by Frank Lean
‘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
7
Tuesday: 2:25 a.m.
There were two six litre foam fire extinguishers in the barn left over from my house building operations. For once I was grateful for the health and safety regulations.
One was enough to save the Toyota from total destruction. The Land Cruiser has a diesel engine and although there were flames lapping underneath the vehicle the fuel tank hadn’t blow up. The main damage was to both offside wheels and the paint work. One tyre was completely burnt through and the vehicle sagged at an odd angle. There was nothing I could do about it for now.
When I’d finished with the foam I looked round the yard.
The remnants of the burned man’s clothes lay in a heap. I sorted through them carefully. Every label had been cut out. Not a surprise, I hardly expected to find the owner’s name. Nor was there any other clue to identity, wallet, tickets, dry cleaning labels: nothing, but there was one thing which did give me an almighty lift.
There was a Glock nine millimetre automatic pistol in the trouser pocket.
After looking round, half guiltily expecting someone to pop out and ask me what I thought I was doing I put the gun in my pocket. The weight was uncomfortable but just having it brought a feeling of relief.
As for being observed I didn’t need to worry. Discharge of firearms and a fire hadn’t attracted the slightest attention. The night was still, not even the most distant sounds of traffic disturbed the rural calm. So the only clue to the identity of our would be killers was that they were both smartly suited, drove a red Mini Cooper and one of them was now in urgent need of medical help.
Then I hopped in the Mondeo and after a cautious look around drove to a public call box at a nearby road junction.
I called Paddy.
Eileen answered.
‘Dave,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Is everything all right with Jan?’
‘She’s fine, Mum. Can you put Dad on?’
‘And the baby? Nothing’s happened, has it?’
‘The baby’s fine, so are Janine and the children. It’s about Uncle Lew. Please put Dad on.’
‘I will if I can wake him. He sleeps like a log with all this DIY he’s doing.’
The urge to build runs strongly in us Cunanes. Maybe we’d have been better off if we’d stuck to labouring or maybe steeplejacking, certainly safer.
After a long pause I heard the familiar voice.
‘David, what’s up?’
‘How much has Lew told you about the trouble he’s in?’
The question provoked moments of throat clearing from my parent.
I waited.
‘What trouble,’ he croaked at last. He was maddening.
‘The mysterious geezer I told you about this morning Lew claims is trying to seize control of the country.’
Paddy mumbled an indistinct reply.
‘So you do know something more than I told you?’
‘The answer to that could be yes,’ he admitted in a hushed voice. ‘Your mother and I have been very worried about Lew for some time.’
‘Right, so I’ll take it that you know everything he told me and then some. I was hoping it was all a fantasy. What do they call it … pre-senile dementia?’
‘No, it’s not that. How could he be pre-senile? He’s already nearly seventy,’ he growled.
‘Well, you’d know more about dementia than me, Dad, but it’s definitely not a fantasy. I’ve just chased off two men who were trying to lob petrol bombs into our bedroom.’
‘Christ! David, if it’s not one thing with you it’s another.’
‘Bloody hell! This is hardly my fault. He’s your flaming childhood friend. Did he have to drive up to my office in his Roller and advertise that he was calling on my services? He’s landed me right in it up to my neck, not to speak of Janine and the kids.’
There was a pause for more throat clearing.
‘I’m sorry, you’re right. This is down to Lew. Are you sure everyone’s OK?’
‘Yes, Jan’s taking the children away to …’
‘No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. These men, were they street thugs, people from your colourful past?’
‘No, they were definitely professionals. They moved as if they’d had training, ex-army or police at a guess.’
‘You could be in real trouble. It was the Spook brigade he was investigating. They have unlimited access to all kinds of shady sudden death merchants.’
‘Thanks Dad.’
‘I told him to go to the Chief Constable but the stubborn fool wouldn’t listen.’
‘He didn’t believe the police could be relied on.’
‘I gave him names of men I’d trust with my life but …’
‘Never mind all that Dad, water under the bridge now. I need you to do something for me.’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry; it’s only a phone call. Phone Lew and if he answers tell him to either get the police to his house pronto or get out of there now. Phone me back on this number.’
I gave him the number of the callbox and then stood waiting anxiously. It’s for such moments that cigarettes were invented but like everyone else I’ve given up long ago. Another prop I could have used was help. Most people have brothers or partners willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice and pitch in to help. Me, I have remote cousins posing as Uncles who land me in a sea of trouble.
I was starting to chew my fingernails when the phone rang.
‘He’s not answering, David. I called his house and his mobile, something’s up.’
‘Could it be the cancer?’
‘He was told to expect a slow death with that. It’s something else, something bad. He never goes anywhere without his mobile.’
My heart sank. Lew was dead. Once he’d been seen trying to recruit help he’d sealed his fate. I hadn’t had much hope but there’d been a faint chance that his mysterious enemy had decided to silence me first.
I shivered. There was nothing to be gained by grieving for Lew. To survive the next few days I needed to start making my own moves.
‘Right Dad, I need you to make another call for me.’
‘Why don’t you do it yourself, David?’
‘You know why. If Lew’s mysterious plotter is organised enough to send two men to firebomb me he’s organised enough to have my phone and my mobile bugged.’
‘And mine.’
‘Why would they bother with you?
When did you last see him?’
‘It was two weeks ago.’
‘Yes, and you haven’t noticed any petrol bombs flying through your bedroom window, have you? It was normal for you and Lew to meet. Where did you see him?’
‘Your mother and I went to his house in Wilmslow. We see him every couple of weeks.’
‘So your visit would have been regarded as routine, whereas calling on me … the sleazy, controversial private eye.’
‘Yes, I’m so sorry David. I think the best thing you can do is to get out of the country. I can help you with money if you need it.’
‘Not needed. Simply phone Brendan Cullen and ask him to get a plod to call round at Lew’s house.’
‘That lush!’
‘Brendan happens to be a DCI on the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit and the only copper who might be willing to do me a favour. For your information he’s been sober for years.’
Paddy grumbled some more but I gave him Cullen’s number and told him to get Cullen to contact me at seven thirty via the public call box near the bridge over the Irwell about two hundred yards from my office. I have the number for that phone off by heart. My distrust of phones runs very deep. One of the treacherous employees who’d tried to steal my business off me had been a full time electronic eavesdropper in his previous life with the military.
I raced back to Topfield.
Janine had the shotgun at the ready when she answered my ‘secret’ door knock. The children were upstairs selecting the toys they needed for their surprise holiday.
‘Lew isn’t answering his phone.’
‘So we’re either very rich now or in very great danger,’ she said.
‘I think we can take it that it’s the latter. We need to get out right away. Those guys were hitmen and when whoever sent them hears that they failed he’s sure to want to try again.’
The packing for the trip to Scotland took less than twenty minutes. That was probably a record for Janine but then knowing that she’d be using the Mondeo probably cramped her style a little. Capacious though the luggage space on a Mondeo is, it could carry less than half of what the Land Cruiser could. Even so I was on the move continuously for the next few minutes, stuffing bags and cases into the car and on the lookout for more visitors all the time.
None came.
I drove out of the farmyard having first scouted the lane on foot. There could have been an ambush round any corner but the sheer number of winding little lanes pushed the odds in our favour. I turned corners at random knowing that as long as I went downhill I’d eventually come out of the hills that rimmed the Cheshire Plain. It was just after one a.m. We left the tangle of minor roads and reached the main Macclesfield to Manchester road. A few more miles and we could be either on the motorway to Scotland or the A34 into central Manchester.
‘Stop for a minute,’ Janine ordered. ‘We need to talk.’
I pulled the car off the road into an alley at the side of a small repair workshop. The tyres crunched noisily over cinders but I didn’t stop moving until I was happy that we were completely out of sight of passing traffic. Both children were asleep.
‘We need to make some decisions,’ Janine announced. ‘Are we both going to Scotland and hiding from these people?’
‘I’ve got to see that you’re safe.’
‘And how long do you think going to Loch Lomond will keep us safe?’
‘God knows,’ I muttered gloomily, ‘it must be safer than here though.’
‘Dave if they traced you to Topfield it’s not going to take forever for them to trace us to my mum’s timeshare lodge in Scotland. It isn’t as if we have a long list of safe houses to choose from.’
‘Presumably I’ve now inherited Lew’s properties. We could go to the Villa Arabella.’
Janine thought for a moment.
‘That won’t work. There’ll be all sorts of legal fuss before we can move in. You’re going to have to find out who these people are and tell them that we’re absolutely no threat to them.’
‘Yeah, should I put an ad in the personal column of the Times? Assassins, leave the Cunane family alone.’
‘There must be a way. Leave a message at Topfield where they’ll find it. Promise them you’ll keep silent.’
‘Somehow I think whoever’s behind this prefers more permanent methods of ensuring our silence.’
‘Dave, this is England!’
‘Yes, it is,’ I agreed. ‘You don’t read the crime pages much, do you?’
After a silence I continued.
‘There may be another way out of this mess. We both know someone who always has well hidden bolt holes handy.’
‘Bob Lane, but Dave you were warned to stay away from him!’
I’d been released from custody, declared to be completely innocent and had won substantial damages from Press and police but Bob’s reputation was dodgy. I’d been told by a senior copper, not a friend of mine but an officer who’d served his apprenticeship as a detective under Paddy Cunane and felt that he’d owed him a favour, that some of his colleagues would be watching me like a hawk, hoping to recoup some of their lost reputation by proving that I was a crook. Their preferred method was to catch me in the company of Bob Lane while he performed one of his semi-legal manoeuvres.
Bob never makes a move without a squadron of lawyers in tow but in his world deeds often count for more than the small print in some legislative code.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a major villain or anything near it. It’s just that many of the people in the scene he moves in, Manchester clubland and its underside of ‘security men’ are total nutters. If not scumbags themselves they’re often fronting for someone who is.
Drug profits are another thing. Those who make their money that way, not Bob, are always on the lookout for a club they can muscle into to launder their loot. Bob doesn’t waste time in the law courts before he ejects them. It’s a rough world and the treatment we’d just received: firebombs through the window isn’t uncommon so Bob keeps a secret property or two handy so he can lie low if he needs to.
‘Janine, how’s this for a plan? I’ll hide in one of Bob’s places and try to contact these killers and convince them I know nothing. It shouldn’t be hard because I’ve no idea who they are. Meanwhile …’
‘Meanwhile I go to Scotland.’
‘Aye, ye’ll be in Scotland afore me.’
‘Dave, this isn’t a joke!’
Just then Mangler gave a loud growl.
‘Someone’s coming,’ Janine whispered.
I pulled out the Glock and held it on my lap.
We waited in suspense for a few moments and then a fox barked. Mangler bared his teeth but Janine calmed him. The children didn’t wake.
Janine put her hand on the gun.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘One of our visitors left it. I’m just looking after it for him.’
‘Dave you fool, you know there are armed police out there just waiting for a chance to shoot you and you go round with a gun.’
‘Your idea of leaving a message at Topfield’s a good one,’ I said, trying to change the subject. ‘It’s the only point of contact I have with these …’
‘Stop it! Give it to me. This thing’s going to end up in the deepest part of Loch Lomond.’
‘But Janine, it gives us protection. It’s only ironmongery.’
‘Yes that’s what I’ll tell the Police Complaints Commission when they approve of the police shooting you because you were carrying an unlicensed firearm. Some good that’ll do us!’
I held onto the gun.
‘All right, Dave, we’ll strike a bargain. Give me the gun and I’ll go to Scotland like a good girl and get out of your way while you do whatever you’ve got to do.’
8
Tuesday: 3.15 a.m.
I phoned Bob’s private mobile number from a public call box. I had no idea of his location apart from Manchester.
Janine had dropped me off at the end o
f Deansgate before heading off towards the M62 and the M6 north. I was disarmed but as Janine well knew Bob Lane has a brother, Clint.
Clint’s real name is Vincent Anthony Lane. He was nicknamed Clint by his own father after a film star. No, not Clint Eastwood but Clint Walker who starred in a cowboy series called ‘Cheyenne’ which capitalised on his massive height. Walker is six foot six, a mere child compared to the height Clint Lane eventually reached, but Lane senior was impressed enough to dub his growing son ‘Clint’. The name stuck and is virtually the only legacy any of the family received from their father of whom none of them will speak but who was no longer on the scene when I became acquainted with the Lanes.
In terms of weaponry Clint counts as heavy artillery.
Clint has served as my bodyguard before. In a very special way Clint is equivalent to a whole squad of minders. On one occasion he’d defended me from an angry crowd by swinging a twelve foot long steel scaffolding spar round his head.
Clint’s a gentle giant, over seven feet in shoes and socks and built like a main battle tank but his intellectual development hasn’t matched his physical. He’s not ‘care in the community’ or anything. Well, he is in a way. That is, he’s had some care and still needs it but he functions well in most situations.
Jan has taught him to read: slowly but he does read and what’s more he remembers what he’s read.
Clint was married to Naomi Carter, who was Jan’s nanny when she was still trying to make a go of her journalistic career writing on women’s issues for the Guardian and other papers. Naomi eventually dumped him saying she wanted more excitement in her life, sad woman. She’s now working as a carer in an old folk’s home in Nottingham.
To my mind life with Clint had to be more exciting than that.