MURDER IS SKIN DEEP by M.G. Cole (read dune .txt) 📕

At a set of traffic lights, he found Wendy’s number on his phone and his finger hovered over it. It wasn’t too late, and perhaps they could get a drink? Although she would have an early start at the school tomorrow, and after a day rambling, she may be exhausted…

Garrick stopped himself. He was making excuses. Something he had been doing too much lately. He had to be more proactive.

The light turned green, and he turned towards Derek Fraser’s hotel. There was being proactive; and there was putting work aside. He could only do one at a time.

Asking for Fraser at the front desk, he was guided into the hotel bar. Fraser was perched on a stool, waving animatedly as he talked to a woman. Jacketless, he had opened the top two buttons of his shirt. For him, that amounted to being dressed down. As Garrick neared, he spotted an open champagne bottle cooling in an ice bucket and, from his slurred speech, it wasn’t his first.

“Mr Fraser!”

Derek Fraser’s smile slid into an open look of disgust. “Bloody hell! Can’t a man have a celebration with a young lady?”

His companion was Molly Meyers. She was smiling, but her eyes sparkled with thanks that Garrick had arrived to save her.

“Molly. Pursuing another scoop?”

“Mr Fraser has just sold two more Hoys. Hence the celebration.”

“And you have a private interview?”

“Of course. Which was just ending,” she said with some relief as she slipped off the stool and took her coat that had been draped on the one next to her.

“Oh! Stay darling. I got so much more to tell you.”

Her smile never faltered. “I have everything, Mr Fraser. You’ve been wonderful. But I need to get my copy written up or you won’t be in the paper.”

Garrick smiled to himself. That was the perfect ammunition to cool Fraser’s libido. She flashed a look of thanks at Garrick and quickly hurried out. With undisguised lust, Fraser watched her go.

“What an arse.”

Garrick never took his eyes off the Scotsman. “I was thinking the same thing.” He sat on Molly’s stool. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Fraser emptied his glass. He filled it from the bottle. It didn’t quite reach halfway before the last drop.

“Oops. I’d offer you one, but you’re on duty.”

“Congratulations. The buyers found you after all?”

Fraser held up one finger. “Buyer. Singular and loaded. Went up to…” he used both hands to play a drumroll on the bar, “four-hundred thousand!” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And best of all, no commission!”

“Lucky for you, Mark isn’t around anymore.”

“Thirty per cent saved! I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was a nice bloke. And a hundred-and-twenty grand will buy some bloody nice flowers. It’ll always buy me a plane when I get me licence.” With a hint of melancholy, he watched the bubbles rising in his glass. “And I’ve got another two to go to the market soon. But I might give it a couple of weeks before announcing that.” He put his finger over his lips. “Ssshhh! Even our little Molly tight-arse doesn’t know about those. I’ll get her out for dinner then.”

“I thought you’d be happy that we can let you return home in a day or so. Forensics have done all they can there.”

“Terrific. About time.”

“What has Rebecca said about it?”

“Mmm?”

“The house. She was expecting it as per your divorce settlement.”

“Well, that cat’s out of the bag now. She knows she’s getting nothing. She threatened to sue me. I told her to go to hell.” He chuckled. “She wasn’t too happy about that either.”

“Another two Hoys. He’s knocking them out quickly.”

Fraser’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They’re in me room. Ssshh!”

“You met today?”

Fraser sipped the champagne. “We had a rendezvous. You know, I never really liked champagne. Never saw the point of it.”

Garrick mentally kicked himself. If he had assigned some protection to Fraser, then they would have been able to identify the elusive artist.

“You promised you would pass my questions to him.”

“Aye, I did. When I have the answers, I’ll let you know.”

“Can you think of any time Rebecca and Mark Kline-Watson would have been in touch with each other before she entered the country?”

He watched Fraser gently roll the stem of the champagne glass between his thumb and fingers, swirling the alcohol one way, and then the other. While Garrick like the chatty drunk Fraser, he wasn’t certain this was the ideal time to raise the subject.

Finally, Fraser spoke. His voice low, carrying a trace of regret – or was it fear? “Mark was broke. He put a lot of money into that gallery, but his tastes were all over the place. He asked me to help him out. I couldn’t.” His eyes glazed, and for a moment Garrick thought he was going to sob. “I haggled hard over his commission, but I let him have a bit more than I was comfortable with because I knew it would help him out.” He took another sip of champagne. “Who would have thought Hoy would have taken off like that?” He snorted with disbelief. “Not me or I certainly wouldn’t have given him thirty bloody per cent. So, when they exploded,” he stabbed his thumb into his chest, “because of all my hard work setting the scene. Building the legend. He comes back to me and asks for more. Sixty per cent. Sixty!”

“And you told him where to go, in your inimitable way.”

Fraser knocked back the champagne and hung his head. “I wanted to. The problem was that he had the network. All the buyers.”

“They would find you anyway. You have the artist.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight. I felt like he had me over a barrel. Y’see, I made the mistake of telling him that Becs had cleaned me out. Taken all my liquid assets and ran off with a man who hated me guts.”

Fraser wiped a tear from his eye and sucked in a deep breath. The cocky shyster that Garrick