She hurried up the steps to the hotel. Sid would be in his mid to late forties now, she supposed. He’d always been a good looking man, if the pictures in his record were anything to go by. And he was, so far as Hazel’s limited knowledge went, a very good photographer. But he liked the ladies rather a lot. They really liked him too, which made everyone happy. For a while at least.
Sid wasn’t a bad man, in fact he was pretty useful. He met many people, a lot of them worse than he was, far worse. For a consideration he’d be more than happy to tell Hazel all about them.
Sid had been, for some years, a very good informer. The information he gave always paid out and he always kept a low profile. Hazel kind of liked him, in a vague sort of way. Sid was, generally, harmless, and if you ignored his liking for women, he was a decent sort.
He seemed to treat his women well too, married or otherwise, so Hazel didn’t bother too much about what he did. He had kept in touch with a few things after she left vice, but on the whole their contact had diminished considerably.
Now came this email.
Come quick, please. I need help, and can only trust you. I’m at the Orient Park Hotel. I have trouble.
It wasn’t exactly a mass of clues. Trouble could be anything from an angry husband to a revenge filled drug dealer. Each dangerous in their own way. Hazel shook her head and walked over to the reception desk.
“Good morning, may I help you?” The receptionist was blonde, well dressed, and over friendly the way people who deal with the public are.
“I have an appointment with Sidney Fuller.” Hazel said. Ignoring the woman’s plastic smile.
She also had to ignore being looked over and the slightly raised eyebrows. “Mr Fuller is busy today.”
“Hmmmm?” Hazel said.
“He’s in room 214, second floor. The lift is just over there.” The receptionist indicated where to go. She smiled and shook her head slightly.
Hazel, slightly puzzled, thanked her and walked over to the lift. She wasn’t keen on the things and was pleased to see stairs beside it. She scurried up them, two at a time, enjoying, as she always did, the exercise and the bounding feeling of power as she moved.
She passed the first floor in a few moments and then continued upwards, pleased to note her pulse rate hadn’t raised much and she didn’t feel even slightly breathless. It was a bit childish, she knew, but the knowledge that she was fit, strong, supple and active, always gave her pleasure.
The second floor was just like the first. A pastel coloured corridor with numbered doors.
Except on this floor a young woman strode towards her.
She was short and tanned with dark hair. She strode confidently on unfeasibly high heels. Her legs bare and mostly exposed beneath a white mini skirt. Her top was also white and a size or so too small. The breasts looked like they may have been surgically enhanced. Over this she wore a garish silver and black tiger print coat, and more jewellery than was either practical or tasteful. The Cleopatra necklace was far too extravagant and all the heavy looking rings she wore would have done some damage in a fist fight. Hazel doubted if any of the jewellery was genuine. As they neared each other, the woman pushed out her chest more than necessary. Hazel automatically glanced down. No, they couldn’t be real breasts.
Then they had passed each other. Hazel heading towards Sid’s room and the woman striding away to the lift, a big red bag slung over her shoulder and visible from the rear.
Hazel sniffed, trying to place the perfume. Some ghastly tralk juice available at the local market, no doubt.
She reached Sid’s room and knocked on the door. This had better be important, or he really would be in trouble, she thought.
Then she considered that unfair. After all, he had rescued her from a morning of drab dreary paperwork, that had to be worth something.
“Answer the door, Sid.” She said under her breath, “I don’t have all day.”
She hammered louder.
“Come on, Sid, put your pants on….” She rattled the knob.
The door opened. “Sid?” Hazel said casually, “You in here?” Hazel stepped inside.
The hotel room was just a hotel room. Hazel had seen so many. Double bed in the corner, made. Cheap but clean and neat furniture. A small television set and a wall connector for the internet. Sid’s laptop was plugged in. Plugged in and switched off, she noted.
“Sid?” her voice was less casual now and she’d flipped her coat back to expose her equipment belt. It was then she realised she could still smell the tralk’s perfume. In fact it seemed as strong in her as it had been outside. “You had a woman in here, Sid?” Hazel wasn’t concerned about tralks. There was another smell, much fainter, but far more familiar to her. The strong smelling perfume pretty much covered it up. But it was there. Hazel would know it anywhere. She’d smelled it first when she was fourteen years old.
She slipped the Sestra out of its holster. At fourteen her grandfather had enrolled her at the Skeggs Field gun club. Hazel knew the smell of gunpowder or whatever modern chemicals passed for gunpowder these days. She had smelled it almost every day for twenty years.
“Sid?” She could see no one. No signs of struggle. But these rooms came with an ensuite bathroom. The door at the end. It was closed. Hazel moved slowly over, and to one side.
She listened. Nothing. Reaching out she grasped the bathroom door handle and turned. It gave easily. She pushed but held her position. The door swung inwards.
She could smell it stronger now. Perfume, gunpowder, and…..blood….body fluids.
“Oh, Sid.” She holstered the pistol. “Sid.”
He sat on the lino floor. In a pool of his own body fluids and waste. He’d been shot twice. A stain over his chest and his head tilted back where the second bullet had hit him between the eyes.
On the floor between them lay the murder weapon. A stubby, compact revolver. Smith Wesson, Hazel noted. Small, light, easy to conceal.
Easy to hide in a bag.
“Frell” She said viciously. Hazel turned and ran down the corridor. “Frelling tralk.”
She spun around the turn to the stairs and was haring down them at full speed hoping no unsuspecting member of staff was coming the other way. Of course the tralk had been to see Sid, who else? She kicked herself mentally for her sluggishness. Think, you stupid bitch, think.
Hazel bounded out onto the main reception area, getting several surprised looks from people who looked like tourists.
Yes, like the tralk looked like a tralk.
Stupid.
The receptionist, as surprised as anyone, looked up as Hazel, all 1.8 metres of her, loomed overhead. “Where did she go?”
“Who? What…where did who go?”
“The tralk…the woman who went to see Mr Fuller before me. Where is she?”
“Upstairs, I expect. What is going on? If you don’t tell me I’ll have to call the police. We are usually….”
“I am the police.” Hazel waved her identification in the woman’s face. “Just tell me where she went.”
By now this had attracted a small crowd. The receptionist said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The young woman is still upstairs. She’s not come down here. I’d notice. She was….” she lowered her voice, “…very noticeable…Sergeant..Vernon.” She was trying to read Hazel’s ID.
“She was coming down when I was on