Be Careful What You Wish For (Amber Fox Mystery No 2) Read online

  ‘OK, I’ll go with that scenario.’ Romeo nodded. ‘Let’s say Levi signed a bad contract because Vinnie was threatening him. Vinnie’s not exactly known for his softly-softly approach in getting what he wants. If someone stands in the way of what he wants, he’ll either get rid of them or threaten to get rid of them. Maybe Carl found out Vinnie had threatened Levi or his family if he didn’t sign this contract and he wanted to confront Levi about it?’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense. If Vinnie threatened Levi into signing it, why didn’t Carl confront Vinnie? Because Levi would be the innocent party in it all,’ I said. ‘No, I’m thinking that Vinnie blackmailed Levi into signing it. And whatever he was blackmailing him about, Carl found out about it and tried to confront Levi at the fight.’ I thought back to what Hacker told me Carl had said. ‘Carl shouted “I know what you…”. That fits, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Why do it at the fight, though? Why couldn’t it wait?’

  I stared out the window, people-watching and trying to get my head around this. ‘I don’t know. Whatever it was Carl discovered must’ve been pretty important for him to confront Levi straight away.’

  Romeo tilted his head. ‘What’s Levi like?’

  ‘I don’t really know yet. The only thing I know for certain is that he lied to me about not hearing Carl shouting at him. Terry thinks he’s a great guy, but if he’s prepared to throw his fights, maybe he’s not so great after all.’

  ‘He could’ve agreed to throw the fight for the same reason he agreed to sign a dodgy contract,’ Romeo said.

  ‘Blackmail by Vinnie.’ I nodded. ‘Another strange thing is that Levi took out a life insurance policy a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Two weeks before the fight? How much was the policy worth?’

  ‘A million pounds,’ I said. ‘Strange, huh? Maybe he knew Carl was going to find out whatever he found out and was trying to prepare for it.’

  Romeo looked distracted for a moment, considering this. ‘But a million pound life insurance policy isn’t a lot of money for a world class boxer. Levi’s purse for the fights should’ve run into millions each time. It’s a relatively small amount compared to his earning power.’

  ‘Exactly. Levi’s hardly living the life of someone who earns that amount of money. Maybe the one million policy was all he could afford.’ I rubbed at my forehead. It had been a long day and I had brain ache. ‘Did you know that Ashcombe House was broken into shortly before the robbery at Carl’s bank?’

  Romeo sat forward, concentrating on me. ‘No.’ I could see his mind chugging away at this little revelation.

  ‘I went to see Carl’s wife, Deborah. Apparently, Carl moved out of the marital home a while ago. Hacker looked into their insurance details and discovered they didn’t make a claim for the break-in. Deborah said nothing was stolen, there was just damage to the back door.’

  ‘Neither of them made any kind of report to the police. And they didn’t mention it when I spoke to them both about the bank robbery,’ Romeo said. ‘Maybe the break in is connected to the robbery at Carl’s bank.’

  ‘That would be my guess, too. You don’t normally break in somewhere and not steal anything. So either they did take something that Deborah didn’t want to report to the police, or they were looking for something and probably didn’t find it.’

  ‘And then Carl turns up dead.’ Romeo raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You should get the forensic guys to check Carl’s laptop at his rented house. There may be something useful on it.’

  Romeo nodded. ‘Yes, I spotted that.’

  I massaged the jumbled knot of muscles in my neck. ‘OK, you tell me yours now. What’s going on with the investigation into the robbery at Kinghorn Thomas Bank?’

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, then he glanced around, checking no one was in easy listening distance before he began. ‘The robbery took place over a weekend. Two months before the robbery, the offenders rented a building three doors away from the bank. Sometime in between the rental and the robbery, they dug a tunnel under the connecting buildings into the safety deposit box vault. The landlord of the building can’t ID the person who rented it, and the picture he produced with the police sketch artist looks like a cross between Homer Simpson and Tom Jones.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard those two were a bit dodgy.’ I grinned.

  ‘The bank is a really old building and was suffering from subsidence. The vault wasn’t up to modern standards and it was due for a refurb. Work was due to begin next week to rectify the foundations of the building and the floor of the vault to repair any weakness. Then lo and behold, it gets robbed.’

  ‘Did they steal stuff from all the boxes or just some of them?’

  He smiled at my question. ‘Just some of them.’

  ‘So were they looking for something in particular or did they not have enough time to go through all of them?’ I asked.

  ‘We assume they had from the time the bank closed on the Friday until the time it opened on Monday to go through everything, so I suspect they were looking for something in particular. There were six hundred boxes in the vault and only eighty were broken into.’

  ‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘Was any money taken from the bank’s currency vault?’

  ‘No. Weird, huh?’

  ‘Very weird. Why break into a bank and not steal any money from the vault while you’re in there? So it seems more probable they were actually looking for something in particular in one of the boxes.’

  He nodded. ‘At the moment we have no leads, although like all robberies, we’re looking into the possibility of an inside job, especially since there was a foundation flaw in the building that probably only an insider would know. With the burglary at Ashcombe House and now Carl being murdered, I’m thinking that theory is definitely right. SOCO are still going through the trace evidence, and the forensic tech guys are checking into the bank’s computer systems, but so far neither have come up with anything. The alarms in the bank were hacked into before the robbery so they didn’t go off, and the surveillance cameras were as well. They were set up on a continual loop, playing CCTV footage from the night before so we couldn’t even get a glimpse of who was in the vault.

  I grinned. ‘Ah ha! But they haven’t got Hacker on their team.’

  ‘I didn’t hear that. I’m running a police investigation – I can’t have you interfering with it.’

  What, little old moi? As if. ‘I’m not making any promises.’

  Romeo glanced down at the floor, his forehead pinched into hard lines. Silence stretched into a minute before he finally said, ‘No, that’s the problem, Amber.’

  ****

  Apart from Vinnie and his cronies, about forty other names were on the list of ringside seats that Hacker had given me. There were a few celebrities and ex-boxers on there, and I went into telephone overdrive back at the office, working my way through them in order, to see if any of them had heard what Carl was shouting. I spent four frustrating hours trying to get hold of some of them, and I was still no further forward. No one had heard what Carl was shouting over the noise of the crowd so I called it a day and drove home.

  I opened the door to my apartment with the phone pressed in the crook of my neck, waiting for Hacker to pick up. I dumped my rucksack on the wooden floorboards and kicked off my UGGs. Marmalade bounded towards me and wound himself around my legs.

  ‘Yo.’ Hacker said.

  ‘Yo. Can you see what information you can dig up on Carl Thomas?’ I scooped Marmalade in my arms and walked the few steps through the living room into the galley kitchen. ‘He’s been murdered.’

  ‘Sure. So does that mean the hoo-ha has turned into a kerfuffle?’

  ‘Well, I’d say it’s turned into a bit more than a kerfuffle.’

  ‘Well, what does a kerfuffle mean, then? Is that the wrong word?’

  ‘A kerfuffle is a bit like an argument about something,’ I said, doubting that a vicious murder could be a kerfuffle by anyone’s stand
ards.

  ‘Right. So it’s more like a to-do, then?’

  ‘Erm…not exactly.’

  ‘A shenanigan?’

  ‘Not even close.’

  ‘OK. I’m giving up learning new Brit slang now. I’m never going to get it.’

  ‘You are doing a fab job, Hacker. Maybe you should teach me some Haitian when I get time. Especially the Voodoo parts.’

  ‘I told you, don’t start messing around with that stuff.’

  I visualised Hacker clutching the dead chicken’s foot he wore around his neck. And people thought I was crazy!

  ‘I know, I know. Any other updates?’ I set Marmalade down and he did starving kitten eyes at me, meowing around his bowl like he hadn’t been fed for four days straight. He growled at the empty bowl, telling me to get a move on.

  ‘No. I’m still working on stuff.’

  I glanced down at Marmalade who was busy staring accusingly at me. ‘OK, see you tomorrow.’ I filled his bowl with the equivalent of feline fine dining and left him to wolf down his food.

  I wandered into the bedroom on a mission. A relaxing bath with lavender scented bubbles was seriously calling my name. Since my washing basket was full again, I discarded my clothes on the floor. I closed my eyes and made a mental wish for a washing fairy to zap them into a freshly laundered and ironed pile. OK, scratch the superhuman power of invisibility, I’d settle for an instant housework-fix superpower.

  Rummaging around in my wardrobe, I managed to find some black skinny jeans right at the back that had escaped being worn, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt to wear later. Why were most of my clothes black? The investigator side of me said it was because black was good for blending in, and everyone knew that black was a kick-ass colour. Not only that, it was very practical because it went with everything. I’d bet that a psychologist would have a field day with what it meant, though.

  I shoved my mountain of washing in the machine and eased into a hot bath, feeling the warmth and lavender seeping into my tired muscles. I closed my eyes. Luscious. I was just thinking that a foot massage would be nice idea right about then when my wish was granted. Well, almost. Marmalade sat on the edge of the bath, licking my foot that was sticking out of the soapy suds.

  ‘Ew!’ I slid it under the water out of licking reach. ‘You are so gross. Is that your answer to everything? Licking body parts?’

  Marmalade just blinked huge yellow eyes at me. I took that as a “yes”.

  My mobile rang as Marmalade started licking his paw. I reached over the bath and retrieved it from the floor. ‘Hi, Brad.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m in the bath, being licked. You should try it sometime, it’s fab!’ OK, the wicked, playful side of me was coming out now I was actually far enough away from him so he couldn’t be a dangerous influence on me.

  I heard him breathe in hard. ‘Are you back with Romeo?’

  ‘Nope. Marmalade is my new boyfriend. It’s much less complicated. All he wants is food, sleep, and a stroke, and he’s happy.’

  ‘I’d settle for a stroke,’ he said, his tone lighter now. ‘Although, I have to say, I wouldn’t trust you to feed me. I’ve tasted your attempts at cooking and it’s enough to poison someone.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t cook. I knew there was a reason!’

  ‘How was your day?’ he asked.

  I filled him in on everything I’d found out so far.

  ‘The plot thickens,’ he said. ‘Hacker checked out Carl Thomas. He was in the middle of getting a divorce from Deborah. It was particularly acrimonious, apparently.’

  ‘Who initiated the divorce?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Hmm. That could be a possible motive for her killing him.’ I swirled the now cooling water around with my foot. ‘Getting rid of Carl before they could split their assets?’

  ‘No. In the event of Carl’s death, his share of their personal estate went to his niece, Amy, not Deborah. Most of their assets were in Carl’s name.’

  ‘So Amy might have a motive,’ I said.

  ‘It’s certainly a possibility.’ Brad paused.

  ‘How old is Amy?’

  ‘Eighteen. She’s a university student.’

  I thought about the way Carl had died. It seemed a bit of a gruesome attack to be carried out by a young woman, but then there were plenty of gruesome murders where young killers murdered members of their family for money. If the prize was high enough, there was no telling what people might do.

  ‘Carl had a few offshore accounts in South Africa with big bucks in them. Hacker said he had five million pounds stashed there. No doubt he’s got other funds hidden away somewhere that we haven’t found yet.’

  I let out a slow whistle. ‘Lucky banker! Carl had his passport out on his bedside cabinet when I checked around his house. I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally leave mine lying about if I’m not using it. There was a half-filled suitcase out, too. Maybe he was getting ready to do a runner to South Africa.’

  ‘Maybe. Hacker’s going to dig around in the computers at Kinghorn Thomas and see if he can find anything of use.’

  ‘Cool.’ I climbed out of the bath and grabbed a towel. ‘Maybe Carl was dipping his fingers in the till.’

  ‘Want me to come and wash your back?’

  I grinned to myself. Tempting. Way too tempting. ‘Too late.’

  Chapter 5

  I sat in Brad’s office the next morning munching on a bacon sandwich.

  ‘That stuff will kill you.’ Brad eyed my sandwich as he munched on a bowl of fruit.

  ‘So will fruit.’ I grinned as I carried on chewing. ‘Mmm. This is so yummy.’

  Brad set his empty bowl aside. ‘And how will fruit kill you, exactly?’

  ‘When I was at the hospital, waiting for Levi’s doctor, I read all this stuff about how good fruit and veg are for you, so I decided to Google it. I found an article online about someone who did an experiment of only eating fruit for a month and their stomach eroded.’ I pulled a face.

  ‘Is that your reason not to be healthy?’ He gave me a look of disbelief.

  ‘Well, what if I started eating fruit and I became addicted to it and ate nothing else? Then I’d end up with an eroded stomach, too.’ That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

  Tia knocked on Brad’s open door and smiled. A tall, stocky black man who seemed to fill the doorway with his presence stood next to her. I recognized him from the photos in Levi’s house.

  Brad grinned and rounded his desk. ‘EJ.’

  They did some kind of ritualistic handshake as Tia disappeared and I stood up to greet him.

  ‘The insurance business must agree with you.’ EJ stood back and examined Brad with a fond smile.

  ‘Hi, I’m Amber.’ I held out my hand and EJ shook it with a firm grasp.

  ‘Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard all about you.’ EJ glanced in Brad’s direction.

  I raised an eyebrow at Brad.

  Brad waved a hand at one of the chairs. ‘Have a seat, EJ.’ When we were all seated, he said, ‘It’s been a long time.’

  ‘That it has. I’m just sorry we’re not meeting again in better circumstances.’ A grave frown forced his eyebrows together. ‘Do you have any news about what kind of trouble Levi’s in?’

  I brought EJ up to speed on everything so far.

  ‘I’ll kill Vinnie if I find out he’s been messing with Levi.’ EJ’s eyes burned with anger. ‘You really think he blackmailed Levi into signing his contract and throwing his fight?’

  I nodded. ‘That’s how it seems at the moment.’

  ‘I went to see him in the hospital on Saturday night,’ EJ said. ‘I tried talking with Levi to find out what was going on with him. Obviously he was down because he lost the fight, but he was just being offish, and he didn’t really want to know. He asked what the point was in me turning up now since I was never around when he was a kid when he needed me.’ He glanced between Brad and me, lookin
g sad. ‘Things have been strained between Levi and me for a long time. I’m sure Brad probably told you that after me and my wife split, she made it difficult for me to see Levi. Half the stuff that went on between Levi’s mum and me, he doesn’t even know about, and I didn’t feel it was ever right to tell him. But I think she poisoned him against me. Then, of course, Vinnie came on the scene and Levi seemed to look up to him instead of me.’ EJ gave a small shake of his head and he seemed to drift off somewhere in his memories.

  ‘Teenagers are easily influenced. Maybe it would’ve happened even if you were around when he was growing up,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe.’ His face hardened with resolve. ‘You know, kids don’t come with a set of instructions. Everything you try and do for your family always comes with some sort of sacrifice. I did what I felt was right at the time for our situation. I did the best I could to provide an income for Levi and my ex-wife.’ He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘I love him. I don’t want anything to happen to him. If he’s in some kind of trouble, I want to help him.’

  ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we find out anything concrete,’ Brad said.

  EJ Stood. ‘If you need any help, Brad, let me know.’

  His voice oozed pain and anger and there was no doubt exactly what he meant. Maybe Vinnie would get his comeuppance at the hands of EJ.

  They did another funny handshake and Hacker bounded in, all skinny arms and legs. Today he had a hoodie on with a huge gold dollar sign on the front.

  ‘EJ!’ Hacker hugged him.

  EJ broke into a grin. ‘Hacker. You never look any older.’

  ‘Are you leaving?’ Hacker said.

  EJ Nodded. ‘I’m on my way to work. I just popped in to see how things were going.’