Hot Pursuit (20 page)

‘Right you are, well I’m glad that we’ve finally got a signal –’ he said briskly with false heartiness, and then pretending to talk to some imaginary other person in the mythical middle distance, called, ‘Let me just take this call and then I’ll be right with you – just two minutes – no, it is urgent – no, no, that’s a great shot, I’m so glad you could
spare us the time for the interview. Yes, really. We’ll go with that –’ and then more loudly to the phone, ‘Who did you say it was again, only Mr Straw is a very busy man, Lesley?’ All the while making a throat-cutting gesture with his finger.

Lesley pulled a face that implied incomprehension.

‘Turn the fucking phone off,’ Robbie mouthed.

Still Lesley did nothing, just stared at him, eyes wide.

‘Turn the fucking phone off,’ Robbie hissed.

‘I heard that you miserable, adulterous, two-timing little bastard,’ said a small disembodied voice on the line, just as Lesley finally got the message and pressed the off button.

Some instinct made Coleman hang back for a few moments, just long enough to see Maggie Morgan drive past towards the police station. He sighed; that woman was getting to be a real pain in the arse.

Maggie pulled into the police-station yard and sat for a few minutes in the car park trying to collect her thoughts, and also work out exactly what she was going to say once she got inside. The last thing Maggie wanted was for them to think she was hysterical or trouble or worse still plain crazy. She brushed her hair, took a mint out of her handbag and straightened her clothes so that she looked a little more respectable; more like a thirty-something schoolteacher on holiday.

She got out of the car, mouth set into a determined line, and headed across to the front door, her stomach churning, all the while running over what she planned to say, calmly and with confidence. Once inside, Maggie rang the bell for attention and waited, tying her fingers into an anxious knot. A few seconds later a hatch in the wall opened and a heavily set policeman smiled pleasantly.

‘Good morning, Madam, and how can I help you?’

Maggie painted on a warm smile to match his. ‘Good morning. A friend of mine was brought in a little while ago –’ she spoke slowly, enunciating clearly, so that there could be absolutely no mistaking what she was saying, in the kind of voice she normally used for assembly. ‘I wondered if it might be possible to see him, please. His name is Bernie Fielding.’ Only now did Maggie hesitate. What if they knew that he was really Nick Lucas? ‘A policeman brought him in a little while ago. The officer said that they were going to bring him here –’

The Duty Sergeant looked Maggie up and down. ‘A policeman?’

Maggie nodded. ‘In a police car. We were on the way back from Selworthy – I’m not hundred per cent certain what the name of the road is – and he pulled us over. Blue light – you know.’ Maggie tacked the smile back on, trying very hard not to flounder or gabble in the face of the man’s determinedly neutral expression.

The man nodded. ‘Right you are, Madam, I’ll just go and see what I can find out for you. What did you say your friend’s name was again?’

‘Bernie Fielding.’ Could she risk saying that that was the name he was using – could she tell them that he was really called Nick Lucas?

‘Bernie Fielding?’

Maggie nodded, while trying very hard to keep calm. ‘That’s right.’ How hard could it be?

‘And you say he was picked up in a police car?’

Maggie nodded again, this time not trusting herself to speak. It was not unlike having a conversation with her mother.

‘And have you any idea what it was in connection with, Madam?’

‘Well, yes, I have –’ Maggie began, leaning closer and peering in through the hatchway, well aware that there was a part of her which hoped Nick would be sitting there, large as life, his long fingers cradling a station-house mug of tea.

In fact all she could see was a hessian-covered screen that obscured the view of the office beyond. ‘He was brought in for his own protection; although there is a chance he’s using his real name – which is Nick Lucas.’ There. It was out now.

‘Right.’ The man nodded again, his face totally impassive, expression unchanging. If he knew anything about Nick he most certainly wasn’t going to let it show. Maybe he just thought that Maggie was mad and was humouring her so that she didn’t make a scene. As he spoke the sergeant flicked through a book on the desk in front of him and then, smiling helpfully, said, ‘If you’d just like to take a seat I’ll go and see what I can find out for you. Won’t be a minute.’

Maggie sighed and sat down, feeling – as she had with the patrol man who had taken Nick
away in the first place – that somehow, despite being unfailingly polite, the police officer was blocking her every step. Surely if Nick was there this man already knew – didn’t everyone come into the station via the front desk?

Quelling further rebellious thoughts she waited. The moments tick-tick-ticked past and as they did Maggie could feel the tension building in her belly. She got up and then paced up and down, read the crime-prevention leaflets and every public-service poster in between, all the while trying very hard to remain patient and stay calm.

A couple of streets away, Nimrod and Cain were waiting, too, their car silent except for the beeps and crackles and stilted patois of the police frequency coming in over the scanner, and sounds of Nimrod sucking on yet another sweet. Outside, the sun shone, a light breeze scuttling cheerily through the trees and rifling through the leaves on a hedge beside them. In the car it was hot, the air as charged and live as the prelude to a summer storm.

Nimrod stretched and let out a long slow breath – he was working on stilling his conscious mind. He glanced across at Cain who seemed to be having no trouble at all stilling his.

Crouched in the back seat of the car, Bernie waited, too; the constant nagging fear making his
heart pitter-patter, pitter-patter in his narrow chest. Nimrod had put the childproof locks on the rear doors and locked the electronic windows so that Bernie couldn’t get out or open them for a breath of air, which made him feel sick and horribly claustrophobic.

Bernie had already decided that it wasn’t worth trying to escape – by the time he had broken a window and clambered out over the shards of glass he would be history. It didn’t take a psychic to guess that the end was nigh and Bernie was busy thinking about not if, but when, his two companions planned to shoot him. A trickle of cold sweat ran down between his shoulder blades.

Surely this wasn’t what was meant to happen when you did the right thing? He’d been trying to save Maggie, surely that had to count for something, didn’t it? It wasn’t fair, he never had any trouble at all when he was being a complete bastard. Bernie closed his eyes and swallowed hard, all the while making all sorts of rash promises to various deities to change his ways and turn over any number of new leaves, if only they could get him out of this alive.

A little further up the road Robbie Hughes and Lesley were waiting, too – they could just make out the car where Bernie was sitting without being in a direct line of sight. Robbie was still a little shaken up after the phone call from his wife,
although he hadn’t said anything to Lesley; it didn’t pay to let a woman know exactly what you were thinking, because inevitably they would take it down and use it in evidence against you later.

His wife had already told him several times that if she ever caught him playing away again she would leave him. No discussion, no excuses, no second chances. She would take the kids, the cars, the house and then screw him for every penny she and her lawyer, the Rottweiler, could get their sticky little paws on. Oh, and while she was at it she would sell her story to the tabloids; the real inside story behind TV’s Mr Squeaky-Clean. It didn’t bear thinking about. Robbie shivered. He’d never work again.

Robbie took a deep breath. What he needed was a good alibi. What he needed was film – some really good footage of Bernie Fielding doing something dodgy, preferably illegal, preferably something spectacular – to prove that he and Lesley were away on a shoot. That was it – perfect. Get the film in the can and all would be well.

It would be a terrible shame if he ended up homeless and wifeless because of this bloody fiasco. God, he hadn’t even slept with Lesley, well at least not on this trip. If he was going to go down in flames Robbie would rather it was for something a little more noteworthy than a sleepless night in a narrow single bed over the
kitchen, while little Miss Map Reader here had sulked in his suite and run up a bill on room service.

‘What did that bitch from upstairs want anyway?’ he asked casually.

‘From the studio? Nothing very much – she just wanted to know how I was and where we were – well you heard that bit – and then she just said that as soon as we get back she wants to see me in her office. I’m not sure what about exactly – and she did say that she didn’t want to go into details on the phone –’ Lesley looked towards him, obviously expecting some hint, some clue as to what might be the reason behind the Royal summons. Not that Robbie had any idea but there was no way he was going to tell Lesley that. Instead he made a non-committal noise and looked away. Madam was probably going to give Lesley the old heave-ho though he certainly wasn’t going to say so. Serve her right.

He could see the thinking behind it; Lesley wasn’t a real team player and if he was honest she didn’t have quite the right attitude for the whole
Gotcha
set-up. He would be sad to see her go but then again the perky little brunette in reception was at least five years younger than Lesley and there was no way she looked like a graduate. They could probably pay her half as much as what Lesley was getting and she would still be grateful. Oh yes, he could see the sense in the decision;
sensible use of the company resources. Shame, but there you go.

Beside him, Lesley picked up the video camera. ‘So are we going in then, Robbie?’ she said nervously, peering through the eyepiece.

Robbie shook his head. This was exactly the kind of thing he meant. ‘And film what? Three men sitting in a car picking their noses? No, that’s not the kind of TV we do at
Gotcha
, Lesley. No, what we need is some action; something special. No, we’ll just sit and see what it is that Bernie and his little friends have got planned.’ Robbie screwed up his eyes, staring hard at what little they could see of the silver-grey car. One thing was for certain, if Bernie Fielding was involved it wasn’t likely to be anything philanthropic. Robbie just hoped that they were in at the kill.

Now that Coleman knew exactly where Maggie Morgan was, he drove round into the police car park, tailing a neat, unmarked navy-blue transit van that drew in ahead of him and then backed up slowly towards the rear doors of the police station. He had already radioed in to head office to let them know he had arrived – and also to request that someone inside the station take Ms Morgan to one side and keep her out of the way until they were done with Mr Lucas. Everything was in place. A transit van was hardly a coach and horses, but as a getaway vehicle it wasn’t bad,
and after pissing them about Nick Lucas couldn’t afford to be too choosy.

Inside the police station Maggie was getting increasingly impatient. There was nothing else to read and no sign of the policeman coming back. Maggie stared at the closed doors of the enquiry hatch, willing them to open. Nothing. But as she turned away she did notice, through one of the windows, the arrival of a shiny navy-blue van, and watched as it indicated and pulled into the yard. It was being driven by what looked like two policemen in plain clothes – and some part of her instinctively knew that they had come to take Nick away.

Turning quickly Maggie headed for the great outdoors and just as she did the little hatchway on the front desk slid open.

‘Excuse me, Madam. I’ve put a call through about your friend – one of the detectives will come through and have a word with you, if you like. He shouldn’t be a minute – if you’d like to come this way and wait in the office –’ said the Sergeant, opening a door through into the main body of the police station and indicating that she should follow him. He pointed down the corridor. ‘If you’d just like to go through those double doors on the right. He shouldn’t be very long. Would you like a cup of tea or a coffee while you wait?’

For a few moments Maggie was rooted to the
spot, torn between the persuasive and now very personable policeman and the arrival of the blue van. What if Nick was somewhere inside the station, safe and sound after all, just sitting there waiting to be rescued? What if she had got it all wrong? Maggie heard the van start to reverse up towards the building. What the hell, if Nick didn’t get in the van then she could always come back and take the Sergeant up on his kind offer of a sit down and light refreshments.

The Sergeant opened the door a little wider and said, ‘He’s on the phone, but he shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes; if you’d like to come this way.’

Maggie had a sense of the soft but increasing pressure. ‘Okay – but I just have to go and get something from my car,’ she lied, and before he could say anything else, she turned and hurried towards the door. Maggie had barely got over the threshold before she clapped eyes on Coleman making his way over towards the van, and alongside him one of the men she had seen earlier in Blenheim Gardens, still talking into his lapel. Her stomach lurched.

In what felt like slow motion, Maggie ran across the tarmac towards them. Coleman looked up at the sound of her footsteps approaching and to her total amazement smiled.

‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t superwoman herself, come to save the day,’ he said. Any amusement
didn’t creep high enough to defrost the ice in his eyes.

Maggie squared up to him. ‘Where the hell is Nick? I know he’s here somewhere –’

Coleman looked down at her.

‘What have you done with him?’ she demanded furiously.

‘Done with him?’ said Coleman, the smile not fading. ‘Nothing, at least not yet. You know, Ms Morgan, you’ve made my job very difficult.’

Her eyes narrowed, ‘What do you mean not yet?’

At that moment the back doors to the police station swung open and there, framed in the doorway, stood Nick.

‘Nick?’ Maggie called out to him, and he looked up as he heard her voice. ‘Are you all right?’ He didn’t look all right, he looked pale and scared and dishevelled and as their eyes met, Maggie’s heart went out to him. ‘I just couldn’t leave you here on your own –’ she began.

‘Go away,’ he shouted. ‘For God’s sake –’

Maggie turned to look over her shoulder; surely he couldn’t mean her?

‘What?’ she gasped in amazement.

‘Please Maggie, get out of here before it’s too late.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘What do you mean, too late?’

‘It’s too dangerous,’ Nick snapped. ‘If anything happens to you –’

She was about to step forward when Coleman stepped into her path, blocking her way. ‘No,’ he growled in a voice that would have cut through sheet steel.

‘What? Why not – he’s not under arrest or anything, is he?’

The smile on the big man’s face dropped away. ‘If you stay, Ms Morgan, then he’ll die here,’ said Coleman coldly. ‘That isn’t what you want, is it?’