The Convenience of Lies (20 page)

‘I
think he’s punishing me for what happened between us years ago.’

‘No,
I don’t agree. I guess he just feels it’s important to chase down this Ruby lead.’

‘Really?
Well, it might look like it’s for Ruby’s benefit but it’ll really be for McCall’s,’ Lexie said. ‘Anyway, enough of him. Could you put a call into my business partner in Bristol and give her a message to come and see me? I’ve got to make some plans for the future.’

Ruby
suddenly reappeared between them and said she wanted to go.

‘It
smells nasty in here,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s going to die and I don’t like it.’

*

Benwick stripped off his boiler suit to put on one of McCall’s spare shirts and a pair of jeans. As he did, McCall lifted the detective’s backpack. It was lumpy and heavy.

‘What’s
in here?’

‘Things
that cause damage,’ Benwick said. ‘Don’t mess with them.’

He
didn’t need to. He could feel a handgun and several small cardboard boxes. Which side was this guy really on? McCall wondered if Ruby’s story was worth the grief coming his way for aiding the escape of a cop who’d turned terrorist. He might yet be writing his exclusive from behind bars.

Benwick
came towards the boy and hunkered down, smiling like an uncle.

‘Time
to move on, Ronnie,’ he said. ‘But we’re like blood brothers now, you and me.’

Ronnie
nodded, uncertain and embarrassed.

‘So
you’ll not be telling anyone about our secret, will you?’

The
boy swore he wouldn’t and Benwick slipped him a twenty-pound note.

‘But
if you break your promise, one of my soldiers will be round to your house… you understand what would happen, don’t you?’

Ronnie
nodded but looked terrified.

‘OK,
good man.’

Benwick
then went into the woods to pee. The kid turned to McCall.

‘He
won’t, will he? Not send a soldier after me?’

‘I
don’t know what he’ll do so you just better keep your mouth shut.’

‘But
I saw them, the soldiers.’

‘What
soldiers?’

‘In
the gunpowder factory, where it all happened.’

‘Where
what happened?’

‘Where
the shunting engine hit the other man, the one who couldn’t run away.’

McCall
heard Benwick limping back through the undergrowth towards them before Ronnie could explain any more.

He
got the boy to whisper his home phone number then scribbled it down and said he’d ring him in a few days.

Benwick
began gathering up all his litter so no sign of his stay in the den remained. It was nearly dark by then. All the golfers had returned to the clubhouse. Benwick straddled the boy’s bike for McCall to push him along the edge of the trees to the car park. They shook hands with Ronnie and watched him pedal off into the night.

‘What
was all that about your soldiers?’

‘All
in good time, McCall. We need to find a shop that sells pain killers.’

‘Your
ankle?’

‘Yeah,
damn good job my dance card’s empty this evening.’

Thirty
minutes later, they pulled up outside a late night convenience store. McCall left Benwick in the car checking a road atlas and went inside for the pills. Once he was alone, Benwick put the map aside and tuned in to Radio Lancashire for the local news headlines. The second item was of interest.

British
Transport Police are still trying to identify the body of a woman in her thirties found by the railway line at Kittie’s Crossing near Blackrod. They are appealing for witnesses or for anyone with information to come forward.

Benwick
thought they’d be well advised not to hold their collective breath.

Thirty-Two

It
was getting late for anyone to knock at Garth Hall. Hester, tense enough already, looked down from her bedroom window. A man with a stiff, military bearing stood on the drive, hands behind his back, his face serious. A driver who stayed in the vehicle had brought him to the house in a dark Range Rover. It all looked too official to ignore. Hester opened up but left the door on its chain.

‘I’m
sorry to trouble you at this time of night, Miss Lloyd, but this is most urgent.’

‘How
do you know my name? What’s this about?’

‘Our
friend, McCall, I’m afraid.’

‘What’s
happened to him?’

‘Nothing
yet but he’s in some danger. Might I come in and explain?’

‘You’ve
not told me who you are.’

‘Sorry,
I’m Roly Vickers. I’ve known McCall for years.’

‘He’s
never mentioned you.’

‘Possibly
not but I was also a friend of Francis Wrenn, the man who brought him up.’

‘Maybe
you were but you’re still not coming in.’

Vickers
hid his exasperation behind a strained smile.

‘As
you wish but I’ve come to tell you that the authorities believe McCall is with a man wanted in connection with an assassination in Belgium. This man is armed and very dangerous and it’s in McCall’s best interest that both of them are found.’

‘What
have you got to do with all this?’

‘As
I knew McCall and his people, it was thought you might help me locate him.’

‘The
police have already been here over a suspicious death some place down south now you’re saying there’s another in Belgium? For God’s sake, he’s a journalist, not some crazy killer.’

‘But
he often gets into scrapes and as scrapes go, this one could wreck his career.’

‘I’m
sorry but I can’t help you.’

‘Can’t
- or won’t?’

‘Take
your pick, mister. You’re getting nothing from me.’

‘If
that’s your final word, be aware that you’re doing McCall no favours,’ Vickers said. ‘By the way, I hope little Ruby is being well looked after in all this dreadful business. You wouldn’t want the authorities to take her into care, would you?’

*

For the very first time in their friendly arrangement, Hester resented McCall. He’d no right to expect her to continue holding the fort on her own. His world wasn’t hers. It threatened her, made her feel anxious in the very place where she’d finally found peace of mind.

‘Ruby,
sweetheart, I’m so sorry but we’ve got to go out.’

Ruby
was in bed and almost asleep. Hester raised her into a sitting position and put a coat over her pyjamas then slipped her trainers on.

‘Don’t
want to,’ Ruby said. ‘Go away.’

Hester
carried her downstairs and into the camper van.

‘We’ll
only be gone a few minutes but I’ve got to make a phone call.’

She
drove to the kiosk from where she’d rung McCall’s new mobile before. Ruby screamed and kicked the dashboard. None of what was happening was the kid’s fault. She needed calm and security but was getting neither. Hester locked her in the van and dialled McCall. When he answered, she told him about Roly Vickers putting pressure on her to reveal McCall’s whereabouts.

‘The
little rat even suggested Ruby could be taken from us.’

‘Look,
I can’t talk now. I’ll be home as soon as I can but I don’t know when.’

‘I
can’t take much more of this, Mac, not all these threats and this talk of killings.’

‘What
killings?’

‘Vickers
says you’re with a man who’s wanted for assassinating someone. He says you’re in danger and that’s why they need to find you.’

‘I
can’t explain his reasons now but what Vickers says isn’t right.’

‘I
don’t know what to believe any more. Only little Ruby matters in all this. Her and Lexie. I think you’re forgetting what’s important in your life, Mac.’

As
Hester left the phone box, she was observed from a chauffeured Range Rover parked unseen in a field entrance. She’d done exactly what Vickers told his associates she would - called McCall’s new mobile from a public phone. She would’ve been warned by him that their line at Garth Hall wasn’t secure.

So
now their source at British Telecom could de-pip the number she’d rung and get it for them. With this, another contact in the mobile phone network would quickly triangulate McCall’s location to within fifty yards. Wherever he was, the rogue detective wouldn’t be far away.

*

McCall was finding it difficult to concentrate. Vickers leaning so hard on Hester - that bothered him. He’d wanted Benwick flushed into the open. When McCall hadn’t played ball, Vickers turned nasty - not least in regard to Ruby. So who was he really running with?

More
immediately, McCall had no idea where he and Benwick were driving. They’d travelled south from the golf club on minor roads. After about twenty miles, Benwick told him to turn into a thinly populated stretch of flat, wooded farmland. He seemed to know the area. They bumped along a dirt track towards a tangled hedge of alders and hawthorn.

Tucked
behind were a corrugated iron implement shed and a small barn-like structure, almost overwhelmed by ivy.

‘Pull
into the shed,’ Benwick said. ‘Then kill the lights.’

‘What
is this place?’

‘Just
a little port in a storm.’

McCall
parked then Benwick led the way into the barn. It had once been a kitchen and
sleeping
area for seasonal agricultural labourers. There was no electricity, just candles and a paraffin lamp.

But
it had a cast iron range with charred wood in the grate from a recent fire. On the hob were a kettle and a brown teapot and on the table, a plastic pannier of water, mugs, plates and cutlery.

‘The
Ritz it ain’t,’ he said. ‘But we’ll be OK roughing it here for a while.’

‘What
about whoever owns it, the farmer?’

‘He
knows me as a bird watcher, doesn’t mind me using it.’

McCall
couldn’t immediately think of a reply. It was endearing, if puzzling, that a rogue detective who might yet turn out to be an assassin or a spy, should have so gentle a side to his character. But the terrorist, like the paedophile, is always a guy next door, the quiet one who goes unnoticed.

The
barn had a single small window with a potato sack nailed over it as a rough curtain. Benwick pulled it aside and scanned the darkened landscape with a pair of military night vision binoculars from his backpack.

‘You
think we were followed?’ McCall said.

‘No,
but I want to make sure.’

Benwick
then began screwing up newspaper to start a fire with the sticks and split logs piled in the hearth. Some of the pages carried dispatches about Iraq’s advance into Kuwait so were almost a month old. This must have been one of Benwick’s long-term boltholes.

‘It’s
going to be a long night,’ he said. ‘When this fire gets going, I’ll boil some water for some tea and warm up a can of soup and there’s bread, too, if the mice haven’t got in the bread bin. Got to keep our strength up for the chase, haven’t we?’

Benwick
appeared almost euphoric, as if relishing playing a fox outwitting his pursuers. But McCall needed to know why they were being hunted.

‘At
some point, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on, aren’t you?’

‘Don’t
worry, you’ll find out soon enough.’

*

Lexie, fading in and out of consciousness in the dimly lit ward, felt she was being digested in the belly of the beast. The essence of her very self had been torn out and devoured. Like the purblind victims around her, she would eventually pass through the system - but none as they had entered it. And not all would survive.

Yet
on this night, she had to cling to the hope that she would, albeit life as she’d known it would be in remission. But she’d made a start on whatever future she had. Her business partner had driven over from Bristol. Agreements had been made, documents signed. There had to something to plan for and Lexie now knew what it must be.

*

McCall and Benwick sat either side of the fire. The wind cut through the silver birch trees shivering beyond the barn and howled around the chimney. Neither man wanted to be the first to speak. Both knew the advantage silence gave against anyone seeking information they’d rather not divulge. Yet this was different. Each had need of the other - and to give ground.

They’d
eaten and were getting warm. Benwick poked at the logs. They cracked and sparked and threw ever-bizarre shadows on a scene that was weird enough already. He reached into his rucksack for a half bottle of brandy and offered first swig to McCall.

‘So,
you want a bit of the back story to all this drama, do you?’ Benwick said.

‘I
think I’m owed that much, don’t you? A sort of payment in kind.’

Benwick
took his pull of brandy as he considered his next words.

‘Did
you ever hear of a police investigation called Operation Kid Glove?’

‘No,
what was that about?’

‘The
sexual abuse of young children, not just by the usual grubby little perverts but a few seriously influential people.’

‘Really?
Like who?’

‘Some
politicians… high ranking household names, rarely off the TV some of them.’

‘I
don’t remember reading about any of this in the papers.’

‘No,
you wouldn’t.’

‘Why
not? They were committing crimes, weren’t they?’

‘The
case never got to court, that’s why.’

‘You
mean the evidence wasn’t there?’

‘No,
there was plenty of that. The investigation was deliberately sabotaged.’

‘In
what way?’

‘Some
exhibits and statements went missing, witnesses changed their stories or just disappeared then as the arrests were being planned, guys in suits turned up at the nick early one morning and took away every incriminating file and every cop’s notebook.’

‘So
it was covered-up?’

‘Too
damn right it was. Someone somewhere decided it wasn’t in the national interest to pull down these pillars of society. That’s what power and influence buys you, McCall. We’re all equal under the law but some are more equal than others.’

‘I
get that but who were these MPs and why were they being protected?’

‘Sorry,
but you and I have a way to go before I’ll give you chapter and verse.’

‘I
see… so you’re just baiting the hook, then?’

‘Only
so that you’ll understand there’s a link between these untouchable politicians and little Ruby Ross.’

‘For
Christ’s sake, you can’t just leave a claim like that hanging in the air.’

‘All
I’m going to say for now is that if the cops on Operation Kid Glove hadn’t had their balls cut off, those who put Ruby through her wicked ordeal would have still been locked up.’