Murder in Hyde Park (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 10) by Phillip Strang

Author:Phillip Strang [Strang, Phillip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-11T23:00:00+00:00

***

Bridget spent time in the office going through the information that Nick Domett of Gents for Hire had supplied. Wendy’s description of the man, charming and entertaining on the phone, disappointing in the flesh, had tempered the women’s joking about him and his saucy repartee.

Larry was working with Bridget and following up on the details supplied by Domett. No surprises yet, apart from the fact that the murdered man had swung both ways, and that his clientele had included both men and women. Larry was no fool, and he’d been out on the street and into the underbelly of society. He knew of people’s perversions, their needs, their weaknesses.

The first person he met up with, a chartered accountant in the city, a tired-looking man who carried his sixty-six years poorly, did not appreciate having a police inspector in his outer office, his personal assistant curious as to what was going on.

‘Mr Cranwell is a great boss. I’ve been here eight years, and I’ve never seen the police here before,’ the middle-aged woman said. She was an efficient woman, Larry decided. Probably lived on her own, her only company an old cat that looked just like her, minus the accoutrements, of course. But Larry realised that evaluations of people based on appearances could sometimes be wrong. Bridget dressed sensibly in the office and was as efficient as the PA, yet she had had lovers and flings, and he and Isaac always suspected that Bridget’s and Wendy’s trips to the sun occasionally involved more than the sun, siesta, and a tan, although in Bridget’s case it was more a burn than tan.

‘Inspector, what can I do for you?’ Eustace Cranwell said as he opened his door. His hand outstretched, he grabbed Larry’s firmly and shook it vigorously. Defence mechanism, Larry thought. A show for the PA who pretended to be looking at a computer screen, but her eyeballs were angled up. Police training and experience had taught Larry to look for the unseen. No sign of intimacy between the accountant and the woman, but then the man had been using the services of a male prostitute.

Larry walked into the man’s office. It was scrupulously clean, a desk in the far corner, close to the window. On one side of the room, a large bookcase, full of mementoes, family photos, and financial books, none of which would have meant much to Larry.

With the door closed, Cranwell’s manner changed, no longer the smiling welcome. ‘I was disturbed by your phone call, Inspector Hill,’ he said as he leaned back on his chair, attempting to look at ease, failing miserably. The man’s right hand had a slight tremor: the early sign of illness, or just nerves. Larry decided on close inspection that the redness in Cranwell’s face, the sweating, indicated it was nerves. The man had been sprung, and he didn’t like it.

‘We’re investigating the murder of a man you knew as Colin Young.’

‘Inspector, surely you must be mistaken. I don’t know of any such man.

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