Kiss Me When I'm Dead

  KISS ME WHEN I’M DEAD

  Dominic Piper

  © Dominic Piper 2017

  Dominic Piper has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  Third edition – published by Opium Den Publishing 2017

  Contents

  1 THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  2 PORTRAIT OF A LADY

  3 A MISSING PERSON

  4 SELECT METROPOLITAN ESCORTS

  5 BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE LAUGHS

  6 KINGPIN OF A BAD CROWD

  7 ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR

  8 A PIN-UP COME TO LIFE

  9 BURNED IN LIBERTY’S

  10 L’OPINION D’UN ARTISTE

  11 AN UNEXPECTED BEATING

  12 CHERRY BLOSSOM

  13 THE OVERNIGHT OUTCALL

  14 A LITTLE TRIM OF LACE

  15 THE BOLTON MAYFAIR

  16 WICKED THOUGHTS

  17 RETRO GIRL

  18 CHAMPAGNE AND OYSTERS

  19 COFFEE AND CIGARETTES

  20 THE DEAL

  21 FERME TES YEUX

  22 BLUE TIE, ORANGE SHIRT

  23 THE COOL ROOM

  24 A MOUTHFUL OF BLOOD

  25 CHOKE-OUT

  26 A MAN OF MANY SUSPICIOUS TALENTS

  27 LOOSE ENDS

  Books by Dominic Piper

  Kiss Me When I’m Dead

  Death is the New Black

  Femme Fatale

  Dominic Piper’s Amazon page

  1

  THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  The moment I saw her, I knew we were going to sleep together.

  She’s mid-twenties; about five foot eight in four-inch heels with a knockout, pneumatic figure trapped in an expensive black suit that seems designed to show off those inescapable curves. The skirt is maybe six inches below her knees with a twelve inch split up the left-hand side. She’s wearing a white cotton blouse under the jacket with a blue bead necklace around a perfect, porcelain white neck. I inhale from her cloud of L’Air du Temps and momentarily forget where I am or what I’m doing.

  If I had a secretary or a PA or whatever the hell she is, this is how I’d want her to dress. I’d actually be looking forward for the alarm to go off each morning so I could get in to see her. It’s that bad.

  ‘Mr Beckett? How lovely to meet you. Come in. Mr Raleigh is expecting you.’

  We shake hands. I make sure my grip is gentle and light. Hers is soft but firm. It’s more like a caress than a handshake. I smile at her and she smiles back. Her pupils are so dilated I can’t quite work out what her eye colour is. The front door closes behind us and I follow her down a long corridor lined with fake Regency chairs that no one ever sits on.

  She has a sexy, swaying walk that drags the eyes to those wide hips and keeps them there. I’m aware that my mouth is open. If things weren’t bad enough already, she tosses her mane of black hair back and runs her fingers through it, like she knows I’m watching.

  The effect of all this self-conscious body language is overwhelming and I try to think of something else, like changing the tyre on a car. Beautiful women easily distract me and I’m still not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing. It’s probably both.

  After what seems like three long, frustrating months, we arrive in what I assume to be her office. It’s white and modern with black furniture. I wonder if she dresses to match her working environment or whether the place was decorated to match her clothes. Either is possible. Her desk is made from glass with a three-drawer pedestal on the right-hand side and I wonder if someone chose it so that they could see her legs while she was sitting down.

  ‘Mr Raleigh is just taking a call from Oman,’ she says. ‘He shouldn’t be too long. Take a seat. Would you like something to drink while you’re waiting?’

  I sit down and ask for a coffee. I continue to watch her as she slides a plastic thing into a coffee-making machine. She turns around to face me. I avert my gaze, but not quickly enough. She smiles, pleased that she’s caught me out. I’m beginning to think that I’m not quick-witted enough for this subtle courtship dance that we’re having.

  ‘I’m Anjukka, by the way. I’m Mr Raleigh’s personal assistant.’

  She waits for a reaction to this unusual name. ‘That’s Finnish, isn’t it?’ I say, as if I didn’t know. She looks pleasantly surprised.

  ‘Yes it is. My mother was Finnish. From Jakobstad.’

  ‘Right on the coast.’

  This time, her eyes widen.

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  She walks over and hands me a coffee in a white china cup and saucer. I can feel a change in the air. She’s more relaxed. The effect of her perfume persists.

  ‘Not to Jakobstad. I went to Finland on holiday when I was student. Visited Helsinki for a few days.’

  ‘Helsinki’s amazing, isn’t it? I haven’t been there since I was a little girl. I’d love to go again.’

  I haven’t been there at all, of course. I can lie my way around the globe and make it sound like the biggest truth you’ve ever heard in your life. I know I’m digging myself a hole, but I can’t help it.

  ‘Yes. It’s a fantastic city.’

  She’s wearing an engagement ring. It’s diamond and sapphire, but it looks old and the silver band is slightly tarnished, so either it’s an antique or a family heirloom. Maybe she’s not really engaged and she’s borrowed it from someone to get guys off her back. It has been known.

  She walks over to her desk and sits down. Good posture, straight-backed and a self-conscious hand through the hair again. She crosses her legs beneath the see-through desk. I pick up a copy of Jane’s Defence Weekly and flick through it, turning slightly away from her. My peripheral vision is good, though, and I can see she’s staring at me while doing something close to nothing on her computer. I stare blankly at an article about Hungary supplying jets to Bulgaria and wait for her to break the silence. As she speaks, I watch her mouth. She’s wearing dark red lipstick, made all the more striking by the contrast with her pale skin.

  ‘Mr Raleigh said you were a private investigator of some sort.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Missing pets, lost house keys, that sort of thing.’

  She gets the joke, thankfully. ‘Must be exciting!’

  ‘It has its moments.’

  ‘Have you recovered any missing pets recently?’

  ‘Not a single one.’

  ‘You don’t look like, um…’

  ‘Some middle-aged, heavy-set, bitter ex-CID man with a drink problem and a bedridden wife?’

  She laughs. It’s a genuine laugh. This is good, but unfortunately it can’t continue. A buzzer starts buzzing somewhere on her desk. I can see a flashing orange light illuminating the lower part of her face.

  ‘Mr Raleigh will see you now, Mr Beckett. Through the blue door.’

  ‘OK. Thank you for the coffee, Anjukka.’ I get up and place one of my business cards on her desk. ‘If you ever need a missing library book tracked down, give me a call.’

  She picks up the card and looks at it, then looks up at me. ‘I’ll be sure to.’

  We make brief eye contact and I head through the blue door. I think that went quite well.

  I’d been expecting to walk straight into Raleigh’s office and find him sitting behind some gigantic fuckoff desk with a cigar stuffed in his mouth, but this is not the case. I’m in a room about half the size of Anjukka’s and there are two men standing there. They are not smiling.

  Both of them look like they’ve been pumping iron since they were six years old and wear matching grey suits with white shirts. Thankfully, they have different coloured ties on so that I can tell them apart.

  Blue Tie
stands with his hands clasped just below his waist. I can just see a massive gold watch peeking out of his cuff. He is, for want of a better word, ‘guarding’ a solid-looking wooden door to his right. This, I assume, must be the entrance to Raleigh’s office. Blue Tie has a big-boned face, short black hair and a swarthy complexion, topped off with a fashionable hint of five o’ clock shadow. He’s ex-armed forces for sure.

  It’s hard to guess his nationality, but I’m guessing Mediterranean, possibly Israeli, but I can’t be a hundred per cent sure until he speaks. He doesn’t seem like the speaking type. He has a forced, sloth’s smile on his mouth, but his eyes are dead and stupid. He’s in his late thirties and I can tell he’s willing me to do something mad and unpredictable so he can kill me. As far as I can make out, he isn’t carrying a weapon, though I’m sure he’d like to be. Men like this aren’t happy or complete without a gun or a samurai sword in their hand.

  Purple Tie is standing an intimidating three feet away from me and is almost invading my space but not quite. His hands are at his side. He has a shaved head and rugby player shoulders that are about a foot wider than Blue Tie’s. He has a florid, veined complexion that hints at a past or present drink problem. He may never have laughed in his life.

  Purple Tie is also ex-armed forces, judging from his bearing. He’s older than Blue Tie but not by much. He smells of aftershave and menthol mouthwash. To be intuitive and sensitive for a moment, he gives off such bad vibes you could cut them with a knife. There’s no doubt that Purple Tie is in charge of Blue Tie. Purple Tie also carries no weapon.

  This room is a stop and search zone and I can understand why it exists. Nathan Raleigh is an arms dealer. He’s low-key and not in the public eye. He’s one of those mysterious movers and shakers who flit through the international armaments business making a stupendous deal here and a colossal deal there, and not many people are truly aware of who he is and what a force he is.

  Despite his anonymity, there was a kidnap attempt on him just over three years ago and he was lucky that it was foiled, mainly due to the incompetence of the would-be kidnappers, who were a strange mix of French, Australian and Polish. Needless to say, this kidnap attempt didn’t make the papers. People like Raleigh have the power to keep things like that quiet. They also like to exercise that sort of power from time to time, just because they can.

  That whole affair obviously made him jumpy, though, hence the designer monkeys giving me the tough-guy stares in this cute little antechamber, presumably standing around all day like they’re waiting for a member of the royal family to arrive.

  There are two obvious security cameras in here. One is high up on the wall to the left of the solid-looking wooden door and the other is almost directly behind me, above the blue door I came in through. I can’t see it, but I can hear the high-pitched whine it’s giving off. They should get it serviced.

  There are two other cameras, however, that you’re not meant to notice. One of these is in the arm of a padded ballroom chair to my immediate left and the other is on the floor about an inch away from the wooden doorframe. Both have miniscule red lights like the others and are crying out to be as inconspicuous as possible. Somewhere, someone is watching this room on a couple of monitors and I wonder who it is.

  As I’m taking in all these more-money-than-brains security measures, Purple Tie flashes me a huge insincere grin and takes a step forward.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Could you raise both of your arms to shoulder height?’

  ‘No.’

  He’s still smiling but his eyes have gone dead.

  ‘This will only take a minute, sir.’

  He has a rough-sounding north London accent which he’s had no success in making sound even remotely refined.

  ‘I’m sure it will,’ I say. ‘But the answer’s still no.’

  ‘In that case – sir – we can’t allow you to see Mr Raleigh.’

  ‘That’s fine by me. It was Mr Raleigh that wanted to see me – not the other way around. Give him my regards while he’s firing you. See you, lovebirds.’

  I turn around and head back to the blue door and the scented heaven of Anjukka. I wonder if she dresses like that to piss off these two cavemen. I certainly hope so. I wonder what her underwear is like. Expensive, I shouldn’t wonder. Would it be too much to hope that it was also black?

  ‘Would you hold on for just one minute, please, sir?’ says Purple Tie through gritted teeth.

  I stop and turn to face my astonished pals. I just know that this has never happened to them before, but it’s tough. There’s no way I’m going through a demeaning physical search just so some sonofabitch billionaire can feel like Mr Big. Besides, if I wanted to kill someone like Raleigh, I wouldn’t need a gun or a knife.

  Purple Tie turns the handle on the wooden door and goes inside. Blue Tie’s face wrestles with aggression, irritation and bafflement. This is probably the worst day of his life so far and it’s all my fault. He looks me up and down with a sneer on his face, as if to say ‘who the fuck do you think you are?’

  I give him a cheery smile. ‘I bet this makes a change from turning away kids with fake ID, eh?’

  His face actually darkens. It really does. I know I shouldn’t be this cruel to the poor bastard, but there are some things that really rub me up the wrong way and that disdainful sneer was one of them. I’m wondering where Purple Tie has gone and whom he’s talking to. I continue my one-sided chat with Blue Tie.

  ‘Smart casual. No trainers. Sound familiar?’

  Before he cracks and launches himself at me, Purple Tie reappears and he looks almost bereaved. ‘Mr Raleigh will see you now. This way, please.’

  He indicates the door with an outstretched hand, in case I hadn’t noticed it. As I walk past him into Raleigh’s office, he gives me a little deniable jostle against my right shoulder. I turn and look him straight in the eye.

  ‘Sorry to spoil your fun, girlfriend. Maybe next time, eh?’

  ‘Enjoy your meeting, sir,’ he growls. I don’t think he means it.

  ‘Thank you. I will.’

  Just before the door closes behind me, I hear one of them give a contemptuous little snort of disgust. I’m sure they’re already making their way to the cupboard where the baseball bats are kept. I’ve always been fascinated by security guys like this; employed for their brawn, but having to dress up like waiters, spitting their resentful fake politeness out through gritted teeth and being so dim they think nobody notices.

  It must be murder if you were once in the armed forces and you still have to call everyone ‘sir’. In the armed forces, you knew your place, you knew what you were doing with your life and you had people who looked up to you. You had respect. Now all those skills you acquired are mostly useless in the civilian world and you have to take shit from people like me, while sucking up to and working for the sort of people who you once wouldn’t have given the time of day to.

  Still, I should care. Fuck ’em.

  2

  PORTRAIT OF A LADY

  After all that, there’s no one in the office. Maybe Raleigh’s putting on a bulletproof vest or wants to make some sort of dramatic entrance in a tank or something. That’s fine, though. It gives me a chance to look around.

  I’d assumed that this was purely a workplace, but now I’m not so sure. This is a large room and it’s decorated like the study of a university professor from the 1940s. There’s a barely discernible smell in here that reminds me of carbolic soap, but otherwise the predominant scent is of leather, emanating from the two enormous Natuzzi sofas and probably from the bookshelves.

  Between the sofas, there’s a wooden coffee table with big frosted glass panels on top that are somehow lit up from beneath. Three large books rest on the surface, all to do with big game hunting. One of them is so heavy I have difficulty lifting it with one hand.

  Checking out Raleigh on the net was virtually impossible, but I did come across a small company called BRT Systems which manufactured bespoke hunting guns
and which was owned by Praesidium International. Raleigh’s name was down as one of the non-executive directors. Apart from that he was the invisible man.

  But I know about his main business, which is the supply of light arms and heavy artillery to anyone who can afford them. He’s a major vendor of what I would call accessories, like CS gas cartridges and stun grenades. He’s also recently moved into surveillance equipment and micro technology. I seem to recall an attempted upgrade into jet aircraft a few years back, but nothing came of it. He has a degree in chemistry from Heriot-Watt University and I would guess he’s worth billions.

  There’s quite a bit of art in the room. Behind his desk, there’s a large red and blue painting that looks like a Monet, and as I imagine he’s not the sort of person to buy prints from AllPosters, I’m guessing that it’s an original.

  Behind me, there’s a large, striking painting of a table groaning with fruit and oysters. At the centre of the painting are a peeled lemon and a brown wine glass. It isn’t familiar to me, but looks as though it’s from the mid-1600s and probably Flemish.

  On the wall to my right, there’s what looks like an Egyptian tomb painting, with the god Anubis leaning over the prostrate form of a pharaoh. Anubis was the keeper of poisons and medicines and the patron of embalming; a benevolent god, but still creepy-looking with that black jackal head. A strange thing to have in your office, but there’s no accounting for taste.

  But the painting that really catches my eye is a large, arresting portrait of an extremely beautiful woman. She’s sitting in a pale brown armchair, with a black cushion behind her back. She’s naked from the waist up, with high, medium-sized breasts and large, dark nipples. The style is vaguely impressionistic, so it’s hard to tell whether she’s just wearing a skirt or whether it’s a dress that has been pulled down. She appears to be holding a white fur coat, which partially covers her thighs and all of her right forearm and hand.