Honeytrap: Part 1 (2 page)

Jess smiled triumphantly. ‘So is that a yes, then?’

Harry waved a hand, knowing that he’d give in at some point so he might as well do it now. ‘If we don’t get more clients, I’ll sue you for breach of promise.’

‘You don’t need to worry on that score. They’ll be queuing up when they see the results you get.’ Jess pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. ‘Thanks, you’re a star. I really appreciate it.’

Harry pulled a face. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he asked dryly. ‘You’ve got what you want and now you’re just pushing off. What about the small talk? What about
Let’s have dinner some time
or
I’ll give you a call
? I have got feelings, you know.’

Jess laughed. ‘What’s the matter? You feeling insecure in your old age?’

‘I’m in my prime, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘You’re in your forties, hon. Since when did that count as your prime?’

‘Now you’re just being needlessly cruel.’

Jess put a hand on her hip and feigned impatience. ‘Okay, spill. What’s it going to cost me? How about lunch tomorrow? I’ll be in Kellston, anyway. Sylvie said she’d come and talk to me – if you agreed, of course.’

‘When you say lunch, do you mean a proper restaurant or the local chippie?’

‘We’re not all made of money. How about the Fox? I’ll stand you a pie and a pint. How does that sound?’

Harry scratched his chin and pondered on it. ‘If that’s your best offer.’

‘It’s my only offer. I’ll see you about one, yeah?’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

Jess gave a snort. ‘Try not to sound too enthusiastic.’

‘I’m saving myself for tomorrow.’

Harry watched her go, a frown deepening the lines in his forehead. His thoughts, although less lecherous than when Sylvie had left, were troubled in a different way. He shifted some papers around on his desk, opened a file and closed it again. It was straightforward enough, wasn’t it? She would get an interview with the girls, and the firm would get some free publicity. So why did he feel so uneasy about it? ‘Jessica Vaughan,’ he murmured. ‘Why is nothing simple when you’re around?’

The only answer he got was the strident ringing of the internal phone. ‘Yes?’

‘We’ve got a problem,’ Lorna said.

‘Jesus, she’s not even out of the building yet.’

‘What?’

Harry gave a wry smile and shook his head. ‘Nothing. What is it?’

‘Can you come to Mac’s office?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’ll see you in there.’

Harry bought down his palm on Mac’s desk with a resounding thud. ‘No way! Are you kidding me? Absolutely not!’

‘Ah, come on,’ Lorna wheedled. ‘
Please
. We haven’t got anyone else. Jake’s down with the flu and Peter’s out of town. What are we supposed to do?’

‘Cancel it. Tell the client you’ll have to set another date.’

‘We’ve already done that once. We can’t cancel again. It looks unprofessional.’

‘So find someone else.’

‘There isn’t anyone else,’ Mac said. ‘You know what it’s like – we hardly ever get guys going for the service. It’s usually women testing out the men, rarely the other way round.’

‘What about Warren?’

Lorna shook her head. ‘He’s married. He can’t go round trying to pick up women. What would his wife say? What if someone saw him?’ She bestowed her sweetest smile on Harry. ‘Please,’ she said again. ‘It’ll only take an hour or so.’

‘No.’

‘Just this once. I’ll never ask again. Think of all the favours I’ve done for you in the past.’

Harry looked away from her pleading eyes while he tried to think of a good excuse. He couldn’t deny that Lorna always went above and beyond the call of duty. She was receptionist, secretary, bookkeeper, coffee-maker and general do-it-all. She picked up the slack without being asked and never complained about the hours she put in. Without her the firm would probably grind to a halt. Not to mention the fact that she was Mac’s live-in partner and it was a full-time job keeping him off the booze, away from the poker tables and on the straight and narrow. ‘There must be someone else.’

‘It’s you or me,’ Mac said. ‘And let’s face it, if the woman turns me down it’s hardly proving anything, is it?’

‘Only that there’s nothing wrong with her eyesight.’ Harry stared at his partner’s jowly face – he had the sagging features of a Basset Hound – before glancing back at Lorna. ‘No offence,’ he said.

‘None taken, seeing as you’ve been so kind as to step into the breach.’

‘I haven’t agreed to step into anything yet.’

Lorna, who was sitting beside him, reached across and patted his knee. ‘Harry, you’re just her type. She likes them tall and dark.’

‘Haven’t you missed something off that description?’

‘Tall, dark and desperate,’ Mac said, grinning widely. ‘How long is it since you last had a date?’

‘This wouldn’t be a date – and it’s none of your business.’

Mac gave a shrug of his heavy shoulders. ‘It’ll give you a chance to hone your seduction skills.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my skills.’

‘Good. You won’t have any trouble tonight, then.’

Harry looked from one to the other, before his gaze settled on Lorna. ‘There must be someone else.’

‘There isn’t. I swear it. If there was anyone else I could ask, I would.’ And then before

Harry could raise any other objections she passed him a buff-coloured file. ‘Everything’s in here. She’s called Caroline Westwood and she’s forty-six years old. Her husband – that’s James Westwood – reckons she’s been cheating on him.’

‘Why is he even doing this? If he thinks she’s a cheat, why not have her followed for a while, catch her in the act?’

‘Because she doesn’t have affairs,’ Lorna replied. ‘However, she does have a history of one-night stands. We could be following her for weeks, months without finding anything out. That’s if there is anything to find. He reckons she’s an opportunist – you know, the type that can’t resist temptation when it comes her way. The couple live in Sussex, but she’s coming to London for a get-together with some friends. They’re meeting at the Lumière and that’s where she’ll be staying tonight.’

‘So why isn’t he coming with her?’

‘Because it’s girls only. Or at least that’s what she claims. You’ll need to be there by about eight o’clock.’

Harry flipped open the file and looked at the photograph. ‘I’ve not agreed to it yet.’ He gazed down at the picture of the woman he was supposed to try and tempt. She was an attractive dark-eyed brunette who looked a good deal younger than her years. ‘I mean, what the hell do I say to her?’

Mac took a slurp of his coffee, smacked his lips and put the mug back on the desk. ‘Whatever crap you usually come out with. Come on, Harry, it’s not that hard. Just chat her up, give her your usual lines and take it from there.’ He paused and added slyly, ‘Unless you don’t think you’re up to it.’

‘Mac!’ Lorna said, throwing him a warning glance. She turned back to Harry. ‘You’ll be fine, love, honestly you will. The machine will record the conversation so just keep things light and chatty. Don’t come on too strong. Let her do the running if she’s interested.’

‘And if she isn’t?’

Mac barked out a laugh. ‘Well, if you go in with that attitude, you won’t get far.’

‘You’ll need a back story,’ Lorna continued, ignoring Mac. ‘A name, a job, what you’re doing at the hotel. It’s all in the file so make sure you read it and memorise it before you leave. And don’t go into too much detail about anything. The simpler the better, right?’

Harry looked down at the photo again. ‘If he doesn’t think he can trust her, why does he bother? They’d be better off apart.’

‘It’s not always that easy,’ Lorna said. ‘You know it isn’t.’

Harry closed the file and stood up. ‘You two owe me big time for this.’

‘Thank you,’ Lorna said. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’

Harry walked out of the office, slapping the file against his thigh. Already he was regretting that he’d given in. Still, it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do; there were men in prison who had more active social lives than he had. A night out at a fancy hotel, all expenses paid, with carte blanche to try and seduce an attractive female: what could possibly go wrong?

By seven o’clock Harry was showered and shaved and dressed in a smart grey Armani suit. He gazed in the mirror as he did up his tie, repeating the details that Lorna had provided him with. ‘Richard Hall, financier, forty-four years old.’ He didn’t need to remember a birthday – it was better to use his own. ‘Richard Hall, Richard Hall. Down from Manchester for a few days for meetings with clients. Staying at the hotel. Going home tomorrow.’ As far as back stories went, it was hardly riveting, but preferable to having to make up something on the spot.

Harry examined his reflection, trying to see himself as a stranger might – that stranger being a woman who may or may not be in the mood for a brief liaison. His face was angular, a little gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and an aquiline nose. His blue eyes, possibly his best feature, held an edge of wariness and he blinked twice trying to clear the expression. Open, friendly and available was the look he was going for.

‘Sexy and seductive,’ he murmured. ‘Charming, intelligent, perceptive.’

For Harry, it wasn’t so much what was on view that bothered him than what wasn’t. Underneath the stylish suit, his six-foot-two body still bore the scars from the explosion that had ended his police career. Sometimes he woke suddenly in the night, jerked into consciousness by a ringing in his ears. He flexed his right leg, aware of a dull ache that could be down to the metal pin or was perhaps only psychosomatic. Whenever he thought about the blast, his leg pain came out in sympathy.

Harry took one last look in the mirror, slicked back the dark damp hair from his forehead and pulled in a deep breath. He tapped the slim recording machine in his breast pocket and made a mental note to turn the damn thing on. With luck she’d give him the brush-off and he’d be back by nine o’clock.

‘Be a good girl, Caroline,’ he said. ‘Be a good girl and we can all go home happy.’

An hour later, Harry was seated on a stool in the main bar of the hotel, with one eye on his Scotch and the other on his prey. Caroline Westwood was in a group of five occupying a corner, and from the way the staff fluttered round the women, bowing and scraping, anyone would have thought they were royalty. Hardly surprising, mind, as they were quaffing champagne and not the cheap sort either. Nothing came cheap at the Lumière. He had just finished eating a sandwich, the cost of which would have fed a family of four for the day.

Harry took a sip of the drink – his second of the evening – and wondered how to make an approach. Time was ticking by and hopes of a quick exchange were fading fast. It wasn’t easy to infiltrate a tight-knit group, to single one woman out from the rest. For the moment, there was nothing he could do but wait.

The place was expensively chic and the bar was busy but not in an elbow-jostling kind of way; there were just enough people for it to be full without being overcrowded. The barman, a balding man in his fifties who was wearing a nametag that identified him as
DENIS
, wandered over, glanced at Harry’s glass and raised a querying eyebrow.

Harry shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’ He leaned in and lowered his voice, giving it a conspiratorial edge. ‘The women in the corner, over by the palms – are they staying at the hotel?’

Denis casually glanced over before looking back at Harry. ‘Some of them.’ His mouth curled into a sly smile. ‘Which is it? The blonde?’

Harry shook his head again. ‘The brunette. The one in the red dress.’

‘Mrs Westwood.’ Denis scratched the nape of his neck and frowned. ‘You know, I had you pegged for the blonde. I’m not usually wrong. Must be losing my touch.’

Harry shrugged his shoulders. In truth, the guy was right, the blonde was more his type – she had a cool distant look and a generous mouth – but personal preferences were off the agenda tonight. ‘Is there a Mr Westwood?’

Denis made a show of gazing round the bar. ‘Doesn’t look like it. You want me to send over a drink to the lady?’

Harry thought about it. ‘Not just yet. Maybe later.’

‘Sure, give it half an hour or so.’

‘Is she a regular here?’

‘Not what I’d call regular. Every now and again.’

A couple of customers arrived at the bar and Denis went off to serve them. While he was busy, Harry let his eyes drift back to the women. Caroline Westwood was wearing a dress that showed off her figure to its full advantage. There was some cleavage on view, but not enough to make her look cheap. Not that anyone
could
look cheap when they had a classic string of pearls round their neck. There was something about the gleam of them, their smooth opacity, that made him sure they had come from a very exclusive jeweller.

Harry sipped some more whisky, trying to make it last. He checked his phone for something to do. No missed calls. No messages. Yes, he really was Mr Popular. And he wasn’t making a whole lot of progress on the seduction front either. Maybe Mac was right about honing his skills; perhaps he should call Sylvie and ask her for some tips.

Harry couldn’t recall the last time he’d deliberately set out to pick up a woman. Back in his twenties, he reckoned. His hunting skills were definitely rusty. In the past he’d usually met his partners through work or friends, but this was a completely different situation. Even though it wasn’t for real, it still stirred up all those basic feelings of male pride and anticipation.

He glanced over again at Caroline. This time she turned her head a little and caught him looking. He held her gaze, just long enough for her to know that it wasn’t an accident. He looked away and back again. Was that a flicker of something in her eyes? He smiled. She smiled back, a half-smile. Was she interested? She could be – or it could just be mild amusement that was playing on her lips.

For the next ten minutes they continued with the to-and-fro, an age-old game that was probably being played out in numerous bars and pubs across the country. It could have gone on much longer if Harry hadn’t had a stroke of good fortune. A group of young businessmen – city slickers by the look of them – decided to try their luck with the women. They moved in like a pride of lions with their white teeth bared and their eyes full of hunger.