Boiling Point

by Frank Lean

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Yes,’ Brendan insisted. ‘They’ll turn up his teeth or his lucky safe-key or something tomorrow, you’ll see.’

  ‘What about the tapes?’

  ‘Oh,’ he grunted. ‘I’m sorry, mate, but I don’t buy any of that. I used to think you had a vivid imagination until I met your dad. He’s been brooding on the King fiasco and it’s made him a bit strange.’

  ‘King told us . . .’

  ‘He told us what he thought your father wanted to hear. He picked up on what Paddy said. The rest was pure fantasy . . . humouring a sick man or just lying for the sake of it.’

  ‘But what about the way Brandon Carlyle made his fortune?’ I protested. ‘You’ve got to admit that’s real.’

  ‘Listen, Dave, Carlyle made his loot by buying up small, undervalued companies, finding the bits that were worth something and then selling them on. The only unusual thing about him is the speed of the turnaround. He’s made plenty of enemies in the process. They’ve complained to the financial authorities both here and in America often enough and, believe me, if there was any blackmailing going on it would have come out years ago. I’ll believe in those lists when you put them in my hands. Round Up lists! If I don’t go and round up my own family I’ll have no home to go to.’

  There must have been something in my expression.

  ‘Dave! I’m sorry about King. It was rough. You get him out and your father char-grills him, that’s tough! But you’ve had a serious blow on the head. Stop worrying about King or your father and start thinking about yourself or you’ll be back in hospital,’ he warned.

  58

  THE MOB OF reporters waiting by the ground-floor exit of Thornleigh Court dispersed during the night. Was that down to the hidden hand of Brandon Carlyle or merely due to fatigue and deadlines being passed? I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

  I took Brendan Cullen’s advice and went back to work on Monday morning, hoping to start putting my life back together. The business showed no sign of imminent collapse – if anything we were busier than ever. There were no reports of quarries being broken into. The Vince King story was a one-day sensation in the media. That was all it had ever been. Miscarriage of justice cases were two a penny these days. There was a paragraph or two on the fire in the local papers and that was it. Paddy was already talking about having plans drawn up for a new house and had decided to rent a cottage for himself and Eileen. I found it chilling the way people I met joined the ranks of the late and unlamented without anyone turning a hair. I suppose I was getting middle aged.

  I wanted someone official to start ranting and raving: Where’s Almond? . . . Why’s King dead? . . . Why did someone try to kill Dave Cunane? But nobody did. DCI Cullen didn’t show his face. I had a letter from the Police Complaints Authority telling me that investigation into the alleged assault against me was still proceeding but that it was considered too early to come to any conclusions.

  Janine phoned and suggested meeting for lunch, so I took that as a starting point in my struggle to claw my way back to normality.

  ‘I can’t seem to settle to work,’ she complained over the soup course.

  I refrained from saying ‘Snap!’

  ‘It seems pointless writing a story about some starlet’s love life or her boyfriend’s drug habit when I can’t stop thinking and worrying about my own children all the time.’

  After what I’d been through, comforting Janine didn’t come easily, but I tried. ‘Henry’s back in America, they’ll be OK now,’ I told her confidently.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘They have these professional child kidnappers over there. He might try again.’ She looked tense. There were lines in her forehead that I hadn’t seen before.

  ‘I can supply you with a bodyguard if you like,’ I offered with a smile.

  ‘I know, but he or she would be so expensive,’ she said, still with that same worried, intelligent expression that she seemed to have been wearing for weeks. Janine’s no raving beauty but there’s a depth and intensity about her that draws me. I think her capacity to jump to the wrong conclusions must be similar to my own.

  ‘I don’t know, you can sometimes find a good bodyguard who’ll work for pocket money and all-found,’ I said in the same serious tone she’d used. She seemed to consider my words. ‘You know, supply him with bed and board, especially bed,’ I said.

  ‘Dave!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve got a one-track mind. I’ve not even finished my soup and you’re propositioning me! Clyde Harrow had the decency to wait until I was fed.’

  I pulled a small piece of bread off my roll and flicked it at her.

  ‘We’ll have no ice-cold showers over my marriage tackle, lady,’ I warned.

  She laughed and her frown lines faded for a moment. Then the serious look returned.

  ‘I’m thinking about you all the time but it’ll take me a while to get back to normal in that department. I can’t stop seeing an image of you on the floor with your head covered in blood. Perhaps we could take things a step at a time. The children keep asking about you. Jenny’s doing this science project – maybe you could come to the Science Museum with us this weekend?’

  I was perfectly happy with that. We made a firm date to meet. I hardly had the strength to insist on anything these days. Although still hanging around like an unwanted lodger, my libido hadn’t been very active in recent days. That was one thing that inclined me to believe that my midnight tryst with Marti had been a fantasy. I could have found out by phoning her but that didn’t seem a very clever idea. My best friend already believed that I was ready for a trip to the funny farm and I could do without spreading the impression even more widely. As for Brandon Carlyle having a contract out on me, well, that isn’t the type of thing that a credit checking agency will normally find out for you.

  By Thursday afternoon I was back into a more or less normal routine . . . truthfully, a less than normal routine. I missed Janine and the children.

  ‘Urgent phone call for you, boss,’ Celeste said, ‘line three.’

  There were times when I still found it hard to credit that Pimpernel Investigations had multiple phone lines.

  I picked up the phone. ‘Dave, have you heard the news?’ Janine asked breathlessly. ‘No, of course you haven’t. It’s only just come in here. There’s some kind of hostage situation going on at the Carlyle place and they think there are casualties. My editor’s letting me go because I know the layout.’

  ‘Hold on, Janine. The police won’t let you get within half a mile of South Pork.’

  ‘I’ve prepared for this story and I’m not going to miss it.’

  ‘Keep me posted.’

  Janine was as good as her word but there wasn’t much for her to report, and anyway the event was covered by national TV and radio. The identity of the hostage-takers wasn’t known and the media played a delightful game of speculating which outfit was holding the Carlyle family to ransom. Every acronym in the terrorist lexicon was considered. The police were notably tight-lipped. A minister at the Home Office issued a statement on behalf of the Home Secretary calling for a peaceful surrender by the terrorists.

  I had my own opinions and even hopes, but I’d been told that they were fantasies, so I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t tempted to speak to Brendan Cullen, and Paddy didn’t even give me a phone call.

  The break came at about four a.m. I was rolling over in my bed trying to get myself comfortable for the remainder of the night when I heard a helicopter hovering low overhead. That wasn’t unusual. Like most of the inhabitants of South Manchester, I have rather sour feelings about the police helicopter. The boys in blue like playing with their toy at odd hours. They have to, if only to keep up with the demand for material for TV shows. I tried to wrap a pillow round my head to drown out the noise and drifted back into a half sleep only to be stirred a few minutes later by pounding on my door.

  ‘What the hell!’ I said when I opened it to admit Br
endan Cullen.

  ‘Get dressed, sunshine, you’re coming in the big fly bird,’ he announced. His face was flushed and his eyes shining with excitement. I hadn’t seen him so full of bounce for months.

  ‘You’re joking!’ I said dismissively. ‘The GMP should open an office in these flats, you’re here so often!’

  ‘Losing your beauty sleep, are you? Listen – the Carlyle siege? It’s Vince King who’s behind it.’

  ‘Oh no, he’s dead. You told me,’ I said, struggling to sound as bored as possible.

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that, but he’s got the Carlyle place rigged with enough explosive to blow half of Cheshire to kingdom come and he’s demanding that you turn up as a mediator.’

  ‘No way, Brendan. He couldn’t possibly have explosives. You put me straight on that.’

  ‘He didn’t bring any explosives with him or rob any quarries, if that’s what you mean. It turns out that Carlyle Junior keeps enough fireworks at Moat House Farm or South Pork or whatever it’s called to light up South Cheshire for a month. King’s rigged up dozens of booby traps and he’s using a firework display computer to control them. The bugger’s as tricky as a bagful of snakes.’

  ‘He’s an old man, a throwback.’

  ‘No, he’s had help. There were at least three with him, but he’s on his own now.’

  By this time the brief flare of adrenaline caused by the banging on my door had fizzled out. I looked at Cullen. For once he’d lost that irritatingly superior expression he usually wore in my company.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bren,’ I said, ‘but I’m tired and I’m going back to bed.’

  ‘Don’t joke, Dave. You’ve got to come. I looked the other way when you pulled out your illegal shooter.’

  ‘What shooter? Tell me what legal right you have to haul me off on some wild escapade in the middle of the night,’ I said. I was thoroughly enjoying myself now.

  By way of reply Bren pulled open my dressing gown.

  ‘Dave, you’ll wear a wire,’ he replied, ignoring my protests. ‘I want a recording of everything that’s said. This is our best chance to crack the Carlyle racket.’

  ‘There is no Carlyle racket. How many times have you told me?’

  ‘All right, have your fun. You’re entitled. I told you months ago that the Carlyles were getting so much protection that it could only be down to national security. Well, you and your old man have more or less unravelled that, but I could hardly give chapter and verse to a pair of civilians, because that’s all you are.’

  ‘But now I’m the civilian you need to pull your chestnuts out of the fire,’ I said. I hope I kept any note of gloating out of my voice. ‘So what’s King done?’

  ‘He wanted the Home Secretary in there to hear Brandon Carlyle confess to fitting him up. We managed to argue him out of that but he’s going to blow up the place at dawn unless you turn up. He wouldn’t let a copper in to see him at any price but he’ll put up with you for some reason. He’s expecting you to be wired up, but be careful. There’ve already been three fatalities – those bodyguards of Carlyle’s have more guts than sense and King’s got the survivors penned into the gym. He’s serious. He claims that Carlyle will have him killed anyway and that he’s nothing to lose by getting his two penn’orth in first.’

  I hurried to dress. Bren ushered a technician into the room who taped a radio mike to my chest. The transmitter was placed in the small of my back. Moments later Bren and I were crammed into the small police helicopter which had landed on the Meadows and then we were away over the sleeping suburbs and small towns, heading towards the solitary splendour of South Pork.

  ‘You!’ Brandon Carlyle snarled when I finally made my way into the atrium where he, Charlie and Marti were imprisoned. It wasn’t easy. The many large glass and pottery flower pots now contained cans of black gunpowder. Trailing wires led towards the atrium. Three corpses lying near the gym door in pools of congealed blood demonstrated the lethal effects of shrapnel.

  ‘Yeah, it’s me, and don’t think I’m here by choice,’ I replied.

  ‘You’ve got some face on you, Cunane,’ Brandon growled, ‘coming here.’

  ‘No,’ King snapped, ‘I want him. Keep your big trap shut until you’re told to speak, Carlyle.’

  Brandon Carlyle began laughing.

  ‘You’re small-time, King . . . small mind and small ideas. First you demand the Home Secretary in person, but then you settle for a Manchester private detective. What a joke!’

  There was nothing funny about King. He was wearing army-style camouflage clothes and, judging by the smell, he was also wearing the surface layer of several cow pastures. He’d made various alterations to Brandon’s fancy décor. Except for the one I’d come in by, every door was blocked with piles of furniture. In the space created there was a massive pile of fireworks. I had some trouble adjusting. Fireworks were associated with happy occasions in my mind.

  King had lugged the electronic firework console into the room. It was now installed on one of the marble-topped tables. He turned to it. ‘I’ve only to touch a key and young Charlie here’s going to be needing a peg-leg,’ he said quietly. ‘So shut up, or you’ll see how funny that is.’

  I looked at Charlie. He was bound, gagged and festooned with fireworks from head to foot. The word ‘fireworks’ doesn’t convey the right picture. These were massive, thick tubes attached to Charlie’s body with duct-tape. He looked terrified. Sweat was dripping off his fleshy face. There was no sign of anyone else. Marti was sprawled on a sofa next to her father-in-law. The sofa itself was draped with explosives and they were both lashed together with duct-tape.

  King watched me scrutinise his hostages. He seemed proud of the situation.

  ‘Don’t think I’m going to let Marti go because she’s my daughter. She’s as bad as Brandon. Told me it was my duty to stay in prison so she could enjoy a nice standard of living, that’s what she did!’ King sounded very near the edge.

  ‘Can’t you let her go?’ I pleaded.

  ‘Don’t get any wrong ideas, Cunane. You’re just here to listen to the fine birds sing. Come here!’ he ordered.

  I walked over to him and he patted me down. I felt his hand touch the radio transmitter. He looked me in the eye before speaking.

  ‘There we are,’ he said. ‘Clean as a whistle. No wires. We can talk as if we’re among friends, and the first thing you do, Marti, is tell this clown of a detective how many times you’ve tried to kill him.’

  ‘Dad!’ Marti said. For the first time since I’d met her there was a note of genuine pleading in her voice.

  ‘No, he’s entitled to know. You tell him.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she said.

  Vince touched the keyboard and the windows rattled as a powerful explosion shook the building. Flakes of plaster landed on us.

  ‘The next one’s in here,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a full day to do this, you know. Who’d have ever thought Charlie would come in useful for something? Handy him having a container-load of illegal Chinese fireworks, wasn’t it?’

  Charlie’s eyes rolled pathetically as he struggled to speak through his gag. Marti scowled at his recumbent form but she still looked stubborn.

  ‘Was it you who sent the white van after me on the motorway?’ I prompted. I didn’t share Marti’s apparent confidence that her father meant her no harm.

  Marti looked as if someone had suggested she have teeth extracted without anaesthetic. She made a short motion with her head.

  ‘Tell him, you bitch!’ King snarled. ‘Or your meal-ticket’s dancing days will be over.’ If the look of savage fury on King’s face was a pretence, he was the world’s best actor. His fingers hovered over the console.

  ‘I already know about it, Marti!’ I coaxed.

  ‘Not so thick as you look, are you?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘I gave you every chance to leave Ironpants but you’re too stupid. You didn’t think I was going to let you get away with that, did you?’

  ‘How did you d
o it?’

  ‘Paul Longstreet knows people. It was them in the street outside. They were looking after me.’

  ‘What about the mysterious London firm that wanted a share of Brandon’s big tickle?’

  She laughed, mad as ever. Brandon nudged her furiously.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told him. ‘Can’t you see Vince is going to do us whatever we say?’ Then she turned to me. ‘Dave, you’re a gullible fool. You’re ready to believe anything.’

  ‘Not quite anything,’ I muttered. ‘It was you who killed Sam Levy, wasn’t it?’

  She laughed, this time the full thunderclap. Tears rolled down her cheeks. We all waited patiently for the disturbance to subside.

  ‘I was wondering how long it was going to take you to work out that the trains between London and Manchester run in both directions. I came back when Brandon told me that Sam was trying to get in on the act after Lou Olley had his comeuppance.’

  ‘So you did that as well?’

  ‘Of course. I had some help with me. Paul was very obliging.

  ‘Did you think I was really drunk that day at the Renaissance? Brandon and Charlie here had worked out that a permanent separation would be cheaper for them than a divorce. I found that Reichert woman myself. All she wanted was a mobile home. It’s no secret that I wanted a lot more. What I told you about Sam’s nose being out of joint on account of Olley was true enough, but Sam was far too cautious to go round offing people. He thought he’d try to cosy up with you and worm his way back into the organisation that way, but I couldn’t let him do that. Besides, he had something I wanted.’

  ‘Shut up, you mad whore!’ Brandon shouted. He looked frantic.

  King laughed. ‘Getting near the knuckle now, are we?’ he sneered.

  ‘We can still sort this,’ Brandon said. ‘Let me go and I can cut a deal for us both.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of your deals,’ the crazy ex-convict taunted. ‘The last one cost me twenty years of my life.’