KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) (21 page)

It was mildly embarrassing and a little out of character for Bob Lane. Who would even think of such a thing? I looked again. The nipples on the breasts were remarkably prominent. Weird or what, I thought. But then I’d once been battered about the head by one villain’s bronze cast of his girlfriend’s bosom so maybe such trophies are common in the circles Bob moves in.

My mind boggled.

The decor was equally eye straining. There was heavy embossed wallpaper with big pink flowers and ankle deep carpet also in pink. Paintwork on skirting boards and door frames was in purple as was the upholstery on a large sofa and armchair. Pink and purple, what was Bob thinking of? The door of the large walk-in wardrobe was open giving me a view of racks of women’s clothes. A wide dressing table was laden with an impressive selection of beauty aids. Entering this room felt like an invitation to an intimate relationship with dear Tammy and I backed out.

Bob was welcome to the ex-pole dancer as long as he kept her to himself.

‘This is Bob and Tammy’s room. Isn’t there a guest bedroom?’

‘No, you stay in here Dave. I’ll feel better with you in here.’

‘Why is that?’

‘I’ll just feel better with you in Bob’s bed. Dave, I know you wanted to dump me when we were back there at the canal just like some other people do but you didn’t. That makes me feel good and if you stay in here I’ll be in the next room to you if anything happens in the night.’

I was perplexed at this. I didn’t know if I’d be able to cope with spaniel-like devotion from Clint. It was unhealthy.

‘Now listen Clint, I’m sure Bob’s sorry he couldn’t take you on holiday with him …’

‘It’s not that Dave. I know he has to be with Tammy like I was with Naomi when I was married. It’s just that she hates me and I do silly things when she looks at me. Why can’t she be like your Jan? She never makes me feel stupid.’

Normally cheerful at all times, even in circumstances which would make the more imaginative run screaming, Clint’s gaunt face bore a hang-dog, miserable look I’d never seen before.

Here was a problem requiring a solution that was beyond the resources of Pimpernel Investigations to supply.

‘You’re tired, Clint,’ I said. ‘It’s been a long day. Go and clean up, I’ll make you a meal and then if you have a good sleep tonight you’ll feel better in the morning.’

‘Yes, I am tired,’ the big man agreed, ‘but will you sleep in Bob’s bed tonight?

I nodded my head.

He went to his room at once.

I’d already decided to stay in the room and it wasn’t fear of starting an argument with Clint that made me agree. I’d spotted a hub charger on the bedside table. As I intended to charge several mobiles that was the decider. There was also the thought that I might not be in this strange house very long.

I looked at myself in a mirror with which the room was well supplied though thankfully not one on the ceiling above the bed. My trousers were ripped at both knees. My eyebrows were scorched from the explosion when I pulled Claverhouse away from the van.  Rain had turned the mud I’d collected into something resembling glue that had run and streaked every part of my body. My good shoes were coated with the same stuff.

I was in rags but I’d have to put up with it for now.

I pulled the heavy load of cash out of my pocket and stuffed most of it into the bedside table.

I rinsed my face and hands in the en-suite bathroom and went downstairs and into one of the two reception rooms and poured myself a stiff Glenfiddich at the fully fitted bar. There must have been a couple of grand’s worth of drink stacked up against the wall. There was also beer on draught from a keg under the counter.

My next stop was the kitchen. It was less eye aching than Bob and Tammy’s bedroom but just as certainly making a statement. In this case the statement was about wealth. It was the complete
‘we’ve made it big’
kitchen made from the amalgamation of two smaller rooms. It had stone floors, green painted cupboards, a granite work top round two walls, a huge double oven in a hooded recess, and a double sink set into a central island cum breakfast counter. This island was made of a solid block of polished teak surrounded by high stools. The space above it was loaded with every possible type and size of cooking utensil. 

No expense had been spared.

Crammed with enough equipment to satisfy the most exacting gourmet chef, it wasn’t a bad place for two people who to my certain knowledge never cooked a meal if they could avoid it. Bob’s culinary skill began and ended with the old fashioned fry-up. Judging from the scene upstairs I guessed that Tammy’s life wasn’t focused on kitchen skills either.

My appetite directed me to the two outsized American fridge freezers which stood opposite the enormous oven.

Remembering the humble council house on the rough side of the Langley estate which Bob had once shared with his mother, Clint and a sister who died of drug addiction I again wondered what he was thinking of. You could easily cook for twenty people in here, not that Bob or Tammy ever would.

Whenever they entertained they had caterers in or used one of their clubs.

Then a little voice reminded me of my own kitchen at Topfield Farm. We did use it daily but giant kitchens are the besetting sin of the house-converting, upwardly mobile classes. I mentally apologised to Bob.

I rummaged through one of the massive freezers and found a family
-sized lasagne which I put in the oven for Clint, then started cooking an eight egg Spanish omelette in a huge frying pan.

Doing a practical task drained away the floodwaters of tension that were building up behind my temples.

I’d just pared the potatoes when a pang of guilt struck. If I’d agreed with Appleyard and identified the men he wanted me to finger then he wouldn’t have required me to go to the Bury HQ. I wouldn’t have been on the motorway at all and Claverhouse’s two Ms would still be alive. I thought about them. Were they a pair of bright young university graduates attracted by the new ‘open’ MI5 advertising campaign or were they ex-military following a traditional career route? It didn’t matter what they were. Now they were dead and it wasn’t my fault.

I shook my head angrily.

I returned to my cooking, gently frying the thinly sliced potatoes in extra virgin olive oil.

I get some of my best inspiration in kitchens.

If Bob Lane was Shakespeare in a previous life perhaps I was a famous chef or more likely a kitchen skivvy because it’s when I get down to scouring grease off badly burned grills and frying pans that the real stimulation comes. As I added the onions and set the heat to simmer gently I started thinking about the false Miss Fothergill.

I cracked eight eggs into a bowl.

False Fothergill, she’d started with me just over three months ago. Was that when someone began getting nervous about what Sir Lew might be uncovering? The thoroughness of it all was scary, placing an agent on the off chance that Lew might confide in his relation.

No, that didn’t make any sense at all. The false Fothergill, hell I couldn’t get my head around that. She’d just have to be Miss Fothergill until I caught up with her. Thinking of her as
‘False Fothergill’
wasn’t worth the mental effort. Anyway whoever she was, she hadn’t known Sir Lewis Greene from Adam. The very first slip she’d made in her three months of employment was to take down the ‘Who’s Who’ and look him up.

If she was an intelligence operative keeping tabs on Sir Lew’s relatives then she’d certainly have been briefed about Sir Lew.

So where did that leave me?

I pondered this as I lightly whisked the eggs. It was difficult to work out the motivation of these spooks. Give me criminals and fraudsters and greed any day.

But there’d been a purpose in Fothergill’s actions.

She’d taken Lew’s notebook and disappeared into the Manchester scenery.

Just suppose that she was nothing to do with Sir Lew or with his horrific murder. That had to be right. She’d gone to immense trouble to get the job at Pimpernel weeks, if not months, before Lew had even discovered his conspiracy.

So why was she in my office?

There could only be one answer. She was there to find out what I was up to.

So who was interested in me enough to want to listen to the minute and boring details of my office routine? There hadn’t been anything the least bit criminal going on, apart from what the people we were reporting on were up to, that is. It was highly unlikely that the tabloid press were after me. They’d had their
fingers well and truly burnt over bugging scandals. Nor were the financially-stressed boys in blue any more likely to pay someone to spy on me for three months.

It was crazy.

I added seasoning to the egg mixture, salt and plenty of pepper. I like an omelette to have zing.

Then an inkling of a solution began to arrive.

It was all in the timings. Three months and not a foot wrong by Fothergill. She’d become the perfect receptionist. Then Sir Lew arrives and a) she makes a slip --- looking him up in Who’s Who --- and b) she hears us having a row and c) steals the item Lew deposits in the safe, works until the end of the day and then skips for good. She was waiting for proof that I was a criminal, got it when she overheard me arguing with Lew about blackmail and murder and took the notebook as evidence.

Now came the hard part.

Who hated me enough to go to these lengths? There was no one. I’ve annoyed lots of people but mostly they were the sort who would pay a few quid to boot-boys such as Tony and Lee had once been to hand out a good kicking. I couldn’t think of anyone who’d even go to these lengths. The expense alone rules out ninety nine point nine per cent of the people I’ve helped on their way to prison. One or two of my enemies have ended up in an early grave as Lew reminded me but the chance that their relatives loved them enough to want revenge on me was pretty remote. Well, maybe it’s more than one or two but even so I couldn’t quite credit it.

I left the kitchen and walked into the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs for a moment.

Bob’s interior designer had gone overboard here.

Perhaps he was sending Bob a message? Was he drunk or high on drugs? It was a statement but whatever it meant the clashing colours, oddly focussed lights and glaringly illuminated mirrors gave me eyestrain. Perhaps four kilograms of C4 was the answer to this riot of kitsch.

Clint was on his way downstairs. He raised a hand in salute but continued down into the room with the oversized bar and settled on a massive sofa. Motoring mags were piled up on a glass topped coffee table in front of him. He didn’t say anything. Obviously he felt he’d unburdened himself enough for one evening. I told him his meal would take a few minutes longer. 

I looked in the other room.

Lee was slumped on an equally large sofa watching football on the wall mounted television. Tony had his head stuck in a book. Neither even looked up.

Back in the kitchen I gave the pan a shake. The potatoes and onions were doing well. I stirred them to make sure they didn’t brown, poured the egg mixture into the frying pan and raised the heat. For the next few minutes I carried on getting my omelette right, turning the edge down and making sure the egg mixture was absorbed.

It was ready. I set the table and served three generous portions garnished with salad.

I went into the TV room.

‘Grub’s up,’ I announced.

It took a warning stare from Tony before Lee managed to tear himself away from his viewing.

‘What’s this,’ he asked grumpily.

‘Cordon bleu cookery produced by my own fair hand and served with a smile,’ I said.

He looked at the table and then he looked at me, ‘I don’t feel hungry,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ Tony agreed. ‘I thought we might send out for a pizza later.’

‘No, you won’t be doing that.’

Lee immediately stiffened.

‘Why the f**k not?’ he growled.

‘Because it’s likely that there’s a large number of coppers and MI5 out there looking for us, that’s why the f**k not.’

Tony looked shocked. He didn’t say whether it was my language or our predicament that upset him. He sat down abruptly.

‘You’re eating here and you’ll both be staying here until the heat’s died down.’

‘I didn’t sign on for this,’ Lee insisted.

‘Two MI5 men were murdered a few hours ago. They were driving the van I was in. They were killed by the same people
who’ve tried to kill me several times.’

He considered this and then shrugged, presumably that was as close as he came to saying ‘You’re right, I’m wrong.’

‘Oh … Is there any tomato sauce?’ he asked. Was he genuinely indifferent to what I’d said or just thick?

I found the sauce and put it in front of him.

He consented to eat, first picking and then heartily.

While they ate I filled them in on events including the inheritance from Lew. My natural inclination is always to play my cards close to my chest but in this case the deaths of the MI5 men had rattled me. Tony and Lee were likely to meet the same fate as I was if we didn’t find out who was behind the killings. The only way we were going to do that was by finding Fothergill and Lew’s notebook. So I needed their full cooperation.