Old Age Private Oh My! Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Confusion Reigns

  A Good Day

  Kids!

  The Nitty Gritty

  Pay the Man

  Trials and Tribulations

  To Business

  Bit Rough, Isn't She?

  Getting Things Straight

  Chaos

  Dodgy Goings-On

  More Exploring

  To the Woods

  Time to Go

  Excited Teenagers

  First Suspect

  Nothing Learned

  Mack the Knife

  Nice Speedos

  A Polite Conversation

  Slumlord

  Rather Unexpected

  A Quiet Walk

  Some Alone Time

  Office Work

  Second Time Lucky

  Back to Mack

  A Nice Cup of Tea

  The Move

  Lunch and a Chat

  A Burial

  Contemplating Mortality

  Visiting the Client (Again)

  Grumpy Old Man

  One Case Solved

  The Truth

  Meet the Gran

  Unwanted Messages

  The Big Reveal

  Confirmation

  All Over Now

  The Tin

  Old Age Private Oh My!

  (Old Age Pensioner Investigations (OAPI) Book 2)

  Copyright © 2016 A. W. Blakely

  Get a deal on new releases, and important news, by joining the author's newsletter at www.awblakely.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Confusion Reigns

  "Stupid bloody mice, what's the point? The Internet's broken again, Kate. Look, it's gone all funny." Stanley pointed at the screen of his brand new 21" monitor in accusation, as if the technology was out to get him and was waging some kind of vendetta against anyone of "certain years."

  "Dad, how many times? It's a mouse, not mice. Let me have a look." Kate moved next to Stanley in the cramped garden shed she'd set up as their new office. She turned from admiring the summer bedding plants her mum had planted the day before, to the less exciting prospect of Stanley's latest issue with his new computer. She peered at the screen for a moment then said, "What did you do? How did you get onto that page?"

  "I just did as you told me," moaned Stanley. "I clicked the... the mouse thingie, and then it brought up this bloody page about placing a bet on the horses." Stanley glanced nervously out the shed door. "If Babs catches me with this up she'll never let me hear the end of it. You know what she thinks about gambling."

  "Well, stop clicking on adverts, then. Look, I've told you this a thousand times. You have to move the mouse and hover over where you want to click before you actually do click. Don't just keep moving it at random and hoping for the best."

  "Ugh. The little arrow thing keeps disappearing. I can't even see where it is half the time. Daft bloody idea this, anyway. Why do I have to learn how to use a computer when you're the secretary? This is your job."

  "Because this is the modern world, Dad, and you need to know how to do it. What if I wasn't here and you needed to research a case? Or I get sick? Or you need to check your email to see if we have a new client? Or load photos from your new camera? There are endless reasons why you need to know this stuff."

  "I'll just wait until you come. This is driving me crazy. Why have I got an email address anyway? All I get is bloody luncheon meat."

  Kate stared at her father in utter confusion. "Luncheon meat?"

  "Yes. You know, daft emails asking me to give my bank details to a foreign banker and he'll send me a million dollars by tomorrow, that kind of thing." Stanley stared at his daughter blankly as she began to smile, then slapped him playfully on the back of his head. That wasn't right. Daughters shouldn't be beating on their poor old dad like that. "What? What's so funny?"

  "You silly old sod. It's not called luncheon meat, it's called spam."

  "Same thing, isn't it?" muttered Stanley as he stared with contempt at the monitor Kate had been forcing him to use for an hour every day for over a week now—he hated it more with each passing minute. And that was without the dread of the phone he now owned. Some new-fangled thing with a touchscreen and a camera and even the Internet in miniature, although it was a little hard to see anything.

  Kate had said he probably needed glasses, but he'd told her his sight was as good as when he was a youngster, so would hear nothing of a suggested visit to the local Specsavers.

  Kate shook her head and said, "I despair of you, I really do. And have you worked out how to use your phone yet?"

  "Yes, it's easy," lied Stanley. The truth was he had no idea how to use it. When it rang—Kate doing test calls—he'd had to get Babs to answer it as he kept forgetting where he had to put his finger and do a weird slide type motion to answer. Why he couldn't just press a button was beyond him. It was like the younger generation had come up with ways to torture his generation for their own amusement.

  He didn't even want to think about the camera Kate said was now an integral part of all modern phones. All he'd managed so far was to take closeups of his own face—for some reason it kept focusing the wrong way and he didn't want to ask Kate again as she'd already shown him more times than he cared to recall.

  Stanley sighed. "I'm going to smoke my pipe. I need a rest from this. Anyway," he said, as he pushed up from his "ergonomic" chair, still amazed how good his hip felt, "I've done my hour, and you must have lots of work to do. Cases to sort out, all that type of business," he said hopefully.

  "Sorry, no. It's still quiet." Kate took his place at the desk and clicked away like a professional. She brought up their website—Stanley was still stunned, and immensely proud of the work his daughter had done to bring them into the digital age, even if he didn't really get the need or the point. It wasn't as if their online presence had brought them a herd of new customers. In fact, it had been nothing but a headache and a waste of time as far as he was concerned.

  Still, the site looked amazing. OAPI in bright red letters at the top of the page, beneath it the full name of their now official detective agency: Old Age Pensioner Investigations. Then lower down the page was what Kate called the "hook" but Stanley called the description, like a normal person: No job too big or small. Detective Stanley will solve it all.

  He wasn't so sure about the dodgy picture of him trying to look wistful, staring off into the distance holding his pipe like he was solving a complex case, but Kate had said it would help them to go "viral," and was part of what made them so "niche" and different to other private eyes that were all too common.

  The "viral" thing hadn't happened yet. In fact, they'd had precisely one customer via the website in the month it was live, and that was for a missing cat. Not exactly the glamorous life of a detective Stanley had envisioned after he'd inadvertently found himself becoming a private eye and helping to solve a case, with the help of his daughter, in their home village of Banrook.

  "I'll be back in a minute." Kate ignored him, already immersed in the virtual world he found so mysterious.

  Stanley packed his pipe and brought it to life, sucking down the glorious, strong tobacco smoke. What a year it had been. He'd never have believed it, and he thanked the stars every day for the new lease
of life he'd got after thinking he'd be stuck on the scrapheap of life for good.

  Stanley had taken retirement reluctantly, and for six months afterward he'd felt like he was slipping into his grave one excruciatingly boring day after another. He hated not having anything to do, despised the quiet, the lack of a role in life, the sheer boredom of not going to work every day like he had for fifty of his many years on the planet. Now he was sixty-eight and life was good.

  After his hip had given out, and he had a bit of an "episode," he'd been told the waiting list was eighteen months. Luckily, he'd got a cancellation and three months ago he'd been fixed—it was a miracle, and he hadn't realized just how much pain he'd been in until he recovered from the operation and felt like a youth once more.

  It still took him by surprise every time he moved in or out of a chair and didn't wince and have to try to hide the pain from his family. Now he could move about all day without feeling like he was crumbling to dust, and was as active as he wanted to be. Only problem was, there wasn't a lot to be active for.

  Since he'd put an advert in the local shop window on a whim, proclaiming himself a private eye catering to those of a "certain" age, he'd been rather lacking in cases. After the initial flurry, where he'd been kept busy for a few months because he successfully solved his first case, there had been nothing apart from the missing cat. It seemed that their investment in the business, bringing it into the modern age with the help of Kate, had been nothing but a waste of the money earned so far.

  Kate had dealt with it all: buying equipment, setting it all up, dealing with the paperwork side of things and making sure they were actually legal. He'd just cleared out the shed, put in insulation, and tried to come up with excuses to tell his wife, Babs, so she didn't make him mow the lawn yet again.

  Now it seemed like all they had to show for their efforts was zero funds for the business, and a shed that looked like a madman had got carried away with wires and things that went beep. Stanley was getting close to returning to mowing the lawn twice a day just for something to do. It was getting that bad.

  The harsh smoke calmed Stanley's frayed nerves after his most recent encounter with his nemesis, technology, and tried to stay positive. After all, he got to spend his time with his daughter, who he'd said should be his partner but she insisted she stay his secretary as otherwise they would argue and never get any work done. Kate was right, of course. They were both hot-headed and stubborn, so somebody had to be the detective and someone the sidekick. It suited them both perfectly.

  Stanley had made the business official, got all his paperwork in order thanks mostly—totally—to Kate, and even had contracts for clients. Official documents that dealt with retainers, costs per hour, mileage and other expenses. Things he hadn't even considered when he'd rashly decided he could solve mysteries and do something with a life he'd felt was close to being over.

  Kate was happy to have the work. Since her divorce from the man-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, she'd found it impossible to get employment after being a stay-at-home wife for so long, and Stanley was more grateful than he could ever express for having a daughter that liked to spend time with him. He'd do anything for her, and this was a true dream retirement, now he wasn't retired at all.

  But for months there had been next to no business. Kate was showing up less and less each day as there was nothing to be done, and Stanley was regretting all the money they'd spent as it wasn't bringing in the business like they'd hoped.

  Beep, beep.

  Stanley rushed back inside at the sound. This was the alert Kate had set up for when somebody emailed the business email account she had forwarded to her "Jeez" mail account. Stanley had no idea how that worked, but trusted his daughter implicitly. He'd learned to just nod his head and agree when it came to questions regarding their new virtual presence.

  "Is it a customer? Is it a murder? Has somebody gone missing? Is it local? Is it grisly and is there a corpse?"

  "Ugh, Dad, will you get that stinking pipe out of here. Gross!" Kate scowled at him then turned her attention to the monitor, hand moving away from the off button on the tower—it looked like she'd been about to pack it in for the day.

  "Well?"

  "Give me a minute." Kate scanned left to right, reading the email in a few seconds. A smile spread across her face as she scrolled down the page with the mouse then clicked reply.

  "Well, come on. Don't keep me in suspense."

  "Old Age Pensioner Investigations has a case. See, I told you this was all worth it."

  "Yes!" Stanley punched the air. Burning tobacco knocked out of his pipe as his hand hit the shed roof and ash hit the rug they used to help make the office a little more cozy. "Oops."

  "Right, that's it, no more pipes anywhere near the shed. It is wooden, you know. Do you want to burn our office to the ground?"

  "It's a shed," muttered Stanley as he stepped out the door and smiled.

  A case. I hope it's a good one. Yes!

  A Good Day

  Stanley puffed fast and hard on his pipe, caught the dying embers, and sucked down smoke before coughing roughly. He pulled the pipe away from his lips and stared hard at it. What was he doing? He needed to quit, but he liked it. Did all great detectives have such quandaries? Did Columbo fight with his nicotine addiction, or should he not worry about it? He was closing on seventy fast, after all, so maybe he should enjoy his one vice while he had the chance?

  With a shake of the head, and a decision made to reevaluate at seventy, Stanley tapped the ash into the sand, made sure it was out and wouldn't set the office on fire, then stepped back inside. Hopefully, Kate was ready to reveal all.

  "Well, what is it then?"

  "Is the pipe out?"

  "Yes. Come on, love, don't keep your old dad in suspense."

  Kate had that sparkle of excitement in her eyes. Stanley loved to see his daughter so full of life, it made his heart sing like nothing else in the world. It had nearly broken him when the divorce had gone through, even though he'd never liked her husband. But watching her unravel as everything got messy was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do in his life.

  "You ready for this?"

  "Yes, yes. Murder, I bet it's a murder. It is, isn't it?"

  "Dad! I've told you before, you shouldn't be so happy about other people's misfortune."

  "Sorry. Come on, what's the case?"

  "It's a—"

  Woof, woof.

  "Damn, forgot." Roobarb, the portly Labrador that was as much a part of the family as the rest of them, came trotting up the garden as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. He was as unhappy as Stanley about the enforced diet Babs had got even stricter about lately, saying that neither of them were losing weight fast enough. Stanley was down to one chocolate biscuit every other day and Roobarb was down to half rations for his once-a-day meal. Stanley was surprised he hadn't run away and moved in with someone that appreciated the more rotund type of dog.

  It was walk time, and Stanley had been religious about taking Roobarb every morning at ten for months now. Both of them needed the exercise, and Babs usually came with them too, so they always had a nice time. Sometimes Kate joined them, and on such days Stanley wondered what he'd done to deserve to be so lucky in his life.

  "Roobarb, you naughty dog. Wait for me. I told you not to go disturbing the detectives while they are working." Babs marched up the garden in her housecoat and Wellington boots, only half ready for the morning stroll. She tied a scarf over her hair as she scowled at Roobarb.

  "Hey there, buddy. You know it's not time yet, don't you?" Stanley checked his watch. It was only a few minutes until ten so he supposed Roobarb couldn't be blamed. "Damn."

  "Sorry, Stanley, somebody is extra keen for their walk this morning."

  "That's all right, love. Guess he knows it's a nice day for it." Stanley looked at the clear blue sky. No clouds, sun already warm—it promised to be another beautiful day.

  The summer had been unusual so far, insofar t
hat it had delivered what it promised. It had been hot, dry, and glorious. Today would be no exception. It still felt wrong to Stanley—British summers were usually a mix of rain, disappointment, and a dash out to soak up some rays before thick cloud descended once more.

  "What are you so pleased about?" asked Babs suspiciously.

  "I'm just happy. We've got a case. Kate was just about to tell me about it, weren't you? Kate?"

  "Eh? Oh, hi, Mum." Kate tapped something on the keyboard then stepped out of the shed, otherwise known as OAPI HQ.

  "Ooh, a case. That's great news. Maybe now you'll stop moping about and getting under my feet, Stanley."

  "Hey, I've been trying to be good, but you know how it is. I—"

  "Am a grumpy old git when you don't have something to do, I know."

  Babs stood on tiptoe and kissed Stanley on the cheek. "What was that for?" he asked.

  "To congratulate you. What's the case?"

  "Ask Kate. I don't know yet."

  "It's our first proper booking via the website, and they've already paid a retainer. See, I told you it was worth setting it up properly with calendars and payment processing," said Kate with pride. "And it's fairly local too."

  "What is it? Tell me." Stanley really hoped it was something epic. If he had to go find another cat he might just return to gardening and forget the whole thing.

  "It's a double murder, in Mackle."

  "Yes!"

  "Stanley!"

  "Dad!"

  "What? I don't mean good as in people are dead. I mean... Um, shall we have a cuppa to celebrate?"

  Woof.

  "Ah, okay. Let's take Roobarb for a walk first. You coming, Kate?"

  "Sure, just let me lock up."

  As far as Stanley was concerned it was one of the best mornings of his life. If he got a cuppa and a biscuit when they returned home it would be perfect.

  Kids!

  As Babs was with them, they walked to the park. She point-blank refused to ever set foot in Kate's car and Stanley didn't blame her. Kate had two speeds—skidding to a halt and foot flat on the accelerator, neither of which made for a relaxing journey. Stanley put up with it, the enjoyment of his daughter's company just about overriding the fear he felt every time he squirmed into her original Mini Cooper, but he was glad Babs was with them so a short "drive" was out of the question.