Episode 85 - A woman on a mission

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

Episode 84 – Saving a fool from herself

Felicity didn’t trust Corinne.  It was almost as if she could see Corinne’s fingers crossed behind her back when she said she wouldn’t do anything when they both instinctively knew she would.

That address would be burning a hole in her pocket, and like Felicity, she wanted to know what significance the address had in her brother’s near death experience.

The difference between Felicity and Corinne was that Felicity knew it was going to cause trouble and was ready for it.  Corinne was not.

And, as she expected, Corinne had gone home, pottered until it was dark, and then made her move.  She was easy enough to follow, the car she drove was a distinctive yellow, and slow enough to drive anyone stuck behind her crazy.

In a sense, it was a good thing because she nearly gave Felicity the slip on two occasions, but, not knowing she was being followed, and her slow driving meant Felicity couldn’t lose her even if she tried.

Felicity had entered the address into her GPS, and guessed Corinne had done the same, because Corinne was following the exact same route the GPS was displaying.

About 100 yards from the address, Corinne drove her car into an alley and made sure she was facing out towards the road, as if she was expecting trouble.  Good idea, Felicity thought.  She parked in a lay-by just before the alley and has switched off both the headlights and engine by the time Corinne emerged from the alley onto the street.

From where Felicity was standing, the street was empty, or it looked empty.  It was not exactly anywhere near a busy thoroughfare, so it was unlikely they would be disturbed by passing traffic.

Felicity watched her cross the road and head up along the fence line towards the block in question.  It did not seem to have a building on it.  On the other side of the street were old buildings, and a multitude of places for an assailant to hide.

She brought her night binoculars with her, and scanned the building side of the street for any movement, or, if she was lucky enough, any surveillance.

Nothing so far.

Back to Corinne who was now standing outside the fence, or what looked to be a gate, and she was shaking it.  Locks didn’t come apart by shaking them.

She returned her binoculars to the other side of the street, and saw a shadow barely protruding from the building behind it.  Whatever was at that address must be relatively important if there was 24/7 surveillance on it.

By the time the shadow retreated, she guessed Corinne was coming back, and Felicity watched her all the way back to her car.  So, it was surveillance and report, not apprehend and torture, at least not this time.

This was what caused Harry to be kidnapped.

Something about this block at this address.

And the shadow was most likely the same person who had reported on Harry.

When Corinne had driven past, on her way back home, Felicity headed towards where she saw the shadow, keeping very close to the walls of the buildings.  She was hoping the shadow would not realize there were two people who’d come to check the block, and that she might catch him or her unaware.

She arrived just in time to hear the shadow say, “I'll see to it myself.”

She had brought her gun and raised it, then stepped out of the shadow.

“What will you see to yourself?”

The man saw her, moved, then stopped when he saw the gun.  Then relaxed.

“You’re a little young to be running around with a gun, missy.  This is private land and you’re trespassing.”

“This is an open thoroughfare.  I’ll ask again, what will you be seeing to?”

“That’s none of your business.  I suggest you go home and forget what you think you’ve seen.”

Her hand began to shake and she was beginning to lose her nerve.  The man noticed it and lunged.

A loud bang pierced the night and silence, so loud it rang in her ears.  She saw the man’s face and the look of utter surprise on it as it slid past her on the way to the ground.

Her first shot in the field and it hit the target.

By accident.

She had no intention of shooting him, but he had lunged, frighten her making her pull the trigger.  What did her father say, never have your finger wrapped around the trigger unless you meant to shoot?

Seconds later he was on the ground and blood leaking from his stomach area.  It looked bad.  He was not dead, but he didn’t look all that good.

“You shot me.”  Indignation mingled with pain.

“You made me.  All you had to do was answer the question.  Instead, you startled me.”

“A goddamn girl shot me.  Christ, how am I supposed to explain this?  Who the hell are you?”

“A friend of Harry Walthenson.  I’m sure he came here too, and you took care of him.”

“I did nothing of the kind.  I just report to the boss who comes here.  What he does with it is his business.  This is ridiculous.”  He tried to get up but couldn’t.  He glared up at her.  “Call an ambulance and the police.  I’d like to see you explain this.”

“Not until you tell me who the boss is?”

“No.  He’ll kill you for this.  Call an ambulance and get the hell out of here.”

“So you can come after me later.  No.  Answers first.”

He grimaced.  The pain was getting worse.  “OK.  Florenz, the man’s name is Florenz.  Now call me a goddamn ambulance and get out of here.”

She dialled the number and reported the address, but not the exact details of the injury then got in her car and drove off.  Two minutes later she passed the ambulance going in the other direction, followed by a police car.

She had a name, not that it meant anything at the moment, but that was surpassed by the dreaded feeling that if the man survived, he was definitely going to come after her.

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Episode 83 - Curiosity might yet kill the cat

Corinne had often gone out in the morning and not returned until evening.  Both her parents assumed she was either at university or working on assignments for her studies, and equally assumed she would not be home during the day.

Most of the time they assumed correctly.

However, a few months ago she had returned early to find her father in his study, looking very annoyed.  Then he had admonished her for not telling him of her change in plans, and that she was to call ahead especially if she was coming home early.

When she asked him why he hadn't answered.  At the time she thought it odd but fitting with his sometimes eccentric behaviour and let it pass.  Later again, it occurred to her that he might be having an affair, and couldn’t imagine he would be so stupid as to bring the woman home.  Until her mother had told her men of a certain age often did stupid things.

Her mother had also noticed his eccentric behaviour.

Since Harry's accident, Corinne had become suspicious again, wondering what it was he didn't want her to discover.

That first thought of an affair made her deliberately return at various times of the day to check whether he was there.  The first few times no one was home but on several more recent visits, he was, particularly after discovering what had happened to her brother.

But there didn’t seem to be a connection between the two events.

The most recent time she had seen him on the phone in the study, yelling at some invisible person on the other end of the line, using language she had never heard him use before.  It was as if he was being blackmailed because it sounded like he was being forced to do something that would jeopardize his integrity and reputation.

When she remembered that event, she also remembered one other detail.  She had heard him relate an address as he wrote it down.

A memorable address as the street was named after a city she had been reading about that very morning.  The same street that was on the piece of paper under the drawer in Harry's office.

Why did Harry have that address, and why had he hidden it away so no one would find it?

Had he visited it, and that caused his abduction and beating?

Did Harry know his father had it too?

What was at that address?

There was only one way to find out.  Go there.

It was an empty block on a street with old and mostly derelict buildings, where most of the street lights were broken, and those that weren’t cast a very eerie glow over the area.  Along one side were buildings that may have been warehouses, and on the other, a relatively new wire fence, with a little rust in places, and several gated entrances with rusty chains but new locks, and signs of recent activity given the tyre marks in the gravel on the other side of the fence..

But for all intents and purposes, it really was the block that time forgot.

There was a small wooden shed in the middle with windows that had been boarded up and a door which from where she was standing just outside the fence line had a rusted and disused lock.

She looked around, noting that two of the street side buildings were in such bad disrepair and had scaffolding that had begun to rust, an indication it had been there for some time.

An ideal place, she thought, to bulldoze and build luxury waterside apartments.  The land itself would be worth a small fortune.

The question uppermost in her mind; what was both her father and her brother's connection to this place.

Having seen enough and no closer to finding any clues, she got in her car and drove off.

A minute or two later, after the car disappeared from view a man came out from a hidden doorway and dialled a number and waited.

When the call was answered he said, “The daughter was here.  I thought you said the situation had been contained.”

He listened to the voice on the other end and said, “I'll see to it myself.”

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Episode 82 - Felicity and Sykes confer

Sykes sat opposite Felicity and wondered briefly how she and Harry had met.  Perhaps Harry was a bit of a dark horse.

And a sudden thought popped into his head, what he would call ‘out of left field’, to do with Harry and his sister Corinne.  Why it occurred to him then he couldn’t say, but Corinne did not look like her brother, and years of working with people and families told him that whilst they were ostensibly brother and sister, perhaps the same mother, they had different fathers.

Interesting, a point to store away and ponder at a later date.

"From what I have found in Harry's rather odd filing system, made all the more difficult after being tossed irreverently on the floor is that the first case involved Jennifer Jones, married to Alphonse or Al Jones, and that she was accusing her husband of having an affair with the office manager Miriam Walters.  He tracked them down to a bar where it seems Al denied the allegation and in turn asked Harry to catch Joseph Jones, Al's brother, with Jennifer.

"It seems it's been a long-standing reason for bad relations between the two."

Sykes watched her as she turned over several loose handwritten pages in a plain manila folder as she related the details.  It was a summary and he would need to read what Harry had written.  She could not be expected to understand what was relevant or not.

"So far so good," he said.  "Moving on from that point, I can tell you Harry was the last person to talk to Joseph before he was murdered in the street.  I found it somewhat suspicious that Harry  was at the scene of that crime and left before the police arrived, hardly what I would call the actions of a law-abiding citizen."

Felicity gave him one of her cold stares, thinking Harry must have had a good reason not to be there when the police turned up, but also agreeing it didn’t look good.  She turned the page in the file slowly taking the time to consider a suitable retort.

None came to mind.  Instead, she said quietly, "He noted he saw a red car at the scene, saw it drive off very quickly and followed it.  It got away but he also noted he saw a similar car later at the Outtel Finance Company.  He couldn't verify it was the same car, but he noted that the connection of the brother to the company was an interesting coincidence."

Felicity remembered running into Harry that day, and the fact they had gone into Outtel.  It might be best, she thought, not to say anything about that.

"You're saying that he considered it possible the killer might be an employee of the company?"  It was not something that Harry had suggested to him, so maybe he had a change of heart, or there was another reason; he was going to investigate it further.

That had, of course, been one of his theories at the time, that one of the employees should be at the top of his list of suspects, except they all had alibis, yet any attempt to break them had not yielded any further evidence.   Perhaps this revelation might be an incentive.

"Perhaps, perhaps not.  It seems the driver was a woman in a red dress and that woman he later identified as Angela Morrison."

"Joseph's daughter."

"Yes.  I’m assuming you’ve spoken to her?"

He had, but with little success.  She was a woman with not such an iron-clad alibi, and he had long suspected she had been at the Outtel company the night Al was supposedly murdered.

It was a sticking point with his Chief there was nobody in the room where Harry had said it was, and none had been subsequently found.  The blood found elsewhere in the building was not Al's type.

All very convenient for Al, if he was still alive, which Sykes was beginning to think was a distinct possibility, and if he was, it was possible he had killed both his brother and Brightwater.  But he needed to prove Al was still alive.

"I did.  What did Harry have to say about her?"

Felicity turned several more pages slowly scanning the notes, until the fifth page.

"Apparently she asked him to find Al's killer.  My question to her would be how did she know Al was dead?"

"Harry could have told her."

"When?  Harry dated the request after you found him at the Outtel building.  His phone records are here, and the number he had for her is not on the account for that day or the next."

"Then if what you say is correct, she had to be there with him."  Sykes stood.  "It seems I have a new prime suspect.  Does he have an address for her?"

"No."  He watched as she tore off a piece of note paper from the pad beside the manila folder and write the phone number on it.  "Perhaps this might help find her."

He picked it up.  "Thanks.  Are you going to be here for a few days?

“Yes.”

“Good.  I’ve no doubt we’ll meet again soon.”

After she had shown him out and locked the door behind her, she went back to the file and read it again.  Felicity thought it odd her brother had not put it into so many words, but it was evident from the timeline she was at the scene that night when Harry had been caught by Sykes.

His record of the interview made interesting reading.  She had not realized Harry could be so eloquent.  She also realized at the same time that Angela Morrison was not the sort of person she portrayed herself to be but was not so surprised Harry could lose his objectivity around her.

But was she a murderer, or would she help a murderer?

She had no doubt Sykes would find out.

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Episode 81 - Felicity and Sykes at the office

Sykes was not sure what to make of Felicity.

All he knew about Walthenson was that he was more of a lone wolf than he was, so he was going to treat her as suspicious until he could verify what she had told him was the truth.  He knew that Walthenson didn’t have any partners in the agency he ran, nor had he said at any time he was working with another investigator.

This Felicity might be simply fishing for information.

As for what happened to Walthenson, he was almost sure it was nothing to do with the Jones’ cases, but another case Harry had been working on.  The question he had for Harry, when Harry was up to a few questions, was why he had confided in Sykes.

Perhaps it might be time to forge a better working relationship with the private detective, even though he hated them in principal.

But it was something he needed to question Walthenson about, properly.  Aside from the statement from the homeless man who had found him which provided no details at all, he had nothing to move that case forward.

It was, according to his chief, another of his cases hovering above the cold case bin, somewhere between unsolved and unsolvable.  It seemed to be most of the cases handed to him these days as if he was expected to fail.

He'd been to Walthenson's office before and thought it rather quaint.  He took the stairs remembering the lift was out of order the last time, but noticed too late, the tape across the front announcing the fact it was still 'under repair' was missing.  Then, slightly out of breath, and likewise condition, he walked the short distance to the door slowly, then took several deep breaths before knocking.

It was a minute perhaps two before the door partially opened and he could see Felicity peering out at him.  Not necessarily the face of an investigator, but he had learned the hard way not to judge a book by its cover.

"Detective Sykes?” She said pleasantly.  “Do come in.   Excuse the mess."

The door opened further and she let him pass.

The office was certainly very messy, but not from a renovation or a cleanup but from a systematic and professional search.  Just as the janitor had reported.  And silently cursed because this woman had no doubt tampered with his crime scene.

But taking in the extent of the damage, it was clear to him that this was nothing to do with Jones, and everything to do with what happened to Harry.  Very definitely, it had to be one of his cases gone bad.

He heard the door close behind him.

He turned to look at the girl Felicity.  Yes, he thought, she was more a girl than a woman, not much older than Harry himself.  "What happened here?"  It would be interesting to hear her opinion.

"I think someone was looking for a file or information, possibly one of the cases Harry was working on, now or in the past.  If it was a common thief several valuable items would be missing but they were left behind."

He took another long look at the mess.  Quick, but thorough, in his opinion.  The purportrator was an expert focused on a single object and by the extent of the mess he or she may not have found what they were looking for, or, according to the janitor, had been interrupted.

"Any idea what they were looking for," he asked.

"Since all of the case files seemed to be about missing pets or belongings I couldn't say.  From what I can see the two Jones's cases were his first involving people, and not all that spectacular.  One brother suspected of sleeping with the office manager and the other brother accusing his brother of sleeping with his wife.  Tawdry at best, but not uncommon."

That was just about the sum of it, except both brothers were dead along with the third partner Brightwater.  And he was yet to find a true motive for the deaths, or a likely suspect who wanted all three dead, including the said wives, and staff at Outtel.

Everyone seemed to have an alibi.

But, he was still waiting for the forensic accountants reports, and had in the interim, blocked all the company’s bank accounts just in case any or all of the women involved decided to take the money and run.

It would not be the first time.

"Do you know who could have done this?" she asked.

A complicated question, one he had just asked himself.  There were several candidates, who had tossed places like this before, on his list and who would be getting a visit as soon as he was finished here.

"I can get a forensic team over here and see what we can determine, but it's unlikely we'll find anything incriminating.  I’m assuming both you and Harry’s sister Corinne have basically contaminated the whole scene."

She put on her best ‘I’m disappointed in you’ face, and said, “I can’t tell you what the other girls did while they were here, but I’ve tried to keep my participation to a minimum.”  But, she thought, it was enough to probably wreck any chance of the police forensic teams getting anything useable.

"Then perhaps I'll clean up and leave it alone.  Nothing seems to be missing.  It seems to me whoever was looking didn't find it.  There are elements of anger and annoyance here."

Was she a behavioural expert? He simply shook his head.

"Perhaps you're right.  Unless Harry calls the police and makes a formal request, I can't do anything about it.  That janitor didn’t want to pursue matters either.  Did he catch the person in here?”

“I think so.  He was in pretty bad shape when I arrived.  I didn’t touch anything and told him to call you.  I assume he did.”

“Not right away.  Had it, I might have got here before the elephants.”

She let it pass.  “Perhaps we should go into the office and talk.  It’s cleaner than out here and the chairs are more comfortable."

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Episode 80 – Sykes calls Felicity

Felicity’s cell phone rang, and it was showing no number.  An unknown caller.  She put her hand up, saying to Angela, “if you could wait a moment longer.  I’ve got to take this call.”

She then went out to the main office.

“Yes.”

“My name is Sykes.  I’ve got your name from the janitor at Walthenson’s building, says you have information about the break-in there.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be coming here?”

“Are you there now?”

“Yes.  With Corinne, the girl you met at the station.”

“And who are you exactly?”

“I am working with Harry on some of his cases.  He asked me to look in and I found the place turned over.  I told the janitor to call it in.”

“OK.  I cannot get there for another hour, so I would appreciate it if you would stay.  I would suggest you sent Corrine and her friend home.  They should not get mixed up in this.”

“Agreed.  Till then.”

Angel came out of the office.  “I have to go.  If there’s nothing more.”

“I’d appreciate your phone number so I can call you if necessary.”

“Of course.”  She found a sheet of paper and wrote the number on it.

“Now, if there’s nothing else.”

Felicity shrugged.  She wasn’t going to be able to keep Angela there.  She watched her leave, then went back into the inner office.

“Sykes is not coming.  I think you two should go home now and leave me to worry about this mess.  I’ll call you if anything breaks.”

“But...”

“Harry would not ask me to step in if he didn’t think it was necessary.  Like I said, I will keep you completely informed if anything happens.  Until then, you’ll be safe at home.”

Daisy looked pleased they were leaving and had stood, ready to go.

Corinne was reluctant, but there was nothing she could do to change Felicity’s mind.  But there was something she could do, and would.  Tomorrow.

“Fine.  Come on Daisy.  Let’s go.”

Felicity waited until they had stepped into the lift, then headed for the back stairs.  There was still the problem of that man who had been following them.

She just managed to reach the side of the building as Corinne and Daisy came out the front entrance, heading for the subway, a path that would lead them past both her and the man.  Only the man was no longer where he had been, and as hard as she looked for him, he was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps he had given up waiting for them.

Somehow she didn’t think whoever it was that had an interest in Corinne was going to give up that easily.  She just hoped Corinne wouldn’t do anything stupid.

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Episode 79 - Angela decides to give some information

Angela had put a lot of thought into everything she had learned about her father, and the lies her mother had told her, and others, to protect him.

She had always suspected him of murdering her cousin, Cathy.  He had been there that night, despite what her mother had told the police, now verified by Brightwater, though he would not be able to testify, and the last discussion she had with her mother, who virtually admitted she had no idea where he had been that night, but it certainly wasn’t with her.

Al had been nearby, but he had not come to the apartment.  She knew that to be the case because she had left the apartment when Cathy was still alive, and remained in the shadows, not because she knew Al or her father were going to visit her, but that it was someone else, someone she knew, a boyfriend who was about to become an ex.

He had not turned up.

Her father had, an eventuality that was entirely unexpected.

Both she and Cathy had assumed moving away would ensure he would not find her, but apparently, he had.

After she had seen him, waiting up the road in his car, for what reason she could not guess, she received a phone call from Brightwater, one that had insisted she meet him.  She’d tried putting him off, but he had insisted that it was important.

She’d thought at the time, Brightwater was distracting her from her vigil so her father could come and go without being seen.

In the end when she arrived at the meeting point Brightwater wasn’t there.  She waited for a brief period, then returned to find Cathy dying.  Only minutes later Brightwater walked in the door, as had been genuinely shocked, and very distressed.

She knew why now.  It was he who was Cathy’s father, not Al.

It gave Al motive.

She was not sure how Joseph Jones was able to implicate his brother, but he did, and took the heat off himself.  She’d tried to tell the police he had been abusing Cathy, but they were not interested.

She wished she had known the truth back then.

That lack of knowledge had led to what now looked like a very bad decision on her part.

Al had taken advantage of her sympathies, had helped her set up Walthenson and use him to convince the police Al was dead.  Even Angela had to admit the body had looked very dead.

All she had to do was distract Walthenson long enough for him to get away, and then remain with Walthenson to make sure he didn’t get close enough to find out the truth.

It had been easy enough to distract him.  Too easy.

But right then, sitting in front of Felicity, and Walthenson’s sister, Corinne, there were two issues that bothered her.  The first, what had happened to Walthenson, and she was hoping against hope it had nothing to do with Al, and the second, the fact she had not seen or spoken to Al since he disappeared from that storeroom the night he supposedly died.

Both Felicity and Corinne was looking at her expectantly.

Felicity was now beginning to look like a hard ass investigator who was prepared for the worst and completely opposite to her, Corinne was little more than a child, completely over her head.  The less she could tell either of them the better.

“There’s little to tell.  Al’s wife, Jennifer, asked Harry to get evidence Al was having an affair with Miriam, the office manager.  Al asked Harry, when Harry tracked him down, to get evidence of his wife Edwina, coincidentally my mother, was having an affair with Joseph, Al’s brother.  That’s how it started.

“Did he get any evidence?” Felicity asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.  Joseph Jones was murdered in the street by an unknown assailant.  Then Al Jones was allegedly killed in the Outtel offices but as yet nobody has been found.  Your brother, oddly enough was present when Joseph was killed, and after Al was killed.  Since then a man called Brightwater, the third partner in Outtel, apparently committed suicide.”

“Meaning?”

“He’s very unlucky.  He was very nearly the fourth victim in all of this, though I find it hard to believe The Jones’ had anything to do with it.  The latest development, I asked him to find Al’s killer.  Unfortunately, something else happened which put him in hospital, so I’m not sure where the case is going at the moment.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

“I have, but he was in no condition to talk about anything.  Since I’m not a family member I’ll have to wait until he gets better.  I don’t think you’ll be able to do much until he returns, and if you want a piece of advice, you’d best leave it to the police.  Sykes seems to be a good enough detective.  I’m sure he’ll find out what’s going on, in the both Jones cases and what happened to Harry.”

Corinne notice Felicity nodding, but not necessarily in agreement.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going.”  Angela stood.

© Charles Heath 2016-2019