KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) (20 page)

I switched the torch off before I was sick.

‘What is it?’ Claverhouse asked.

‘They won’t be helping us.’

‘Get me out of this seat. I must see.’

‘No, you don’t want to do that.’

‘Damn you Cunane, help me.’

So I helped her. Spinal injury forgotten, she took a quick peek and turned the torch off.

‘Bloody hell, this is your fault,’ she said angrily.

I was about to argue when light flooded into our space from the wrecked driver’s cab.

‘There, I knew someone would come,’ Claverhouse said. ‘They must have got a message off.’

I shook my head but of course she couldn’t see that. Shock
can do strange things to people. There was something else.

‘Hush, listen,’ I ordered.

The light flooding our space seemed to wax and wane as if the source of light was drawing nearer and then going away again. There was an accompanying noise which also grew louder and quieter.

‘It’s a helicopter!’ Clint said.

‘Christ, so it is,’ Claverhouse agreed. ‘It’s the police or the air ambulance.’

I looked at my watch again. Astonishingly only three minutes and forty seconds had elapsed since my first look.

‘Were the police shadowing the van with a helicopter?’

‘Of course they weren’t. MI5 is perfectly capable of transporting suspects without their help. Why do you think the van is so ordinary looking?’

‘So, unless by a one in a million chance the police just happened to be overhead when we were wrecked, that isn’t a police helicopter.’

‘Don’t be stupid. It must be.’

‘The best possible time a police helicopter could get here from a standing start at Barton Aerodrome is something like ten minutes. The same goes for the air ambulance.’

‘So what?’

‘So, it’s the people who’ve just killed your minders.’

‘It was an accident.’

‘We were forced off the motorway deliberately, probably by the same people who killed Sir Lew and tried their luck with me or are you saying your men were the world’s worst drivers?’

Discussion was terminated when bullets began rattling on the side of van. Someone was firing short bursts from the helicopter. The noise the bullets made as they struck the steel plate was just like someone rapping on a door.

‘Oh, hell!’ Claverhouse moaned, ‘at least we’re safe in here.’

‘Safe for as long as they don’t set our petrol tank on fire, then we’ll be roasted like Christmas turkeys,’ Clint said contentedly, putting my worst fears into words.

The firing was intermittent with brief pauses while the helicopter shifted its position. I reached the back doors and rattled them. They were firmly shut. The hasp and staple for the padlock were welded onto the van. It was hopeless.

‘We need a crowbar, something to lever the doors open,’ I said desperately.

‘There’s nothing like that kept in here,’ Claverhouse replied.

I slammed my body against the doors. I was sure there was a slight give but I bounced off the metal and collapsed.

‘Not like that, Dave,’ Clint corrected. He pulled me upright and squeezing himself between the door and the back of his seat, placed his heels against the door and pushed like a hydraulic ram.

There was a grating noise from the hasp and staple fixings. Clint’s strength had stretched them away from the metal holding them but not torn them free. They still held. He stopped pushing. The doors had opened enough for me to put my fingers through but the thick steel shackle of the padlock still held.

Bullets were rattling on the armour plate now. I guessed they were using two submachine guns. It could only be seconds before a spark reached that ruptured petrol tank. I flung myself down beside Clint. My legs weren’t as long as his but maybe the extra leverage I could supply would do the trick, Then Claverhouse walked over me and lay on top of me with her heels against the door.

‘Altogether,’ I screamed.

We heaved. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

The staple tore free and the three of us tumbled out of the van. Our escape coincided with a momentary shift in the helicopter’s position and we were out of the spotlight.

‘Run!’ I yelled.

‘Like hell,’ Claverhouse screamed. She dashed back to the van, fumbled at the passenger door, which she opened with difficulty and pulled out her dead colleague’s brief case. A second later, just as the helicopter repositioned itself for another attack she opened fire.

The searchlight winked out but whoever the two gunners were, they knew their business. They fired at the flashes from Claverhouse’s weapon. She went down.  At the same instant the petrol caught fire. The whole scene was illuminated like the world’s worst Guy Fawkes Night. I caught a glimpse of ranks of electricity pylons which told me I was in the Mersey Valley or close to it.

The uprushing flames drove the helicopter away.

I ran forward. There was blood on Claverhouse’s forehead. I dragged her away from the burning vehicle. I moved downhill, seeking darkness.

I put a finger on Claverhouse’s neck. There was a strong pulse.

‘Give her to me,’ Clint shouted. He picked her up like a small parcel.

There was bright light from the inferno behind us. Ahead were some trees and then a lake. A lake! Where were we? If the motorway we’d come off was the M60 then this could be one of the water parks which lay beyond the motorway embankment but the puzzle of why we’d been travelling south instead of north was for another time. For now we just had to survive and our chances of that didn’t look great.

The helicopter was still somewhere above us. The pilot had dodged back over the motorway when the van blew up. Probably as aware of the pylons as I was, he was hanging back from the valley.

If they had thermal imaging technology on board then we were toast wherever we tried to hide round here. There were no houses, no shelter. Clint and I ran frantically, reaching a cinder track alongside the lake. The searchlight came on. They were searching in the opposite direction on the far side of the blazing van. It was dark down here away from the glare of the motorway. We had a slim chance if we could reach civilisation in the form of streets and houses rather than try to hide in this strip of urban wilderness before they found us. We ran frantically, me gasping at full stretch and Clint loping along easily, quite untroubled by the burden he was carrying.

Suddenly Claverhouse came round.

‘Put me down,’ she yelled.

Clint stopped and obeyed immediately.

‘Keep running, we’ve no time for this,’ I shouted. The helicopter had turned and was now heading for us. Its searchlight
was slowly sweeping along the track we were on. In the reflected light I could make out the steelwork of a pylon. The helicopter was threading its way among the obstacles like a sure footed and deadly cat seeking its prey.

‘Yes, we have,’ she said. She still had the brief case.

‘Those bastards killed my team and they’re going to pay.’

She opened the case, pulled out the MP5 it contained and loaded another magazine but then she stumbled to her knees. I saw that what I’d taken for a bullet wound was in reality a nasty bruise. She was fighting for consciousness.

‘Oh, Christ,’ she muttered as she slumped onto the cinder track. Clint grabbed her again but now there was no time to run. The helicopter was on us. Bullets hissed through the air but nowhere near us. Their shooting was wild because they had to steer clear of the immense pylons. I grabbed the MP5 and fired using short bursts more for effect than in the hope of hitting them. The muzzle flash from the weapon must have marked our position like a runway landing light. Without tracer ammunition there was no way to aim accurately in the darkness. Probably none of my bullets hit but the human mind can play strange tricks, at least that pilot’s did.

When they were firing at us he’d controlled his machine with surgical steadiness. Now, faced with incoming fire, he weaved and jinked above the lake. He went higher and then made a diving turn possibly looking for a better angle for a strafing run.

The gun gave out a useless click.

All my bravado achieved was to show our exact location in that dark valley.

So this was it. There were no more magazines. We couldn’t run far enough. The searchlight swept across the small lake then suddenly all hell broke out. The helicopter was engulfed in flashing lights and sparks. The rotors had hit the high tension cables which were suspended above the artificial lake. It rose, seemed about to escape and then came down like a brick, straight into the lake.

We watched in astonishment for a moment. There was something very anticlimactic about it. I’d have preferred to watch the thing burn with the men inside it. A fiery death for them like
they’d tried so hard to give me. As it was I could hear shouts and cries for help. My bloodlust cooled. There were survivors.

I was brought back to my own situation when a distant wail of massed sirens grew louder. All traffic had ceased on the motorway. This area was shortly going to be swarming in police. I hurled the MP5 into the lake and the brief case after it.

‘That’s government property you’re destroying,’ Claverhouse said.

‘Oh, yes, I’m going to wait while your police friends find me with a gun.’

‘You’re still under … er’

‘What? Arrest? I don’t think so.’

‘Mr Appleyard requires you to look at those photos. He has the legal power to insist that you cooperate. Those men died …’

‘Not because of me.’

I watched her patting her clothing. I knew what she was looking for. She’d been wearing a heavy shoulder bag when she got in the van. It had been left behind.

‘No gun?’ I asked, stepping a little nearer to her.

‘I was trying to find my phone.’

‘And your gun, but they’re in the van aren’t they.’

‘Don’t move a step closer to me. I’m trained in close quarter combat.’

‘I’m sorry about your men but I’m not to blame for what happened to them. We’re off now if you don’t need further help.’

I turned.

‘Wait, you bastard.’

‘There’s gratitude for you Clint,’ I said to my companion.

‘Arsehole,’ she shouted.

We jogged away.

‘She’s
really
rude, you know,’ Clint commented.

22

Tuesday: evening

We made it. We got away from the sirens and reached terraced streets.

My first move was to find a call box. That took us the better part of half an hour.

As soon as I entered the box I remembered that I’d neglected to memorise Tony’s mobile number. I phoned the Pimpernel office hoping he’d hung on there. I knew the line was sure to be bugged but it would have to do.

He answered at once.

‘Where’ve you been Boss?’ Tony gasped as soon as I spoke. ‘It’s all happening here. There’s been loads more work coming in and I’ve had to put men on it.’

‘Good, good …’

‘And Marvin Desailles has been round. He told me to tell you that everything’s going ahead. He gave me a special phone for you to call him on.’

I was glad that Marvin had been discreet with Tony. I wasn’t sure that I wanted Tony to know more than he had to.

‘And my mate’s been on. He phoned from where he delivered the parcels. He wants to know where he’s to go with the car.’

‘Parcels?’

‘Oh, yeah, he delivered them to the right place all. He saw them on their way.’

I breathed a sigh of relief. There’d always been a chance that Lee would take off into the hinterland.

‘Listen, Tony, the car … is it traceable? You know what I mean?’

‘Oh, no Dave it’s clean. It’s …’

‘No, enough information, here’s what I want you to do. Shut up the office and then make damn sure no one’s following
you. I don’t care if it takes you all night.’

‘Nah, Man City’s playing Arsenal. The streets are crowded. I’ll have no problem losing a tail. I’ll phone my mate from a call box and tell him not to come here.’

‘Right and then …’

‘Meet up with him and come out to you?’

‘Do you know where we’ll be going?’

‘Yeah, I know the place.’

‘We’ll be walking. All the pair of you have to do is to make sure no one’s tailing you.’

‘Easy, peasy,’ he said and I put the phone down. God knows how long it would take whoever was tapping the office phone to trace this public callbox. In films and TV programmes they never quite have time but I feared the march of technology had made it instantaneous. I wasn’t as confident as Tony. We set off walking down side streets and back alleys until we came to the canal towpath. I prayed that CCTV hadn’t reached there yet. Surely there was somewhere still untouched by intruding lenses? Walking anywhere accompanied by Clint was the equivalent of advertising our location. The canal was deserted apart from groups of surly teens smoking and drinking in the shelter of the numerous bridges. They cleared off when they saw Clint coming.

It was true. Looming up out of the darkness, Clint was pretty scary, especially when he smiled and showed his teeth.

Did I feel guilty about shaking off Claverhouse? No, I was well rid of her! The murder of her team was stomach churning but the three hour delay for the ‘armoured’ van at the airport had given someone time to set up the hit. And how the hell did the killers know what I’d be travelling in? There had to be a leak.

Come to think of it, how had they known I was at the airport seeing off Bob?

My office was bugged to hell and back.

In the circumstances I’d be insane to trust Claverhouse or MI5 again. All that cursing and swearing that got up Clint’s nose was due to the fact that she didn’t have the means to force us to go with her. Now, having lost us and with two deaths to explain, she’d be on the receiving end of Appleyard’s temper and threats.

Thinking it over, I decided that if they did start playing the
blame game they would find one person to blame for those deaths … me. Is that paranoia? No, it isn’t. Claverhouse would have to explain to Appleyard. Appleyard would have to explain to his boss and that boss to someone higher and in the end they’d all find it so much more convenient to blame the civilian. I could almost write the scenario for them. The crash on the motorway would be explained as a botched attempt by my men to free me.

Even if I surrendered myself now and managed to convince Appleyard that I had no connection with anything he was sure to spend twenty eight days grilling me in Paddington Green until he was sure he’d squeezed the last little morsel of information out of me.  

That wasn’t going to happen. MI5 were not going to get their hands on me until the real culprits were found.

After walking for an hour we arrived under a bridge in the centre of Altrincham. The road above was the A56 Manchester Road and I was sure it would be covered by CCTV. As soon as we popped up those lenses would be on us like a hungry cat outside a mouse hole

The operator might not identify me in my black hooded anorak but Clint was unmistakeable.

I could leave him and come back in the Beamer but Clint knew the way to his brother’s house. I didn’t. If I set off without him it might take me hours to find Bob’s hidey-hole, hours during which some busybody was sure to spot him and tell the police that a sinister seven foot tall man was lurking on the canal bank.

It came onto rain heavily.

Pointlessly, I wished Tony Nolan was here with us. He’d be able to snake us round the all-seeing eyes.  Alternatively I could dash out on my own and get a taxi to the address but Clint was still the problem. I just couldn’t leave him.

In the end there was no choice. I had to hope that my luck would hold.

We emerged onto the wide dual carriageway, ran across six lanes swept by torrential rain and then away from the main road into the nearest residential streets.

Clint led us through the by-ways. It was quite a walk but we passed unnoticed in the dark and rain. At least, I think we did because there was no sudden descent of police cars. Our stroll took us along a wide road and then by a series of turns into the surrounding area. First it was Latimer Avenue, a street of Edwardian detached houses, then along Cranmer with similar houses and finally Ridley Close, a cul-de-sac, consisting of much larger detached houses with big gardens.

I left Clint to shelter under an overhanging tree on Cranmer while I checked out Bob’s property on my own. It was fine. There was nothing parked on the street and there were Neighbourhood Watch signs to suggest that the locals were vigilant enough to report prowling gangs of machine gunners.

Bob’s property, number twelve, was on the end of the cul-de-sac where the road had been widened into a turning circle. The house had been modernised with plastic windows which detracted from the original Edwardian splendour, but it would be hard for anyone to set up surveillance on the place. There were large trees in the front garden and it was one of only two houses on the short street which had access back and front. A path at the back opened onto a wooded, cinder paved lane bordering a river.

I stood for a while. It was very quiet round here. There were faint sounds of distant traffic and some aircraft noise but that was it. Bob’s white Beamer was parked in the drive. There was no noise coming out of it. A pinprick of light told me that it was occupied by a smoker. It had to be Lee.

I tiptoed up to the drive, walked past the BMW and rapped on its door.

Bob flicked his roll-up out onto the drive.

‘F**king hell!’ he said and swung out of the car with all his familiar truculence. Body language is everything with Lee and now every muscle was tense. He was ready for action. I put my hands up in surrender.

‘You didn’t need to f**king do that,’ he growled. Then he slowly unwound, his body losing all the aggressive stiffness. Perhaps there was some hope for him. At one time he’d have been at my throat already.

‘Yeah, sorry, I just wanted to keep you on your toes. There are some really nasty people looking for me, Lee, and working for me might not be a doddle.’

‘Do I f**king care? Have I said anything?’

‘No, I’m just saying.’

‘It’s all right, Dave,’ Tony said. ‘I’ve filled him in on what’s gone down, at least that bit that you’ve told me about.’

‘Yeah, well maybe I’ll say more later. I’ll have to see.’

‘OK. You’re paying the wages.’

‘Oh, Tony and there I was thinking we have a relationship that goes beyond the pounds and pence.’

‘We have. You’re a great laugh Dave but you couldn’t pay me enough to defuse a bomb for you. No one could.’

‘Yeah, Tony Nolan, you’re all heart. A diamond geezer if ever there was one.’

Lee gave a short snort at this. The first expression of amusement I’d ever heard from him.

‘OK, enough Dave. I defused that bomb because I could, that’s all. Maybe it was payback for me taking the piss out of you that time when you were in Strangeways, maybe not, but I’m not sure I’d be as quick to do another one if I didn’t know the reason why. That’s all I’m saying.’

I raised my eyebrows. So Tony had been meditating about the occasion when he’d spat in my face. That was interesting. Had the reconditioned brain revived his conscience? Defusing a bomb was a nice enough apology.

‘Fair enough, all will be revealed. Meanwhile what’s happening round here? Where you followed?’

‘What do you think? Lee dropped me off at the corner of the main road on the way in. I waited half an hour and there’s been nothing coming onto this estate, not even an ice-cream van. I’ve been in cemeteries that had more action. Bob knew what he was doing when he bought this place. Proper bleeding retirement home, it is.’

‘Yeah, well go and find Clint. He’s round the corner.’

I opened the door and lit the lights.

Lee followed me in.

‘Bright, int it?’ he commented mildly.

It was.

Bob changes addresses frequently. As he’s supposed to be in the clear with the law I don’t know why he does this, but he
does. Possibly he fears former associates more than the police or customs. This new address in Ridley Close is a recent move so I could only hope it wasn’t on a police database.

I guessed that all Cunane addresses would be watched but what about Sir Lew’s many properties if they became available?

I was familiar with some of Bob’s other homes. Like them this place had been refitted by an interior designer used to working on Bob’s night clubs; clashing colours, gold fittings, chrome and glass everywhere, vases and mirrors too large for a normal house.

What was certain was that Bob Lane had no yearning for the muted pastel shades and understated design currently in vogue. Scandinavian minimalist, ain’t him. I’d argued with him but I was wasting my time. For Bob if the cheque that a designer asked him to sign was heavy enough then that meant everything was fine and aesthetics be damned.

Bob is Bob and I value his good points well enough not to care about his judgement in interior decor.

‘So how did it go in Scotland, Lee,’ I asked.

‘Your old lady’s a bit of a hard case, int she?’

‘What?’

‘I found them at the meeting point like you said, dog and all, but I thought she was going to kick my bloody liver out when I said you’d sent me to collect them. You should have given me a note or something. I’ve had an easier time convincing a copper I was telling the gospel truth than I had with your old lady, and that other one … the mother … for f**k’s sake, she’s awesome and she talks funny too.’

‘She’s a cockney, Lee.’

‘Cockney, mockney, I don’t know but I’d rather be locked up in a cell under Wythenshawe cop shop with three big coppers kicking the shit out of me than try to put one over on that one.’

‘Yeah, I know the feeling Lee, so how did you persuade them?’

‘I didn’t but in the end the old cockney said only Dave Cunane could have sent someone like me to collect his family. A diamond in the rough, that’s what she said I was and we got on OK after that.’

Lee looked quite proud as he was telling me this.

‘So you got them down to the truck at Burtonwood services.’

‘Yeah, I stayed and waved them off.’

‘Thanks Lee.’

‘It’s what you’re paying me for, int it? She, I mean your wife, gave me a bag full of mobile phones. They’re in the motor. I’ll get them.’

Tony returned with Clint after my dialogue with Lee. It was the longest exchange I’d ever had with him without resort to violence. Maybe it was the start of a new era in Cunane/Lee relations … maybe.

Clint clumped into the hall.

He wrinkled his nose.

‘Stinks funny in here,’ he said.

‘That’s Tammy’s perfume,’ Tony explained, ‘Gucci “Rush” and you need a gold rush to pay for it.’

‘I stink too,’ I said, not anxious to start Clint off on a catalogue of complaints about his brother’s lover. ‘We both reek of petrol, Clint. Point me to a bathroom.’

‘There’s some upstairs here and there’s the Jacuzzi at the back.’

‘Upstairs will be fine.’

I followed him upstairs.

‘Where?’ I asked.

He pointed to a door.

It was the spacious master bedroom, dominated by a king-sized bed with an elaborate carved headboard. The carving was of a naked, busty woman with an elaborate hairdo reclining on her side and extending one hand outwards to the onlooker while the other rested coyly on her private parts. The woman vaguely resembled Tammy Marsden and must have cost a fortune.