Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

“But you do the… uh… groundwork?” her husband asked.

“If you mean by booking a hotel room and hiring a corespondent, then yes, Mr Cuthbertson. This agency takes care of that.”

As succinctly as possible, I ran through the procedure. The time for details was later, but this young couple needed to know here and now that evidence of not just a one-night stand but a long-standing, ongoing affair needed to be established. In practice, this was simply a matter of the man changing his tie for each of the photographs. The girls carried a change of clothing as a matter of course. I’d make lunch appointments every half-hour at different restaurants, dinner appointments in the evening, so there’d be wadges of photographs to lay before the court. The lovebirds holding hands between courses. The naughty couple toasting each other, whispering sweet nothings across the salt cellar, swanning in and out of hotels, that sort of thing.

“I will provide a back-dated contract that shows Mrs Cuthbertson approached this agency three months ago, asking us to investigate her husband’s infidelity,” I said, “but all this proves is that her husband has been meeting another woman over a period of time.”

To grant her a divorce, the courts need meat on their bones.

“At a prearranged time, one of our agents -” I truly hoped I’d made it sound as though there was more than one of me – “goes to the hotel room, and because the courts require the corroboration of an independent witness, persuades the housekeeper to unlock the door.” I paused. “Then we snap the client in as compromising a position as they can muster.”

The men were uniformly reserved, but the girls had no such qualms. At the required moment, they threw caution and their brassieres to the wind. No wonder the husbands looked so startled in the photos.

“Jolly good.” Mr Cuthbertson was relieved that his input to the arrangements would be minimal.

Mrs Cuthbertson didn’t even try to hide her joy at being left out of it completely. “That is excellent, Miss Hepburn,” she gushed, and I swear that little feather in her hat perked up. “Really excellent.”

I wasn’t convinced excellent was the word.

“Are you quite sure this is what you want?” This time I spoke to Mr Cuthbertson directly. “There’s no going back,” I told him. “You’ll be publicly branded an adulterer, your name will be blazoned across the newspapers-”

“Miss Hepburn,” his wife interrupted gently, “my husband and I married in haste, we have already repented. We have no desire to add to the leisure.”

I wondered whether they always did their arguing in such civilized terms, or whether they’d simply passed beyond that stage.

“The thing is, Miss Hepburn, both Margaret and I have met someone else,” Mr. Cuthbertson said. “We just want this marriage ended as quickly as possible, so we are free to marry again.”

It all seemed so gracious and polite that I imagined the four of them round the Cuthbertson’s elegant dining table, discussing it over a bottle of Margaux and a nice fillet steak. I thought it was about time someone added the mustard. “You are aware of the costs involved?”

“My family’s in tractors and my husband is in baby foods,” Mrs Cuthbertson said, carelessly rubbing her diamonds, “Money is no object, Miss Hepburn.”

“Then you’re also aware of why this fast-track divorce ploy is so expensive?” I leaned across the desk and looked her husband squarely in the eye. “If anything goes wrong, it’s not just you,” I told him. “We could both end up in jail.”

They glanced at each other, gulped, then nodded. Of the two, the wife’s nod was the least grim, I decided.

But then she wasn’t the one looking at porridge.

I want to make it very clear that what I do has no connection whatsoever with prostitution. Quite the opposite, in fact, because the girls I hire are usually married themselves and lead otherwise normal, respectable lives. It’s just that, like me, they need the money – and for this kind of money, people take risks. Wouldn’t you?

And it’s because there’s so much at stake, fixing up fake adultery cases, that I (a) charge exorbitant fees and (b) plan to the very last detail – then go over it time and again. That way, should anything go belly up, at least I have the satisfaction of having some money behind me to take care of Susan, plus I can wile away my stretch in the sure and certain knowledge that I did the best I could, which is all anyone can ask. Even crooked female private eyes.

So my confidence was pretty high as I took the elevator to the Belle Vue’s second floor. Of course, that had as much to do with the hired mink as my meticulous forward planning, because even though I’d never earn enough to buy one for myself, you really do feel a million dollars wrapped inside real fur. And a girl certainly needs the right clothes in a hotel like the Belle Vue. For one thing, it’s the best hotel by a mile, and that’s where several of my competitors tripped up. They’d tried to cut costs, and realized too late that judges, especially divorce-court judges, aren’t lemons. No man who has his shirts handmade in Jermyn Street books into a cheap hotel with an even cheaper floozy. So that’s the first rule. Horses for courses, and since you only get the one chance in a place like the Belle Vue, you need to convince the housekeeper with a single glance that you’re a bona fide guest who’s foolishly left her key behind.

“Here we are, madam. Two-two-three.”

The housekeeper made to knock, but I pointed to the “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging dutifully on the doorknob, and you’d be surprised how far a five-pound note still goes in the middle of an afternoon in 1959. While she jiggled the master key in the lock, I whipped my camera out of a vanity case designed for rather more feminine and undoubtedly more trivial activities, then checked the corridor for the billionth time. Still deserted, but on these carpets, you wouldn’t hear a herd of wildebeest charging down on you. The lift whirred gently in the background.

“Say cheese,” I breezed, as the housekeeper flung open the door.

“Jeez,” the housekeeper said.

So used to all this, I’d taken the photo before I even realized. It was a man on the bed, all right, but he wasn’t undressed and there was no sign of Mavis or her hired fox fur. (For the same reasons, I can’t have Mavis wandering round the Belle Vue without looking the part, either). But to be honest, I wasn’t surprised she’d done a bunk. His head lay at a horribly unnatural angle.

My first thought was for Mrs Cuthbertson.

My second was to get the hell out of there.

“This situation needs to be handled with the utmost discretion,” I told the housekeeper, backing carefully out of the room. “You fetch the manager. I’ll wait here, to make sure no one goes in.”

The trouble was, I couldn’t hear myself speak, there was this terrible din in the background. Not what one expects from the Belle Vue, I thought idly. What on earth was the place coming to? Then I turned round.

So much for keeping it quiet, I realized, and so much for slipping away.

That din was the housekeeper’s scream.

With no quick or easy way out, it was now a case of damage control. At the first screech, the lift boy, two chambermaids, some straight-backed, po-faced security manager, and a fat room-service waiter appeared out of nowhere, while there I was, camera in hand, pretending to be Mrs Two-two-three. My gut instinct said play up the distraught widow thing, who’s to say what grief will do, why shouldn’t the poor wife run off, the girl’s in shock? But it only goes to show. In the past, on the very few occasions I’d ever ordered room service, the waiters proved aloof and snooty specimens. Trust me to pick the breed’s only bleeding heart. And then there was the Belle Vue’s director.