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

by G I Tulloch

  "And the weapons?"

  "By the time it reached port they had disappeared."

  Adam got up and stretched his legs, looked out of the window across the Thames to the Docks opposite.

  "It's strange."

  Anna looked up from her paperwork. "What's strange?"

  "John Bartlett gave a very different report of what happened on the Hermes." He told her John's account.

  She fiddled with her empty coffee cup. "So did John Bartlett know about the arms or not? Why did he go on the Hermes that night? Was he behind the arms smuggling?"

  Adam shrugged. "I was hoping you were going to tell me." Light dawned. "Wait a minute. Hold the bus. You suspected I was involved." He pointed an accusing finger at the witness in the stand.

  Anna held up her hands in mock submission. "The speed with which John Bartlett contacted you rang alarm bells. We contacted your office and they said you'd gone to Dunwich. A helicopter dumped me in a suitable ditch. The rest as they say, is history." She paused for breath. "It was a lousy plan."

  But with compensations, thought Adam.

  "So why was John murdered?" he continued.

  "We don't know. Either he found out something he shouldn't, or he reneged on something he already knew. The intriguing thing is that they tried to frame you for it. Did they see you as a threat?"

  "Beats me, I don't see why," replied Adam.

  There was a moment's silence whilst both of them seemed to weigh up the way forward, Anna made a move first.

  "Where does Bel fit into all this?"

  Adam registered surprise. "She doesn't."

  "But if John Bartlett were involved in the smuggling, wouldn't it be risky for his PA not to be in the know. Wouldn't it be safer for her to be a part of it," she argued.

  "I don't see your logic."

  Anna sensed his defensiveness but pushed further.

  "Didn't Bel take over from Fran when Fran died?" She hesitated and then continued. "Yes, I already knew about Fran. I'm sorry."

  Now Adam was very careful. Things were taking a turn he didn't like. He desperately tried to work out if there was something he had missed. Something bothered him but he couldn't pin it down.

  "Is there a link back to Granger Bartlett's death?"

  If Anna registered the change of subject she didn't show it.

  "We don't know. We haven't had time to do the research. It was a long time ago," she replied.

  Now communication broke down. Neither appeared willing to say much more but Anna insisted on repeating her mantra.

  "Don't get any more involved, and don't get in the way of our investigation, you really don't know what you're mixed up in."

  Adam shook his head. "I'm mixed up in it whether I like it or not. I don't think it's under my control any more."

  They called it a day before they started to go round in circles.

  She dropped him off at the flat after a journey in near silence. The thinking was, however, deafening.

  Before Adam got out, Anna leaned over to him.

  "What I said to you at the cottage about showing gratitude for the rescue. The offer still stands. Your car or mine." Whilst he hesitated, searching for a suitable reply, she kissed him lightly.

  Nonplussed, unsure what the magnetic attraction was, but making a mental note to bottle it when he had identified it, he replied, "one way or another I think we'll be meeting again".

  He stood on the doorstep when she'd driven off, trying to find his key. He needed to do a number of things, he thought, but first of all he badly needed to talk again to Brad Wilding.

  Chapter 27

  "So where the hell is he?"

  "How the hell should I know?"

  Pause.

  Adam and Bel stood facing each other across John Bartlett's, sorry, the late John Bartlett's desk in accusatory posture. They had arrived to ask some very hard questions of Brad Wilding only to discover that he hadn't been seen for two days. On the way to Bartletts an increasingly acrimonious conversation had taken place which had started with a question from Bel.

  Rewind to the flat.

  "So, Lennox, who was that?" inquired Bel, drying off a plate from the dishwasher.

  "Who?"

  "The woman downstairs."

  "That was Anna."

  "Ah so that was Anna." With her vigorous rubbing, the plate was now perfectly dry.

  "What do you mean 'Ah so that was Anna'?"

  "She kissed you. I saw her."

  "And?"

  "And what?"

  "What is it to you Trent?"

  Bel backed off, polishing the pattern off the plate. "Nothing. She looked vaguely familiar that's all."

  Adam shrugged. "You were the one who talked about moving on."

  "I don't want to see you get hurt."

  "You were the one who talked about moving on Trent." repeated Adam.

  "I thought we had agreed not to talk about moving on." retorted Bel putting a very high polish on the plate.

  And so on and so forth.

  So now 'Entente Cordiale' had broken down.

  Fast forward back to Bartletts and Bel, having just announced that Brad is missing.

  "I don't think we should be doing this."

  "What?"

  "Going through a dead man's drawers."

  Adam hesitated to let the double entendre sink in.

  Bel thumped her fists on the table, peering at Adam through clenched eyebrows, frustration written across her very attractive face, and leaned her drop dead gorgeous body toward him. Adam struggled to maintain focus.

  "Adam Lennox, you are the most impossible man," she retorted, and she stormed out of the office to find Derek Travis before Adam could see the grin starting to play across her mouth.

  Women!

  In the absence of Brad, Adam had decided to raid John Bartlett's office for something that might shed light on anything. Adam was struggling. He had the uncanny feeling that someone knew everything there was to know about what was going on and was playing them like a fish on a hook. Whenever he lost something important the recurring thought would come to him during his search that the item was sitting in the shadows quietly watching him and laughing. He had that same thought now and in his frustration he subconsciously snapped the pencil he had been fiddling with.

  John's office was scrupulously tidy, no filing cabinets bulging with records, no piles of filing waiting the attentions of a careful individual with well worn fingers, to carefully store them in a logical place never to see the light of day again. Like junk in your attic, thought Adam, things that must come in useful one day. He thought of the attics at his parents' pile. No let's not go there shall we?

  Where would John store something vital, where no office staff would stumble across it?

  Bel came back into the room at that point accompanied by Derek Travis. He had the very sincere look of someone with no sense of humour. Oh well, Adam had no intention of cracking any jokes anyway.

  Bel went off to hunt through John's vast desk whilst Adam sat down at the conference table with Derek. Adam leaned back in his chair just in case some passing airliner should mistake the table for Heathrow's third runway. Not that it was large you understand.

  "Derek. I need you to tell me everything you know about what happened the night my wife was...died." he posed.

  Derek hesitated as if trying to remember a prepared speech.

  "I've been thinking about that. From what I can remember there were quite a few of us working late that night."

  "Was that normal?" interrupted Adam.

  "No. We were finishing a big bid for the shipping rights for a big industrial in Antwerp. Just completing the final print before passing to the courier who was waiting downstairs."

  Adam leant forward. "Was Fran there?"

  Derek licked his lips. "She was in and out. I think she was collecting papers for the Chairman."

  "John Bartlett."

  "Yes."

  "And did you see her finally go?"
<
br />   "No, we were too busy double checking every bid document was complete."

  Adam tapped the table with his finger, made a mental note to cut his finger nails before one of them broke. Sad individual.

  "But the CCTV saw her go." A statement not a question.

  Derek scratched the back of his head, something he did regularly going by the growing bald patch on his crown.

  "Well that's where it gets intriguing."

  "What do you mean?" asked Adam, eyebrows raised in questioning form.

  Derek leaned forward conspiratorially and launched into his prepared speech.

  "The tapes for that evening went missing." If he waited for the gasps of amazement he was sorely disappointed.

  "When were they missed, when the police asked for them?" asked Adam.

  "The police never asked. No, the tapes went missing a little time later."

  "So we don't know what they showed that night?"

  "Oh yes we do."

  Adam decided he should have taken up dentistry, this was like pulling teeth.

  Derek must have sensed his frustration as he carried on without further prompting.

  "We kept backup copies in those days, stored in a fireproof safe in the basement. Very hot on security we were."

  Adam hesitated. "And what did the tapes show?"

  "Your wife came out of the building and down the steps. She slowed for a few seconds. It looked as if she was trying to make a phone call."

  "Yes it was logged, that came out at the inquest. Was she carrying anything?"

  "The usual things. A handbag, gloves, and a file of papers as well."

  Adam stopped him. "You're sure about the papers."

  Derek nodded. "Oh yes clear it was, very clear."

  "But Brad Wilding was adamant at the inquest that she had no papers."

  "Then he was mistaken, or lying I suppose."

  "Why would he lie?"

  Derek shrugged, his bony shoulders rising subtly toward his ears.

  Adam stopped to think. Brad had lied to gain what?

  "There was no file found at the scene of the collision." he said, thinking out loud.

  "You think someone removed it?" interjected Bel.

  Adam looked at her over his shoulder.

  "I can't see any other explanation."

  "Do you think Brad ran her down to recover the papers? Everyone seems to want 'papers'."

  "He wouldn't have to go to those lengths to get them back, besides he's got an alibi. Someone remembers him being in the room when they heard the crash. They remember him running off to see what it was all about."

  Bel tugged at her ear. "Was Brad first on the scene then?"

  Adam turned and looked at her. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking? What was in those papers?"

  Her reply was interrupted by Adam's mobile vibrating on the table.

  He hit the necessary button. "Yes?"

  "You wanted to know what was going on in Ireland at the time of Granger's death." Barry Sutton, news-hound, consumer of pints at other people's expense. Knowledge is power or the price of a pint at least.

  "Go on Sutton."

  "Two weeks before Granger's death there was a major IRA roadside bomb went off near Newry. It was aimed at an army patrol."

  Adam's mouth went dry. "What happened?"

  "It destroyed two Landrovers and killed seven soldiers. It marked a major escalation of violence, but that's not what it's remembered for."

  "What is it remembered for?"

  "On patrol with the army was an American journalist, Melanie Kavanagh. Only three people were killed by the bomb itself. My sources tell me that the other five were shot, execution style as they lay injured, with a bullet to the back of the head, including the American journalist."

  "Wasn't she in civvies?" asked Adam.

  "Apparently not. She was dressed in non-uniform fatigues and had been given a flak jacket for protection. At first glance she may have looked like regular army."

  "Shit. That must have caused someone apoplexy."

  "There was a major incident over it," agreed Sutton. "All sorts of harsh words were fired both ways across the Atlantic like a flippin' game of tennis. The government here used it as ammunition to criticise the American IRA support machine."

  "You think it had a bearing on Granger's death?"

  "Rumours started going around that Granger was getting cold feet about his support for the Republican cause. People were starting to suggest that he might spill the beans."

  "That would give the IRA good reason to eliminate him."

  "Wouldn't it just?"

  "Barry, I owe you another pint."

  "Yeah. Line 'em up my son. Line 'em up." He rang off.

  Adam looked over at Bel. "So that could explain Granger's murder. That just leaves Fran's and John's to explain. Was John killed for the same reason? He knew about the smuggling but was getting cold feet."

  Bel looked up from the drawer she had been rifling through. "No he didn't."

  Adam frowned. "No, he didn't what?"

  She held up a sheet of paper. "He didn't know about the smuggling because this letter is what told him about it."

  "Tell all."

  She read it out.

  "Bartletts ships are being used to smuggle high tech weapons, The Hermes will have a load on board on Wednesday night. Look for the German porcelain." She handed the letter to Adam.

  He scanned it. "That explains his sudden sea voyage."

  "It also clears him of any involvement, Lennox." declared Bel.

  "Granted Trent. It seems that way," he conceded, a little unwillingly.

  Bel shuddered. "So he was murdered for what he found on board."

  "Seems probable," agreed Adam, "but why not kill him at the time? Why wait until he's had the chance to tell others and then kill him? It doesn't make sense."

  "No it doesn't," agreed Bel, "but this does." She handed an envelope to Adam.

  Adam took one look at the Sevenoak's postmark. "Me thinks we need to have another chat with our Mister Kemp."

  Chapter 28

  The office was in full swing when they returned. Clare was deep in an analysis of home shopping magazines and Gerry was studying a form-book, which he put down as Adam and Bel entered.

  "Three thirty at Worcester," he declared.

  "Haven't a clue," replied Adam.

  Gerry reacted as if struck by lightning. He took his feet off the desk and rounded on Adam.

  "Are you serious?"

  "Completely."

  "But you can't do this to me. I rely on you." His lip took on an imaginary quiver as if he was a six-year-old suddenly denied a promised treat.

  "And I on you," agreed Adam. "So get me a list of phone calls made from Kemp's home over the last three months."

  Gerry's mouth puckered and he folded his arms. "That's not legal." He hesitated and looked down at his desk. "You want it chronologically or numerically?"

  "I want to know who he phoned the most."

  "In that case we will need to employ our trusty statistician," declared Gerry in a loud voice.

  The shopping magazine dropped to the desk and Clare's face appeared with a resigned look on her face.

  "You mean you want me to type endless numbers into a spreadsheet."

  "You may get lucky," offered Adam, "he may get it in soft copy."

  Clare gave him a look that implied he should go and refuel the pigs ready for take-off.

  "Gerry," Adam called across the office. "Three thirty, Worcester, 'Haven't a Clue' is a three year old definitely worth a flutter if the going's good to soft." He got a pencil thrown at him for his pains so he took the hint and retreated to his office whilst Bel went in search of coffee and bagels for lunch.

  Sitting at his desk he took a card out of his pocket and dialled the number.

  The phone rang three or possibly four times before it picked up and a gruff voice answered.

  "Ford."

  Adam smiled. "Ford? This is Lennox."<
br />
  "Ah. Now my day is complete. I can sleep in peace tonight knowing my waking hours have been fulfilled."

  "Very good. Sarcasm becomes you," replied Adam, and proceeded to update him with his latest knowledge of Granger Bartlett's background.

  There was a pause when Adam finished.

  "You just don't give up, do you Lennox?"

  Adam tossed an imaginary coin and took it as a compliment. "That's very kind of you. I'm certainly not going to let go until I get some answers." Okay so perhaps best of three?

  "Alright, alright, if it makes you happy. Meet me at Costa's on Brick Lane, in half an hour."

  Adam was not a fan of the modern trend of coffee shops. There was too much politics involved. First you had to choose which of the eight types of coffee to have. This always caused major consternation. Having elected for a cappuccino there was the question of Regular or Grande, Caff or Decaff, Skinny or Fat, with or without chocolate.

  When you finally had your drink there was then the decision over whether to use the comfy sofas or not. By the time he had sat down, Adam was a ball of nerves in need of a sedative, not a double shot of caffeine to jangle his brain.

  Ford was already half way through an Espresso when Adam arrived and joined him at the small table in the corner, the one you never realise is next to the toilet door until you sit down. The poster on the wall opposite enjoined him to 'See Colombia and Live'. Perhaps not, he thought, but it did efficiently cover up a patch of peeling paint. His cappuccino arrived courtesy of a Barrista with dirty fingernails, or perhaps it was ground coffee. Adam didn't like to dwell on it.

  Ford was looking smarter than usual. He had obviously managed to get home to sleep in his own bed and get a change of clothes. Three empty muffin wrappers on a plate in front of him indicated that his eating patterns were still skewed.

  He caught Adam looking at them. "Two of them were already on the table when I arrived," he claimed.

  A look of scepticism crossed Adam face closely followed by pity, which looked as if it might in turn suggest counselling. The thought faded.

  He took a sip of coffee, burnt his mouth and left a rim of foam around his upper lip.

  "I want to know about the police cover up on Granger Bartlett's death," he started.

  Ford looked all innocence. "Cover up, what cover up?"