The Dead Lie Down (Adam Lennox Thrillers: Book One)

by G I Tulloch

  The shingle beach was a killer on the muscles but when the tide was right and there was exposed sand it was a glorious run for the two miles to the coastguard cottages at Dunwich Heath. Protected by the sandstone cliffs, the sound of the waves was always soothing and the salt spray better than eucalyptus. Five minutes break gazing out over Minsmere, and beyond to Sizewell Power Station, a strangely incongruous pairing. In between, Dingle Marshes, the ruined Chapel and the sluice, which fed the lakes of the RSPB bird reserve. By the time he returned to the cottage he always felt washed clean by the exercise, no matter what stresses there had been in the City.

  On this occasion as he reached the beach he realised he had been joined by Anna in grey jogging suit, hair in a ponytail. Last night seemed a lifetime away but he wasn't sure he wanted the company, after all this was his beach.

  "I love that cottage, it's so cute."

  Cute?

  "You sleep well?" Making small talk with the holidaymakers you understand, it's only polite.

  "Slept like a log, no dreams of pigs or ditches at all."

  "Good." Small talk, short of breath whilst running, long grammatically correct sentences were thankfully not possible.

  Breath was then conserved until the break at the coastguard cottages where they sat on a bench to prevent it blowing away in the breeze.

  Adam kept his eyes on the scenery whilst Anna kept her eyes on Adam.

  "Can I ask you a question?" she posed.

  "Try me."

  "What did your wife die of?"

  Adam turned to meet her gaze.

  "She was killed in a hit and run accident."

  "Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't realise."

  "No. Well how could you?" And with a quick movement that prevented any further questions, he left the seat and started back to the beach.

  The return was the quickest time he had clocked for a while. He wasn't sure if he was trying to sweat something out of his mind, or punish himself for something, but it did have the bonus of leaving Anna and uncomfortable questions far behind.

  Adam reflected, as he finished breakfast standing on the back doorstep and looking out onto the somewhat overgrown, but natural, back garden. This is what made him come here, the sense of renewal and refreshment, wiping away the yesterdays, making way for the tomorrows. The happenings of yesterday, of elephants and cameras, of John Bartlett and his secretiveness had all receded, although strangely it was the picture of Bel that he couldn't get out of his head.

  At almost exactly ten o'clock a knock at the door proved to be Anna, as expected, claiming the promised lift. Looking considerably more refreshed and with that smile back in evidence she seemed to match the mood of the day. Adam Lennox, psychoanalyst par excellence.

  They locked up the cottages and made their way through the luxuriant (Adam would never acknowledge that it was overgrown) front garden to the gate. The previous evening, for speed, he had left the car by the roadside, on the gravel verge opposite the cottages. Adam played his usual game of 'see how far away you can be and still get the car remote control to operate'. Boys and their toys. So sue me. His record to date was twenty feet, on a good day with a following wind.

  Today was windless and at about fifteen feet the remote connected.

  There was the loud crack of a pistol shot, always louder than you imagine it should be, and a puff of smoke billowed up from the car engine cowling. Adam dropped to the ground instinctively, rolling away across the roadway into the cover of the hedgerow. Almost without any delay flames started to appear and within seconds the entire vehicle was a raging inferno.

  Living on the streets in London, or on patrol in Iraq you didn't hang around in these circumstances, when it was as dangerous to be a witness as it was to be the victim. From his prone position Adam watched his much beloved car literally going up in smoke and many thoughts flashed through his mind, most of them unprintable. The heat very quickly became intense and the acrid billowing smoke drifted away on the light breeze, a growing black stain against the blue sky.

  He reached instinctively for the revolver at his waist before remembering that he wasn't in Iraq any more and didn't walk around armed all the time.

  After what seemed like minutes but was probably less than twenty seconds, Adam became aware that his mobile was trying to attract his attention and in an absurd reflection of normality he reached into his pocket and pulled it out.

  "Yes?"

  "Mr Lennox. Nice car. Shame to waste such a beautiful beast." The Irish lilt was almost ingratiating and apologetic but soon the tone changed.

  "Stay away from the police Mr Lennox. Keep your nose out of John Bartlett's business or next time the bomb will go off when you put the key in the ignition and you'll end up dead just like old man Bartlett, or like your very late wife." There was a pause. "And be sure that your friend Miss Trent gets the message too." Another pause. "Now that would be such a waste."

  Adam's mind took a second to catch up. "Who is this? What do you want? What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You are not a fool Mister Lennox, don't waste your life, you'll work it out, as will that pretty young lady who was behind you a moment ago."

  Alarms went off in Adam's brain. Shit. He's here. Bastard. He can see us. He raised his head slightly and scanned the scene with a trained eye out of practise. Nothing visible. He scrambled to his feet and turned to warn Anna, only to find her already scrabbling to unlock the door into her cottage. Vaulting the picket fence he followed her into the cottage and slammed the door behind him.

  Anna turned on him, grabbing his arm with both hands.

  "What's going on Adam? What happened to your car? What was that phone call?"

  This was not a time to stand around answering questions and Adam didn't waste precious seconds. There was the sound of shots hitting the front door, and a front window breaking upstairs as he pulled Anna roughly to her feet, pushing her through first the living room and then the kitchen to the back door. A brief glance up and down the row of gardens revealed no particular danger to him. They ran across the small yard to a tumbledown outhouse with broken windows, peeling paint and a profusion of ivy. Adam pulled open the large double doors, pushing them past knee high weeds, to reveal a well worn Landrover passed its prime. The smell of dust and nesting rodents rose up past them in the draught caused by the open doors.

  "Get in," he yelled. He scrambled over boxes of rubbish to the driver's door without waiting to see if she was actually following instructions. By the time he had the key in the ignition Anna was already in her seat. He turned the key unhesitatingly before the caller's words came back to him. A muffled roar sounded from the road as the Lotus' petrol tank ruptured and sent gouts of thick black smoke into the air. The Landrover's engine fired first time, without incident, and they rocketed out of the yard, onto a track behind the cottages, before bucketing, without reducing speed, onto the metalled lane that led out to the public roadway.

  Only when Adam was satisfied that they were not being followed did he take the accelerator off the floor, not that the Landrover was made for speed anyway. At Yoxford he turned onto the London road and grabbing his phone speed dialled the office. Whilst he was waiting for an answer he took his first glance at Anna who seemed to be extremely focussed on the road ahead but not showing any significant alarm. This was probably an everyday occurrence for a New Yorker.

  "Adam?" Gerry's voice came through indistinctly due to the lousy mobile reception and the roar of the Landrover's engine.

  "Gerry. Listen to me. Phone the fire brigade and the Suffolk police. Tell them that there is a car on fire outside my cottage. Tell them that I'll contact them later. I'm on my way into London."

  " Adam? What's going on?"

  "I don't know but it's not good. Get in touch with Bel. Get her to come over to the flat. Do whatever you have to do to get her there. She's in some kind of danger and it has something to do with Bartletts. Get her out of circulation at all costs."

  "Consider it done. Ar
e you coming straight here?"

  "Yes, as soon as I can, but I'm in the Landrover."

  "Okay is there anything else you need?"

  "Not at the moment. I'm still trying to gather my thoughts and make sense of it."

  "All right, keep in touch." A good man in a crisis, Fleet Street training.

  "Thanks."

  Adam put the phone down and concentrated on keeping the Landrover in a straight line, not easy at the speed he was doing. He really must get the tracking checked one of these days.

  "Are you going to tell me anything?"

  Adam had almost forgotten that Anna was in the car but glanced at her now.

  "I haven't a clue what is going on and that is the truth. The car was sabotaged, the phone call was to warn me that worse things would happen if I didn't keep my mouth shut."

  "About what."

  "That's the strange thing. They didn't say, as if they expected me to know automatically."

  "And Bel, whoever she is?"

  "A friend. She was implicated as well but I don't know how. Or why."

  They settled back into silence for twenty minutes before the phone rang again. Adam paused to note the caller's number before picking up.

  "Gerry?"

  "I can't get hold of Bel anywhere. She's not at home. She's not at Bartlett's and she's not answering her mobile."

  Adam swore under his breath, "Keep trying."

  Adam considered that the day that had started out so promisingly appeared to have taken a nosedive and wished he could turn back the clock. His mind started to turn over the phone conversation and its implications. He tossed around the possibilities in his mind. If it had something to do with John Bartlett's current problems then he could understand the reference, albeit obliquely, to John's father 'old man Bartlett', but what really bothered Adam was the other reference. What on earth did it have to do with Fran's accident?

  Chapter 9

  Bel walked through St Paul's churchyard oblivious to the noise around her and the people brushing past. The trees were well into leaf now, throwing shadows across the ground like camouflage. The gravestones that survived the onslaught of human ingress lay, as islands of grey in a sea of green grass, protected by signs proclaiming the direst consequences should footwear stray from the path. The aroma of freshly mown grass filled the air. Bel always had a burning itch to defy the signs but something ultimately held her back from taking the step. She was a conformist at heart she conceded.

  This late in the morning the City workers were outnumbered by the tourists, cameras around their necks. An elderly Japanese gentleman, viewfinder glued to his glasses, video camera whirring, capturing the dome of the cathedral as if it was likely to suddenly move and take everyone by surprise.

  Bel had been disconcerted by the events of the past twenty-four hours and the discomfort had grown into disquiet. Normally she would have expected her mood to have lightened this morning, normality returning to her surroundings, but on this occasion the opposite had been true.

  She turned into London Wall, her coat flapping as she now strode purposefully in the direction of the city, creating her own breeze that caught her hair, as if walking fast would somehow purge her mind of concerns and stress. She had been more affected by seeing Adam than she would have expected. Although they hadn't met for a month or two they normally made sure that they met regularly and their situation hadn't changed. He had seemed slightly more troubled than usual, more distant, and that worried her. Adam had been an anchor in shaky times and she didn't like her anchors moving.

  She faced her internal dilemma once again. She wanted to see Adam but the seeing always caused pain. Why, why, why? Why us? Why anyone?

  Since the first time they had met and subsequently when Adam had fallen for Fran, Bel had struggled to maintain a balanced relationship with the two people she loved most in the world, whilst watching them grow closer and then ultimately step into marriage. There had been a period then where things had been stable, and they had fallen into a contented equilibrium of close friends and married couple. Good times. Fran's accident had washed all that into oblivion overnight and replaced it in Bel's mind with a maelstrom of confused thoughts and feelings that steadfastly refused to budge. For a time she had attempted to blot out the pain with alcohol, until her wine bill made her realise she had to make a change. Seeing Adam just seemed to bring back the pain and test her resolve.

  Her growing frustration was interrupted by her mobile. She looked at the number, no name, no number. She answered as she always did in these cases, trying to give nothing away until she'd established the caller's identity.

  "Hello?"

  "Miss Trent." It wasn't a question but a statement and already the voice had a tone that Bel didn't like. She contemplated hanging up but her anger was looking for an outlet. She stopped dead in her tracks almost knocking over someone walking behind her.

  "Who is this?"

  "Just call me a friend Miss Trent. I've got a concern for your safety, do you understand me?" The question was a rhetorical one so he continued. "You're in danger of getting involved in things you don't understand and that would be bad for your health, I think. Forget anything you've heard in the last twenty-four hours and ignorance will be your greatest protection. You know, 'ignorance is bliss'. Anyway a quiet warning to you. Stay away from Adam Lennox. He's a dangerous one that one, and mixing with him is likely as not going to bring you to harm. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

  Bel's voice went very quiet. "What's this got to do with Adam?"

  "Ah now there's is a very good question. What does it have to do with Adam? That's something you'd best not take the trouble to find out because it's him that is going to be in trouble very soon." He stopped there as if he imagined it being a dramatic point.

  "What do you mean?" she demanded her voice rising in pitch and volume.

  "Just what I say Miss Trent, just what I say. Stay away from Lennox for both your sakes." The voice was calm and controlled and provoked Bel. Her boiling point had been reached and the vent finally exploded.

  "Who are you? What the hell do you want?" she shouted into the phone. No response. "Sod you whoever you are. I don't give a shit and I'm not going to be dictated to by you. If you think you're trying to do me a favour then think again. Get off my bloody phone and go crawl back into your hole before the sun comes up and turns you into stone."

  She stopped, surprised at the ferocity of her response and running momentarily out of vocabulary.

  The caller hesitated. "What, like the stone standing next to you perhaps?"

  She twisted her head round and registered the stone gatepost beside her. Listening to the phone over her laboured breathing she suddenly realised that the line was already dead.

  She looked around almost expecting the speaker to approach out of nowhere but no one in the throng appeared to show any interest in her or her outburst, except for one small man in an overcoat who seemed to leer at her in a most unseemly fashion. Hello London.

  And it was then she noticed him.

  An unremarkable individual in black sweatshirt, denim jeans and trainers with close-cropped hair, leaning against a lamppost fifty feet away. As their eyes met he smiled. Bel felt her blood run cold and her pulse skip a beat. He lifted a mobile phone in salute and with his other hand mimicked the action of a gun.

  She scanned the street assessing various exits. Strangely this was a situation that was not unfamiliar to her. Years ago she had been plagued by a stalker admirer who would tail her wherever she went. She had become extremely practised at evasion tactics.

  She looked back and saw him move away from the lamppost. She took off across the road and turned right onto the pavement, weaving her way through the pedestrians. Advice from previous occasions came back to her. Stay in a public place; make sure there's a way out, look out for opportunities to disappear suddenly from view.

  She took the next turning, ruing the lack of department stores to disappear into, or toilets
to hide in. She was still in open country, wide streets with precious little cover, old buildings with immense facades towering above her. She crossed the road again if only to give her better visibility of her pursuer. She reached the pavement and glanced around, recognising him in an instant, and judging that he hadn't gained any ground. So what was he doing? Was this just to scare or was it a waiting game? Her brain seemed to be in overdrive now, assessing her situation. She spotted a side street ahead and at the last minute turned into it, flattening herself into a service doorway. She felt that everyone within a hundred yards must be able to hear her heartbeat, and despite trying to control her breathing it seemed to rasp from her lungs like a terminal asthmatic.

  He came at a leisurely pace and crossed the junction away from her. For a moment she wondered whether he had missed her change of direction but he turned at the last moment and smiled again, before drawing his finger slowly across his throat in that well known mannerism.

  She took off at the run this time. She was extremely fit by normal standards and jogging was not a stranger to her but, she thought to herself, doing it in skirt and heels was a handicap she wasn't used to.

  It took her three changes of direction and two near traffic accidents to put her in what she felt was a defensible position. Still running she swerved into an alleyway and once again sought the cover of a service doorway, thanking the powers that be that there wasn't a posse of office workers taking their smoking break. She waited for the sound of running feet, praying that when they came they would pass by and carry on.

  They came. They did carry on, briefly, but within a few yards he stopped to take stock of his surroundings, and turning, he saw her and smiled. She glanced left and right, but left was a dead end and right he had covered. She waited.