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

by G I Tulloch

"Get away. I won't tell them anything, I won't. I can't take any more."

  If Brad could have curled up in a foetal position then Adam imagined he might have done, for this was a broken version of the man that Adam had known. Sympathy, however, was far from Adam's mind as he hauled Brad out of the bed and through to the main saloon. Brad came surprisingly meekly considering his bulk and dropped into a settee, all the fight knocked out of him, taking care to protect his bandaged hand. The glazed expression was starting to clear from his eyes but the position of his body still reflected pain.

  Adam stood over him. "It's all right Brad, you don't have to tell us anything, we know most of it already. The smuggling, Dermot O'Rourke, Fran's death, the papers." He listed them slowly as if counting them off on his fingers, Brad's response changing marginally with each facet, his expression becoming more alert but increasingly sullen with each passing moment.

  "You don't know anything," he responded, some defiance entering his expression for the first time.

  Adam paused, turned to glance at Gerry, who was propping up the door frame, and then turned back to Brad.

  "We know your real name is Greg Lake." he said.

  That took the wind out of Brad's sails so Adam carried on to push home his advantage.

  "We know that you've been smuggling arms into Ireland to replenish stocks after the well-publicised disarmament. We know that Dermot O'Rourke is behind it, but what we don't know is why." He relaxed a little and gave time for Brad to respond but silence rang around the cabin, interrupted only by an occasional sniff from Gerry and Brad's somewhat laboured breathing.

  Adam leaned forward to Brad and gestured to his bandaged hand. "How many fingers did they take, Brad?"

  The wild look of fear and panic crossed Brad's face again. "Two," he whispered. "He said if I talked he'd come back and take off both my hands."

  Adam shook his head slowly. "You got into bed with the wrong sort of people Brad. They can be very nasty if you don't play ball."

  "They're after you," retorted Brad with surprising venom. "Reilly. You haven't seen what he can do. He's inhuman, but he's after you." Adam could almost discern a gleam in his eye as he said it.

  "He did that?" Asked Adam, gesturing once more to the bandage.

  The look of pain on Brad's face answered the question without the need for words. Adam turned to Gerry. "I think I've met our Mr Reilly before."

  The thought of Reilly getting his hands on Adam seemed to energise Brad.

  "He's capable of anything. He has no feelings at all. I've seen a man jump off a cliff to his death rather than have Reilly decide his fate."

  "So why get involved with them in the first place," asked Adam. "Why take the risk of getting involved in smuggling?"

  Once again a light seemed to go on behind Brad's eyes. "It was a chance to get even."

  "With Bartlett?"

  "Yes with Bartlett," spat Brad. "Have you known what it's like to be parentless?" he demanded, a driving energy rising in him. "My parents killed themselves when I was seven years old because Granger Bartlett drove them to it. I was brought up by an aunt and uncle who loathed my parents for the shame that they had brought on the family, and who tried to wipe out their memory. It was fifteen years before I found out the truth about my parents' death and then I swore revenge."

  "But Granger Bartlett was already dead by that time," suggested Adam.

  The pain of a memory crossed Brad's face. "I vowed to bring down the thing that Granger Bartlett had worked his whole life to build."

  "The company," completed Adam. "But there was a problem wasn't there? You found that you couldn't bring yourself to compromise your management and commercial skills, your pride got in the way and the company kept growing." Brad nodded, and Adam continued. "So did you approach O'Rourke or did they approach you?"

  "They approached me. They were looking for an insider in Bartletts. They found out about my real past and made me a proposition."

  "Co-operate or face disclosure," countered Adam.

  "Something like that."

  "So what got in the way of your plans?"

  "Those bastards at Customs and Excise got wind of what was going on and put a man on the boat."

  "The murder victim?"

  Brad's face screwed up briefly. "Yes."

  "And as chance would have it John Bartlett was on hand to get in the way of a tidy clear up."

  Emotion showed on Brad's face now. "Stupid bastard, never did know when to keep his fingers out. I was close to walking away with fifty million pounds and pulling the plug on the company if I'd had three more weeks."

  Adam got up and walked around the cabin a couple of times, which didn't take long, as you could only just have swung a cat without getting blood on the walls. He finally came back face to face with Brad.

  "Did Fran get in the way as well? Did she find out about you and what you were doing, so you had her stopped? Set up a cast iron alibi for yourself."

  If Adam was aiming to get a reaction out of Brad he hit the jackpot as Brad jack-knifed out of the chair and knocked Adam flying. Gerry, despite having been a silent partner in all this, was no less observant however, and caught Brad with a black-jack cosh that sent him reeling back into his chair.

  Adam pulled himself upright and glanced at Gerry. "You carry that around with you all the time?" he asked.

  Gerry smiled. "You have to defend yourself against those little old ladies and their handbags."

  Adam dusted himself down but as Brad recovered he became animated once again.

  "I had nothing to do with Fran's death. I couldn't." He paused briefly, deflating slightly in the process. "I couldn't. I worshipped the ground she stood on, but she wouldn't even look at me."

  "So who killed her?"

  "I don't know. I swear, I don't know."

  Adam took a few seconds to process this. "But you did go down and remove papers from her body in the street didn't you, and then attempt to destroy the CCTV tapes that showed what you did?"

  Brad put his head in his hands. "Oh God, I was confused. She was obviously dead, but she had found papers that linked me to the smuggling. I took the chance to remove them." He looked up at Adam and in a plaintive voice said, "she was dead."

  Gerry spoke up from his corner. "What do we do with him Adam?"

  "We hand him over to the police and let them handle it."

  A bolder voice broke from Brad now. "You've got no evidence of any of this. It's my word against yours, and the last I heard you were wanted for the murder of John Bartlett."

  Adam permitted himself a smile. "Things have moved on my friend. Derek Travis has been found alive, and before he lapsed into a coma he fingered you."

  The colour drained out of Brad's face and Adam got up.

  "I think we're finished here Gerry." He handed the gun to Gerry and made his way out onto the deck where the sun was starting to break through between a gap in the surrounding buildings. He stepped onto the quayside where he stopped to take off the microphone and transmitter before handing them to DCI Ford.

  "Did you get all of that?"

  Ford grimaced. "We got enough. Of course we'll have to cut out the bit where you lie about Travis' condition but it'll do."

  Gerry joined Adam seconds later and they made to leave the boat dock when Adam's mobile rang. He frowned until he saw the display.

  "Clare?"

  The urgent voice on the other end seemed to stop his heart briefly.

  "Adam, they've taken Bel."

  Chapter 40

  Gerry now understood the term white-knuckle ride as Adam drove them back to the office with scant regard for any traffic laws. One way streets became redefined, traffic lights ignored, and speed limits overruled.

  Adam cursed himself for putting Bel in danger, skirting around the fact that he hadn't been the one to involve her initially and that it had been at her insistence that she remain in the front-line in the pursuit of justice. That made him either over-sensitive, a fall-guy, or a knight
in shining armour, the jury was out. Whatever the verdict, he had no doubts that the reason for her abduction was to get to him, following his inexplicable escape from extermination.

  The classic picture of the beautiful heroine tied to railway tracks in an old black-and-white silent film came to his mind for some inexplicable reason. He quashed it as he swerved and narrowly missed a row of dustbins that someone had thoughtlessly left out on the pavement.

  Gerry frankly, was terrified, as were a number of drivers who had made the mistake of using the same roads, expecting normal traffic protocols.

  "It's all very well driving a tank like this in the Iraqi desert," protested Gerry, "but the London East End wasn't built for this."

  Adam gave a tight smile. "You forget that I never actually drove a tank."

  Gerry ducked to avoid an incoming tree branch. "Now I understand why." He looked up. "Don't use the Blackwall Tunnel, it's closed for maintenance work, or the Mile End Road, they're digging it up."

  Adam turned briefly. "James Bond never had to put up with this shit!"

  Gerry smiled despite himself. "Very good. Bernie in 'Notting Hill' wasn't it?"

  "Max actually."

  Clare opened the door to the office before they were out of the car, and thrust a piece of toilet paper into his hands as Adam strode past her.

  "Bel must have managed to write this before they left." she said. "It was still attached to the loo roll."

  Adam lifted the paper. 'to dunwich chapel wont die without you'. He sat down at Clare's desk and swore comprehensively.

  "There's more," said Clare, watching Adam put his hands to his face. "They shot Mitch."

  Adam looked up and met her gaze. "Is he.."

  "He's alive. He's in hospital but he's critical."

  "Shit. Just when I need him."

  "And this package arrived by special courier this morning." She handed him a large Jiffy bag with no markings save the name and address of the addressee.

  Adam stopped and took it from her. He exchanged glances with Gerry and then ripped open the package, ignoring the 'Tear Here' label. He tipped out onto his desk a dozen A4 sheets of close hand-written script and a standard compact cassette. Leaning back in the chair he let a sigh escape.

  "So this is what it's all about. So many dead just for this."

  The atmosphere in the office seemed to freeze for a moment whilst Adam ran through a plan of action in his mind. Master tactician, his first thoughts were. Shit what do I do now?

  He looked at Clare, then at Gerry, both of whom regarded him with expectation. He felt in his bones that things were drawing to a close far more quickly than he had anticipated but still an uneasiness crept through his brain like a cold draught on a railway platform. He pulled out a business card from his wallet and handed it to Clare.

  "Clare, phone this number. Whoever answers the phone give them my name and tell them exactly what you know. If they question you, just mention the name 'Erikson'. And tell them I'm going to Dunwich." He picked up the contents of the package and scooped them back into the envelope. "Put this into the safe, make the phone call and then go home. Do not come back to the office on any account until you hear from me." He waited for a nod and then moved to get up and leave, but not before Gerry had a chance to interrupt him.

  "What about me? I'm in."

  Adam smiled. "You've watched too many thrillers, Gerry, you're even beginning to sound like one."

  "I'm no Mitch but I'll ride shotgun." he protested.

  Adam paused to think. "Can you handle a gun?"

  Gerry laughed, with a carefree wave of the hand. "When I was a teenager there wasn't a rabbit in Sussex was safe from me."

  Adam unlocked a filing cabinet that had never seen files in its life and drew out a small handgun, which he handed to Gerry. "Do nothing with it until I tell you to."

  Gerry beamed like a kid with a new toy, which is exactly what Adam was worried about, however, beggars can't be choosers.

  Adam regarded his two fellow conspirators briefly. 'The Saint' was a phrase that came into his head but he decided that Leslie Charteris might not be too impressed with the comparison.

  "I'm going to get the Landrover. It's not the fastest bucket of bolts but it'll take whatever terrain we throw at it through the Dingle Marshes."

  Gerry grimaced and rubbed his ample backside in memory of the Landrover's seats and their lack of springing. Still, too late to back out now, he grabbed a cushion on his way out the door.

  Minsmere sluice was an octagonal brick structure some twenty feet across and some twenty feet deep. Its purpose was to control the flow of water into and out of the bird reserve close by. At this time of year it was full of muddy water and was opened only occasionally to allow water out of the dyke to fill the reed-beds and wetlands.

  Bel could just make out the shape of the brick surround in the gathering gloom of late evening as consciousness slowly returned to her. She became increasingly aware of aches and pains across her body that hadn't been there before. As her brain cleared she realised her current predicament with increasing dread.

  A horizontal rusty steel girder spanned the inside of the sluice some four feet above the waterline, normally used for mounting lifting gear when maintaining the sluice gates. Bel was strapped to the beam, lying on her back, with her hands and feet tied around the beam below her. Her muscles ached through being stretched and she had already lost the feeling in one foot because of restricted circulation.

  As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom she realised she wasn't alone. She became aware of a figure gazing at her, more accurately at her torso, stretched along the beam. Resisting the temptation to play the dentist's visit trick of closing her eyes and convincing herself she was somewhere else, she spoke into the gloom.

  "Who are you? And where am I?"

  Reilly's crooked smile shone out of the darkness. "I did try to warn you a long time ago to stay out of it but you wouldn't be having any of it, so here you are."

  "So why am I here?"

  In better light she would have seen Reilly shake his head. "You can't play ignorant with me." He leaned forward bringing his face close to hers and reached out to touch her face. When she recoiled he withdrew again, the cruel smile returning to his lips. "I'm sure that you know what all this is about but since we've got time to kill, as it were," he paused and smiled at the pun and then continued, "I'll tell you anyway. All we're after is the package, the evidence of our wrongdoing in the past. Put together by our old friend Granger Bartlett." He made it sound like a child's misdemeanour at the dinner table. "We're not interested in anything else nor anyone else." He spoke slowly as if it made it sound more convincing, but Bel wasn't buying anything.

  "Adam hasn't got the package, you know he hasn't got the package." As she spoke she tried to move and ease the aching muscles but she was too tightly wrapped around the beam.

  Reilly almost managed to sound apologetic. "Well if he hasn't got it by now that would be a shame because he might have to say goodbye to you, but ever so slowly."

  Even in the dim light she could now make him out, sat astride the girder playing with a small knife in his hands. If she lifted her head and strained she could see him but the pain eventually drove her head back, giving her a view of the darkening but clear sky above her where the first stars were just visible.

  "So what happens if he gives you the package?"

  "Ah, well in that case things will be easier." He paused whilst appearing to choose his words. "Of course we'll still have to kill you both, but perhaps we'll make it quicker for you, as a mark of gratitude as it were. Of course I wouldn't enjoy it as much but I couldn't be that selfish."

  "Like you enjoyed killing John Bartlett and Gerard Kemp."

  "Ah, see now, you're just making judgements and bringing up ghosts. I'm only doing me job and it's not my fault if I enjoy my work now is it?" Bel kept her thoughts to herself.

  They lapsed into an uneasy silence. Close by, the sound of waves and surf
confirmed how near they were to the beach. Bel tried to erase her present situation by bringing to her mind past happier events but the increasing cold was making it more and more difficult to distract her mind from the present. After what seemed like an eternity, Reilly leaned forward and spoke.

  "If you'll excuse me I've just got to make a phone call." Somehow he made it sound like a toilet break. He waved a mobile phone in one hand, but all Bel noticed was that he still had the knife in the other.

  They started the journey in silence, partly because each was wrapped in his own thoughts and partly because the noise of the Landrover being driven flat out made conversation difficult anyway. Somewhere between Chelmsford and Colchester, Gerry, whose backside was starting to protest despite the cushion, broke the silence with a question that had obviously been bugging him all day.

  "So, who did kill Fran?" he shouted.

  Adam appeared to be concentrating on the road but eventually volunteered a response.

  "I don't know. I haven't found anyone that I believe did it, but yet I haven't met anyone I'm convinced didn't do it."

  Gerry mulled this over for a minute or two. "Is that an answer or a logic puzzle, you're not making sense."

  A minute or two passed before Adam responded.

  "I don't believe Brad did it. I don't think he would cold-bloodedly murder even in those circumstances. Don't ask me why, it's just my gut feeling."

  "What about O'Rourke?"

  "I think he was involved but I don't think he killed her."

  "So who's left in the frame?"

  "Reilly is the one I've met who could do it, who would do it. Whether he would do it on his own initiative or on O'Rourke's orders I don't know but I intend to find out."

  They lapsed once more into silence until just south of Ipswich, barely audible over scream of the engine, Adam's phone could be heard ringing.

  Without a word of warning he slammed on the brakes, slewed across the road onto the verge and killed the engine even before they had come to a halt.

  He pressed the green button. "Lennox."

  Afterwards Gerry would always swear that he thought Adam would crush the phone to powder when he heard Reilly's voice.