Dying to Live

Chapter 12 - Best Friends Forever

If I was a policeman, I'd ring and give him a grilling... a pork roast, so to speak. Now there's an idea. Could I be a policeman? Why not? I hit the call button.

"Hazel, where the hell have you been?" said Richard before I had the chance to say anything. I recognised his smug voice and slimy tones.

"Sir, my name is Police Constable Mark Smith. Whom am I speaking to?" I said in my best British Columbo impersonation voice. Was that how a policeman would talk, who knew? Hopefully not Richard.

"Sorry? Where's Hazel?"

"Sir, her phone's been handed in and I'm trying to get it back to her. You were the last person she called."

"What was your name again?"

"Mark Smith. PC Mark Smith."

"Right. And what can I do for you?"

"I need to know the nature of your last conversation with Hazel."

"The nature? The nature of the conversation?"

"Don't be a smartass, what was the conversation about?"

"It was just about work. I'm her boss... here at Merchant Investment Brokers."

"Really? Exactly what did you two discuss?"

It might have been about me. If it was, I'd like to hear exactly what the prick had to say.

"I'm sorry, that's none of your business." He paused. "This is ridiculous, it's a lost phone for God's sake. Either stick it in your Lost and Found box or leave it in at our reception and I'll return it to her."

"Ah, so you know where she is?"

"Enough, I'm not going to talk to someone who phones out of the blue and claims to be a policeman."

BEEEP. BEEEP. BEEEP.

He'd hung up.

I topped up my wine and started to trawl through the other calls she'd made over the last few days. Lots of names, most of which I didn't recognise. There were also a few calls to me. Seeing my name on her phone sent a little shiver down my spine and made me close my eyes and reminisce about our relationship so far. Happy, happy days.

The buzzer on the cooker woke me from a doze, I must have drifted off. Pizza time. A bite to eat and another glass of wine would hone my Sherlock Holmes skills. The phone could wait, I needed to eat.

With half a meat feast in me, it was time to root through the phone again. It felt like spying, probably because that's exactly what it was; spying, although, as every peeping Tom would tell you, it's not spying if you love them. I restarted my trawl through her recent calls and was stopped in my tracks when I saw a name I recognised. Tommy.

What was going on? I'd seen her hand him an envelope that first day in the Duke and now I find his name in her phone. What possible connection was there between a girl like Hazel and a character like Tommy? Well, the simplest way to find out was to call him. It didn't take me more than a second to figure out what a stupid idea that was. There were plenty of other avenues to explore before I needed to wander down that dangerous road. Let the phone investigation continue.

There were no messages from him in her voicemail but there were some from me. I listened to each one of them, all the way through, for old time's sake.

What about texts she'd received? Surprisingly there were none which could only mean she'd deleted them all. Sent texts? Shit, there was nothing, either she'd deleted all of them too or she didn't save them. Check the settings. She specifically didn't save them, why the hell not? Everyone saved their sent texts. How else would they know what stupid messages they'd sent when drunk?