Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

Michael Donovan was born in Yorkshire but brought up in Lancashire where he still lives. A consultant engineer, this is his first work of fiction.

First Published 2013 by Moth Publishing an imprint of Business Education Publishers Limited.

Paperback ISBN 978 1 901888 89 8

Ebook ISBN 978 1 901888 93 5

Copyright © Michael Donovan 2013

The moral right of Michael Donovan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Except in the case of historical fact, the names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover design by
courage
.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Martins the Printers Ltd.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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For Odette

siyempre

I was sifting paperwork one Monday morning, frozen by the northerly that leaked through my office window along with the racket of Westway traffic and commuter trains slowing into Paddington. My electric 2-bar was toasting my feet but making no impression elsewhere in the room, and the cold conspired with the distractions of a weekend's memories to impede concentration. I'd begun to sense a long day looming. Then my intercom kicked into life with an explosion of static that snapped me back to reality with the more immediate prospect of a cardiac.

The intercom is an eighties-vintage Motorola I'd picked up on Camden Market. It had come with some kind of short-circuit that blasted out static that drowned messages to the untrained ear. The thing was mostly used for coffee and sandwich orders. I'd had coffee and it was early for lunch so I figured that something was up.

Lucy waited a moment then repeated my name.

‘Mr Flynn. Are you available?'

As if she hadn't watched me go into my office twenty minutes back with nothing more than a cup of coffee and a hazy expression. I grinned; it wasn't the pointlessness of the question it was the way Lucy could “Mr Flynn” me so you'd never imagine that the two of us had a history steamier than a Chinese laundry. The history was very old history but something still sparked. Lucy hung on to the desire to mother me even after she'd wrecked my life by ditching me. I put it down to guilt.

I had my Herman Miller chair tilted back at an awkward angle for business. I had to strain my abs to get my mouth to the intercom.

‘What's up, Lucy?'

‘There's a visitor to see you.'

‘What visitor?'

‘A Miss Bannister.'

‘Do we have an appointment?'

‘No.'

That tallied with my memory. We usually see clients by appointment only but I sensed an excuse to defer paperwork. ‘How are we fixed?' I asked.

You'd barely notice the pause as Lucy offered to check my diary. Behind the static I heard the sound of blank pages turning.

‘You're free, Mr Flynn.'

That tallied too. My excuse was on. I told Lucy to show our guest in and tilted myself upright, pushing a mess of paperwork aside.

Our visitor came through and stopped just inside the door. Lucy followed her in and I knew immediately that she was there to see my reaction. But I can be good at not reacting. My smile barely wavered. Lucy finally got the message and backed out, closing the door. My visitor still didn't move. Maybe it was the look that had replaced my smile. I needed to work on that customer-relations thing.

The girl was a kid. Six stones of nervous energy in pink Fred Perry trainers, trying to look adult and failing somewhere around the five-foot mark. Her face, behind a spiderwork of mascara, was something you might call sultry in a few years. Right now it just looked nervous. It was framed in a halo of streaked hair that looked like it had been through a mangler but had probably cost upwards of a hundred quid in Knightsbridge. The agency gets its share of odd callers but this kid was right out there. For a moment the thing threw me.

We could have stood gawping at each other all morning. But then a crackle on my desk distracted me and told me that someone was listening. I held up an apologetic finger and leaned across to kill the intercom. You do this by pulling out the mains lead. Then I looked up to see if I'd been dreaming.

No such luck. The kid was still there.

Her clothes had an agenda. Square-cut jeans slung low enough to give a peek of turquoise panties cinched into puppy fat below her navel. Up top a wash-shrunken red cami sported a logo of shattered letters that made you look where you shouldn't. The letters said
Come to Mamma
.

Mamma was fifteen. Or twelve. I couldn't say. The only certain thing was that she'd come in the wrong door. Eagle Eye was a detective agency. The girl looked like she wanted a nursery. I rebuilt my smile with a discouraging firmness and stood up.

‘This is rather a surprise,' I said. ‘Are you lost, young lady?'

Apparently she was. For the moment the girl's nerve seemed to have deserted her. Her eyes flicked around the office a couple of times before she drew in a breath and spoke.

‘This isn't a detective agency?' she said.

I looked at her and held my smile. Asked what she meant.

Her eyes replied for her. She gave the place another gander. Instinctively I turned and gave the room the once-over myself. My office was not much but if I hadn't known about the dirty windows and the damp ceiling I wouldn't have noticed. When I looked back the girl was watching me. I turned my smile up and answered her question.

‘Yes, we are a detective agency. Since you ask.'

Her face stayed dubious. She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Yellow Pages said you were...' her eyebrows sought help, ‘you know...'

I raised my own eyebrows.

‘...a real agency?' she suggested.

‘Real?'

‘With detectives? Like the police?'

‘We are,' I said. ‘Ex-Metropolitan.'

Her confidence didn't seem to improve with the information. She was still looking at me like I was kidding her.

I checked the room again. Exaggerated my inspection. When I looked closer I could see that a few things needed fixing. More than a few. But nothing that said I should be listening to a snot-nosed kid critique the place. I turned back and opened my palms.

‘This is us, young lady. We're happy with it.'

She still looked at me like I was kidding. Then she started to get bolder.

‘Are the other agencies the same?' she asked.

‘The same?'

Her eyes took another tour, expressing what it was the other agencies might be the same as. Again my eyes followed. The two of us had an act. I checked more carefully this time. Maybe I'd missed something. Maybe the wallpaper had restuck itself or the ceiling patch had dried. Maybe the dead potted plant had blossomed. But everything was normal. Kind of messy. I turned back.

‘Yes, the other agencies are the same.' I grinned: ‘But we've got the best detectives. That's why we're successful.'

‘Successful?'

Charm was suddenly becoming a chore. I was still trying to guess what the hell had brought the kid in here but my main focus was on trying to figure why I was being suckered into idle chit-chat when I had work to do. I decided to move things along a little.

‘What's your first name, young lady?' I asked.

‘Sadie.' She stepped forward and held out a hand with phoney boldness.

I took it. It was the size of a doll's with half the grip. I held it gently and gave her my best advice.

‘Sadie,' I said, ‘you need to leave.'

She dropped my hand like it was greased. Got no resistance.

I stooped for the intercom lead to call Lucy back in. But the girl wasn't finished yet.

‘Are you always this rude to clients?' she asked.

I turned. ‘Sadie' I said, ‘you're not a client. But if you were I'd be very polite indeed.'

She looked at me. Shook her head.

‘Jesus Christ!' she said. ‘I bet you're not real detectives at all.'

I kept my mouth shut as I reconnected the intercom. If the kid was trying to provoke me it wasn't going to work. Our short discussion was over. Any transient interest I might have had in what had brought her in here had evaporated. All that mattered was getting her back out.

The “real detectives” stuff stung though. I had a nasty idea. I went round to dig one of George Giannetti's business cards from my drawer. Giannetti was a detective in the sense that Jack the Ripper was a consultant surgeon. He operated out of a sub-let basement under an adult shop near Marylebone Station and took anything that fell through the cracks in the floor. Giannetti worked both sides of the line. Good guys, bad guys, he bled them all. I'd picked up a couple of his cards from the phone-boxes where he snared his less salubrious clients. His office was only a dozen blocks away. Sadie could be there in half an hour and it happened that I had an axe to grind with George. The girl wanted a real detective? Let her go mess up Giannetti's day! I dug through the chaos in my roll-top, but the girl wasn't waiting. Apparently she'd moved three laps ahead because suddenly she let me in on her decision.

‘Okay,' she said. ‘I'll hire you.'

That stopped me. I turned to look at her. Six years of Eagle Eye polishing its reputation, and finally our million-dollar client had arrived. I'd have to get Lucy to pull the champagne.

I didn't ask the girl about the “Jesus Christ” and the “not real detectives” stuff she'd been spouting thirty seconds back. Maybe that was just setting us up for a discount.

What I did was give her my brightest smile and wait for polite words to come. Sadie smiled back. Sultry changed to pretty. Even if her nose was pointy and her lips a little thin I knew that she was her mother's pride and joy. The kid had charm. What could I say?

‘Young lady,' I said, ‘you're out of your tiny skull.'

The smile vanished. Sultry came back. The girl had a range.

‘What do you mean?' she asked.

‘Crazy! Loco!' I did an act.

She stayed quiet for a second.

‘Is there a problem?'

‘A problem? Yes, there is a problem. The problem is that our clients are adults. Commissions are expensive. Like buying a house. We don't work with children. That's the problem.'

Must be something I said. Her mascara locked into a smouldering stare. She spoke slowly so that she didn't lose me.

‘I'm not a child,' she said. Her eyes could have shattered diamond. ‘And I know I have to pay. But hiring someone to snoop around is not like buying a house. All I want is someone to check on a friend of mine. I can pay. Just...don't try ripping me off.'

That was reasonable. Business acumen I could respect. What I couldn't respect was the snooping bit. Eagle Eye's surveillance methods are the best in the business. Even if we're sometimes sneaky that doesn't mean we snoop. I stayed with the specifics though.

‘How are you going to pay?' I said.

She sighed, as if talking to pedantic fools dragged her day down.

‘I've got a savings account,' she said. ‘I can withdraw anytime.'

I laughed. ‘Sadie,' I said, ‘you'd better leave now.'

I figured the kid had wasted enough of my time. I wasn't interested in whatever crazy notion she'd brought up the stairs to Eagle Eye's door. Babysitting kids didn't pay our rent. And this kid was out on her backside. As of now. She was almost turning to go but suddenly she looked around the room again and puffed out a disdainful laugh. ‘Fine,' she sneered, ‘I guess you're too busy.'

Now we were getting cheeky. I'd have to ask Shaughnessy if we were too busy. I wouldn't mention the snooping bit though. The guy had feelings. But Miss Cutie Pants was still chipping away.

‘Are you really a detective or not?' she said.

She looked like she knew the answer but I went ahead anyway.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I'm what's called a private detective. A rather busy one, actually. Also – to repeat – our firm only deals with adults.'

‘I'm seventeen,' she said. ‘I am an adult.'

‘Not by law,' I said. ‘And you don't look seventeen.'

She rolled her eyes: ‘Since when can an old guy tell anyone's age?'

‘Old?' I rolled my own eyes. ‘I'm thirty-eight, but I guess to you “old” is any boy with his own shaving kit.'

Witty. Not as witty as the way she lifted the side of her mouth. Words don't compete with the disdainful facials these teenaged girls dig out. The face told me everything she wanted to say.

‘Thirty-eight,' I repeated, ‘is not old. And seventeen is not adult. I'm sorry Sadie, this agency doesn't work for kids.'

My words finally seemed to get through. Her face dropped like the barometer on my office wall. ‘That's the way it is,' I said gently. ‘If you need investigation services you have to come here with an adult.'

Wrong words again. The barometer rebounded.

‘There is an adult!' Her eyes took on a pleading look. ‘She'll back me up!'

I knew before I opened my mouth again that this was a conversation I didn't want to have. Whatever was in this kid's mixed-up mind was nothing that could possibly interest Eagle Eye. Despite appearances, the firm actually was busy. I had work to do. Work that didn't include nattering to kids who happened to barge in off the street. I knew all this but I took the bait anyway.

‘Back you up about what?' I asked.

‘About my friend. She's disappeared.'

I smiled condescendingly. ‘Disappeared? Since when?'

‘Since a week ago.'

Finally I saw a look in the girl's face that passed for adult. It was fear.

I dropped my smile. Breathed a sigh, aware that I was wasting time on something of no possible interest to Eagle Eye. But there's an instinct all investigators share: the lure of the curious. We're like collectors rummaging through the shadowy corners of a bric-a-brac shop: we just can't resist intrigue when it pops up. I hesitated a moment then swung one of my club chairs around to face the other and told the girl to sit down. What was I? The Ghoul? All she needed was a quick heart-to-heart then I could feel good when I booted her out. She took my invitation and sat but kept most of her weight on her toes like she was watching for a bad move. I sat on the arm of the other chair and tried to look like I wasn't a bad-move kind of guy. Then I got involved in something I should never have touched.