a sting that will pull in some of the big boys, for a change.”
“What about Nicholas Turner?” I asked.
Delia fussed with a cigarette and her Zippo. “They found his body in the van, where you left it. A couple of the lads went over to Leeds this morning and spoke to his wife. She’s denying all knowledge of anything shady, of course. She’s going for the Oscar as the grieving wife of a legitimate art and antiques dealer. Grieving she may well be, but nobody believes for a minute she’s as innocent as she wants us to think. Apart from anything else, there’s evidence that she’s accompanied him on several of his trips to the Villa Sari Pietro.”
“He still didn’t deserve to die,” I said.
Ruth shrugged. “You take the money, you take the risks that go with it. How many lives have been destroyed by the drugs Turner was involved in supplying? Half the people I defend owe not a little of their trouble to the drug scene. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over Turner, Kate.”
I didn’t.
Jackson’s goons were on my doorstep again the following morning. I figured that by now he’d probably be staking out the office as well. I rang Shelley. “Have you got company of the piggy variety too?”
“Of course, sir. Did you want to talk to one of our operatives?”
That told me all I needed to know. “Is it Jackson himself or one of his gofers?”
“I’m afraid our principal isn’t in the office at present.”
I’ll say this for Shelley, nothing fazes her. “There should have been an overnight fax for me,” I said. “Can you stick it in an envelope and have it couriered round to Josh’s office? I’ll pick it up there.”
“That’s no problem, sir. I’ll have Ms. Brannigan call you when she comes back to the office. Good-bye, now.”
Whoever said blondes have more fun obviously didn’t garner the experience wearing a wig. I went through the disguise-for-beginners rigmarole again and made my exit through Richard’s bungalow, pausing long enough to do a quick inventory of his wardrobe. If he’d been back, he hadn’t taken any significant amount of clothing with him. His laptop was gone, though, which meant he was planning to be away long enough to get some work done.
I arrived at Josh’s office ten minutes after the fax, and settled down at an empty desk to plow through the phone numbers. It was a long, tedious process of cross-checking, made worse by the fact that Alexis’s contact had come up with a more detailed breakdown of calls than the customer received. The fax she’d sent listed every call from all three numbers, even the quickies that don’t cost enough to make it onto the customer’s account. But at the end of it, I’d established that there were calls virtually every day between Desmond Halloran’s office number and the private number of the Cob and Pen. There were also a couple of long calls from the Halloran’s home number to the pub.
There was one other curious thing. A Warrington number cropped up on both bills. I checked the dates. Every Monday, a call a few minutes long was logged on one bill or another. It appeared most often on Desmond’s office bill, but it was there half a dozen times on the Cob and Pen’s account too. Of course, I had to ring it, didn’t I?
“Warrington Motorway Motel, Janice speaking. How may I help you?” the singsong voice announced.
“I’m meeting someone at the motel today. Can you give me directions?”
“Certainly, madam, where are you coming from?”
“Manchester.”
“Right. If you come down the M62 and take junction 9, you go left as you come off the motorway and right at the first roundabout. We’re the first turning on the left, just after the bridge.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been most helpful.” If I had my way, Janice was going to be a lot more helpful before the day was out.
There was nothing to mark out the Warrington Motorway Motel from the dozens of others that sprang up round the motorway network in the late eighties. A two-story, sprawling redbrick building with a low-pitched roof, a car park and a burger joint next door, it could have been anywhere between the Channel Tunnel and that point on the edge of the Scottish highlands where the motorways run out. Rooms for round thirty quid a throw, TV but no phone, no restaurant, bar or lounge. Cheap and cheerless.
Late morning wasn’t a busy time behind the reception desk. Janice – or someone who’d stolen her name badge – looked pleased at the sight of another human being. The reception area was so small that with two of us present, it felt intimate. On the way over, I’d toyed with various approaches. I’d decided I was too strung out to try for subtlety. Besides, I still had a wad of cash in my bag that had no official home.
I dropped one of my cards on the desk halfway through Janice’s welcome speech. Her pert features registered surprise, followed by an air of suppressed excitement. “I’ve never met a private detective before,” she confided, giving me the wide-eyed once-over. I hoped I wasn’t too much of a disappointment.
I followed the card with a photograph of Grail I’d persuaded Alexis to lend me. “This woman’s a regular here,” I stated baldly. “She comes here once a week with the same bloke.”
Janice’s eyes widened. “I’m not supposed to release information about guests,” she said wistfully.
I leaned on the desk and smiled. “Forgive me being so personal, Janice, but how much do they pay you?”
Startled, she blurted out the answer without thinking. “A hundred and seventy pounds a week.”
I opened my bag and took out the five hundred I’d counted out on the way. I placed it on the desk and pushed it toward her. “Nearly three weeks’ money. Tax-free. No comebacks. I don’t even want a receipt.”
Her eyes widened. She stared at the cash, then at me, consternation clear in her face. “What for?”
“All I want to know is how often they come and how long they stay. I want to know when they’re due here next. Then I want to book the room next door. Oh, and five minutes in their room before they arrive. There’s no reason why anyone should know you’ve helped me.” I nudged the money nearer to her.
“It’s for a divorce, isn’t it?” she said.
I winked. “I’m not supposed to release information either. Let’s just say this pair shouldn’t be doing what they’ve been doing.”
Suddenly, her hand snaked out and the dosh disappeared faster than a paper-wrapped prawn off Richard’s plate. She tapped Gail’s photograph with a scarlet fingernail. “She’s been coming here with this bloke for about a year now. They always book as Mr. and Mrs. Chester. It’s usually a Wednesday. They arrive separately, usually about half past two. I don’t know when they leave, because I go off at half past four.”
I nodded, as if this was exactly what I’d expected to hear. “And when are they booked in next?”
“I think you’ve dropped lucky,” she said, consulting her screen. “Yeah, that’s right. They’ve got a room booked today.” She looked up at me, smirking. “I bet you knew that, didn’t you?”
Again, I winked. “Maybe you could let me into the room they’ll be in, then book me in next door?”
Eagerly, she nodded. Funny how excited people get when they feel like they’re part of the chase. “I’ll give you their key,” she said. “But bring it back quick as you can.”
I picked up the key and headed for the lift. Boom 103 was a couple of doors down the corridor from the lift. The whole floor-was eerily silent. I let myself in, and gave the room a quick scan. I could have drawn it from memory, it was so similar- to every motel room I’d ever camped out in. Because I hadn’t been able to get into the office to pick up proper surveillance equipment, I’d had to rely on what I could pick up from the local electronics store. A small tape recorder with a voice-activated radio mike hadn’t made much of a dent in my payoff from Turner. I took out my Swiss Army knife and unscrewed the insipid seascape from above the bed. I stuck the mike to the back of the picture with a piece of Blastoplast, than screwed it back onto the wall. There was a gap of about a quarter of an inch between the picture and the hessian wallpaper, but I didn’t think Grail and Desmond were there for the decor.
I quickly checked the mike was working, then I was out of there. I returned the key to Janice and went over to the burger joint for supplies. I settled down in my room with a giant cheeseburger, fries, a large coffee and a bag of doughnuts. I stuck the earpiece of the tape recorder in my ear and waited. I couldn’t believe myself. I felt like I was playing the starring role in the worst kind of cliched private-eye drama: staking out the seedy motel for the couple indulging in illicit sex. All I needed was a snap-brim trilby and a bottle of bourbon to feel like a complete idiot.
While I was waiting, I rang Michael Haroun. “Sorry about last night,” I said. “I was helping the police with their inquiries.”
“They arrested you?”
“Behave. They only wanted a friendly chat. They were just a little insistent about having it right that minute.”
