Chapter Two
Detective Constable Claire Wheeler looked around the flat knowing that even if she had a warrant to search it she wouldn’t find anything. Not what she was after, anyway. She looked across at Adele who was standing with one hand on her hip, her head cocked to the side and her eyebrows raised in a ‘whatever’ expression of indifference. Wheeler would have liked to wipe the look from her face but even more she would have liked to have pulled the soft tits from her bra and given them a good sucking. She quite fancied Adele. She was still young and good-looking and she had really long nipples when aroused. There weren’t too many whores in this small town; it was leafy and affluent, but its position in London’s commuter belt meant that most girls who went on the game were drawn to the richer pickings of the capital. Adele was definitely one of the best of a pretty average bunch.
“So, when is your pimp going to be here?” asked Wheeler.
“Carlos is not my pimp, he’s my boyfriend, and he won’t know anything about your passports, either.” Adele was getting stroppy, her pouting overly made-up face becoming even sexier in the detective’s humble opinion. She felt a familiar tingle between her legs as she eyed up the tart’s cleavage, which was threatening to spill out unceremoniously at every slight movement. It was a hot day but not too hot to preclude the probability that Wheeler would abuse her position of power before leaving this flat. She was mulling over the idea when her phone rang and distracted her attention. The interruption annoyed her and she only answered the call on seeing it was from her boss, Detective Inspector Rick Finch.
“Hi Claire,” he said. “There’s been another burglary reported this morning and it looks like the same person who did the Anwar’s. Forensics tell me they’ve found nothing, so I’m going to need you back here to go over the statements, ok?”
“Sure, Guv. I’ll be finished up here pretty soon.”
Wheeler rang off and cursed under her breath. This burglary inquiry was starting to annoy her. There was no evidence to go on and none of the booty had turned up in any of the usual places. They had so far linked two incidents, both thefts from houses in a particularly wealthy part of town, with only jewellery stolen despite the opportunity to take more. In both cases security systems had been disarmed before entry. The second victim was a Mr Arbosh Anwar, a particularly dislikeable man who shouted his way through the brief interview Claire had conducted, and told her in no uncertain terms that he expected her to swiftly bring the culprit to justice, despite the lack of evidence. He then filed his insurance claim, citing the disappearance of valuables totalling nearly thirty grand.
Claire wondered if it was some kind of scam, although it turned out that Mr Anwar had friends in high places, prompting the Chief Inspector himself to make rash promises about getting the best men on the job before shifting the whole thing onto D.I. Finch who, not to be outdone, promptly handed it over to Wheeler. Seemingly every other day Anwar would ring in demanding an update on the progress of the case; not an action you expect from someone trying to pull an insurance fraud, however suspicious a character he appeared to be.
There seemed only one anomaly to go on. The wife had apparently discovered the theft when she returned home at around seven in the evening. However, the security system had a timer which showed it had been disarmed at exactly 22.00. This was easily explainable—either the system moved to a default time after being switched off, or more likely the person disabling it had purposefully moved the clock forward to fool the police or deprive them of the evidence of when the theft took place. When informing Mrs Anwar that the system was apparently disabled after she claimed to have discovered the theft, the previously mute Mrs Anwar went to pieces, colouring up and stuttering on about how if it had been later she would have heard any intruder, an odd statement from someone who had earlier claimed to have found broken glass and an open door on her early evening return.
Perhaps Mrs Anwar had come home later and didn’t