Murder at Work by Faith Martin

Author:Faith Martin [MARTIN, FAITH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime, thriller and mystery
Published: 2018-04-07T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

Gemma dressed with care tonight. She was heading for London, not to have a night on the town with her intended, alas, but to pay a visit to Quixote, a discreet little casino near Chelsea.

It was, she’d eventually managed to discover, Michael Ivers’s gambling place of choice.

She kissed Guy goodbye, told him not to wait up since she was bound to be hideously late, and headed for the Smoke.

She had no trouble getting in, even though it was members only. Wearing a silver-grey dress that barely covered her bum, and silver high heels, with her short blonde hair at its spikiest and her eyes made up with matching blue-silver shadow, the management were more than happy to let her wander around and make the place look glamorous. And whilst she was not positively taken for a high-class call girl, nevertheless, several of the male members were happy to ‘teach’ her how to throw the dice at the craps tables, or let her place their bets at the roulette wheel, all the while rubbing up against her.

She didn’t drink, didn’t upset the serious gamblers, and was very discreet.

But she learned a lot.

Not least of all the fact that Michael Ivers, although a mostly successful gambler, also had an arrangement with the management. It seemed that more than one member had been recruited to the Quixote by Ivers. It took a while for her to twig, but when she did, it made sense. Ivers was allowed a certain leeway with his betting whenever he brought another mug into the fold. And the richer the punter, the more leeway he got. But Ivers had recruited anyone willing, regardless of their income.

At a baccarat table she flirted with an electrician who threw away every penny he earned at the tables. Another man, a down-on-his-luck chartered surveyor, had just sold his holiday home to indulge his addiction to poker; he had also been brought in as a ‘guest’ by Ivers. One or two high-flyers were only too happy to admit that it had been Ivers who’d introduced them to the Quixote; they regarded him as a real man-about-town. But it was a rather indiscreet croupier who let slip that the management rewarded Ivers for his industry with certain unrestricted gambling hours and access to the high-stakes games.

It was nearly four o’clock in the morning before Gemma left the casino, with various phone numbers in her pocket. Incidentally, she’d also won nearly £250 at pontoon.

But if the men expected a call from the stunning blonde in the days to come, they were going to be disappointed when some flat-foot copper in uniform turned up instead, and asked them all about Michael Ivers and how they’d come to be members of Quixote.

Gemma, feeling justifiably chuffed with herself, slipped into bed beside Guy just as the first robin began to sing. Her bridegroom-to-be murmured sleepily but didn’t wake.

Gemma snuggled up against him, reliving her triumph, and thought, with a rare flash of perspicacity, just how much

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