Dead Broke: A Private Detective Crime Novel Read online

  Mr Lee sat at an old desk which sported a typewriter and a Rolodex. I checked my watch to see if time had gone backwards. Even I was more tech-savvy than this guy.

  “Mr Lee, so glad you could see me,” I smiled. I offered a hand. He looked at it suspiciously.

  “My good-for-nothing receptionist said you were a PI. You got a license?”

  Thankfully, I did. I took it out of my wallet and passed it over. Lee was obviously used to dealing with investigators; in my experience, not many people even knew a PI needed a license. He eyed it.

  “Jefferson? You American?”

  “Half and half. I got the accent from the states, and my weird sense of humour from the UK. I’d like to speak to you about the Jewelled Skull.”

  Mr Lee visibly slumped. He was sick of discussing it too.

  “What about it? The police got a lead?”

  “Sir, you and I know that the police will let the insurance take care of this for them. A non-violent crime in this city may as well never have happened in their eyes.”

  Lee sighed and nodded.

  “They have more to deal with, I know. But the skull was worth a lot of money.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, Mr Lee, how much money are we talking about here? I mean, I know it was an auction but how much did your syndicate put aside to buy it?”

  Lee weighed up whether to tell me. He shrugged, probably thinking ‘screw it, I’ll never get my hands on the damned thing anyway’ and spoke.

  “We raised £1.4 million to buy it. We always hope never to pay that much, but that would have been our top bid.”

  I whistled, impressed, and wrote down the number. At least I could tip off Grassman how much they’d pay if the thing ever came to auction again. That way he could have the jump on Lee. I just had to find the thing first.

  “Why so much? You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve come on to this case a little blind. What’s so special about a jewelled skull?”

  Lee looked me up and down and nodded at me, indicating I should sit.

  “It’s from the same province I grew up in. You could say it has sentimental value,” he said. He pulled out a drawer in his desk and pulled out a fat Cuban cigar, the kind that cost a hundred pounds a box. He didn’t offer me one (I don’t smoke anyway and to be fair to the guy, if I had paid that much for a cigar I wouldn’t be giving them away to whoever happened to burst into my office).

  “And the monetary value?” I asked.

  “The jewels themselves are worth a large amount.”

  “And you were only going to bid on the skull in order to repatriate it to China?” I asked. “It wouldn’t be something to do with masking an investment under the guise of philanthropy? Some would say it would be a pretty shrewd move. Tax deductible, all that?”

  Mr Lee stared at me with dead eyes. I was risking being kicked out by making such an accusation. I just needed to know.

  Lee leant forwards, his face stern and hard. Then he cracked and he smiled wide, like a sideshow clown.

  “Ha haa! Very astute, Mr Cole!” he laughed. “What is it the English say? ‘You may say that; I couldn’t possibly comment!’”

  I laughed, mostly out of relief that he didn’t reach over and punch me. If he was going to use the sale of the skull to offset some cash, he wasn’t likely to steal it. His son however…

  “It’s quite the business empire you have Mr Lee,” I said, buttering him up.

  “Please, call me Stan.”

  “Stan? Your name’s Stan Lee?” I smiled.

  “It’s my English name, yes. I picked it when I arrived in London in the sixties. Why?”

  “No reason,” I said, thoughts of superheroes flying through my head. “You must have quite a lot of staff on payroll. Any who may have seen that you were bidding for the skull and decided to take it for themselves?”

  Mr Lee looked confused.

  “My workers? Never! I have a very small staff. I like to keep operations small. I grew up poor, Mr Cole. Did you?”

  “Truthfully, Stan? I did not.”

  “Oh. I respect your honesty. But growing up poor makes you thrifty. I don’t spend money where I don’t have to – that’s why I have this craphole of an office!”

  That explains that, I guess.

  “And the staff?”

  “The rental properties are all operated by contractors. Letting agencies, maintenance companies, that kind of thing. The only staff I employ are family. That useless receptionist is my niece. My cousin does the books. My son… well, I try to get my son to be involved, but he has other plans.”

  I looked down at my notepad.

  “This is… Ashley? Maybe I could speak with him?”

  Mr Lee’s face darkened again.

  “That… will not be necessary.”

  “I’m sure you understand, sir. And I’m sure the police have asked the same thing,” I said. “Can you account for your whereabouts on the night in question?”

  “Of course. I was hosting a dinner in the Lucky Star restaurant. The one downstairs,” he said.

  “And Ashley?”

  “He was with a lady friend. Her name is Samantha.”

  “The police… they had suspicions about Ashley?” I asked. I could see the old man suddenly droop, the mention of his son’s troubles weighing heavy on him. “His time in prison can’t have escaped their notice?”

  “No. But, you don’t understand. He’s a good boy,” said Lee. “He has put his past behind him.”

  “I’m sure he has,” I said. “Is there anyone else you think I should speak to about the skull?” He thought it over.

  “You should speak to Jennifer Grayling. She’s a professor at the Institute of Asian Art. If you want to know about the skull, no one knows more about it than her.”

  Lee stood and extended his hand to shake, the internationally known hint that means ‘get the hell out of my office’. I took it, but not before I had charmed the phone number of Samantha from Lee’s inept receptionist. It was time to pay her visit.

  I went back down the stairs and emerged onto the street, where the hustle of London life was in full swing. I ducked down an alleyway, out of Chinatown, and grabbed a coffee and a Danish at a little cafe, sitting on the outside tables that had been placed to give the area a more Parisian feel. In truth, it felt about as Parisian as a plastic croissant.

  I noted down what I had learned. Lee himself had a tight alibi, a restaurant filled with guests, but a man of that stature wouldn’t be committing a heist himself. He’d have people to do it for him. But as I had already noted, if he was using the procurement of the skull as a tax dodge (possibly even money laundering? I had no proof of that, and it wasn’t really any of my business) then he was unlikely to organise the hit in the first place.

  The case of Ashley Lee however…

  Ashley had the background and the daddy issues to want to steal the jewelled skull. I was sure that whoever Samantha was would vouch for him and had probably already done so to the police, but I had an obligation to follow it up.

  I finished up my breakfast and stepped out onto a side street. I had to think what my next step was; should I hit up Ashley Lee and his ‘lady friend’, or move straight on to the academic Frankland had mentioned? I was just peering at my A to Z, trying to find the nearest tube station, when I heard my name being called.

  “COLE!”

  I turned to see a black cloth bag being thrust over my head. Suddenly I felt hands force my arms behind me and push me into the back of a waiting van. There was a pain in the back of my knees where someone had kicked them and I went down hard on the metal floor of the van. I felt the tightness of a cable tie around my wrists as they were pulled tight. In the midst of all this I somehow became incensed. Who the hell kidnaps someone in Central London in broad daylight? The engine roared and the smell of diesel fumes filled the air. I was yelling, but no one was coming to my aid.

  It looked like my next step had been decided for me.

  Chapter Seven

  “You got the wrong guy!” I yelled from beneath my Guantanamo Bay-style hood. “I’m nobody!”.

  The driver swerved and I went sliding into the side of the van, hitting my head. I swore and a pair of hands pulled me upright. The vehicle travelled for a few more minutes before coming to a stop. The hood was pulled off me and I blinked at the light that was shining in my eyes. The guy in front of me was big, from what I could see. He was wearing a headlamp, the kind runners use to provide hands-free light at night, and it was burning its nine super-bright LEDs directly into my corneas. It did a good job of obscuring his face and his body was just a silhouette.

  “Jefferson Cole?” he said. His voice was British, from London. East-End? I couldn’t tell.

  “Who wants to know?” I said. “You want to find me, try calling the office next time.”

  “You’re investigating the theft of the Jewelled Skull of Hangzhou,” said Mr Brightlight. It was a statement, so I didn’t react. He appeared to be alone in the back of the van with me, but there was at least one person in the cab and maybe another. I had definitely felt two pairs of hands when they pushed me inside, and the engine was already running, so there was a minimum of three. Not great odds.

  “You got a lead you want to tell me about? I prefer anonymous emails.”

  “Our sources tell us that you have been hired by Donald Grassman and your orders are to retrieve the skull. Is this accurate?”

  The accent was definitely Estuary English, with hints of a private education. The use of the words ‘retrieve’ and ‘accurate’ smacked of prep school.

  “So what?” I said.

  “We imagine that he is trying to find the skull, act the hero and purchase it out-of-auction. I know client confidentiality prevents you from saying y
es or no but we’re not really asking a question.”

  Again, I said nothing, but he had hit the nail right on the head.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “That’s not important. We are a group of people concerned for the welfare of the jewelled skull. Not unlike Mr Lee’s syndicate,” he said. “Yes, we know about Mr Lee’s plans for the skull. What we are concerned about however, is what happens to the object once Mr Lee has his hands on it.”

  “Mr Lee?” I said. “He wants it back in China. That’s what he does, buys stuff and takes it back to its ancestral home.”

  The silhouette snorted with laughter.

  “That’s what he told you?” he said. “Mr Lee may want to take it back to China, but I very much doubt it will end up in a museum.”

  “A private collection, then. It’d be home and safe. What’s it to you?”

  The figure shifted in his seat.

  “Mr Cole,” he said. He seemed to be shaking his head with disappointment, which riled me. Only my family got to do that. “You have absolutely no idea what the jewelled skull is, do you?”

  He had me there. The so-called expert at the auction house had given me very little to go on, and Lee wasn’t exactly a chatterbox on the subject. I had figured that retrieving the skull was going to be like any other job, but maybe the nature of the skull would change the way I go about getting it back.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “The skull is sacred. It’s hundreds of years old, but it is considered a key tool in the art of the fangshi,” said the dazzler.

  “I said enlighten me, not astound me with your vocabulary,” I snapped. My head was hurting and I wanted to go home.

  “Fangshi is a kind of ancient Chinese occult magician. It translates many different ways actually; sometimes as alchemist, monk, mystic or technician. Even necromancer.”

  “You’re saying the skull belonged to a wizard?” I said. It was hard to hide the mocking tone in my voice, so I didn’t.

  “Not really. Fangshi operated around two thousand years ago, but sometime in the mid eighteen hundreds, there was a movement in China to revive them and the occult arts. They took what they could from the ancient texts and then invented their own system around it.”

  “And a jewelled tiger skull was one of their relics,” I surmised.

  “Not ‘one of’ - the main one. It was believed the skull harnessed the energy from the earth and gave life to the Fangshi’s potions and spells. We believe that the Lee syndicate have been trying to buy the skull in order to reunite it with the modern day fangshi.”

  I wriggled around and sat down a little more comfortably.

  “Out of the goodness of their hearts?” I chanced.

  “In exchange for good fortune,” he said. “They want money, power – all the usual bad guy stuff.”

  It was a lot to take in. An hour ago I had been on a case for a spoiled, rich old man and now I was battling the forces of darkness.

  “You believe all this?” I asked.

  “I believe they believe it. Our group however is only interested in the historical value of the skull. It belongs in a museum.”

  “You know I don’t have it, right? I’m way off finding it yet.”

  He nodded.

  “We wanted to talk to you so you had a fuller picture. You have a right to know what you are getting yourself into.”

  “And what do you want? You want me to back off?” I asked. “’Cos you’re going to need to pay a hell of a lot more than Grassman for me to walk away from this.”

  The man actually laughed.

  “No, please continue your case. All we ask is that if you find the skull, you let us know. We will get it into the hands of a museum.”

  I had a hundred questions spinning around my mind but it would seem that those questions would have to wait. The interview was over. The man produced a Stanley knife from his pocket and pushed the blade up.

  “Wait, what?” I said, my voice raised in panic. “I’m not gonna expose you!”

  “Relax,” said the man. He came close and reached behind me. He cut through the cable ties quickly and backed off. In the second he was next to me I could smell tobacco and sandalwood on him. “Apologies for the theatrics. I wanted to make sure we had your full attention.”

  “You never heard of buying a guy a drink before you lure him into your van?”

  The man bashed on the side door of the van and the handle turned. The door slid open and I was hauled outside. I blinked into the light of the day and looked around but the door was already closed and the van’s wheels spun as it made a quick getaway. I had been dumped somewhere in the Docklands area, with shiny new buildings next to barren spaces once a hive of industry in Victorian times. I bushed myself off and rubbed my wrists where the cable ties had cut into them.

  “Looks like this case just got interesting,” I said to myself, before setting off to find the nearest bus stop.

  Chapter Eight.

  I got the bus to Islington and paused at a coffee shop where I had three espressos to steady my nerves. I was fine, and it certainly wasn’t the first time I had been jumped by a few guys (as a PI, you tend to hang around a lot with a camera and a telephoto lens. I had on more than one occasion been mistaken for a peeping tom and been grabbed by a neighbourhood watch patrol, or worse, a gang of drunken vigilantes). Being thrown in the back of a van tended to spike the old adrenalin, so I needed to calm myself. Perversely, I found the best way was to fight fire with fire, or in this case, adrenalin with caffeine. In any normal circumstances I would have gone home and had a lie down, but these weren’t normal circumstances. My only paying customer wanted his freaky jewelled skull back post-haste, and I couldn’t afford to lose the job.

  So I downed my coffee, chowed down on a toasted sandwich and walked the last few roads to the leafy avenue where Samantha Vaughan lived.

  The house was a typical North London Edwardian mansion. Many of the neighbouring houses had, over the years, been split up into flats. The developers had taken one look at the four storey house and decided that it could comfortably be divided into four dwellings, then gone ahead and converted it into eight or ten. The house I walked up to was different however; whereas the other doors had a bank of doorbells or flashy video intercoms on the door frame, Samantha Vaughan’s house had just one. I rang it.

  I waited a moment, and then saw a pixelated figure approach through the stained glass front door. It opened and a young, very attractive woman stood before me.

  “Miss Vaughan? I’m Jefferson Cole. We spoke on the phone?”

  This time I really had phoned ahead from the bus. I needed to confirm the alibi of Ashley Lee and so had called the number Mr Lee’s assistant had unwisely given me. I didn’t want to go home without this box ticked and as I only had a number, I had to call to get the address.

  “The detective? Yes, how exciting!” said Miss Vaughan. “Come in.”

  I followed her through an entrance hallway that could have easily housed my entire office and apartment, with room leftover. Samantha Vaughan was young, white, slim and bohemian. In her early twenties, she gave off an art school vibe in her t-shirt, dungarees and bare feet, her sandy blond hair tied up in a bun, with bangs trailing down her face. Light blue, piercing eyes shined as she led me through the house, which as I had suspected had remained intact and not been divided up for profit.

  “Can I get you anything? Coffee?” she offered.

  “No, thanks. I’ve just come from the cafe in the high street,” I said. “Nice place.”

  “I like it. It belonged to my nana. She bought it in the fifties and stayed here until her dying day.”

  “Must be worth a packet. The property prices in this area are ridiculous.”

  “Mmm. Nana always used to say the world was growing around her, while this place remained a calm island in a sea of insanity.”

  “Wise lady,” I said. She offered more beverages (my stomach was still struggling to cope with the espressos so I refused) and offered me a seat in the kitchen. It was a new, TV cookery-show-ready kitchen with an aga and a breakfast bar. The whole house just dripped with money. I sat at the stool on the breakfast bar while she turned on the kettle and filled a cafetière with a richly roasted blend.