Murder on the Hill (9 page)

But that didn’t stop Cordi from pushing Alex out of the way and stepping over broken furniture, magazines and other detritus. She ignored her aunt and carried on until she reached the young officer at the back of the room.

“Excuse me,” she said, moving him to the side.

Cordi bent down and rummaged through a pile of books to pull out a blue lockbox.

That was it, the box I was looking for two nights ago.

A hush descended on the room as Cordi took her collection of keys from her pocket and unlocked the box. She stared inside for a moment, her face unmoving. Then she dropped it and looked at me. “They’re gone. The black diamond and the doru fragments.”

“Oh shit,” I said, gaining a shocked look from Maggie.

“I need a cup of tea,” Cordi said, her face drained of colour.

We all managed to make our way to the kitchen and take a seat around the table. Cordi checked a kitchen drawer to confirm the laptop hadn’t been taken, which thankfully it hadn’t.

While Cordi fussed with the kettle and coffee cups, Maggie started up again.

“I told you, Cordelia. You needed to get your act together after I left. I couldn’t keep things running as they were at my age. It’s as if you never learned anything from me. I’ve heard from the accountant that things are lean. What happened to all the contacts I left for you? Did you manage to mess those up too like you did your marriage.”

A cup smashed to the floor, china fragments clattering on the tiles. The young police officer who had been standing silently by the door during this whole thing backed away into the hallway. I wished I could do the same.

“Will you just shut up!” Cordi shouted, slamming her hand on the table. “I’ve had it with you, Auntie. Always bloody criticising. For your information, all your supposed contacts died years ago. That’s why this business is in the damned toilet, because you held me back, only working with your old friends. Now they’re all dead and I have to start again, fixing all the problems you left me with.”

She took a deep breath and carried on before Maggie could retort.

“And as for my marriage—”

Alex stood up and held his hands up in front of his chest, palms out. “Hey, let’s not go there. That’s got nothing to do with this. Let’s just focus on the situation at hand.”

Before Cordi’s rage could continue, Alex called the young officer into the room. “Officer Hollis, could you please escort Ms. Leroux to her car.”

Maggie glared at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Maggie, please,” he said, using his husky voice in a deeper register. “You’ve done all you can here. I’ll take it from here and will make sure this is dealt with properly. I promise.”

It wasn’t a surprise that the old witch did as he asked. He had a way that was almost hypnotising.

“All right,” she said. “I can’t talk to Cordelia when she’s like this. Always been the same with the temper and impatience. I told her mother she’d be like this even as a wee child. Firebrand from day one.”

“Just go home, Auntie, before we both say something we really regret,” Cordi said, slumping into a chair and resting her elbows on the table. She dropped her face into her hands and massaged her temples.

I got out of the way as Maggie shuffled out. She fixed me with another of her disapproving looks before huffing and leaving with Officer Hollis. When they had left, Alex closed the kitchen door and reached into his jacket pocket.

“Now they’ve gone, we ought to talk about this.” He placed a business card on the table.

“What’s this?” Cordi asked.

“I found it propped up on a pile of books in the hallway. Clearly meant to be found. Read what’s on the other side. This involves you too, Harley.”

“What? Me?”

I stepped forward and looked at the card. It was matte black with silver embossed script and read: T&A Gentlemen’s Club.

The butterflies for Alex in my stomach turned to cold bricks. I knew this place. “It’s a strip bar in the West End,” I said. “Please don’t ask how I know.”

Cordi flipped it over.

In silver marker, the words read: “Tick tock, Harley. 48 hours… and counting. AI”

Cordi and Alex both stared at me and at the same time asked, “Who’s AI”

Now, I had hoped I could keep my history out of all this. I thought that perhaps, just for once, I could make new friends, maybe even go straight, without my background catching up with me. But I guess people can’t really escape their past. It’s who we are, tattooed on our lives with indelible ink.

I had a clear choice: lie my way out of it and run away like I had done for years, or be honest and lay it all out there.

The way Cordi had trusted me up until now had really brought her close to me in a way I hadn’t expected. Although my friend Sapphire and I were close because of both growing up together in care, I had never experienced the level of trust and kindness from a relative stranger as I had done with Cordi.

Both she and Alex looked at me expectantly.

With a sigh, I said. “I’ll tell you everything. And I won’t blame you if you want me to leave after you’ve heard who I really am and what I’ve done.”

“Oh no, what is it, Harley?” Cordi said, trepidation and fear in her voice.

“My real name is Samantha, and I’m not the person Cole said I was.”

CHAPTER 10

Cordi’s jaw dropped. Alex remained still, his beautiful eyes locked on mine.

Ignoring my attraction to him, I looked down at the table and continued with my revelations. “It’s true what I said earlier about my parents,” I explained, cupping my hands around the tea mug, hoping the heat would give me strength to continue.

I felt like I was in church, confessing my sins. “When I was just two years old, they both died. My mother died from cancer and unable to cope with her sudden death, my father took his life.”

“That’s awful,” Cordi said, reaching out for my wrist. “I’m so sorry.”

I appreciated the gesture and placed my hand over Cordi’s as I continued with my tale.

“For the rest of my life, I grew up in foster care, alone, going from one family to the next, never really settling. I felt like a drifter. I had trouble in schools, getting expelled a few times. When I reached my early teens, I fell into a bad crowd. Because of that, fewer families were willing to look after me, so the ones I did end up with were as bad as the crowd of petty criminals I had started to hang around with.

“Within a few years, I’d become an adept thief, specialising in art and antiques. It was all I knew to survive. I spent a number of years on and off the streets as I tried to go straight, but no one would employ someone like me. I even tried to go back to school, but with no money or stable address, I fell through the cracks.”

Alex hadn’t taken his eyes off me. But his face wasn’t one of judgement. I imagined someone like him, working on the other side of the law, had heard and seen this story a hundred times before. Cordi’s eyes were damp with tears. Her hand hadn’t left mine.

I found her concern comforting. It wasn’t often someone looked out for me like she did.

Despite revealing that I wasn’t exactly a law-abiding angel in my past, my new friend and employer hadn’t rejected me—yet.

“So about this AI” Cordi prompted. “What’s that all about?”

“Anton Ivanov,” I said.

Alex leaned forward then, clearly recognising the name.

That wasn’t surprising. Anton was a notorious high-end criminal.

At one time in the early 2000s he had appeared on a number of reality TV shows, glamorising his life as a raconteur, with his various gentleman’s clubs.

Everyone involved with the underworld, including the police, knew he was rotten and central to a criminal empire that included fencing, trafficking, and drug dealing, but since he’d been in the country, he had made, or bribed, his way into the very top of society, including the country’s top police chiefs and politicians.

Funnelling his dirty money into ‘donations’ for various causes kept the a-hole protected.

“Go on,” Alex said, speaking for the first time in ages. “How did you get on Ivanov’s radar?”

“I wasn’t a stripper or a drug dealer,” I said, attempting to put Cordi at ease. “Through one of his associates, I was hired to transport and complete a handover of some diamonds. Something happened, a diamond went missing. Although it hadn’t damaged the deal, it did create some tension and bad blood between Ivanov and his buyer. He took it personally, and now I owe him a monthly repayment to pay back my debt to him, or well, he’ll do what Ivanov does best.”

Alex squirmed in his seat and took a swallow from his cup of tea. “Harley, Samantha,” he began, “are you admitting to handling stolen goods?”

“I didn’t know they were stolen,” I lied with a straight face. “They hired me because of my charm and ability to not cause a fuss. I thought I was just couriering some business papers.”

A tiny smirk appeared at the corner of his lips, creating small dimples in his cheeks that I found utterly endearing. How Cordi could have come to divorce this man, I’ll never understand.

“And what happened to that missing diamond?” he asked, raising a questioning eyebrow. I knew he wasn’t buying any of it, but I didn’t break my story.

“I honestly don’t know. It doesn’t matter, really. What Ivanov believes is true is the whole truth as far as he’s concerned.”

“So you think he broke in here and stole the doru as payback?” Cordi asked.

“As a warning,” I said. “This is all my fault, Cordi. I’m so sorry for bringing all this drama and trouble to your home. I should never have taken this job. Cole was just trying to help me go legit, but it’s impossible for me to escape who I am. I bring trouble wherever I go. I’ll totally understand if you want me to leave. You’ve done so much for—”

Cordi slid her chair across the tiles as she stood up suddenly. “Absolutely not. It took a lot of guts to tell us your story, and I’ve spent enough time with you to see beyond your past. You’re a good person inside, Harley. And if you want to go straight, start afresh, then I’ll help you with that. We both will, won’t we, Alex.”

It was more of a command than a question. I held my breath as I waited to hear what Alex would do. I had given him enough background that he could likely arrest me for questioning or even to work as an informant on Ivanov.

He rubbed his chin, clearly wrestling with his conscience.

“This puts me in a difficult situation—professionally,” he said.

Cordi fixed him with a stare and straightened her shoulders. “Let me put it like this, Alex,” she said with a fierce tone in her voice. “You’ll help Harley and keep this to yourself, or you can forget about me signing those papers. I’ll contest the agreement, and you won’t have your divorce without a fight. This is non-negotiable.”

I didn’t really know what to say. I blinked and swallowed with relief at Cordi’s loyalty to me. I was about to correct her and remind her that my name was Samantha, but it seemed that I had become Harley in this new life—although that now seemed to be reliant on Alex.

“Here’s the deal,” Alex said, finally. “I’ll do as Cordelia wants. Whatever crimes you did in the past will stay there. There’s no sense in using my limited resources to open old cases. But…”

There was always a but. My heart seemed to stop as I waited for whatever condition he wanted.

“But,” he continued, “I want you to promise me that you’ll come to me with any evidence that I can use against Ivanov if you find any. I won’t use you like an informant, that’s too dangerous at this point, but keep me in mind if you do happen to come across anything. Is that fair, Samantha?”

“Harley,” I corrected. “Samantha’s time is over. And yeah, that’s fair. It’s a deal.”

As if he had timed it on purpose, I received a text from Cole. It read: “Got ur ID, meet me at the Coach and Horse in an hour.”

The Coach and Horse was one of our favourite pubs. Not far from Notting Hill, it was a fairly quiet, cosy pub with a traditional feel to it. Not many of those around lately, as most of the pubs and bars in the area were converted into upmarket wine bars or gastropubs.

“What is it?” Cordi asked me.

“I have to go and meet Cole. You fancy a glass of wine? I could do with the company.”

Cordi thought for a moment. “What the hell. This place can wait. There’s nothing else worth stealing, and I could use a drink to get over a visit from Auntie.”

“I’ll drive,” Alex said.

Both Cordi and I stared at him. We hadn’t invited him, but the thought of him coming with us did appeal. It never hurt to build relations with a detective.

Before Cordi could say no, he stood up and placed Ivanov’s card into his top pocket. “Besides,” he said. “We need to discuss the Bellman case. I want to know what you two have turned up.”

“Only if you share what you’ve learned,” I said, countering his offer.

“That seems fair enough.” Alex smiled at me, and I tried not to blush in front of Cordi. I simply nodded and turned around to head out of the kitchen.

Before we left, Alex asked Officer Hollis to stay behind to carry out further investigations and liaise with the locksmith Aunt Maggie had called to get all the locks changed. At least the place would be secure while we were away.

I sat in the front of Alex’s police-issue, unmarked BMW and tried to avoid catching Cordi’s eyes in the mirror.

I said nothing during the short ten-minute drive, not wanting to say something stupid or flirtatious. It was then I thought about Cole.

With both him and Alex at the pub, things were going to get awkward. Though that was hardly new. My entire existence had been an exercise in awkwardness.

***

Cordi, Alex, and I were sitting in a private booth in the corner of the pub.

It was early evening and the place was starting to fill with people coming home from work. A dull hubbub of chitter-chatter filled the air, giving the pub a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

The dark wood bar and tables along with the brass ornaments on the wall, spoke to its tradition. This pub didn’t have a pool table, fruit machine, or large flat-screen TV for watching sport like most places these days. It was a serious drinking hole with patrons who knew each other and drank real ale and quality wine.