Hot Pursuit (3 page)

Maggie shivered, wondering what might have happened to her possessions if she had been gone another week.

Meanwhile, in a small sub-post office in an Oxfordshire village, the real Bernie Fielding was busy pushing a large pile of envelopes across the counter.

The woman smiled up at him. ‘Wedding?’

Bernie, dragged away from an entirely different train of thought, peered at her.

‘Sorry? What? Whose wedding?’ he said.

The envelopes contained a bevy of application forms for all the documents he’d need for his new identity, everything from a birth certificate through to a duplicate driving licence and American Express card. Numbers and account details all courtesy of Stiltskin. Courtesy of Stiltskin, James Cook also had a very healthy bank balance. Bernie had already been to the bank in Banbury to pick up his temporary cheque book and some cash.

‘Yours?’ she asked, nodding down at the thick
bundle over the top of her horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Or are you throwing a party?’

Bernie sighed. God save him from women with tongues.

‘Change of address actually. Can I have a dozen, er…’ he peered at the handful of change he had in his hand. ‘Second class, please.’

The woman opened the stamp book and counted them out.

‘Not local, are you?’

Bernie puffed thoughtfully and looked at his inquisitor. She had a great tumble of teased blonde hair, while behind the horn-rims, rather attractive fiery conker-brown eyes watched him with barely concealed curiosity. What the hell, he had nothing to hide, at least not now he didn’t.

Bernie warmed up his smile a degree or two. ‘No, actually I’ve just moved onto the caravan site at the back of the Old Dairy.’ He saw the fleeting glint of disapproval in her eyes as he plummeted earthwards in her estimation.

‘Although,’ he added hastily, clawing himself back from the brink of social-security oblivion, ‘it’s only temporary, obviously, just until I can find myself a decent house to buy. I was pipped at the post for the last one – I’ve already sold mine and needed somewhere to stay fast, you know how it is. I’ve been to see several others but…’ Bernie hesitated, tangled up in the strings of his own lie. He backtracked, wondering if he
was finally losing his touch. He really needed to concentrate more.

Over the counter the woman was watching him wriggle like a cat watches a baby bird that’s fallen from the nest.

‘To be perfectly honest I haven’t seen anything else that’s quite me yet. You need to like the feel of a place – feel like it could be home – you know what I’m saying? One man’s inglenook is another man’s naff old fireplace.’ The lie dropped down a gear and accelerated away so fast that Bernie could barely keep up with it.

‘And besides, I’m looking for something a little bit special, double garage for the BMW and my four-by-four, obviously. Stables would be nice; livery is so expensive. But there’s just nothing on the market at the moment that really takes my fancy. Trouble is I have to move around a lot with my job and I’ve always hated hotels. I was going to rent a house, but all the fuss –’ Bernie lifted his hands to imply some enormous complex puzzle that he hadn’t the time to unravel. ‘Whereas I could just walk into a caravan, no problem, pay the deposit pick up the key and wham bam, thank you, ma’am – there we are, in like Flynn. And they’re fun, aren’t they – caravans?’

Bernie knew he was waffling but he didn’t seem able to stem the flow. ‘My new contract starts next week, so it all fell into place. Hadn’t got time to hang about. Nice secure little number,
three years…bloody good salary.’ Lungs empty, right down to the red line Bernie hastily drew in a long, calming breath.

Thoughtfully, Conker-eyes tipped her head on one side and looked him up and down.

‘Sounds interesting,’ she said in a low voice. ‘My name’s Stella; Stella Ramsey.’ She left a little breathy pause at the end of the introduction, a pause that invited a wild variety of possibilities.

Bernie coughed. ‘I’m new to this area, I was really hoping to find someone to show me all the sights.’

Stella smiled lazily. ‘There’s not a lot to see in Renham, to be honest.’

He grinned. ‘Well, how about we go out for a little drink instead, then?’

She lifted her eyebrows. ‘The local pub is a right dump.’

He leant on the counter, enjoying the show of token resistance. ‘Well, in that case, perhaps you’d like to show me another one, somewhere…’ he hesitated, ‘somewhere nice, tasteful, and expensive. I’ve always had
very expensive
tastes.’

Conker-eyes ran her tongue around the end of her well-chewed Biro. ‘Oh, have you?’ she said slyly. ‘Well, in that case, there’s always the Lark and Buzzard over at Highwell. They do a lovely chilli con carne, chicken in a basket, tikka marsala – very international cuisine, is the Lark.’

Bernie grinned, feeling a nice little buzz in the
bottom of his belly as their eyes met. ‘Really? I don’t suppose I could tempt you to show me where this place is, could I? Only I’m at a loose end this evening –’

This time she hesitated, batting long eyelashes coquettishly. ‘But I don’t even know your name.’

Bernie smiled, pausing long enough to check that he remembered his new name before wheeling out a well-worn 007 impression. ‘Cook,’ he said, in a very poor imitation of Sean Connery, ‘James Cook.’

Conker-eyes blushed furiously. ‘Well, Mr James Cook, in that case, what time do you want to pick me up?’ she asked.

Bernie glanced up at the clock above the counter. ‘Shall we say about eight?’

She nodded. ‘Why not? I’ll meet you out the front.’

Bernie smiled, and without another word made his way to the door, opened it and lifted his hand in salute. As the shop bell rang to announce his departure, Stella Ramsey was licking his stamps and putting them on the envelopes that would secure all the things he needed for his new life. Her tongue was very, very pink.

In Maggie Morgan’s kitchen, the new Bernie Fielding, alias Nick Lucas, was watching with fascination as the woman who had burst into what he had truly believed was his new life and new
home, went about cooking him and the boys supper. As she worked, the two lads ran a relay race of surveillance between the cottage kitchen and the sitting room.

Maggie had set the baseball bat down alongside the chopping board and was busily hacking an onion into uneven lumps with a large kitchen knife.

‘So, you can have some supper with us,’ she was saying, ‘and then you can go home.’

Nick sighed. ‘I’ve already explained to you, I can’t go home. I haven’t got anywhere else to go.’

She turned towards him, waving her knife like a conductor’s baton. He flinched. ‘You haven’t explained anything, and what you have told me is total baloney. What sort of an idiot do you take me for? You didn’t get here by magic, you came from somewhere. And everyone has somewhere they can go, even if they don’t want to. A sofa, a friend’s floor – back to their parents.’ She crushed a couple of cloves of garlic under the heel of the knife and shuffled them into the pan. ‘This just isn’t good enough. It won’t do. I need an explanation.’

Nick shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you anything else.’

‘What do you mean, you can’t tell me? Why not? How about name, rank and serial number? Me Maggie – you?’

He looked at her again. She was still smiling
despite a sense of growing frustration. Casually dressed in a grey tee shirt and jeans, thick dark hair pushed back behind her ears, baseball bat within easy reach, Maggie almost looked as if she was enjoying herself.

‘You’re funny – I can’t imagine my ex-,’ Nick began and then stopped, an instant before he coughed his ex-wife’s name out onto the kitchen table. It stuck in his throat, a cold, grief-stricken, misery-laden lump. The pain caught him unaware, like cramp.

Maggie pushed her fringe back off her face and took a tomato out of one of the carrier bags on the work surface. ‘So,’ she said casually, ‘you were married, then?’

Nick reddened furiously. ‘Yes – but I’m divorced now – about a year.’

Maggie nodded. ‘Right. And so how does that relate to my finding you naked in my hall, exactly?’

‘It doesn’t. What I was going to say was are you always this unflappable? I can’t imagine my ex being – being so – so –.’ He couldn’t think of a word to end the sentence but fortunately for him Maggie could.

‘Accommodating? Calm under fire? My mother calls it robust good humour but trust me, it only lasts for so long and then poof –’ she gestured an explosion, ‘– it goes, just like that, to be replaced by raging fury.’

Nick sighed. ‘Look, Maggie, I am sorry about this – can’t you just pretend that I’m Bernie Fielding?’ he said miserably. ‘It would make life so much simpler.’

Maggie grimaced, plunging the knife deep into the heart of an innocent-looking red pepper. ‘No, I’m afraid that’s one of the things I most definitely can’t do. I’ve spent God knows how many years trying to persuade myself that all men
aren’t
Bernie Fielding. Why don’t you just give in gracefully and tell me what the hell’s going on here and then we can call you a cab. How hard can it be? How about we start with your real name –’

Nick groaned. ‘I can’t tell you – the thing is, if I could tell you that then I could tell you everything else. It’s just not possible. You have to believe me, there is a very good explanation for all this. I just can’t tell you about it.’ It sounded lame even to him.

‘Nice try,’ Maggie said. Instead of concentrating on de-seeding the pepper she was watching his face as he spoke.

‘Careful,’ said Nick anxiously. ‘You’ll cut yourself. Look, I’m good with food, would you like me to do that for you?’ he asked.

Maggie looked down thoughtfully at the long thin knife-blade and then slowly back at him. ‘Very kind but I think I can manage, thank you. Besides, you still haven’t answered my question.’

Nick sighed. There had to have been some kind
of mistake. Surely Bernie Fielding wasn’t supposed to be a real person? Unless of course he was dead. ‘Is Bernie still alive?’ he asked hopefully.

Maggie lifted her eyebrows. ‘As far as I know, although after a night up the pub it was sometimes extremely difficult to tell. Except for the snoring and the scratching, obviously.’

‘Okay, okay – so what does he do?’

‘Bernie?’ Maggie wiped her hand across the chopping board guiding the great heap of mangled vegetables into a big saucepan and then looked skyward as if trying to frame a thought. ‘Gynaecology,’ she said, slamming the pan down onto the stove and lighting the gas. ‘He was always very good with his hands was Bernie.’

Nick felt his colour draining away. ‘Oh my God, are you saying that Bernie Fielding is a doctor?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘No, unfortunately not – just a keen amateur, which was a shame because we could have done with the money.’

Nick stared at her and then reddened as comprehension dawned. ‘God, I’m so sorry – I thought – sorry –’ he stammered.

Maggie waved the remark away. ‘What? It’s not your fault, is it? I’m assuming you’ve just got his name and not his moral outlook? What is it you know about food?’

‘Food? Oh, right, well I used to run a restaurant, before –’ said Nick, struggling to regain his composure. ‘Before all this happened.’

‘There, see, now we’re getting somewhere. It wasn’t all that painful, was it? And how about now?’

‘Now? Now I’m – I’m on holiday,’ he stalled.

Maggie snorted. ‘Don’t be silly. You can’t be on the run and be on holiday.’

‘I’m not exactly on the run, I’m…’ Nick squirmed. He couldn’t see how the hell he could go on with this and so he raised his arms in surrender. ‘Okay – the things I’m about to tell you are secret but under the circumstances I don’t see what else I can do. My real name is Nick Lucas and I’m in a witness protection and relocation programme. Bernie Fielding is,
was
, supposed to be my new name, my new assumed identity. The thing is there has to have been some sort of mix up, because I’m certain that I’m supposed to have a ficticious identity, not take over the tail end of somebody else’s life. The only problem is I’m not sure what I can do to sort out any of this at the moment. I genuinely haven’t got anywhere else to go – at least not straight away. I thought I’d ring the number they gave me –’

Maggie grinned, slapping the lid on the pan with a flourish.

‘You don’t hold up very well under pressure, do you?’ she said, pouring them both a glass of wine.

There had to have been some kind of mistake, except of course that that was impossible. Stiltskin didn’t make mistakes. In the neat, well-ordered, air-conditioned government offices deep in the bowels of Colmore Road the clerk tapped at the keyboard of the computer keeping one eye on the door.

‘RUN STILTSKIN…?’ flashed up on the screen again. She had already run it twice and something strange had happened. Very strange. It was her responsibility to do the back-up files on those people her department took under its protective wing. Normally it only took a few minutes, but she had been working on this one for the best part of half an hour.

First of all she’d needed to check up on the client’s new name and address. Except when she’d fed his name in, the computer kept coming up with two new names. Two sets of fictitious details
scrolling merrily down the screen, side by side. Now, having repeated the process, the same unlikely combination of information rolled out again and again, like digital schizophrenia.

According to the notes that went with the case, Nick Lucas
should
have become James Cook. That was what was supposed to have happened, that was what she had expected to have happened, except that somewhere in the wiry underbelly of the computer on Colmore Road a third name had entered the equation: Bernie Fielding. It was all very odd. She had never come across anything like it before, even on the trouble-shooting training course she’d been on at Cheltenham.

Somehow, Bernie Fielding had become James Cook, and Nick Lucas had become Bernie Fielding.

The girl sniffed and glanced up at the office door, licked her lips and then stared at the screen. She’d only come in as a favour because the girl who usually worked on Stiltskin had shingles and no one else had the right security clearance.

Who would ever know? Surely one imaginary new life was much the same as any other? The girl looked over her shoulder to see if anyone else was looking. If her boss found out he’d make them stay behind to unravel what had happened and she’d booked up for ballroom-dancing lessons after work. An intensive five-night course, ‘Learn to Rhumba with Marj Cuthbertson’, accompanied
by Barry Telling on his electric organ. She’d been looking forward to it for weeks.

One keystroke, that was all it would take. The girl took another look through the information. They’d printed up a whole new set of documents in the name of Bernie Fielding so that had to be the right one, didn’t it? There was even the docket to say he had been delivered to his new safe house. So why was it that James Cook’s bank account kept coming up as being active. She scrolled down. Very active by the look of it. Here was a computer error that loved shoes apparently. Bugger.

The girl hesitated, weighing up the options – one pearly-pink nail-polished finger hovering above the delete key as she wrestled with her thoughts. The tea lady opening the office door made her jump and before she had time to really consider what she was doing the girl pushed delete, and James Cook’s name vanished forever from Nick Lucas’s file.

Just like that. She hadn’t planned it exactly but it seemed that by an act of God, Nick Lucas was officially Bernie Fielding. She remembered him now – sexy-looking guy with dark wavy hair and big blue eyes. She bit her lip – he didn’t really look like a Bernie, but then again it was too late to change things now. Wasn’t it?

‘I thought you told me that you’d got a BMW?’ complained Stella tartly as she squeezed herself
past Bernie’s guiding arm and into the passenger seat of a battered sunshine-yellow 2CV.

Bernie had reasoned that Ms Hargreaves was hardly likely to need her car for a few days, having just been whisked off in an ambulance to deliver her new infant. He’d found the keys in her desk drawer and cheerfully arranged – via Stiltskin – for the car to be re-registered in his name. His new name. As he whiled away the hours until he had to pick Stella up from the post office, Bernie had given the absence of the fictional BMW some thought – not that it normally took him much effort to come up with a plausible-sounding excuse.

He slipped in beside her and looked down, feigning grief.

‘I’m sorry, I suppose I should have told you earlier. My wife died last year.’ He spoke in a gruff monotone. ‘This was her runabout. I didn’t like to get rid of it – at least not yet. This car was like a pet to her. I try to give it a run out now and again. She would have wanted me to use it and it seemed – well – I wanted to take you out in it. She would want me to start over – and it felt right. “Bernie,” she used to say,’ he said, staring unseeing into the middle distance, ‘“I don’t want you moping around once I’m gone – I want you to get out and on with your life.”’ He looked at Stella to see how he was doing and then smiled bravely. ‘She was a good woman.’

Stella touched his hand. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, you poor, poor thing, you,’ she said softly. ‘You must think I’m ever so tactless, but why did she call you Bernie?’

He stiffened. Bugger, he was going to have to watch that. ‘Um – um – pet name,’ Bernie said after a bit of struggle. ‘She always reckoned I looked like that bloke out of
Boys From the Black Stuff
, you know – he reached around inside his memory discarding all manner of Bernards till he got to the right one. ‘Bernard Hill; the dark bloke with the moustache.’

Stella looked him up and down and nodded. ‘So you do, now that you come to mention it.’

Bernie sighed with relief. ‘God I miss her,’ he added as an afterthought, wiping away a phantom tear. ‘It’s all right. You had no way of knowing. But she loved this little car.’

Stella Ramsey’s eyes filled, too. ‘Oh, James.’ She was wearing a pink leather mini-skirt with matching high heels and a little sleeveless white cotton top, her bleached blonde hair sculptured in a great corona of curls and waves. For a postmistress she was an absolute cracker, Bernie thought.

Bernie brightened visibly. ‘Now, whereabouts did you say this pub is that you were going to take me to?’ he said, sliding his hand down over his back pocket to check he had his wallet.

‘James?’

It took Bernie a second or two to register that Stella meant him; he would really have to start thinking of himself as James Cook.

‘Yes?’ he said, relieved that Stella had taken his hesitancy for tearful reflection.

She leant closer, resting her hand very lightly on his thigh. ‘I want you to know that if you need to talk about your wife I perfectly understand. I mean, I don’t want you to feel you have to hold anything back. It’s good to talk about these things.’

Bernie nodded. ‘Thank you – not everyone understands. Her name was Maggie,’ he said unsteadily. ‘She was such a lovely girl…’ And as he spoke, the old Bernie Fielding faded slowly into oblivion to be replaced by James Anthony Cook; sensitive, caring widower.

While the old Bernie Fielding slipped seamlessly into his new persona and the new Bernie Fielding waited for Maggie Morgan to finish cooking the bolognaise sauce, an aircraft was landing at London Heathrow and out at Elstree a small television production company was busy finalising the details of its midweek schedule.

Aboard the aircraft two tall, good-looking, suntanned men in mirrored shades and expensive charcoal-grey suits waited for the cabin doors to open. Cain Vale tucked a newspaper into his flight bag.

‘What d’ya think then, Nimrod?’

Nimrod Brewster, sucking on a Minto, grinned the cool, even smile of a basking shark and glanced out of the window at the clear blue sky.

‘No problems, my son,’ he said in an undertone. ‘In. Out. We’ll be back in Marbella by teatime tomorra.’ He mimed a sharp-shooter’s draw with his index finger and then blew away a phantom wisp of smoke so real that he could almost smell the cordite. They had been offered a nice fat fee to cream a nobody. Nimrod would have done it for nothing if it wasn’t for the fact that he liked to maintain his professional status.

Cain cheered visibly. ‘Right, so in that case can I have the window seat on the way back?’

Nimrod considered for a moment or two. ‘I’ll toss you for it. Afterwards.’

‘All right. Where’s the business happening?’

Nimrod tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. ‘You worry too much, Cain, we’ll know the details all in good time. It’s all arranged. We’ll be met at the hotel with the rest of the stuff – we already know the who, we just need to know the where and when.’

Nimrod patted the computer printout in his jacket pocket.

‘What’s his name again?’ asked Cain.

‘Nick Lucas.’

Cain nodded as if fixing the information somewhere deep in his mind.

‘Maybe we should ring him,’ said Nimrod with a sly grin. ‘Tell him he ought to kiss his ass goodbye while he still has the opportunity.’

Cain giggled.

Robbie Hughes, sitting in a darkened office in Elstree, had been chasing Bernie Fielding for a very long time – years, in fact. First as a researcher for the BBC and now as a presenter for
Gotcha
, a twice-weekly, prime-time, consumer TV programme. He had never had any problems filling the available airspace with the public’s worst fears. But for Robbie the hunt for Bernie Fielding had become something of a personal vendetta. He was Robbie’s very own Holy Grail.

The blinds in the upstairs office were closed to cut out the early evening sunlight. At the front of the room one of the younger researchers was busy showing everyone his latest PowerPoint presentation, pitching an idea to the show’s boss for his very own one-off special. A whole show devoted to one person, one topic, one major crime was the brass ring that everyone on the
Gotcha
team was aiming for. Their baby, broadcast to the nation.

The boy clicked onto the next image. ‘Potential here for some great visuals,’ he was saying as the camera panned around what looked like a normal suburban living room. There was a murmur from the assembled audience although Robbie wasn’t sure whether it was of agreement or boredom.

There was a glitch in the air conditioning and the room was unpleasantly warm. People were stripped down to shirtsleeves and strappy tops, sipping Evian, iced tea and coffee frappé, trying to ignore the growing miasma of antiperspirant battling with Mother Nature, while still looking cool and interested – after all, it might just be their turn next.

Robbie sat at the back, a little apart from the crowd as befitting his status as cohost, letting the puppies play. All of a certain age, four of them rotated the job as studio anchor – two old hacks, a female newscaster and him. If not in the studio the presenters would be out in the field just like the good old days. It was his turn today to ride shotgun on the
Gotcha
creative crèche to make sure there weren’t too many stories about fake designer tee shirts and imported DVDs.

Robbie had his own idea for a
Gotcha
special but now was not the time. He certainly had no intention of making his pitch in front of the children.

It had always seemed, in the great scheme of things, that he and Bernie Fielding had been destined to meet again and again – star-crossed consumer synchronicity. Bernie Fielding’s name, if not his face, had haunted Robbie night and day for years; an ever-present name amongst a flurry of other directors on a dozen dodgy letterheads, that signposted sharp practice, deceit and cheap
Asian imports. It seemed to Robbie that Bernie saw himself as King-Con.

First it had been the floral sun-lounger that had nearly disembowelled Robbie on a south coast beach; Bernie’s company name was there on the instruction slip. Later there had been the conservatory that had spontaneously combusted when his mother-in-law turned on the spotlights. Robbie’s dodgy second-hand Merc that had turned out to be two cars welded together, his sons’ radiocontrolled exploding cars, his sister’s garden swing – Bernie Fielding had – it miraculously seemed – had a hand in them all.

And when, just before Christmas one year, Robbie Hughes’s wife had said she’d put a deposit down on a time-share villa in Tenerife as a surprise present, Robbie knew, even before he opened the phoney letter of receipt, whose name would be there up above the date. Oh yes, he had an idea for a special all right. Bernie might have been quiet for a while but Robbie’s senses were tingling; something was up and he planned to find out what. He was going to nail Bernie Fielding’s arse to the mast on prime-time TV – and he was going to do it soon.