Free Honeytrap: Part 1 by Roberta Kray Page A

West End of London to the East, a risk at the time but one that was paying off. Private detectives, it seemed, were in demand wherever they chose to hang their hats.
    His eyes scanned the limited view that was on offer: the station, the pub, the bus stop across the way. Kellston was – if you believed the hype – the next up-and-coming part of East London. It was true there was a Starbucks, new clothes shops and a few decent restaurants on the high street, but it hadn’t quite caught up with the neighbouring and more fashionable district of Shoreditch. There was still an ingrained shabbiness about the place; this was where the poor had always gathered and the smell of poverty lingered in the air.
    Harry tapped his heels against the polished floorboards. He felt tense and restless, as if he had spent the winter months in hibernation and was only now emerging into daylight again. Where were all the good cases? Where was the intrigue, the mystery? The honeytrap side might be bringing in the cash, but it wasn’t exactly challenging. He needed something to get his teeth into.
    The phone rang and he turned back to the desk and picked it up. ‘Hey, Lorna.’
    ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
    ‘A client?’ he asked, his hopes rising.
    ‘No,’ Lorna said. ‘It’s Jess.’
    ‘Tell her I’m out.’
    ‘You can tell her yourself. She’s on her way up.’
    The door to Harry’s office opened just as he was replacing the receiver. He looked at the woman who came in, gave a shake of his head and raised his hands as if to shield himself. ‘Whatever it is, I’m not interested!’
    ‘Now what kind of a way is that to greet an old friend?’
    ‘Would that be the old friend I haven’t heard from in – how long is it now?’
    ‘It’s only a few months.’
    ‘More like six.’
    Jess grinned, pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Is it really? How sweet that you’ve been counting. Anyway, you’re looking well. How are things?’
    Harry sat down too, crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her from the other side of the desk. A pair of expressive grey eyes gazed directly back from beneath a pale brown fringe. ‘As well as can be expected.’
    ‘Considering?’
    ‘Considering you just showed up on my doorstep.’
    Jess leaned forward, still grinning. ‘It’s a good thing I’m not the sensitive sort. A girl could take offence at a comment like that. She might get a complex, start thinking that she isn’t welcome.’
    ‘God forbid,’ he muttered. The trouble with Jessica Vaughan was that whenever she appeared, trouble was never far behind. She was a freelance reporter, a hack with a nose for a good story. They had history and most of it involved Harry being dragged into things he’d have preferred to stay out of. ‘So go on, what is it you want this time?’
    ‘What if I told you I was working on something big, something that could shake the very foundations of the East End?’
    Harry pulled a face. ‘I’d say I’m busy for the next three weeks.’
    ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ she said.
    ‘I’m already packing.’ He tapped the right side of his temples. ‘Up here, I’m already deciding what to put in that suitcase, how many shirts and how many pairs of shoes, figuring out where to go and for how long. I’ve got a mental map in my brain. Even as we speak, I’m wondering how far I can get from Kellston by this time tomorrow.’
    Jess inclined her head, the sides of her short, neat bob swaying against her cheeks. She studied him for a while, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. ‘As it happens, you can cancel the travel plans. There’s no foundation-shaking going on. Not even a minor tremor. The East End, at least for now, is safe from my investigative zeal. All I’m after is a word with your honeytrap girls.’
    ‘A word?’
    ‘I’d like to interview a few of them, write an article about the business – you know, why people come to you, what they hope to achieve, how the honeys work and how they