Murder on the Hill (10 page)

“Nice place,” Alex said, sitting opposite and eyeing the bar area with his analytical eye. Cordi was next to me. We each had a glass of white wine. Alex had stuck with a Diet Pepsi.

“So,” Cordi said, after nearly downing her entire glass. “Alex, tell us what you’ve found out about Mr. Bellman’s case.”

He leaned forward. “You first.”

Cordi sighed and drained her glass. “Fine, whatever. I’m too tired to argue with you.”

For the next ten minutes we told Alex everything we had learned.

“Really? Foswinkle?”

“He seemed sincere,” I said. “And with most of his faculties fully functioning.”

“Well, if you want to follow that up, that’s your call, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree there. From what I can tell, there’s nothing suspicious about the carer. The accountant, on the other hand…”

“Oh, you know something, do you?” I asked. “Spit it out, then.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not much to tell, really. Only that he and Bellman fell out a few weeks ago, according to one of my sources. Some dispute over payments and fees.”

“Is that all you got?” Cordi asked, snorting her derision.

“I’m working a lot of angles,” he said, dismissing her.

We discussed the importance, or potential lack thereof, of the doru and Mr. Kirino’s involvement. Alex didn’t think that was a lead that would turn anything up. He’d already investigated that line of enquiry.

“So what you’re saying,” Cordi said, jabbing a pointed finger at Alex, “is that you’ve got nothing. Typical of you. You only came to find out what we had because you’re flailing.”

“Here we go,” Alex said. “Always looking for a subtext.”

“Well, you’re not exactly giving us anything we didn’t already know. It seems pretty one-sided, but then that’s nothing new, is it, Alex. Reminds me of our sham of a marriage.”

“Anyone for another drink? I’ll get us another round,” I said, squeezing out of the booth before anyone could say no. I really didn’t want to sit there and listen to a domestic. Even though, despite his charms, I made Cordi right.

He clearly had nothing to give us and only wanted to find out what we knew.

A dick move, but he was male, so not entirely unsurprising.

I got to the bar and ordered more drinks, staying there for a while to give Alex and Cordi time to sort out whatever issue they were dealing with. It was then that I casually turned around to take in the bar and do a bit of people watching when the door opened and Cole Lockland entered.

Every woman in the bar turned at once to watch him saunter across the room.

My chest tightened as it always did when I met Cole in the flesh.

Even Cordi had stopped arguing and looked up to follow him as he approached me. Her face was much like the others: full of subtle lust. It was quite blatant, and I always wondered how Cole managed to remain so undouche-like. Anyone else would let that attention go to their heads, but Cole kept his cool, his modesty.

“Hey, babe,” he said, leaning in and kissing me quickly on the cheek.

The look on all the women’s faces turned from lust to jealous spite. I smiled at them before returning Cole’s kiss.

“Hey, bud,” I said. “It’s good to see you. You’re looking well.”

And he did. More than well. He looked damn fine in his Savile Row black suit and crisp white shirt. The top button was undone, and with no tie, I could see curls of black hair beneath the shirt.

There was many a time where I had imagined running my hands through those curls, but Cole and I were strictly friends, sadly.

He smelled really good too. Some top-of-the-range musky fragrance that made me want to bury my face into his neck.

My cheeks blushed as I caught Alex’s gaze.

He looked over his glass at us, trying to be casual, but his forehead was tense, and I sensed a hint of jealousy in his eyes. Or at the very least the kind of mistrust that police have of suave men like Cole.

Cole caught Alex’s attention, and both men nodded to each other casually.

Turning back to me, Cole asked, “You know Alex Cobb?”

“Cordi’s ex-husband,” I said. “He’s working on the same case as us. But we’re doing a better job.”

“I’m not surprised,” Cole said. “With your talents at her disposal, Cordi has the advantage over Cobb.”

“How do you know him?” I said, trying not to melt into Cole’s eyes. They were deep brown liked a puppy’s and had this weird way of sucking you in.

A woman had to be careful around hypnotic eyes like those.

“We worked together a few times,” Cole said. “But I can’t really go into too much detail on that.”

I brought Cole up to speed about the break-in and the Ivanov warning. Cole’s face hardened. He balled his hands into fists. “That utter bastard. I swear, one of these days…” He took a deep breath and relaxed his hands, slipping one inside his suit’s inner pocket. He handed me a small brown envelope. “Sorry, here, the first parts of your ID.”

“First parts?” I asked, suddenly worried that something had gone wrong.

“There’s a driver’s license as well as credit and debit cards for your new bank accounts, but the passport is taking a little longer. My go-to guy is having issues, but don’t worry, I’ll have it in two more days.”

I couldn’t hide the disappointment on my face as I inspected the cards in the envelope.

“Your guy’s done a good job,” I said, checking out the driver’s license. I made sure I had my back turned to Alex and Cordi while I did this, not wanting to arouse anymore suspicions or questions.

“The least I could do for my favourite urchin,” Cole said with a wink and a smile.

All I wanted to do was to lean forward and kiss those lips of his. That wouldn’t be wise, though. We had a working relationship, and he’d done so much for me that I couldn’t let my feelings for him get in the way of that, especially with Alex on the scene.

Despite everything, I found myself attracted to Cordi’s ex.

I shook my head, putting the idea of romance, with anyone, out of my head. Now wasn’t the time. I was still thinking about the whole Ivanov issue and whether I could actually do a runner and leave when Cole got me the passport.

Leaving and starting somewhere fresh was the sensible thing to do, of course…

I just didn’t know if I could do it.

“Everything okay?” Cole asked. “You look upset.”

“Just deep in thought. Thanks, Cole, I really appreciate what you’re doing for me. I just wanted to let you know—”

The sound of glass smashing to the floor interrupted my train of thought. I spun round to see Cordi standing over a shattered wine glass. Alex held his cell phone in one hand and reached out for Cordi with the other. He looked to me, bad news etched into the wrinkles around his eyes.

Walking closer, Cole close behind me, I asked, “What is it? What’s happened?”

Cordi turned to me. “It’s Mr. Bellman… he’s…”

“Oh my god, he’s not…”

“Dead,” Alex said. “And this time, it’s no accident.”

CHAPTER 11

Day 4

Alex drove us back to Cordi’s place after dropping the bombshell about Mr. Bellman.

Cole promised to call me about the passport as soon as he had more news and disappeared into the night like some Victorian ghost.

My heart always ached when he did that. I don’t think I had ever been in a room with him for longer than twenty minutes before he vanished, dashing off to complete some deal or negotiation.

Some days, I wondered if he wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.

Alex certainly wasn’t. He said he’d call in the morning with more details.

The investigation was likely going to be outside of his remit, with the homicide detectives taking over. He didn’t give us any details of how Mr. Bellman had been killed, only that it was clearly murder.

Cordi’s place wasn’t in such a mess when we got back. It appeared that not only were the locks changed, but Aunt Maggie had tidied up. It still wasn’t neat. It couldn’t be with the sheer weight of stuff, but at least we could actually move between rooms.

After we got over the shock of Aunt Maggie doing something nice, we shared a pot of tea and some cake and discussed everything that had gone on so far.

Despite poor Mr. Bellman’s death, I felt like we were making progress and determined we’d see the accountant in the next morning. If Alex was right about there being some dispute between the two men, it indicated a possible motive.

And although Alex told us not to poke about in the investigation now that it was officially a murder case, Cordi and I agreed we’d see it through to the end. We’d come too far not to know the truth.

Cordi felt it was too dangerous for me to sleep on the sofa, so with a quick bit of weight lifting, I helped Cordi shift some boxes from the spare room. It felt like a cardboard tomb with boxes of magazines, books, and papers piled to the ceiling around the bed.

Still, it was better than the sofa.

I slept pretty well, considering. Though I was use to sleeping while in the middle of trouble. When you spent a few weeks on the streets you quickly learned to put danger to the back of your mind and get some sleep.

Not that it was easy. There were times when I went two or three days without getting any sleep. Being on the streets in London wasn’t a peaceful experience. Being a twenty-four-hour city, there were few times of the day that were quiet enough.

Eventually, I got used to the background noise.

At Cordi’s, the only noises I could detect were Monty purring somewhere out on the landing and Cordi’s soft snoring from the next bedroom. In the bathroom a tap dripped, and that helped me to get into my usual meditative state and drift off to sleep some time around one a.m.

***

My sixth sense woke me. When I checked my phone it was just after four a.m. Weak, amber light from a street lamp filtered through the gaps in the terrible green curtains of my room.

At first I thought it was the light that had woken me. Or that awful cat, but my ears pricked up when I heard a noise downstairs.

A creak of a floorboard. A shuffling of feet. Someone moving through the hallway and into the living room. I pictured a figure in the dark stalking through the house.

Looking for what, though—Me, Cordi?

I wondered if it was one of Ivanov’s goons, or worse: Mr. Bellman’s killer. Perhaps they knew Cordi and I were on the case and came to silence us.

Well, I don’t just lie around to be strangled or stabbed in my bed.

I got up, testing my weight against each floorboard as I crept out of the spare room. The landing area was clear, no sign of the cat. I did consider for a moment that it might just be Monty rummaging around, but I heard breathing or perhaps a muttering noise coming from downstairs.

The hairs on my arms tingled in that way they do when you sense someone else close by. I’d experienced it a number of times during my less wholesome career.

A quiet thud and a sharp intake of breath came from the living room.

I pictured the intruder stubbing a toe on one of the many pieces of furniture.

Knowing for certain someone was inside, I grabbed the nearest thing I could to use as a weapon: a bad taxidermy of a dead weasel. It stood upright on its hind legs.

Ignoring its scary glass eyes, I grabbed it by the legs and wielded it like a baseball bat and, one foot over the other, slowly descended the stairs.

Luckily, despite the state of the house, the stairs didn’t creak too badly.

With weasel-bat in hand I stepped across the hall until I was outside the living room. Holding my breath, I listened with my ear to the open doorway.

Definite movement from inside.

The footsteps were coming back toward the doorway. I stepped back.

With a two-handed grip, I pulled back the weasel-bat, ready to swing. When the dark silhouette figure appeared in the doorway, I swung. The figure screamed. I missed with the swing, crashing it against the doorframe.

Before I could step inside and take another swing, a lamp was switched on, blinding me and making me squint. Through narrow eyes I saw Cordi crouching to my left, her arm up to protect her.

“Holy crap. Cordi!” I said. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were another intruder.”

“You nearly knocked my head off with a weasel!” she said, eyeing the improvised weapon.

“What are you doing stalking about in the dark? God, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” I dropped the weasel to the floor and helped Cordi up. That’s when I noticed she had a gun in her hand. “What the… where’d you get that? You could have shot me!”

Cordi smiled and clicked the trigger. “Stage prop,” she said.

“What were you planning to do with that?” I asked. “Act someone to death?”

“Well, I did act in some amateur dramatics when I was younger. I could probably do a convincing thug.”

I shook my head. “Living with you is never a dull moment. But what are you doing down here. Have you seen the time?”

“I thought I heard movement,” she said with a shrug. “I thought perhaps Ivanov had someone come back for you. No one threatens my house guests and gets away with it. Now, let’s go brew a pot of tea. I doubt either of us are going to get much sleep now.”

Cordi squeezed my shoulder and headed down the hallway and into the kitchen.

For a moment I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t believe that someone would have gone out of their way to protect me like that. Cordi was either brave and super loyal, or she didn’t truly understand what a psychopath Ivanov was.

Either way, I felt incredibly lucky to have found this woman.

***

A little later we were finishing up a second pot of tea. The sun had come up, and Monty had arrived for his breakfast. He jumped up onto the edge of the kitchen table, where he flopped down and went to sleep. He looked like a ball of grey fur had just been dropped there from a great height.

“I think he’s starting to enjoy your company,” Cordi said. “He hardly ever hangs around after he’s had something to eat.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t trust him.”

“Not a cat person?”

“I am,” I said. “I had a gang of rogue strays in one of my last places. I just get a bad vibe from Monty. No offense.”