Risky Business by W. Soliman

Author:W. Soliman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I got off the phone to Hal, promising to answer his questions as soon as I could. In the meantime he agreed not to do anything to alert Angie that she was under suspicion. She couldn’t be in this alone and we needed to find out who her accomplice was. Every which way I turned, it came back to Peter Garnet. How did he manage to have fingers in such a disparate range of pies? And, more to the point, why? Spelling and Miller I kind of got. But what possible link did Angie Bradley have with Garnet?

My research revealed that at the time of Spelling’s murder Garnet had a few racehorses, a run-down health club off the beaten track in Hove, and was allegedly involved with a couple of betting scams. The police were regular callers, and he must have known it would only be a matter of time before we got him for something. Perhaps that was why, after Spelling’s murder, he changed tack and became legit. He bought his first nightclub about then and set about climbing up the local business ladder. Now he had three thriving nightclubs. He’d also revamped his health club, made it very exclusive and charged a fortune for membership. He enjoyed a position of respect within the local community, was a well-known figure in sporting circles, and still had racehorses in training. Jimmy hadn’t heard about him being involved in anything shady.

I was still thinking about Garnet the next day when I got a call from Reg Turner. I hadn’t expected to hear from him again so soon, if at all. He sounded agitated and asked if we could meet. I agreed immediately. I rode the Harley to a street close to his local and found the greasy spoon he’d directed me to.

He lived close by and obviously had his routine down pat. A stroll to the café for a late breakfast, a detour to the betting shop and then straight on to the boozer. No deviations apart from an occasional visit to the dog track, and yet he still managed to know absolutely everything that was going on in the manor.

I joined him but didn’t risk the food, settling for a strong black coffee.

“What’s up, Reg?” I asked. “You look a bit shaken.”

“I had a visit from your lot, didn’t I.”

“I did warn you that they’d come knocking sooner or later. It wouldn’t normally bother you.”

“Some god-awful, pushy woman inspector came throwing her weight around.” He pulled an aggrieved face. “What happened to a bit of good old-fashioned professional respect, Mr. H, that’s what I wanna know?”

“Times are changing, Reg.”

“Yeah,” he agreed morosely, wiping up dollops of egg yoke with his bread. “And not for the better. Knew where we stood, we did, back in your day.”

“I’ve only been gone for a bit more than a year, Reg,” I said, amused.

“Whatever.”

“You didn’t ask me here to talk about Inspector Slater’s myriad shortcomings.”

“Kept on and on at me, she did, demanding to know why I’d gone to see Miller.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.