Between Two Thieves Page 2

  “Hey! What did you do that for?” said Dan, still chewing on a mouthful of buttery toast.

  “You know why,” replied Eva. “Brexit overload.”

  It was seven fifty on a Friday morning. Most weekdays Dan Bradley and Eva Roberts would have already been downstairs in the office of their private investigation agency. But as today was a rare scheduled day off, they had been taking their time to get ready. Red-haired Eva had abandoned her usual tweed suit ensemble for a summery lace-frilled blouse. Her tweed skirt was still safely in place. Those who knew Eva only by her work often thought she was a little too serious for someone of her beauty and intelligence. But her business partner, and long-time boyfriend knew her better than most. He knew there was joy beneath her severity, smiles with the beauty, and everything else a man could wish for besides. And Eva was nothing if not a fighter. As a former boxer, Dan was a fighter too, albeit of a different kind. Dan took another big bite of toast and shook his head.

  “The newscasters seem to have forgotten anything else goes on in the world.”

  “Brexit is still news, Eva.”

  “Dan, let’s not go there.” She sat down and opened her laptop.

  “But I like the news,” said Dan, slurping his coffee.

  “I know. But this isn’t the news. It’s torture.”

  Dan gave a shrug. He had to admit she had a point and he sensed Eva was battling a bad mood. He had no intention of adding fuel to the fire, especially seeing as it was supposed to be a day off. He swallowed his toast and put the plate down. He cast an admiring eye over Eva’s lacy-edged summer blouse as she switched on her laptop.

  “Seeing as we’re on a news ban... and as it’s a day off, maybe we could entertain ourselves some other way... we could take advantage of a morning alone...”

  “We have every morning alone, Dan.”

  “Hey. You know what I mean. Besides, you’ve taken away the last of my distractions.”

  Eva gave him a well-practiced look. “The last thing you need is any more distractions, Dan. Or fixations, obsessions, or addictions.”

  Dan’s eyes stayed on hers and Eva angled her head like she was looking at a cheeky kid instead of grown man in his mid-thirties.

  “Bedtime’s over,” said Eva. She looked at her laptop screen. “Besides, there’s other news out there if you need it. You just have to look around for it.”

  “On the web, you mean? But you used to say that was full of conspiracy theories.”

  “And it is. But these days so is the TV.”

  “Yep. It’s a confusing world,” said Dan.

  “Safer to stick with toast and coffee,” said Eva.

  Dan grinned and took another bite. “At least a man can rely on toast and coffee. And the love of a good woman. Well, sometimes,” he added quickly. Eva glanced up over the screen of her slowly waking laptop. Dan took it in his stride and smiled.

  “It’s okay. I got the message. If you do find some real news out there, let me know. You can be my curator, or my censor, depending which you prefer.”

  “No thanks,” said Eva. “I’m just checking emails and then I’m switching off the machine because this is a day off.. Why would I want to spoil it with someone else’s nonsense?”

  Eva peered out of the living room blinds onto a blue sky as she waited for the damned slow machine to finally wake up. When it did, she opened her webmail application. The email list popped up and she deleted the junk right away. After that, she saw almost nothing left. Not good. There were no new work inquiries, and the office badly needed some new business. In good news there were no new invoices, either. Eva was about to close down the laptop as a dead loss when she saw a strangely familiar name buried in an email address somewhere lower down the stack. It was a way down the list, so Eva guessed she must have missed it the day before. She double-checked the sender’s email address and saw she was right. Mixed feelings burst like fireworks in Eva’s chest, most of them unpleasant. Her cheeks burned like she was sixteen all over again. Eva didn’t open the email. She just stared at the sender’s name, her mouth wavering in an uncertain line as she considered the implications. Eva had given up on ever hearing from Lauren for the rest of her life. She’d accepted it. And by now, she’d learned to welcome the fact. Lauren Jaeger. Her former best friend forever. It was a distant memory and yet somehow it was as fresh as ever. Back then they had been girls who had everything going for them, young women who were going to set the world alight with their good looks, intelligence and willingness to put in the hard yards. But that was before Lauren Jaeger had so abruptly cut her out of her life, like a gangrenous limb. The young Lauren had been blessed with better looks than Eva, and a personality to match. Eva was able to live with that, but what happened just before they turned seventeen hurt like nothing else had in her entire life. Thankfully, Lauren had never met Dan, and so the crazy years of chaos and bliss that followed certainly helped dull that bitter pain. But Eva was certainly in no mood to go back there. Not to that dark place. She didn’t even want to think about it. But the name still sat there, front and centre on her computer screen. Lauren Jaeger? Seriously? And how come she was still known by her maiden name? They were close friends almost twenty years ago. That Lauren hadn’t been married in all that time seemed unlikely. Eva’s finger hovered over the laptop mouse for a few seconds before it swooped down. She clicked once, and Lauren’s email disappeared from her list, still unopened, sent straight to the delete file for imminent wiping. Eva closed her eyes and a furrow of regret appeared in her brow. The deletion gesture didn’t feel good either – Lauren was reaching out to her after all – but in terms of her best options, deletion still seemed the best way to go. She sighed, picked up her coffee cup and took a long gulp.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” said Dan.

  Eva turned her elegant head and cast a weary eye Dan’s way. She’d made a great swap in exchanging Lauren for rugged boxer Dan. But all the same, he still drove her half mad every day.

  “Did what?” she said.

  “You read the news, didn’t you?” said Dan. “I can see that look in your eye.”

  “What look?” said Eva.

  “That what’s the world coming to? look. So come on. What happened to make you look so heavy?”

  Eva shook her head. “Nothing. I read my emails, that’s all. Now I just want to get on and enjoy my day.”

  Eva folded her laptop screen down and shoved it aside.

  “You and emails,” said Dan. “See. You’ve got your fixations too. Next I bet you go down to the office and check the answerphones. And then the post.”

  Eva shook her head. “Nope. Not today. We promised Mark and Joanne a lunch in the sun and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. And we’re going to stay cheerful and enjoy it. I mean it.” Eva tried for jolly and breezy and knew she was trying too hard. Damn Lauren Jaeger. Why did she have to show up today of all days? Just her name seemed to carry the residue of all those bad old feelings. Eva stood up and left her computer behind.

  “I’ll get a shower,” she said.

  “You already had one,” said Dan. She grabbed her cup and walked away.

  “I want another one.”

  “Need some company?”

  “Nope,” said Eva, and the door clicked shut behind her.

  “Can’t blame a man for trying.” Dan picked up the remote control and switched on the news.

  “...Brussels really doesn’t know what to make of London’s latest Brexit announcement,” said the reporter.

  “Does anyone, Katy?” said the anchorman.

  Dan grinned. He picked up the last half crust of toast and stuffed it between his teeth like coal into a steam engine.

  ***

  “So, where are we going to eat?” said Joanne, leaning forward from the back seat. The young blonde gripped the headrest and leaned close as Eva drove them to Leigh in her red Alfa Romeo Giulietta. The car windows were down, and Eva’s long red hair wisped and billowed back over her seat. Joanne,
the girlfriend of their young apprentice, Mark, smiled brightly. She looked excited to be going out. Seeing the girl’s enthusiasm, Eva willed herself to cheer up a bit.

  “Is pizza okay with you?” said Eva.

  “Fine by me,” said Joanne.

  “And me,” said Mark. Eva noticed the proximity of their bodies. The young couple sat close together in the back seat leaving plenty of empty space around them. Quite a feat in her hatchback, so she guessed their relationship was still going well. If anything, they looked closer than ever. Eva wondered what Mark’s mother thought about it all. Joanne’s too for that matter. Chances were their parents probably knew little about anything. By now Joanne had helped them on a few cases, always on an ad hoc basis, and rarely rewarded with any cash. In many respects, Eva thought Joanne the better equipped of the two for work in private investigations. Mark was sensitive and prone to overthinking, whereas Joanne was always up for taking a risk. She was smart, good at thinking on her feet, and knew how to use the power of persuasion. Mark had been in danger a few times and ended up hurt more than once. As a result, he seemed content to play safe, taking risks only when forced to. He had drifted more and more into a paperwork safety zone and they had let him do so. For all Joanne’s impulsiveness and trouble, Eva would have hired Joanne in a heartbeat if she could. But as ever, money was the issue of the day.

  “Pizza? Where?” said Dan.

  “The pizza place next to the fancy hairdressers. Today we eat posh pizzas,” said Eva.

  “And tomorrow we open the credit card bill,” said Dan.

  “You have to spend it somehow,” said Eva.

  “Yeah. And you have to earn it too.”

  “We’ll earn it. We always do,” she said.

  “That sounded almost convincing,” said Dan. “Why? Are there any new gigs on the horizon? I’m assuming that’s what you checked your emails for this morning...?”

  “Amongst other things,” said Eva.

  Dan waited. Eva shook her head. “No. Nothing yet.”

  Dan folded his muscular arms and turned his head. Eva left her eyes on his profile. He had almost totally recovered from last year’s ordeal. His bodyweight, musculature and toning was returning, and he seemed healthy and strong. After taking a shot in the gut, it was a miracle he wasn’t complaining about his digestion anymore. Eva noticed one or two grey hairs appearing in his short dark hair, but Dan still looked good. She knew he looked a damn sight better than most men of his age.

  They hurtled all the way to Leigh, before slowing down for the inevitable catwalk of the Leigh Broadway. It was a hot, sunny day and all the coolest cats were out strutting their stuff. Ladies in short skirts clutching expensive designer handbags, young men in Ray Bans, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace and Armani, with labels virtually hanging off every conceivable garment, right down to their canvas pumps. Even with the ice caps melting and plastic pouring into the seas, flashing the cash still seemed to be the order of the day for good old Leigh-on-Sea. Pedestrians walked out into the road, mobiles pressed to their ears, not wasting a glance at the oncoming traffic. Top speed was twenty on the Broadway. Maybe fifteen. A Lamborghini cruised by and a bright red Ferrari followed. Dan’s eyes were taken by each one in turn.

  “I prefer something a little more understated,” said Eva.

  “You always do,” said Dan. “I like something that roars.”

  Eva saw his eyes sparkling her way and raised her eyebrow in warning before Dan could say something risqué in front of their young helpers. Dan smirked and bit his lip. A moment later his eyes were caught by a handwritten newsagent’s signboard at the side of the road. He turned his head as the car breezed by.

  “Did you see that?” said Dan.

  He looked back at the reverse side of the same A-board. Beneath the handwritten print was the red and white logo for The Record newspaper. The local rag.

  Uber Drug Craze Claims More Youths.

  Eva glanced in her wing mirror and worked to make sense of the writing.

  “Another death from that awful new ecstasy?” said Eva.

  “Yes, but that wasn’t it,” said Dan. “There was a different headline on the other side. Something about a local hero going missing. I wondered if it was anyone we knew.”

  “And did you hear about the Saxon Gold?” said Mark, suddenly leaning forward in the back of the car. “One of the councillors borrowed some of the artefacts from the Saxon Tomb exhibit and managed to lose them during some fundraiser at his house! Sounds like The Record are trying to get the guy sacked for it.”

  “If that’s true, the man deserves what he gets,” said Eva. “They were calling the Saxon King the UK’s own Tutankhamun. Trust some local big ego to blow it all at the first opportunity.”

  “That’s if you trust what The Record says about anything.”

  Dan made a face at Eva. She pulled one back.

  “Now you see what happens when you make me miss the news?” said Dan.

  “Hang on. You probably just read it wrong,” said Eva. “Missing persons don’t ever make the news. They’re ten a penny, always have been.”

  “But I didn’t read it wrong,” snapped Dan.

  Joanne and Mark shot each other a look in the back of the car. Sounded like a tiff was brewing. Joanne loved the tittle-tattle of Eva and Dan’s relationship.

  “Look,” said Dan. “Just stop when we get to the next newsagent. I want to see what’s happened.”

  “Certainly another Uber death from what I saw,” said Eva. “It’s a shame when you start to get blasé about yet another young life lost to that rubbish. Those pills have killed enough people already.”

  “I don’t know why anyone would want to take the risk,” said Joanne.

  Dan’s brow dipped over his eyes as he strained to recall the headline. Eva pulled in to the side of the road as they were about to pass a Costcutter convenience store. “You can get a newspaper in there,” she said, nodding across the street. “But you’re not to sit there reading it all the way through lunch.”

  “Deal. Though it might be wise to see what our mutual friend is writing about these days,” said Dan.

  Eva frowned. Their mutual friend: Alice Perry. Perry was the vicious little harpy who was The Record newspaper’s most high profile reporter. The young hack seemed to be writing every salacious story she could find in the effort to get noticed by one of the big London newspapers. But with the kind of junk she wrote, it wasn’t likely that the FT or The Telegraph would be calling anytime soon. Aside from her writing, Eva had good reason to want to scratch the girl’s eyes out. A year back, the girl had tried to force Dan into bed with her, using blackmail tactics to make him play along. Thankfully, Dan didn’t, and the only reason the girl still had both eyes was because Dan had managed to reverse the blackmail and they still held some collateral against her to use whenever they liked. But Eva knew the value of that collateral would soon be waning. She even wondered if Perry might profit if they used it. A photograph of a young female journalist caught naked in her kitchen might become the fast track to career advancement in modern journalism. With Alice Perry anything was possible. And Perry was just one more person they needed to be wary of – one in a very long list.

  Dan got out of the car and, mimicking the swagger of other arrogant pedestrians, he skipped across the street in front of an oncoming Merc. Eva’s mobile buzzed in her handbag. A new job inquiry, maybe? She hastily grabbed the mobile, and saw the call was from an unknown number. But the unread text message beneath the incoming call alert was what really took Eva by surprise. She jerked up in her seat, read the text, and frowned.

  “But how?” said Eva out loud.

  Joanne looked at Eva in the rear-view mirror. “What’s the matter?”

  “Um... Nothing,” she lied. From the look on her face it was plain to see the text message was a lot more than nothing.

  Hi Eva. How are you? I know it’s been a seriously long time, but I really need your help. I sent you an email. I hope you got
it, but maybe you didn’t. Please, please, please call me when you can. Lauren J x.

  Eva’s body swirled with sudden discomfort and a spurt of anger. What the hell?! Lauren Jaeger, her cold-as-ice former-friend – the woman sends her an email and expects her to jump to attention just like that – after well over fifteen years of radio silence and complete ignorance. And Eva noted the passive/aggressive tone of the statement about the ignored email “Maybe you didn’t get it.” As in ‘I know you got it, so why the hell didn’t you reply?’ As if she didn’t know why?! And the kiss! The whole thing was a joke. With a whole heap of anger in her head, Eva looked out to the street. She saw Dan emerge from Costcutters, with a Record newspaper wide open in front of his face, his hands flipping fast through the pages. He walked out onto the busy pavement, and a few irritated strutters tutted and walked around him. He reached the kerb, the newspaper still open and started to step out into the street. Just as he took his first step, a short guy dressed in trendy clothes sped past him. The guy was walking forwards but looking back over his shoulder the whole way. He looked about forty but was dressed like he was twenty. Too much colour and his clothes too tight. Just as Dan planted a foot into the road, the guy swept in front of him, jumping down into the road, his shoulder almost barging Dan’s newspaper from his hands. Dan dragged his newspaper back. He watched the guy panic as he turned his head to see a single-decker bus gliding towards them, slowing down to pull in at the bus stop right by their feet. Dan stepped back to the kerb, but the little guy was committed. People around stopped what they were doing and stared as if watching a disaster unfold. But in the last moment, the little guy found enough pace to jog clear into the street, and the bus driver found enough brake to avert a tragedy. The bus shuddered and groaned and the man raced across the street, jumping up onto the kerb in front of Eva’s parked Alfa. The three in the car watched the little man run on, turning down a side street towards the sea front. A moment later they saw a taller man cross the street, moving purposefully after him, his clothes much lower key, and from the look on his face, he was in a very bad mood.