Читать книгу A Better Tomorrow - D. C. Dalby - Страница 3

Hazel Louise Vernon pulled off the road and into the Orient Hotel car park.

The Orient had happily traded off a fame, or possibly, notoriety, acquired in the 1930s. When it was the scene of a murder. The subsequent owners had the sense to play on this, and the ghost stories that, inevitably, accompanied such things.

Hazel Vernon wasn’t one for ghost stories. The city was riddled with them. Ghostly Roman legions, Vikings, Victorian chambermaids and the like. But she had to admit they were good for the tourist trade.

She parked up next to a stubby blue city car. The advent of hydrogen powered vehicles had made pretty much every vehicle environmentally friendly, but there were some who preferred the little cars.

Hazel’s Freelander sprouted antennae that marked it out as a police vehicle. But she automatically dropped the sun visor with the blue and white POLICE logo on the underside and unfolded from the car.

Hazel was tall, 1.8 metres high, even without her solid footwear. She wore black. Loose fitting black jeans. A dark blue round neck sweater. A gilet which contained a lot of the items she needed for her work, and, over this, a long black coat with a high collar and red lining. Her hair was long and worn in a French plait. Her eyes were the colour of her name, and looked slightly magnified behind her spectacles. She was angular and carried more muscle than most women. The wide “utility” belt around her waist held more tools of her trade. Radio, phone, taser, baton, handcuffs. Mace spray and, in the discreet plastic holster, her 9mm Sestra police pistol with a spare clip of ammunition.

Hazel Vernon was 34 years old, a sergeant in the Caneston CID Crime Squad and she was calling on a very worried man.

Why Sid Fuller was worried she wasn’t entirely certain. Not only was there the early phone call this morning. She had arrived at the police station as normal to find a message for her in her official email. Sid Fuller had emailed her last night, he was worried or concerned About something or someone, he hadn’t been clear. Though, given what Hazel knew of him, Sid would have an angry husband to worry about….or several.

He was a photographer, at least that was the occupation he put on his passport. Sid ran a seedy little studio just off Nelson Street, West of the river. Hazel first met him some years ago when she was a detective constable on the vice squad. Not her best career move, but she learned a lot very quickly.

She hurried up the steps to the hotel. Sid would be in his mid to late forties now, she supposed. He’d always been a good looking man, if the pictures in his record were anything to go by. And he was, so far as Hazel’s limited knowledge went, a very good photographer. But he liked the ladies rather a lot. They really liked him too, which made everyone happy. For a while at least.

Sid wasn’t a bad man, in fact he was pretty useful. He met many people, a lot of them worse than he was, far worse. For a consideration he’d be more than happy to tell Hazel all about them.

Sid had been, for some years, a very good informer. The information he gave always paid out and he always kept a low profile. Hazel kind of liked him, in a vague sort of way. Sid was, generally, harmless, and if you ignored his liking for women, he was a decent sort.

He seemed to treat his women well too, married or otherwise, so Hazel didn’t bother too much about what he did. He had kept in touch with a few things after she left vice, but on the whole their contact had diminished considerably.

Now came this email.

Come quick, please. I need help, and can only trust you. I’m at the Orient Park Hotel. I have trouble.

It wasn’t exactly a mass of clues. Trouble could be anything from an angry husband to a revenge filled drug dealer. Each dangerous in their own way. Hazel shook her head and walked over to the reception desk.

“Good morning, may I help you?” The receptionist was blonde, well dressed, and over friendly the way people who deal with the public are.

“I have an appointment with Sidney Fuller.” Hazel said. Ignoring the woman’s plastic smile.

She also had to ignore being looked over and the slightly raised eyebrows. “Mr Fuller is busy today.”

“Hmmmm?” Hazel said.

“He’s in room 214, second floor. The lift is just over there.” The receptionist indicated where to go. She smiled and shook her head slightly.

Hazel, slightly puzzled, thanked her and walked over to the lift. She wasn’t keen on the things and was pleased to see stairs beside it. She scurried up them, two at a time, enjoying, as she always did, the exercise and the bounding feeling of power as she moved.

She passed the first floor in a few moments and then continued upwards, pleased to note her pulse rate hadn’t raised much and she didn’t feel even slightly breathless. It was a bit childish, she knew, but the knowledge that she was fit, strong, supple and active, always gave her pleasure.

The second floor was just like the first. A pastel coloured corridor with numbered doors.

Except on this floor a young woman strode towards her.

She was short and tanned with dark hair. She strode confidently on unfeasibly high heels. Her legs bare and mostly exposed beneath a white mini skirt. Her top was also white and a size or so too small. The breasts looked like they may have been surgically enhanced. Over this she wore a garish silver and black tiger print coat, and more jewellery than was either practical or tasteful. The Cleopatra necklace was far too extravagant and all the heavy looking rings she wore would have done some damage in a fist fight. Hazel doubted if any of the jewellery was genuine. As they neared each other, the woman pushed out her chest more than necessary. Hazel automatically glanced down. No, they couldn’t be real breasts.

Then they had passed each other. Hazel heading towards Sid’s room and the woman striding away to the lift, a big red bag slung over her shoulder and visible from the rear.

Hazel sniffed, trying to place the perfume. Some ghastly tralk juice available at the local market, no doubt.

She reached Sid’s room and knocked on the door. This had better be important, or he really would be in trouble, she thought.

Then she considered that unfair. After all, he had rescued her from a morning of drab dreary paperwork, that had to be worth something.

“Answer the door, Sid.” She said under her breath, “I don’t have all day.”

She hammered louder.

“Come on, Sid, put your pants on….” She rattled the knob.

The door opened. “Sid?” Hazel said casually, “You in here?” Hazel stepped inside.

The hotel room was just a hotel room. Hazel had seen so many. Double bed in the corner, made. Cheap but clean and neat furniture. A small television set and a wall connector for the internet. Sid’s laptop was plugged in. Plugged in and switched off, she noted.

“Sid?” her voice was less casual now and she’d flipped her coat back to expose her equipment belt. It was then she realised she could still smell the tralk’s perfume. In fact it seemed as strong in her as it had been outside. “You had a woman in here, Sid?” Hazel wasn’t concerned about tralks. There was another smell, much fainter, but far more familiar to her. The strong smelling perfume pretty much covered it up. But it was there. Hazel would know it anywhere. She’d smelled it first when she was fourteen years old.

She slipped the Sestra out of its holster. At fourteen her grandfather had enrolled her at the Skeggs Field gun club. Hazel knew the smell of gunpowder or whatever modern chemicals passed for gunpowder these days. She had smelled it almost every day for twenty years.

“Sid?” She could see no one. No signs of struggle. But these rooms came with an ensuite bathroom. The door at the end. It was closed. Hazel moved slowly over, and to one side.

She listened. Nothing. Reaching out she grasped the bathroom door handle and turned. It gave easily. She pushed but held her position. The door swung inwards.

She could smell it stronger now. Perfume, gunpowder, and…..blood….body fluids.

“Oh, Sid.” She holstered the pistol. “Sid.”

He sat on the lino floor. In a pool of his own body fluids and waste. He’d been shot twice. A stain over his chest and his head tilted back where the second bullet had hit him between the eyes.

On the floor between them lay the murder weapon. A stubby, compact revolver. Smith Wesson, Hazel noted. Small, light, easy to conceal.

Easy to hide in a bag.

“Frell” She said viciously. Hazel turned and ran down the corridor. “Frelling tralk.”

She spun around the turn to the stairs and was haring down them at full speed hoping no unsuspecting member of staff was coming the other way. Of course the tralk had been to see Sid, who else? She kicked herself mentally for her sluggishness. Think, you stupid bitch, think.

Hazel bounded out onto the main reception area, getting several surprised looks from people who looked like tourists.

Yes, like the tralk looked like a tralk.

Stupid.

The receptionist, as surprised as anyone, looked up as Hazel, all 1.8 metres of her, loomed overhead. “Where did she go?”

“Who? What…where did who go?”

“The tralk…the woman who went to see Mr Fuller before me. Where is she?”

“Upstairs, I expect. What is going on? If you don’t tell me I’ll have to call the police. We are usually….”

“I am the police.” Hazel waved her identification in the woman’s face. “Just tell me where she went.”

By now this had attracted a small crowd. The receptionist said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The young woman is still upstairs. She’s not come down here. I’d notice. She was….” she lowered her voice, “…very noticeable…Sergeant..Vernon.” She was trying to read Hazel’s ID.

“She was coming down when I was on the second floor.” Hazel looked around, “You must have seen her.”

“I have not, and I would have seen her. You couldn’t miss her.”

This was true, the tralk had been very noticeable….far too noticeable.

“Sod.” Hazel said viciously and, ignoring the onlookers, and any comment they made, tore back up the stairs at a rate of knots.

The tralk had been waiting for the lift when Hazel last saw her, but waiting for the lift and taking it were very different things. How long did it take for the lift to arrive? What was Hazel doing while this was going on?

Hazel had her back to the tralk. Hazel was far more concerned with Sid Fuller.

At the top of the stairs, alone once more. Hazel stopped. She crossed to the lift. The tralk stood just here To the right was the corridor she had just come down. It was, technically, possible she may have gone into another room. Hazel looked left.

Alternatively…..

The fire exit. That was very well marked and an emergency door operated by a large locking bar, easy to find in a smoke filled environment. Hazel grasped the bar and lifted. She pushed.

As it should, the emergency door swung open.

Hazel stepped out onto the fire escape landing and looked down.

A pair of high heels, impractical to walk in, lay on the cold, damp metal.

Hazel sighed and took out her police radio to call in the incident.

 * *

“It’s been renovated.” Martin Ross said. He tended to lose his Scottish accent when dealing with paying customers. Today he kept it, He patted the side of the static caravan. “All mod cons. Usually we get the tourist trade you see.” He made a vague gesture off in the direction of the other caravans. Given the weather in this town he was sometimes amazed at just how popular this caravan site was. But then no one, if they knew anything at all about Temple Caneston, came here for the weather.

Except that American couple four years ago who lived out in some mid western desert. They had loved all the rain. “You do know you don’t have to stay here. We’ve plenty of room at the house.”

The blonde shook her head, “You know the trouble there would be. I really don’t fancy going back there. I’m a little surprised I’m allowed to stay here.” She leaned against the caravan, “Really. I’m fine in this old thing.”

“Think of it as an oldie but a goodie. I know it’s not quite the size of some of the others.” A number of the caravans owned by the guests were hotel rooms on wheels. A few camper vans mixed humbly with their more expensive cousins. “But it’s not exactly tiny either. You know what they say, Size isn’t important.” He gauged his laughter carefully. The joke was old, slightly crude, and far from original.

“It’s always nice to have plenty of room.” She said, mildly amused by the joke She studied the caravan exterior. It was a plain white with red accents here and there. Ross had been busy with the power washer, cleaning and polishing. The caravan hadn’t been empty for very long, a few days at most, but he was keen to have it occupied once again and get a few euros coming in for it. “Do I get the garden too?” . Ross hadn’t seen her for years. Not since she had been married. Now here she was again, turning up out of the blue. In some ways a total stranger. But so familiar. Refined accent. Casual, but nice clothes. The military style camouflage smock was a bit of an affectation. Underneath it she wore a red plaid shirt and jeans with the knees missing. The boots were study and expensive.

“The garden comes with the caravan. Ah…the last resident…Ms….well you wouldn’t know her…liked to grow her own vegetables. Very…organic.”

“Well it looks like she’s left me enough for dinner at least.” She was friendly anyway. Whatever problems she had he was pleased to see they weren’t with him. “Can we get inside? The weather’s a bit….”

“The weather’s a lot and always is here.” Ross said, “It’s always like this.” He unlocked the caravan door. Stepped back to let her inside.

“At least you know what to expect.” She went inside. “Oh very nice.” She looked around while Ross pointed out the various points of interest. Kitchen area. Seating which converted to a bed. The toilet at the back. “It’s not plumbed in to anything of course, but waste removal is part of the service.” He employed people to do the menial tasks. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s very nice.” She said. “I’m likely to be in town for about a month. So if I pay you for that we can sort out any more rent if I decide to stay on.”

“You don’t need to do that.” He said, “You can stay here.”

“This place costs money to run.” She broke out a bundle of euro notes. “Here. Take it, please. It’ll make me feel better.”

Ross accepted the money, He said, “It’s good to have you home.”

The blonde snorted slightly, but smiled and said gently, “This isn’t my home. I don’t think it ever was.”