those are….”
“They are, Blondie. Believe me.”
Factory fresh…..”You’re getting them from the factory?”
“I have contacts, Blondie. It’s best not to worry your pretty little head about things like that.”
Patronizing insults aside, he did have a point. Maxine took two separate brown envelopes from her inner pocket. “Four thousand euros.” She said. “Care to count it?”
“Later. I trust you, Blondie. Jim Maybrick always sends reliable people. Anything else you need?”
Maxine shook her head.
The Mechanic beamed back at her. “Enjoy.” He said.
Chapter Three
Hazel Louise Vernon pulled off the road and into the Orient Hotel car park.
The Orient had happily traded off a fame, or possibly, notoriety, acquired in the 1930s. When it was the scene of a murder. The subsequent owners had the sense to play on this, and the ghost stories that, inevitably, accompanied such things.
Hazel Vernon wasn’t one for ghost stories. The city was riddled with them. Ghostly Roman legions, Vikings, Victorian chambermaids and the like. But she had to admit they were good for the tourist trade.
She parked up next to a stubby blue city car. The advent of hydrogen powered vehicles had made pretty much every vehicle environmentally friendly, but there were some who preferred the little cars.
Hazel’s Freelander sprouted antennae that marked it out as a police vehicle. But she automatically dropped the sun visor with the blue and white POLICE logo on the underside and unfolded from the car.
Hazel was tall, 1.8 metres high, even without her solid footwear. She wore black. Loose fitting black jeans. A dark blue round neck sweater. A gilet which contained a lot of the items she needed for her work, and, over this, a long black coat with a high collar and red lining. Her hair was long and worn in a French plait. Her eyes were the colour of her name, and looked slightly magnified behind her spectacles. She was angular and carried more muscle than most women. The wide “utility” belt around her waist held more tools of her trade. Radio, phone, taser, baton, handcuffs. Mace spray and, in the discreet plastic holster, her 9mm Sestra police pistol with a spare clip of ammunition.
Hazel Vernon was 34 years old, a sergeant in the Caneston CID Crime Squad and she was calling on a very worried man.
Why Sid Fuller was worried she wasn’t entirely certain. Not only was there the early phone call this morning. She had arrived at the police station as normal to find a message for her in her official email. Sid Fuller had emailed her last night, he was worried or concerned About something or someone, he hadn’t been clear. Though, given what Hazel knew of him, Sid would have an angry husband to worry about….or several.
He was a photographer, at least that was the occupation he put on his passport. Sid ran a seedy little studio just off Nelson Street, West of the river. Hazel first met him some years ago when she was a detective constable on the vice squad. Not her best career move, but she learned a lot very quickly.
She hurried up the steps to the hotel. Sid would be in his mid to late forties now, she supposed. He’d always been a good looking man, if the pictures in his record were anything to go by. And he was, so far as Hazel’s limited knowledge went, a very good photographer. But he liked the ladies rather a lot. They really liked him too, which made everyone happy. For a while at least.
Sid wasn’t a bad man, in fact he was pretty useful. He met many people, a lot of them worse than he was, far worse. For a consideration he’d be more than happy to tell Hazel all about them.
Sid had been, for some years, a very good informer. The information he gave always paid out and he always kept a low profile. Hazel kind of liked him, in a vague sort of way. Sid was, generally, harmless, and if you ignored his liking for women, he was a decent sort.
He seemed to treat his women well too, married or otherwise, so Hazel didn’t bother too much about what he did. He had kept in touch with a few things after she left vice, but on the whole their contact had diminished considerably.
Now came this email.
Come quick, please. I need help, and can only trust you. I’m at the Orient Park Hotel. I have trouble.
It wasn’t exactly a mass of clues. Trouble could be anything from an angry husband to a revenge filled drug dealer. Each dangerous in their own way. Hazel shook her head and walked over to the reception desk.
“Good morning, may I help you?” The receptionist was blonde, well dressed, and over friendly the way people who deal with the public are.
“I have an appointment with Sidney Fuller.” Hazel said. Ignoring the woman’s plastic smile.
She also had to ignore being looked over and the slightly raised eyebrows. “Mr Fuller is busy today.”
“Hmmmm?” Hazel said.
“He’s in room 214, second floor. The lift is just over there.” The receptionist indicated where to go. She smiled and shook her head slightly.
Hazel, slightly puzzled, thanked her and walked over to the lift. She wasn’t keen on the things and was pleased to see stairs beside it. She scurried up them, two at a time, enjoying, as she always did, the exercise and the bounding feeling of power as she moved.
She passed the first floor in a few moments and then continued upwards, pleased to note her pulse rate hadn’t raised much and she didn’t feel even slightly breathless. It was a bit childish, she knew, but the knowledge that she was fit, strong, supple and active, always gave her pleasure.
The second floor was just like the first. A pastel coloured corridor with numbered doors.
Except on this floor a young woman strode towards her.
She was short and tanned with dark hair. She strode confidently on unfeasibly high heels. Her legs bare and mostly exposed beneath a white mini skirt. Her top was also white and a size or so too small. The breasts looked like they may have been surgically enhanced. Over this she wore a garish silver and black tiger print coat, and more jewellery than was either practical or tasteful. The Cleopatra necklace was far too extravagant and all the heavy looking rings she wore would have done some damage in a fist fight. Hazel doubted if any of the jewellery was genuine. As they neared each other, the woman pushed out her chest more than necessary. Hazel automatically glanced down. No, they couldn’t be real breasts.
Then they had passed each other. Hazel heading towards Sid’s room and the woman striding away to the lift, a big red bag slung over her shoulder and visible from the rear.
Hazel sniffed, trying to place the perfume. Some ghastly tralk juice available at the local market, no doubt.
She reached Sid’s room and knocked on the door. This had better be important, or he really would be in trouble, she thought.
Then she considered that unfair. After all, he had rescued her from a morning of drab dreary paperwork, that had to be
