The Dead Lie Down (Adam Lennox Thrillers: Book One) (21 page)

Ford was already half way through an Espresso when Adam arrived and joined him
at the small table in the corner, the one you never realise is next to the
toilet door until you sit down. The poster on the wall opposite enjoined him to
'See Colombia and Live'. Perhaps not, he thought, but it did efficiently cover up
a patch of peeling paint. His cappuccino arrived courtesy of a Barrista with
dirty fingernails, or perhaps it was ground coffee. Adam didn't like to dwell on
it.

Ford was looking smarter than usual. He had obviously managed to get home to
sleep in his own bed and get a change of clothes. Three empty muffin wrappers on
a plate in front of him indicated that his eating patterns were still
skewed.

He caught Adam looking at them. "Two of them were already on the table when I
arrived," he claimed.

A
look of scepticism crossed Adam face closely followed by pity, which looked as
if it might in turn suggest counselling. The thought faded.

He took a sip of coffee, burnt his mouth and left a rim of foam around his upper
lip.

"I want to know about the police cover up on Granger Bartlett's death," he
started.

Ford looked all innocence. "Cover up, what cover up?"

"Oh please," pleaded Adam. "I hate to laugh out loud in public, it doesn't do my
self image any good. I know that Granger Bartlett was murdered by the IRA."

A
small school-kid pressed their nose to the window. Ford banged on it and told
him to 'Clear Off'. He turned back to Adam.

"Bartlett left a suicide note on the day of the car crash. It said he couldn't
live with himself over what the IRA were doing, and he was going to take the only
way out."

"This didn't come out at the inquest."

"No it didn't."

"Do we know why?"

"What's with the 'we' stuff?" demanded Ford.

Adam smiled. "Sorry I thought we were building up a good working relationship
here."

"On your bike. This is strictly off the record."

"The FBI has no knowledge?"

"The investigation was controlled from outside the local area," confessed Ford.
"Rumours were that MI5 were involved. The release of evidence was
'controlled'."

"So it was a cover-up?"

"I didn't say that. Did I say that?"

Adam looked out the window. A man lurked across the street reading a newspaper.
There ought to be a law against it, thought Adam, it makes the public
nervous.

"So it was actually a suicide after all?" asked Adam.

There was silence from the other side of the table so Adam repeated the
question.

"No," came Ford's curt response.

Now Adam was confused. "So there was a genuine suicide note but you're saying it
wasn't suicide?"

"I got in touch with one of the detectives who was assigned to the
investigation. He's retired but we occasionally touch base. According to him the
body in the car had a bullet hole in the side of the skull. If it was suicide,
he would have had to drive the car into the tree at high speed, shoot himself
whilst unconscious, and then throw the gun so far away that a search of the
scene didn't find it."

Adam paused to let it sink in.

"So it was murder?" But what about the genuine suicide note?

"Looks like it."

"If it was the IRA and they killed him, would it have been enough to cause the
cover-up." suggested Adam.

"Given the fact that he was a strong IRA sympathiser it's possible I
suppose."

"But you're not convinced."

Ford's voice almost dropped to a whisper as if walls had ears.

"There's a far more plausible explanation."

"There is?" whispered Adam.

"If MI5 had him killed because of his strong and open support for the Republican
cause they would definitely want it hushed up," argued Ford. "But you didn't
hear it from me."

Adam paused for a second to let the enormity of the suggestion sink in.

"Oh shit. It all fits."

Adam burnt his mouth on the coffee and asked Ford about Fran's death.

Ford sighed. "I wondered when you would get around to that."

"What goes around, comes around," conceded Adam.

"Okay. This wasn't covered up but there were aspects of the case that didn't
hang together."

"Explain," demanded Adam.

"Mrs Lennox made two calls from her mobile within the space of minutes."

Adam interrupted. "One call. To me at home. I wasn't there and didn't
answer."

"No. You were the second call. The first call was to an unlisted number. They
couldn't trace it."

"So, was she ringing someone else about what she'd found, or what?"

"That didn't come up at the inquest."

"It wouldn't. There was no real suspicion of foul play and it was treated as
insignificant. But who would Fran want to phone first?"

Adam put his coffee mug down so hard it slopped over the table.

"What else was odd?" he continued through gritted teeth.

"The conflict in witness statements. One witness claims that they saw Mrs Lennox
with a folder of paperwork as she went to leave the building. Brad Wilding on
the other hand claims that she didn't, and being first on the scene confirmed
that there was no paperwork."

Adam brought Ford up to speed on their opinions of Brad, and videotape
contents.

"It all seems feasible. She found evidence of the smuggling and was killed to
keep her quiet."

"Could Brad have been the driver?" queried Adam.

"No. Derek was right. He has an alibi for the crash itself. A witness remembers
being next to him when they heard the crash, and was impressed with the speed at
which he took off to find out what was going on."

"Possible, but if you're right then he's a dangerous fish. I wouldn't push him
too hard."

"He's taken off anyway. No one can find him."

"Admission of guilt?" posed Ford.

"Possibly. But guilt of what? Murder, or just smuggling on the side? It doesn't
make sense anyway, he didn't need the money, he wasn't opinionated on the
subject of Irish Unity. Why get involved?"

"Dunno. What was the paperwork anyway?"

"Papers. Everybody's looking for papers."

"What do you mean?" demanded Ford.

Adam hesitated and then explained about his kidnapping, giving only very bare
bone details.

Ford exploded quietly. "You shit. You said you knew nothing of the hit-man."

"I lied."

"You're going to get into serious trouble."

"I already am."

Ford started to make noises about leaving but he wasn't quite finished.

"Before I go there's something you should know," he said.

Adam put his coffee down as a precaution.

"There's someone else looking into your wife's death. The case file has gone
missing but it hasn't been booked out."

"You mean someone who has access to police files has taken it without
authorisation."

"Exactly that. Exactly that."

"Thanks," said Adam. "I owe you one."

"Not true. You owe me lots," retorted Ford, and getting to his feet he grabbed
his coat and left.

Chapter 29

Adam made is way up to the flat using the concealed spiral staircase that he had
had installed to connect the office with the flat. At the top there was the
option to go straight into the flat or out onto the landing outside the flat's
front door. On this occasion and against his normal practise he went out onto
the landing, for no good reason that came to him. The landing was not your
standard 'block of flats' landing but really an extension of the inner hallway
as there was a locked entrance to the street at the foot of the main
staircase.

Checking the hallway for flotsam and jetsam he noticed that the windows needed
cleaning and made a mental note to get Clare to rustle up some men with
ladders.

Turning to the door something in his spine started to tingle. The front door,
normally carefully shut so that the catch held, was standing very slightly ajar
with the catch held open. Might be nothing, might have been Clare bringing up
the day's post, might be his memory, but in the current circumstances relaxation
left him like a heavy overcoat and he seemed to rise higher on the balls of his
feet. Unlike most police dramas that show people dashing from room to room,
Adam's army training in room to room searches in enemy territory was very
different. Most of the time is spent listening whilst trying to reduce your own
noise to that of feathers alighting on the ground, and this is what he did
now.

He moved slowly through the doorway into the inner hall, blessing a recent
oiling frenzy that had him lubricating every door in the flat. The door opened
noiselessly as he moved on the carpeted floor to the door of the lounge. The
afternoon sunshine was creating a squared pattern of light on the floor through
the panelled window.

There was little noise above the fridge compressor in the kitchen, and the very
slight background hum from the various electrical appliances. Any extraneous
noise was coming from outside in the street. He risked a glance out of the
window and down into the street where an old beat up Vauxhall Vectra was sitting
with its engine running, the driver busy on his mobile phone.

Adam's wariness raised itself a notch and he crept around the edge of the
lounge. Half-way round he stopped, his senses alerted to a faint scratching
noise from the Dining Room, mice or intruder, it was a toss up. He pulled a
lethal looking stiletto knife from a sheath concealed in the waistband of his
trousers and moved around the half-open door of the dining room to find a
long-haired individual in jeans and leather jacket, going through the drawers in
his writing desk.

In these situations there are two options; one, rush the guy before he has a
chance to grab a weapon, or two, reverse far enough out of earshot and call the
police.

Adam thought of a third, and moving as close as he dared with the man's back to
him, he coughed politely.

There was nothing wrong with our friend's reaction times, he had obviously been
practising. He spun round, pulled a small calibre automatic from his armpit and
raised it. He then watched as it spun out of his hand into a corner of the room
as he crashed onto his back with Adam's knife at his throat. Jason Bourne would
have approved but Adam's army instructor would have criticised him for being a
fraction slow and not taking possession of the firearm. Such is life. You can
please some of the people some of the time....

Relaxing slightly Adam took a better look at his erstwhile assailant. Male,
medium build, untidy ponytail, greasy complexion, somewhere between twenty-five
and thirty something perhaps.

Adam opened communications.

"So I presume that you haven't come to read the meters?"

An expletive obscenity spat from his intruder's mouth that Adam hadn't heard
since his Army days.

The knife slipped slightly and drew blood from the throat.

"Tut, tut. Language Timothy!" reprimanded Adam. He pushed the knife a little
further.

"You know, I don't really hold with the limitations on what a householder can do
to protect his property. Your life hangs by a very, very thin thread my friend."
The word 'friend', it had to be said, did not carry a sincere ring to it.

"Go shit yourself."

Adam was relieved. "My word, he speaks, after a fashion." His voice lost its
jolly note. "What is it you're looking for."

Silence.

The knife was now hitting the bone of an Adam's Apple and a little sweat was
showing, albeit with difficulty, across an already greasy brow. The look of
defiance was starting to wane. Blood was in danger of staining the carpet.

Adam's expression grew into a frown. "I want to know who sent you and I'm
prepared to push this knife through the back of your neck and into the floor in
order to find out." Only once he'd said it did Adam recognise the dichotomy of
his statement.

Fear lent expression. "He wants his papers back." In reality there were no
aitches on his words, revealing a local background in the East End.

"Who?"

"I don't know." The eyes started darting left and right, and Adam should have
recognised the signs.

"I think you.."

The last word was lost as his legs were whipped from under him in a desperate
manoeuvre to gain freedom. He recovered in a single movement but came up face to
face with a miniature automatic pulled from a sock.

The defiance and a glint in the eye returned to the intruder's demeanour.

Adam had had to let go of the knife in order to achieve speed of recovery. He
backed off slightly to try and spot it.

"So, where are they?" barked the greasy one, mopping the blood from his throat
with the back of his free hand.

"I don't know what you're talking about," replied Adam.

"The papers, Creep, where are the papers?"

Adam shrugged, "Everybody's looking for papers and I haven't a clue what they're
talking about."

Greasy squinted at him. "You know, I think you mean it. Shit." He considered a
moment and a smile lit up his face for the first time. "They said not to kill
you but they didn't say anything about maiming you for life."

He lowered the gun until it pointed at Adam's knee. Adam dived to his left to
recover the knife. There was a soft 'plop' from somewhere in the kitchen
doorway, and Adam came up to find his assailant on the floor with half his face
blown away. He turned to see Mitch in the doorway, a very sophisticated silenced
automatic in his hand. He looked back at the lifeless body on the carpet.

Adam reacted. "Get him out of here. Don't be seen. Dispose of him and find out
if anyone knows him. Let Erikson know" He glanced back at Mitch. "I'm sick of
these dead ends."

Five minutes later the room bore no trace of any disturbance. The body had gone
along with the two automatics and the knife. The settee had been moved to cover
a small bloodstain on the carpet. All accomplished with a remarkable
efficiency.