CHAPTER ONE
‘But Leigh, you’re the private detective, not me,’ Debra pointed out firmly to her stepsister. ‘I’m a tax accountant.’
‘A tax accountant who is just about to start a week’s holiday and who doesn’t have to attend a business meeting that’s vital to her business,’ Leigh interrupted quickly.
Although there were six years between them and Leigh was the elder, it had always been Debra who had been the calm, down-to-earth one, and Leigh the impulsive cause of family chaos.
‘Look, Debs, you know how important this business is to me,’ Leigh pleaded coaxingly now. ‘After Paul left me, after the divorce, I felt as though my whole life was over. Now, since Jen and I started up Secrets, I feel as though life actually has some proper purpose again. I wouldn’t ask you to help if there were anything difficult or dangerous involved. It’s simply a matter of spending a few days in an empty house, keeping a tape-recorded list of someone’s comings and goings, that’s all.
‘He won’t even know you’re there. We’ve persuaded his next-door neighbour to go and visit her sister so that we can use her house. I promise you, you won’t have to do a thing other than—’
‘Keep a twenty-four hour surveillance over someone’s cheating husband,’ Debra interrupted drily. ‘Look, Leigh, I disapprove of men who cheat on their wives and families just as much as you do, but—’
‘This one isn’t cheating on his wife,’ Leigh told her flatly, her normally animated face suddenly set hard. ‘He’s trying to seduce a seventeen-year-old into leaving home and going to live with him... He’s thirty-four, Debs, with a string of women in his past and a taste for innocent young girls.’ Her mouth tightened in distaste.
‘According to her mother, Ginny is completely besotted with him and won’t listen to a thing either of her parents has to say. They felt if they could present her with concrete evidence of the kind of man he really is, although it will hurt her now, it will save her much more pain in the long run.
‘She’s a clever girl, Debs, university material, with her whole life ahead of her, but this man has a reputation for picking up and discarding clever young girls like her.’
Debra sighed. She could feel herself weakening. And was it really so much that Leigh was asking? She knew what a struggle her stepsister had had since her marriage broke up. Deserted by her husband and with two small children to support, she had changed overnight from a bright, breezy, bubbly personality into a withdrawn, tormented woman whom Debra barely recognised.
But since she and a friend had set up this detective agency specialising in handling cases mainly for other women she had recovered all her lost self-esteem. The business, although moderately successful, was still quite precariously balanced and very much in its infancy. With her partner away on a much-needed short holiday and Leigh herself suddenly being offered the opportunity to expand into a wider market, Debra could quite understand why Leigh should feel it was so essential that she not miss out on this all-important meeting.
Equally she could also understand why, having organised events so that a twenty-four-hour watch could be kept on the man involved in this current case, Leigh was pleading with her to take her place in the next-door house and watch him for her.
‘You won’t have to keep watch on him for the full twenty-four hours,’ Leigh was telling her coaxingly now. ‘I’ve arranged for Jeff to watch the house from midnight to seven in the morning from a car outside.’
Jeff was Leigh’s boyfriend, a solid, placid man, a teacher, some fifteen years older than Leigh, whom Debra liked and thought an ideal partner for her more volatile stepsister.
‘Look, I wouldn’t ask you if I weren’t absolutely desperate,’ Leigh told her. ‘The parents are going to have the girls for me, but you’re the only person...’
‘Soft enough to be persuaded into helping you out,’ Debra finished drily for her. ‘All right,’ she agreed, adding under her breath, ‘I just hope I don’t end up regretting this.’
‘You won’t,’ Leigh promised her. ‘Look, I’ll have to take you round to introduce you to Mrs Johnson. You’re her god-daughter and you’re staying at the house to keep an eye for it while she’s away.
‘She’s a nice old thing, although I don’t think she quite approves of the idea of female private detectives.’ Leigh pulled a wry face. ‘She certainly isn’t on her own there. She’s only just moved into the house a month or so ago, so unfortunately she wasn’t able to tell us very much about her neighbour. Only that he comes and goes rather a lot.’
‘She’s seen Ginny going into the house with him?’
Leigh sighed. ‘Not as yet, thank God. I keep asking myself how I would feel if it was one of my two. What I’d do if, when they get to that age...’
‘You’ve a long way to go before they do,’ Debra pointed out to her. ‘Sally is only eight and Bryony ten.’
‘I know. Paul should have had them this weekend, but he cancelled at the last moment. I could have killed him, Debs... Not for my sake, but for theirs. Oh, Bryony put a brave face on it... said she expected that Daddy had a lot of work to do, and I went along with it. Work. Hah... more like some bimbo blonde occupying his time. Luckily Jeff came round, so we went into Chester, walked
round the walls and then went on the river. He’s so good with them, Debs. You can see in his eyes how much he’d have liked kids of his own. That must be so hard for a man, knowing that he can’t be a father. That’s why Alex divorced him, you know. Apparently, when they found out that his sperm count was too low for her to conceive, she told him that she couldn’t stay married to him. That the reason she had married had been to have children.’
‘He’s a nice man,’ Debra told her.
‘A very nice man,’ Leigh agreed.
Both of them started to laugh as Leigh mimicked one of the voices from a popular current TV advertisement. Although they were physically completely different, a sense of humour was something they shared.
Leigh had been ten when her father had married Debra’s mother, and Debra had been four.
Leigh was like her father, tall, vigorous, with strong bones and thick curly brown hair.
Debra was like her mother, average height, slim, with delicate bones and the kind of honey-coloured hair that went strikingly fair in the summer.
Luckily, although it was very fine, it was also very thick. As an accountant, she often felt she would look more businesslike if she had it cut, but she had always worn it at shoulder-length, and she liked the versatility this gave her, plus the fact that her simple timeless style was easy to maintain.
Her mother and stepfather still lived in the same Cheshire village where she had been brought up. Leigh had bought a small house there after her divorce so that her daughters could be near to their grandparents.
Debra was now the proud owner of a very pretty little Georgian terraced house in Chester which was within walking distance of where she worked.
She was a happy, contented girl who enjoyed the friendships she shared with people of both sexes. At twenty-six, she was in no hurry to commit herself to a permanent relationship. A brief love-affair during the early years of her training when she had worked in London had taught her that the intensely passionate and deeply private part of her nature which she wanted to share with her lover was not always something that the male sex seemed to want. She had decided she wanted, needed a partner who would share her goals in life, who wanted security and calm; a family. Passion, she had decided, was not for her. One day she wanted to marry, but not yet. Leigh had once remarked that she was afraid of passion. She had, of course, denied it—too vehemently perhaps.
‘Come on, I’ll drive you over to Mrs Johnson’s now,’ Leigh told her.