The Dead Lie Down (Adam Lennox Thrillers: Book One) (8 page)

He and Anna had made the remainder of the journey into London in comparative
silence; Anna now resigned to getting no more information from him.

Down the A12 into the East End, through Leytonstone, Hackney, down through Bow
to pick up the A13 and into Whitechapel along Commercial Road. He tried to
convince her to come back to the flat for protection until things calmed
down.

She
declined. "I guess the dangerous place to be is with you. You draw too much
heat for my liking. I'll take my chances back at work thank you very
much."

He turned into the Minories and stopped on a double yellow line outside the
First National building.

"Call me. We need to arrange to retrieve your bags from the cottage."

"I'll do that." She hesitated and turned to smile as she got out. "Don't worry
brother, I'm not letting you go." And with that she was gone. Adam surprised
himself with his response, he was pleased.

But now he had to think. Someone who knew his past was willing to threaten him
in order to prevent his involvement in John Bartlett's affairs. That much was
obvious. But what was John hiding and why? He put to one side the reference to
Fran's death. For the moment any thought that she might have been involved was
more than he could cope with. Where did Granger Bartlett's death fit in and why
was it a threat? The more he thought about it the more he was convinced it was
key simply because it didn't make sense.

He needed to see John Bartlett on his own and get to the bottom of what was
troubling him. Strangely he was convinced that it wasn't primarily to do with a
dead man on a ship.

He
was about to phone Bartletts to get hold of John when Bel strode into the
office and sat purposefully in his visitor's chair. He put the phone down
gently. Something told him to keep his mouth shut .

Bel took a deep breath.

"Lennox. I've been followed. I've received threatening phone calls. I've been
told to drop everything I'm doing. My boss hasn't turned up for work, in fact he
hasn't turned up anywhere. So what the hell is going on?"

So he told her. Everything, including, after some thought, the phone call
reference to herself and Fran. He didn't feel it necessary to fill her in on the
details of Anna's proposed expression of gratitude.

Bel ordinarily had a good complexion. Correction. Ordinarily she had a great
complexion. But the colour drained out of it briefly as she sat quietly for a
moment to digest his story.

"Adam.
What the hell has it got to do with Fran?"

"I don't know. It may have nothing to do with her but I mean to find out."

"Who is this Anna woman?"

Adam hesitated, as much surprised at the question as anything. "She only got
involved because she was with me at the time. I couldn't leave her there and I
couldn't stay."

Bel
raised an eyebrow, just the one. "And you believe her story, she just happens
to be in the ditch as you drive along."

Adam shrugged. "I have no reason not to believe her," he replied, and then
paused to check he had put in the right number of negatives.

There was then a long pause whilst they both disbelieved each other,
silently.

"So do you think there is a real danger?" she asked. "Say, on a score of one to
ten."

"What?" replied Adam. "Where one is what, a bump on the head with a blunt object
and ten is what, assassination?"

Bel nodded sagely. "Something like that."

"They went to some lengths to frighten us but they made sure I wasn't harmed. I
reckon the gunshots were designed to miss. After all it's not as if we've been
personally attacked is it?" Bel chose to maintain silence whilst Adam continued.
"I take their threat seriously though."

He got up and moved over to a water boiler in the hallway outside the office.
"Tea, Trent?"

"Sure Lennox." She let her eyes wander round the office. It had been a while
since her last visit. Things had changed, for the better she thought. They had
re-painted, some of the old furniture had gone, and they'd obviously persuaded
Clare not to play Radio 2 in office hours.

"Just
how seriously do you take it?" she called through the open doorway.

Adam came back with the tea. "I've called Mitch."

Bel shuddered inwardly. Mitch was ex-SAS and Adam had got to know him when he
was living rough on the streets. He was generally dirty to Bel's eyes but above
all extremely dangerous. Bel knew he had killed men in cold blood and she wasn't
at all convinced that his moral code put him on the side of the angels. However,
he did owe his life to Adam after an attempted overdose and had sworn to protect
Adam at all costs. As long as he was on your side you could breathe easy. If he
wasn't.....

"It's not as bad as all that then?" The sarcasm was heavy enough that it slid
off the seat and hit the floor with a loud metaphorical thud.

"I'm not taking any chances."

Bel shifted in her seat. "What are you going to do next?"

"I don't know yet. I need to talk to Gerry. There are a lot of things I don't
understand. And I need to talk to John."

Bel took the mug of tea but shook her head meaningfully. "Missed the boat there
Lennox. John's missing. Can't be found anywhere."

Adam's face was a picture of frustration. "What do you mean? He's done a runner?
You think he's gone into hiding?"

"I
don't know, but he hasn't been seen by anyone today. The police still want to
interview him again."

"Shit. I'm sure he's involved in this. Do you know why he came over from Holland
on that freighter?"

"No but the more I think about it the more I'm sure that he planned to do
it."

Adam stopped absently fiddling with a paper-clip. "Why? He seemed to imply that
it was a spur of the moment thing."

Bel fingered her ear when she was thinking, a gesture that Adam was noticing
more and more. "He didn't buy a return ticket to Rotterdam."

"So he always intended to come back on the 'Hermes'?"

"Something like that."

Adam considered it for a moment. John Bartlett goes to Holland intending to
return on the Hermes. Whilst he's on the ship a man dies, possibly murdered. As
soon as Adam and Bel get involved they receive threats to their lives. So what
on earth did John find on the ship? And who was the dead man?

He badly needed to speak to John again, the world was becoming an unstable
place.

Chapter 11

The man in the bed stirred restlessly, causing the man in the chair to rise to
his feet hastily. He pushed aside the mosquito net, and watched the old man's
face as he checked his pulse for the umpteenth time that night. The old man
opened his eyes.

"I'm not dead yet damn you." There was surprising strength in his voice compared
to his apparent physical condition. Sweat ran down his forehead plastering
thinning hair to his scalp on the way. His eyes didn't quite focus as he scanned
around him.

Cane furniture was scattered around the room in a haphazard sort of fashion. The
walls showed evidence of once having had paint on them but now they had a
distempered sort of look that would soon peel away to a jigsaw puzzle of flaking
colour. The windows, shuttered but uncurtained, allowed a hint of the city
lights of Bangkok to occasionally break through the trees outside the window.
The wet season had brought the humidity and the discomfort to a high that even
the archaic air conditioning didn't seem to temper. When the electricity failed,
which it regularly did, you could bathe in your own sweat. Both men had been
there long enough get be used to it and still they resented it.

He gazed across the room to a clock that his eyes couldn't read. "What's the
time?"

His attendant didn't need to look. "It's half past two".

The old man didn't appear to hear.

"You shouldn't have come Frank. I told you to stay at home."

Frank smiled. "My home's with you. Always has been". He didn't point out that
that was twenty six years ago.

It brought a lop-sided smile to the old man's face. "You're a bad liar but a
very good friend Frank. I'll make it up to you, you see if I don't."

Frank's smile was becoming a fixture but it didn't seem to worry him.

Their conversation was a slow one punctuated by long silences. At four o'clock
just when he thought that the old man had drifted off again there was a movement
from the bed.

"Any news from England yet Frank."

"I haven't heard anything today except that the Stock Exchange is fighting off
yet another take-over bid." Frank knew it wasn't the sort of news he was looking
for but they wouldn't neglect ties with the old country. "I'll phone them later
and see if I can get the football scores."

That
brought a brief smile from the bed but obvious pain dampened it almost
immediately and the sadness in the eyes returned. With some effort he spoke
again and the measured intonation implied this was no ad lib speech.

"I've killed too many in my time Frank. Hurt too many. Didn't want to but
couldn't stop it. I didn't have any option." Shortness of breath overcame him
for a few moments. "I took the only way out Frank. Tried to do the honourable
thing in the end, but I don't know if it was right. Was it right Frank?" He
didn't wait for a response as if eager to get this confession out of the way. "I
don't know. I had to make a decision and they were after me. They knew. That's
why I had to kill Granger Bartlett, you realise that don't you?"

The effort was becoming too great now and he seemed to succumb to the fatigue as
his eyes closed and his breathing eased.

Frank rose from the bed and moved through into the other room of the
three-bedroomed apartment. Years ago they had had a villa with a dozen rooms
but things had got harder and now the end seemed in sight.

He picked up the phone, hesitated in order to confirm that there was a dialling
tone and dialled the UK number.

Response at the other end was quick as if the call was expected.

"Frank?" The voice, middle aged male with a vague Yorkshire accent was bright
and chirpy. Too chirpy for Frank.

"Yes, it's me. He's not too good today. I think he's slowly sliding downhill.
He's accepted it but he won't give in easily."

"How much longer do you think it'll be. Do you think I should come out?"

"No , not yet but it could be soon. Any news from London that I can pass on to
him? He's always asking."

Chirpy hesitated. "There's nothing worth talking about at the moment but I'm
expecting an update soon, within the next day or two."

"Find out what you can. It seems to put his mind at rest."

They exchanged parting sentiments and Frank hung up. He debated whether it was
actually worth going to bed and in the end decided against it. There was
cleaning to do and the fridge was in need of replenishing before food got scarce
again.

He could ring Bartletts tomorrow if necessary.

Chapter 12

Gerry returned to the office having made peace with the photographer, arranged a
new photo shoot with Stan Hollis and bought the elephant a bun. He was having a
good day.

Once they had moved out of the office into the comfort of Adam's flat he changed
all that by bringing Gerry up to speed with the days events.

"Strewth. I turn my back and you're both up to no good."

Adam nodded and bowed. "Thank you for that Gerry. Constructive criticism is
always welcome in the face of adversity. You are a succour to our souls."

"Pardon me?"

"You're a great help, I don't think."

Gerry adopted his favourite stance of mortified injustice, hand on chest.

"Of course the same cannot be said of you, O Great One, who picks up dodgy
hitch-hikers and attracts the sort of clientele who blow up cars at the drop of
a hat." He bowed in mock deference before striding out, Thespian style, in high
dudgeon, to get himself a cup of coffee.

It
must be pointed out that 'flat' was a very understated term for Adam's home
from home. An estate agent would have described it as 'extensive apartments
being an exclusive conversion in luxury style from traditional London buildings
of character'.

The two floors above the office had been gutted and Adam had re-built the shell
into large open plan spacious rooms. An internal front door could be accessed
directly from the street up a staircase to an internal lobby, or via a spiral
staircase directly into the office below. The front door opened straight into
the living area where the original laundry windows had been replaced with vast
double glazed units giving a view over the roof tops of East London. A central
open brick fireplace broke up the endless expanse of floor into lounging and
dining areas. You would have been forgiven for believing that Adam suffered from
claustrophobia.

A
sweeping open-tread staircase rose out of the dining area. To the right of the
stairs, half obscured, was a study and then finally the kitchen, separated from
the rest by a broad island breakfast bar that you could play table tennis on at
a push. The second floor was disappointingly conventional with three large
double bedrooms, all en-suite, although the floor to ceiling windows added a
certain je ne c'est quoi, or so the architect maintained at any rate. Adam was
just glad that they'd abolished the 'window tax' in the last century.

The
odd shape of the original building resulted in lots of nooks and crannies, and
strange alcoves, which visitors always seemed compelled to explore at the first
available opportunity.

Currently they were in the living room with the fire lit, not that it gave much
heat but it looked warm, and Gerry liked it. He stood with his back to it and
warmed himself whilst observing Adam slouched in an armchair.

"So how did they know your mobile number?"