events. Dan had drafted his own, while Buck interviewed Mike then moved on to Molly. She sat across from him on one of the couches with a cup of raspberry tea, waiting as he laboriously wrote the statement out.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me about, Molly?’ Buck asked, leaning back and reaching for his coffee.
Molly thought for a moment then shook her head.
‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘That’s everything I think.’
She shivered involuntarily.
‘He was so angry.’
Buck nodded silently, his face etched with concern. Molly Crowley was a good lady, and he hated bad things happening to good people. He passed the statement across to her and told her to read it, then stood and moved over to Dan’s desk.
‘What’s the deal with this joker, Bucko?’ Dan asked, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. ‘Is he known or what?’
‘Not known as such,’ Buck replied, ‘only in the system with a driver’s license, that’s all.’
‘No intel notings or anything? No domestic history?’
‘I just said no,’ Buck retorted, ‘if there was intel notings or domestic history I would’ve said, wouldn’t I?’
‘Woah, keep your hair on sweetcheeks,’ Dan jibed him, ‘I was only asking.’
Buck scowled and looked away.
‘What’s up with you anyway? Someone steal your lunch?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You’ve had a face like a slapped arse since you got here mate. What’s up?’
‘Nothing you need to worry about, just internal crap.’
A frown fleetingly crossed Dan’s face, but he said nothing. It still grated him that he was no longer on the job, even though he enjoyed what he was doing. Nearly two years and the wound was still raw.
‘That’s fine,’ Molly said, signing each page of the statement before bringing it over to Buck. ‘What’s happened with him, anyway?’
‘He appears in court today, they charged him with assault on you and with injuring each of the bouncers. Fairly serious charges, both of them got broken noses and one got knocked out. He sounds pretty handy with his dukes.’
‘He was,’ she agreed, flashing back to the incident.
The crunch of impacts and the grunts of pain were still fresh, but they were overridden by the suddenness with which it had happened. Being married to a cop gave you a different view of life. She had seen a couple of fights before, and she knew that most men would fight given the right circumstances. She knew that Dan and Mike did; she’d seen the aftermath before.
Both of them had seemed fine after the adrenaline wore off and they knew she was okay, but it had taken her hours to get to sleep last night, replaying the whole thing over in her head.
The last thing she had said to Dan as they lay in the dark had been that she would not be doing any more honey traps. He had held her close and nuzzled her neck, whispering that it was okay, and she had felt safe again. But the thoughts had not left her head as the night wore on and dawn’s early light started to creep past the curtains.
‘What did your client say about it
?’ Buck asked Dan.
He shrugged.
‘Not a lot. Apologised for the incident and thanked us for our time. Not much else he could say really, it wasn’t his fault.’
‘Wedding’s off though, surely.’ Mike spoke up from his own desk, where he’d been sitting supping a coffee and observing.
‘Yep, I’d say so. Big daddy’s going to be speaking to his daughter and giving her the good news that her happy groom-to-be is not only a dirty dog but also has rabies.’ Dan’s moustache twitched. ‘Probably not the best day at the office for young Ben, I’d say.’
Buck bade his farewells and headed back to his own office, statements in hand, with a promise to call once he had an update from the court.
Molly went back to her desk and logged on to get the day going. She buried herself in work for the morning, drinking the cups of tea that Dan made her, answering the phone and responding to emails, and processing the invoice for John Standen.
She noticed that Dan had billed him for every last minute spent on the case, including the giving of statements this morning, instead of just rounding it off as he normally did. She smiled to herself. Despite all the related drama, at least it had been a good earner for them.
Mike went out on enquiries for the day, but Dan hung around to finish the investigation report for Standen. At lunchtime he made her lock the door and took her down the road to a favourite cafe, where they lingered over a meal before wandering back to the office, where he made her another cup of tea and surreptitiously watched her from across the office.
‘I know what you’re doing,’ she told him eventually, and he acted surprised. He didn’t do it very well.
‘What? Doing what?’
‘You’re watching me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about love.’
‘You can’t leave me alone. You keep looking at me.’
He gave her perplexed.
‘I can’t help it, you’re beautiful. That’s a scientific fact.’
‘Actually it’s opinion.’