Hot Pursuit

by Gemma Fox

  Lesley smiled at Mr Henderson. ‘If you’ve got a pen I’ll give you our insurance details –’ she said, reaching back into the car and dropping the glove compartment down to pull out a neat little packet of official-looking documents.

  The man made a gesture of dismissal. ‘It’s all right,’ he began, but Lesley shook her head firmly.

  ‘No, I absolutely insist, after all, it was our fault –’

  ‘It’s only a works van, no one will know how it happened, or give a shit come to that.’

  Lesley beamed. ‘That isn’t how we do things at Gotcha, Dave, and it was our fault, wasn’t it?’

  Watching the pair of them from the middle of the road Robbie wanted to throw up. Behind them a queue of traffic was busy building up.

  ‘What about Bernie Fielding?’ he hissed as Lady Bountiful wrote out her phone number for the Ginger Ninja.

  ‘Their car went up Quay Street,’ said Lesley, barely glancing in Robbie’s direction as she tore the sheet off the notepad with a flourish. ‘They can’t come back out without turning round – it’s a no-through road up onto the cliff top, we’d have seen if they had come back this way.’

  The ginger guy was beaming. ‘I know it’s a bit of a cheek but could I have your autograph?’ he said with a flirtatious leer.

  ‘Of course,’ said Lesley warmly. ‘Would you like me to sign your dent as well?’

  They both laughed. Robbie snorted. Bloody woman.

  Someone came round to open the back doors of the van. Nick took a deep breath.

  Coleman turned to him, eyes now as black as pitch. ‘Time we went for a little walk, laddie,’ he said in menacing voice.

  Nick stared at him; what was there to say? Shivering as Coleman’s hand closed around the top of his arm he stepped down unsteadily onto the tarmac, blinking as the daylight momentarily blinded him, all the while trying very hard to keep a tight grip on the fears that crowded into his head like wraiths.

  ‘Steady,’ said Coleman, but it was too late. Nick had started to shake violently, wondering if he could still make a run for it, his heart beating out like a war drum in his chest as they walked across the car park and up onto the broad expanse of grassy cliff top.

  ‘Well, looky, looky, what have we got here? Seems to me like the heavy mob are all ready and waiting,’ said Nimrod as their car pulled to a halt in the car park. ‘There they all are – all wound up and just waiting for us to arrive.’

  ‘The star turn,’ Cain added, tidying his hair in the rear-view mirror.

  Nimrod snorted. ‘Yeah, you could be right. Touching, isn’t it? It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.’

  At which point Cain giggled. High-pitched and manic, it was not a pleasant sound.

  Maggie leant forward to try and work out what the hell was going on. She could see Coleman striding away in the distance, bundling Nick across the rough grass towards the cliff edge. Nimrod and Cain took a moment or two to compose themselves, and then in perfect harmony opened the car doors.

  ‘Time to rock and roll,’ said Nimrod, and then he was up and out of the car with Cain no more than a heartbeat behind him.

  As soon as the two hit men were clear of the car, Maggie hissed, ‘Get out, Bernie. Come on – now.’

  Bernie stared at her blankly. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Get out of the bloody car,’ she yelled. ‘Do you want to be here when the pair of them get back?’

  ‘But the doors in the back are locked.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Maggie in frustration, and wriggling quickly between the seats clicked open the driver’s-side door and clambered out. The fresh air and the sound of the sea cleared her head instantly.

  Bernie hesitated for a few seconds and then, more stiffly, he followed suit.

  Maggie zippered her fleece against the breeze, looking round and trying to work out what the hell she could do. Coleman was already more than halfway across the picnic area with Nimrod and Cain loping after them like big cats about to bring down their prey.

  Even though the day was bright there was hardly anyone around on the cliff top. There was a family or two, and an elderly man walking his dog, but certainly no one who could help, no one who wouldn’t be a liability if they wanted to take the men on. Just other innocent bystanders waiting to get caught in the cross fire.

  Infuriated by a great wave of impotence Maggie began to run across the grass towards Nick. She didn’t know whether to call out, but in the end stayed quiet, afraid of the consequences.

  ‘Where the fuck are you going?’ shouted Bernie in astonishment. ‘There’s nothing you can do to help him.’

  ‘But we have to do something,’ she yelped, ‘– we can’t just let them kill him.’

  Bernie shook his head and something about the gesture implied that it was too late. It made Maggie turn around and as she did she saw Nick running across the grass towards the trees. He had gone no more than two or three steps, when Coleman grabbed him. She spotted the gun in Coleman’s hand, saw the flash from the muzzle, saw the recoil, heard the dull, sickening report of the shot muffled by Nick’s body, watched as he shot Nick, once, twice – and then gasped in horror as Nick Lucas dropped like a stone onto the coarse green summer grass.

  And at that moment everything stopped.

  Nimrod and Cain froze mid-stride as the sound of the shots echoed off the cliffs and around the trees. Maggie felt as if she couldn’t get her breath, as if the air around her had suddenly thickened to the consistency of cotton wool. From somewhere close by she heard a woman screaming, and willed her to be quiet in case Coleman turned the gun on her. It took seconds to realise that the voice she could hear was her own.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Bernie, who was still standing close to Cain and Nimrod’s car. ‘He shot him. He bloody-well shot him.’

  Maggie was too stunned to move. The scream faded into a horrible poisonous silence, while not more than a hundred yards from where she stood Coleman slipped his gun back inside his coat. A moment later he turned and walked back towards Nimrod and Cain, while his companion – the young man in the blue suit and shades – dropped to his knees and hunched over Nick, apparently searching for a pulse, while all the while talking rapidly into his lapel.

  As he drew level with them, Coleman motioned towards the two killers.

  ‘Hope you didn’t mind, lads, but it was all getting a bit too messy,’ he said in passing. ‘We needed to square this one away before the local cops twigged that something was going on or Mr Lucas attracted any more attention to himself.’

  Nimrod and Cain stared at Coleman in astonishment.

  ‘But we thought this one was our shout?’ Nimrod protested, looking over towards Nick’s body.

  Coleman shrugged. ‘What can I tell you, boys? It wasn’t my call – I just obey orders like the rest of us. As far as I’m concerned you can tell it any way you like. If you need another notch on your bedpost, it’s yours. I’m certainly not keen on keeping score.’

  Nimrod snorted and made as if to go over to the corpse but Coleman shook his head.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. The local law are already well on their way. I’m pretty certain that they can be convinced they’ve found a nice tidy little suicide if you pair aren’t around to complicate matters. Although if we can’t persuade them then you’re very welcome to take the credit.’ He paused, eyes twinkling, ‘And the heat.’

  Nimrod smiled, his expression almost reptilian. ‘That’s very generous of you.’

  Coleman lifted his hands in a gesture of admission. ‘It doesn’t pay to hold your hands up in my job. I’ll be needing to cordon this area off in about –’ he rolled his wrist over to take a look at his watch. ‘How long do you think it’ll take you boys to get back to your car and go buy yourself a hotdog?’

  As Cain and Nimrod turned their attention towards the parking area, a big red car with a smashed front spoiler and dented wing screamed to a halt behind Coleman’s blue transit van. Out leapt a sma
ll blonde woman and Robbie Hughes, who appeared to be busy brushing his hair. The blonde was wielding a video camera. Bernie Fielding took one look at the returning figures of Nimrod and Cain, denied their kill and heading back across the grass towards him, and scurried over to Robbie Hughes like he was his long lost brother.

  ‘Robbie?’ he said. ‘Robbie Hughes?’

  ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the notorious Mr Bernie Fielding, at long last – purred Robbie. ‘How very nice to see you.’

  ‘I heard that you wanted to talk to me?’ Robbie said, glancing nervously over his shoulder, whitefaced and sweating hard.

  ‘Indeed we do, don’t we, Lesley?’ said Robbie warmly. ‘Keep that camera steady,’ he growled as the blonde nodded enthusiastically. ‘We’ve got a whole raft of questions that need answering.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bernie, with one eye firmly on the approaching hit men. ‘If you take me away from here I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Anything at all – sky’s the limit. Do we have a deal?’

  Robbie Hughes smiled broadly. ‘You know, Bernie, I knew this day would come, I just knew it.’ He turned to the camera and continued, ‘And so here we are a long last on an isolated cliff top deep in the heart of rural Somerset. Faced with the might of national television, con man Bernie Fielding has finally given himself up. He knows that when he is dealing with the Gotcha team there is truly nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.’

  From the blue van parked alongside Robbie’s car, two muscular men in good suits were heading towards the dead man, carrying a stretcher and what looked like a body bag between them, but Robbie seemed oblivious to all but his prey.

  ‘So, Bernie – where shall we begin?’ said Robbie, moving a little closer.

  ‘Anywhere you like, but can we go now?’ said Bernie anxiously.

  Nimrod looked back at Coleman. ‘What are you going to do about those two?’ he said, nodding towards the retreating figure of Bernie Fielding, and to Maggie Morgan, who was standing, still frozen to the spot, staring at them as if she was unable to believe her eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry, leave it with me,’ Coleman said softly. ‘It’s nothing that you need concern yourselves with.’

  From somewhere in the distance came the sound of sirens wailing. The hit men took a long hard look at Maggie and then another at the solitary figure crouched over Nick Lucas’s body.

  Coleman waved Nimrod and Cain away.

  ‘Get going, lads, before the local plod show up – and don’t worry, I’ll take care of her and our friend Mr Fielding,’ he said archly. The two men nodded and faded away back towards their car, moving as smoothly as tigers.

  Maggie sensed rather than saw Coleman approach and realised that there was a part of her that almost didn’t care what happened now. If she ran would he shoot her, too? Very slowly she turned towards him, her throat working over a great knot of fear and grief.

  ‘Come to kill me, have you?’ she whispered thickly, struggling with the conflicting sea of emotions in her chest, struggling to resist the temptation to run or cower in the face of his stony, unmoving gaze.

  Coleman shrugged. ‘No, no, you’re safe, Maggie. I did warn you that it wouldn’t be pretty. You weren’t supposed to be here, I asked the police to pick you up, keep you out of trouble. I suppose I should have known better –’ He glanced back towards the activity around Nick’s body. ‘I did what had to be done, that’s all,’ he said.

  Maggie wanted to spit in his smug, murderous face. ‘What had to be done? You make it sound as if Nick was a dog that needed putting down,’ she shrieked.

  And as she spoke Maggie’s mind spun. Who would ever know, who could she tell, who would ever believe her? Two more men were hurrying across to where Nick was lying. God, how long had they had this planned?

  ‘It’s time for you to go home, Ms Morgan, the show’s over.’

  Maggie stared up at Coleman. He sounded tired. ‘Is that all this is to you? A show –’ She swallowed back a sob, the emotions finally rising like icebergs in freezing water; there were things that needed to be said and it was now or never.

  ‘Look, I’ve got no grudge against you, Ms Morgan,’ said Coleman. ‘I am just a solution to a problem. You have to leave –’ he caught hold of her arm. ‘I want you to go and get in the van and we’ll get you home.’

  ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ Maggie snapped, wriggling out of his grasp. ‘I’m not going to go anywhere.’ She pulled away from him. ‘I want to see Nick –’ and that said skirted past Coleman, who made only a desultory attempt to hold her back.

  In the car park Nimrod and Cain were already climbing back into their car – eyes working back and forth across the remaining players before they drove back towards town.

  ‘Stay back,’ said the man in the blue suit as Maggie got close to the body. The body? The body? That couldn’t be right, Nick couldn’t be the body, her mind screamed, trying to make sense of what had happened and what she was feeling.

  The man waved her away more ferociously. ‘This is a crime scene, Ms Morgan. I advise you to stay well back.’ Of course it was a crime scene, one in which they had all colluded in. As she took another step, Coleman grabbed her shoulder, and this time his grip was stronger.

  ‘Not here, you heard what the man said,’ he told her gruffly. ‘We have to get going before things get messy. Go and get in the van, Maggie –’

  This time his voice and grip were steely. Maggie spun round. ‘Why in God’s name do you think I’d do that, Coleman? You’re a murdering bastard – you shot Nick down like a dog. You were supposed to protect him – you were supposed to be one of the good guys,’ she yelled, almost hysterical now.

  ‘Go and get in the van,’ he said more firmly.

  ‘No,’ Maggie screamed. ‘Do you seriously think I would go anywhere with you?’

  She saw his hand lift, and an instant later felt a red-hot searing pain across her cheek as he slapped her. Maggie screamed.

  His grip faltered and Maggie broke away and dropped to her knees in the grass beside Nick, her eyes filling with tears as she saw the blood pooling around his body as dark as night.

  God, how could this happen. He was lying on his side, curled up and facing away from her, almost as if he was asleep. It was so unfair, so wrong. For a moment she thought that she might faint.

  ‘Oh Nick, oh God, no – oh Nick, I’m so sorry –’ she sobbed, feeling a great raw, angry wave rolling up through her like an earth tremor. Seeing him there hurt so much that it almost took her breath away. There was no way she had expected it to end like this.

  ‘The bastards – oh Nick –’ she gasped.

  Behind her the two men from the van were pulling on white paper overalls and rubber gloves, arranging a stretcher, and beside it what looked like a huge suit bag with a zip down the front. Maggie let her tears flow as she realised that it was a body bag.

  And then something very, very odd happened. As she watched, the man in the blue suit looked left and right and then tapped Nick gently on the shoulder. Very slowly he rolled over, his face splashed with blood, and then he opened one eye, and sighed. And then he grinned.

  ‘What –’ Maggie began, and as she spoke the world swam in and out of focus and she felt hot and cold, and then she felt herself falling forward, putting her hands down to save herself and meeting the cold sticky pool of blood under her fingertips.

  ‘Maggie?’ Nick said. ‘I’m all right – it was a set-up – Coleman was using blanks. It’s fake blood – Maggie?’

  But even Nick couldn’t bring her back from the dark place into which she could feel her mind slipping. She could see the concern on his bloodsplattered face, felt strong arms closing around her and then the world went black. As the darkness closed over her like water she saw a stray thought scamper across the inky interior of her mind as bright as a shooting star. ‘I have never fainted in my life,’ she thought. ‘This must be what it feels like.’

  The next thing Maggie was aware of was the sound of so
meone throwing up and the realisation that it was her. She was sitting on a picnic bench with Coleman holding her head down between her knees.

  He handed her a tissue. ‘Nick?’ she began, wiping her mouth, looking around frantically. Perhaps it had been her imagination, after all. Perhaps he was still dead.

  ‘Take it easy, he’s all safely tucked up in the van.’ He nodded over his shoulder. ‘Where you should be, Ms Morgan – I did try to tell you.’

  Maggie looked at him, trying to fathom the dark unreadable expression on his face. ‘So you are one of the good guys after all?’

  Coleman snorted. ‘Don’t push your luck, Ms Morgan. The trouble you’ve caused me, to be honest I could have quite happily shot the fucking pair of you.’ He handed her a bottle of water. ‘The thing you have to understand is that we had no choice – unless Nick was dead those pair would never have given up.’

  ‘Nimrod and Cain?’

  Coleman shook his head. ‘No, they were just the monkeys, not the organ grinders. No, I’m talking about their employers.’

  ‘Miss Organised Crime and Miss City Slicker?’

  Coleman nodded. ‘As good a names as any, I suppose. Your turning up here was a pain in the arse but your reactions when Nick got shot helped to convince Messrs Nimrod and Cain that they really had witnessed an inside hit. Do you think you’re up to the walk over to the van, only we really do need to be on our way.’

  Maggie nodded and didn’t resist as Coleman helped her to her feet and guided her over to the car park. ‘What happens next?’

  Coleman snorted. ‘I think some of that is up to you, Maggie.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Sorry?’

  He grinned and then shook his head. ‘I have a feeling that Mr Lucas has something he’d like to ask you.’

  Maggie looked him up and down and then laughed; Coleman was a strange choice for Cupid.

  18

  ‘So what’s the food like in here, then?’ Stella Conker-eyes said, letting her gaze wander very slowly around the interior of the prison visitors’ room, all the while playing with her thick, freshly bleached, shaggy blonde hair.