Nothing but Trouble (14 page)

At Station Road the removal van had disappeared, but Mac’s dark blue Freelander was still parked outside with two of its wheels
up on the kerb. Harry disconnected the phone and slipped it in his pocket. He put Jess’s brown folder under his arm, retrieved
the carrier bags from the boot, unlocked the front door and went quietly up the stairs. Even before he reached the top he
could hear Lorna issuing instructions, only now they were directed solely towards Mac.

Harry peered cautiously around the corner of the stairwell. The landing was empty, but the door to the office was wide open.
There was no one in his line of sight, so he quickly made his move. As he headed up the second flight, he heard the soft repetitive
whoosh of the photocopying machine.

He opened and closed the door to the flat as quietly as possible, and walked carefully across the room, grateful now for the
dark green carpet. Shabby and threadbare as it was, it would hopefully disguise his footsteps. He felt a tiny twinge of guilt,
but nothing persuasive enough to make him change his mind about helping out downstairs. Lorna was a detail person, and if
past history was anything to go by, she’d still be fretting over those details when the sun went down.

After putting the carrier bags on the table, he went through to the kitchen and got a cold beer out of the fridge. He leaned
against the door jamb and took a few long pulls from the bottle. Looking out at the living room, he wondered how long it would
be before he felt at home. It was probably a mistake, financially speaking at least, to opt out of the property market, but
needs
must. Anyway, it was too late to start stressing over that now. He’d already sold the flat in Kentish Town, given some of
the profits to Valerie and used the rest to buy into the business.

Harry took a couple more swigs of beer and then picked up the landline phone and dialled Jess’s number. She answered quickly.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi, it’s Harry.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re back. I’ve got some news for you. I rang Sam, and guess what?’ She didn’t wait for an answer
before carrying on. ‘Lynda Choi’s older brother is called David. I’m presuming he’s the person Kirsten was talking about.
Sam gave him a call and he’s agreed to meet us in Connolly’s at half twelve. Is that okay with you?’

‘What, today?’ he said.

‘Why, don’t you hotshot investigators work on Sundays?’

Harry grinned. ‘And who was it slogging over to Chigwell while you were still wrapped in your duvet this morning?’

‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’

‘I’ll see you there.’

Harry hung up. With a couple of hours to spare before the meeting, there was time for him to make a start on the decorating.
He went into the bedroom, stripped off his clothes and put on an ancient pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Then he dug out some
old sheets from the bottom of the bathroom cupboard and laid them over the living room floor. He unhooked the curtains and
shifted the furniture into the middle of the room. After opening the windows, he prised the lid off the first can of paint,
poured a quarter of it smoothly into the tray and set to work.

An hour and a half later, it was clear that the green wasn’t going to give up without a fight. He’d finished the first coat
on the wall opposite the windows and started on one of the
adjacent walls, but he could see now that he’d need two coats and maybe even three to hide the darker colour underneath. He
dropped the roller into the tray and stood with his hands on his hips, studying his handiwork. Well, it might not qualify
for
Ideal Home,
but at least there was a part of the room that didn’t make him wince every time he looked at it. The rest would have to wait.

He went through to the kitchen and washed his hands and arms. Then he got changed again, putting on a clean blue shirt, cream
chinos and a pair of trainers. Connolly’s was only round the corner, so it wouldn’t take him long to walk there. As he crept
downstairs with the same care as when he’d arrived, the painting and the Minnie Bright case mingled together in his thoughts.
The word
whitewash
sprang into his head, and the corners of his mouth turned down.

Harry arrived fifteen minutes early. Connolly’s was quiet and there were plenty of tables to choose from. He picked a fourseater
by the window, a good place to watch the world go by, and when the waitress came over he ordered a chicken salad sandwich
on wholemeal and a cold bottle of water. Another beer would have gone down well, but the café wasn’t licensed.

While he waited for his sandwich, Harry looked around. Connolly’s had been trading in Kellston for over thirty years, a family-run
business that had inevitably changed with the times. It had started life as a typical greasy spoon serving up hot strong tea
and heart-attack fry-ups in a permanent fug of cigarette smoke. Now it had adapted to suit the changing tastes of the local
population. The killer breakfasts hadn’t been abandoned, but now the café catered for the lunchtime trade as well, office
workers and shoppers who wanted pert little salads with rocket leaves and healthy dressings. Not to mention the usual selection
of lattes, mochas and Americanos.

Connolly’s, he thought, was like a chameleon, cleverly changing its menu and its atmosphere to suit the time of day. It was
the only all-night café in the district, and in the early hours, while others slept, the local toms would gather to warm themselves
up and exchange gossip over a hot cup of tea. Cab drivers, doormen, clubbers and cops all frequented the place too.

Jess arrived when he was halfway through his sandwich. She gave him a breezy wave before going to the counter and ordering
a black coffee. As she stood with her back to him, her elbows on the counter, he had a flashback to that cold rainy night
when they’d first met. He remembered her leaning on the bar at the Whistle, her tight cashmere jumper accentuating her curves.
She’d been mad at Len Curzon – an old hack from the
Herald,
who’d earlier plonked himself down beside Harry and spent the next half-hour bending his ear – and not the slightest bit
shy in showing that displeasure. While Jess had been doing unpaid overtime, working on the Grace Harper story, Len had disappeared
to the pub.

Harry had liked her feistiness, her confidence, liked it enough in fact to take her on to a jazz club in the West End. They’d
talked until the early hours, drunk too much and even indulged in a reckless snog in the back of a black cab. A thin sigh
escaped from between his lips. There’d been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

Jess put her cup down on the table and slid in opposite him. ‘What are you looking so pensive about?’

He almost told her, but then thought better of it. He nodded towards the black coffee. ‘Heavy night?’

‘You could say that. We went for dinner with a couple of Neil’s friends.’ She pulled a face. ‘Turned out to be a boozy one.
We didn’t make it home till three.’

‘So this Neil, he’s the new man, is he?’

Jess grinned. ‘You make it sound like I change them every five minutes. He’s not that new as it happens. We’ve been together
for almost a year now.’

‘It must be love,’ he said drily.

She scrutinised him with her wide grey eyes. ‘You’re in an odd mood.’

‘Am I? Yeah, maybe I am.’

Jess lifted the cup and blew gently on the surface of the coffee. ‘So come on, we’ve got five minutes before David’s due.
Let’s have the lowdown on your meeting with Kirsten.’

Harry gave her a quick synopsis of the conversation he’d had that morning. Jess listened intently, sipping her coffee, until
he’d finished.

‘You see?’ she said. ‘There’s something not right about that day, about what happened with Minnie Bright.’ She put the coffee
down, placed her right elbow on the table and cupped her chin in the palm of her hand. ‘They’re definitely hiding something.’

‘Yeah, but whatever it is, it didn’t originally bother Paige or Becky. That’s what I don’t get. If they’re covering up, and
they want to keep whatever it is hidden, then why would they agree to talk to you in the first place? It doesn’t make sense.
Surely they’d run a mile?’

‘Perhaps it’s because I stressed that the article wasn’t about the murder but the effect it had on other people. I was concentrating
on the present rather than the past. They might not have seen that as any kind of threat. So long as I didn’t go digging into
the original case …’ She frowned as she thought about it, her pale brows knitting together. ‘Kirsten must have been the one
who made them change their minds. She’s had more experience of the press than the other two. She’s bound to be more cautious.’

‘More aware, you mean, that journalists can be a touch economical with the truth.’

‘Some journalists,’
Jess retorted smartly.

‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘I stand corrected.’

‘And how on earth did you manage to get her to talk to you? She just kept slamming the phone down on me.’

Harry sat back, trying not to look too smug. Ah, now that would be down to the famous Lind charm.’

‘Really?’

‘There’s no need to sound so surprised.’

‘And was it that famous Lind charm that also got you thrown out of her flat?’

He grinned. ‘Only after I’d found out what I wanted. And I wasn’t thrown out exactly, more … encouraged to leave.’

‘Right,’ she said, smiling back. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

He glanced at his watch and then towards the door. It was almost twelve thirty. ‘So what do we know about David Choi?’

‘Not much. Sam met him occasionally when she and Lynda were kids, but he was three or four years older so their paths didn’t
cross that often.’

‘Choi. Is that a Chinese name?’

‘No, the family was originally from South Korea, but Lynda and her brother were born here. The Chois have a dry-cleaning business
over on the industrial estate, quite a successful one by all accounts. They’ve got a few City hotels and restaurants on their
books now, but things were pretty tough while Lynda was growing up.’

‘Hence the Mansfield,’ he said.

Jess nodded. ‘Not the greatest place to raise your kids. Anyway, according to Sam, David called her a few weeks after Lynda’s
death – he got her number from Lynda’s phone – and asked if Sam’d talked to his sister on the night she died. She said he
was very softly spoken, very polite. She told him about the message, expressed her condolences and that was the last time
she heard from him.’

‘So he could have called some or all of the other girls too.’

‘Seems likely, although from what Kirsten said, it sounds like
her conversation with him wasn’t quite so amicable. Didn’t she mention him making accusations? I wonder what all that was
about.’

‘Well,’ Harry said, seeing the door to Connolly’s open and a young guy of Asian appearance walk in. ‘Now’s our chance to find
out.’

David Choi was a thin man in his late twenties, his short black hair slicked down with gel. He was wearing a pair of beige
trousers, a white shirt and a worried expression. His dark eyes darted nervously around the café before eventually coming
to rest on Jess and Harry. Harry gave him a nod and he quickly approached the table.

Jess stood up and shook his hand, making the introductions at the same time. ‘Hi, David, thanks for coming. I’m Jess, Jessica
Vaughan, and this is Harry Lind, the private investigator Sam told you about.’

David Choi leaned forward and shook Harry’s hand too, but he didn’t sit down. His gaze jumped from the window to the table
and then back to the window again. His mouth twitched at the corners. He slipped his hands into his pockets and immediately
took them out again.

Harry, seeing his anxiety, rose smartly to his feet. Realising that their position was in full view of any passers-by on the
high street, and that for some reason David Choi was unhappy about this, he said, ‘Let’s find somewhere less public, shall
we.’ He picked up his glass and the plate with the remains of the sandwich and headed towards the back of the room. Here,
hidden by the long steel counter, was a small alcove with two empty bench-seat tables. He chose the one closest to the wall.
Jess slid in beside him and Choi took the seat opposite.

‘Would you like a coffee?’ Jess asked.

Choi shook his head. ‘I can’t stay long. I’ve got to get back to work.’ He glanced warily over his shoulder, as if someone
might
be eavesdropping. Although no one was within listening distance, he still dropped his voice to something barely above a whisper.
‘I shouldn’t even be talking to you.’

‘Why’s that?’ Harry said.

Choi looked at him, met his eyes for a second and then abruptly dropped his gaze. ‘I was told, wasn’t I?’

‘Told what?’

‘To keep my mouth shut.’

Harry felt Jess tense beside him. She was remembering perhaps the note that had been sent to Sam.
Keep yer mouth shut BITCH.
She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with that singularly intense look that journalists get when they think they’re about
to make a breakthrough.

‘You’ve been warned off?’ she said.

‘In your own time,’ Harry said softly, concerned that the guy was about to take fright and do a runner. He was clearly scared,
his chest heaving and falling, his hands twisting restively on the tabletop.

Choi took a few deep breaths before he spoke. Slowly he raised his gaze to look at the two of them again. ‘This is just between
us, right?’

‘Of course,’ Jess said quickly. ‘You’ve got our word on it.’

Harry, unwilling to make any reckless promises, wasn’t quite so fast with the reassurances. If what Choi said turned out to
have a bearing on the original Minnie Bright investigation, it might be impossible to keep quiet about it. ‘So long as it
isn’t evidence of a crime being committed.’

Jess nudged her knee against his and threw him a what-the-hell-are-you-doing type of glance.

Harry ignored her. ‘But we’re not here to cause problems for anyone. Your name won’t be mentioned unless it’s absolutely essential.
We’re just trying to get at the truth. I’m sure that’s what you want too.’