Don't Shed A Tear

By Betty Byers

When Lola Hussey, newly fledged Private Investigator, was on a night out at a ragga party in London she spotted someone who looked like her long lost brother, Marley, on the dance floor. As she pushed through the crowd to reach him, two shots rang out and there was alarm as screams replaced the boom of the music. Party goers immediately dropped to the floor in panic. Lola's second case had begun - and this one was much closer to home.

Going undercover once again, this time in the shallow world of the music industry Lola soon encounters a world of revenge and violence leading to tragic consequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Betty Byers
• Release date: Sep 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301378371

Betty Byers

A long time native of London I now live and work in Singapore with my zoo of pets. Some would say I ran away from high tax and gloomy weather. I would say their powers of deduction might well be accurate. But you know low tax, low crime and hot weather every day can make a woman yearn for the edginess and excitement of London enough to bring it to life in the written word.Absence makes the heart grow fonder and the imagination flourish.Betty Byers is not just my pen name but was my mum’s name and I use it in tribute and memory to a woman who gave me my love of books.

Book preview

Don’t Shed A Tear

By

Betty Byers

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Lia E. Borthwick on Smashwords

Don’t Shed A Tear

Copyright © 2013 by Lia E. Borthwick

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book is the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only it may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase or download an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Adult Reading Material

*****

Please note that I use British English spelling throughout.

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Chapter 1

Would You Wear Spandex?

There are just some things, for the sake of womankind, that should never have been invented. I was watching a video on my new Macbook, an early Christmas present from my lovely boyfriend, which made me realise this. What was I referring to? Spandex obviously. Ok, well maybe it is a bit unfair as it clearly has its uses, like holding in parts of the body that are best held in. Wisely those types of undergarments were precisely that, to be hidden under our clothes. But, spandex leggings? Seriously?

My boyfriend Joe looked up from the Sunday papers, I was spending another weekend at his place, and saw the distasteful expression on my face.

What’s up Lola? he asked. You look like you’ve just seen a cat throw up. He reached for my Mac and turned it around to see what I was watching.

Wow, sexy! he exclaimed. Seriously?

Seriously? You find spandex sexy? Clearly men’s brains worked totally differently to women’s.

Yeah, what’s not to like about women’s butts wriggling around? he grinned.

I was referring to the clothes not the bodies inside them! Well, anyway, don’t be getting any ideas, I snorted, I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing bright pink Spandex leggings. I took back possession of my Mac before he could ogle any more. I think Joe was a bit disappointed at my declaration never to wear Spandex leggings.

Why are you watching that video then? He asked. Good point why was I? Actually my best friend Emm had sent me the link to it. It was a music video by an up and coming singer called King Dix. Yeah, I know, tasteful name too. Anyway, according to Emm, he was going to be the next big sensation in reggae fusion music, combining reggae, R&B and hip-hop. Emm had been offered tickets to a club where he was going to make a guest appearance, and she wanted me to go with her. I told Joe this.

Sounds fun, he said, I’ve never been to a ragga party but if the women dress like that...

Too bad, babe, you’ll be in New York, it’s in two week time, I told him smugly. Joe, whose real name was actually Al, (Joe was his undercover name and I had never got used to calling him Al), was going home for Christmas as he hadn’t been back in more than two years, and his mum was giving him grief over not seeing him for so long. He had wanted me to go with him, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to be introduced to his Italian-American mother just yet, so I told him that she wanted to see him not me, and we left it at that.

Joe and I had been seeing each other for the last few months since my first, and so far only, case. He was an experienced PI from New York when his job had brought him to London. We had both been working separately undercover on the same investigation with our third partner, Julian Davenport. None of us had particularly got on well together at first, for a multitude of reasons, but by the end of the case we had found a way to bond as a team, especially Joe and I. He had turned into my first real boyfriend, despite the fact that Julian and I were also attracted to each other. Yes, sadly, I had reached the age of 24 without ever having had a proper boyfriend. Although I had had this dating arrangement thing with one of Emm's cousins, Steve, it hadn't counted as a proper girlfriend boyfriend thing. At least not in my book. Sounds complex? Believe me it was.

Julian’s super rich aunt was actually our first client and at the end of the case, although not the happiest of outcomes, she had set up B&M Investigations, and now the three of us were working there. It was still early days. After we wrapped up the case we all took a few weeks' break. The next month was spent locating an office as a base, and putting the word out discretely that we were for hire. The office was located in the West End not far from Hyde Park, an altogether classier neighbourhood than the seedier back streets off Gloucester Road where my last employer had his offices.

The thought behind the agency was that we would handle cases where discretion was paramount. Not that that isn't already a requirement for any investigation agency, but we would handle cases that involved more than the run of the mill cheating spouses. Quite what our cases would consist of we weren't entirely sure, as nobody had hired us yet. That was really Julian's job. With his connections amongst the rich and the aristocracy - he was the son of an Earl and a Viscount in his own right - he was meant to find us the cases. It takes time for word to get around. Not that any of us really minded that much. We still got paid, and Christmas was just around the corner anyway.

I emailed Emm back and told her I would love to go, and was looking forward to a girls' night out rather than our usual girls' night in, eating food and drinking wine on her sofa. As I still lived with my mum, Joe had offered for me to stay in his small apartment on the Kings Road while he was in the States. I think he was hoping I would move in while he was away. I was in the process of house hunting for Lola's Palace i.e., a small apartment I could afford to buy still within our neighbourhood. The few apartment viewings I had gone to had depressed me with the ridiculous prices and the tiny amount of space on offer. You didn’t get much bang for your bucks with London property. So unfortunately nothing acceptable within my meagre price range was currently on the market. I was seriously holding out against having to drop my standards. So, for the time being, I was stuck with living with my nutty mother and spending most of my weekends with Joe. Actually Joe had pretty much offered me the opportunity to move in with him earlier, but I had held back from taking that plunge. If I was totally honest, I didn't think it was fair on him until I worked out whether I still had the hots for Mr. Adonis - Julian. That way at least I could try to pretend I had some moral integrity.

Men, they are like London buses - you wait forever for one to turn up and then another one appears at the same time. Don't get me wrong. I didn't sleep with Julian and I really, really liked Joe. I mean I wouldn't call Joe simple, because he was very smart, but in contrast I found Julian intriguing; albeit intriguing with a lot of frustrating thrown in for good measure. And, I guess, his amazing blonde good looks didn't hurt either. Joe was a lot more earthy, equally good looking, but had dark looks in contrast to Julian's golden ones. Joe was altogether more open and easy going; the kind of guy mothers liked (yes my mum liked him), and brothers would get along with. Although, I hadn't seen my brother Marley in eight years, as he had skipped the neighbourhood after making my best friend Emm pregnant. So anyway, I was wary of mistaking a lustful attraction to Joe with love.

He stood up and came to stand behind me, reaching down for a squeeze, Baby, it's Sunday, let's go back to bed, he whispered, nibbling my ear. See what I mean about lustful?

* * *

I left Joe's at 7:40pm and took the bus back to the rundown Hardy Estate where I lived with my mum. Its concrete and forbidding facade a depressing come down after the vibrant neighbourhood of the King's Road where Joe had his apartment less than half a mile away. Emm also lived on the estate with her son, my nephew, Barney. I went to Emm's first and Barney opened the door.

Hi Auntie Lola, he greeted me with a high five. He was in his pyjamas already, his hair smoothed down from his bath. He was going to grow up a little heartbreaker just like his father, I thought.

Hey good looking! How's my favourite nephew? I said smiling and slipped him a chocolate bar.

Oh, Auntie Lola, I'm your only nephew, he reminded me and rolled his eyes. He wandered back through to the living room to watch TV, and I went into the kitchen where I knew Emm would be. We greeted each other with a hug and I sat down at her tiny kitchen table while she put the kettle on.

Girlfriend you look tired, she observed.

Yeah, I feel it too. For some reason after a weekend around Joe's I feel more tired than ever.

It's all the sex, she chuckled. I think she may have had a point there. The man was a steam engine who never ran out of steam. Words like insatiable and never ending came to mind when I thought about Joe's stamina in the bedroom.

Anyway at least you'll get a couple of weeks' rest when he goes back to New York, she reminded me. I know it probably shouldn't be, but it was a comforting thought. Not that I didn't like sex with Joe, he was nothing if not perfect in that department. Never mind rocking my boat he managed to consistently capsize it. Just that I was beginning to have a niggling doubt that we should have more in common other than sex and our similar taste in music. Oh, well, I guess we had our jobs in common of course.

And I'm really looking forward to our girls' night out. Just you and me, babe, like it used to be when we was teenagers, Emm said as she put a steaming mug of tea in front of me.

So where did you get the tickets from? I asked her.

Oh, do you remember Marley's friend Riley? Do I? Jeez, I had a crush on him when I was ten, and wrote him love letters that I never actually sent to him. My brother Marley had found one and read it aloud to Emm. They had both teased me forever afterwards.

I thought he went inside? I asked her, referring of course to prison.

He's been out for a while now, babe. Anyway I bumped into him and we got chatting and then he mentioned this gig. She sat down at the table opposite me.

So where did he get the tickets from? Didn't he go inside for burglary? I enquired warily, picking up a chocolate biscuit from a plate of them that Emm had placed in front of me. She was forever tempting me with food taking her cue from mum who constantly worried I was too skinny. I didn't want to go to a club to be refused at the door because the tickets were stolen. Emm knew where I was heading.

No he works for this record company, Real Bad Dudes. It's the label that King Dix is signed to. I rolled my eyes at the names, both the record company and the singer's. You know delivery work and stuff, and anyway it ain't tickets we'll be on a guest list.

So he'll be coming with us? I was feeling a bit anxious at seeing him again. Ok, well it was a very, very long time ago, but still the embarrassment of childhood crushes remains with us forever, I reckon.

Yeah, but he said he can't hang out with us cos he's got things to do there, but he'll come with us to make sure we're admitted under the guest list.

Cool. I was actually looking forward to it as long as Riley didn't hang around with us.

He said he was looking forward to seeing that girl who had a crush on him, Emm giggled.

What the...! How does he know? I was horrified.

It weren't me Lola. Must've been Marley told him about the letters. Anyway he said he ain't seen you since you were sixteen and was looking forward to seeing you all grown up. She laughed but I wasn't finding this funny at all.

I'm not sure I wanna go now, I started going into a sulk.

Oh Lola, don't be so silly. It was years ago. You gotta come I really wanna see King Dix. He's so yummy. A definite 10.5 on the shag-o-metre! She grinned.

What about Jasper? I asked. Emm's face fell. I thought you two were hitting it off? I enquired anxiously. Emm had recently begun seeing a guy called Jasper. Jasper was one of Julian's high class acquaintances that she met through me. A really nice guy that was selling his family estate to Julian's aunt so had been spending quite a bit of time up in London, mostly finding excuses to come and see Emm. It had been my job on our first case to seduce information out of him, not that I did - seduce him that is - but I did make a good friend and he did divulge information to me relevant to the case too. I still think he didn't know I was a PI and I had asked Emm to keep it that way.

Oh Lola it ain't gonna work out for loads of reasons, she said sadly. There was a huge class difference between them, but I didn't think that would be too much of an obstacle to overcome. Despite his privileged upbringing he was actually just an ordinary guy looking for love. Was I thinking this because of the fact I still liked Mr Has-a-Title, Julian? And if Emm and Jasper couldn't work it out, then Julian and I hadn't a hope in hell. Oh yeah, and there was the small fact that I was actually dating someone else.

Like what reasons? Surely you're not worried about him being from a privileged background? It doesn't worry him.

No, it's not that. His dream is to go live in the Caribbean, Lola. I can't go live in the Caribbean, and I can't stop him from pursuing his dreams either. She sighed wistfully sipping her tea.

Why couldn't you go live in the Caribbean, Emm?

Don't be silly. It's just not for me. And besides what about Barney? Emm just didn't think she was good enough to ever escape the Hardy Estate where we lived. She always believed I would be the first to escape, not that I had managed that yet, and the older I got the less likely it was going to happen too. Becoming pregnant at sixteen made her resigned to the fact that she was not worthy of a life outside of a low income destiny. Sometimes I felt like shaking her, and telling her that a mistake she made when she was barely out of childhood didn't mean she had to pay for it for the rest of her life. Besides, there were two people involved in that mistake, Emm and my brother. So why should she take all the guilt? Doh, Lola, because it was Emm who ended up the struggling single parent. Sometimes I just hated certain types of men for their carelessness, even if they were my brother.

Oh Emm. You can find a school for him there, I'm sure. I mean if you really like Jasper, and I think you do, why don't you go for it?

Lola, you wouldn't understand. What if it don't work out? What would I do then? I'd have to give up this place if I went there. If it didn't work out I'd have nowhere to come back to, and I can hardly move in with you and your mum. And then what would happen to me and Barney? And what about your mum? She loves Barney I'd be taking him away from her too. Barney comes first in my life Lola, you know that. I wouldn't do anything that would unsettle him. She looked away sadly, No, it's just not for me babe. I could see her point actually. She had obviously been giving this some thought. Emm just wasn't the type to hurt people and she was right, my mum would be devastated if they both went to live in another country. In fact, if I really thought about it, Emm's predicament was precisely the reason I was so determined to try to make something of my life.

It may not be much but this is my place, babe. I call the shots here and I don't want to have to rely on any man that much, and get my heart broken again. She took my mug from the table and went over to the sink to wash it. I knew she didn't want me to see the sadness in her face, or the tears that I knew she would be furiously blinking away from her eyes. If there was one thing I could wish for, it would be to give Emm back the chance in life my brother took away by making her pregnant.

Chapter 2

Exercise? But I'm Skinny!

Monday morning. I took the tube to work. On the journey there I thought once again about Emm. I know there are many people out there who think that she could better herself, go back to school, and get a decent job. I thought how easy it is for those not in her situation to dish out advisory platitudes. To think her inferior because she chose to keep a baby she had at far too young an age. Let's face it advice costs nothing and takes hardly any energy, but bringing up a child on your own takes a heck of a lot more effort. Yes, she was too young to know what it really entailed, but I thought she was one of the best mum's around.

Barney was happy and loved, he was always dressed neatly when not slouched around at home, well fed and clean. Emm made him do his homework every night, and lived her life around his needs. It takes an altogether different effort to lift oneself out of a rut in life, an effort that leaves one too exhausted to go around advising others on theirs. Not that Emm would ever go around telling others how to live their lives. I wondered if I should talk to Jasper? Would it be ok to interfere? Or should I just let things take their course?

Mornin' Lola. You look serious today. It was Helen our agency secretary. Julian had hired her three weeks before. Talk about super efficient. She was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, married with a young kid. She was a middle class yummy mummy, as some would classify her, whose husband was a forensic accountant in Baxter and Makepeace the much bigger parent company. Baxter and Makepeace specialised in corporate and white collar investigations and was where Julian had originally worked. I had worked at Pete's Investigators, although the plural was a bit misleading. It was an altogether less salubrious establishment which specialised in investigations like cheating spouses and suspect insurance claims. In fact, most of the time I had worked there, I had investigated nothing more glamorous than the filing cabinet. However, that meant my filing was exemplary and my curiosity, honed by boredom, was bursting to exercise itself on real cases.

I pondered on whether to gossip with Helen about Emm's predicament, but decided not to as I felt that would betray Emm. Besides, Helen had the perfect family - with a husband. How would she possibly relate to Emm?

Are the guys in yet? I asked her instead.

Julian's in his office, well that figures, the man is an early bird and I never seemed to get into the office before him. And Al phoned to say he will be running half an hour late for this morning's meeting. I told her I would be in my office until Joe arrived. I referred to him as Joe and she called him Al, but we both knew we were talking about the same man. She asked me if I wanted a coffee, but I told her that it was ok and I would get my own. I wasn't used to being the one brought a coffee, and just didn't feel comfortable with another woman fetching it for me as part of her job.

After I prepared a coffee for myself, I went into my office and sat down at my desk. I really don't know why I had an office, and I often told Julian this. I was more used to sitting down outside an office than inside one. I know he found it amusing that I wasn't used to having the trappings of a partner. Mentally I thought of myself as a partner, well nearly, but having the possessions of one, like an office larger than my bedroom, large mahogany desk and a door that I could close for privacy just... well it just didn't seem that they were mine. As a result my office was totally impersonal. In any case, I had hardly ever used it so far. For me it was just a place to park my butt until our meetings began. Anyway, Julian was the frontman it was he who needed the accoutrements of management not me. Joe and I expected that once we got a case we would mostly be absent anyway.

I fired up my PC and opened up my email. There was nothing but spam mail. Well no surprise there as we didn't have a case yet. I was bored. At least at Pete's I was busy with the filing. Here the super-efficient Helen had the filing under control. I slipped my shoes off, still wishing I could just wear trainers and jeans but Julian had asked, surprisingly politely too, if I could kindly dress respectably when I came into the office. I must admit I did hurrumph at this but I guess he had a point. The office was near to Park Lane so if I dressed 'officey' then I would probably blend in more. I didn't usually blend in anywhere, being five feet ten, mixed-race, green eyes and the proud possessor of a halo of corkscrew black ringlets.

Rather than twiddle my thumbs, I fired up my browser instead and went onto YouTube to do a search for King Dix. I clicked on his video, the one with the butt dancing ladies encased in bright pink spandex and began watching it again, trying to put myself into a man's point of view. I frowned. Nope, I still didn't get it. My eyes were drawn to King Dix himself though. I could kind of see what Emm meant when she said he was a 10.5 on the shag-o-metre. He had a cute face, short dreadlocks and, I suppose this was critical, could sing and rap equally well. The song was catchy too, even if it hadn't been enhanced with a multitude of pink shiny butts dancing around him.

Joe arrived and I could hear him flirting with Helen. He couldn't help himself, he was programmed to charm women, and I was kind of getting used to it. As long as he ate at home it was ok with me I suppose. Well really, who was I kidding, it did depend on the woman he was flirting with; grandmothers or happily married women I had no problem with. He popped his head around the door, Lola baby, let's go!

We joined Julian in our meeting room. This was pretty much the last time we would be together before Christmas so Julian just wanted to update us on things. Not that there was probably going to be anything really to update us on. He was sitting at the table with his back to the window, dressed immaculately in a charcoal grey suit and pale pink shirt, no tie. His golden hair neatly combed back. I couldn't imagine Julian dishevelled. I know he regularly worked out, like Joe, but somehow I couldn't picture Julian all sweaty. Actually, I probably shouldn't be trying to picture him all sweaty at all, especially not when my boyfriend was sat next to me. I have really no idea how that thought popped into my head. I think it was perhaps because Julian was so held together, so cool and unruffled, that my natural mischievousness couldn't help imagining him in unexpected scenarios. Or maybe it was because I was attracted to him, that I just kept imagining him all hot and sweaty. Hmm, could be.

Hi guys, he began smiling. He was smiling? It must be because Christmas is nearly here. He rarely smiled. I've got some good news - our first case! Joe and I looked at him in surprise.

Umm, I leave for New York in two days’ time Julian, Joe reminded him.

Don't worry, Lola and I can cover the basics until you get back, he informed him. I wasn't sure