Hospitals were not places to get rest or proper recovery.
There always seemed to be something
happening, and just as he managed to close his eyes, a nurse or a doctor would
come and wake him.
This time it was a visitor, his sister Corinne, and he
recognised the expression on her face and it spelled trouble. Mischievous. That same expression when they were children
spelled trouble, particularly for him, because he was supposed to be older and
know better.
Despite Felicity’s warning not to return to the office,
she had, and found that Felicity had sorted out the mess, and resorted the
files, particularly the one she was most interested in, the Jones cases. Corinne had also made notes of her own, aside
from those Felicity had, in her very clear, but distinctive writing. She was, Corinne thought, thorough, but she
was not the sort who could think outside the box.
“What have you been up to?” he asked her as she sat
beside the bed. He saw the file sticking
out of her voluminous handbag, a sign she had taken him seriously.
“Doing what you asked me to do.”
His memory was momentarily hazy and he had to think what
that was. Perhaps he should put his foot
down and tell her to go away and not get involved.
“Don't tell me you don't remember.”
“I was almost killed and left for dead, this week’s
medical miracle. You could cut me some
slack.”
She smiled, one that would strike fear into any other
man's heart. “You asked me to get the
information from Sykes on the Jones brother’s cases. Sneaky on your part, you didn't quite give me
all the necessary details.”
“You were not expected to succeed. I was hoping to keep you out of this mess. The last thing I want is for anything to
happen to you. I'm in enough trouble
with our parents as it is.”
“I can look after myself.”
“Oddly enough I thought that too until I finished up in
the rubbish dump. It’s the bullet you
don't see that kills you, Corinne. That’s
why I asked Felicity to keep an eye on you.”
“If that’s the case, where is she? I don’t think you should put any trust of
faith in her. Where on earth did you
find her, or was it the other way around?”
“Her father is a private investigator, a good one, and so
is she. We met at a convention.”
“That sounds interesting.
I’ve heard what goes on at those conventions.”
“From where?”
“Mother. She said
our father goes to many more than is necessary, and she thinks it had more to do with something
else than just work.”
Harry got the inference and the cure from their mother
about their father. She always pulled
out the affair card when she couldn’t explain his absences. But, to Harry, his father was the last person
to have an affair. He was not that sort
of man.
“You don’t want to believe everything you hear. Besides, I did a surveillance operation on
him a couple of months back, and the only people I saw him with were some
characters that looked like they’d be better accommodated in a prison cell, but
we’re talking lawyers here, so no surprised there.”
“Well, like it or not you are stuck with me. You are basically out of action and, even if
this Felicity character is working with you, both of you still need someone
like me to do the leg work. Sykes likes
me by the way.”
He sighed. This
was not an argument he was going to win. When she made up her mind there was no
changing it. He would simply have to
find a way of limiting the damage. But,
she was stubborn, like Harry himself, and with more backbone and spirit than
any of his bothers.
“Tell me the news.”
“In a nutshell, he all but told me his investigation has
hit a brick wall and he's been reassigned to a new case or cases. He had his money on Brightwater but when he
was murdered, they are calling it murder, by the way, that was his whole case
derailed.”
“Who are the current suspects? Does he have a
suspect list?”
“Yes, he does. The
wives, and everyone at Outtel basically.
It seems that Brightwater had a sometime partner, a model by the name of
Angelina something or other but she has an ironclad alibi too. The others also have alibis but Sykes said he
needed more evidence and time to shake the trees.”
Quaint expression Harry thought, but if he needed more
time, it was likely it was not one of them, but likely to be someone else,
someone they didn’t know about.
But, he thought, at least there was a new person to
investigate. No one had mentioned
Brightwater had a girlfriend. It made no
difference to him if she had an ironclad alibi. It was a question, perhaps, for
Angela when he saw her next.
If he saw her again.
“Everyone in the company apparently has a watertight alibi,
but some of them are not the sort of people you would want working for you. You know that Al went to jail back in the day,
and when he was there he made some friends, some of whom now work in the
company headquarters. The list just keep
getting longer.”
No surprises there, Harry thought, and they would be the
sort of friends that would watch his back rather than stick a knife in it. That reason alone made it unlikely it was
anyone in the office. That just left
everyone else not employed by Outtel, a rather large suspect pool.
“Sykes is convinced that some or one of them knows
something and they're not talking. Yet. As for the women in the director’s
lives, they all alibi each other which Sykes thinks there will be something he
can investigate if he’s allowed to interrogate them further.”
After so long, it might not be possible. The department might just throw the cases in
the cold case but. After so long, and
nothing concrete to work with...
“No mention of an Angela?”
He noticed the change in her expression and instantly
knew the two had met. There was always something going on between Corinne
and the women he knew.
It wasn't a look of hatred, but it looked like there was
going to be strained relations between them. The last thing he needed was
a battleground where he had no control. And if there were going to be
problems they would be caused by Corinne. Her expression changed to sulky as she said
quietly, “She's not very high on his list, no.”
“I take it you've met her.”
“At your office. I
thought she was your girlfriend. She
said she'd hired you to do a job for her.”
“Yes, she did.
That makes her a client, not a girlfriend Corinne.”
“Your tone suggests otherwise, and looking at her, she
could charm a rattlesnake. Don’t you
think she might be trying to use you to clear her own name by pointing the
blame somewhere else.”
A rather interesting question in the light of his own circumstances.
Corinne could be a good judge of
character sometimes while other times it had led to trouble.
“She might be trouble but I don't think she's a
murderer.”
“Or she might be the perfect assassin and she has you
under her spell. You never were very
good at understanding women.”
“But I am an excellent judge of character.’
She looked at him with arched eyebrows. Her brother was a lot of things but not when
it came to a pretty girl. One day, she
thought, he might get lucky. But in the
case of Angela, no. She was trouble.
“Let's just stick to the facts,” she said, conveniently
ignoring that statement. “We need to
know more about her. That will be my
priority. Sykes will be coming to see
you. I suggest you try and be helpful. It would be useful for you to have a proper
liaison with the police.”
“You really should leave this alone.”
“I should but we need to find who did this to you and put
them behind bars.”
“It's not that simple.”
“You know who did this to you?”
“No.”
Well, he thought, not exactly a no. Whoever ‘they’ were, they were somehow
attached to that address he visited and when he was finally released from the hospital he was going to find out who owned it, or who were connected to it.
“Then we will find out, and I will be careful. I promise.”
© Charles Heath 2016-2019
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