Body In The Tip – a Max Force story.

Chapter 1

I was humming a popular tune as I drove my ‘A’ Class Mercedes towards London. I had just completed a job in Norfolk, my best one so far, and now had a money in the bank, some new clothes on the back seat and was happy to be alive. It had been good to be able to help out a friend. I say friend, but we had been nearly rivals at school. We were now firm friends, and I was happy to have helped her, as well as pulling her out of a depressed state.

My name is Maxine Fawcett and I’m a private investigator, or PI if you watch American TV shows. I had been trained by the police at Hendon and had spent time as a woman constable before I left the force. The less said about that, the better.

That was two years ago, and I had two offices now. My flat in Islington and now my Mercedes. The second office had been Tina, my aging Ford Cortina, but she had been murdered a few weeks ago. I had a phone and a laptop with a dongle that allowed me roaming access anywhere in the country. What more does a budding PI need?

I had enough, at least, to cover my rent for a couple of months, and eat, sometimes. I could continue with my usual business, finding run-aways, following husbands or wives, even a few times where neighbours had asked me to use my powers of deduction to find missing keys. I didn’t charge everyone I helped, but it kept me occupied.

When I got home, I parked on the concrete beside the block of flats. Mine was upstairs and was quite reasonable for the money. I had my own bath and ran one so that I could soak off the efforts of my last job, before nuking a ready meal to sit at the kitchenette table and look at other jobs I had to do.

I had seen messages on my phone while I was in Norfolk and had answered them that I was busy and would get back to them. I looked at the messages again and wrote them all on a notepad, then started calling them back. In the end, I had enough work to see me right for another few weeks. The next day I settled back into the humdrum of the small jobs that kept me afloat. The last job had been more lucrative than I had expected, though not nearly enough for having my life threatened.

I had thought about that side of things. It seemed that the best paying jobs were ones where the criminals played for keeps. I had come back intact, but, some nights, I had a recurring dream of twisting sideways as a bullet sprayed bone and brain over me as the man holding me hostage had been shot by a police sniper.

I buckled down and worked through the backlog of jobs that needed to be solved. The Summer had become late Autumn when I got a phone call. It was from Dee Harrington, one of the girls who had been friends with Susan Cornwell, my client from Norfolk.

“Maxine, I’ve just had a conversation with Suzie, up on the Broads. She told me how fantastic you were with her problem. I have a problem, I think, and would like you to pop over so I can tell you about it. I wonder if you could come to my place. The house is just off the Swinley Road, sort of southwest of Ascot Racecourse. Can you come over on Sunday, for lunch?”

I agreed to see her, and she gave me detailed directions to her house. It sounded as if it wasn’t in any town or village, but well isolated. I decided that I would wear a skirt suit, seeing that she seemed to have married well. I had the skirt and top that Silvana had given me. If Dee travelled, she would appreciate me wearing Erminia. I worked steadily through the week and went to my local salon on Saturday to get worked on. They took special care of my bruised face, now in the process of returning to normal. I still favoured the other side when I slept.

On Sunday morning, I took extra care getting dressed and ready, making sure my new favourite bag was full of all the things I would need. My old favourite was sitting on the mantlepiece, next to the picture of my old Cortina, looking like a colander. I pushed my finger through the bullet hole in the bag and wished myself luck before I went downstairs to the car.

The ride out to Ascot was really a nice trip. I got to the turn-off to the gated community about eleven thirty, parked beside the speaker and pushed her button as directed. I heard her say hello and said my name. There was a click and the gates opened for me. I drove into the estate, all part of a large manor house grounds with individual houses hidden among the trees. When I pulled up outside her home, I was staggered at the sheer luxury of the place. Dee came out to welcome me. I can’t say that she hadn’t changed since I last saw her, it looked as if a salon visit every week or two had kept her looking as young as she was at school. She never looked so rich at school.

We hugged and cheek kissed, told each other how good we looked, and she escorted me through the house to a conservatory, where she beckoned me to sit in a comfy armchair, while she sat opposite. A maid came out to us, and I was asked what I wanted to drink. I sat and sipped the drink and waited for her to unburden herself. At last, she spoke.

“Maxine, I don’t really know how to start. I might be acting like a crazy woman, but I think that one of my friends has disappeared.”

“When was the first moment you thought that?”

“It was earlier in the year. She was a keen racegoer and would be at several tracks during the year. She was – I mean, is – a small-time punter. After the Ascot meeting at the end of last year, I saw her at the track and she was very happy, having won well. She praised a young man who had given her tips. If that man is a strapper or works in a stable, those tips could be based on insider knowledge. I last saw her at the big Epsom meeting and then she was gone.”

“Can you fill me in on why you go to the races so often?”

“Oh, sorry. My husband has a string of racehorses, stabled around various studs to even out our chances of doing well. Our best runner, so far, is a two-year-old filly called Dumluk. We try to attend as many races as we can. I’m still learning the ropes. Being an owner is no walk in the park. You have to look good, impress the big names and mingle with the celebrities. I was looking at that skirt, it looks Italian?”

“It is, I was given it a few weeks ago, after it was decided that my leather jeans were too scuffed to wear. It’s Erminia. The jacket isn’t, of course.”

“You’re wearing Erminia! You really have come up in the world. I only found a shop in Paris during the summer that stocks the label. All very chic and classy. I did pick that the jacket wasn’t, but they do go well together.”

The maid called us for lunch, and we went through to a dining room where the table had bowls of various salad items. We sat and ate, and I had a glass of the best Sauvignon Blanc I had ever tasted. After the meal, we went back to the conservatory where we were served coffee by the maid.

“So, Dee. There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“You’re going to think I’m mad, but when I think back, some other people I used to see regularly haven’t appeared lately. It would only be three or four.”

“If I sit quietly and admire the view of the garden, could you write down as much detail as you can. I’ll look into them and see if they are missing or have just decided to stop going to the races. After that, we can talk about what to do next.”

I sat quietly, with my coffee and looked out on the garden. I say garden, but it had no border, just carrying on as if we were living in a Wendy House in a forest. When she put her pen down, I turned to face her.

“This is a wonderful location, like living in a forest.”

“It’s all right, and there are no fences except the one around the estate. It does mean that the neighbours can wander over at will and borrow a bottle of good wine. My husband has the best wine cellar on the estate, bar the big manor. He was among the first to build when the estate was parcelled off. We lease the land. You can imagine that it’s a very expensive place, the Lodge, down by the gates, was on the market for over three million. I sometimes have to pinch myself to see if I’m not living in a dream.”

“How did you get to be here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“After school, I went to work in a legal office in the city. My husband is one of the partners and he took a shine to me. I’m his third wife; the first one died in childbirth and the second left him for a younger racehorse owner. My husband is twenty years older than me, but still pretty virile. I think that I must have seen him as a father figure, my own having left my mother when I was small. We do love each other but I’m sometimes scared when I think that it's possible that he will die well before me. Suzie was telling me how you helped her get over losing her husband. I would have never thought it when we were at school, but you’re a very good listener.”

“Now, what about your list?”

She passed it over to me. There were four names on it, with a brief description of the women. And they were all women, of varying ages.

“Is there anything that they have in common, that you know?”

“They are all small-time punters, five quid here, ten quid there, nothing like the high rollers who bet thousands.”

“The first thing I can do is see if my contacts in the police will check to see if any of these women are on the computer. The database has all the missing person reports and any details if they’ve had dealings with the law, including any speeding fines. It may take a week before I can get back to you on this. Is that all right?”

“Maxine, just having you take me seriously is more than alright. I know that it’s your livelihood, so I’ll pay you for five days of your time. Suzie has told me that she was repaid tenfold with what she gained while you were with her.”

“You said that you saw your friend at Epsom. Did she attend as a Member?”

“No, none of them were among the members or owners. A couple had entered the Fashion in the Field competitions, but they were all just well-dressed members of the public, who knew people better off than they were. I’ve never had any around for parties, but I did have drinks with them at the tracks, especially the country tracks which are a lot less formal.”

We talked about the other girls we knew from school, and she asked me about my time with the soccer captain.

“I was so jealous of you then, Maxine. He was such a good-looking young man. I was too scared to test my plumbing until I lost my virginity to my husband, the only man I’ve been able to trust with it.”

“No children, yet?”

“Not yet, but we’re working on it. The doctor has him on testosterone injections to bring his libido up. I think that losing his first wife was too much of a shock to him. Perhaps that’s why the second one left him, I don’t know. There I go again, talking about family secrets.”

“Your secrets are safe with me, Dee.”

When I left, she gave me a cheque for a thousand, and a small fob with a single button on it.

“This will open the gate as you go out. It will also open it if you need to come back to see me. When you don’t need it, just post it back to me.”

On my way home I mentally kicked myself. Dealing with people like her is a whole new level. I was determined that I would never wear the skirt with that jacket ever again. If I have to attend any races in the course of this investigation, I will need to be much more careful with my clothes.

When I got home, I looked up the calendar of racing events, staggered that there were so many. Usually, the only ones that get on the news are the bigger ones, like Royal Ascot or the Grand National. As it was now the end of July, should I need to attend any races I would have to limit myself to only weekend ones, as I couldn’t charge Dee for having a little fun.

On Monday morning, I went to my old station in Islington, hoping that the desk sergeant hadn’t changed. I was in luck.

“Good morning, Maxine, you’re looking good. The private eye stuff must be a healthy life.”

“Sometimes. Did you see the picture of the machine-gunned Cortina in the paper a few weeks ago. Well, that was my pride and joy, my Tina, until that day.”

“You were involved in bringing down that trafficking gang? Well, done! Now, what can I do for you?”

“I have a query from a client. She believes that people she had a passing relationship with have disappeared. She knew them from horse race meetings. She asked me if I could verify that they were all healthy. She didn’t know the addresses, just the names and a short description. Do you think that someone could just run this through the computer and let me know if they’re on it? Is George still around?”

“For you, Maxine, it will be done. Give me the list and I’ll see who is free. You can wait if you want. George was transferred to the Yard a few months after you had been given the shove, I think he went to the murder squad.”

I went and sat, looking at my phone to see if I had any messages. Fifteen minutes passed and then the door to the inner sanctum opened and a detective I had met when I was working here beckoned me to follow him.

He led me to the detectives area and sat me down on a chair next to his, with the computer screen in front of us.

“Maxine, this list that you asked about is very strange. All the names on it are in the system, but nobody had drawn a link between them. What I’ll do is to bring them up, one by one, and then you can tell me what you deduce from them. I won’t say anything, and I’ll leave the screen open if you want to make notes. There are contact addresses that you may want to follow up.”

He brought up the first name and I scanned the entry until I came to the line that gave the cause of death as a fall from a high cliff on the Kent coast. The case was closed as a suicide. I wrote down the next of kin and the address, then nodded to him. The next one was almost a carbon copy, as was the third and fourth.

“These were all considered as suicides. They had happened over a four-year period. If I pull up the notes, in every case the victim was last seen at the Epsom Downs racecourse. If I ask the system about dead people who were found at the bottom of those cliffs and link it to Epsom, there are another three that are almost identical, going back another three years. What do you deduce from that?”

“A serial killer who only kills once a year. What were the dates they had been found?”

“Every one of them was found in June. Which was the one your client wanted to know about?”

I pointed at the name, and he brought that file up again. On the next page of the file, it gave the date when the body had been found. It was about a week after the Epsom meeting where Dee had seen her.

“My client had seen her at the Epsom meeting, about a week before. She is married to a lawyer who owns racehorses and goes to a lot of race meetings.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I had thought that I would start going to the main tracks and see what I can find out. From what I see on the screen, you have nothing to work with other than Epsom. That’s not far from the White Cliffs, an hour at the most. The killer could be any one of tens of thousands of punters, owners, stable hands. and bookies. I can’t see a bookie killing a customer, though.”

“Right. I’ll pull these files into my own case list. If I’m asked, I’ll tell the boss that you brought this to my attention and that you will be following it up. If you discover anything, don’t let a man with a machine gun grab you again.”

“You heard about that, then.”

“After the Lowestoft station got in touch about you, our boss kept tabs on what happened up there. If you look at the notice board in his office, you’ll see the picture of your car pinned there, to remind us that there are some very violent thugs out there.”

“I have my handbag that was in it, on the mantlepiece. I poke my finger through the bullet hole for luck, most mornings. The bullet had shattered my mirror, and the shooter had already received his seven years of bad luck from a sniper.”

“I’m told that you were being held hostage. How did you know to jerk out of the sightline?”

“My companion had a saying which he called out, so priming me for the move at the last word.”

“There was no report about anybody else.”

“That’s something I can’t talk about. The gentleman was a visitor from overseas and linked to the case I had originally gone up there for. It was to find a missing husband for an old school friend.”

“Knowing you, Maxie. Finding other women’s husbands would be an easy job.”

“Not when he was wrapped in plastic inside a van with a bullet in his back. Besides, I don’t date married men.”

He laughed and then escorted me back to the entrance, giving me a hug before I left.

“That’s for being such a good investigator, as well as a wonderful person to know. You look after yourself. Here’s my card. Give me a call whenever you need help and whenever you find something I can work with.”

I gave him a kiss on the cheek and went to my car. I now had a list of contacts to talk to in case I could find out more details about the victims. I would only work on the latest four that Dee had given me, as memories fade after a few years.

I went about my normal work during the week but made time to make appointments with the names on my list. I would do two on Saturday and the other two on Sunday. All the visits were within twenty miles of Ascot, so the Epsom meetings would have been a special trip. I needed to find out if the victims had a car.

On Saturday, I went to see my first relative. It was the sister of the victim. I found out that there was no car, as her sister had a lift to Ascot from one of the workers in the café. She would take the train to London and a coach to Epsom. The sister said that there was much happiness when the victim had come home after the last Ascot meeting of the year, because a very helpful man had given her good tips on the day.

The second visit was similar, with the son telling me the same story about the windfall at the last Ascot meeting. The woman did have a car, which the police found a mile back from the cliff edge. Sunday was almost a carbon copy, with the pattern firming up. Somehow, the stranger knew a lot about the horses running. When I had asked if there had been descriptions, all that they had reported was that the guy was mid-twenties and very polite. All the victims had been approached near the mounting yard at Ascot. In all cases I asked to see a photo. The women were all late thirties, slim and blonde. If I was going to pose as bait, I was going to have to bleach.

I wasn’t far from Dee when I left my last call on Sunday, so gave her a call to see if I could bring her up to date. She was home and told me to come on over. The button worked the gate and I drove to her house.

We sat in the conservatory, her husband, David, with us this time. Seeing that he was a lawyer, I tried to lay out what I knew in a way he would understand and explain to Dee if she didn’t. Both were shocked when I revealed that all four on her list had gone over the cliffs near Dover. He picked up on the fact that three of the women didn’t have a car so they would have to have been taken there.

He asked what I had planned to do so I told him that the only way to go any further would be to go to the meetings looking like the other women and to see what happened. They told me that there were any number of young men working at the track, from the waiters to the strappers, from the ushers to the bookies runners.

“Bookies runners, what are they?”

“They work for a bookie. It’s their job to make sure he has enough money on hand to make the payouts. The money used to be kept in their cars, or, in the old days, in the carriage with a guard holding a flintlock pistol. It’s too dangerous to be standing on a case full of cash. The runner did just that, run back and forth with money. They are very trustworthy and often work with a bookie for life.”

David was an action man and insisted that we go to the track so I could see the layout. We went in his Mercedes, a bigger one than mine, and he had passes to get us in. I saw where the upper crust would be, where the bars and restaurants were, and the mounting yard with the areas that the general public would be. There was a lot of workers on site, and I asked what was happening.

“It’s the meeting next Saturday, it’s the Racing and Beer event. If you want, we can organise you a ticket so that you can do what you do. We’ll pay you for the day as work, anything you win or lose is down to you.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024