Play With Fire by Solomon Carter

Author:Solomon Carter [Carter, Solomon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Great Leap
Published: 2019-12-01T22:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Mark and Dan waited outside the front door of number fifty-three Carberry Close. The Mellot house was one of several large cream-rendered properties dotted around the looping street. They watched as a shadow appeared behind the window of the uPVC front door. A slight, female shadow. Almost ghostlike, the woman’s face came close to the glass, peering at them before she hesitantly opened the door. There was a plate and a tea-towel in the woman’s hand. Mrs Mellot had big hollow eyes and gave them a look which seemed neither welcoming nor friendly. The woman was in her forties, pretty but not beautiful, with eyes as dark as Dan’s. More than a few strands of grey had been allowed to appear in the woman’s fringe. Her dark eyes flicked between Dan and Mark, gaining a hint of concern the longer she looked.

“Yes. Can I help you?” she said.

“I hope so,” said Dan, offering his best attempt at a disarming smile. The woman looked at him, and he saw something soften in her eyes but she remained defensive.

“We’re investigating some trouble on your street.”

“Investigating? You don’t look much like the police to me.”

“That’s because we’re not. We’re private investigators.”

The doubtful look on the woman’s face prompted Dan to pull a business card from his wallet. He handed it to the woman and adjusted his smile to just a shade below full beam.

“There. See?”

“Roberts and Bradley?” she said. “I’ve never heard of you. And anyone can get business cards like these knocked up on the Internet.”

“Not quite like these, I assure you. My partner couldn’t be persuaded to go down the bargain basement route.”

“Hmmm,” said the woman. “So this is your partner?”

“No. This is Mark, my assistant. My partner is working elsewhere today.”

The woman was still doubtful. Dan pressed on. “Look. There’s been some trouble on your street. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed anything at all.”

“Trouble? It depends what sort of trouble you mean. There was a spate of burglaries a couple of years back. But nothing like that since. Just a lot of strangeness from over there on the other side of the close but I could hardly call it trouble. Not for us, anyway.”

The woman aimed her dark eyes towards Ronson’s house. Dan followed her gaze.

“Strangeness, you say?”

The woman nodded. “I don’t like to cast aspersions, so maybe you’d best tell me what you’re investigating – and who for…?”

“Let’s just say we’re concerned about some of the things going on in those houses over there..”

“You mean the house with the bohemians in it, or whatever they are,” said the woman. “I’m no snob, but those people are really not my type. A few more like them and next it will be the students moving in. Before you know it, it’ll be greasy hair, funny cigarettes and football flags everywhere you look.”

No, Mrs Mellot wasn’t a snob in the least.

“I know what you mean,” said Dan. “Might bring the house prices down a notch or two.”

“Yes, it would. That lot? They stay up all hours and they have so many people round, it’s like Piccadilly Circus.

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