The Love Detective
The Love
Detective
Angela dyson
Copyright © 2018 Angela Dyson
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
Matador
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ISBN 978 1789010 992
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
The Love Detective is dedicated to the wonderful, strong,
and charismatic women of my family:
My sister Claire
My aunts Frankie and Lillie
And in loving memory of my mother, Ann and my
grandmother, Mary Bridget.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Love Detective: Next Level
Chapter One
Chapter Two
CHAPTER ONE
It hadn’t been a good night. Table six had sent back the chicken, table eight had slapped her boyfriend around the face before flouncing out of the restaurant, and table seventeen had just disappeared in the direction of the loos looking in rather a hurry. At eleven thirty I’d started mouthing polite we’re closing soon noises, but now, at past midnight, tables two and nine were asking for yet more coffee. Behind the bar, Dave was playing Adele for the third time in a row and Tara, my fellow waitress of the evening was bleating on about the pros and cons of a carb-free diet. I’m about ready to slit my throat. Tuning her out I positioned myself at the service station and resignedly scooped up another handful of cutlery to polish and allowed my gaze to wander over the room.
Standing apart from the trendy bars and restaurants lining the high street of Wimbledon Village, Abbe’s Brasserie is a curiously old-fashioned place but somehow very charming. The décor’s a bit tatty but the glow from the masses of candles dripping from wall sconces and flickering upon the tables, hide the worst of the wear and tear, and give it an intimate, inviting appeal. The food’s good too. There’s no nouvelle cuisine at Abbe’s. We serve classic dishes in generous portions. It would be, I decided spitting at a particularly stubborn water stain on a fish knife, just the type of restaurant I’d like to own one day, if I had any ambitions in that direction. I sighed and rubbed hard at the knife with a tea towel trying to distract my mind from the familiar but uncomfortable thought that by now, at twenty-six years old, I should at least be nurturing an ambition to do something.
I have four or five shifts a week at Abbe’s but this couldn’t, even by the most generous and supportive of my friends, be described as a proper career. And yes, there were occasional temping jobs, but they didn’t really count. I knew that no matter how much I wanted to put it off, sometime soon I was going to have to make some decisions. I couldn’t be a waitress all my life. Believe me it’s not all big tippers and interesting ways with leftover lobster. Tonight, my ankles were swollen, my cheek muscles ached from all those welcoming smiles, and the bra I’d bought to do justice to my white uniform shirt was a size too small and digging painfully into my sternum.
Later as I peeled it off and crawled under the duvet, I speculated on the jobs out there that I could possibly be fit for but soon gave way to sleep. In my dreams, I folded thousands of tiny white napkins into the shape of water lilies.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they eat a pizza. Some attack it savagely from various angles; others dissect it neatly into mathematically precise portions and some, like Laura, start from the middle and work their way out to the crust. It was one o’clock on the following day and we were in the aggressively cool new pizzeria down on the Broadway. It was busy and very noisy, the buzz of conversation bouncing off hard bright surfaces. I shifted uncomfortably on my over-designed ironwork stool, as Laura started at the heart of the matter and worked her way out to the details. “It’s not that I doubt him, it’s just that…” she began.
And immediately memories of countless he-done-me-wrong tales sat down to join us. Laura is unbelievably unfortunate with men. Is it that she just happens to be particularly unlucky? Or, is it that she’s way too trusting? This, she considers rich coming from me. Perhaps she has a point. This is how it goes. She meets what she describes as the Perfect Man. The sex is mind-blowing. They have a real connection. It’s absolute heaven. Then three weeks later, he disappears off to a commune to find himself or goes back to his oil rig/country of origin/wife. This last one crops up with wearying regularity. Now, I’ve nothing against affairs with married men. After all a girl has not matured until she has had at least one regrettable hair straightening experience and has been lied to by at least two misunderstood husbands. These things happen and later we laugh and we cry about them over many bottles of rosé with our friends, but Laura, wonderful warm-hearted Laura, is always knocked sideways with surprise and disappointment. Now she was telling me about her latest.
“He’s attractive, he’s successful, and he’s charming. And yes Clarry, before you ask, I did remember to check this time, he’s single. There is definitely no wife in the background. He’s great, he really is. It’s just… well it’s probably nothing.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “What? Come on. Spill.”
She rested her elbows on the table. “It’s just that he’s asking a lot of questions about my work.”
“So? That’s a good thing isn’t it? A man who’s interested in your life and not just his own, that’s rare in my experience.”
She took a swig of wine “True. But no matter what we start talking about, he always seems to steer the conversation back to the business I’m doing.”
She shook her head and picked up her knife and fork. “Forget it, I’m probably imagining it.”
“Back up. Start a
t the beginning.”
She took a deep breath, her eyes shining. She wore a look that I know of old. Oh dear, I thought, she’s got it bad this time.
“OK. He’s Simon Napier. I met him at the Local Luncheon Club two weeks ago.”
“God. What’s that?”
“It’s just this boring monthly lunch that I have to attend. Lots of solicitors go and other business people as well. The food’s always terrible and I usually end up sitting next to some old chap from a building society rabbiting on about interest rates and the credit crunch.” She flicked back her long brown hair and took another slug of her wine. “Anyway, there I am looking at my place card and suddenly there he is. Simon Napier, newly appointed manager of Dunstan Stead estate agents. Over six-feet tall, blonde hair, totally fit, bloody gorgeous in fact and he’s sitting next to me at lunch.”
She’d got my attention. “So, what happened?”
“We’ve been out for drinks and dinner twice and it’s great. He’s funny, he’s bright, we have a lot in common, and he’s unbelievably sexy but…” Her voice trailed off and her shoulders slumped.
“But what?”
She shrugged. “I suppose that I just want to be sure that it’s me he’s really interested in. That he doesn’t just see me as a source of business for his firm.”
“And are you?” I asked picking up my glass.
She nodded. “Remember I told you that I’m heading up the conveyancing division and handling all the probate sales? I gave Simon two quite large houses to sell sole agency. He got offers on them straightaway and the buyers wanted a really quick exchange, which was great. And I’ve just instructed him on another one, a huge old place off Wimbledon Hill.”
I thought for a moment. “Did he get good prices for the houses?”
“Well actually no. But you know what the market is these days and a quick sale is always what the beneficiaries want anyway, especially if there are a lot of them. Some nephews and nieces scattered all over the country for example, all wanting their share of the profits of some rundown old house, most of them never having visited Great Aunt Dolly or whomever for years. They don’t care if she’s dead, they just want the money.”
“Charming. So, have you slept with him yet?”
“Not quite, but the rev-up’s been fun.” She took a bite of her pizza.
“I bet. Look you probably don’t have anything to worry about, but we both know that it never does any harm to keep your eyes wide open.”
She beamed at me. “I’m so glad you feel like that because that’s just where you come in Clarry.”
I shot her a look, not liking where this was going. “Come in where?”
She pushed aside the last of her food. “Look, you’re not doing much and I thought…”
“Hold up, I’m waitress extraordinaire remember?”
She ignored me and finally got down to what I now realised the whole of this lunch had been leading up to. “I thought you could nose about a bit. Ask a few questions.”
“No,” I said flatly. “No way.”
“Clarry please, I really do want to be sure about him before I get too involved. You’ve said it yourself that I’m too gullible. This time it’s going to be different but I can’t do it myself. What if he turns out to be The One and I blow it by being too suspicious and pushy? That’s why it’s got to be you.”
“For starters, I’m not sure I believe in the concept of The One. It sounds rather limiting and secondly, what do you mean by asking a few questions?”
She leaned eagerly over the table and topped up our glasses. “Couldn’t you pretend to be looking for a house or something?”
“No, I could not! I’ve never even bought a house and I wouldn’t know where to start. It’s ridiculous.”
“Or how about a property developer? It shouldn’t be that difficult.”
“Laura, this is crazy. I haven’t any experience with this kind of thing.”
“You were always good at drama at school. Especially improvisation.”
“That was a million years ago,” I snapped. “And besides, a few creative workshops acting out teenage angst with Sister Granger isn’t exactly the perfect grounding to pretend to be a property… whatever… type person.”
“But you can. I know you can. It’ll be just like being a…” She thought for a moment and then, as if throwing down a trump card, said breezily, “It will be like being a private detective.”
“Hardly.”
She looked down at her plate. “I need you Clarry.”
And that was that. When your oldest and best friend in the world asks for help, then you give it, if you can.
“And what’s more…”
She was triumphant now knowing full well that I’d never had a choice in the matter. “I’m going to pay you.”
“If I do it at all, I’ll do it for nothing.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m doing pretty well at the moment and you’re flat broke.”
As she disappeared upstairs in search of the ladies, I considered the seventy pounds in my purse that I’d earnt last night being on my feet for six hours at Abbe’s. She’s right, I thought, I can’t afford principles.
Laura filled me in on some details, insisted on paying for lunch and leaving me with a swift hug, disappeared in the direction of the tube before I could come up with any further objections.
CHAPTER TWO
No 12 Hillside. My home. This tiny, two-bedroom cottage had been left to me by Grandma P., my father’s mother. Every time I put my key in the lock, I offer up a grateful prayer of thanks to her memory for the independence it gives me. She had been a remarkable woman and I had loved her. With a tongue abrasive sometimes to the point of rudeness and a determined self-reliance that could make her a difficult person to really know, she had been a major influence on my life. She had died three years ago, but here in this house where she had lived for nearly fifty years, I still felt the comfort of her presence.
As an only child I suppose I could have felt lonely, but with much of my school holidays spent with Grandma P., somehow, I never was. She taught me so much. I may never have her light hand with pastry, but I do know how to build a well-constructed compost heap and make up a bed with proper hospital corners. You’d think that those talents alone would guarantee me an exciting and glamorous career, now wouldn’t you? From the usual childhood tantrums, through to the dramatic door slamming days of self-centred adolescence, Grandma P. had always been there, with solid but unemotional comfort and advice. When I wept in self-pity over some party I hadn’t been invited to or over some imagined slight from a classmate, she would put everything back in perspective.
“Clarry there is nothing that you can feel that you need ever be ashamed of. You are suffering now I know, but take it as a sign that you are alive and part of the world. We are here such a short time, so isn’t it a shame to waste any of it by being unhappy?”
In the first year after her death, I hadn’t had the heart to change anything and so had lived with her 1970’s décor in the colours of a condiment tray. The shades of mustard, ketchup, and vinegar had weighed down on me until I finally understood that my redecorating didn’t represent a betrayal of her memory. She would have wanted me to breathe my own brand of life into the house and so slowly I had transformed every room. With paintwork in duck-egg blue, sage, and tea rose, the cottage was, even on the darkest of days, full of light and warmth.
The only area I hadn’t properly tackled yet was the hall. It was papered with a stubborn Anaglypta in hideous ochre. Now, on Sunday evening, as I regarded the three-square feet it had taken me two hours to scrape off, my thoughts turned to Laura’s request. Sipping thoughtfully on a glass of Pinot Grigio, I tried to imagine myself in the role of private detective. Attracted as I am by the idea of being just like Angelina Jolie in “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, cool, sexy, and tough, I knew realist
ically that I could never pull it off. I’d never get into a rubber corset dress, let alone out of one. I didn’t have any high-tech gadgets. I knew nothing about surveillance and I’m definitely not brave. The Miss Marple approach it would have to be.
It was with thoughts of Miss Marple and her twinsets that I surveyed the contents of my wardrobe the following morning. I’m particularly sensitive to the influence of clothing. In a satin slip dress, I’m sweet and just a little coy. Actually, I’m not sure how much longer I can pull off coy. In a tailored suit I strut purposefully, looking for the entire world like I have something important to do, which is rarely true. Mostly however, I’m a jeans girl. They can be dressed up or dressed down and go with everything. I have a considerable collection of white shirts, some sexy with a masculine cut, others cut low at the neck, feminine and sheer. I love them all. They freshen up the complexion, they don’t look like I’m trying too hard, and they wash well. Whatever works?
Munching toast, I finally settled on a pair of black skinny jeans and a white T-shirt, a structured black jacket giving the casual look a self-assured edge. Tying back my hair and rooting around for an oversized pair of sunglasses, I felt dressed for the part, which is half way to feeling confident I’m told.
I picked up the phone. “Simon Napier?” I pitched my voice to register several octaves lower than usual. “You don’t know me; my name is Gemma Buchanan.” I’ve always liked the name Gemma. And it’s as good a name as any. “Word is,” I continued huskily, “You’re a man I should meet.”
“Really Ms. Buchanan? And why should that be?” His cultured drawl was tempered with impatience.
“Because I understand that you have an eye when it comes to development properties in the area. The consortium I represent would be grateful for any leads.” I weighed the word with what I hoped was a subtle emphasis.
“I see,” he replied, but wasn’t picking up the bait. “Well if you’d like to come in and register, we’ll put you on our files.” And there was that… I’m a very busy person and I’m ringing off now note… to his voice. I interrupted hastily.