Hot Pursuit

by Gemma Fox

  The woman nodded. ‘Yes I do – I’ve known him years. He lived in the village.’

  ‘Really,’ said Robbie. ‘And how long ago was he here?’

  But the old lady was already way ahead of him. ‘He was no good at all that bloke. Always was a little shite – I told him that Maggie didn’t want him running after her. Not now. It’s too little too late, I said; she’s got herself a nice new fella now.’

  Robbie leant forward so that as much of him as possible was squeezed in the space between the door and the frame. ‘We are talking about Bernie Fielding, aren’t we?’ He spoke slowly and very clearly in case the old woman was deafer or dafter than she appeared. And when she didn’t answer, he asked again. ‘You are talking about Bernie Fielding, aren’t you?’

  The old woman glared at him. ‘Well of course I am, I’m not stupid – the slimy little bugger, he told me that she was in trouble, big trouble, and that he had come to warn her about it. Not that I’d believe a word Bernie told me; he’d sell his own granny, he would.’ And then she paused and added. ‘Actually you’ve only just missed him.’

  Robbie felt his pulse rate lift. ‘What, what do mean only just missed him? How long ago was he here?’

  She pulled a face and shrugged. ‘I dunno, five, ten minutes at the most, I’m surprised that you didn’t see him as you drove down the lane –’

  Robbie shook his head in frustration. So that was who the shadowy figure had been. He tried hard not to dwell on it. ‘And did Bernie say where he was going?’

  ‘He said he’s going to go and find Maggie. I did tell him that I didn’t know where she was going, only that she and this new chap had gone off to the seaside for a few days to fix something, and he said, “Oh yes, of course.” And then he said whereabouts it was only I can’t for the life of me remember now.’ She screwed up an already well-crumpled face to search for the thought.

  ‘I’m sure you can remember if you try,’ encouraged Robbie. ‘You have to understand that this is very, very important.’

  The old woman stared at him. ‘You’re not here about the gas leak as well, are you?’

  Robbie stared back at her; she was quite obviously senile after all. ‘No dear – I’m here about your neighbour, Maggie, and her ex-husband Bernie Fielding, you remember?’ he said, enunciating more clearly. ‘I just need to know where he – where she went.’

  The old woman peered at him, eyes as bright as coals. ‘Well, to be honest I don’t know that I can help you, and I’m not sure I like your tone – I’m a little bit deaf not bloody stupid.’

  She made to close the door but before the catch caught Robbie was in there with a flat palm to hold it ajar. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But you must remember. I’m sure you do really,’ he toadied.

  She sighed. ‘I don’t know – Bernie said she was going to – ooh, it’s a funny name –’ The old woman pulled a face, as if gurning might help. ‘It’s on the very tip of my tongue. He said it – but I just don’t remember, it’s so damned annoying. It’ll probably come to me after you’ve gone. I think it’s in Somerset. It’s a queer name –’

  Robbie pasted over the cracks in his smile. God help him if he didn’t strangle the daft old bitch through the gap in the door. He could feel his blood pressure rising and didn’t know how much further his patience would stretch.

  ‘Like what?’ said Lesley very pleasantly from somewhere behind him. ‘What can you remember about it?’

  The woman sucked at her top lip and then said, ‘It’s a religious thing – a saint’s name, I think, but unusual –’

  ‘Saint Anne’s?’ Lesley offered.

  ‘Oh no, much odder than that, sounds foreign.’

  ‘Saint Mary’s. Saint B—’

  ‘Saint bloody-Woolwich-ferry,’ Robbie snapped. ‘She said unusual – foreign – this is getting us nowhere.’

  The old lady looked up, ignoring Robbie, her attention fixed on Lesley’s face instead. ‘I wish I could remember. It’s really beginning to annoy me now. Saint – Saint –?’ She looked for all the world as if she was reaching round inside her head for the answer; it was almost more than Robbie could bear.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘How hard can it be, you can’t have that much to think about at your age – what time’s tea and where your teeth are –’

  ‘Somerset, you said?’ Lesley was saying conversationally, getting the road map out of her briefcase.

  Robbie groaned. Some help that was likely to be. Beside him Lesley flicked on the torch.

  ‘Have you any idea whereabouts it is, roughly?’

  ‘In Somerset –’

  Robbie’s temper was almost at boiling point. They would be lucky if Lesley could find England. Beside him she poured over the map book running her finger down the Saints’ names listed in the index.

  ‘Do you know where it is near to?’ she said.

  ‘Minehead, I think –’ said the old woman. ‘I did have her mobile-phone number here somewhere as well but I can’t remember where I put that either – I only had it here a minute ago.’

  Lesley smiled. ‘Don’t worry –’ and with that she began to read the Saints’ names aloud.

  Robbie wanted to throttle her. It would take forever and there was no guarantee Mrs-bloody-Whatever-her-name-was would recognise the name even if she heard it, but framed in the wedge of light the old lady nodded and listened and then all of a sudden, as if a button had been pressed in her head, she said, ‘That’s it, that’s it – St Elfreda’s Bay. St Elfreda’s Bay, East Quantoxhead, near Minehead, Somerset. Oh I’m glad I remembered, it was really beginning to craze me.’

  Robbie stared at Lesley in total amazement. ‘I might not be good with maps but I’m very good with lists,’ she said triumphantly.

  Bernie took a short cut across the fields at the back of The Row where Maggie lived and then on through the playing field at the back of West Brayfield village hall until he had finally made his way back out onto the main road.

  He looked at his watch. It was getting late and chilly and he was tired. Although at least Bernie knew that Maggie was safe for the moment. The news that the gasmen had already been to the cottage didn’t bear thinking about, but the only good thing was that Mrs Eliot couldn’t tell them any more than she had told Bernie – except that every instinct told him that they wouldn’t be long in finding out what they wanted. Whoever they were, they weren’t acting alone. That was for certain. Bernie knew that it wasn’t a question of if they found Maggie but when.

  He pulled the new mobile out of his jacket pocket and tapped in the number of Maggie’s mobile that he had pinched from under a magnet on Mrs Eliot’s fridge. He wasn’t altogether surprised when after ringing twice he got her voicemail service. It had been a while since Bernie had heard her voice and it made him smile; good girl was Maggie. He had never quite understood exactly why she left him, but then again she’d been young, maybe she just needed to find her feet, see a bit of the world.

  ‘Maggie, this is Bernie here. I know I must be the last person on earth you expected to hear from but I want you to listen to me. You have to get away from St Elfreda’s as soon as you possibly can. This is not bullshit, Maggie. You have to understand, there are two guys coming after the man that you’re with. The thing is, babe, the pair of you are in real danger and for once it’s got nothing to do with me.’ It wasn’t exactly true, Bernie thought, and was about to try and explain some more when his calling credit ran out.

  He looked back at the football field. Tendrils of mist were rising up out of the drainage dykes on the far side of the road and were rolling towards him across the tarmac like avenging wraiths. The cool of the evening made him shiver. Bernie shoved his hands deep in his pockets and looked up the road. The pub was still open, the only welcoming sight for miles in any direction.

  He’d done what he could, hadn’t he? Maggie was bound to pick her messages up sooner or later. Wasn’t she? And what could he do against two professional gasmen a
nyway? Now that he’d sorted things out Bernie decided to grab a couple of pints and a pie. Maybe he’d ring Stella to let her know that he was with her in spirit if not in body; keep his options open. He just needed a little change for the call box.

  Hands in pockets, and head down, Bernie headed towards the lights trying to remember what the state of play was between him and the landlady and whether he had ever paid off his tab. Fortunately there was a large sign in the car park that read ‘Under New Management’.

  Bernie made his way into the snug bar. The first pint didn’t touch the sides, nor the second. He had a pie and a pickled egg and by the time he was halfway down the third pint Bernie began to feel the kinks easing out of his soul. Maybe it would be all right after all. He’d have another pint or two and then get on his way back to – Bernie hesitated, trying to focus on his destination – back to where exactly? Where could he go?

  The caravan site behind the Old Dairy? Stella Conker-Eyes? Hardly. Maybe the crappy little bedsit he’d been shacked up in before the job in Colmore Road? It had to be said that life had been pinching Bernie pretty tight over the last few months.

  But then again what if Maggie didn’t switch on her mobile? What if she didn’t get his message after all? Bernie sighed as the last pint vanished down to the suds. There was no escaping it, he still had to go down to Somerset to make sure that she was okay – but before he went anywhere he really had to have a kip and he knew just the place.

  Bernie set the glass down on the counter and ambled out of the warmth of the pub back across the playing field. Glancing left and right to make sure that he wasn’t being watched, he popped the back window on the sports pavilion and slithered in over the sill like a black cat. The interior smelt of damp netting, mould and sweat but at least it was dry and free. Taking off his nice new leather jacket Bernie curled up on one of the benches, pulled the coat up over his shoulders and, belying the old saying about the sleep of the just, was asleep in minutes.

  10

  ‘Oh, this is really quite nice, isn’t it?’ said Nick, looking round the spacious kitchen of the little beach hut. He sounded surprised, more than surprised, he sounded astounded. It was embarrassing.

  ‘What were you expecting?’ growled Maggie, following close behind him up the steps carrying a holdall and the box of groceries she’d brought with her from the cottage.

  Nick reddened. ‘I don’t know, actually. Something a bit more Spartan, I suppose,’ he said, lifting a hand to encapsulate the bright, cosy interior. ‘You know, those little gas lights and pull-out beds made from tables and –’

  ‘And a bucket in the corner?’ she said grimly, sliding the food onto one of the kitchen counters before filling up the kettle and plugging it in. It had turned out to be a long, long drive. Nick might be deeply attractive but he could also be extremely annoying. Over the last twenty-five miles he must have asked her at least ten times how much longer and how much further it was. Even her youngest son Joe wasn’t that bloody aggravating, nor did he criticise her driving.

  Nick looked around again, with an expression on his face that wouldn’t have been out of place on a tourist in the Sistine Chapel. ‘I only stayed in a beach hut once before. I was about ten, I think – we went with my cousins to Skegness for a week. The flush toilets and the showers were in a wooden shed full of spiders on the other side of the site. We used to go in twos with a torch and a rolled-up newspaper in case they jumped out and attacked us. It rained the whole week. Put me off for life. But this is more like a bungalow, though, isn’t it? Great kitchen. Is it yours? How far is it down to the beach? I should have brought my shorts.’

  Maggie, face and mind grey with tiredness, stared at Nick in total astonishment and then burst out laughing. All this from a man who was supposed to be on the run.

  ‘You’re mad,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you the Cook’s tour first thing tomorrow morning, Nick. Just go and fetch the rest of the stuff out of the car, will you? I’m completely shattered. All I want to do at the moment is to have a cup of tea, get the beds made up and go to sleep.’

  Nick walked towards the door and then hesitated. ‘Do you think I should ring Coleman before we get settled in?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘How the hell do I know? The only thing I know for certain is that I want today to be over and done with.’ He didn’t move, so Maggie continued. ‘No one knows where we are. There’ll be time enough tomorrow, and besides Coleman was hard enough to track down during office hours, God alone knows where he’ll be on the wrong side of midnight.’ She paused and, looking at Nick’s anxious face, shrugged. ‘But then what do I know?’

  Nick sighed. ‘I just wanted a second opinion from you, that’s all – that and to say thank you.’ As he spoke Nick stepped closer and hugged her, brushing a funny little self-conscious kiss across Maggie’s cheek. ‘I’m really grateful – actually, that doesn’t cover it at all, but it’s the best I can come up with at the moment.’

  He was warm and smelt wonderful. ‘It’s all right,’ Maggie stammered, ‘don’t mention it.’ Instinctively she pulled away. God it was so tempting just to melt into him. ‘It’s nothing. Honestly.’ It sounded as if she was being dismissive, which was stupid – obviously hiding fugitives wasn’t something Maggie did every day of the week.

  Nick grinned. ‘I just wanted you to know. I don’t know what I would have done without you –’ he said, and then turned away.

  With her pulse still cracking out a samba rhythm, Maggie watched him stroll back across the damp grass in the light from the kitchen window.

  Okay, so maybe Nick Lucas was bloody annoying, but he also made her feel that zingy little something that was impossible to define, and he was gorgeous in a lived-in, slightly crinkled round the edges way. Not hard-faced at all, nothing like the face of a man you would imagine to be on the run. Nick Lucas just looked rumpled and crumpled and easy on the eye, like a good-natured hairy mongrel.

  Damn. Maggie struggled furiously to whip her brain – not to mention her body – back into line, firmly reminding herself that Nick Lucas was also a walking time bomb, tick-tick-ticking away. One false move, one wrong step and it could all go horribly wrong, for both of them. In amongst the low-level lust she kept catching glimpses of just how dangerous things might get if they were caught.

  Maggie sighed. Why was it she never seemed to be attracted to straight up-and-down men? Men who managed shops and wore suits and came home at half past five with a carrier full of yoghurts for the boys.

  ‘Is this what you meant?’ Nick said, reappearing with her duvet and a great pile of sheets and pillows as Maggie was just squeezing the teabags with a spoon.

  ‘Yes thanks, that’s great – you can just dump them on the sofa if you like. I’ll take them through in a minute. You’d better go and get yours in, too – it can get really nippy in here if that wind picks up.’

  Nick looked at her blankly. ‘Mine?’

  Maggie, taking a pull on the tea, nodded. ‘Yes, yours – your bedclothes – I told you before we left to get your things, when we were back at the cottage. Duvet? Teddy and toothbrush?’

  ‘Oh damn,’ he paused and then pulled a face. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise that you meant me to bring bedclothes as well.’

  Maggie sighed. Of course not. He wouldn’t, would he? Nick hadn’t been in a beach hut since he was ten; what did he know? Maybe some hairy mongrels were not as bright as they looked. Maybe he had planned it all along, who knows…Maggie was way too tired to try and fathom the answer.

  ‘Don’t worry – there are some spare blankets in the – Oh shit,’ she slapped her forehead and groaned. ‘No, no there aren’t. I took them home with me to wash. Bugger, bugger, bugger.’

  Nick looked sheepish. ‘Is that my tea?’

  Maggie sat down. ‘Yes – here –’ she said. At least she knew they had teabags and milk.

  ‘Are there any biscuits?’ he said.

  In a motel, not far from Swindon, Cain slipped his trousers out of the C
orby trouser press and hung them very carefully over a wooden hanger, flicking away a minute fleck of something or other, all the while being watched by Nimrod, who was already in bed with a book. As Nimrod observed him, Cain looked round the room with a thoughtful sweeping gaze.

  ‘If you turn that fucking TV on I’ll break your fingers,’ growled Nimrod.

  ‘Don’t be like that. I was going to turn the sound down. Wouldn’t disturb you. I was just going to see how the darts was coming on –’

  ‘It’s not just the noise. I hate the light – all that flickering and stuff. Drives me nuts.’

  Cain slipped into bed looking sullen and hard-done-by. ‘I don’t moan when you keep the light on so that you can read, do I?’

  ‘That’s only because you’ve got the bloody TV on all the time.’

  The two men glared at each other and then looked away. Cain sniffed. Waiting didn’t do either of them any favours. Seconds ticked past. Nimrod turned the page, aware of Cain’s eyes boring into the back of his head.

  ‘What?’ he snapped. ‘What is it now?’ There was another pause and then he threw the book down. ‘All right, all right, switch the bloody thing on, just don’t have it up too loud.’

  Cain picked up the remote. ‘It’ll all be over tomorrow,’ he said calmly, as the screen crackled into life.

  Nimrod nodded, the tension easing out of his shoulders. ‘Yeah, I know. You’re right. What is that, anyway?’

  ‘Looks like late-night reruns of Water Colour Challenge. I love that Hannah Gordon –’

  Nimrod sighed. Waiting was always the worst part.

  At a nice little country five-star hotel a few miles down the road, Robbie Hughes was having problems of his own.

  ‘What do you mean you’re not in the mood? For Christ’s sake, you’re always saying if only we had more time alone together, Lesley. Come on, let me in. Why don’t you just come out of there so that we can talk and have a little drink? I’ll pour you something out of the mini-bar if you like, how about a Tia Maria? Or a Baileys, you like Baileys. Or we can have room service if you like – or we can go out. Are you hungry? Lesley, this is getting beyond a joke. Lesley!’ he snapped finally. ‘Let me in.’