by Dane Cobain
Leipfold flashed her a rare smile, grabbed the keys to his motorbike and left the office without another word.
“Damn it,” Maile mumbled, shuffling back to her desk to eat her lunch while she half-heartedly manned the silent telephone. “Finally something cool comes along and he doesn’t take me with him. Go figure.”
* * *
Leipfold slowed to a stop outside Bateman’s Motors, parked his bike and removed his helmet. Then he stalked purposefully towards the reception office. It was a hot mess, but it offered everything a motorist might need, from a garage and repair shop to a hire lot and a sales floor for a couple dozen used cars. Leipfold thought that if there was anywhere he might find a black, self-driving sedan, this place was as good as any. But he was going to need a little help to find it.
Bateman was working the front desk. The guy looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Greg Bateman was in his late thirties, but he looked at least ten years older. He was a skinhead in a sharp suit with more meat than a butcher’s window. Leipfold waited for him to finish a phone call and then introduced himself.
“Leipfold, huh?” Bateman murmured. “The name’s Greg Bateman. Put it there.” He held out a fleshy paw and Leipfold took it. Bateman’s handshake felt honest, and Leipfold distrusted it immediately. He remembered one of Jack Cholmondeley’s old sayings. Never trust a used car dealer. A simple saying, but one that had served him well over the years. It had even influenced his decision to drive a motorbike.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Bateman,” Leipfold replied. “I’ve got a little business to send your way.”
“You have? What kind of business?”
“We’ll get to that,” Leipfold said. “But first, I was hoping to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Fire away,” Bateman replied. “I’ll do what I can.”
Leipfold smiled. “I’m looking for a specific type of vehicle,” he said. “It’s an autonomous black sedan. I hear you might be able to help me.”
Bateman froze, then fixed Leipfold with a look of intense concentration.
“Yeah,” he said, choosing his words like a chess player picking his moves. “I might be able to help you. You understand, of course, that there’s a lot of paperwork involved with a vehicle like this? A lot of laws and regulations.”
“I understand,” Leipfold replied. “Thing is, I don’t think you have much choice. That car is part of an active case.”
Greg Bateman laughed uncertainly, then stopped when he realised Leipfold wasn’t joking. “You a cop?” he asked.
“I’m a private investigator,” Leipfold replied. “Can we talk?”
Bateman frowned and shook his head. Then he logged out of the computer, took the phone off the hook and led Leipfold into his office, just off to the side of the showroom. He locked the door behind them, showed Leipfold to a small sofa, drew the blinds and then sat down behind his desk.
“This better be good, Mr. Leipfold,” he said.
* * *
James Leipfold and Greg Bateman spent so long talking that their stomachs started to rumble. Leipfold told him what he knew about the Thompson case and Bateman listened with growing interest. They went over the scene of the crime. Leipfold supplied as many details as he could, including what little they knew of the car. Bateman’s face fell as Leipfold’s story continued. By the end of it, he sat slumped, defeated, with his face in his hands. Leipfold waited for him to say something.
“This isn’t good,” Bateman said. “This isn’t good at all. I know the car that you’re talking about. I own it.”
“Can I see it?”
“Could be a problem,” Bateman said. “The last guy who hired it had an accident. Nothing too serious. Said he hit a fox when he had it on manual.”
Leipfold’s eyes lit up. “A fox, huh? So where’s the car now?”
“It’s in for repairs,” Bateman said. “Should be back in a couple of hours.”
Leipfold sighed, thinking about the potential evidence that was being removed from the car at that very moment. He asked Bateman if it he could call off the repairs, but the salesman shook his head.
“Can’t help you there, mate,” he said. “It’s already on the way back. I sent one of the lads out with it. You know, to keep an eye on it. It’s an expensive piece of kit.”
“Hold it here when it gets back,” Leipfold replied. “I’ll want to take a look at it. Do you remember the name of the man who caused the damage?”
Bateman scowled. “Of course,” he said. “How could I forget? The guy was called Tom Townsend.”
* * *
After their meeting, Leipfold hopped on Camilla and drove back to the warehouse where he’d first met Tom Townsend. This time, he lurked outside, trying his best to look nonchalant. Unlike Townsend, Leipfold couldn’t act, but it was London and no one gave a damn. Townsend didn’t even look around when he left the building.
Leipfold chained his bike to a nearby railing and followed Tom Townsend on foot. He had his head down and his eyes on a mobile phone screen, so it wasn’t difficult to avoid being spotted. Nevertheless, he kept his distance as Townsend wormed through the streets towards his apartment. Leipfold had a hunch that he wouldn’t walk far, and he was right. After eight minutes by Leipfold’s watch, Tom Townsend turned into a cul-de-sac and walked up to a white front door.
Leipfold approached him while he was fumbling with his keys.
“Afternoon, Mr. Townsend,” he said. “Let me guess, just nipping home for a bite to eat?”
Tom Townsend looked confused for a moment. Then, exasperation took over and his eyes narrowed.
“You again,” he said. “How did you find me?”
“It was a guess,” Leipfold admitted. “But an educated one. You live for your work. I figured you’d have a place nearby so you could spend as much time in that warehouse of yours as possible. After that, I just had to follow you.”
Townsend stared at him. He sighed and turned back to the door, flipping the latch with his key. He tried to close the door in Leipfold’s face, but the detective used the same trick he’d used at Eleanor Thompson’s place and didn’t even wince when the wood banged against the side of his foot.
“Not so fast,” Leipfold said. “I want a word with you.”
“Move your foot,” Townsend replied.
“Not a chance. I want to talk to you about self-driving cars, Mr. Townsend. Self-driving cars and Donna Thompson.”
Leipfold had expected a reaction and he got one, but if he’d been hoping to be asked inside then he was sorely disappointed. Townsend pushed past Leipfold and stepped back onto the street, closing the door behind him.
“Let’s walk and talk,” Tom Townsend said. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with the car,” Leipfold replied. “The self-driving sedan. Why did you hire it?”
“I hired it because I could,” Townsend said. “The car guy gave me a discount. Still more expensive than a taxi, but totally worth it. I was taking someone to dinner and I wanted to impress her. It worked.”
“Marie Rieirson?”
“Oh,” Townsend said. “You know her.”
“We’ve met,” Leipfold replied. “So the two of you are dating?”
“Sort of,” Townsend replied. “But I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“You’re right. My business is with the car.” Leipfold glanced across at him as their feet pounded the pavement. “Mr. Townsend, are you aware of the damage to the vehicle? I believe Greg Bateman – the, uh, car guy – charged you for some repair work. What happened?”
“That’s easy,” Townsend replied. “Nothing happened. The guy’s a shyster. That vehicle was in good shape last time I saw it. It even had a full tank.”
“And when was the last time you saw it?”
“Outside the restaurant,” T
ownsend said. “Ask the staff. Marie and I got out of the car and sent it back to Bateman’s place when we were done with it.”
Leipfold thought back to Maile’s reports. “Aren’t those cars supposed to have someone behind the wheel at all times?” he asked. “You know, just in case?”
Tom laughed. “Yeah,” he said evasively. “About that…”
* * *
Back at Bateman’s Motors, Leipfold was eyeing up the black sedan. Greg Bateman had given him a brief overview of the way that the machine worked, but Leipfold was an old-fashioned guy and he didn’t take much in. He nodded along while Bateman talked about GPS, 4G and real-time computing, knowing all along that he’d drive it in manual on the way back to the office.
“Be careful with it,” Bateman said. Leipfold grunted and signed the paperwork while the salesman fetched the keys.
“Of course,” Leipfold replied. “I give you my word. And you do the same with Camilla.”
“It’s a deal,” Bateman said. “You sure you want to go through with this? You could get a better price at another dealership.”
“I could,” Leipfold admitted. “But you’ll be doing me a favour. I’ll sell you the bike, even though you’re fleecing me, and you’ll lend me that car of yours.”
“You want to buy the car?” Bateman paused for a moment. “I’m sorry, it’s not for sale.”
“I don’t want to buy it,” Leipfold replied. “I want to borrow it. Just for a day or so.”
“And the motorbike?”
“I need the money,” Leipfold explained. “I love Camilla, but I can’t afford to run her. She gulps down petrol like there’s no tomorrow and my insurance is about to go up. Then there’s cash flow and my debt instalments. Legal fees. Overdue invoices. Final demands from the taxman. It’s her or the business. I choose the business.”
“Makes sense.” The car dealer thought for a moment. His brow furrowed. “Okay,” he said. “It’s a deal.”
“You just take care of Camilla,” Leipfold growled. “Don’t sell her unless you get a good offer. One day, I’ll buy her back from you.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Bateman replied. “But I’m a businessman, Mr. Leipfold. If the right offer comes along, I’ll take it.”
“Understood.”
Leipfold shook Bateman’s hand and left him to it, then pulled on his biker gloves to hide his prints and climbed into the driver’s seat of the sedan. Then he threaded through the streets towards his office. He hadn’t driven a car since his accident, but now he was back behind the wheel and scooting through the streets of London. He knew he’d miss Camilla and that he’d got a bum deal for her, but he also knew that if he could crack this case then business would boom and he’d be able to buy her back again.
He parked the sedan outside the office and hurried inside to talk to Maile, who was eating sushi and tapping away at her laptop. She didn’t look up when he entered the office.
“I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “It’s a fun one. I’ve got the car, and I need you to take a look at it. Figure out how it works, what it does and what bearing it has on the case. I’m convinced that there’s something to find, and I want you to be the one to find it.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Maile replied.
“You’ve got two hours,” Leipfold said. “And then I’m calling Jack Cholmondeley. It can’t hurt for him to owe us a favour. Besides, I’m not going to withhold evidence from the boys in blue. Find out as much as you can. Check its fail-safes and that sort of thing. I understand it’s programmed to avoid accidents, so why did it mow down Donna Thompson?”
“Got it. Are you sure it’s the right vehicle?”
“Pretty sure,” Leipfold said. “Now we just need to find out who programmed it to kill.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Maile replied. “I can’t promise I’m going to find anything.”
Leipfold shrugged. “Two hours,” he said. “Get going.”
* * *
Maile had the car and Bateman had the motorbike, so Leipfold took the tube to Marie Rieirson’s place. Maile had found her address online and jotted it down inside his Moleskine.
It was dark by the time he arrived, although it was only the early evening. Leipfold wore a jumper beneath his coat, but the wind still bit at his fingers and chafed every time he reached into his pocket to check his phone. Marie Rieirson lived on a busy main road, like the road Donna Thompson died on, but Leipfold found her address with ease.
The front garden was wild and overgrown, but the façade of the house was in good shape and looked almost inviting. There was no light from the front of the house, but Leipfold could see the dull glow of an interior light from somewhere deeper inside. He hesitated for a second to take stock of the place, then strolled up to the door and rang the bell.
It echoed throughout the house, bouncing off the walls and the woodwork like an alarm in a multi-storey car park. Leipfold waited and then waited some more, but no one came to answer. He looked for movement on the other side of the curtains, but the house was suspiciously still. Leipfold didn’t like it. He had a bad feeling about it, and he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts.
Leipfold swallowed his worries and rang the bell again, but still nothing. He followed the wall to where it met a wooden fence, then scrambled up and over it and fell gracelessly to the ground on the other side. He found himself in Marie’s back garden, a cluttered affair with too much wildlife. Leipfold disentangled himself from the bush he’d landed in and made his way across the patio towards the back door.
He cupped his hands against the glass and pressed his face against the door, but he couldn’t see much. He knocked again and waited for a response, but he wasn’t expecting one and so he wasn’t disappointed when nobody answered.
So he turned to the artillery, pulling out his pocket knife and using one of the attachments to pop the lock. It was a model that Leipfold was unfamiliar with, but the principle was the same and he was inside the house within a minute. On the other side of the glass, in the darkness of the living room, Leipfold could sense something, a pervasive atmosphere that sent his primal fight or flight reflex into overdrive. It was the same thing he felt in a danger zone, when the birds went silent before a sniper shot rang out through the dust-ridden air. He hadn’t felt that feeling for a long time, but he recognised it like an old, old friend.
The hit of adrenaline was more comforting than any bottle and Leipfold felt a new strength running through him that he hadn’t felt since his twenties, maybe not even since his days in the army.
This is living, he thought. He wondered what Cholmondeley would think if he knew where he was and what he was doing, and he quickly dismissed the thought and filed it away as one to come back to in the future. He was breaking and entering, and he knew he was breaking and entering, but he also didn’t give a shit. That’s where he differed from Jack Cholmondeley. He had no interest in the law; it was just a means to an end. He preferred the hunt for the truth, and he knew from experience that the law had a habit of getting in the way of that. Law or not, he wanted answers. Whether the evidence would stand up in a courtroom was a different matter entirely, and something that he left for the police force to worry about. There was no client here, no obligation to Lady Justice. Leipfold just wanted an answer, and maybe a front-page story in The Tribune.
Leipfold stalked through the house, holding the knife in his hand just in case. A dull knife is better than no knife at all, he thought. He used his phone as a torch until he found the light switches and then roamed from room to room in search of the house’s occupant. But she was nowhere to be found.
His night was about to get a hell of a lot worse. Leipfold thought he was being clever by taking the back way out and relocking the door behind him, but no such luck. He hopped the fence again and landed straight in the waiting arms of Constable Hyneman.
Chapter Th
irteen: Jailed
JAMES LEIPFOLD wasn’t happy. He’d thought he was done with jail cells. Yet there he was, cooped up all over again. He scowled, leaned back against the wall and went over the events of the night before.
Constable Hyneman had cuffed and cautioned him on suspicion of breaking and entering, then bundled him into the back of a police car. They’d driven back to the station, and Hyneman had booked Leipfold in and left him to stew it out. After an hour or so, he was visited by Sergeant Gary Mogford, who was wearing his uniform and who had a grim expression on his stubborn face.
“You’re in trouble now,” he said, cutting straight to the chase. “The guvnor can’t help you now. No special treatment for you.”
Leipfold shrugged and said, “I don’t expect it. But I do expect two things. First off, I’d like a lawyer. I know my rights and I’m entitled to legal support. I’d also like to make my phone call.”
Mogford growled, but he had no choice. He summoned Constable Groves and asked her to escort Leipfold through the booking process and out to the phones in the waiting room. She stood a respectful distance away while he put in a call to the office.
Maile answered on the third ring and she didn’t seem too surprised when Leipfold told her where he was. She listened as he recounted his adventures and then faithfully obeyed his instructions when he asked her for an update.
“Well,” she said, “the car has gone, just like you wanted. Some old copper came to pick it up. I told him what you told me to say and kept Greg Bateman out of it, but it’s not going to look good if they start asking questions. What did they pick you up for?”
“Breaking and entering,” Leipfold said. “It’s nothing. Happens all the time in this line of work. Did you learn anything about the car?”
“Of course, boss. I’ll tell you about it when you get out. When are they going to release you?”
A dozen feet away, Constable Groves caught Leipfold’s eye and tapped her watch. He winked at her.
“Soon,” Leipfold said. “I’m working on it.”