Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

anything about Karl Marx?” He just stared. He didn’t answer. “You know he was a Jew, right? You know he created Marxism in the first place to protect Jews against German and Austrian anti-Semitism, right?” She shook her head and stepped out the door, muttering, “Dumb asshole.”

As we reached the car and climbed in, he shouted from the door, pointing at Dehan. “You’re a racist! You called me an asshole because I am a Muslim!”

She paused, halfway in the car. “No, I called you an asshole because you’re an asshole, asshole.”

We climbed in and closed the doors. Harry was on the radio. “I need a twenty-four hour watch on Sadiq Hassan as of now. I want to know where he goes, who he sees, who he talks to, what he eats, drinks, where he shits! Everything!”

The radio crackled and a girl’s voice said “Literally, boss?”

“No, not literally, Karen…”

“Didn’t think so, sir. Everything apart from where he shits, then?”

“Yes, Karen, everything apart from that.”

“Right you are, boss.”

I said, “He didn’t do it.”

“I know. I wish he had, though, nasty piece of work. But he reacted all wrong to my question about the Butcher…”

Dehan spoke up from the back. “And if he had killed her, he would have made sure the whole world knew why. The Butcher of Whitechapel has no meaning for him.”

I sucked my teeth and asked nobody in particular, “So who’s this Jewish guy she was seeing?”

A dark blue Ford Mondeo rolled past and Harry suddenly fired up the engine and pulled away. “They’re here,” he said. “I need to talk to CID. This whole thing is getting way out of hand. One thing is clear…”

I glanced at him. “What?”

“You were right from the start. This has nothing to do with the Butcher of Whitechapel.”

I made a face and a long, “Hmmmmm…” noise.

He looked at me sharply. “Don’t tell me you now think it has!”

I could hear Dehan sniggering in the back. “You are such a pain in the ass, Stone…”

“The killing was not committed by the same guy. But that is not the same as saying they are not connected. There is a connection.”

Harry was shaking his head. “No. This is political.” We drove in silence for a while. He chewed his lip, leaning forward slightly over the steering wheel. “That was a purely psycho-sexual motivation: some dark, Freudian need to punish his mother or something equally unedifying. This is political. The motivation is totally different. I’ll drop you back at the hotel.”

We didn’t talk again until we had arrived at Piccadilly and he’d pulled up outside the hotel. As we were about to climb out, he said, “I’ll be in touch after I’ve spoken to the chaps at CID. Enjoy London for the afternoon. Let’s have dinner soon.”

We thanked him and he drove away.

Dehan said, “He’s giving us the shove.”

I watched his car disappear into the traffic. “Yup.”

“Do you care?”

I looked at her and nodded. “Yup.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s got it wrong.”

She shrugged and sighed. “Well, it’s not our case, Stone. So what do you want to do this afternoon?”

I smiled at her. “In this order, have a pre-lunch martini in the bar, a light lunch in the dining room, and then we’ll go and see Lord Chiddester, probably at his country house in West Sussex.”

She thumped me on the chest. “Come on, Stone! Give it up!” We started toward the door and the doorman opened it for us. “The first two sound great. The third is dumb. You’ve been told to leave it alone. They’ve got this.”

We stepped into the cool, elegant lobby and moved toward the cocktail bar. “I am not going to do anything, Dehan, except accept His Lordship’s invitation.”

“Really?”

“You shall regret your sarcastic tone. You see if you don’t.”

We had negotiated to potted palms and were now in the dark cool of the cocktail bar. I signaled the waiter. “Two martinis, very dry…” I smiled. “Shaken, not stirred.”

Dehan turned her back on the bar and leaned her elbow on it. “OK, Stone, John Stone, what makes you so sure Lord Chiddester is going to invite us to West Sussex?”

“Because he asked how he could contact us, and he is on his way to Chiddester even as we speak, to be with his wife. He’s a hard man who doesn’t show his feelings, but he is also a passionate man of strict morals who wants his daughter’s killer caught. He believes Muslims are involved, he doesn’t trust Harry to do the job, but he is impressed by you, and our attitude to the case. He also reasons that we are not bound by the police code of conduct. He will have his secretary contact us in the next hour, and probably send a car. Perhaps a Rolls or a Bentley.”

“In your dreams, pal. Even if you were right, how can you know that he’ll do that in the next hour? You’re showing off.”

I shook my head. The barman poured the two martinis and I handed one to Dehan and sipped. “He’s no fool. He’s a smart man. He saw how we, and in particular you, made Harry look bad. He knows that before long, Harry is going to thank us politely and send us on our merry ways, so he will be keen to talk to us and see if we can help him before that happens.”

She made a face and nodded once. “Huh.” Then she shrugged. “We’ll see. You think Harry is right and this is politically motivated?”

I spent a while bobbing the olive up and down in my glass. Eventually, I said, “The killing is political, but probably with a small ‘P’. I mean that she was not killed because she was right wing, but because she was becoming a threat to somebody’s