Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid

by Rob Johnson

  She picked up the kettle from the hob and half filled it with water, but when she tried to light the gas, nothing happened.

  ‘Sod it.’

  There was a small fridge, which was partly obscured by the bed, but she managed to open it just enough to see that its only contents were a couple of boil-in-the-bag cod steaks and three cans of beer. A little early, she thought, and then remembered she’d grabbed a can of Coke when she’d stopped for petrol. She searched in her bag. The Coke was a bit on the warm side, but at least it had some caffeine in it, and she was desperate for a fix.

  Sandra had just taken her third mouthful when the shrill ringtone of her mobile phone startled her into inhaling rather than swallowing. Most of the Coke shot out of her mouth in a fine spray, and she spluttered as she fought to control the coughing spasms. She fished around in her bag with one hand while she held the palm of the other tight against her heaving chest. Despite being half blinded by tears, she could focus sufficiently on the phone display to recognise the number. She had ignored it before, but now she was in possession of the Jiffy bag again she had something positive to report even though she was doubtful that its contents were quite what her client was expecting. She let the phone ring a few more times to allow her lungs to recover as much as possible before answering.

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice was husky, and uttering even this single word almost provoked another coughing fit.

  ‘Sandra Gray?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been? Mr Vin— er, my boss is not at all happy about what he’s been hearing.’

  ‘Sorry. My mobile must have been out of range.’

  ‘Do you have the package?’

  ‘Of course. It’s right here in front of me.’

  Sandra had always known her innate ability to lie convincingly would be of great benefit to her as a private investigator, and she answered the ensuing barrage of questions with confidence.

  – Had she looked inside it?

  – Certainly not.

  – Why hadn’t she picked it up from the locker herself?

  – She’d been running late and sent one of her employees.

  – Why hadn’t he left the card with the address details in the locker?

  – He’d forgotten, he’s an idiot, and she’d already sacked him.

  – Why had she attacked one of “our people”?

  – She hadn’t known he was one of “their people”, and she’d thought he was trying to steal the package. (At least that part was true.)

  – Was she being followed?

  – No.

  – Was she sure about that?

  – Positive.

  – Was she now in a position to be able to deliver the package?

  – She said she was and did her best to disguise the hesitation in her voice.

  ‘How long will it take you to get to Sheffield from where you are now?’

  ‘Sheffield?’ said Sandra, roughly calculating the distance in her head. ‘Dunno. Couple of hours maybe?’

  ‘Just get there as quick as you can, okay? Arundel Gate Hotel. Room two-seventeen.’

  ‘Any name I should—?’ Sandra began, but the phone had gone dead.

  * * *

  She had almost finished her can of Coke when she heard a key being inserted into the lock of the sliding door. She sat upright on the end of the bed and pulled her bag closer to her, feeling inside for the gun she’d taken from the Scottish guy at the festival. The door slid open a couple of feet and then stopped.

  There was a moment’s pause before Trevor’s head appeared in the opening.

  ‘Welcome home,’ said Sandra and tightened her grip on the butt of the pistol but without removing it from the bag.

  Trevor opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Milly, who had apparently recognised Sandra’s voice and was inside the van and up on the bed next to her before he could utter so much as a syllable.

  ‘Well the dog seems pleased to see me even if you don’t,’ said Sandra, using her free hand to ward off Milly’s frenzied attempts to lick any undefended part of her face. ‘Why don’t you join us? After all, mi camper van es su camper van.’

  He hesitated, so she ostentatiously moved the gun inside her bag, and he seemed to get the message.

  ‘Sit yourself down,’ she said and nodded towards a space on the floor that was furthest from her.

  Trevor climbed into the van but instead of doing what he was told, went to the back of the passenger seat and bent forward from the waist.

  Sandra thrust Milly away from her and whipped the gun from inside the bag, pointing it at the small of his back. ‘I said sit.’

  Trevor may have been amused – and even impressed – if he had been able to see Milly instantly drop down on her rear end and gaze eagerly up at Sandra as if awaiting further instructions. If he had also known there was a gun pointing at him, he would no doubt have stopped what he was doing and straightened up with both hands in the air. Without the benefit of having eyes in the back of his head, however, he muttered something about sorting the chair out, pulled a small lever and swivelled the passenger seat through a hundred and eighty degrees so that it faced inwards towards Sandra. He sat down, and his hands reached upwards to shoulder level when he finally noticed the gun.

  Sandra lowered it and smiled. ‘Wondered what you were up to for a moment there. Thought you might have some kind of hidden weapon.’ Then she laughed as another thought struck her. ‘Maybe even an ejector seat.’

  Trevor grunted. ‘Yeah, that’s right. This van used to belong to James Bond, you know. Traded in his Aston Martin for it in fact. Oh the Aston had all the fancy gadgets like bulletproof shields and spikes coming out of the wheels and a thing for making smokescreens and spreading oil on the road, but there was nowhere to cook a decent meal or even do the washing up. As for somewhere to sleep, well…’ He spread his raised palms outwards.

  ‘You can put your hands down now if you want,’ said Sandra in a quiet, almost soothing tone. Flippancy wasn’t a reaction she would have anticipated from someone who had a gun pointing at them, and she interpreted it as a sign that Trevor had been pushed to the edge of rational thought. In that state, he was potentially dangerous and needed to be handled with care – for the time being at least.

  She picked up one of the packets of cigarettes from the small pile on the sink drainer. ‘So then, Trevor,’ she said. ‘I think there are one or two things you and I need to talk about.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Logan was sitting with his face in his hands when DC Swann came back into the interview room.

  ‘So what was all that about?’ she said and flopped down onto the chair opposite him. Logan’s response was muffled, so she asked him to repeat what he’d said.

  He placed his palms on the table and slowly raised his head as if the effort required all of the strength he had left. ‘Spooks.’

  ‘What?’ Swann’s expression would have been much the same if he’d punched her on the nose.

  ‘Yep, MI5,’ said Logan with a sour grin and performed a brief drum roll on the edge of the table with his fingertips. ‘The very same.’

  ‘But what’s it got to do with them?’

  ‘Oh yeah, and they’re going to tell me that, aren’t they? A detective bloody sergeant.’

  ‘Well what did they say exactly?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to them. The message just now was to phone the guv’nor, so I did. He tells me that the spooks had got wind of our little investigation and were not at all happy about it. Apparently, they’re after our friend Trevor for something a whole lot bigger, and we were getting in their way.’

  ‘Oh right,’ said Swann with a scowl. ‘So now he’s some kind of international terrorist?’

  ‘No idea. All I know is we were to release him immediately and drop the whole thing altogether – or at least till MI5 have finished with him.’

  ‘What do you mean, “finished with him”?’

 
‘I think the precise words were “satisfactorily concluded their own enquiries”.’

  Swann slumped back in her seat. ‘So that’s that then, is it?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘But if the guv’nor says—’

  ‘Sod the guv’nor. I’ve got my own “enquiries to conclude”,’ said Logan, snatching up the buff coloured folder from the table and brandishing it at her. ‘I don’t care if this guy is Osama Bin Laden’s wicked bloody uncle. I just want to know if he murdered his wife or not.’

  ‘But if we get found out, we’ll be lucky if we end up on traffic duty.’

  Logan tossed the folder back onto the table. ‘Well we’ll just have to be discreet then, won’t we? In fact, we won’t be able to do anything at all until we know where he ends up.’

  ‘So we still keep a tail on him?’

  ‘Certainly. And as long as the plods don’t mess up, nobody’ll be any the wiser.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, I make that about coffee time.’

  ‘And you’ll be wanting me to fetch it, I suppose.’

  ‘No, no, no. Not a bit of it,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Let’s go and see what the canteen in this fine establishment has to offer.’

  ‘Blimey. You feeling flush or something?’

  ‘I don’t remember saying I was going to pay.’

  Swann rolled her eyes as he opened the door and waited for her to join him. ‘Okay, I’ll do you a deal,’ she said. ‘I’ll get the coffees, and you can buy me lunch at some quaint little country pub.’

  Logan nodded at the table behind her. ‘You forgot the file.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Patterson peeled back the top slice of white bread and peered at the three thin rashers of fatty bacon, poking at each one in turn with his knife.

  ‘And what’s this supposed to be?’

  Statham had just taken a mouthful of scrambled egg, and he washed it down with a gulp of tea from a chipped white mug before answering. ‘I’m no expert of course, but I’d say it was a bacon sandwich.’

  ‘You forgot, didn’t you?’

  ‘Forgot what?’

  ‘When you put in the order. You forgot to ask for crispy.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  Patterson jabbed at one of the rashers. ‘So what do you call this then? It’s certainly not crispy by most commonly accepted definitions of the word.’

  Statham put down his own knife and fork and leaned forward to examine the bacon more closely. ‘Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Not crispy at all. More like… fatty, I’d say.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Patterson slammed his knife down onto the once cream-coloured tabletop and sat back heavily in his chair. ‘I mean, I know this is hardly the Savoy Grill, but surely even a crappy little caff like this knows what crispy bloody bacon looks like.’

  ‘Probably more sho,’ said Statham through a piece of blackened sausage, which seemed to be burning his mouth. ‘Should almosht be a shpeshiality in a plaish like thish.’

  ‘What?’

  The irritation in his colleague’s tone would have been unmistakable to most, but Statham apparently misinterpreted the question as encouragement to continue with his explanation.

  ‘Transport caffs,’ he said, swallowing the sausage and wafting a hand in front of his mouth. ‘You’d think they’d know how to do a decent bacon sarnie a damn sight better than somewhere like the Savoy Grill, wouldn’t you? Of course, if it was something like steak tartare or lobster au something-or-other, for instance, then you’d expect the boot to be on the other foot because they’ve—’

  ‘Colin?’

  ‘Mmm?’ said Statham, taking a slug of tea.

  ‘Why don’t you just shut up and pass me the HP sauce?’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ He picked up the plastic bottle of brown sauce at his elbow and handed it to Patterson. ‘Good idea. Smother it with enough of this stuff and you’ll never know the difference.’

  ‘Yes… I… will,’ said Patterson as if he were addressing a three-year-old whose first language was Swahili. ‘Because although it might disguise the taste, it’s not going to persuade me for one moment that this bacon is anywhere approaching crispy like I asked for in the first place.’

  Unlike the other half dozen customers in the café, Statham seemed oblivious to the dramatic rise in volume with which this last sentence was delivered and chomped noisily on a generous slice of black pudding.

  ‘You know what?’ he said, leaning forward again and gesticulating with his fork at the bacon, which by now was almost entirely invisible under a blanket of sauce. ‘You could always cut out the fatty bits and just leave them on the side of the plate.’

  With careful deliberation, Patterson replaced the lid on the sauce bottle and set it back down on the table. He looked up and registered the childlike enthusiasm in Statham’s eyes. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ he said, ‘this is what is commonly referred to in the meat trade as streaky bacon.’

  Statham sat back, deflated. ‘Yeah, I see what you mean. I suppose you wouldn’t be left with a great lot if you sort of… filleted it.’

  ‘Not only that, Colin, but I’d need to be a bloody neurosurgeon with a very sharp scalpel and about a couple of hours to spare.’ With that, Patterson slapped the top slice of bread back onto his sandwich and took a large bite. It took only a few moments of chewing before he realised he’d seriously overdone the HP sauce. He grabbed a paper napkin and spat most of the mouthful into it, and there was a loud clattering noise as the remainder of the sandwich connected with the plate in front of him.

  ‘I guess the sauce didn’t do the trick after all then,’ said Statham with what appeared to be a sympathetic smile.

  Patterson drained half a mug of tea and then reached for a fresh napkin to wipe away the traces of brown sauce from his chin.

  ‘Bloody tea’s cold too,’ he said and looked at his watch. ‘Christ almighty, what the hell are they doing? They should have reported in twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘You want me to call them?’

  ‘No,’ said Patterson with a heavy sigh. ‘I’ll do it. You go and get me another tea – and make sure it’s hot this time. And get some crisps or biscuits or something. At least they won’t have messed those about.’

  * * *

  Jarvis roughly folded the sports section of The Mail on Sunday and slid it onto the top of the dashboard. He glanced across at Coleman, who had tilted the passenger seat as horizontally as it would go and was lying back with his eyes closed and his mouth open.

  ‘You asleep?’

  There was no response.

  He turned his attention to the campsite entrance and began to tap out a rhythm on the steering wheel. After a few seconds, he added an improvised melody, humming it at first and then whistling as he became more confident in the way the tune was developing.

  ‘Not bored, are you?’ said Coleman.

  Jarvis stopped whistling but continued his tapping as he looked to his left to see that Coleman’s eyes were still shut.

  ‘Didn’t wake you, did I?’ he said.

  ‘Wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘Course you weren’t. That’s why you’ve been snoring your head off for the last half hour.’

  Coleman’s eyes snapped open and he turned his head to fix them on his accuser. ‘I don’t snore.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The missus would have told me.’

  Jarvis laughed. ‘You’ve been divorced for three years.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So to my certain knowledge you haven’t slept with anyone since. So how do you know it’s not something you’ve developed since you were married?’

  There was a brief pause as Coleman held his partner’s gaze. Then he yawned and stretched. ‘Anything happening?’ he said with a cursory nod towards the campsite entrance.

  Jarvis stopped his drumming. ‘Not since the boys in blue dropped him off, no.’

  The two men lapsed into silence for a few minutes until Jarvis rubbed his st
omach with the palm of his hand and said, ‘I could murder a bag of chips and a couple of saveloys right now.’

  ‘You and me both, mate.’ Coleman checked the dashboard clock. ‘I haven’t had anything to eat since— Oh shit. Look at the bloody time.’

  Jarvis looked. ‘Yeah? So?’

  ‘We were supposed to report in twenty minutes ago.’ He grabbed his mobile phone from the top pocket of his jacket just as it began to play the opening bars of The William Tell Overture. He didn’t need to look at the display screen to know who was calling him. ‘Hello?’…

  … ‘Yeah, sorry, guv. Bit of a bad signal here.’

  … ‘It’s fine now, yes, but we had to move up the road to—’

  … ‘Not since they brought him back, no.’

  … ‘A what? Sorry, guv, the signal’s going again.’ He smirked at Jarvis and made a circle with the index finger and thumb of his free hand while flexing his wrist up and down.

  … ‘Oh right. Yeah, we put a tracker on the camper while he was away.’

  … ‘But there’s only one entrance, guv.’

  … ‘Okay.’

  … ‘Okay, we’ll get right onto it.’

  … ‘Yeah, fine. By the way, we haven’t had anything to eat for hours. I don’t suppose there’s any chance we—? … Hello? … Hello?’ He held the phone in front of him to look at the display. ‘Bastard hung up on me.’

  ‘Maybe his signal went,’ said Jarvis with a broad grin. ‘So what exactly are we getting right onto?’

  ‘He wants us to check out the van and make sure the guy’s still actually in there… without being spotted ourselves of course.’

  ‘Well where else is he gonna be? There’s only one way out, and we’ve been watching it the whole time.’

  ‘That’s what I told him, but he still wants us to make sure.’ Coleman reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. ‘Toss you for it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We can’t both go, can we?’ He flipped the coin into the air, caught it in the palm of his right hand and slapped it onto the back of his left.