Short Stories, Found Online Page 4

charge of the front desk.

  He found DI Dalton sitting in a corner of the Coffee Pot, busily tapping away at his laptop.

  The detective showed little surprise that his sergeant had gone. 'She likes playing with guns. It's her hobby.'

  The rustic chair creaked with the weight of PS Harris as he sat down opposite him. 'What's the routine, Sir?'

  'Have a cup of tea. The Darjeeling is quite decent.'

  The waitress knew what the local constabulary preferred and brought him a hot chocolate.

  At last DI Dalton looked up from the keyboard. 'Were you aware that the Gauvins have multiple offshore accounts squirrelled away in as many countries and own property in London, the Algarve and Cornwall?'

  'Then why are they living out here in the back of beyond?'

  DI Dalton ignored him. 'And are worth at least 60 million pounds? More than enough to fund their little forays into immigrant bashing. And Fitzroy Gauvin's will is certainly worth looking over.'

  'I wouldn't have a clue how to hack into a solicitor's files.'

  'Some firewalls can be quite daunting.' Then the detective realised that this was not polite interest. 'Your badly suppressed snarl suggests that you don't approve.'

  'I would like to leave the force with a pension, if it's all the same to you, Sir.' A moustache of froth appeared on the large man's face as he swallowed his hot chocolate.

  DI Dalton handed him a paper napkin. 'Perhaps if we pay the family a visit we might learn more.'

  PS Harris doubted it. The Gauvins wouldn't tell you the time without a court order, but he relished his new boss finding that out for himself.

  He had no idea why he allowed DI Dalton to drive them there in the unmarked car. The hacking of confidential records he could ignore because he was a dinosaur as far as technology was concerned, but collisions with unsuspecting trees was another matter and he confiscated the car keys as soon as they arrived at the palatial home of the landed gentry.

  He pointed to a high, flat roof surrounded by a low railing. 'Eldest son jumped from up there.'

  But the detective's attention was elsewhere and he crossed the courtyard to study the shrubs surrounding it. PS Harris refused to believe that this man had ever lifted a garden fork in earnest, so assumed there was something DI Knowles had missed during the initial investigation.

  The DI was picking a couple of silver green leaves from a bush when the heavy oak door at the head of the sweeping steps opened. A stern looking butler and middle-aged man with distinguished features appeared. As DI Dalton placed the leaves inside his jacket a young man bounded excitedly from an outhouse adjoining the conservatory.

  'You won't find any clues in those bushes, you know! Only dog poop! Daddy will let his puppies use it as a latrine. Really annoys the gardeners.'

  DI Dalton turned to see one of those puppies being restrained by the butler. It was fixing its evil gaze on him.

  PS Harris glowered at it and the Doberman drew back.

  'This is DI Dalton, Sir. Come down especially to look into the case.' There was an edge to the policeman's tone as he added, 'As you requested.'

  Fitzroy Gauvin let the underling's sarcasm pass. He was looking at DI Dalton in disbelief. From the other side of the courtyard the detective could have been taken for a 12-year-old if it hadn't been for the inflexible way he moved. At least the man had decent dress sense, unlike the dishevelled DI Knowles.

  DI Dalton came over to hold up his police ID in case the landowner refused to believe it.

  'Come inside,' Fitzroy Gauvin ordered and the butler escorted them through the hall to the large dining room.

  'You didn't experience any digestive problems at the same time as Mr Jonah Gauvin, did you?' the DI asked him.

  But Fitzroy Gauvin overheard and turned angrily. 'You don't question my staff without permission! Get out Cameron!'

  The butler dipped a bow and discreetly left.

  'See what I mean, Sir?' PS Harris whispered.

  'You're snarling again.'

  It was perversely gratifying to see how unflappable DI Dalton was as he impudently circled the spacious room in his oddly stiff gait, examining Indian antiques. 'You have a remarkable collection here, Mr Gauvin.'

  The head of the family turned his back to show his contempt of the DI's disrespectful manner.

  'Oh yes,' Connor, the surviving son who had followed them in, chirped up. 'All purloined from a Mogul palace during the Raj.'

  'Indeed?'

  'One of our ancestors was something of an adventurer.'

  DI Dalton briefly examined a bronze statuette of Ganesh. 'And a handler of counterfeit goods,' he muttered under his breath.

  Fitzroy Gauvin caught the last part of his comment and turned back furiously. 'What did you say?!'

  The detective tapped Ganesh on his broken tusk. 'His trunk turns the wrong way and this fellow's companion was a rat, not a monkey.'

  'And what would you know about it?'

  'I know that it is unlikely that such a large collection of Hindu gods would be displayed in a Mogul palace.' DI Dalton took an evasive route around Gauvin to reach the black ceramic statuette of Kali sitting in pride of place - somewhat unusually for an artefact that was the cause of the family's woes - by the marble mantelpiece. 'And I assume that this one is supposed to be responsible for the curse?'

  Gauvin glowered uneasily as DI Dalton dared to lift it, his expression warning him to replace it on the stand immediately. The detective chose not to notice and closely examined Kali.

  'All of these artefacts would have been returned years ago if we could find out where they came from of course,' Connor told him. 'Daddy believes that they have been draining the life from our family, although I blame Mr Kapoor's curries myself. But they are so tempting, even if he is an immigrant.'

  'Shut up boy! And put that back, will you!' stormed Gauvin.

  DI Dalton carefully replaced Kali and raised his hands to remonstrate. 'Please let me put your mind at rest, Sir.'

  PS Harris felt his muscles tense as the detective went on.

  'I suspect that every artefact here is either smuggled or a forgery, and none of it came from a Mogul palace. Your ancestor wasn't just an adventurer, he was also a crook.'

  'Oh shit...' PS Harris groaned audibly as Fitzroy Gauvin went purple with rage at the slander against his illustrious ancestor.

  'Oh Daddy!' Connor crowed with sarcastic glee, 'We are free of the curse at last!'

  DI Dalton seemed oblivious that the landowner was on the verge of eruption. 'This ceramic of Kali is probably Chinese, made for the European market. Kali is not a vindictive goddess. She was vilified because the Thugs in India worshipped her. Yama would have been a better choice. If you really wanted a potent curse, you didn't need to import one from India. Your ancestors hanged enough herbalists and frail old women as witches to bring down more damnation than any family could cope with.'

  'My forebears were God fearing men!”

  'Your forebears used the bench to dispose of anyone who challenged their authority, plus a few more who didn't believe in your hellfire and brimstone Church for good measure. They were also slave owners. Google it sometime.”

  Fitzroy Gauvin looked as though he was about to reach for one of those shotguns PS Harris knew he had licences for.

  'Well, thank you for your time, Mr Gauvin,' he declared before his superior could be physically hurled down the mansion's steps, 'we won't take up any more of it.' He placed himself between DI Dalton and the incandescent landowner and shepherded the detective into the hall.

  'I'll show them out Daddy.' Connor bounced ahead and led the policemen to the great oak door. 'That was just tremendous, Detective,' he gushed. 'If the old man doesn't have a seizure first he might just get all that junk checked out so at last we can have some real art nouveau or Bauhaus instead. It's so deadly dull having to live amongst all that old pottery and brass.'

  'Actually,' interrupted DI Dalton, 'I really wanted to speak to your mother.'

&
nbsp; 'I think we've outstayed our welcome, Sir,' insisted PS Harris.

  'Oh, I'll let her know, Detective. Though there's nothing more she can tell you. I'm pretty sure my brother's meal was spiked at the Curry Palace that evening as well, and Daddy and I don't agree about much.'

  'Why so sure?'

  'That Bengali waiter has the shiftiest of looks.'

  'What motive would he have?'

  'Jonah and Daddy have a history of... differences... with the Asian community.'

  'Mr Gauvin founded a right-wing party some years ago, Sir,' Harris reminded him.

  'Are you two still here!' a voice bellowed from the far end of the hall.

  PS Harris fancied he heard cartridges going into a shotgun and shepherded his superior to the car before the air to surface missiles could be launched. Connor stood at the top of the steps waving them off like a string puppet from a children's TV programme.

  DI Dalton turned back. 'Bit of a kook, that one.'

  PS Harris gripped his arm. 'Let's just keep moving Sir, before Mr Gauvin sends the dogs out.'

  'He wouldn't? Would he really?'

  The glee in the detective's tone persuaded the sergeant to move even faster, pushing his superior into the passenger seat and slamming the door shut before he could jump back out and enrage the Dobermans as well.

  Just as their car reached the end of the drive the sergeant breathed with relief. Then DI Dalton insisted that they stop. Unable to pretend he didn't hear the order, DS Harris reluctantly followed him back through the grounds to the outhouse Connor had initially dashed from.

  'This is a very bad idea, Sir! A very bad idea!' hectored PS Harris, all too aware of what a splendid