by Gemma Fox
‘Are you all right?’ she said. All in all it was a pretty stupid question but the best she could come up with under pressure.
Nick smiled, but it looked more like an instinctive reflex reaction rather than anything particularly positive. ‘Just thinking. You know –’, he mumbled.
Maggie knew only too well. ‘What happened with you and your wife?’ she said, as the traffic ahead of them slowed to a disgruntled crawl. ‘You said that you were married –’
Nick looked round as if trying to gather his thoughts back together. ‘Sorry?’
‘Your wife? There are so many things I don’t know about you, Nick, and I was just thinking –’
‘Do you ever do anything else?’
‘Occasionally,’ Maggie laughed.
‘So what is it you want to know?’
She smiled, trying to make light of the way she was feeling. ‘Everything I suppose.’
He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of resignation. ‘She left. Her name was, is, Anna – she’s a great person, small and blonde, very pretty in a pixie-ish, elfin way. Good family; likes to drive fast –’ He smiled as his mind flooded with images of his ex-wife.
Maggie waited. Maybe now wasn’t the right moment – but then again, if not now then when? ‘We met when we were working in the same restaurant. She was a student and I was – well, a general dogsbody, I suppose. I’d just finished college.’ He stopped.
‘And?’
‘You are relentless, aren’t you?’ he said, wearily.
‘I prefer to think of myself as thorough. In a few minutes you are going to vanish out of my life forever. I need to put you into some sort of context. I have to try to make some kind of sense of what’s happened, what I feel –’
‘What possible sense can you make of it? It doesn’t make any sense,’ he protested. ‘I thought we’d already agreed on that?’
Maggie shrugged. ‘I know – which makes it all the more important that I try, so you fit somewhere in my head. I don’t know anything about you, Nick. I don’t know where you lived, where you grew up. Where you came from, what your restaurant was called – if you’ve got any brothers and sisters – nothing. And then,’ Maggie slowed down, aware that she was gabbling ‘– I was thinking how bad it must have been to lose everything and how it would have been easier if there were two of you, to share it.’ She paused; it wasn’t the most sensitive way to say what she meant and Maggie looked up at Nick to try and read the expression on his face, before adding very quietly, ‘I keep thinking how lonely it must be.’
‘You know what I think, Maggie? I think that you think too much –’ Moving closer, Nick gently stroked her face with an open palm. ‘It’s a real shame that we didn’t meet years ago –’
Maggie shivered; his skin was warm and soft and almost too much to bear.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But we have so little time – and I want to know, I want to understand.’
‘It feels as if being married to Anna was part of a totally different life now – like I watched it, not lived it. I’ve been moved from safe house to safe house over a dozen times in the last eighteen months – a couple of times in the middle of the night because there had been some sort of tip-off.’ Nick smiled reflectively. ‘Anna couldn’t have hacked it – don’t get me wrong, she is truly gorgeous and a good woman, and I loved her very much when we were married, but there was no slack with her. Things are either right or they’re wrong. On or off, up or down. No grey, no middle ground, no room for manoeuvre. When I first talked to her about the police bugging the restaurant, she thought I was totally and utterly mad. She warned me that it was a mistake – said that she didn’t want to get involved.
‘Then when things started to go wrong, she hated it – not that I blamed her for that, I hated it, too – but in the end she hated me for not listening to her and bringing our nice, bright, successful life crashing down around our ears. Maybe she was right – I don’t know, maybe if I’d just kept my head down and my mouth shut I’d have saved myself a hell of a lot of trouble. I’m sure they would have found another way to nail the women.
‘Anna stuck it as long as she could, but in the end she left and I let her go. It felt as if I owed her that much; she was right – it was my fault that we were in the mess we were in.’ Nick’s last few words rattled out, like machine-gun bullets.
Maggie looked at him. ‘I’m so sorry. Weren’t you afraid that they’d target her?’
‘Up until the trial she was under police protection, too, but once I’d testified, or at least that is how it seemed – it was me they wanted. I don’t know, to be honest –’ Nick reddened as if she had caught him out. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t care about what was happening to her, it was that everything was a blur. They moved me from place to place and her family shut me out, as if it had been me who was the criminal. I wasn’t able to contact her again and she didn’t try to contact me.’
‘Maybe she was frightened.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Do you miss her?’ Out loud it sounded crass but there was no way to take the words back.
Nick stared at her. ‘We’d been married for nine years – but I don’t blame her for running out on me if that’s what you mean. She was no good in a crisis. She was kind of deliciously ditzy – it was one of the things I loved her for and one of the things that used to drive me mad about her. There is no way Anna could have coped with all this.’ Nick lifted his hands to encompass the muddle and fear of it all.
‘But you were happy? Before the bugging, I mean?’
‘I suppose so, we were okay. I know now that I wasn’t good at balancing things. I was building for the future, our future – but I suppose that at the same time I was excluding her from the present. I felt she ought to have understood that. So, no, it was already shaky, we’d both kind of lost sight of what we set out to do, maybe even why we were together. We were very different kinds of people. Anna liked things. How many things we had defined how successful, how happy we were. Looking back I don’t think I was supplying her with all the things she needed. But I felt that it was nothing that I couldn’t have put right – given the time.’
Nick sounded cool and distant; the wound may have scabbed over but the hurt certainly hadn’t gone. ‘So –’ he turned to Maggie, eyes bright with emotion. ‘Is that enough for the Maggie Morgan archive?’
‘I’m sorry. But part of me wants to know everything about you – and there isn’t any way to do that, is there? We’re out of time and there are so many things I’d like to know.’
He laughed, the atmosphere between them lightened by her candour. ‘Why am I not surprised? Do you actually know where this police station is?’
‘More or less – it’s not far now. Why, do you want to get away from me?’
‘What do you think?’
Maggie looked at him and shrugged. The trouble was that she couldn’t work out what Nick Lucas was thinking. She would need to know a whole lot more about him before she could say with any certainty what was going through his head, and now it looked like she wouldn’t ever get the chance.
‘…Golf saloon is currently travelling northbound on the A39, towards Minehead. It appears to be heading for the town centre –’
‘There we are. Bingo –’ said Nimrod, jabbing his finger towards the radio scanner. ‘That’s them. Which street did he say?’
Cain grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I’m already on the case.’
The car pulled quickly away from the kerb. In the back Bernie nearly choked on his Minto.
‘Here we go,’ said Nimrod, fastening his seat-belt.
‘What’s the plan?’ asked Cain, nosing his way back out into the stream of traffic.
‘Watch and wait, don’t you worry, we’ll have our moment,’ said Nimrod. ‘I can feel it in my bones. Every dog has his day.’ He pulled the mobile out of his pocket and looked at the screen in case he had missed a text or a call from the Invisible Man.
For once Cain didn’t look so confident.
‘You feeling all right? What is it?’ asked Nimrod.
‘You want my honest opinion?’
Nimrod nodded.
‘It’s all getting too sticky for my liking. Too messy – what with him –’ Cain nodded over his shoulder, ‘– and the woman and the bloody fuzz and that bloke with the coat.’
Nimrod paused for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yeah, but I don’t really see what choice we have. We haven’t been stood down yet.’
‘Yeah, but – I dunno, it just doesn’t feel right. We’re sticking our necks out a long way with this one. Do you think it might be a trap?’
Nimrod stared at Cain in amazement; the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind. ‘No – I would have an inkling by now – no, I think it’s just bloody messy.’
Cain nodded, but the conversation had rattled Nimrod. It was the first time in their long and very profitable association that Cain had ever voiced any doubts about a hit. Nimrod sucked his teeth; it didn’t strike him as a good omen.
‘Tell you what,’ he said after a moment or two’s consideration. ‘I could check in to see if there are any new orders.’
Cain shrugged. ‘Nah, you’re all right – they would have rung if there was a problem. All I’m saying is we need to watch our backs with this one. It don’t feel right.’
Nimrod unpeeled another sweet from its wrapper. ‘You know me well enough by now to know that I won’t see you wrong, don’t you?’
Cain nodded. ‘Yeah, I know, mate. I was just saying.’
‘We’ll find the pair of them and play it by ear.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
‘But if there’s a clear shot…’ Nimrod began.
‘Goes without saying,’ said Cain, lifting a hand to thank the car behind him for letting him change lanes.
‘Look, Robbie. They’re moving off,’ said Lesley anxiously. ‘Quick. They’re pulling away.’
‘What?’ said Robbie, who had taken over playing with the radio when it became patently obvious that Lesley was getting nowhere fast.
‘Bernie and those two men. They’re pulling away from the kerb–’
‘Damn,’ said Robbie. The automatic selector on the radio had just slipped past something that sounded quite promising onto some foreign station playing salsa. Robbie turned the key in the ignition and the engine kicked into life.
‘Try jiggling the knob backwards and forwards around where it is at the moment,’ he said, pulling out without looking.
The driver in the car behind beeped furiously; only to be rewarded by Robbie flipping him the middle finger. Bloody country drivers; couldn’t the man see that there was plenty of time for Robbie to pull out. If they’d been in London no one would have turned a hair. The man gesticulated back. Robbie pointedly ignored him, even when he drove right up to Robbie’s car and beeped again. After all, Robbie didn’t want to give the game away and let Bernie know that they were behind him. He glowered at the man in his rear-view mirror.
‘We’ve got them, Sir,’ said a voice in Coleman’s earpiece. ‘They’re coming back down into town even as we speak. Do you want us to get the uniformed mob to pull them over?’
Coleman considered for a few moments. He’d already been contacted by his office to let him know that Nick planned to come into the police station, should be simple enough. But then again he reminded himself that Nick Lucas had also planned a walk in Blenheim Gardens. God alone knew what was going through his mind. Coleman still hadn’t quite worked out why Nick had done a runner in the park; something had to have spooked him, but what? Add to that his vanishing act from the cottage at West Brayfield and, to say the least, Coleman’s patience was wearing a little thin.
Coleman considered for a few seconds – maybe it had been the feds who had spooked Lucas, all done up in their nice Sunday suits. Who knows, maybe Nick would feel safer if his rescuers arrived in familiar uniforms.
‘Sounds like a good idea to me. Nothing rough – just blue lights, a little assistance, and this time if he tries to scarper for God’s sake get someone to bloody-well stop him.’
‘Right you are, Sir. Do you want us to bring the woman in as well?’
Coleman considered the possibilities. His first instinct was to say no. The fewer people involved in this the better. Although he hadn’t any idea what Nick had told Ms Morgan, surely she would keep quiet to keep him safe? After all, she had risked her neck to save him more than once already. He deliberated for a few seconds and then said, ‘No, but if she kicks up a fuss, tell her…’ Tell her what? ‘Tell her to ring in to the station later on.’
It was a sop; by the time she rang in Nick Lucas would be long gone. It was thanks to Maggie Morgan that Nick had run before and although Coleman could see the wisdom in what she’d done he wasn’t too keen on civilians who thought for themselves. Every instinct told him that Maggie was fierce and protective and when it came to doing his job, more trouble than she was worth. Coleman doubted that she would go quietly, but he could live in hope.
‘Where would you like Mr Lucas taken to, Sir?’
Coleman stretched. ‘Minehead police station will do very nicely – that’s where he expects to go, and it’s not too busy – we can arrange to have his nibs picked up from there without attracting too much attention.’
‘Right you are, Sir,’ he said, and with that signed off.
Coleman pulled his mobile out of his pocket and tapped in his office number. ‘We’ve got him,’ he said.
He could hear the amusement in Dorothy Crow’s voice. ‘Are we talking in the hand or in the bush now, Danny?’
‘All right, all right,’ Coleman snapped peevishly. ‘It won’t be long now, though.’
‘You said that about the pick-up in the park.’
‘You are such a bloody cynic, Dorothy.’
‘I like to think of myself as one of life’s realists,’ said Dorothy Crow, darkly. ‘Besides, the guys upstairs in the big offices are getting very annoyed about the way this thing is going down–’
‘That’s just what we bloody need. Tell them if they think they can do any better to get their arses down here,’ he grumbled. ‘Anything has got to be better than the space cadets they’ve sent me. You know these kids use sign language to talk to each other? They can’t carry out a decent surveillance but they can draw a very nice cartoon dog – and then they do all this bloody stuff with their hands. I’m getting fed up with it; they’re taking the piss.’
‘You’re just getting to be a grumpy, paranoid old fart, Danny,’ said Ms Crow.
Coleman laughed and then hung up. She might well be right. As he moved he felt the shoulder holster he was wearing slide, warm and shiny, over his shirt. The day was way too hot for a coat. He sniffed; with a bit of luck it would soon be over and done with and they could all go home. All except for Nick Lucas, that was.
Maggie could see the blue light flashing in her rear-view mirror and pulled off the road to let the police car pass. She was completely taken aback when instead of hurtling by her, sirens blaring, it pulled up in front of her car and, lights still flashing, a policeman got out and made his way back towards her side of the car.
She looked across at Nick. ‘I wasn’t speeding or anything,’ she spluttered nervously.
He shrugged, looking as bemused as she did.
Maggie opened the window as the policeman approached.
‘Good morning, Madam.’
‘Hello, Officer – can I help you?’ she said, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.
The man nodded towards Nick. ‘Actually, Madam, I have been instructed to ask your passenger to accompany me to Minehead police station. You are Mr Bernard Fielding, aren’t you?’
‘You’re not arresting him, are you?’ she hissed.
The policeman shook his head. ‘No, my goodness me, no, not at all, Ma’am.’
Maggie beaded him. ‘But we were already on our way to the police station – he phoned in –’ and then turning towards Nick continued, ‘Tell him, you
did, didn’t you?’
‘In that case. Madam, I’ll be saving you the trip, won’t I?’ The man smiled pleasantly, although Maggie couldn’t quite shake the sensation that any headway she hoped to make was being blocked by a polite but unmoving weight.
‘Mr Fielding?’ It was an invitation for Nick to join him.
Maggie peered up into the man’s face to see if there was any trace of subterfuge, any hint of a lie or a trick or a plot. There was nothing there but firm, good-mannered, impassive features that met her gaze with no hesitation whatsoever.
Nick sighed, ‘Okay,’ and unfastening his seat-belt made as if to get out of the car. ‘Maybe it would be a better idea for me to go with him anyway.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Maggie, catching hold of Nick’s arm. ‘What about me?’
The policeman shrugged. ‘My orders are to ask Mr Fielding to accompany me to the station, Madam.’
‘Is that all you can say?’ protested Maggie.
‘I was instructed to suggest that you ring the police station later, Madam.’
Maggie squared her shoulders. ‘Later?’ she began. ‘But why?’
‘Sshh, don’t fight it,’ Nick said, and leaning over kissed her gently. ‘It will be all right.’
‘No –’ she hissed, resisting the temptation to be pacified by him. ‘No, it won’t be all right. I don’t want it to end like this, Nick. Is this the end? I mean is this good bye – where you ride off into the sunset?’ She swallowed back a great prickle of tears.
Nick pulled her mobile out of his jacket pocket and handed it back to her. ‘No, it isn’t – and it will be fine. I know your number. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can, I promise, but you have to let go now. It will be safer for both of us this way.’
‘But what about all your things? At the beach hut and back at the cottage?’
He smiled. ‘I’m sure somebody will come and pick them up.’
Maggie felt her eyes filling up with tears, that wasn’t what she meant at all. She wanted them to represent a connection: that he would be back to collect them; that he would want to come back.
‘But you can’t go like this, Nick. It’s not fair –’ It sounded petulant and childish but Maggie was past caring. His fingertips pulled through hers as he climbed out of the car and walked away with the policeman. As he got into the back of the other car Nick turned and smiled.