KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8)

by Frank Lean

  That was where I wanted to be.

  I strode on past Bighair’s desk.

  ‘Hey! You can’t just walk down there. You’ll disturb the tests,’ she protested but I was on my way.

  Moving with the speed of a practised line-dancer she blocked my way.

  ‘Clint, give this lady your details,’ I said.

  The big man obligingly swooped onto a chair at her desk.

  That confused her a little.

  ‘Go on, take down his particulars,’ I suggested. ‘I’m only going to the office to see your boss. I’m one of the dopes who actually employs your temps,’ I said, continuing to move forward.

  She hovered, plump lips quivering but one of her colleagues must have pressed a panic button because there was movement from the office.

  A short, Mediterranean looking man appeared at the head of the passage and placed the flat of his hand on my chest. He had a bald dome like a giant egg nesting in a mat of dense dark hair and an olive complexion. He could have been Greek or Maltese or Turkish, somewhere round there. He was wearing green glasses, a white polo shirt open at the collar, grey slacks and Italian designer moccasins complete with tassels. A wide chest and muscular forearms suggested that he liked working out with weights.

  His eyes flicked over me and then focused on Clint. His jaw dropped. He took two paces back towards the darkened area he’d emerged from.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he barked, pulling out his mobile phone.

  A gold tooth glinted in his lower jaw.

  ‘These men are pushing their way in, Mr Gonzi. I offered to interview them to find out their skills but that one demanded to see you.’

  He raised the phone.

  ‘I’m calling the police,’ he said.

  ‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘Do it and you can explain to them why the woman you sent me as a temp receptionist turned out to be an expert safe cracker.’

  ‘Robbed Dave blind, she has,’ Clint intoned from the desk. His size in relation to the furniture made him look like an adult waiting to be interviewed at an infant school parents’ evening.

  It was still Clint who held Gonzi’s attention, something I was used to on outings with the big man.

  ‘Robbed you?’

  ‘Yes, a temp supplied by you has broken into my safe and taken something very valuable,’ I said.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Dave Cunane, Pimpernel Investigations, and I want some answers or you’ll be reading what I think of your agency on the front page of the Manchester Evening News.’

  I pulled out my ID and held it in front of his nose. It’s not much but a smash and grab man is hardly likely to show ID.

  ‘You must understand that we can’t give out information about the workers we place to just anyone who walks in off the street,’ Gonzi explained. ‘Besides being commercially sensitive that information is restricted because we sometimes get undesirables trying to track down their ex-girlfriends.’

  ‘Do I look like an undesirable?’ I asked.

  ‘Shall I get the police?’ Bighair said, answering for him.

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary Hilda,’ Gonzi said. ‘Interview the tall gentleman, there must be an opening for him somewhere in the security business. The BBC needs men down at Media City.’

  I laughed.

  Discomfited by my laughter, she scowled at me and returned to her desk. Clint stared at her hair in open admiration.

  I followed Gonzi into his cramped little office, cramped because it was stuffed with filing cabinets.

  ‘I remember you, Mr Cunane,’ he said with an ingratiating smile. ‘You’re one of my best customers. If we offered frequent flyer miles you’d be on your way to Australia right now.’

  ‘If only,’ I muttered.

  After a little more verbal sparring he pulled out two files. One was marked Pimpernel Investigations and confirmed that I’d paid all charges to date. The other was marked April Fothergill.

  ‘April’s always been very satisfactory,’ he confided. ‘Lots of nice things said about her. I’m sure there must be some misunderstanding.’

  ‘Yeah, a misunderstanding,’ I echoed.

  He opened the file.

  There was a photograph.

  April Fothergill was an attractive young black woman.

  ‘That is not the woman who arrived at my office claiming to have come from your agency,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, surely,’ Gonzi said slapping his bald pate with meaty fingers. ‘She must be. I remember asking you if you had any objection to a black receptionist.’

  ‘Why would I object?’

  ‘You know, some people think having a black girl as a receptionist is making a statement … all right at Media City perhaps but not in your average small business not that we’re …’

  I cut him off.

  ‘Mr Gonzi, my late wife was a black African girl. I’m about as likely to forget some fool asking me if I practise racial discrimination as I am to forget a phone call asking me to play for Manchester United. So don’t lie. You didn’t phone. What’s going on?’

  Tiny beads of sweat appeared above Gonzi’s bushy eye brows.

  ‘I’m sorry; I must be confusing you with someone else.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re confusing me all right. You send me a black girl called Fothergill and she mysteriously turns white before she gets to my office. I think I’d better phone the police, don’t you?’

  He raised both hands, palms outwards.

  ‘Pull‑eeze, I’m sure we can find a perfectly innocent explanation without the help of the constabulary.’

  ‘So this has happened before?’

  The beads of sweat got bigger. Sweat was trickling into his eyes now. He took the green specs off.

  ‘No, no,’ he protested, ‘that is, there haven’t been allegations of theft before but there have been substitutions.’

  ‘Substitutions?’

  ‘A girl with good qualifications will get a job off us and then sort of … pass the job on to a person who wouldn’t have got through our selection process, possibly an illegal immigrant. That must have happened in your case. We have to be particularly careful with Africans.’

  ‘So your Miss Fothergill was an African?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but she was black and identity theft is rife among them.’

  ‘The Miss Fothergill who came to me wasn’t an African, wasn’t an illegal immigrant and was highly skilled at electronic bugging and finding her way into my safe. I think the Equal Opportunities Commission will want to hear about the racial profiling in this firm.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. My words came out wrong,’ he moaned.

  ‘Have you got a head office I can get in touch with about this? They might also want to hear about the action for damages I’ll be bringing against them.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Gonzi groaned. He looked as if he was about to have palpitations. His olive skin had turned distinctly yellow.

  ‘You know all about this, don’t you Mr Gonzi? Who approached you?’

  ‘No one approached me. I swear Mr Cunane. I’ll swear on my children’s lives, anything. Please don’t phone head office. I’ll lose my job if you bring in the police.’

  I studied his face.

  The vibes I was getting were that he genuinely didn’t know about the Fothergill substitution but that there was something else going on that explained his diversionary lurch into the racist swamps. He was sweating profusely. The front of his polo shirt was now so damp that I could see his dark matted chest hair through it.

  ‘I think someone approached you and gave you a hefty bung to look the other way when they switched identities.’

  I took out my phone and put it on my knee. There was a Rolodex on his desk and I began flicking through it. I took out the card for his head office.

  ‘No, for God’s sake, don’t phone. I’ll lose my house, the car, everything … I’m begging you. I’ll go on my bended knees.’

  ‘Don’t do that. Just tell me about
the con you’ve been pulling.’

  He sagged.

  ‘I know nothing about Fothergill, that is, the girl who really is Fothergill not the imposter. I expected her to phone for another job after a week or two. You don’t usually keep them for long that’s why you’re such a good customer … you keep on paying us a finder’s fee for filling same position over and over again.’

  ‘Maybe I like it that way.’

  ‘Yes, well …’

  ‘Tell me the truth or I phone.’

  ‘Hilda interviews the girls and sometimes we get a really good one, and we do check their identities. They have to bring in their passport or birth certificate. Fothergill really was good.’

  ‘So what was the scam?’

  ‘It’s not really a scam. It’s a common practice in the recruitment industry.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘If a girl’s really good … presentable with excellent skills … one there’ll be no come back on … we send her out but don’t put her on our books. The customer gets an invoice for her wages and the finder’s fee but his cheque or money transfer goes to a separate account.’

  ‘You crafty bugger.’

  ‘Mr Cunane, as a fellow businessman I can compensate you very generously for any inconvenience.’

  ‘I bet you can but the bogus Miss Fothergill stole a document that could save someone’s life so we’re a little beyond compensation. I want the document back. I have to find her.’

  Seeing that I wasn’t about to phone his bosses Gonzi recovered his cool a little. I decided not to tell him that the life that could be saved was mine.

  ‘I came for information and that’s what I’m going to get,’ I said.

  ‘Anything, anything,’ he muttered.

  ‘What do you know about the original Miss Fothergill?’

  ‘It’s all in her file, address, phone number, references and everything.’

  ‘You spoke to her.’

  ‘Hilda did.’

  ‘Get her in here.’

  Bighair arrived looking very uncomfortable but after a whispered conversation with Gonzi she spilled the beans. That is, she swore a lot and claimed to know nothing about Fothergill that wasn’t in the file.

  I used the office photocopier to copy it for myself. I pocketed the photo.

  Clint poked his head into the cramped little room. His frame completely blocked the doorway. Gonzi and Bighair stirred and fidgeted at the sight of my companion but were probably too frightened to comment. They got the message that they weren’t leaving until I was satisfied.

  All I had to do now was search the place. I started on the desk drawers and came up with nothing and then went through the contents of the filing cabinets.

  I’d noticed a tiny cross on the spine of the Fothergill file. I extracted all other files with a similar cross.

  ‘That’s just a doodle,’ Bighair lied.

  ‘Oh yeah, shall we see if your company received their percentage for these people?’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ Bighair complained, ‘we find these people jobs through our local contacts and some investor miles away reaps the benefit.’

  ‘Yeah, life’s a bitch. Tell me about it.’

  She mistook my meaning.

  ‘It’s unfair that these people get rich off our work. We’re not cheating them. They get plenty.’

  ‘Foreigners, are they? Black people?’

  ‘Some of them are,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘So that’s OK then, is it? I don’t think the Fraud Squad will agree with you or HMRC. You’re not paying any tax on your skim, are you?’

  There were at least twenty folders marked with the cross, perhaps thirty. I didn’t count but their cut of thirty office temps wages came to quite a tidy sum, tens or even hundreds of thousands when you aggregated it over the years they’d probably been at it.

  Bighair folded her arms across her ample chest and fixed me with a Gorgon stare.

  I didn’t turn to stone.

  There were no pictures of the woman I’d known as Fothergill in any of the files.

  ‘OK, we’re out of here,’ I said.

  ‘Are you turning us in?’ Gonzi asked plaintively.

  ‘I ought to, but I’m not a copper. You can return the wages I paid you for the false Fothergill and I want the full amount you’ve skimmed off the wages I’ve paid you for all the other temps I’ve had off you. You have my bank details.’

  ‘But you’ve been using us for eighteen months.’

  ‘And you’ve been ripping off your employer for at least that long. I’d better take this.’

  I picked up the Rolodex card with the head office details on.

  ‘Oh, f**k,’ Bighair said, ‘you c***!’

  I smiled.

  Clint gave her a disapproving stare his mother would have been proud of.

  They started arguing furiously as soon as we left.

  17

  Tuesday: 1 p.m.

  When we came out and turned the corner back onto Deansgate it was lunchtime and the street was crowded. It gave some cover from the all seeing CCTV cameras for which I was grateful. Not that Clint didn’t stand out like a human light-house however thronged the street was.

  I spotted a familiar face among the hundreds bobbing along towards us.

  It was Brendan Cullen.

  He spotted me at the same time. He raised his hands and gave me a quick signal like a bookie’s tic-tac man. As I don’t go to the races I had no idea what he meant. I guessed he was indicating that we shouldn’t be seen together.

  However he dodged out of the crowd and crossed to the Barton Arcade side of the street barely avoiding being crushed in the slow moving traffic. He looked over at me and put a finger on his lips and then on his ear which I took to mean he wanted conversation. Next he mimed drinking a cup of coffee then he turned and set off towards the Market Street end of Deansgate.

  I couldn’t immediately follow him as the traffic had started to lurch forward. I waited on the kerb. Bren ducked into St Ann Street and I lost sight of him.

  Coffee bars in that direction. There were several. I found the anti-terrorist detective in a Starbucks in St Ann’s Square. He was carrying a tray towards a seat by the window. He transferred the tray to one hand and beckoned me to come inside with his free hand.

  I tried to work out what was going on. This morning it had all been jumping into doorways and secrecy, now we were going public big-time.

  Mine not to reason why … I’m not a criminal and to hell with his senior colleagues and their dirty suspicious minds.

  I led Clint back across the square to one of the stone seats near the church, asked him to wait and hurried back to Starbucks.

  Bren was seated in an armchair near a window with his legs stretched out. He had picked up a paper but now dropped it. There were two cups of latte on the small table beside him. I slumped into the adjoining armchair.

  ‘Let’s keep this short and sweet, Dave,’ he said.

  ‘Why? Are you afraid I’ve got a contagious disease?’

  ‘No, I’m just in a hurry. The eleventh floor seems to have accepted that you weren’t pulling my strings when I sent that plod round to your Uncle’s.’

  ‘Remote cousin and godfather.’

  ‘Whatever, so I’m in the clear on that for now. And actually I’m more comfortable thinking about poor Sir Lew as your uncle.’

  ‘I’m so happy for you.’

  ‘Dave, this isn’t a joke. The command team can change their minds like that.’

  He snapped his fingers.

  I nodded solicitously.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we’ve got to make sure that they keep on thinking you’re innocent …’

  ‘I am innocent.’

  ‘Those are relative terms, Dave … innocent, guilty; they’re a matter of perspective and what people want to believe. We’ve got to keep them wanting to believe you, not an easy job with your record.’

  ‘I haven’t got a record.’
<
br />   ‘Not an official one but in the minds of some on the eleventh floor you’ve got a record as long as Clint Lane’s arm and they’re the ones who’re talking to the spooks … you did well with them by the way. That fancy piece Claverhouse was quite impressed by you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But now things are going to another level. They’ve decided to lift the news embargo on Sir Lew’s killing.’

  ‘Sir Lew lived in Cheshire, not under the GMP.’

  ‘Same difference, the murder comes under North West Counter Terrorism.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s already been on TV and they’re not playing down the Islamic aspect … a policy decision at a higher level than Manchester apparently …COBRA I think … someone at the top’s scared witless that it’ll come back on them if they don’t level with the public now.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The thing is Dave; my bosses want you to play a major part in the presentation … vengeful relative calls for action, appeals for information and that sort of stuff. It’s all rubbish. You know the script. It’s the most repeated play on TV.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anyway, seeing as your old man has submerged, your name’s already been released as Sir Lew’s closest available relative. As your friend, I advise you to keep clear. The research shows that sixty per cent of the public always believe the grieving dad or whoever is the actual killer or the kidnapper. So when they try to put you in front of a camera refuse and say you’ll issue a statement through your solicitor.’

  ‘You’re trying to stage manage me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Listen, I’m your friend, the only friend you’ve got on my side of the fence so don’t turn sulky on me. How do you think I met up with you on Deansgate so easily? Man, you’re under continuous surveillance, tracked by CCTV as if you had a flashing light on your head. I was ordered to meet you and steer you into a starring role for the news media. By saying “don’t do it” I’m disobeying orders. Geddit?’

  ‘I get it. You want to play down my part so there’ll be less heat for you about our relationship.’