KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) (5 page)

It was a sore point with Jan that several of her former journalist friends had refused to come to our housewarming. They felt Topfield was tainted because it was partly bought with libel damages.

‘Jan, if we do ever get our hands on the villa it might just be that I have purchased it with the proceeds of undiscovered crime but it’ll never happen. I’ve decided to turn Lew down. We can’t risk what we have here for a crazy adventure.’

She pulled me towards her and kissed me.

‘You’re right, Dave. Of course you are, but I can’t help thinking … and it isn’t as if you haven’t been involved in wild escapades before.’

‘You aren’t changing your mind … because I was thinking of phoning him right away and telling him I can’t help him.’

‘No, no, you’re absolutely right Dave. It’s just that it’s not every day a girl gets the chance to be a millionaire with villa in Italy. I think we should sleep on it.’

We went up. Early nights have been a feature of Jan’s condition.

The children’s bedroom doors were open. They were both sleeping peacefully. It was domestic bliss at Topfield Farm and that was the way it was going to stay. Jan noticed the shotgun but calmed down when I told her it was unloaded. Too zonked out to care, she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. I lay beside her fully clothed. The events of the day were churning over in my mind.

I couldn’t wait until morning before I gave Lew my decision. He had to be told. I slipped out of bed, fished around with my feet for my bedroom slippers to avoid switching a light on, slipped them on and went downstairs.

Lew answered almost on the first ring.

‘Oh, David, it’s you,’ he said.

He sounded weak; not at all the confident visitor who’d outwitted me this morning.

‘Expecting someone else were you Uncle Lew?’

‘Possibly,’ he muttered vaguely. ‘What is it? Have you come to a decision?’

He was on edge. I swiftly changed my mind. Turning him down flat was too brutal. I had to find a way to let him down gently.

‘Listen, Uncle Lew I’d like to come round and see you first thing tomorrow morning. I’ve been thinking things over and I’d like to talk you again.’

‘Are you going to help me?’

‘I’d like to talk things through with you.’

Maybe I could persuade him to relay his disturbing finding to the politicians who’d commissioned his enquiry. They’d have to take some action even if it was only to dismiss him. Once the
enquiry was out of his hands the danger if there was any danger, must recede. Surely he’d see that.

‘Is there any point, David?’ he asked. ‘I can tell by your tone that you’ve made your mind up.’

‘Uncle Lew, our business isn’t the sort of thing that should be discussed on the phone.’

‘There is that I suppose. All right, come round if you must. The front door will be unlocked, just come in when you get here.’

I crept back upstairs and undressed by the light from the landing. Janine slept on undisturbed. I fell into a light doze.

I awoke with a shattering jerk as one of the piles of empty cans I’d set up as makeshift booby traps in the yard clattered over. Janine was snoring gently. I got up, crept to the window and peered out from a gap between the curtains. I stood there for five minutes.

‘What are you doing Dave?’

‘There’s someone outside.’

She listened for a moment. There was utter silence, not even the owl which lived in the eaves of our barn was hooting.

‘There’s nothing,’ she said.

‘The cans fell over.’

‘Probably a prowling badger,’ she explained. ‘Come back to bed. Sir Lew’s set your nerves on edge.’

‘Nerves, me? I don’t have nerves,’ I said, but I slipped back into bed. I hadn’t seen any intruders in the yard and I hadn’t heard footsteps or curses as I surely would have if that pile of cans had fallen on an intruder.

I lay quietly for a long time and was drowsing when Janine suddenly jerked my arm.

‘Did you hear that? It was the outside gate opening. I’d know that sound anywhere.’

She began moving towards the window. Then I heard the unmistakeable noise of a car engine approaching. I pulled her back.

‘What the hell! We’re not expecting visitors.’

The bedside alarm registered 12:20 a.m.

The farmyard can be illuminated by floodlights which were installed because Lloyd was prone to sleepwalking when we moved to Topfield. As originally installed they were triggered by a motion sensor but our friendly owl foiled that plan by constantly turning them on at all hours of the night.

Now they’re controlled by switches, one of which is by my bedside.

I turned the switch on and drew back the curtain.

It was like looking out at a play.

It took an age for my sleepy mind to fit the pieces together and register what I was seeing.

A red Mini Cooper was parked in the farmyard. The passenger door was open and a short, stocky man was stepping out. He had a bottle in his hand and as I gaped he pulled out a lighter and lit a rag attached to the bottle. He ran forward.

I dived back and scrabbled for the gun under my bed.

When I got my act sufficiently together to the extent of opening the window and pointing the still unloaded gun the intruder was on the point of throwing his flaming missile up at us.

‘Cartridges!’ I screamed to Janine who’d scrambled out of bed and was taking in the lurid scene at my side.

Below me our attacker must have heard my despairing shout. He ignored the gun. I’ll swear that he grinned up at me before throwing the petrol bomb.

There was nothing I could do.

The firebomb curved up towards me. I ducked.

Wham!

It went too high. It missed the window and hit the plastic fascia below the roof. By some miracle it didn’t break but bounced off at an angle and smashed on the cobbles under our battered old Toyota Land Cruiser. A sheet of flame and thick black smoke enveloped the vehicle.

The bomber himself leaped back, moving away from the flames.

‘Thank you, guardian angel,’ I thought. Well, my mum believes in them and I must say I’ve had more than my fair share of luck over the years as well as some bad breaks. In an attack like this the first shot is always the best shot and he’d had his shot. Now it was my turn.

They weren’t finished.

The second man, the driver of the Mini Cooper, was out of the car now. He had the Mini’s boot open and was holding two bottles. It was impossible to mistake them for anything else but petrol bombs. This killer was tall and thin by contrast with his fellow murderer. He passed one bomb to the short man and set the other down ready for a third attempt. Both were nondescript except that they were wearing suits and had shaven heads which I thought was odd. They had to be ex-military or police.

Janine wrenched my shoulder and pressed two cartridges into my hand.

I frantically broke the gun and loaded.

This time when I poked the gun outside the short bomber had stationed himself some way from the blazing Toyota and was gauging the distance for his second throw as carefully as an Olympic shot-putter.

Shorty put the lighter to the bottle and lit the rag.

There was something calm and professional in his actions. This man had killed before. He wasn’t in a panic. There was no undue haste. This time he’d get us. We’d all be incinerated.

I slammed the gun into my shoulder and aimed at him.

I had him over open sights. A half-blind granny could hardly miss at such close range and I’m not a half-blind granny.

One squeeze of the trigger and I’d take his head clean off his shoulders.

Everything was happening very slowly. Seconds seemed to last for decades.

I took first pressure on the trigger, a little more and he’d be dead and we’d be safe.

A fleeting memory of that grave in Dee Elsworth’s garden flashed before me. I’m not making it up. I really did remember the last occasion I’d killed men in justifiable self defence. Sir Lew had well and truly refreshed my memory of that part of my biography.

I deflected my aim downwards and fired.

The shotgun blast missed him but pellets must have ricocheted off the cobbles and struck him because he howled and dropped the bomb which exploded at his feet. His legs were instantly encased in flame. Now calm deliberation was replaced by agonised shrieks. The screams went on and on.

The ugly image of a burning man is familiar to everyone from dozens of televised immolations. I watched the reality in horror. For a second I wondered if it would be kinder to shoot him. The man was howling and hopping about in extreme pain. Another careful shot and he’d be out of his misery.

The second man, the long thin character, came to his rescue. He dragged Shorty out of the pool of flame and began beating out the flames on his legs with his jacket.

Beside me Janine had her blood lust up.

‘What are you waiting for?’ she yelled. ‘Shoot them.’

‘Get the children,’ I shouted, without taking my eyes off the would-be bombers. ‘Go to the back door and wait for me.’

She slammed the box of cartridges down on the window sill in front of me.

‘Don’t let the bastards get away,’ were her parting words. ‘I’ll phone the police.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t do that!’ I screamed but she was gone.

The last thing I needed was the boys in blue turning up. It went without saying that I would be the main target of their suspicions when the questions started.

I’d every intention of allowing the bombers to escape. Having seen the inside of a cell I’d no wish to repeat the experience. This is Cheshire, not America with its wide open spaces where the local sheriffs congratulate householders for defending their lives and property. Here, only the police are licensed to kill.

As I watched the bombers began to make their getaway.

The tall man ripped the flaming clothing off the bomber. He must have burned his own hands badly. Then he lugged the injured man to the Mini Cooper, supporting his weight with his left arm. The high-pitched screams diminished to agonised moans. They were as loud and clear as if the sufferer was in the room with me. From the volume I guessed that he’d survive; at any rate he was moving. I leaned further forward out of the window to track them with the gun in case the tall man decided to pick up the unused firebomb.

My movement attracted his attention. Still holding his
partner upright he paused and pulled something out of his trouser pocket.

I knew what it was before the bullet smacked into the window frame where my head had been. I was already on the floor. I hugged the deck for a moment until I heard the sound of an engine revving. Any doubts that I was facing two highly trained killers vanished. The tall guy had fired from the hip. His bullet would have hit me right between the eyes.

When I finally looked out again the Mini Cooper was exiting from our farm track at high speed.

6

Tuesday: 12:25 a.m.

When I reached the kitchen Janine was holding Lloyd in her arms while Jenny clung to her side. Both children were half asleep. Janine had had the sense to leave the lights off but the glare from the blaze outside provided more than enough illumination.

‘Have they gone?’ Janine asked, mouthing her words silently.

I nodded my head.

‘Why can’t I phone the police or at least the fire brigade?’

‘You know why Janine. Think about it.’

She looked distressed as she was well entitled to but I’ve learned by hard experience that bossing Janine about is counterproductive.

‘Are you saying this is down to that bloody relative of yours?’

‘It must be. There’s no comeback from the detective work I do nowadays. None of the fraudsters who end up in court even know I’m involved.’

‘So what Sir Lew told you must be true … There is a conspiracy.’

I shrugged. This wasn’t the time for an inquest.

Janine hugged Lloyd fiercely. Both he and Jenny began to wake up.

There had to be some way of protecting Jenny and Lloyd from further damage. Tonight’s event could do lasting harm when the knowledge that they’d almost been burned to death sank in.

If
they ever learned about it.

Both children are highly imaginative and sensitive. Probably most children are, I only know about these two. When I’d been taken from them before, they’d had nightmares for months. ‘Pining’ was how Janine described it but it was more than that. They’d needed counselling.

We’d only recently got the better of Lloyd’s sleepwalking and he still often comes into our bed.

Mangler gave an attention-seeking growl from his basket. Lloyd pulled free from his mother and went to the yellow Labrador. Jenny joined him. The dog rubbed its powerful muzzle along Lloyd’s body.

‘Dave, what are we going to do?’ Janine asked. She pulled me to one side, away from the children.

The move up to the hills has mellowed Janine but there’s still a lot of contrariness in her nature. Oil and water, attraction of opposites, that’s what it is with us. I recognised the glint in her eye and the firm jut of her jaw.

‘I’m not going to start killing people, if that’s what you mean. Not for the Right Honourable Sir Lew or all the landed property in England.’

‘Thank God,’ the devout agnostic whispered, ‘but what about us?’

Her blood lust had subsided and I was wise enough not to remind her of it.

‘Jenny and Lloyd and Baby Cunane have to go where they’ll be safe,’ I said quietly, patting her bump, ‘and we have to come up with a story that doesn’t have them all waking up in the middle of the night screaming.’

She thought about this for a moment. Janine likes to be very open and truthful about everything with the children. I agree up to a point but I think children are children and adults are adults … very unfashionable.

‘Dave, if you can make up a story that stops
me
waking up and screaming hit me with it now. To think I wanted to install my mother here,’ she said with a strained laugh.

I forced a smile. The mention of her mother gave me a glimmer of an idea.

‘Janine, you know your mum wanted us to go up to Colquhuons with her. She hates rattling around in that lodge on her own.’

She nodded.

Colquhuons is a luxurious golf resort on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. There’s an estate of luxurious timeshare lodges in the grounds. Jan’s mother owns two weeks of one of the lodges. It’s the same two weeks every year, chosen not to clash with the Easter holidays except once in a blue moon. That was fine when the only likely occupants were Janine, her brother, mother and golf-loving father. Now her mother’s on her own up there for two weeks every year and she doesn’t even play golf. Janine’s father is dead and her brother’s settled in Canada. Clarissa White, ‘Granny Clarrie’ to the children, plain Clarrie to her daughter, had implored us to join her but this year the dates meant we’d have had to take the children out of school and Janine wasn’t willing to do that even for a single week, let alone two.

‘You can tell them you’re all going up there now. They love the place …’

‘But it’s the middle of the night.’

‘You can tell them it’s a surprise holiday.’

‘I don’t know, Dave.’

‘You’ll all be a lot safer four hundred miles from here.

‘OK then, Colquhuons it is,’ she said after a moment’s thought.

‘You tell them about it and I’ll say there’s been accident with the Land Cruiser. I’d better get outside and put out the fire before the house goes up.’

‘But what if the bombers come back?’

‘We’ve got some time, we must have. The shotgun’s behind the sofa in the living room. It’s not loaded. The shells are here.’

I pressed four cartridges into her hand.

‘Don’t let me in until I give this knock.’

I rapped on the table three times, then twice more after a pause.

‘Tell the kids it’s a game.’

‘Yes, living with you is a barrel of laughs, isn’t it Dave? Laugh a minute!’

I paused on my way to the door, expecting anger after the sarcasm. Instead she gave me a hug and a kiss.

‘Try to keep out of trouble,’ she warned, ‘as if …’

I gave a silent sigh of relief. Janine accepted that it wasn’t any action of mine that had brought danger to our door. I crossed my fingers. How long this favourable mood would last was
anyone’s guess.

The children and the dog all looked up at me. I gave them a thumbs-up sign and dashed outs