The Missing Party-Girl: A Rags-to-Riches Cozy Mystery Romance by Nhys Glover (read after .txt) 📗

“Any questions?” Elizabeth was saying, looking at Adie for once.

Adie shook her head mutely. She’d seen all she needed to see. For all the modern accoutrements, she thought she now had a feel for the place Minerva had called home. When she read her aunt’s journal, she’d have a clearer picture of what her aunt described.

Chapter 6

Using Cage’s phone, Adie and Cage negotiated the streets of Soho, having left the slightly disappointed realtor at the door to Minerva’s building.

“What did you think?” Cage asked, using his bulk to clear the way for them both along the overcrowded sidewalk.

“Do you mean the flat or the over-attentive realtor?” she snarked.

Cage laughed. “You reacted just like a jealous partner protecting her territory. Well done!”

Adie grimaced. “Hardly difficult. The woman was eating you up with her eyes from the first moment she laid eyes on you. Expect to get a follow-up call later. And not to find out if you’re interested in the flat.”

Cage glanced down at her, his brows furrowing. “Maybe. But I’m not going to be in London for long, am I? Hardly going to take her up on any offer she might make.”

Adie shrugged, trying to act as if she didn’t care one way or the other. She hated that he’d even thought enough about the blonde to consider how much spare time he had while he was in London. That had to mean he was interested, didn’t it?

“But I was asking about the flat. It had definitely been renovated recently. Hard to imagine what it looked like back in the 60s,” he went on, guiding her around people standing in the middle of the pavement, chatting.

“Small. Tiny. I kept trying to imagine three women living together in such a confined space. Unless you were good friends, it would have to have been uncomfortable,” Adie answered, letting thoughts of the realtor go. “Our house back home was small but not as small as that!”

“I can imagine her dad wouldn’t have liked her living there,” Cage said. “I know I’d think twice about letting my teenage daughter live there, even in its current gentrified state. Still feels seedy to me.”

Adie nodded her agreement as they took a turn into a very narrow lane that was barely wide enough to accommodate a small car. The dark, ominous buildings on either side seemed to loom over them, blocking the spring sunshine.

Did prostitutes in the past make use of these walls to give a man in a hurry a quick hand-job, or more? The idea made Adie blush. Maybe it was the Adult Entertainment store they’d just passed that had given her the idea.

“I’m glad we came, though. It definitely sets the scene. And if this was the way Georgie walked to and from her job at the Den then it’s a wonder she ever made it home at all,” Adie said, shivering a little at the idea of walking down the lane alone at night.

“Yeah. But she didn’t go missing at night, did she? It was during the day. She left late Saturday morning. That’s what the police report said.”

Adie nodded. “How desperate would you have to be to walk home from a nightclub alone, though? Or maybe she was a bit of a hard nut. Capable of taking care of herself.”

“The police report didn’t make it sound that way. Not even the suggestion she was doing more than dancing. I thought the detective sounded respectful when he said she lost her job when she knocked back her boss’ proposition.”

Adie looked at her large companion in surprise. “You got respect from that formal recitation of information?”

Cage shrugged. “You learn to read between the lines of a police report. Cops can say things without actually saying them.”

“Hmm,” she answered noncommittally, as they turned back onto a wider, more populated thoroughfare.

But Cage was taking in their surroundings and comparing it to the map on his phone. He turned down another lane, this one a little wider than the last. After a few steps he stopped and looked up at a modern high-rise that took up one side of the street and didn’t fit with its surroundings at all.

“This was where it was. Barry was right that it was torn down and replaced,” he muttered, turning in a circle to get his bearings. Adie did the same.

A row of small shops lined the other side of the street from the new complex, all looking old, weathered and cramped. Yet from the steady flow of foot traffic, it seemed they were doing a good trade.

“I wonder if anyone remembers The Den,” Cage mused, studying each shop in turn. “Let’s go ask some questions.”

They hit pay-dirt almost immediately. The manager of the first shop, an off-license liquor store, had heard of The Den. He was a middle-aged middle-eastern man who kept bobbing his head in understanding, and seemed comfortable talking to Cage.

“My father ran this shop before me. He’s retired now. But he was well known in the area back in the 60s and 70s when that club was operating,” the shopkeeper said, his cockney accent at odds with his swarthy appearance.

“Is your father still alive?” Cage asked deferentially.

The man bobbed his head again. “Oh, yes. Very much alive. My mother, Allah protect her, passed ten years ago. But my father still rules the family as he has always done. He’s upstairs now,” he finished, pointing upward.

“Could we bother him for a few minutes?” Cage asked.

“Of course, of course. He’ll be glad of the company. And if anyone knew anything about what was going on in this community back then it was him. I won’t call him a busybody, but he did believe that having your finger on the pulse of a place