The Hero's Fall (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 14) by Phillip Strang (best classic romance novels txt) 📗

up to the camera, held the door for me, pulled the chair out when I sat down, the perfect gentleman. Not that it was meant to be more than that, him and me together on the night, a write up in the newspaper, shown on television. Angus was a natural showman, and he was always looking for funding for his next adventure.’

‘A mutual trade-off, you and him. He got money; you got respectability.’

‘He got me. He wasn’t much into romance, but after some that I’ve encountered over the years, it was refreshing. And then, I’m his woman, which I was, not because it paid, but because I wanted it. Nobody touches Angus’s woman, not with the admiration that he engendered. I was in love with him, still am, but he’s not here, not now.’

‘And you’re back on the slippery slope to obscurity and men in raincoats, a Polaroid camera in hand?’ Larry said.

‘Easy way down, hanging about in a hotel suite with Valentine, taking drugs,’ Wendy said.

‘Distraught, the love of her life snatched from her arms, a hero falling to his death, struggling to reclaim her dignity. Sounds plausible,’ Maddox said.

‘For a soap opera,’ Larry said.

‘For the servile celebrity-obsessed, it’s reality.’

‘Assuming we buy what you’ve just spouted, Maddox, it raises other questions,’ Wendy said.

‘Why am I sleeping with Brett?’

‘That’s one. What’s the answer?’

‘A few too many drinks, something else that you don’t want to know about, and it just happened.’

Larry, frustrated by the puerile rantings of the vapid, broken-hearted paramour of a much-beloved adventurer and hero, raised himself from his chair and walked around the room. ‘You must think we’re stupid,’ he said.

‘I don’t; really, I don’t. I’m committed to making something of myself.’

‘Inspector, sit down, please,’ Wendy said. ‘Getting upset with Maddox isn’t going to help.’

‘It’s hogwash, and she knows it,’ Larry said, resuming his seat.

‘You’re hot property now, more so than before. His death has benefited you,’ Wendy said.

A knock on the door. ‘Is it okay to come back?’ Maddox’s lover said.

Wendy went over to where he stood and opened the door wide. ‘She awaits your pleasure.’

‘Please, you’re wrong,’ Maddox said. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘I’m afraid it is, Miss Timberley,’ Larry said. ‘We’ll meet again soon enough, but don’t leave England without telling us.’

‘In the meantime,’ Wendy said, ‘screw for England if you want, swing from the chandeliers, and have your photo taken any which way with lover boy here. We’re serving notice on you that your rise to stardom on the back of Angus Simmons’s death is a motive.’

‘You can’t talk to her like that,’ Valentine said.

‘Shut up, go back to bed with her, snort whatever foul concoction you want, but never tell me to be quiet,’ Wendy said.

Outside the room, down in the hotel foyer, Larry and Wendy sat.

‘You were rough in there,’ Larry said. ‘Do you believe she’s involved?’

‘Probably not, but she’s going to ruin her life. It’s alright now, young and pretty, but another ten years, the fat piling on, the face no longer peachy fresh, and she’ll be turning tricks in porno movies.’

‘You think so?’

‘It’s a slippery slope to obscurity. I hope I’m wrong.’

‘Do you think she cared for Simmons?’

‘Yes, I do. Simmons had been good for her, and I don’t believe Maddox had anything to do with Simmons’s death, but others might be making the decisions, taking actions.’

‘Do you, Wendy, honestly believe what you’ve just said?’

‘I hope I’m wrong. If she was my daughter…’

‘She’s not. Don’t get emotionally involved. She could be Dorothy or the wicked witch of the west.’

‘I still think she’s Dorothy, and without Glinda, the good witch of the south, she could be doomed.’

‘It’s not your problem. DCI Cook’s said it enough, don’t get involved, just do your job.’

Wendy knew that her inspector was right, but she had been around longer than him. She knew their chief inspector had become involved on two occasions, and he had survived each time. She only wished she could protect the young woman from her folly.

***

Karen Majors had worked the telephone, written numerous emails, visited with all of the companies that had previously placed advertisements at the television station. As head of sales, responsible for bringing in the money, she had failed.

‘Tricia’s not saleable,’ Karen complained to Jerome Jaden.

‘You said she was.’ Jaden, known in the industry for his no-nonsense approach to the management of a television company, knew his laurel crown was slipping; he did not intend to let it slip further. The other stations were experiencing similar problems, undercutting on advertising rates, looking for a way out of the dilemma. The revenue pie was reducing in size, and the economists, those that could be trusted, knew that one station had to fold in the next three to six months.

Jaden did not follow the so-called experts. One piece of paper told him what he needed to know. Karen Majors was not to blame, and she had worked hard. However, he had no intention of letting her off the hook. It was her job; she would deliver one way or the other.

‘They see her as insincere, no substance, just a pretty face. Simmons had the pulling power, not her. You made the wrong decision.’

Sitting calm and composed, Jaden spoke. ‘I don’t like your tone.’

‘Nor I, yours,’ the reply. ‘You give me a pig in a poke, expect me to work miracles. Well, I can’t, nor can you.’

‘Tricia Warburton’s not a pig, and as for the poke, the market’s large enough. You should be able to do something with it.’

‘I have increased our market share. Tom Taylor is doing his best, but he’s not up to it, and the production values are not as good as when Breslaw was driving them. The man was focussed on quality, regular