Dead Set: A Private Detective Crime Novel (A Jefferson Cole Investigation Book 2) Read online

  DEAD SET

  A Jefferson Cole Investigation

  by DM James

  © DJ Metcalf

  Released by Scribe Books

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Before We Begin...

  Welcome to the world of Jefferson Cole.

  For more information on stories by DM James, click this link to sign up to his email newsletter where you’ll get updates on the latest releases, behind-the-scenes action and get access to DEAD BEAT, a free Jefferson Cole short story.

  The Jefferson Cole Investigations

  0 – Dead Beat (a FREE short story available here)

  1 – Dead Broke

  2 – Dead Set

  About the Author

  DM James is the crime-writing alias of writer Dan Metcalf. After years of writing for children, Dan decided to turn to crime (in literary terms only) and hasn’t looked back. DM James now lives in his mind part-time, smoking roll-ups and gambling away his royalties. Both Dan and DM live in the south-west of England and struggle with a crippling addiction to biscuits.

  Find him at http://danmetcalf.co.uk/dmjames

  Chapter One

  “Cole.”

  I had been dreaming. That in itself was a novelty, usually I just pass out at night into a black chasm of nothingness. Dreams, when they come, are usually nightmares, or my mind replaying every stressful and awkward interaction I’ve ever had – first day at school, first breakup, even that time the waiter said ‘Have a nice meal’, and I said ‘You too’.

  But this dream was different. I had been dreaming of a desert island with white sandy beaches and a topaz blue sky. I walked along the shoreline barefoot, my toes caressing the soft sand, my hand holding someone else’s. But whose? The smooth skin felt good to touch. I looked to see who it was and saw a woman of thirty or so, with black curly hair and a sexy gap in her front teeth. I looked into her brown eyes. Becky?

  “Cole!”

  The island began to quake and fall around me. The waves crashed onto the shore. The sky cracked and shattered. My hand slipped from hers. She backed away from me, her face becoming a blur. I called after her, screaming for her to stay.

  “COLE!”

  I woke up with a start, thankfully in my own bed. Not a desert island, but a small apartment/office somewhere in Camden Town, London. A face loomed above me, all freckles and wild red hair.

  “Cole! Wake up, you doughnut!”

  Dylan, my assistant and chief tormentor, punched me on the arm.

  “Hey!” I groaned. “Where’s the fire?”

  “I’ll light a fire under you if you don’t get up, pronto,” Dylan muttered. Our employer/employee relationship was a loose arrangement, especially where the ‘respect for your boss’ part was concerned. She was more like a buddy, or a niece who sometimes worked for me, or a wild and untamed house pet. “You’re wanted.”

  I insisted she leave the room while I got up and dressed, even though I had ‘nothing she ain’t seen before’. I pulled on a shirt and pants, sprayed myself liberally with deoderant, and joined her in what was supposed to be my lounge. It had long ago been cleared out to become my office with two desks, three chairs and a pot plant called Harold. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement but a few years on, we’re still here. London office rents are ridiculously high, and I didn’t like to part with cash if I didn’t need to. The domestic/professional set-up suited us fine for now.

  I held a hand up to stop Dylan talking at me until I had poured myself a coffee from the pot. I sipped the strong black liquid – it was as cold as a corpse, but I didn’t care.

  “I’m wanted?” I said. “That seems unlikely.”

  “Why do you say that? Is your self esteem that low?”

  I sat at my desk, ignoring the mounds of paperwork.

  “Don’t psychoanalyse me, not this early in the morning. No, just because as you know, I now work exclusively for Grassman, and he’s currently in France. I have at least a day’s respite before he decides to fly over the channel and give me another wild goose chase of a case to follow.”

  I put my feet up on the desk, but they were batted away immediately by Dylan.

  “It’s not Grassman. Your skills are required elsewhere.”

  I didn’t like the way she was grinning like a snake about to lunge for its prey. She delighted in winding me up, insulting me and generally making my life a living hell, all the while insisting that it is ‘Just banter, Cole. Lighten up!’. If she was looking so smug then it meant that I was about to be put in a large amount of discomfort.

  *

  “It’s my Keith, Mr Cole! You’ve got to help!”

  Mrs Croker was the old lady who lived in the apartment below mine. We lived in a converted London town house and she was at street level – she hadn’t come upstairs to me directly due to her ‘tricky hip’, but had instead called Dylan. She had been born in the Blitz and lived in the area all her life. I had no idea who Keith was.

  “Keith? Is that your son? He’s missing?” She was so distraught that I had to assume that a family member had been abducted, or worse.

  “Son? No!” she said, dabbing her eyes with a lavender scented handkerchief. “He’s my cat!”

  I blinked.

  “Mrs Croker, you don’t have a cat,” I said.

  “Well, he’s not mine exactly, but I feed him, and he comes inside my flat sometimes,” she said.

  “So what I'm hearing is that Keith,” I said slowly, “is not your cat. He’s just a cat. And he’s missing.”

  Mrs Croker listened patiently.

  “Nope, not missing! He’s up there...”

  She looked up, and I followed her eyeline. Up and up and up…

  Perched precariously on the guttering of our three-storey high building was a mangy-looking tabby cat. He looked fat, like Mrs Croker wasn’t the only one in the neighbourhood feeding him.

  “How did he get up there?”

  “Chasing pigeons, I reckon,” said Mrs Croker. “Are you going to get him, then?”

  “ME?” I said, far too loud and high-pitched. “Why me?”

  “I can’t, can I? Not with my hip,” she said. “I tried the fire brigade. They don’t do cats, apparently. Not anymore. Something about insurance and wasting tax payer’s money.”

  I looked over to Dylan, who avoided my eye.

  “I’m not going up there. Besides, I measured it out. I’m short. You’re tall,” she said, her arms firmly folded across her chest.

  “I’m not three storeys tall!” I complained.

  “I didn’t mean that!” said Dylan with an eye-roll. “There’s a hatch in the roof. All you have to do is go up there, open it, and reach out to grab Keith. I’ll never reach with my stubby little arms.”

  I was about to argue, but reminded myself that these two women were ferocious Londoners and would easily take me in a fight. I sighed, headed inside, and began to climb the staircase to the roof.

  The attic was a mess of old pieces of furniture and boxes, put in storage there by the inhabitants of the building over decades and never claimed once they moved out. I used a tiny but powerful Maglite pen-torch to find the hatch. I prized it open.

  Despite being from New York, the city of skyscrapers, I’ve never had a good head for heights. In fact, I hate them. I used to take the bottom bunk on school trips in case I got a nosebleed. Once, in an attempt to appear cool, I followed a girl I
liked up to the whispering gallery in St Paul’s Cathedral, where I got dizzy and had to crawl back down to ground level on my hands and knees. So when I opened the hatch onto the roof and gazed down to the street below to see Dylan and Mrs Croker looking back up at me expectantly, I don’t mind telling you that I darn near soiled myself.

  “Can you see him?” called Dylan.

  “Oh, dear lord...” I muttered. “Yeah! He’s here!”

  Sat in the drainpipe with a round belly and feathers around his mouth was the famous Keith.

  “Looks like he caught that pigeon!” I shouted. Then, to the cat: “I hope it was worth it, buddy.”

  My stomach swam and my head felt light as a balloon as it tried to cope with the information it was processing. I looked up at the sky and across at the opposite roof, trying to ignore the thirty-foot drop beneath me.

  “Here boy,” I said through gritted teeth. I stuck my arms out, but the fat feline was not in reach. Dylan had miscalculated. Or lied. Probably the latter. “I can’t get him!”

  “Get closer! Stand on something!” shouted Dylan.

  “I’ll stand on you in a second...” I grumbled.

  I found a sturdy box in the attic and placed it near the hatch. I stood on it and leant out. My body, balance and common sense was telling me to get back inside. Keith was not co-operating, just sitting in the drainpipe with the leaves and detritus and occasionally growling whenever I managed to get close to him.

  “Come on...” I growled back.

  Below, a small crowd had gathered, which wasn’t doing anything for my anxiety. They were looking and pointing, Mrs Croker explaining just what exactly the stupid Yank was doing on the roof.

  “You going to take all day up there, or what?” yelled Dylan.

  “You wanna try this?” I yelled back, but at that moment I moved an inch too far forward and my body swung like a see-saw. My chest met the tile of the roof and I slid down head first. I let out an undignified scream as my face hit the drainpipe and the crowd below shrieked. I grabbed the gutter with an out-stretched hand and stopped myself from sliding over the edge.

  “COLE!”

  I somehow smiled down to the crowd to let them know I was fine, when in fact I was very far from fine. My fear of heights was actually the least of my problems; the biggest was trying not to fall to my death.

  Keith chose this point to sit up, yawn, stretch and climb over me, jumping happily back through the hatch I was dangling from.

  “You furry little...”

  My concentration slipped and I slid down a few more inches, so my head was now over the edge of the roof, face down and staring at the pavement below. My vision blurred and I felt like I had just had ten shots of tequila, which was strange because normally I’m a whiskey guy. The crowd suddenly realised that despite my care-free smile, I was in deep trouble.

  “S’okay!” I lied. “I’m all good…”

  This would be the time when anyone else would say that their life had flashed before their eyes. Not me. The only thing I saw was the face of my dream. My love. My Becky. She was smiling, laughing and running on the sand. Not the dream island beach with white sands, but a real one, down in Brighton. We had spent a weekend there once, before…

  “Wotcha!” came a yell from behind me. I felt a tug on my ankles and I was yanked back into the attic like I was a rag doll. I caught my breath, stood and looked at my saviour.

  “Anton?”

  “Looked like you needed a hand, Mr Cole,” he said with a grin. “There are easier ways to kill yourself, y’know.”

  Anton walked my back down the stairs. He was the neighbourhood dope dealer, but he had a heart of gold. More than once I had relied on his criminal contacts to get to someone who did not want to be found. I opened the door into my office and sat down. Anton stayed with me until Dylan appeared with Mrs Croker.

  “You okay?” Dylan asked. The phone began to ring.

  “Fine,” I said. But do me a favour, will you? Answer that. It might be someone asking me to go and track down a violent killer. And you know what? It’d be safer than sticking around here...”

  Chapter Two

  “Drink up,” ordered Dylan. “It’ll help with the shock.”

  I sat on my sofa, holding a milky cup of sweet tea. Mrs Croker insisted I have it. She cured everything with a cup of tea. Just been dumped? Have a tea. Car stolen? She’ll have the kettle on in two shakes. Nearly fallen to your death after trying to save the life of a furry bag of fleas? That’ll need a piping hot brew with two sugars. I hadn’t the heart to tell her I was more of a coffee guy.

  Dylan was making sure I wasn’t suffering from shell shock or whatever while Mrs Croker had to go and feed Keith. Anton had disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared. I made a mental note to thank him and get him… what do you get a kind-hearted, low level gangster? Flowers? Chocolates?

  “I’m fine, really,” I protested as Dylan put a blanket around my shoulders like I was in the First World War.

  “No, you’re not. I saw you when you came down. Your face had turned whiter than mine.” Dylan said, showing off her red-headed alabaster complexion. “I know you’re not great with heights, but you’ve been acting weird for the last few days. What’s up?”

  It was clear that she wasn’t going to give in, so I sipped my insipidly sweet beverage and confessed.

  “It’s the anniversary. Five years since… y’know. Becky disappeared.”

  “Oh. Blimey Cole, you should have said something,” said Dylan. She put a supportive hand on my shoulder. When it was clear that she felt far too supportive and caring, she punched me on the arm and finished it off with “You idiot!”

  “What good would it do?” I said. “Brooding won’t bring her back.”

  I knew full well that I was brooding already. I wasn’t a big sharer of feelings, so talking to Dylan was tricky. She was completely trustworthy, it was just that the words clogged in my throat. I’m half-American, so I should feel fine in a psychiatrist’s chair scenario. My British half was applying the stiff upper lip.

  “You’ve searched and searched, Cole. You’ve done everything you can. The police can’t find her, no one can. You’ve said it yourself, you can’t-” She stopped herself.

  “Go on. You can say it.”

  “You can’t find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

  “But isn’t that what I do? I’m a private eye. I find crooks and hustlers all the time.”

  Dylan snorted with laughter.

  “Okay, firstly, crooks and hustlers? This ain’t the 1920s Cole! And secondly, You’re forgetting one major thing: Becky was smarter than you. Like, a lot smarter.”

  I would protest, but she was right. Becky could have done anything but she had worked in the UK Government doing stuff I couldn’t even get my head around. Trade, taxation levies, embargo shipments; these were all words I had heard her use and I had nodded along like the village idiot. She was so far above me intellectually it was like Marie Curie dating a professional wrestler.

  One thing that proved that she was smart was that sometime after I had asked her to marry me, she had left. Actually, ‘left’ sounds like she took her time and said goodbye. Becky disappeared. She skipped town, left her stuff, her flat in Chelsea and her clothes. Even her passport. The police tried to find her, but with no sign of a struggle they assumed she had fled. Not before I was interrogated first, of course. I don’t blame the police, they were just doing their job. The first person to suspect in a missing persons case is the boyfriend. I knew that. I was only let go when they realised I knew diddly squat. The fact that I had reported her missing stood in my favour, as did a testimony from a friend on the force, Detective Sargeant Sindhu Mercury – known affectionately as Freddie.

  Where had the five years gone? More to the point, where had Becky gone? I put out feelers all the time, constantly asking contacts if they had seen her. But five years on, I was fresh out of leads.

  “Cole. Don’t blame yourself. Be
cky must have had her reasons to leave. The only thing you have to do is try to come to terms with the fact that you may never know what those reasons are.”

  I nodded and sipped at my tea.

  “Ugh, no I can’t drink any more. Can I exchange this for a scotch?”

  “I’m your assistant, not your bartender. Get it yourself.”

  “Am I better now, then? Can I take this blanket off?” I said, taking it off anyway. “Who was that on the phone earlier?”

  Dylan checked her notepad.

  “Lost dog case. I told them you were busy. Plus, I thought you’d had enough of animals. You can’t take any cases anyway. Grassman’s exclusive contract means you’re his little toy forever.”

  The email notification on Dylan’s laptop pinged.

  “Grassman? Speak of the devil. How does he do that?” she said. She cast her eyes over the email. “He wants to meet.”

  “Schedule an appointment. I need some shut-eye,” I said, standing and walking to my bedroom.

  “No, Cole, he wants to meet. Now. He’s sent a car.” Dylan was interrupted by the sound of our door buzzer. “And there it is.”

  I sighed and grabbed my coat and hat. No rest for the wicked.

  Chapter Three

  The car (Mercedes, leather seats, worth more than my apartment) took me from outside my own front door on an hour-long ride to London City Airport. I had never been there before, as it rarely caters for the package holiday tourist or long-haul flyer. Instead, it makes a cool buck from transporting the rich from country to country. It has several hangars for private jets and easy access to the places such clientele would want in the capital; Mayfair, Westminster and the Banking District.

  The chauffeur wasn’t the most talkative of fellows. He stared straight ahead, followed the sat-nav and played classical music all the way there. It was kinda nice, actually. Like a moving monastery, but with comfier upholstery.