My Blurb.
Pat sat back in the shade and watched intently the door of the Public Bar which blazed in brilliant August mid day sunshine. She had gone in ten minutes ago. A tall high heeled blonde woman with a perfect tan and figure. Pat was here only to observe that ‘perfection’ went in but didn’t emerge until it was all over. His shutter on the Nikon had clicked the perfect shot of ‘the entry’, his digital camera accurately noting the date, time, & location. If she came back through that door the plan was to emerge from this un-noticed shady spot and quiz her about a purely ficticious girl friend that had not been seen for ten minutes or so. Pat was a pro and could carry off this mild deception, whilst intrigued his target gazed at the identical dress, shoes and handbag that adorned each of them. No woman can ignore a copy-cat look and whilst she did so, vital minutes ticked by as elsewhere Pat’s accomplice was busy fathoming the intricacies of an elaborate ElSafe that had biometric locks. The mission was not steal anything but to discover just what the target chic had removed from it. The client just suspected something was ‘going on’ and yet wasn’t that sure yet that he wanted to unnecessarily end his infactuation with his blonde leggy perfect companion. It would take precisely 35 minutes to crack the safe and only 22 minutes to go and return from a peculia bogus errand. 13 minutes was all the diversion required if her patience, waiting for her troubled sister, ran out. Living just two blocks from their most frequented Bar made this a ‘tight on time’ job. Two shots rang out in quick succession and Pat dropped to the floor, head swimming with swirling brickwork as the force spun her body round. She lay on the ground and the last thing she ever saw was a tall vision of loveliness running toward home clad in a tight revealing tracksuit. Someone had known what was going down and was very determined it wasn’t going to happen.
The cops arrived, surveyed the murder scene, and stood and pondered. Most declared it an unimitigated waste of a women of some class and were stumped on motive completely. What the hell was all this about? The victim bore a striking resemblance to the wife of local top ‘business man’ Antonio Gambino but he was in custody and she had a ‘tail’ on her. Who was this mystery dead woman? Why was she executed? She carried no id so who was she? Why was a woman of class like this alone in this back street dump? Detective Lucchese eye’d two 45 cartridge cases on the ground barely two feet apart and knew it was going to be a hell of a long night. Time was all that was required.
<above is the cover ‘blurb’ attempting to tempt you to buy the book. It gives the bare bones of the story, just enough to snare you.>
<below is the story itself>
It was 32 minutes from the rich influential Yvonne Sykes’s apartment to the family owned restaurant and back again. Say five minutes of her very precious time to call it a day and return. 37 minutes. It would take 13 minutes and 32 seconds to crack the highest secure safe money could buy and a mere 27 seconds to bypass the crap property alarm that they had fitted. Call it a 15-minute job. In theory, there was plenty of time BUT Jamie didn’t like making sure things would go better. As it happened his latest girlfriend Joanne was the same height and model girl weight as Yvonne Sykes. A quick hair dye job and purchase of snide Oakland’s shades and she could pass easily for her. Joanne was not going to be a decoy though she was going to be a person of interest to Yvonne Sykes. Yep, Yvonne Sykes was very interested in herself. Early on the morning of acquiring the fifty third most expensive diamond in the world, Jamie was at his post with a powerful pair of binoculars studying what clothes Yvonne Sykes had donned for life that day. As it happened it was a bang up to date Vivian Westward designed blue jacket and in contrast a neat canary yellow Channel dress. Lovely he could send photos via messenger so she could purchase cheap last one-day copies from H&M. The plan was that Joanne would dress exactly the same as Yvonne and what woman would not engage herself in conversation about their own excellent taste in clothes. The perfume was a little trickier but a very strong rumour had it that Yvonne exclusively wore Tiffany at £110 a bottle. Her makeup and nails were always BobbiBrown. He had given Joanne a budget of £500 but heck the diamonds worth would pale his small investment into insignificance. Just to wind him up 60 minutes after he had sent his message about Jo’s shopping list a photo came back from her showing her getting into her new wardrobe.
Yvonne was relaxing with a copy of Vogue when the phone rang. She picked it up. It was head waiter Geoff from the restaurant. He informed her that a female Punta had come into the restaurant and asked if Yvonne was around. Normally he would just ignore the silly cow but this one looked so much like Yvonne that he thought it was her and so decided to call in and ask what was up.
‘I thought you were spying on us.’ He joked.
Yvonne had had a few weird phone calls lately. The phone rang and there was silence on the other end. Not ordinary silence with background noises but real empty silence. She had also spotted some curtain twitching from the building opposite and what could have been an iPhone flash going off once or twice. Suitably spooked her next call was to a guy called Oscar who looked after ‘security’ related matters. Oscar told her she was being daft but promised he would keep a special eye on things.
Yvonne looked at her Cartier watch noted it was twenty to two precisely. The phone rang again.
‘She is bloody back and sipping soda water and telling us she is waiting for someone so will not order any food just yet’.
Yvonne said she had had enough of the bitch and was on her way to find out just who she was.
Jamie noted it was 13: 56 on his cheap Casio digital watch when Yvonne strutted from her front door skipped down the five stairs to pavement level and headed off to Starlight in Savanna restaurant. Give her four minutes when she might just return and by two twenty he would be holding 5 carats of premium diamond in his grubby little paw. He mused what he would do with up to half a million USD. Nice.
Fifteen minutes later Jamie was putting that gem into a nice smooth bag and pocketing it. The property alarm had been slightly more complex than his Maplin one at home but no big deal. The safe had been a complete bitch but in the end, it was just 51 seconds over his best time to get this model open. Easy. He left the study, down the main stairs, through the front door and skipped the five stairs. Off to meet up with Joanne and celebrate. Course Joanne had done her bit and he certainly was not parting with much of his ill-gotten gains. No, she had had £500 spending money, he would give her another wad of notes to bring it up to a grand and that was her lot. Nice girl but plenty like her for a guy with loads of wonga.
Oscar placed the phone back on its rest. She was definitely alert and troubled following his silent calls treatment during the week. She was a gobby cow and would have told her friends about the strange phone calls. Good. The extra time he spent at The Restaurant would now be easily explained. The boss was tense about something already and had just tipped over the edge, hence he was on site keeping a special eye on things.
Yvonne entered the main door and scanned around quickly. Sure enough, it was like looking in the mirror, someone looking remarkably like her was sitting at a table for two. No food in sight, holding an empty glass and eyeing the door she had just gone through, expectantly.
Yvonne being the owner strolled up to the table and said
‘Hi!’.
The greeting was repeated in exact tone and volume back to her.
‘Not turned up?’
Joanne looked miserably at the floor and said,
‘Bloody men, how hard is it to be just on time, I have been here half an hour now and still no sign of the bastard.’
‘Nice Dress and Jacket.’
‘Oh, I just threw them on. Tiffany?’
‘Oh yes only the best for me.’ ‘It’s a wonderful perfume, been wearing it for years, no man is safe.’
They giggled.
‘Mind if I join you whilst you’re waiting?’
‘No that’s fine, be nice to have some company at lunch time for a change… bloody men.’
Yvonne was keen to find out just who this lady was, she was flattered of course that she wore exactly the same clothes, hair, perfume, shades and makeup BUT something was not quite right here. One thing was for sure this girl didn’t make those phone calls she was as talkative as herself and that in itself was odd. If she didn’t make those calls then who bloody did?’
Time whipped past and an hour went by.
‘I don’t believe it; the prick has only had the nerve to turn up. I’ll kill him.’ ‘Well, Jamie what’s the bloody excuse this time?’
‘Um, sorry darling everything was going just fine and I was bang on schedule for getting here…’ ‘AND’ ‘well I went to see the Police.’
‘Err WHY?’
‘Some bleeder removed my car from where I left it and put it in a car park I never use.’ ‘You plonker.’
Jamie grinned and said
‘With all the upset I think we should maybe go and take in the sites instead. Come on, let’s go up the Shard and have coffee.’
Joanne scowled her best scowl.
‘Bye Yvonne, lovely to have met you, sorry I took up a table for so long.’ ‘Not to worry, I will stand you the soda water, no probs.’
Yvonne set off for home and thought that she must try to relax a lot more. She had really enjoyed the easy-going company of the girl that looked just like her. Her euphoria disappeared though when she found the door to her house open wide. Caution. Caution. She entered tentatively and scoured the dimly lit hall and lobby in case anyone should be lurking about. As she went up the first of stair treads she looked up
“Oscar. What the heck are you doing here?’
‘I went to the Restaurant after your call and saw you sitting at a table on your own. I went to check outside to see if I could see anything suspicious. There was a bloke sitting in a car doing nothing. I watched him for about an hour. He got out of his car and then three minutes later you left with him, got in his car and sped off. I came here, to see if you would bring him back here.’
‘Ah but that wasn’t me that was a girl that just looked like me, he was Jamie and she was Joanne.’
‘I know that, come in the study will you for a minute, something to show you, the glass has gone missing.’
‘What? No way. What do you know about all this?’
Yvonne was up the rest of those stairs almost instantly. She pushed Oscar to one side and dived through the door of the study. The safe was locked tight and looked secure enough. Only Yvonne knew the combination. What was going on? Oscar came through the study door.
‘Jamie is about 32, five foot ten, blonde hair, pale blue eyes, has a small scar over his right eye.’
‘How the hell do you know that?’
‘Crossed swords with him before, smart son of a bitch, proper ladies’ man he is, his girlfriend would be very temporary trust me. Her hair was dyed I bet. Get rid of the colour, clothes and posh jacket and frock and she will just blend in with the crowd.’ Handy though, bird like that, expendable. You know useful one minute, gone the next.’
‘You’re scaring me now.’
‘He would be in your house, crack your safe and be off in about twenty minutes flat. How long were you in the restaurant?’
‘Oh my God, are you sure about all this?’
‘Oh yes, and it suits my plans to a tee’
‘Your plans?’
‘Yes, you see, you’re a smug bastard you are, you swan about that restaurant with all your airs and graces AND I really didn’t mind until you started speaking to me like you brought me into the place on the bottom of your shoe. You really should be more careful about who you piss off.’ You see I checked the restaurant CCTV before I came on up here and it definitely shows you leaving with a strange gentleman in his car. Date, time, nice clear picture. I am glad I paid out a hundred pounds extra for decent cameras.
‘Where are you going with this?
‘Well now. I have been wearing gloves all the time I have been here and I bet Jamie, bless him, did as well but his DNA will be somewhere on the porch or on a door handle. The Police, of course, being real wooden tops will see the CCTV sniff some DNA and Jamie’s your man.’
‘So, according to you he did steal the diamond.’
‘Ah yes he did but he didn’t do this.’
With that retort, he launched at Yvonne and pushed violently toward a previously opened window. Out Yvonne went there was a brief scream and then silence. The Study was one floor up at the front but two stories up at the back. At the rear of this very Des Res there were 12 steps down from the ground floor to the secluded garden, which had been concreted to save effort gardening. Oscar left a lot more slowly than Yvonne had and he went out the front and not the back. When he got to the pavement, he glanced up and down the luckily empty street.
‘Oh well, he thought, every dog has his day, today’s mine’.
He walked calmly off in the direction of the Restaurant.
Police Detective Sergeant John Succhese looked at the two suspects carefully.
‘So, you say you are not Yvonne Sykes but you are Joanne Blake?’
‘Yes, check my passport when you get hold of it.’
‘I have.’ You have brown hair and I have to say don’t scrub up like you do today!’
‘So, I will ask you again if you are not Yvonne Sykes then why do you look incredibly like her?’
‘As before – no comment.’
‘And you, Jamie Yates, you may have been, or may not have been with Yvonne Sykes, traces of your DNA are at or near the house where she lives, and a stone worth 350,000 pounds has disappeared out of her safe. Worse an imposter or the real Yvonne Sykes is decorating her back garden a nasty red black colour. Either way, the pair of you are in deep do do, don’t you agree?’
The jury only took seventeen minutes to find Jamie Yates guilty of murder and theft of a valuable gem stone. Probably very puzzled they could not quite agree what part exactly Joanne Blake had played in the plot. Oh, they thought she was very guilty of wasting £500 on hair, fashion, makeup and perfume. What else she had done except spending an hour in a restaurant with the sadly deceased. They, quite frankly, did not ‘get it’ and they acquitted her because of lack of evidence (The judge had advised that any guilty verdict would be at best unsound). John Succhese knew that Jamie Yates was not a killer, yeah, he liked money, but nothing in the guy’s past showed any slant towards anything more violent than verbal abuse. In his book, something didn’t smell right. Oscar kept his job as head of security and got on very well with the new owner who bore a striking resemblance to the old one. Rumour has it that Head Waiter Geoff Bull and the new owner are an item and have known each other for many years. The new owner came into a lot of money resulting from the sale of a family heirloom apparently. John Succhese keeps a very close eye on Geoff & Joanne and is just waiting for one of them to slip up, for now, he has no evidence for his nasty suspicions but you know every dog has his day…
2361 Words
Paul Hickman September 2017
