KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8)

by Frank Lean

  With that he gave me a nudge on the shoulder and left.

  I waited a few minutes and then continued on my way.

  13

  Tuesday: 8 a.m. Pimpernel Investigations Office

  They say that a drowning man’s entire life flashes before him as he sinks for the third time. I wasn’t drowning but Brendan Cullen’s news and the sight of the car parked on a double yellow line outside my office produced the same effect.

  There were two young men standing by my office door. Both were in dark suits. Both looked lean and fit. Both had briefcases at their feet. Briefcases? Were they accountants?

  I didn’t see my entire life, just that unhappy part of it when I’d been imprisoned to await trial as a serial rapist and murderer. There’s no presumption of innocence in prison. Even the likes of Lee Sheerman-Holmes feel entitled to assert their moral superiority over men in the nonce wing.

  For a moment, revulsion and fear got the better of me. I leaned against a wall. One or two passers‑by stared, wondering if I was drunk or ill. No one rushed up to offer CPR. I suppose I look too healthy.

  I took several deep breaths.

  Sanity began to return.

  Briefcases? If these guys had briefcases with them maybe they hadn’t come to clap me in irons.

  I had too much to lose by running away. My life is good now. At least it was until Monday morning. Anyway it was likely that a CCTV operator was already pinpointing my location for the police. I just needed to think for a moment and plan my strategy.

  Why was Bren so anxious to ensure that I didn’t mention Lew’s talk of a conspiracy? I could understand why he didn’t want to be associated with me, a sleazy but annoyingly prosperous semi-criminal in the warped minds of his superiors. But my ploy in nominating Paddy, a former detective chief superintendent, as his informant ought to have put him in the clear.

  I felt guilty for thinking badly of Bren.

  I’d asked to see him and he’d come.

  He’s a friend. I rescued his career once. He owes me. But the bottom line with Bren is that he has the word ‘copper’ running through every bone in his body like the lettering in that famous stick of rock. The man is answerable to superiors for some of whom ‘private investigator’ is the same thing as ‘criminal profiteer’. Bren needs his job and his lifestyle; the car, nice flat and Billie-Jo.

  I walked back to the office.

  I passed between the two sentries. Whatever they were, they weren’t accountants unless accountants have to be in peak physical condition.

  They made no move to stop me.

  Tony was calmly officiating at the reception desk. Why not? With the reconstruction of his nose, which should have been done years ago, and a nice suit he’d fit in anywhere. His pale blue eyes had lost the look of blankness and cunning they’d once had. His expression was sharp. I guessed the intelligence had always been there, but was somehow suppressed until disease gave his brain a nasty jog.

  ‘Sorry, Boss. I mean sorry Dave. I couldn’t stop her.’

  ‘Stop who?’

  ‘He means stop the lady,’ Clint volunteered. ‘She went in your office with one of the men. If she’d been a man I wouldn’t have let them in, but she’s a lady.’

  ‘What’s he on about?’ I asked, turning to Tony.

  ‘He’s right, Dave. They came in mob-handed, three men and a woman. She’s a real piece of stuff. Clint would have chucked the men back in the street but he’s helpless as a baby with women. I told her you weren’t here but she said she’d wait in your office. Went round Clint like a terrier after a rat and just dived in there. She told two of them to wait outside for her.’

  ‘Any identification, search warrants, court orders, minor stuff like that?’

  ‘They just barged in.’

  ‘And now they’re going through all the confidential material in my office.’

  ‘Sorry, Dave.’

  ‘Get on the phone to my solicitor.’

  My office door opened and a tall, studious looking man in his late fifties poked his head out. He looked suspiciously clever, far too clever. Perhaps it was the rimless glasses precariously balanced on the end of his nose and his raised eyebrows that gave that impression. Hell’s teeth! What did I expect? Brendan had said MI5. It stands for military intelligence, doesn’t it? Of course the man was intelligent. Did I think they’d send round some dull witted dunderhead with a chip on his shoulder about failing the eleven plus?

  He stepped into the reception area.

  He was wearing an old brown Huntsman suit in a Prince of Wales check that looked as if he’d inherited it from his father and he peered dispassionately over the rimless specs like an entomologist examining a rare species of beetle he’d found in his net. My vivid imagination immediately supplied a sound track for this scene: it was the sound of cell doors slamming.

  I looked at Tony and he gaped back at me open mouthed. He was hearing the same sound track.

  I hadn’t realised that I’d been shouting at him.

  ‘You won’t need a solicitor, Cunane. We’re just here for an informal chat,’ the entomologist announced.

  ‘You’ll find the number under Desailles, Marvin. Tell him to get here fast.’

  ‘This is wasting time, Cunane. You can get a hundred solicitors down here but all they’ll tell you is that under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 we have the power to study your personal records during a terrorism investigation.’

  ‘Terrorism?’

  ‘We also have the power to ask the Treasury to freeze all your assets and bank accounts.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I croaked. After two seconds acquaintance the man was bashing me over the head with the law.

  He gave me a nasty grin. The killing bottle was open and I was about to be popped into it. They used to put cyanide in the bottles. Now they use nail polish remover but the insects end up just as dead as they ever did: dead and pinned on a display board.

  ‘Come in and talk to us and you’ll find out,’ he said.

  I still hesitated.

  ‘Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,’ flashed across my mind. I fought down the panic. Only those who’ve been locked in a cell for months can know the fear of another spell behind bars. It’s many times stronger when that loss of liberty was unjust. There’s even a technical name for it: cleisiophobia. I’ve only just got over the flashbacks from my last time in clink. A mild dose of PTSD, the therapist said. He wanted me to join a workshop and learn to overcome my phobia. Meditation and repeated exposure to my fear was the suggested treatment. I didn’t go when I discovered that his other patients were mostly ex-cons. It’s an occupational disease for them.

  ‘Mr Cunane, are you going to talk to us in your own office or do you prefer to be questioned at police headquarters?’

  He nodded towards the outer door where the fitness freaks were looking in at us. I don’t think they appreciated the danger they were in from Clint.

  Then I noticed the bulges under their jackets. They were armed.

  I couldn’t risk violence with Clint in the room. The big man thought he was bullet proof and I didn’t want to see him proved wrong.

  ‘Forget Desailles unless you hear me scream,’ I said to Tony. He smiled in relief.

  I went in.

  ‘Very funny, Cunane,’ the entomologist said.

  ‘I find it keeps me sane, humour I mean.’

  ‘Really?’ he muttered.

  I reminded myself that I knew nothing about Lew’s death. This visit was a complete surprise to me. I had to stay in character.

  ‘Mr Cunane was a bit shy about joining us,’’ he announced.

  The piece of stuff looked up.

  The woman was seated at my desk and had opened the drawers. There was a clink of glass as she rooted around. Unlike her colleague she was fashionably dressed.

  ‘Help yourself, why don’t you? Or is it too early for MI5 to start drinking?’ I murmured softly, holding back on the res
entment.

  The entomologist gave the piece of stuff a knowing glance. I could have kicked myself. Letting on that I knew they were MI5 was a mistake. Fortunately, neither of them picked up on how I knew.

  ‘Hah! The fabled Dave Cunane in person,’ the Stuff drawled with a smile as warm as a sun-ray lamp, and just as false, ‘and as well informed as I was told to expect. I am from MI5, Molly Claverhouse. You can call me Molly, if I can call you Dave. This is Harry Hudson-Piggott.’

  ‘I think I can call you anything I like because I’m sure the names you’ve given me aren’t your real names. What is it you call them, “work-names”?’

  ‘I warned you Harry, this guy is really clued up.’

  Her beaming smiled remained in place. I wanted to see her scowl.

  ‘No I’m not. I just happen to have read my le Carré, like everyone else.’

  ‘Well, you need to forget all that. That’s fiction and le Carré was never with us. He was SIS. We operate in a strictly legal way within parameters laid down by Parliament as Harry has already told you.’

  ‘Like when you burst into my office and start going through the drawers.’

  ‘This is an active terrorism investigation,’ Hudson-Piggott said.

  ‘So, I can be laid back about it if you can.’

  ‘Be serious, man!’

  Hudson-Piggott began to look aerated but nowhere near coronary thrombosis levels.

  ‘Shush, Harry,’ the Stuff said, raising a calming hand to him as if to soothe a naughty child.

  Hudson-Piggott didn’t turn a hair and I realised I was watching a double act.

  Charm continued to ooze out of her face like muck out of a broken sewer.

  ‘We seem to have started on the wrong foot, Mr Cunane, but as Harry says this is a terrorism investigation. In MI5 we act purely in defence of the realm but speaking of le Carré, have you seen “Tinker, Tailor”? What did you think of it?’

  ‘I preferred the Alec Guinness version. It seemed much more authentic, unlike you and Bill Haydon here.’

  ‘Ouch,’ she said, playfully miming a slap on her own wrist. ‘At least let’s start off on first name terms.’

  ‘Listen, Miss Cleverhouse or whatever your real name is,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to call you Molly, Holly, Dolly or Polly. Just get out of my chair.’

  She leaned back in the seat and clapped her hands.

  ‘Delightful!’ she said laughing. ‘Actually it’s Ms.’

  ‘Ms Cleverhouse, get out of my chair.’

  This produced another ripple of laughter.

  ‘Oh dear, you must think I’m awfully rude,’ she explained. ‘But I can’t tell you how fascinating it is to actually meet a Mancunian with the bluntness you Northerners are always boasting about. Most of the men I’ve met since I came to these desolate regions have been cringing girly-men. I’m the deputy director of our North West office.’

  I couldn’t restrain a smile at the thought of Brendan Cullen as a cringing girly-man. That smile meant I lost Round One. This cunning secret agent was flattering me for effect. ‘Northern’ bluntness, that disappeared years ago under the onslaught of PC. All the word ‘blunt’ suggests now is a warbling singer.

  I tried to needle her in another way.

  ‘“Deputy Director”, that doesn’t do anything for me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, who’s the director?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Come on, Dep, everything’s out in the open these days.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘So I’ll know who to complain to about your intrusion.’

  ‘He’s called Rick Appleyard, but you’ll get nowhere with him and as Harry told you we have the right to search anywhere in a terrorist related incident. Mr Appleyard sent us.’

  Her innocent, childlike eyes were a shade of hazel. A fringe of short, shaggy blonde hair framed her long face. The impression of youthfulness conveyed by her face was confirmed by her clothes, which were definitely on the casual side for professional dress.

  I’m hopeless at guessing women’s ages but I put her in her early thirties. She was wearing a dark charcoal jacket with wide lapels, epaulets and pockets. It was of immaculate cut and fit and gave off an understated hint of the military. A black top with matching bootleg trousers covered a slim frame. Co-ordinating with her hazel eyes was a single strand of expensive looking amber beads that dangled down past her waist. A suspicious bulge on her left side suggested that she was armed.

  ‘Like what you see?’ she asked.

  I did. Another smile.

  I was annoyed with myself for liking what I saw.

  Round Two to her …

  The entomologist decided to sound the gong while she was ahead on points.

  ‘If we can begin,’ he said opening a notebook. ‘Full name, date and place of birth.’

  ‘Why …’

  ‘It’s necessary to establish if you’re an alien.’

  ‘Alien! I’m as British as you are …’

  ‘Irish name isn’t it? How do I know where you were born? Back end of some bog, no doubt.’

  I was ready to hit him.

  ‘Harry, be diplomatic!’ Cleverhouse intervened.

  They were playing me like a violin. I caved and fed Hudson-Piggott all the details he relentlessly demanded.

  ‘You had a spell in prison.’

  ‘I was never sentenced.’

  ‘But you were in prison.

  ‘On remand and I was completely exonerated.’

  ‘During your prison time did you come into contact with Muslim prisoners?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Did you read the Koran or convert to Islam?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What is your religion?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Come on Dave,’ Cleverhouse chipped in, ‘you must realise that many violent extremists converted to Islam while they were inside, Richard Reid the Shoe Bomber, for instance. We have to ask.’

  ‘I’m not a violent extremist or a Muslim but I’m not surprised their numbers are increasing if this is the way you lot carry on.’

  ‘We’re talking about terrorism, Cunane, something I find it difficult to be humorous about,’ Hudson-Piggott sniffed. ‘We should tell him about his relative now.’

  Cleverhouse put on a grave face and told me about Sir Lew’s death. She laid on the ghoulish details with a trowel: bruises all over his body, finger nails pulled out, head hacked off with a blunt garden tool.

  Hudson-Piggott was George Smiley now, not Bill Haydon, watching me like a hawk, gauging every reaction. However, it wasn’t difficult to simulate surprise and shock because after the events of the last twenty four hours I was surprised and shocked.

  ‘I need a drink,’ I said.

  Giving me a sweet smile, Cleverhouse dug out the Glenmorangie and the glasses.

  I poured.

  ‘Join me?’

  ‘Too early for me,’ she said, ‘but Harry?’

  ‘Yes, I’m partial to single malt at any time of the day,’ Hudson-Piggott said.

  I poured him a dram and we drank together. Seeing him drink made me remember Lew yesterday. Hell, he’d kept his distance in recent years and he didn’t approve of my career but he was a relative I’d known since childhood.

  What type of sadist tortures a dying man?

  My eyes may have moistened I’m not sure. My hand quivered.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Cleverhouse asked. ‘You’ve gone very pale.’

  ‘It’s shock, that’s all,’ I muttered, biting back an angry comment. We sat in respectful silence for a moment and then Hudson-Piggott resumed his questioning.

  This time it was all about Sir Lew and his wife Magdalen. Was I aware that Magdalen (and she was always Aunty Magdalen to me, never, horror, Aunty Maggie) owned a considerable estate? I gave what answers I could, mostly honest ones.

  ‘I wasn’t aware of things like that. They were never di
scussed in my childhood.’

  ‘Without doubt you must have known there was a prospect of you inheriting a fortune.’

  ‘When I was young my parents and Sir Lew were anxious for me to have a career in the law. Sir Lew would have found a place for me in chambers. When I set out on my own as a private investigator he was very offended. He told me that mavericks rarely amount to anything. If I ever gave his money a thought, and I repeat I never knew he was so wealthy, I assumed none of it would come my way. For years my contact with him has been limited to Christmas cards, very tiny Christmas cards. I went to Magdalen’s funeral six years ago and he came to my wedding last year. That’s about it.’

  ‘Surely there’s more. Your father has told us that he informed you about Sir Lew’s will yesterday evening.’

  ‘So what? Am I supposed to be so greedy that I went round to his house and butchered him immediately? Talk sense.’

  ‘You’re asking us to accept that until the last few hours you knew nothing about an inheritance conservatively estimated at upwards of a hundred million.’

  I swallowed and took a deep breath. A hundred million, could it be so much?

  ‘I’m not asking you to accept anything. I’m as astonished as you are and I’m sure there’s some catch and it’ll all go to some cats home or other.’

  ‘Cats home! Into cats was he, Sir Lew?’

  ‘Dogs home then; I’ve no idea.’

  Hudson-Piggott cleared his throat for another go but before he could speak, Cleverclogs intervened.

  ‘The problem is Mr Cunane … you know we’d both be more comfortable with Dave …’

  ‘Tell me your real name and I’d let you call me Dave all day long.’

  ‘Yes, and we might question you all day long unless you tell us what’s really going on here. You expect us to believe that a relative you’ve had minimal contact with for years walks in here and …’

  ‘We talked about cricket and about my parents, just making small talk. It was rather embarrassing really. Then he told me about his cancer and left. That was it.’

  ‘No, that was not it!’ she shouted, switching off the charm.

  Round Three to me, I win on a knock out.

  I got up and walked to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’