KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) (13 page)

‘OK.’

Five hundred to Beasley for making a couple of phone calls was outrageous but I’d have paid more. He sensed my eagerness.

‘Christ, you’re really in a hurry. My man’s often done this for a ton.’

‘I’d rather pay. That way you might both keep your mouths shut.’

‘Whatever you please, but I owe you no favours Cunane.  My man’s coming from Felixstowe with a load of Dutch cabbage landing at Dublin docks early tomorrow morning. He has a big sleeping cab in his truck. It might be a squeeze but your refugees, or whatever they are, will have to stay in the cab throughout the crossing. He sails from Bootle tonight. He’ll pick your people up at the Burtonwood Services on the M62 at seven p.m. precisely. You don’t need his name but the truck is Horan’s Supermarkets, Ballinrobe, in County Mayo. It’s painted bright green and he’ll be looking out for your friends. OK?’

‘OK.’

‘Then I’ll want my money paid up front. Your friends pay the driver: half when they get in, half when they get out.’

‘I’ll have it with you in an hour or so but listen, Barney if you’re thinking of making an anonymous call to Crimestoppers forget it. If there should happen to be a police car within half a mile of Burtonwood Services the boys in blue will be learning the name of Jim Clarke’s accomplice.’

‘I’m no f**king grass,’ he growled.

I hurried out of the phone box and across the bridge back into Manchester.

Before I dismantled my mobile again I listened to Dad’s message.

‘It’s your Dad here.

David, what’s happened to your uncle Lew is just terrible. It’s been a very bad shock for your mother and me. We knew he was dying but he didn’t deserve what was done to him, nobody does. It’s too horrible to think of but those responsible should be made to pay. Definitely … someone should get those bastards. …  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about his will before but he swore us to secrecy and you have to respect a dying man’s wishes. At least that’s the way I was brought up. Well, whatever, your mum and me are off on our travels. We’re taking a short holiday break. It’d be a good idea if you’d do the same because you’re working too hard at that damned business of yours but knowing what a stubborn beggar you are I expect you won’t. Keep safe. We’ll be touring so don’t expect us to be in touch for quite a while. Apropos
of nothing in particular, your mother wondered if you could pop up to the house and take care of her vegetable patch if you have a moment. Just a spot of weeding which I know you’re good at. Start at the last place she was working on. Give our love to Janine and the children.  I’m ringing off now.’

I played it again then took the phone apart.

As Brendan had said Dad was on the run.

There was no way on God’s earth that Paddy would’ve agreed to leave for a holiday before his blessed DIY was finished. Eileen often joked that he’d divorce her before he’d give up a job he’d started.

Anyway the timing was all wrong.

The old man must have decided to leg it as soon as he got back to the cottage after identifying Lew. Something had thrown a scare into him and it had to be more than the sight of the severed head of his oldest friend. Dad was the opposite of squeamish.

Had more passed between him and Lew than he’d admitted to? Did he think he knew too much for his own good?

Gardening, he wanted me to do up the garden?

Gardening?

Throughout my childhood there’d been a strict division of labour in the Cunane household. We lived in a semi with a big garden. Paddy did the indoor jobs, the DIY. Eileen did the gardening. That left me as the only surplus labour. My mother battled tirelessly but without success to turn me into a gardener. Even today I struggle to name common flowers: daffodil, daisy, that’s about it. Well, maybe one or two more.

When they got a motor mower I did occasionally mow the lawn but only after lengthy financial negotiations. By the time I slouched into action the grass was often knee high.

Eileen eventually gave up asking and got a man to come in once a week.

It was the same with the vegetable patch. When I was little she’d given me my own piece of ground. The truth is I’ve never had the patience to sit around and wait for things to grow. My weedy patch passed into family legend. Paddy called it my ‘nature garden’.

Paddy’s roundabout way of passing on information
suggested that he feared surveillance.

Was it MI5 that had scared him or was it Lew’s mysterious power maniac?

The latter, I guessed.

15

Tuesday: 9.45 a.m.

‘Where is she?’ I asked as soon as I stepped into the Pimpernel office.

‘Where’s who, Boss?’ Tony replied.

He was sitting at the reception desk looking pleased with himself.

My glare wiped the smile off his face.

‘Miss What’s her Name Fothergill! What the hell have you done with her? Have you frightened her away?’ I asked angrily.  I was annoyed with myself. I’d been in such a hurry to get to a public phone that I hadn’t warned him that Fothergill would be arriving.

‘He frightened her,’ Clint commented. ‘No-nose’s face would frighten anyone.’

‘Be quiet!’ I snarled, feeling strained.

Clint looked as if I’d slapped him.

I looked at my watch. It was twenty five past nine. In the time she’d been with me Fothergill hadn’t been late once. She was on the doorstep before me so often that I’d provided her with a key and the code for the alarm. Why not? Everything confidential was secure in the safe.

I felt a stab of fear.

Had Lew’s mysterious killers decided to make a clean sweep of the Pimpernel staff?

‘Are you sure she hasn’t been here?’ I asked.

Tony shook his head in bewilderment.

I studied his face. He had to be lying. That expression of injured innocence on his poor battered mug was part of his criminal tool kit. Fothergill had arrived and there’d been words between them … after all she didn’t know him from Adam … and she’d cleared off as fast as her legs could take her. Her duties as a temp receptionist didn’t include sparring with burglars and that was exactly what Tony Nolan really was, reconditioned brain or not.

‘Can I trust you?’ I asked doubtfully.

‘Yeah, course you can, Dave,’ he answered, looking flustered and untrustworthy. ‘I found that bug for you. It was sending to a tiny recording receiver in this desk. There was a compact flash card in it and it was switched on.’

‘What?’ I said blankly. ‘That’s not possible. MI5 were never alone in this area.’

‘Someone planted a bug in your office and it was set to transmit to a miniature digital recorder in this desk,’ he explained helpfully.

He indicated the desk he was sitting at. Fothergill’s desk as I now thought of it.

‘It can’t be.’

‘See for yourself.’

He stood up and pulled back the chair he was sitting on. I went round the desk, got on my knees and saw for myself.

A small clear plastic object about the size of a packet of twenty king-sized cigarettes was fixed to the underside of the desk, positioned towards the front and on the right hand side for easy access. It was mounted in a fixture which was held in place by small screws. One quick pull and the package could be removed.

I felt as if a hole was opening under my feet. Ever since my false arrest I’ve been paranoid about treachery, even going to the length of only employing temporary staff who know nothing about the business, and now I was revealed as a complete amateur.

I struggled to my feet and slumped into the chair.

Tony bent down and removed the recorder. He took out the flashcard.

‘I knew it had to be somewhere in here when I found this transmitter in your desk.’ He dropped a small plastic object in front of me.

‘It was attached to your chair.’

‘My chair,’ I repeated numbly. So was that why Cleverhouse or whatever her name was had made such a game about sitting in my chair?

‘MI5 bugged my chair?’

‘No Dave, it wasn’t them that did this. It was whoever normally sits at this desk.’

‘Miss Fothergill.’

‘Yeah, there’s no doubt about it. The recorder was right where she could get at it. All she had to do was take out the flash card and change the batteries from time to time. You can get up to fifty hours of voice recording on a thirty
-two gigabyte card but she probably had a couple of cards and changed them every day.’

I should have known that the silent and helpful Fothergill was too good to be true. Who was she was working for? It could only be Snyder, my former partner. What was she doing? Passing on information about clients so he could underbid me? They must be hard up for work at Snyder’s.

Tony put the pieces of equipment on the desk in front of me and I gaped at them.

‘So you can trust me, Dave,’ Tony prompted as the silence lengthened. ‘I know about bugs and bombs and things. That’s got no maker’s name on it but it’s state of the art for commercially obtainable stuff. There are several places in Manchester where you could buy it or you can get it on the Net. It’s expensive, not much change out of two grand for that lot, imported from the States.’

I scratched my head in dismay.

‘Two grand?’

‘Yeah, that’s only a ball-park figure. It’s the Bang and Olufsen of bugs.’

Ball-park figure … Bang and Olufsen … I gaped at Tony.

What had he become?

The idea about Snyder didn’t add up. Snyder wasn’t doing well enough to pay two grand for a bug or to employ a full time spy. Then I remembered that the bomb was made with American C4 military explosive. American bomb, American bug, where was the sense in that?

My only dubious connection with the States, apart from remote relatives I have there, is through Janine’s ex-husband who lives in LA. Henry Talbot’s a nasty piece of work and he once tried to snatch Jenny and Lloyd from Jan’s custody and smuggle them out of the country but it was inconceivable that he was trying to bomb or bug me. Besides, he’d started a new family in LA.

‘Do you think the people bugging you are the ones who planted the bomb at Topfield?’ Tony asked. The man had a talent for questions I didn’t want to think about.

There had to be a link – American bomb, American bug.

Lost for words I just stared at him. I couldn’t work it out. All my assumptions and guesses up to now must be wrong.

It didn’t make sense.

‘It could be that they’re trying to kill you because of something that was said in your office,’ Tony surmised. ‘I mean I’m not prying but that stands to reason. That bug wasn’t there for nothing and it’s been there a while.’

He was probably right. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

He looked at me with an expression of sympathy. I didn’t like that.

‘Right, Tony,’ I said, ‘let’s forget about that for now.’

‘Is there something I’m not supposed to know about?’

There was such an intelligent expression on his poor battered face that I got the feeling he knew exactly what I’d just been thinking. His transformation was disturbing, Albert Einstein peeping out of a battered boxer’s face.

‘No Tony, I trust you but there are some things it might be better for you not to know.’

He looked disappointed.

Then it struck me that it definitely wasn’t Peter Snyder and his struggling investigation business or any business rival that had bugged me. It could only be the police.

They were hoping to find something incriminating against me.

But why would they? The risks for them were considerable. If I could prove they were bugging me or that Fothergill was undercover police I could sue them from here to breakfast.

I thought for a moment. It wasn’t them. Ruthless the Greater Manchester Police might be about protecting their reputation but this bug had nothing to do with them.

There was only one way I would find out what had been going on here and that was when I had a chat with Miss Fothergill, but the chat would have to wait. I needed Tony to take the money to Beasley and I needed Lee to drive up to Scotland and round up
my nearest and dearest.

‘Phone Lee and tell him I want him here as soon as possible,’ I said.

‘Could be difficult, Dave.’

‘In what way?’

‘He doesn’t usually get up before twelve and he’ll have his phone switched off.’

‘This is what we’re going to do. You’re going to take some money to an address in Levenshulme and then you’re going to roust Lee out of his pit … where does he doss by the way?’

‘There’s a flat over a betting shop that Bob owns a share of. It’s in Fallowfield. We kip there.’

‘So that’s on your way then. Pick Lee up on the way back and I want him here in good condition.’

‘Er … good condition?’

‘I don’t want him if he’s half pissed or stoned out of his mind. Our deal’s off in that case Tony.’

His Adam’s apple moved convulsively.

‘He’ll be fine.’

He said it quickly and I sensed he was crossing his fingers. Well, we both had to hope for the best. I needed Lee on the motorway to Scotland. He must be a reasonable driver or Bob would never have let him get behind the wheel of the BMW with his brother in the back.

‘He’ll be OK to drive?’

‘Oh yeah, he’ll give Sebastian Vettel a run for his money any day, will Lee.’

‘Just as long as he picks up my family safely and brings them back in one piece.’

I went over my plan and then I needed my key to open the safe for the money. Banks are fine but as the MI5 man had informed me, accounts can be frozen. I keep a fighting fund of twenty grand in cash in the safe. I call it the cash float but at the back of my mind I know it’s really ‘run-away’ money if the Voldemorts running the local constabulary decide to use their killing curse on me.

It took me a moment to find the safe key in my desk. I leave it there because even with the key you need the combination to
open the safe door and I’m the only one who knows that.

Carefully shielding the door from Tony I fed in the numbers and turned the key in the lock. The door swung open.

The cash box is in a separate compartment at the back. I took it out, checked that the money was in it and put it down. I was about to shut the safe when I took a quick glance at the pile of envelopes and documents lying in the detachable tray under the deposit drawer.

Sir Lew’s notebook wasn’t there. It should have been there. There’d been material posted by investigators on Monday but under the circumstances I hadn’t opened the safe or started work on them.

I pulled out the detachable tray and laid it on the floor then frantically sorted through the documents. Perhaps it had slid inside an open report.

It had to be somewhere.

I tipped the tray upside down, shook it to make sure it was empty and sorted through the documents. The notebook wasn’t there. I turned back to the safe. It was capacious but there was nowhere that the notebook could have lodged and remained unseen. A small filing cabinet contained ongoing cases. I pulled it open … nothing. There were account books, the firm’s cheque book, VAT receipts and other odds and ends but no notebook.

My heart was pounding.

‘Is something wrong, Dave?’ Tony asked.

‘Something’s very bloody wrong,’ I said angrily as I checked every single one of the files and envelopes piled on the floor for a second time. Lew’s notebook wasn’t there and whatever chance I’d ever had of using it to bargain for my life was gone with it.

Then a thought struck me. Had it somehow become jammed in the deposit drawer or even stuck to the metal?

I opened the deposit drawer. I needed a different combination and key. This week’s combination was on a scrap of paper in my wallet.

Tony watched me closely. His eyebrows flickered a little when I fished out the paper, read it and turned the dial on the top combination lock. I heard the click of the tumblers, inserted my key and turned it to open the compartment.

For a microsecond hope flared. I’d find the notebook stuck in the mechanism.

There was no way Fothergill or anyone could reach down into the main safe through the letter box. The salesman who talked me into buying the massive Chubb safe had been adamant about that. His pitch had been that it was safe for staff to have access to the upper compartment while the larger, lower section remained completely secure. It was the whole point of the deposit safe.

The door swung fully open.

The top drawer was as empty as an unused grave.

I was in the final stages of a marathon. I was breathing heavily. I could feel the first stirring of a panic attack, an occasional burden since my time in Strangeways. My face filled up with sweat. It was running into my eyes and down the back of my neck.

I tried to wipe it away with the back of my hand.

‘Here, use this,’ Tony said, going over to the reception counter and picking up the box of ‘man-sized’ tissues which Fothergill had left there, ‘wipe your face.’

He passed me a tissue.

‘Hello, what’s this?’ he said.

He shook the box. It rattled.

He pulled a small rectangular mirror out of it.

‘Never mind about that,’ I said dismissively. ‘It must be Fothergill’s.’

‘You’re sure whatever you’re looking for is in the safe?’ he asked.

‘It was in the safe. I saw it being put in this deposit drawer.’

‘And you’re the only person who has the combination for the main section?’