Hot Pursuit (22 page)

Lesley blushed and fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly.

‘I know, hang on, hang on, don’t tell me, it’s on the tip of my tongue –’ said the man, his face screwed into a mask of concentration. ‘I’ve got it. You’re on telly, aren’t you?’ he announced triumphantly. ‘You’re that girl who does that crime programme on ITV – I’ve seen you loads of times – I love that programme.’ He began to hum the tune, gyrating thin hips to the upbeat opening music.

Robbie’s head swung round and he glared at Lesley; those lines were meant to be for him. People had been recognising Robbie since before she was bloody-well born, the little cow.

Lesley’s colour intensified; and Robbie started to wriggle furiously. Thanks to him putting a word in for her upstairs Lesley had done a little bit of
on-screen work on the programme over the last few months. Not much, just read out a few readers’ letters, answered some of the call-in stuff, but even so she was hardly Anne-frigging-Robinson.

The man still had a tight hold of Robbie’s throat.

‘Are you all right? –’ he said solicitously, still looking in her direction. ‘Only there’s blood on your head.’

Lesley smiled bravely and pulling a pristine white hankie from the sleeve of her cardigan dabbed at the spot with just the hint of a wince. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine – it’s nothing,’ she said.

What a brave little soldier, thought Robbie malevolently.

‘We’re on a story at the moment,’ she continued, all the while batting those long eyelashes of hers.

For God’s sake, did she have to keep flirting with this ape, thought Robbie indignantly; had the woman got no shame at all?

‘Lesley!’ Robbie snapped, trying to get her attention. What in God’s name was the girl thinking of.

The man, ignoring Robbie, beamed. ‘Really? That’s amazing. Something big, is it?’

Lesley nodded, and then pushed her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose. ‘We’re just about to crack the story on a really big con man – he’s responsible for all sorts of scams.’

‘Really? So you pair are a bit like, what? Starsky and Hutch, then?’ the ginger man said, although at least he had the decency to redden and then laugh self-consciously at his own lame remark.

Lesley appeared to glow under his attention. ‘Actually we were tailing someone,’ she said, waving in the general direction of the accident. ‘Which is why we maybe weren’t paying as much attention as we should be.’ At which point Lesley glared at Robbie and then looking back at her red-faced, red-haired admirer, continued, ‘I’m really very sorry –’ She screwed her eyes and mouth up into what was presumably meant to be an expression of apology and contrition.

‘Oh God,’ said the man, ‘and now because of me you’re going to lose them. You should have said – and you should get yourself a better driver.’

‘Thank you,’ said Robbie, as he dropped to the tarmac like a stone.

‘We’d better sort this out.’ The man pulled out his keys. ‘I’ll move the van out of the way. My name is Dave – Dave Henderson –’ He took Lesley’s hand, shook it and then very coyly pressed it to his lips. ‘Do you think your car is still driveable? I could give you a lift if you don’t mind roughing it.’

Her car?
Her car?
The bile rose in Robbie’s throat.

Lesley peered myopically at the crumpled front end of the car and nodded and then pulled a
seductive little look that implied she wasn’t adverse to a bit of rough, given half a chance. The man reddened and Lesley said, ‘That’s really kind of you but I think it will be okay, actually – it only looks like the spoiler from here.’

‘Oh and you would know, wouldn’t you?’ said Robbie sarcastically. ‘The whole bloody wing is smashed, and look at the state of the headlights –’

Lesley smiled at Mr Henderson. ‘If you’ve got a pen I’ll give you our insurance details –’ she said, reaching back into the car and dropping the glove compartment down to pull out a neat little packet of official-looking documents.

The man made a gesture of dismissal. ‘It’s all right,’ he began, but Lesley shook her head firmly.

‘No, I absolutely insist, after all, it was our fault –’

‘It’s only a works van, no one will know how it happened, or give a shit come to that.’

Lesley beamed. ‘That isn’t how we do things at
Gotcha
, Dave, and it was our fault, wasn’t it?’

Watching the pair of them from the middle of the road Robbie wanted to throw up. Behind them a queue of traffic was busy building up.

‘What about Bernie Fielding?’ he hissed as Lady Bountiful wrote out her phone number for the Ginger Ninja.

‘Their car went up Quay Street,’ said Lesley, barely glancing in Robbie’s direction as she tore the sheet off the notepad with a flourish. ‘They
can’t come back out without turning round – it’s a no-through road up onto the cliff top, we’d have seen if they had come back this way.’

The ginger guy was beaming. ‘I know it’s a bit of a cheek but could I have your autograph?’ he said with a flirtatious leer.

‘Of course,’ said Lesley warmly. ‘Would you like me to sign your dent as well?’

They both laughed. Robbie snorted. Bloody woman.

Someone came round to open the back doors of the van. Nick took a deep breath.

Coleman turned to him, eyes now as black as pitch. ‘Time we went for a little walk, laddie,’ he said in menacing voice.

Nick stared at him; what was there to say? Shivering as Coleman’s hand closed around the top of his arm he stepped down unsteadily onto the tarmac, blinking as the daylight momentarily blinded him, all the while trying very hard to keep a tight grip on the fears that crowded into his head like wraiths.

‘Steady,’ said Coleman, but it was too late. Nick had started to shake violently, wondering if he could still make a run for it, his heart beating out like a war drum in his chest as they walked across the car park and up onto the broad expanse of grassy cliff top.

‘Well, looky, looky, what have we got here? Seems to me like the heavy mob are all ready and waiting,’ said Nimrod as their car pulled to a halt in the car park. ‘There they all are – all wound up and just waiting for us to arrive.’

‘The star turn,’ Cain added, tidying his hair in the rear-view mirror.

Nimrod snorted. ‘Yeah, you could be right. Touching, isn’t it? It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.’

At which point Cain giggled. High-pitched and manic, it was not a pleasant sound.

Maggie leant forward to try and work out what the hell was going on. She could see Coleman striding away in the distance, bundling Nick across the rough grass towards the cliff edge. Nimrod and Cain took a moment or two to compose themselves, and then in perfect harmony opened the car doors.

‘Time to rock and roll,’ said Nimrod, and then he was up and out of the car with Cain no more than a heartbeat behind him.

As soon as the two hit men were clear of the car, Maggie hissed, ‘Get out, Bernie. Come on – now.’

Bernie stared at her blankly. ‘What?’

‘You heard me. Get out of the bloody car,’ she yelled. ‘Do you want to be here when the pair of them get back?’

‘But the doors in the back are locked.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Maggie in frustration, and wriggling quickly between the seats clicked open the driver’s-side door and clambered out. The fresh air and the sound of the sea cleared her head instantly.

Bernie hesitated for a few seconds and then, more stiffly, he followed suit.

Maggie zippered her fleece against the breeze, looking round and trying to work out what the hell she could do. Coleman was already more than halfway across the picnic area with Nimrod and Cain loping after them like big cats about to bring down their prey.

Even though the day was bright there was hardly anyone around on the cliff top. There was a family or two, and an elderly man walking his dog, but certainly no one who could help, no one who wouldn’t be a liability if they wanted to take the men on. Just other innocent bystanders waiting to get caught in the cross fire.

Infuriated by a great wave of impotence Maggie began to run across the grass towards Nick. She didn’t know whether to call out, but in the end stayed quiet, afraid of the consequences.

‘Where the fuck are you going?’ shouted Bernie in astonishment. ‘There’s nothing you can do to help him.’

‘But we have to do something,’ she yelped, ‘– we can’t just let them kill him.’

Bernie shook his head and something about the
gesture implied that it was too late. It made Maggie turn around and as she did she saw Nick running across the grass towards the trees. He had gone no more than two or three steps, when Coleman grabbed him. She spotted the gun in Coleman’s hand, saw the flash from the muzzle, saw the recoil, heard the dull, sickening report of the shot muffled by Nick’s body, watched as he shot Nick, once, twice – and then gasped in horror as Nick Lucas dropped like a stone onto the coarse green summer grass.

And at that moment everything stopped.

Nimrod and Cain froze mid-stride as the sound of the shots echoed off the cliffs and around the trees. Maggie felt as if she couldn’t get her breath, as if the air around her had suddenly thickened to the consistency of cotton wool. From somewhere close by she heard a woman screaming, and willed her to be quiet in case Coleman turned the gun on her. It took seconds to realise that the voice she could hear was her own.

‘Fucking hell,’ said Bernie, who was still standing close to Cain and Nimrod’s car. ‘He shot him. He bloody-well shot him.’

Maggie was too stunned to move. The scream faded into a horrible poisonous silence, while not more than a hundred yards from where she stood Coleman slipped his gun back inside his coat. A moment later he turned and walked back towards Nimrod and Cain, while his companion – the
young man in the blue suit and shades – dropped to his knees and hunched over Nick, apparently searching for a pulse, while all the while talking rapidly into his lapel.

As he drew level with them, Coleman motioned towards the two killers.

‘Hope you didn’t mind, lads, but it was all getting a bit too messy,’ he said in passing. ‘We needed to square this one away before the local cops twigged that something was going on or Mr Lucas attracted any more attention to himself.’

Nimrod and Cain stared at Coleman in astonishment.

‘But we thought this one was our shout?’ Nimrod protested, looking over towards Nick’s body.

Coleman shrugged. ‘What can I tell you, boys? It wasn’t my call – I just obey orders like the rest of us. As far as I’m concerned you can tell it any way you like. If you need another notch on your bedpost, it’s yours. I’m certainly not keen on keeping score.’

Nimrod snorted and made as if to go over to the corpse but Coleman shook his head.

‘I wouldn’t if I were you. The local law are already well on their way. I’m pretty certain that they can be convinced they’ve found a nice tidy little suicide if you pair aren’t around to complicate matters. Although if we can’t persuade them
then you’re very welcome to take the credit.’ He paused, eyes twinkling, ‘And the heat.’

Nimrod smiled, his expression almost reptilian. ‘That’s very generous of you.’

Coleman lifted his hands in a gesture of admission. ‘It doesn’t pay to hold your hands up in my job. I’ll be needing to cordon this area off in about –’ he rolled his wrist over to take a look at his watch. ‘How long do you think it’ll take you boys to get back to your car and go buy yourself a hotdog?’

As Cain and Nimrod turned their attention towards the parking area, a big red car with a smashed front spoiler and dented wing screamed to a halt behind Coleman’s blue transit van. Out leapt a small blonde woman and Robbie Hughes, who appeared to be busy brushing his hair. The blonde was wielding a video camera. Bernie Fielding took one look at the returning figures of Nimrod and Cain, denied their kill and heading back across the grass towards him, and scurried over to Robbie Hughes like he was his long lost brother.

‘Robbie?’ he said. ‘Robbie Hughes?’

‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the notorious Mr Bernie Fielding, at long last – purred Robbie. ‘How very nice to see you.’

‘I heard that you wanted to talk to me?’ Robbie said, glancing nervously over his shoulder, whitefaced and sweating hard.

‘Indeed we do, don’t we, Lesley?’ said Robbie warmly. ‘Keep that camera steady,’ he growled as the blonde nodded enthusiastically. ‘We’ve got a whole raft of questions that need answering.’

‘All right,’ said Bernie, with one eye firmly on the approaching hit men. ‘If you take me away from here I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Anything at all – sky’s the limit. Do we have a deal?’

Robbie Hughes smiled broadly. ‘You know, Bernie, I knew this day would come, I just knew it.’ He turned to the camera and continued, ‘And so here we are a long last on an isolated cliff top deep in the heart of rural Somerset. Faced with the might of national television, con man Bernie Fielding has finally given himself up. He knows that when he is dealing with the
Gotcha
team there is truly nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.’

From the blue van parked alongside Robbie’s car, two muscular men in good suits were heading towards the dead man, carrying a stretcher and what looked like a body bag between them, but Robbie seemed oblivious to all but his prey.

‘So, Bernie – where shall we begin?’ said Robbie, moving a little closer.

‘Anywhere you like, but can we go
now
?’ said Bernie anxiously.

Nimrod looked back at Coleman. ‘What are you going to do about those two?’ he said, nodding
towards the retreating figure of Bernie Fielding, and to Maggie Morgan, who was standing, still frozen to the spot, staring at them as if she was unable to believe her eyes.

‘Don’t worry, leave it with me,’ Coleman said softly. ‘It’s nothing that you need concern yourselves with.’

From somewhere in the distance came the sound of sirens wailing. The hit men took a long hard look at Maggie and then another at the solitary figure crouched over Nick Lucas’s body.

Coleman waved Nimrod and Cain away.

‘Get going, lads, before the local plod show up – and don’t worry, I’ll take care of her and our friend Mr Fielding,’ he said archly. The two men nodded and faded away back towards their car, moving as smoothly as tigers.