Episode 2 - The receptionist

Superintendent CDI Gareth Hurley knew that he would have to get on to the woman named Daphne before Dorothy had a chance to phone him and check if he was taking the recording and its implications seriously. From liking Gary to loving him, and back again to not being quite as convinced about this tall officious man with Indian roots and a sharp tongue (to equal hers), 

Dorothy was now becoming doubtful of her old friend. He (and Cleo for that matter) had encouraged Dorothy to pension herself off from detective work. But now that she had joined forces with her sister Vera to start up a little business of her own in the wake of Cleo’s agency being closed for an unspecified length of time, her friends seemed annoyed, as if she had to have permission to do her own thing.

 No wonder Dorothy regretted getting them mixed up in the mystery of the memory stick. She would call on Greg Winter, Gary’s junior colleague at HQ who took her to the police shooting stand to keep her in practice. She would tell him that the Price Bureau would be turning to him if clients had to be passed on. Greg would not split on her. He had had a rough time with Gary at the outset. It was only when Gary finally won through and could declare that he and Cleo were now an item that the mood in the homicide department at HQ changed for the better, Greg had once told her. Surely Gary wasn’t going to fall back into the moodiness and grumpiness of the past. Dorothy thought it might happen.

***

As usual, Gary’s first destination was not his third floor superintendent office, where a mound of post would be waiting for attention, but in his old office on the second floor, where the homicide division still held sway. Gary’s assistant. Nigel, also preferred his old office to his new one a floor above. He was starting to get annoyed that Gary still considered the office his own, though he had bequeathed the second floor office to Nigel  and Greg when he needed it, But Niger needed an office away from the hustle and bustle of a superintendent’s daily routine, meaning Gary’s hectic attempt to get things done quickly so that he could go home to his brood (as Nigel claimed). Nigel was now Greg Winter’s assistant too, and torn apart by all the work he was landed with.

“Can you take a walk to Bernie Browne’s Gazette office this morning, please, Nigel?”

“There’s Greg’s drug-and-murder case coming up, and a lot of paperwork left to do. I don’t think I have time”

“Make time, Nigel. It could be life and death.”

“The drug case is already life and death,” said Nigel.

“My case has priority, Nigel.”

“Ouch!” thought Nigel.

But he did not argue. He knew by the tone of Gary’s voice that it was pointless reasoning with him.

“Are you going to tell me what to do there?” he said instead, his voice calm and collected though he was screaming inside.

“A clerk named Daphne with a face like the man in the moon who works for Bertie Browne might be able to tell you all about the Price Bureau,” said Gary. “That is: When did she find out about it and did she tell anyone else?”

“What’s the Price Bureau?”

“Dorothy Price’s new venture,” said Gary. “Haven’t you seen the Gazette?”

“No time, Boss. Was that her description of Daphne?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Why her?”

“Someone spilt the beans and the advert appeared today insteady of next Thursday.”

“Oh dear. And Dorothy is irate?”

”The woman might be an amateur actress.”

“Dorothy?”

“Daphne.”

“You’ve got to hand it to her… clearing the desk and all that jazz.”

“To fill in the gaps in the story, Dorothy found a memory stick in her letterbox yesterday morning and on it is a recording that could be a hoax, but possibly isn’t. Most of it was told as a dream sequence in the first person with a fortune-teller prophesying evil and a constant fear of being burgled or worse – a sort of a gypsy’s warning disguised as a nightmare.”

“And you suspect the Daphne person?”

“Not really.”

“So why do you need me to talk to her?”

“We don’t know who the anonymous speaker on the recording is.”

“And Dorothy did not recognize her, I suppose.”

“We’ll have to find someone who sends recordings that sould like suicide notes.”

“Reporting a dream in first person containing a gypsy warning and a theoretical burglar sounds satirical, so you don’t expect me to trot out any bits of that story, I hope,” said Nigel.

“The recording was anonymous, of course, and no, that won’t be part of your mission.”

“We need to find out who made it, I assume, and you think Daphne will know.”

“The woman on the recording could be in trouble. I can’t bear the idea of hearing ‘I told you so’ if I did not investigate and something really happens.”

“Or has already happened.”

“We don’t know why Dorothy got that recording, or from whom, or who made it, or when, or if she got the recording on behalf of her Bureau.”

“In other words, we don’t know anything.”

“Except being aware that whoever put the advert in Monday’s edition had prior knowledge of Dorothy’s new office, that about describes the situation.”

“So I’ll improvise some sort of drama, shall I? Sort of: Where’s Daphne, shes’s in danger? Panic stations? That sort of thing?”

“Not too camp, please.”

“You’ve never complained before, Gary.”

“I’m not complaining now. The theory is that someone in that office knew about the Bureau ahead of a public announcement. We need to know who in the hope that the information leads us to the identity of the hapless person who made that recording and probably wanted Dorothy to help her. On the other hnad, that person has Dorothy’s home address and may be up to no good.”

“So whichever way you see it, action is called for,” concluded Nigel. “I’ll get going.”

***

The receptionist at the Gazette office was dark and pretty, definitely not a likeness of the man in the moon. Her name was Maureen.

“Selling or buying,” she asked in a pert voice.

“Neither,” said Nigel, “just enquiring.”

“You’re police, aren’t you?” said Maureen.

“Assistant,” said Nigel. “Do you have a colleague named Daphne?”

“Oh her. I’m having to work overtime for her.”

“Why?”

“She hasn’t turned up, has she?”

“Hasn’t she?”

“I’ve just said she hasn’t.”

“Since when? I’m Nigel, by the way.”

“Thursday. I’m having to work double shifts.”

“Then you’ll get more money.”

“Not from him,” said Maureen, sneering in the direction of Bertie Browne’s office door.

As if he had seen the gesture, Mr Browne opened his door and flounced out.

“Not from whom, Maureen?” he asked.

Maureen was flustered.

“Not from Mr Hurley,” Nigel improvised, remembering that Bertie did not like the police and Mr Hurley in particular.

“Was he rude to you, Maureen?” said Bertie.

“No,” said Maureen.

 “Give Gareth my love when you see him,” said Bertie. “And tell him he’s up a gum tree, whatever he’s trying to cadge now.”

Bertie Browne flounced back into his office. Maureen was grateful.

“Can I have Daphne’s address?” Nigel asked.

“She’s taken, Nigel. She has a horrible boyfriend.”

“I don’t want to take her anywhere,” said Nigel. “I just want to check that she’s OK.”

“I’d better not ask you why,” said Maureen.

“Why not? Do you know something I should know?

“Daphne Lewis often looked bruised and battered, Nigel. I don’t think she made good choices of boyfriends.”

“Do you, Maureen?”

“Do I look like an idiot?”

“Does Daphne have one special boyfriend, Maureen.?

“She had a nasty one before the new one and that has not been going for long.”

“Do you know his name?”

“He calls himself Jet, but that can’t be his name, can it?”

“I’ll check on that. Thanks for helping me.”

“All in a day’s work,” said Maureen, and Nigel hurried back to HQ.

***

Having listened attentively to Nigel’s account of his visit to the Gazette office, Gary decided to send investigators to determine Daphne Lewis’s whereabouts, although, as he pointed out, she was not on the missing persons list and not, as far as he knew, dead, which would mean that she did not qualify for investigation by the homicide department or anyone else for that matter-. If she had decided to disappear, that was her problem.

Nigel thought Gary was taking it all too lightly.

“What if she has disappeared. She did nto turn up for work and her colleague is livid.”

“Girly talk, Nigel. Daphne probably went on holiday and had permission to do so. Maureen is jealous and therefore scathing. That’s how women function.”

“You should know, Boss,” said Nigel.

“I was quoting Cleo, Nigel. And that reminds me that I should get some pasta from Romano’s on the way home.”

“Do you want me to look for Daphne?”

“Not today. Maybe not ever, Nigel. Can you send the report of your talk with Maureen to Cleo?”

“Will do.”

***

Time spent having fun with his children helped to restore Gary’s mood, but he was annoyed with Dorothy’s newfound ambition to go it alone with a sleuthing bureau. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it would lead to dubious actions and him having to dig the two sisters out of holes. He had perhaps forgotten how many holes Dorothy had helped to dig him out of. When Cleo pointed that out, he retorted that Dorothy always depended on her for good advice. Was she planning to go join Price’s Bureau rather than even bothering with her own agency?

Now it was Cleo’s turn to be angry. The evening ritual of coffee and a review of the day’s events did not take place, and it was the first time that they had not been able to patch things up before bedtime.