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  The Reluctant Detective

  A Martin Hayden Mystery

  Adrian Spalding

  The Reluctant Detective Copyright © 2019 by Adrian Spalding. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Allison Rose

  allisonthewriter.wordpress.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Adrian Spalding

  Visit my website at www.adrianspalding.co.uk

  Acknowledgements

  If a novel was a ship, then the author could well be described as the Captain of that ship. It then follows that there must be an able crew, ready and willing, to help the Captain get to the final port. So before this story begins I would like to draw your attention to my brave crew members who donated many hours of toil towards the passage across the seas, helping me navigate through some choppy waters and the occasional calm.

  Thank you to my crew: Irene, Angela, Claire, Anthony, Peter, Brian and Gavan. Plus a special mention to my long suffering wife, who spent hours and hours making sense of my writing. Thank you all.

  In memory of Soko

  Chapter One

  Martin, with tired blue eyes, looked at the telephone on his desk; it rang louder than he had ever noticed before. It had to be Jenny calling to apologise and so she should. He had treated her to a very special meal at her favourite restaurant, ‘Ceviche Soho’ followed by an energetic evening dancing at a nearby salsa club. Jenny loved the salsa, and had insisted Martin take lessons in the techniques of the Latin dance. After the club, they took a cab to her luxury Bayswater flat to make, what Martin liked to refer to as, ‘Salsa sex’.

  She knew he would not creep home with the ever present danger of waking his mother. Such action would require Martin to explain why the overnight work assignment he was supposedly on was cut short. So instead he had walked back to his office in the centre of London.

  Martin had been sound asleep next to Jenny dreaming about race horses, when she started shaking him vigorously and speaking with an urgency.

  “Get up now Martin, you need to go!”

  Martin liked to take his time waking up, today there was to be no such luxury.

  “Martin, wake up!” Jenny's sense of urgency had increased, “Ian caught an earlier flight, he has just landed at Heathrow, move Martin, for Christ's sake, move.”

  Jenny was now out of bed and getting dressed. He was about to turn over and snuggle deeper under the warm, cosy duvet, when he recalled Ian was married to the same Jenny that was now pulling the duvet off the bed leaving him naked and a lot less cosy.

  Jenny drove to collect her husband from the airport leaving Martin standing on the pavement, alone, cold and sleepy. Thankfully he had dressed, albeit in last night’s crumpled clothes. He looked for a cab to take him to his office.

  Yes, it had to be Jenny, who else would even consider calling him at this unearthly time of the morning at the office? He would of course accept her apology, he would be mad not to. She was attractive, rich, enjoyed the company of younger men, (Martin was ten years her junior), had a great sense of humour, long, attractive legs, plus a strong imaginative sex drive. The only down-side was her marriage to Ian, which made the relationship on the one hand exciting and on the other, at times, complicated, 'go with the flow, stay close to the bank, enjoy the ride,' that was one of 'Martin's Mantras', as he liked to call them.

  There was a small, vindictive part of him that was tempted to leave the telephone ringing until the answer machine kicked in, he could then repeatedly replay her apology. But he thought of her amazing breasts coupled with 'making up sex’ so grabbed the phone before any mechanical voice had a chance to kick in.

  It was a woman, just not Jenny. A young-sounding woman asking about the job vacancy that he advertised. ‘Great’, Martin thought, ‘that's all I need at seven-thirty in the morning!’

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  'Shit!' thought Susan; she had not expected to hear an actual, real human voice from the other end of the telephone. There again, she could never have expected or imagined that she would be inside a cramped coffee shop at seven-thirty in the morning, sitting next to a man she had only just met, and ringing for a job interview. Sometimes life throws unexpected things into your face just for the fun of it. Susan was fast learning that life must have a weird sense of humour.

  It had really started going very strange just a couple of hours earlier, when Susan left Heaven. Not the place where angels hang around chatting and discussing the latest set of gossamer wings, or laugh about if an angel really appeared every time a bell rang, how crowded their home would be. The Heaven that Susan stumbled from was a night club located under Charing Cross railway station. She stumbled because she had had just a little too much to drink in too short a time. She fell onto the damp pavement. Susan felt the pain as she grazed her knee, plus the indignity of her low-cut dress moving in such a way that it exposed most of her cleavage and a high proportion of one of her breasts. Even as she gazed very closely at the dried chewing gum on the pavement, she could feel eyes looking at her and judging her.

  A moment later she felt a strong pair of hands helping her to her feet. Then those same hands started feeling other parts of her body, including her now very exposed breast.

  “Enough of that!” Susan pushed the hand away and yanked up her dress to regain her modesty. “There’s helping a lady and groping a lady, so thanks for the first part.”

  He was taller than her, well-built and standing a little too close for comfort; there was clearly alcohol on his breath. Susan could not complain about that as she guessed her own breath was not exactly fresh.

  “Just a cuddle and kiss as a thank you,” the deep voice pleaded, with a smile that looked to Susan a little creepy, as she noticed his hands were once again sneaking over her body.

  “Piss off weirdo!” Susan was always one for the blunt approach. She then felt his hands tighten on her arms.

  “You'd enjoy me; I have some special talents that young ladies love.”

  “Just let me go!” There was, for the first time, a hint of fear in her voice, which she tried to hide unsuccessfully. The fear only seemed to encourage the young man, then she noticed the two others standing behind him smirking and leering.

  “I think you should be a little more grateful, I did help you up. Who knows what might have happened if I’d just left you there?” He laughed before his head moved towards her, his lips primed and aimed at hers.

  She tried to struggle, but his grip was just too much for her. She wondered if she could jerk her knee into his private parts to make it clear she had no interest in joining lips. As he was so close to her, she was not sure she would be able to generate enough force behind her knee, the result would possibly feel like she was rubbing her knee against him, sending all the wrong signals.

  “Just a little snog darling.”

  Susan was beginning to run out of ideas when she heard another voice chime into the conversation. A strong, commanding male voice, that forced everyone to turn and look. Susan felt relieved, a knight in shining armour was going to rescue her and he would save her from these drunken louts, who had nothing more than a lot of dirty thoughts on their minds. The tall drunk, now released her to see just who was calling.

  “Let the lady go, then we
can all be on our way without anyone getting hurt or any tears being shed.”

  The tall drunk just laughed loudly at the man striding towards him. Susan looked at her knight in shining armour. Well actually he was dressed in a printed floral dress, black court shoes, pearl-drop earrings, with clearly bleached blonde hair, and had an old, slightly wrinkled face with eyes that were surrounded by black eye liner, lips bathed in a deep rouge lipstick and a strong chin that had dark stubble appearing. Susan was a little disappointed to say the least.

  “Oh, so what is the little poof going to do, hit me with his handbag?” The comment brought an outcry of laughter from his two associates.

  “No, the handbag goes onto the ground,” which it did, only emphasising Susan's disappointment in her saviour. “Then I ask you again, politely, to get on your way so no one gets hurt.”

  The tall drunk had now lost interest in Susan. The thought of punching this man dressed as a lady seemed to be a more fitting end to a good night’s binge drinking than just fumbling with some drunken slag. It was lucky that Susan did not hear that thought as he moved away from her, or else she would most certainly have kicked him in the nuts.

  “You do know your make-up is going to get really messed up when my fist lands on your face.”

  The two men squared up to each other, although to any passer-by it would have looked like a man and a woman. They edged closer and closer. Their eyes locked on each other. It was then Susan noticed the man in the dress, his eye-shadow had little glittery bits that reflected off the street light, she liked that effect, and wondered if she would get the chance later to ask him where he had bought the eye-shadow.

  The tall drunk dug into his pocket and pulled out a knife, which also glinted in the amber street light.

  “Come and show me what you got, Lady-Boy!”

  “Oh dear, that was not the best move on your behalf, you are going to regret drawing a knife on me.”

  The tall drunk lunged forward, his only intention to stab the transvestite.

  “Have some of...”

  Before his sentence was finished, the man in the floral dress sidestepped the lunge. Firmly he grabbed the assailant's wrist with one hand, while the other hand pushed on his elbow joint, then he pressed even harder. In a moment there was a loud cracking sound, followed by a scream of pain from the tall, drunk man, as the man in the dress let him fall to the floor in agony.

  “You've broken my fucking arm!”

  “You are the observant type. Now I’d run along if I were you.”

  “You're going to pay for this, bastard!” He turned to his now, not so brave looking companions, “Get the Fed’s. Let’s get this fucking old tart arrested.”

  The man in the floral dress picked up his handbag and walked towards Susan, who was actually thinking that she was in a weird dream as a result of too many cocktails in the club. He took her by the hand and then turned towards the drunk with the broken arm, writhing on the grey pavement in pain.

  “Please feel free to call the police, they will take at least eight minutes to get here, in which time I could have broken your other arm, both of your legs and be working my way through your friends. Take it as a lesson learnt young man.”

  So that was how Susan ended up in this busy coffee shop with a man she had only just met, whose name turned out to be Colin.

  The reason she was telephoning for a job was equally weird, it had started by Colin asking a question that had been bothering him ever since he first saw Susan in the club. Colin was not the sort of person to shy away from awkward or blunt questions either, making them almost the perfect pair, although Susan preferred her men in jeans, not dresses.

  “Why were you flirting with so many men at the club? You do know that Heaven is a gay club. The men there tend to prefer well-hung men, not flirtatious young ladies.”

  “Of course I knew it was a gay club, that's why I was there, looking for a gay man to live with.”

  Colin picked up his skinny latte, drank a hearty mouthful to give him time to figure out exactly what Susan was planning, either that or she was still very drunk.

  “Maybe this is none of my business, but why would you be looking for a gay man to live with?”

  “Well not live with in the sense of a relationship, more flat-mates. Share the rent, household bills, cleaning, cooking, and all that sort of stuff, without any of the bedroom stuff that is bound to rear its head if I just had your average ‘hetero’ guy as a room-mate. Plus gay guys always seem flush with cash, good jobs and the like, so it seemed like a good idea. Colin I need a job, I don't have one and the only way of paying next month’s rent, unless I find a gay flat-mate, is to sleep with my overweight landlord with his suspect personal hygiene regime, something I have no plans or desires to do.”

  Never one to shy away from a challenge, Colin stated, “Right young lady; let’s see if we can find you a job which doesn’t involve lying on your back.” Grabbing the paper he donned a pair of half-lens reading glasses and began trawling through it, “So Suzie baby, what qualifications do you have?”

  “None.”

  “Well that’s an easy answer; sadly it does limit our options. Experience?”

  “Four years working in shops and two years in an office.”

  “I guessed as much, maybe you would be better off lying on your back,” Colin commented whilst peering over the top of the London Metro.

  Susan ignored him, dropped six cubes of sugar into her coffee, and then stirred the syrupy mixture with the provided wooden stick, before burning her tongue as she sipped on the drink. Susan watched the blood-shot eyes of the man dressed as a woman scan the job section; occasionally he made small sounds, as he weighed up the jobs on offer.

  “If you’re not going to perform blow jobs on your landlord, would a job which demands no qualifications and no experience, plus is well paid into the bargain, be of interest to you?”

  “If you can find me a job like that Colin,” she said blowing her coffee in a vain attempt to cool it down, “I’ll take you for tea at the Ritz with my first pay packet.”

  Smugly he handed her the job section of the Metro and pointed at a quarter-page advert.

  “I wonder what I should wear? Sequins and diamanté, I think, they always look kind of Ritzy, don’t you think darling?”

  Personal Assistant Required

  Hayden Investigations seek a PA to the Senior Director

  Based in a prestigious office suite located in central London, the role will include organising the director’s diary, his travel arrangements, liaising with clients, field agents, and managing a small, administrative office. Some UK and European travel will be required so a passport is essential.

  It is important that the successful candidate fits into a small, dedicated team, so personality will take precedence over qualifications and experience.

  Remuneration negotiable for the right person.

  Please contact, by telephone, Martin Hayden for an informal discussion.

  Susan read the advert three times to check she understood it. She had after all been up a little over 24 hours, plus the vodka and Red Bulls that she had drunk had yet to clear totally from her system.

  “Sounds very high powered and it doesn’t say ‘no qualifications’,” she emphasised the ‘no qualifications’.

  “Suzie baby, it’s a golden opportunity, just read between the lines. This high flying detective, director, person, thingy, wants a young tart to take around on his business trips, be with him in posh, foreign restaurants, and then shag once in a while. That is why he wants an ‘informal’ discussion first, to check out the talent and get a few personal details. The last thing he wants is some fat, butch PA who does a great job in the office, but he wouldn’t be seen dead in a restaurant with. You’ll love it, you might have to sleep with him once in a while, but what hardship can that be. Just lay back, close your eyes and think of the money.”

  Susan finished her coffee, its sweet warmth gave her a cosy feeling, really she
just wanted to sleep. Even so it was a job, or a possible job, what was the worst that could happen; she’d get turned down.

  “I’ll give him a call later; I really do need some sleep before I start doing telephone interviews with directors.”

  “God, you women! I might dress like one, but I’m so glad I don’t think like one.” Colin straightened his dress, drained his cup and stood up. “Ring him now, you’ll get an answer machine, it is only seven-thirty in the morning, give him your number using that husky voice that lack of sleep, smoke-filled rooms and alcohol gives you and I’ll wager he’ll be on to you like a shot.

  “Another Americano?” without waiting for an answer he minced off to the counter, “I’ll get you a Danish, keep your strength up. Ring him now Suzie baby, ring him now,” he called without looking back at her.

  Under the eagle-eye of Colin, flanked by a fresh, steaming Americano coffee with six sugar cubes in it and a freshly baked, or so they say, apricot Danish, Susan, against her better judgement, dialled Hayden Investigations. For some reason her new transvestite friend seemed to be more excited about her calling than she was, maybe she was becoming a fatalist, thinking the worst, devaluing herself. Susan had received too many turn downs, refusals, letters which simply said, ‘sorry but you have been unsuccessful on this occasion’. Everyone had a point at which they thought ‘shit, will I ever get a job?’ For some, that point might take one thousand refusals, others maybe just two or three. Susan had lost count of the number of jobs she had applied for and had not got, but she was beginning to reach that point.

  Susan heard the phone ring almost six times before, to her surprise, a real human voice answered. 'Shit!' thought Susan.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Martin always thought advertising for a personal assistant was a bad idea, it would only complicate, what for Martin was, a very acceptable situation. His mother, on the other hand, disagreed emphatically which at times seemed to be her default position in all matters concerning Martin.