Dead Broke: A Private Detective Crime Novel Page 3

  He jumped down from the chair in one movement. He was pretty lithe for a sixty year old.

  “Oh. That,” I said. Mateo noted down a measurement, presumably for drapes, which I had never really got around to getting. “I guess the drapes aren’t for me?”

  “They’re for real tenants. Ones that pay money. You know who would kill for a flat like this? Hipsters. The rich ones. Instead I got you and the battleaxe downstairs.”

  I attempted some humour to alleviate the situation.

  “Come on, man!” I smiled. “You love us!”

  Mateo scowled back.

  “I like rent!” he bellowed. “Two weeks! Then if no money – you’re out!”

  Mateo stormed out of the office and I slammed the door behind him. I sat back down at my desk and took out a number that Grassman had left on a piece of notepaper.

  “Looks like I’m taking the job,” I sighed. I pulled out my dependable Nokia and began to dial.

  Chapter Five

  The case began immediately. I had no other cases to tie up and Grassman had indicated that time was of the essence, so I got on the tube and headed south on the Northern line to Embankment, then on foot the rest of the way to Barnaby’s. As I ascended the station steps onto street level, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I looked at it and my heart soared. Grassman, or one of his many minions, had transferred a sum of money into my account. It was a small advance against the final bill, but necessary as the letters coming through my door from the bank were getting more red as the weeks went on. Hopefully the payment should appease my bank manager a little.

  The auction house was a grand Victorian building which was only distinguishable from its neighbours by the small black sign with gold lettering which hung outside its doors: ‘Barnabys – Est 1757’. I pushed the door open and found myself in a strangely modern reception lobby with a perky receptionist sitting at a glass desk. She wore the same skirt-suit and scarf combo that banks made their tellers wear and that air stewardesses the world over had to suffer in. She was young, attractive and Australian, ending each sentence with an upwards inflection which made it seem like she was asking a question, even when she wasn’t.

  “Hi, welcome to Barnaby’s? Can I help you?”

  “Good afternoon. My name’s Cole. I’d like to speak to the head auctioneer,” I said, flashing a business card. She glanced at it and blinked, then looked me up and down. I find that the average member of the public doesn’t come into contact with a PI much, so when confronted with the image of me, it doesn’t match up with their expectations.

  “That’s Phillip Frankland?” she inflected. “You have an appointment?”

  It was hard to tell if she was asking me or telling me, but I nodded and took a seat on the black leather seats. I didn’t have an appointment of course, but it was better to say you did and blame some hiccup in communication, by which time the person you wanted to see was bound by etiquette to at least show their face and see what you wanted. Sure enough, the Aussie receptionist looked at her computer screen for a moment or two before picking up the phone and whispering down it urgently.

  It was a minute or two before Mr Frankland came through the door and the receptionist pointed towards me. I stood and grabbed his hand before he could run off. He was wearing the white cloth gloves that auctioneers always wear when handling rare or expensive objects, or that snooker referees wear when polishing their balls (pun intended).

  “Mr, erm-”

  “Cole! Jefferson Cole. We spoke on the phone,” I lied. I flashed him a grin, all teeth and charm. “So great you could see me. Shall we take this to your office?”

  I gestured to the door he had entered through and tugged on the handshake so he had no choice but to lead me onwards. We went through a series of pokey corridors and ended up in one of the smallest offices I had seen since… well, since I had left my own that afternoon. The wall was covered with press clippings of record-breaking sales made at Barnaby’s and photos of Frankland looking pleased and standing next to an equally pleased buyer or seller. He offered to make a coffee and I accepted. While he was in the next room I looked around the walls again, noticed the damp on one surface and the folded newspaper under the desk leg. It wasn’t the lap of luxury, but I guess they only dealt in expensive objects, not hoarded them for themselves. It would usually be at this point that a less-than-reputable PI would take the opportunity to look through a filing cabinet or hack a computer, but I preferred the old-fashioned method of asking questions.

  Frankland returned and I accepted the coffee gratefully.

  “Mr Cole, I’m sorry but I don’t know what this is about?” he said. His accent was clipped, middle class but maybe originated in the home counties; Surrey, perhaps. He was in his mid-fifties, balding and thin. He wore a three-piece suit that was just a watch-chain and bowler hat away from being a Mr Banks costume from Mary Poppins.

  “The Jewelled Skull of Hangzhou,” I said.

  “Ah. I have already spoken to the police about that,” he said.

  “I have no doubt that you have, and probably an investigator from the insurance company as well. I represent another interested party.”

  “Can I ask who?”

  “You can ask, but client confidentiality means I can’t tell. My client is however using their own funds to try to ensure the safe recovery of the skull. I’m sure you’d agree that that’s the main issue here?”

  Frankland nodded and pulled off his white gloves. I noticed that, like the office, they were in need of repair, with a small hole and trailing thread in the right thumb.

  “How can I assist you?”

  “I understand the item went missing from this building?”

  “Yes, it was being moved to be photographed for our website and social media. Normally an item of such value would stay in the safe, but our publicity team wanted to capitalise on such a rare item being in London.”

  He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a few photographs. He passed them over and I saw for the first time the item in question. It was how you’d imagine; a big cat skull, the bone carefully covered in gold leaf and jewels fixed around the eye sockets and nose cavity, with a large ruby set into the forehead.

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s… that’s really...”

  To be honest, it was gaudy. It was the kind of item that was so steeped in history and legend that it took a philistine like me to point out that it looked flashy and tacky. It was the physical embodiment of the Emperor's new clothes.

  “It’s remarkable,” said Frankland. “Although, not to everyone’s taste.”

  “Oh. You saw through my act,” I said, grinning sheepishly. “I’m not well versed in the arts. I’m more of an Edward Hopper fan.”

  “Each to their own,” said Frankland. “We at Barnaby’s cater to all artistic tastes.”

  “Back to the skull though,” I said. “How did it go missing?”

  Frankland launched into the explanation he had obviously gone through many times before for other detectives. His delivery was flat, matter of fact. Any emotion had been drained from him over the many retellings.

  “I took it from the safe. We wheeled it on a trolley through to our office out the back. The light’s better there. We carefully lifted it onto a table and the photographer took his pictures. We then placed it back into its flight case and wheeled it through to the safe again. Justin, an intern here, then noticed that part of the foam surround that keeps the skull from moving about in transit had not been packed in the flight case. So we opened it up again and it wasn’t there.”

  I had been scribbling down notes, but stopped and looked up at Mr Frankland.

  “It… wasn’t there?” I asked. “Just… gone?”

  “Yes. Like a magic trick.”

  I looked over my notes. I had expected something a little less dramatic. I at least hoped a guy in a balaclava had stolen it at gunpoint. That would give me something to go on. But this?

  “You have CCTV?”

  “Yes, but in the hands of the police now of course.”

  “And the photographer?”

  “An in-house member of staff. It’s cheaper to get our own publicity people to take the shots than get a professional in. Usually they’re just taking photos of Victorian boot scrapers or Georgian writing desks, not valuable objets d'art. “

  “Right,” I said. I was grasping at straws now. There was certainly nothing I could ask that the police hadn’t asked already. “What’s the vetting process for staff here?”

  “Extensive, even for interns. A private security company does them for us. They’ve got some stupidly macho name.”

  “Sabre?”

  Frankland confirmed it. Sabre were the bulldogs of London’s private security, employing ex-SAS and the best of the best to be bodyguards to the rich and the beautiful. I didn’t have much cause to come into contact with them but I knew a few guys who worked there and their background checks were thorough. I had no cause to doubt their vetting.

  “When you auction something like this, what’s the protocol? How do you get the word out that something like the jewelled skull of Hangzhou is up for grabs?”

  “It’s a public auction, but we know the collectors who matter. We would contact them personally before the items went into our catalogue or website and they might get a private viewing before the auction if they want one.”

  Bingo. I licked my pen in anticipation.

  “Could I get the names of all those who had a private viewing?” I said. I fully expected Frankland to state that he had to maintain some sort of client confidentiality, but instead he leant back in his chair with a sigh.

  “I suppose I can tell you. They’ve already spoken to the police and their interest in the item is public knowledge. There’s not many. M
r Grassman is the main interested party. He’s a billionaire from the US but he’s in London a lot. He had a private viewing here three days before it was stolen. I’d say he was the main suspect due to his interest, but why a billionaire would need to steal something when they could buy it is beyond me.”

  I noted the name down, if only to try to convince Frankland that Grassman was not my employer. I wasn’t exactly going to interview my boss on this case.

  “Uh-huh,” I nodded. “Anyone else?”

  “A Mr Lee came by two days before the theft. He is the head of the Chinese Cultural Committee of the UK; they specialise in acquiring pieces of art and history of China and repatriating it to the motherland.”

  “And he was interested in buying it?”

  “Very much so,” said Frankland. “He said he would be going back to his office to contact donors. I believe he has a number of investors who contribute money. He, together with his band of benefactors, would have been a very tough opponent to beat at auction.”

  I wrote down the name and Frankland gave me an address for Mr Lee.

  “That’s all?” I asked.

  “That’s all,” he confirmed. I scribbled all down the names and addresses that I could and made sure Frankland had my number.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr Frankland,” I said. I stood and shook hands again, and made my way out into the street, my newly-formed cast of suspects burning a hole in my notebook.

  Chapter Six

  The majority of the night was spent researching the suspects Frankland had given me using the internet. It probably shouldn’t have taken that long, but my Luddite tenancies kept me from progressing very far until I eventually just phoned Dylan.

  “Hey!” I said, trying to sound friendly. “Long time no talk!”

  “Cole, I literally just spoke to you yesterday,” she said. I could feel the eye roll down the phone.

  “Okay, you got me. I need a little IT help. You know that job? I took it.”

  “Hoo-freaking-rah,” she dead-panned. “Now you’re into the background checks, yes?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you’re stuck on the internet?”

  “Yup,” I admitted.

  “Okay, you’re lucky I have a rare window in my social life,” Dylan joked. She was a devout stay-at-home cat lady. “But we should do this over video chat. It’ll be easier.”

  “Video chat? What is this, Bladerunner?” I laughed. “I mean, that’s not a thing, right?”

  The laptop in front of me pinged and started to emit a ringtone I’d not heard before. A window popped up and Dylan told me to click it. I obeyed, and the next thing I knew the screen was filled with her smiling, freckled face.

  “Boo,” she said, clearly enjoying my bewilderment.

  “What the-? Are you magic now?”

  Dylan tried to explain the concept of video chat but if I’m honest it went over my head like my trusty fedora. She clicked a few buttons on her end, told me what to click on mine, and suddenly she had control of my computer. The cursor was whizzing around the page like it was possessed by the devil.

  “So you’re trying to find a Mr Lee in Chinatown?” she asked. “I’ll hand it to you Cole, you know how to pick a tricky case.”

  “Not really a case of ‘picking’, more of ‘being saddled with’,” I retorted.

  After ten minutes or so, we had found the correct Lee. He indeed was the head of a group that collected and reclaimed Chinese artefacts, and had made his own way in life after emigrating to the UK in the sixties. He set up a chain of Chinese restaurants and then reinvested profits into property in the West End of London.

  “Okay, let’s see. He is the director of several companies, all legit as far as I can see,” said Dylan. “He’s got debts though. Four ex-wives and ten kids to support.”

  “Woah! Way to go, Mr Lee,” I nodded.

  “There’s more. His eldest, Ashley Lee, has been in trouble with the police after stealing diamonds from Harrods. I’m looking at an article in the Standard. They think it was an inside job. He bribed a worker there to get him in and help him get away.”

  “But he got caught?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Ashley was sentenced to ten years, served only four. He got out of Wormwood Scrubs just a year ago. Been working for daddy ever since.”

  I wrote it all down in my notebook. A year would give Ashley enough time to act the angel, convince his dad and parole officer that he was on the straight and narrow then plan his comeback heist. God knows why, but thieves can never back away from a challenge, even if the threat of more jail time is on the cards. Maybe Ashley saw the jewelled skull on his daddy’s wish list and wanted to steal it, as a nice ‘up yours’ to his father. He might have even been able to move it through his father’s contacts, the ones who claimed to care so deeply about Chinese antiquities. It was even possible that Mr Lee had no knowledge of the scheme, and his son was playing him for a sucker.

  “I guess I should pay Mr Lee a visit. Is he still in London?”

  Dylan gave out the address of Lee Holdings Ltd, and I thanked her profusely. She blushed and told me to ‘get on my bike’, which I think is a cockney expression for ‘you’re welcome’.

  *

  The dawn saw a bright, sunny day in the city, so I took the bus to Chinatown. I mostly took the underground everywhere; it had a pleasing familiarity and reminded me of the subway in New York. The great thing about London’s transport network was that a single ticket allowed you to ride the bus, tube, tram, light railway, trains and even the fancy new cable car. When the sun showed its face, I liked to grab a seat on the top deck of a red bus and watch the world go by. London gets a bad rap when it comes to the weather; sure, it’s grey and wet a lot of the time, but come spring and summer, the city comes to life and you can see why nine million people choose to call it home.

  London’s Chinatown is in the heart of the West End in an area known as Soho. Theatreland lies to the north, which blends in seamlessly with the ‘red light’ district, but nowadays it’s home to trendy new media companies. The area around Wardour Street is a hive of bright young things creating websites and movies in the day, but come night time the clubs take over and old crones lurk in doorways shouting ‘Peep show!’ and ‘Who wants to see the girls?’.

  I was bound for Leicester Square, the home to the glitzy movie premieres due to the cinemas around its circumference. I alighted at Piccadilly Circus (lamenting the loss of my teenage haunt, the huge Tower Records that used to stand overlooking the billboards), and slipped through the square to the other side. I emerged in a vibrant hub of Chinese culture. An ancient-looking, Chinese-inspired gateway marks the entrance to the area and I followed my scribbled notes and my pocket-sized A-Z road atlas to guide me to a doorway next to two restaurants. The smell of crispy duck and kung-pao chicken overwhelmed me and I suddenly realised I hadn’t had breakfast. It had been a while since I was so busy with work that I had missed a meal.

  A small brass plaque next to the nondescript door identified it as ‘Lee Holdings Ltd’, with a nifty translation into Cantonese below it. I rang the bell and announced myself over the intercom. There was some confusion as, true to my habit, I had not rung ahead for an appointment. After I had laid on some charm, the receptionist realised I wasn’t going to go away so she let me in.

  At the top of three flights of stairs, each one creaking and sticky with ripped wallpaper either side of me, I came to the office of Mr Lee.

  The receptionist was too busy chatting to a friend on the phone in Mandarin to ask me who I was, so she waved me away to the corner of the waiting room, where I browsed an Asian copy of GQ and some very out of date Readers’ Digest magazines before she eventually hung up and barked in my direction.

  “You can go in now.”

  I didn’t wait to find out if she wanted proof of who I was, so I dashed through the door to a windowless room with the smell of mildew filling my senses. I couldn’t help but feel that if Mr Lee was so rich he could probably afford a new office. This one felt like it was the one property he couldn’t rent out, so he had set up shop in it himself. I had seen police interview rooms with more style.