Reckless Endangerment(28)

‘No, Mr Harrison, we’re police officers.’ I produced my warrant card to allay any suspicion that we might be undercover evangelists. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of Scotland Yard and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’

‘Are you sure you’ve got the right Gordon Harrison? I mean, what could the police possibly want with me?’ Harrison’s face took on a shifty expression.

‘I think so,’ said Dave. ‘We understand that you’re acquainted with Sharon Gregory.’

‘Oh, Sharon, yah!’ said Harrison, with an air of relief. ‘What’s that sexy blonde bombshell been up to now?’ He stepped forward and shot a glance at the front door that was immediately next to his own, as if fearful that a neighbour might be lurking behind it, listening. ‘You’d better come in and make yourselves comfortable.’

Now that Harrison had said more than a few words, I detected a possibly contrived mid-Atlantic accent. We followed him into his sitting room which, like the hall, had woodblock flooring. I was conscious of the noise my shoes made as we crossed to the only two armchairs in the room.

‘What’s this about Sharon, then? Has something happened to the gorgeous creature? She hasn’t crashed that Mini Cooper of hers, has she?’ Harrison opened the Venetian blinds, moved the chair from his computer workstation, and swung it round so that he could sit down opposite us.

I heard a door closing upstairs somewhere and Harrison cast a nervous glance across the room.

‘She was the victim of a rather brutal burglary last Saturday evening,’ I said, ‘during the course of which her husband was murdered.’

‘Her husband!’ Harrison’s face registered shock. Although whether it was shock at the news of Clifford Gregory’s murder or the fact that Sharon was married was not immediately apparent.

‘I take it you didn’t know she was married, Mr Harrison,’ said Dave, rightly assuming the latter to be the case.

‘Christ, no! I certainly didn’t. How long had she been married?’

‘About seven years,’ said Dave.

‘Ye Gods!’ exclaimed Harrison. ‘Well, the deceitful little bitch. She never mentioned a husband.’

‘How did you meet her?’ I asked.

‘On a flight to Miami. I go there quite often. She’s an air hostess, you know.’

‘Yes, we know. Were you travelling to Miami on business?’

‘Sure. I fly to the States quite a lot. I arrange bespoke holidays for rich executives.’

That explained the accent I’d noticed earlier. Maybe.

‘What on earth are bespoke holidays for rich executives?’ asked Dave.

Harrison gave a boyish grin. ‘Between you and me, it’s for guys who’ve got more money than they know what to do with. Often they’re the sort who work in the financial sector and get a bigger bonus than I make in a year, and that’s saying something. They come to me to arrange a custom-built holiday at virtually any place of their choosing. Money no object. And I arrange all the bookings on the Internet, so it keeps my overheads down.’ He half turned to wave at his computer. ‘But I still have to go to these places and check them out. More often than not, they want a discreet hideaway so they can take their latest squeeze for a dirty weekend. Or even a week. I suppose they tell their wives or current live-ins that they’re away on business, but should I worry?’

‘How very deceitful,’ murmured Dave.

‘Yeah, it is, isn’t it?’ said Harrison with a laugh. ‘But I make a handsome profit out of it.’

‘Is Miami always the venue for these getaways?’ I asked, thinking that the story he’d just told was too good to be true.

‘Not always, although that’s one of the more popular destinations. Well, Florida and California are the two favourites, but I travel all over the world. I even arranged one for a guy who wanted to spend a week at a monastery in the Himalayas. And before you ask, no, he didn’t take his bird with him. As a matter of fact, I think he finished up staying there for good. Still, it takes all sorts, I suppose.’

‘When did you last see Sharon Gregory?’ I asked, steering Harrison away from verbally downloading his holiday brochure.

Harrison pondered the question. ‘About a month ago, I suppose,’ he said eventually. ‘We spent a happy forty-eight hours in a hotel room overlooking Miami Beach. And that wasn’t the first time, either. Mind you, I don’t think I was the only guy in her life. But I didn’t know she was married; she wasn’t wearing a ring or anything.’ He forced a laugh. ‘In fact, she wasn’t wearing anything at all most of the time,’ he added, and lapsed momentarily into silence. ‘D’you reckon it was one of those other guys who murdered her husband?’