“You know what arrest means, Miss James. I doubt if it’s the first time you’ve been behind bars.” He leaned back and pulled her up, still holding her wrists. “Elizabeth James, I arrest you on a charge of obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty, of attempted blackmail, and anything else I can think of when I get my clothes on. Whatever you say may be taken down and given in evidence.”
Some of the horrible truth was getting through to Debbie. “You’re a policeman?” she demanded, aghast.
“Come on, save the wide-eyed innocence. It doesn’t go with the performance you’ve just been putting on. You lured me here on the promise of information and then tried to set me up for blackmail.”
“Not you,” she managed to say. “Elroy Speke.”
“Who the hell is Elroy Speke?”
“You are—aren’t you?”
“I’ve already told you who I am, and my colleagues at the station will be delighted to confirm it. Then you can have a long session in a cell telling yourself it’s true,” he informed her grimly.
True? Of course it was true! It was all so obvious now that this authoritative man could never be the miserable worm she was after. Her instincts had told her that from the first, but she hadn’t listened to them. Now she’d failed in her job and gotten herself arrested into the bargain. Oh, what a mess!
“Will you kindly release me so that I can get dressed?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“Modesty now, is it? I don’t recall that modesty was much in evidence when you were inviting me to have an interesting time.” But he loosened his grip and got on with his own dressing, taking care to keep between her and the door.
Debbie grabbed frantically at her clothes. The bra was beyond repair so she stuffed it into her purse and fastened the leather jacket up to the neck. Now the shortness of the skirt horrified her and she tried to pull it down, but it was no use. The skirt had been designed for provocation, and provocative it remained. “Why do you keep calling me ‘Miss James’?” she asked.
He groaned. “Surely we’re past that stage? Why go on pretending?”
“I’m not pretending. I don’t know anyone called Elizabeth James. My name is Debra Harker, ex-Detective Sergeant Harker. I left the force to become a private investigator. I’m on a case. Now, who are you?”
“All right. We’ll play the game to the finish. I’m Detective Inspector Jake Garfield, and you are Elizabeth James. Pretending to be a policewoman was a neat idea but—”
“There are a dozen people on the force who can tell you who I am,” she interrupted in exasperation. “Starting with Chief Superintendent Manners.”
“Manners?” He looked at her curiously. “Now that you mention it, I have heard Manners bellyaching about a Debbie Harker on his staff—wild woman, pain in the neck.”
“That’s me,” Debbie said without hesitation.
Jake studied her through narrowed eyes. “I had a meeting set up with Liz James who was going to spill the beans about a nasty character called Lucky Driver. All I know about her appearance is that she’s blond, and they don’t come much blonder than you. You really expect me to believe you’re not her?”
“That’s right. Because I’m not.”
Jake drew a sharp breath and snatched up the telephone and called the desk. “Is there a young woman with fair hair waiting down there?” he barked.
Debbie could just hear the male receptionist’s voice. “There was someone answering that description but she’s gone now. If you’re Mr. Garfield, she left you a verbal message.”
“I’m Garfield. What did she say?”
The receptionist cleared his throat awkwardly and repeated the message. It was extremely vulgar, very explicit, and left no doubt that Jake would be wasting his time trying that source of information again. Jake swore and slammed down the phone. “Now see what your interference has done!” he snapped.
“Just a minute,” Debbie muttered, and seized the phone in her turn. “Hello, reception? This is Room 18. Has a Mr. Speke been asking for me?”
“No, madame.”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s been only a young lady and she’s gone.”
“Thank you.” She replaced the receiver, chagrined.
“So much for Mr. Speke,” Jake said ironically.
“He exists. He’s making my client’s life a misery.”
“So you were going to strip off by way of persuading him to stop?”
Debbie ground her teeth. “He’s a blackmailer—”
“He’s a blackmailer?” Jake demanded with angry hilarity.
“I was trying to compromise him to get him to stop his nasty activities but you fouled it all up.”
“I— Now wait! You approached me in the lobby, not the other way around. There were no names. You just assumed—on no evidence whatever—that I was Speke.”
“Not ‘on no evidence.’ There was the way you looked at me, raising your eyebrows.”
“Raising—”
“As if you were asking me if I was the right person.”
“I was asking if you were the right person. But you weren’t.”
“How was I supposed to know that? And then there was your car. It’s a rich man’s car.”
“No need to tell me that. I live in poverty just to keep up the repayments.”
“You’re not too poor to afford handmade shoes.”
“I have bad feet,” he said through gritted teeth. “I need handmade shoes. So that’s enough to convict me of blackmail, is it? I wish I could sit through one of your cases in court. It must be interesting.”
“You played along,” she said indignantly. “You didn’t use any names, either, and you didn’t try to stop me stripping off.”
“I was fascinated to know how far you were ready to go.”
“Oh, yes?”
“And I was riveted by the performance, I don’t deny. You have some very special skills there. In fact...” He stopped and looked at her speculatively. “Very special,” he repeated slowly. “So special, in fact, that you might be the one woman I need.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Let’s assume that you really are ex-policewoman Debbie Harker. I’m not convinced but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“You’re so kind,” she murmured ironically.
“Once you worked on the side of the law, but who knows whose side you’re on now?”
“Hey—”
“Let’s say that you’ve had no success as a P.I.—a reasonable assumption after today’s fiasco. Let’s say that you’re desperate, that you’ll take any job without asking too many questions.”
“No, let’s not say that,” she said angrily. “Because it isn’t true.”
“So you claim. But suppose you were sent here by Lucky Driver, who maybe suspected that his girlfriend might be about to rat on him? Your job was to distract me so that she never got the chance to talk.”
“Rubbish,” Debbie said trenchantly. “If he thought