KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) (22 page)

‘Facebook,’ Tony said, ‘women that age, they’re always on Facebook. That’s where you’ll find them.’

‘Yes, but we don’t have the phony Fothergill’s real name.’

‘It’s a hundred to one that this black girl who passed the job onto her knows her or knows someone who knows her. That’s how we’ll find her.’

‘So all we need now is a computer.’

‘No problem Dave, Bob’s got computers here. I know because I delivered them.’

He led me to a small room next to the lounge. It contained computers, printers, scanners and shelves full of computer books.

‘Bob’s taking lessons on how to use this but he’s a slow learner. Tammy uses it more than him to order things off eBay.’

He switched the computer on.

‘Do you know Bob’s password?’

I didn’t.

I went out and asked Clint if he knew.

‘Judith121179,’ he said. ‘That’s our sister’s name and birthday.’

Seconds later Tony was accessing social media. This was an area where I have no expertise at all but he did.

‘This’ll take some time, Boss. Have you got the photo?’

I handed over the picture of the real April Fothergill.

‘The guy at the employment agency said she was African
but I guess he meant black. Fothergill doesn’t sound very African.’

‘No,’ he said. He was completely absorbed. I stood by awkwardly. ‘Marvin gave me this for you, a prepaid mobile. All you need to do is hit the speed dial,’ he said.

‘But is it secure?’

‘Listen Dave, as this spot of bother is supposed to involve terrorism the super computers at GCHQ are probably on the watch for keywords connected with you … you know like …’

‘Yeah, I know about Echelon, the spy in the sky.’

‘OK, then,’ he said and focussed back on the computer screen.

I went and stood by the backdoor and phoned. As I did so I detected the light from Lee’s cigarette at the bottom of the garden. He was standing in a small gazebo set near some rain sodden trees.

Talking to Marvin was a strain. He is a master of the art of elliptical conversation but I’m not. He could probably talk for hours without giving a verbal clue to an eavesdropper so I confined my responses to the occasional grunt.

‘Yeah, the old guy has done everythin’ to make my job easy. I’ve already made progress. There be no bother with it, bwoy. You a very lucky mon.’

‘Is it OK to speak to you?’

‘Yes, the phone in your hand calls the one in my hand that be belongin’ to my Aunty Velmore. No one goin’ to be hackin’ her phone. She be in her grave, mon.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Your friendly relative done all de work. I’s be robbin’ you by chargin’ you a fee at all but I will, mon. He even had a statement from two other men in the same line of work as him sayin’ he ain’t crazy. Mon, that will’s copper-plated and cast iron. You’ll be getting’ what he wanted you to have. De properties have all been valued a couple of months ago by a top accountancy firm and the amount of inheritance tax due estimated. There be money set aside to pay it.’

‘Good.’

‘Gwarn, is that all you say, “good”? Mon, it’s bloody amazing.’

‘Right, I’ll call you again.’ I said and rung off. Realistically,
I couldn’t quite believe the promises of wealth. I’d be a “very lucky mon” if I was still alive in a few days time.

Lee sauntered up. He reeked of weed.

He spoke before I did.

‘Good meal, that was Boss, f**king good. You know it’s the first meal someone’s actually cooked for me personally since I was a kid. I appreciate it.’

‘And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your promise and not smoke that stuff round here.’

‘Just one tiny spliff, that’s all. Be human, Boss. I didn’t smoke in the house.’

‘If the police or customs search this place and find pot that’s all they’ll need to lock Bob up. What’s human about that?’

‘Nah.’

‘Have you got a bag full of weed on you?’

‘No way, I’ve just got enough for one more spliff. Listen, I smoke them mixed with ordinary tobacco and with a filter tip. I smoke right down to the tip so there’s nothing left when I throw it away.’

I nodded and he went inside. The pot seemed to have mellowed him out which was to the good but he could become a liability.

Clint’s lasagne was ready. I served it to him. I didn’t hang around to watch him eat it.

I tried Jan’s number on one of the mobiles she’d given to Lee. There was no answer. I guessed she wasn’t answering because the children were asleep.

I texted
‘Love to all, am safe D xxx.’

At a loose end I went to the bar and poured myself another slug of Glenfiddich. I was a spare wheel round here and even if Tony found Fothergill’s address I was too tired to do anything about it. I sat in a daze for a while. Too much had happened. Eventually I made a move.

I looked in on Tony. He was beavering away at his keyboard. I asked him how he was doing but he just gave me a blank stare. I lurched towards the door.

‘Tomorrow, Dave,’ he said, ‘I can’t find her on Facebook but she may be on some social media site for African immigrants.’

Being human, I was slightly pleased at this first failure by the reconditioned brain. Still it would have been handy if he had located her. I’d have to fall back on traditional methods.

Clint had gone to bed and Lee was stretched out on the sofa, snoring lightly. I wasn’t the leader of a scout troop so I decided Tony and Lee could make their own sleeping arrangements. I checked all the doors and windows and looked outside. The house was secure like all Bob Lane’s pads. It had top quality burglar alarms and steel reinforced back and front doors. The anachronistic white plastic windows I’d turned my nose up at on arrival were security windows made of toughened polycarbonate. A tiny label proclaimed that they were impact resistant, bullet proof and flame resistant up to one thousand degrees.

Short of using a bulldozer or explosives no one was coming in here quickly.

Rain was lashing down, nothing was stirring and I was exhausted. Fatalistically I decided that sleep came first. If the house was raided during the night there was nothing I could do one way or another. I took the bottle of Glenfiddich upstairs with me.

I took a long shower in the en-suite bathroom and when I returned to the bedroom I found that one of Jan’s phones that I’d left plugged into the multicharger had a message.

‘
Arrived at location. All safe. Staying with driver’s mum tonight. I’ll phone tomorrow 9 a.m. J xxx’

Pleased that my family was safe I turned the bed down. I immediately realised that however weary I was I couldn’t sleep between Tammy Marsden’s purple silk sheets.

I prowled the landing. There was a linen cupboard. I found white cotton sheets, went back to my room and stripped the bed. I looked again at the carving. God! There was no way I could sleep under those twin spheres. Bob must be besotted by her. I fetched a counterpane and draped it over the sculpture. As I tucked the bed sheet in the top of the bed the back of my hand brushed against one of the jutting nipples. There was a slight movement. I recoiled. Knocking the nipple off one of Tammy’s tits was bound to be a big no-no with Bob.

I pulled away the counterpane and checked it out. The nipple was intact but it had moved. Disgusted with myself I gently stroked the mammary all over and when I gave a downward flick to the nipple it moved again. Everything else was stationary. Mystified, I half expected the bed to start vibrating or a hidden spotlight to come on but nothing happened.

Pulling back the mattress I examined the carving more carefully. The figure was cut into a thick slab of boxwood which was attached to the bed frame by strong uprights. It looked almost as if it had been made from a plaster cast of Tammy’s fair form but it was definitely carved wood. The timber was six inches thick, not a single piece but built up from laminations. I rapped all over it.

The supporting legs gave a solid thunk but the carving was hollow.

I ran my hand along the sides again to see if there was a hidden electrical connection. There wasn’t. The sides were completely smooth with no trace of a seam, the back was the same.

I went back to the nipple I’d touched and pressed it again. Once more there was a very slight movement in the seemingly solid carving. I pressed the nipple on the other breast. It moved. Finally I pressed them both at once.

There was an audible click and a hinged panel popped out from the smooth side.

I didn’t know whether to be amused or frightened by Bob’s ingenuity but this was deadly serious. I pulled away the bedside table and folded the panel down until it was horizontal. Inside the void there was a wire frame mounted on little wheels like the trays in a dishwasher only vertical.

My first thought was drugs. Had Bob lied when he claimed to have no connection with the hard drug trade? Trained to think the worst of people despite my good nature, I was afraid I was about to discover kilograms of heroin or mephedrone. I had to know. Hardly daring to breathe, I pulled the frame. It slid out easily.

Clipped to it was a Glock 17 semi automatic pistol, an Uzi submachine gun and three folded bullet proof jackets, one of them outsized, no doubt to fit Clint. Surprise, shock even, mingled with relief. Bob Lane was a one off.

Thrusting my arm further into the secret compartment I found spare magazines for the Uzi and the Glock and boxes of nine by nineteen millimetre ammo which would fit both weapons. There was enough to withstand a siege. Thinking of all Bob’s precautions, the idea of him having ‘Bob’s last stand’ in here didn’t seem right. There had to be a bolthole, probably a secret tunnel.

I wondered how Bob rhymed all this out to himself …

When the doorbell rings

Squeeze Tammy’s things.

If you still hear a racket

Put on your bullet jacket

Grab your semi-auto gun

Then how fast can you run?

Something like that, but hell, using Tammy’s breasts as switches … that was a bit kinky.

I cleaned my prints off everything I’d handled and then, remembering my bargain with Jan, put the frame back as I found it and climbed into bed. The weapons were a last resort. OK, I’d fired at the helicopter. That was on the spur of the moment in the face of imminent death. God, I was confused, but I’d made a promise and I knew I couldn’t look my wife in  the face if I deliberately armed myself.

23

Tuesday night — Wednesday morning

Even if Fothergill, the imposter that is, was now in Australia she’d have left traces in Manchester. I just needed the slightest clue that might lead me to whoever she was working for. If Fothergill was all about me and nothing whatever to do with Sir Lew then whoever sent her had to be local because I’m local.

That was mainly wishful thinking but what else had I to go on?

I went into the large television room where Lee and Tony lay sprawled on sofas. A frowsy stink of tobacco and pot hit me in the face. I looked down at my two employees. They were an unlikely looking pair to pit against the cream of the world’s espionage agencies.

Lee had his thumb in his mouth and the self-proclaimed savant, Tony Nolan, had his face jammed into a purple cushion.

Unlikely or not, they were all I had and their very improbability as investigators might be an advantage, that is, if I could keep their noses to the grindstone.

Neither of them was in the habit of rising before midday. That was one of the things that was about to change. I drew back the curtains and flung open the windows. The stinking fog began to dissipate as a powerful draught blew through the room.

‘Rise and shine,’ I said to Lee, giving his bony shoulder a jerk.

He clicked into a fighting posture at once so the pot hadn’t scrambled his brain.

‘F**king bastard,’ he snarled, taking a swing at me. I easily dodged his wild lunge and pushed him back on the sofa. He rolled off and tumbled at my feet. I put my foot on his neck and pressed him into the floor.

‘Listen, Lee,’ I growled. ‘All this pot you’re smoking’s making you hyper aggressive. Smoke it inside this house again
and I’ll break your arm.’

He struggled and I pressed down harder.

Inarticulate groans rose from the floor.

Tony cleared his throat and spoke.

‘You can let him up, Mr Cunane … er … Dave. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let him smoke in Bob’s house but he says he can’t sleep without a bit of weed. I’ll see he behaves.’

‘Yeah, you said that before Tony but I think you like pot yourself.’

‘Sorry, Boss … er … Dave, but everyone likes a bit of weed after a hard day grafting.’

‘No Tony mate, smoke in this house and you’re in splints, just like him. Geddit?’

‘That’s not fair. Everybody smokes it.’

‘Maybe, but you’re still not listening Tony. I said anyone who smokes weed in this house gets a broken arm. I said nothing about the garden.’

‘Yer what?’ grunted Lee from below.

‘If you must do it, go in the garden down beyond the gazebo.’

‘Even if it’s raining?’ pleaded Tony.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a hard man, Dave.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m too soft for my own good,’ I said jerking Lee to his feet. ‘I’m not a social worker. If you both want to smoke pot until you don’t know what day of the week it is, that’s just fine by me. But you do it on your own time. The door’s that way if you want to leave.’

For a second I thought Lee was going to but Tony laid a hand on his arm. They stayed. Tony looked sheepish.

‘Right, there’s breakfast in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you twenty minutes to sort yourselves out.’

I went out and shut the door behind me.

I’d seen that Bob had left the makings of a big fry-up in the fridge and, without Jan at my elbow to disapprove, I reached for the frying pan. To hell with cholesterol! The danger of lead poisoning was more imminent.

By the time Tony staggered in, I had a nice pile of bacon, sausages, fried eggs and black pudding to dole out.

‘Er … Lee will be along in a minute,’ he said as I shared the fried food with him.

I’d almost cleared my plate before the gloomy, tense and spotty face of Lee appeared. He had difficulty processing the idea of a cooked breakfast and it took all Tony’s encouragement to get him to eat.

I laid out my idea.

‘We’ve got to find either one of the Fothergills, the fake or the real Fothergill, the black girl.’

Tony looked interested. He made no mention of his failure last night with the computer. Lee’s expression was one of glazed incomprehension.

‘Lee, if you were on the run, where would you hide?’ I asked the question more to see if I could wake him than expecting an answer.

‘On the run, Dave? Yeah, I see the one who robbed your safe hiding but what makes you think the black girl’s on the run?’ Tony said, covering for his mate again.

‘She’s committed a crime and I guess the False Fothergill has already told her to lie low. Anyway those two crooks at the Temp Agency, Gonzi and Big Haired Hilda, are probably reaching out for her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she very likely knows all about their cute little scam, that’s why. . . . Lee, I asked you a question: where do you think she’ll be hiding?’

He looked at me in panic and scratched his head.

‘You know, Lee, like when Beast was after you,’ Tony prompted.

‘The Beast?’ I asked.

‘Beast,’ Tony corrected. ‘He’s this bloke in Wythenshawe, armed robber by trade. He has this really savage lurcher. That’s why they call him Beast. When Lee crossed him he said he was going to feed Lee to the dog in little pieces.’

‘He would have too,’ Lee added, ‘he’s a right f**king c***.’

‘Lee, chill with the c-word. You’re only allowed to use it if someone’s actively trying to kill you, otherwise I go for the arm and it’s splint time again.’

He mouthed the word silently.

I pushed my chair back.

‘Lee, he means it,’ Tony said.

Lee made a sound which could be taken to mean sorry.

‘So what did you do when Beast was after your blood?’

‘Dunno,’ he muttered.

‘Come on.’

‘Well I dossed on different mates’ floors for three weeks until the big bastard got himself arrested for something else.’

‘Right, and where did you doss?’

‘I just told you, me mates.’

‘Where?’

‘Wythenshawe, Benchhill mainly. That’s where me mates are. People I can trust not to grass me up. I didn’t go out for three solid weeks, worse than prison it was.’

‘OK, now suppose you were a young black woman about twenty five years of age, no friends and relations around because you’ve just come from Africa, and you had to go to ground in Manchester. Where would you go?’

Lee scratched his head again.

Tony decided to help him out.

‘Dave, she’d go for somewhere she could rent easily and most of the rented property is in Fallowfield and Hulme. Places where the students hang out.’

‘Yeah, but she’s black,’ Lee said. ‘She could be in Fallowfield or Hulme but she’d be safer in Moss Side. Anyway there’s a lot going down with those students, it’s safer in Moss Side.’

He looked uncomfortable and I knew why.

‘Some people prey on the students, don’t they, Lee? They break into their flats and steal their laptops, mug them on the streets, drag them to cash points and force them to hand over their money and their cash cards.’

‘Who do you think you are?’ he said nastily. ‘I’ve done my time. I don’t need you raking things up.’

‘I’m raking it up for a reason. There’s a regular little community of muggers in that part of Manchester isn’t there?
There are so many at it that the police hardly even pretend to be stopping them.’

‘So?’

‘So you know who some of them are and I want you to use your contacts to find this black girl. It has to be the black girl and not the other one because I can give you a photo of her and you can get copies made. She’ll have moved in very recently. She’ll be keeping herself to herself and she’s most likely on her own. We’ll come up with some sort of cover story, rich girl running away from her family or such like.’

‘Sounds daft,’ Lee muttered.

‘OK, so we’ll make this real. There’s five hundred pounds for whoever spots her and five hundred for you when we reach her. How does that grab you?’

As I watched his eyes lost the glazed look. The light had come on in the Lee brain and there was someone at home. I guessed he was calculating how much weed he could buy for five hundred.

‘Yeah, might just work at that,’ he agreed.

‘Right, get a good breakfast inside you because I want you on this all day and all night until you get a result.’

‘Oh, come on Boss, be human. It’s only half past seven.’

‘Lee, it’s because I want to carry on being human that I’m doing this. Five hundred in your pocket for a result, Lee; isn’t that enough to get you moving?’

‘I guess.’

I turned to Tony.

‘Now you’ve got a hard day ahead of you. I want you to run the office.’

‘What?’

‘And that’s not all. I want you to tell every investigator who comes in a really good sob story about Fothergill going missing and how worried the firm is. There’s just a chance she gave one of them a clue about where she hangs out. They are mostly ex-coppers after all and so they’re…’

‘… really nosy buggers?’

‘That’s it.  I was going to say
trained observers
but nosy will do. Can you talk to ex-coppers?’

‘Yes, Dave, I don’t think any of them recognise me with the suit and the posh voice.’

‘Good, because there’s a lot more, I want you to get in touch with a specialised commercial fraud investigation business whose name I’ll give you and have the office checked out for fingerprints and bugs.’

‘I can do all that myself.’

‘No, what I want is a set of Fothergill’s prints. I have a friend who may be able to run them.’

‘
I
can do that Dave and the bugs as well.’

‘I’ll admit you found Fothergill’s bug but that one was a bit obvious …’

‘No, honestly all I need is a bit of stuff. I have a mate who can bring it round, detectors, radio scanners, infrared cameras, phone tap monitors and other stuff. You won’t even have to pay. He owes me and he’ll lend it to me.’

‘You can’t scan police radio. It’s all encrypted.’

‘I know that Dave. I used to be a burglar, remember? I don’t want to listen to the bluebottles but to the bugs in your office.’

‘Infrared cameras?’

‘You take a photo of a wall and if there’s a really modern bug you can find it by the heat it gives off. Some of the most ultramodern bugs change frequency rapidly so you can’t pick up the signal with a radio receiver or a police scanner. The rapid switching means they give off heat. Even so sometimes you have to spray the wall with liquid nitrogen first to bring up the contrast on the hot spots.’

Once again I was impressed by his expertise. Tony really had changed.

‘Who’s this friend then?’

‘I don’t like to say, Dave. He’s a very private guy.’

I was about to say that I didn’t want his criminal friends all over my office but remembered that I owed him my life. I must have been staring fixedly because he broke into my thoughts…

‘It’s alright Dave. We’ll find the bugs and I know how to lift prints. There’ll only be yours and Fothergill’s inside the safe, right?’

I nodded.

‘And yours, Fothergill’s and mine on the desk. So we can find hers by elimination. I can lift them all onto tape. I just need to get latent powder, a brush and some tape.’

‘No need, there’s a complete fingerprinting kit in the storeroom. We use it when a business suspects an employee of theft.’

‘So I’ll handle that then?’

‘OK, but then there’s the business. I’ll probably be killed if I go in to work but I’m not shutting up shop.’

‘But your inheritance, surely …’

‘Surely nothing, I’ve spent years building up Pimpernel and I’m not letting it slide. You’ll have to answer the phone and give out the quotes for jobs. Then investigators want paying for work they’ve done. I’m up to date with that now but I can’t afford any late payments or I’ll lose my labour force.’

‘Yeah, market forces Dave, law of supply and demand and all that. They have to earn their corn, we all do.’

‘Yes Tony, but how am I going to keep in touch with you to tell you what prices to offer or who to put on what job?’

‘Suppose I take down all the requests and promise to phone them back tomorrow. You can fill me in on who does what tonight.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed hesitantly. With delay like that I could see Pimpernel going down the tubes fast. The private investigation business is so competitive that a few days of inattention and you’ve had it. I’d just have to hope that Tony didn’t cause a major catastrophe. Come to think of it, I’d already caused one myself.

‘There’s one other thing, Tony.’

‘Yes,’ he said eagerly.

‘Clothes, the ones in this house are either for a giant or a human bulldozer. I need some clothes.’