KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) (36 page)

It was Tony who broke the awkward silence. He emerged from the barn with bulging pockets and a carrier bag full of stuff …

‘Dave, we’ve been here about five minutes and if I was thinking of springing an ambush I’d do it just about now.’

He was right. We weren’t followed but Bren could have been.

‘Back in the cars,’ I shouted.

Encumbered though Tony was, he and Lee moved to the Ford with the speed of experienced escapees, Clint more slowly. I was left facing Bren. He looked anguished.

‘For Christ’s sake, Dave, say you trust me.’

‘With my life, Bren, with my life; but you weren’t the one who dreamed up that fairy story about four Somalis. They didn’t suspend you for leaking to the press. They suspended you so you’d lead them to me. You were being played, whether it was by Appleyard or someone else is what I need to find out.’

‘Yes,’ he gasped.

‘Follow us.’

I dashed to the Land Rover and he got behind the wheel of his silver Jag.

We rapidly backed out to the lane and formed a convoy heading towards Bollington. It didn’t make much sense to go back by the way we’d come. My Land Rover was about three hundred yards from the house and cresting the hill that gives Topfield its name when there was a thunderous explosion. The ground shook and the road moved enough to toss the heavy Land Rover into the air. It fell back onto its rugged suspension with a jolt.

I felt as if I’d been stabbed through the heart. After such a blast, there wouldn’t have been much left of Topfield Farm or of us if we’d all been standing in front of it. Six months of back-breaking labour, that’s what Topfield Farm had cost me: that and the even harder struggle before for my liberty and a normal family life.

What would I tell Jan?

The thought of her and the children gave me a surge of strength. Jan was tough enough for both of us. We’d pull through this as we’ve pulled through everything else.

I needed to put some distance between myself and the ruin of my home.

I drove on winding lanes towards Bollington and from there down the ‘Silk Road’ to Macclesfield. I didn’t stop in the market town but turned onto the Buxton Road. I followed its tortuous curves, scenes of innumerable motor cycle fatalities, until I reached the summit and then the car park of the Cat and Fiddle pub. Steering the Land Rover round those bends was demanding and took my mind off the near disaster at Topfield but I didn’t stop thinking.

‘What is this, Dave, a scenic tour of Cheshire?’ Bren complained when we gathered by the Land Rover.

The Cat and Fiddle is the second highest pub in England at nearly seventeen hundred feet above the Peak District on the Cheshire/Derbyshire border.

‘Yeah, shouldn’t we be heading for the Channel Tunnel or somewhere?’ Lee whined.

‘No, we damn well should not,’ I snapped. ‘It’s one man who’s behind all this. He’s manipulating the Security Services with lies about Islamic terrorists but he’s not going to manipulate me out of this country. Lee, if you’ve had enough take the Ford and head for Wythenshawe. I’m sure your friends will hide you until the radiation starts.’

‘Chill Boss, I’m no coward,’ Lee protested. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I was.’

‘Sorry, Lee, all this running away is getting to me as well, but what I said is right. It’s just one man who’s setting this up. I came here because we can see the road for miles in both directions so we’ll know if they’re coming for us by road and if they go for an airstrike we’ve always got the pub to shelter in.’

‘Thinking ahead, Boss,’ Tony muttered, ‘I like it.’

We instinctively glanced at the pub. Built of limestone with thick walls for protection against hard winters, it resembles a bomb shelter.

There was nothing on the road and the sky was clear.

Bren began talking.

‘OK, up to last night it pressure, pressure, pressure. COBRA was in nonstop session and the planning for a major civil disaster was going full steam ahead. Say what you like about the Civil Service but there are contingency plans for almost everything including an invasion by men from Mars. Whether terrorists had taken a school hostage like they did at Beslan or blown up a stadium full of kiddies they have the response written down just waiting to be issued. Sir Garret McGarrigle, the Cabinet Secretary, was in constant contact with the incident room …’

‘Where is it?’ I interjected.

‘You’ve been in it. It’s at Manchester Airport. It’s the nearest fully-secured, comms centre to Sir Lew’s house. Bury was always a mistake for MI5. The top bods from London can be in and out of the airport in no time. That was part of the trouble. They didn’t trust Appleyard to handle the Manchester end. Once there were suspicions raised about him and his deputy, Claverhouse, they shipped other people in from London.’

‘Suspicions?’

‘That’s the way things work in Spookworld: if you can’t blame someone when things go wrong on your patch you’re in the shit. Appleyard had two things going wrong: a trusted Judge getting decapitated by terrorists and two of his own guys getting terminated. The system is that he gets the blame until he could prove himself innocent.’

‘Maybe they’re right.’

‘No, I believe him but think what you like,’ he said with a shrug. ‘The result was to put us all under a cloud. The men on the spot were suspect so DG came up with another plan.’

‘DG?’

‘The Director General of MI5, Sir Freddy Jones.’

‘That’s not really his name?’

‘It is and will you shut up for a minute?’

‘OK, but get to the point where they raided Ridley Close.’

‘I was never at that point,’ he said bitterly. ‘They kicked me out before then, remember?’

‘Go on.’

‘Jones hasn’t got an endless supply of trusted agents he can pull in. London’s stretched as it is. So he recalled a shed load of retired officers, “reclaimed assets” he calls them. Talk about Dad’s Army, half are on Zimmer frames and the rest have sticks but McGarrigle and Jones reckon they’re trustworthy and they began converging on Manchester just as fast as their invalid buggies could get them there. Some of these guys date from an era when ordinary police were expected to approach the Security Service on bended knees. Their idea of co
-operation is to ask you to make them a cup of tea while they get on with the serious work.’

‘Tough!’

‘It bloody well was. The big idea was that a terror strike against children was imminent …’

‘MOLOCH.’

‘That’s right, these guys are all well schooled in the Old Testament and they had us shutting down or investigating every public event involving more than thirty children right down to kiddies dance displays. They were on the point of shutting the schools. That is until they nabbed the Birmingham cell. Then it was …panic over … start the blame game.’

‘Bren, there is an attack but it’s nothing to do with an Old Testament god and it’s very much not over.’

38

Friday: 11.00 a.m.

‘What?’

‘Lew’s word, the clue he spent the last seconds of his life scratching out, wasn’t MOLOCH it was M.O.Lochhead and the bastard behind all this has used the suggestion about the Old Testament god to divert your whole team from discovering that fact.’

He looked unconvinced.

‘Nice one Dave, so who’s this Lochhead?’

‘It’s not a person but the name of a company,’ Tony said, ‘at least according to this.’

He held up his iPhone.

‘I Googled Manchester warehouses and here it is … M.O.Lochhead and Sons, established 1945, warehousing. They have a warehouse near Oldham Road.’

Bren still wasn’t jumping for joy.

I took out Lew’s notebook.

‘It’s all in here. I found the woman claiming to be April Fothergill and got Lew’s notebook off her. The name Lew wanted to give me was M.O.Lochhead. He never knew who the head of the conspiracy was, at least not until the bastard murdered him.’

‘Dave, I don’t believe this. They’ve got the guys in Sparkbrook for the terrorist plot but nothing’s ever simple with you is it? First there’s a mysterious Mr Big with his name in a missing notebook and now it’s a warehouse company in a sleazy part of Manchester.’

‘Sleazy part of Manchester, weren’t you born in Gorton?’

‘So what? The Moloch enquiry has closed down apart from those involved in nailing the bent coppers who leaked to the press,’ he said bitterly.

‘Bren, there’s a lot more evidence if you can stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen. It’s all here in the notebook. Lew told a guy called Alban Pickering, a high up in the Secret Service about this …’

‘Did you say Alban Pickering?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s been on a watch list to be arrested since last Thursday.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s suspected of being too close to the Islamic militants and of being the one who facilitated the MOLOCH boys. He worked for MI6 in Kenya and the Horn of Africa and they think he went native.’

‘Suspected? Suspected by the same people who think you’re bent? Who are they?’

‘Dave, they don’t consult me about these things. High ups.’

‘Well, they’re wrong. Alban Pickering was a trusted friend of my godfather. He was checking this warehouse out on Monday morning and his wife hasn’t heard from him since.’

‘He’s probably been picked up. They don’t always tell the next of kin immediately.’

‘You’re so stupid! Do you think I just invented the story about the paramilitaries who came round to Ridley Close and started shooting as soon as they saw me?’

‘Now you mention it you’ve been known to exaggerate before now. Admit it. They were probably guys from MI5 who wanted your slant on how Jeremy Myers and Idwal Morgan came to a sticky end. They still have a theory that Clint here somehow used his strength to force the security van off the motorway.’

‘Ridiculous!’

‘No, it’s not. The back of that van had been forced open by someone of abnormal strength.’

‘What about Claverhouse? She was there.’

‘Claverhouse … Shmaverhouse! I told you, she and Appleyard are about to be shat upon from a great height.

‘It’s all in here Bren, read it!’ I said thrusting the notebook at him.

He gave me an odd look but went to his car and began studying the notebook.

At one point he took out a mobile and phoned someone.

‘Dave, what if he’s phoned that hit squad?’ Tony asked.

‘I trust him with my life.’

‘What about our lives?’ Lee growled.

‘Them too.’

Bren got out of his Jag. He took a blue LED light strip with the word POLICE from the back of the car and clamped it on the roof. When he plugged it in it started flashing. So did Bren, transformed from the defeated and harassed individual I’d met at Topfield: energised, determined.

‘Right, they stay here,’ he said, pointing at my three companions. ‘This is a job for professionals. That means me and my lads. The bastards sent them home, same as me.’

‘Surely you can get official help?’

‘No, I told you, I’m suspended, a pariah.’

‘There must be some way.’

‘Dave, there’s no point me trying to get help from the Counter-Terrorism Unit. The boss there, Detective Chief Superintendent Blenkinsop, is the one who suspended me and HQ isn’t taking calls from me.’

‘Give him the new information.’

‘He won’t believe me. I’m not sure I believe it myself.’

I realised then what Bren’s game plan was. He intended to break the case himself and take the credit.

‘Do you believe it?’

‘Yeah, I don’t think even you would forge the stuff in this notebook. So it’s down to me … Caesium-137. You can come, Dave, as everyone seems so anxious to meet you.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

He was running at maximum revs and missed my sarcasm.

‘My lads will get together and meet us at the Lochhead warehouse then we’ll see who sorts this thing out: the police or Sir Freddy Jones’ pensioners.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said grabbing his arm. ‘Not so fast. I want that notebook back.’

‘Police evidence, Dave and also my insurance policy if this thing goes pear shaped.’

‘Well, you might say thanks,’ I said hotly. ‘You were telling me I was delusional a few minutes ago.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’ve got your “lads” I want mine,’ I said, still holding onto his arm.

Clint picked up the bad vibes and came and stood beside me.

‘They’re civilians, two of them ex-cons, and one … well I don’t know what Clint is.’

‘What they are Bren, is the team which has cracked this case. It’s not over yet and if you think I’m going to let you ditch them for the greater glory of Brendan Cullen and the GMP you can think again.’

Clint moved to stand between Bren and the Jag.

Bren surrendered.

He put his arms up.

‘All right, they can come but you’ll have to ditch the Land Rover. I need to be at the M.O.Lochhead warehouse in half an hour and that thing will never keep up.’

There was a glint in his eye.

I knew him well enough to know what he was thinking. Once he was on the main roads he’d leave the trio in the Ford Focus well behind. He didn’t know Lee.

‘You come in my car, Dave. The big guy goes with the others.’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘Not OK,’ shouted Tony Nolan. ‘You’re not thinking. How did they know to set that bomb off?’

I looked at Bren. He shook his head.

Tony took out his bug detector and walked slowly round the Jag.

It began pinging when he came to the offside rear wheel, then furiously when he reached the back He moved the detector up and down and put his hand under the tailgate.

‘Open it,’ he demanded.

Bren pressed his key and the lock clicked open. Tony lifted the tailgate up and passed his detector over the interior floor covering.

‘Here we go,’ he said, lifting up the carpet.

Attached to the metal floor was a small square object.

‘That would be a GPS tracker,’ Tony crowed, ‘and they must have manned the hen house at Topfield as soon as you parked the Jag. All they were waiting for was for us to turn up. They probably had the bomb fused for delayed action to give them a chance to get away before it blew.’

Bren tossed the tracker onto the ground and raised his heel to crush it.

‘No, put it on the Land Rover and then they’ll think we’re still here,’ I said.

Seconds later I was in the Jag, siren blaring and all lights flashing, and Bren was racing away from the Cat and Fiddle in the direction of Buxton. As I expected, he was driving like a would-be suicide, of whom plenty have come to grief on this road. Fortunately, we’d already traversed the most dangerous section.

Bren kept looking in his mirror.

‘What the hell,’ he said.

I turned.

The Ford Focus was gaining on us.

‘Yes, Bren,’ I lied, ‘Lee’s a part time rally driver. He does stunt driving for TV companies.’

He grunted to himself and accelerated.

‘Liar,’ he muttered. ‘He’s a bloody get-away driver for Bob Lane, that’s what he is. The closest that little no-hoper’s ever been to a TV company is when his Dad got sent down for stealing TVs. I checked him out after I saw him at Bob’s hidey-hole.’

‘He’s good though.’

Lee was now tailgating us, quite an experience at over a hundred miles an hour on narrow roads. Where was that 3g seatbelt when I needed it?

We were through Buxton and on the A6 into Manchester in a very short time. The Jag ate up the miles and Lee kept pace with us. We went through speed traps but weren’t stopped. The flashing lights, I supposed. We jumped lights, cut through road works, and raced down the wrong side of the busy Stockport section of the A6 but we approached Oldham Road in less than twenty five minutes.

We turned into the industrial area.

It was deserted. There were no houses, only derelict businesses and no one on the streets. We went round one bend and then another before coming to a stop in a street where the pavements had been wrecked by heavy trucks and the road was pitted and scarred by vehicle tracks.

Probably the place was jammed with traffic in prosperous times but in this recession it was desolate and almost sinister. The place looked ripe for a full-blown ambush. We were lost. There was no sign of M.O.Lochhead’s warehouse.

Tony leaned out of the window of the Ford pointing at his mobile.

‘GPS again,’ Bren muttered, ‘the bloody techno-freak.’

Tony pointed to the next corner.

Bren drove round it cautiously and parked alongside an industrial unit. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting a warehouse to look like but the word ‘Lochhead’ was visible on the building. Secured behind a chain link fence and razor wire it was a large modern looking structure, a steel and aluminium construction which could only be a few years old.

A sign on the corner announced ‘Unit to Let’ with the name of a Manchester commercial estate agent underneath.

The single entrance was a work of art. It consisted of a massive automated steel gate on a track. To ensure closure someone had threaded a heavy chain round and round the gate and the upright retainer. The chain was fastened with an outsized padlock. We slowly drove round the block with the Ford tailing us. When we’d completed the circuit for a second time Bren parked in the entrance. Lee parked alongside.

Beyond the gates there was a marshalling area and turning space the size of two football pitches. We gazed through the gate at the unit beyond. Our drive-by hadn’t provoked a response. The place looked abandoned. The attached car-park was empty.

‘We’re going to need a bolt cutter to cut that chain. We might as well wait until my mates get here, Bren concluded.

‘No need,’ Tony said. ‘I can get us in.’

‘Past that massive padlock?’ Bren asked sceptically.

‘I can,’ he repeated. ‘Size isn’t everything.’

‘He can,’ Lee seconded.

Tony fumbled in his jacket and extracted a thick wallet, which he opened in to reveal a set of lock picks.

‘We might as well let him try,’ I said.

A second later Tony was at the gates.

Bren and I joined him. Lee stayed in the car with Clint. I was alert for any sign of movement, but the air was tranquil, with just the faintest breeze stirring piles of litter into motion. A scrap of paper blew against my foot. I picked it up. It was a National Health Service bandage wrapper.

We were a long way from a hospital.

As if on cue, the distant wail of an ambulance siren reached me as I studied the wrapper. It was the only disturbing sound. There was no bird song. Here in this post-industrial wasteland we were the only living things. There weren’t even dogs or cats.

I could hear Tony grunting to himself as he fiddled with his picks.

‘We’re in,’ he said turning to me with a triumphant smile on his battered features. He held up the heavy padlock in his hand. ‘Cheap Chinese rubbish,’ he announced.

We joined him to unravel the chain and push the heavy gate open. To my surprise it slid open very easily. It was oiled and obviously in regular use. There were no windows in the warehouse structure but attached to it there was a dingy looking temporary office unit. If we were being observed it had to be from there.

Being shot at and almost bombed can have the effect of making a person jumpy and I almost leapt out of my skin when another vehicle drove up suddenly. It was a private ambulance, like the ones used for conveying corpses to undertakers. There were three men crammed in its cab.

‘My team,’ Bren exclaimed quickly enough to prevent me making a run for it.

The men joined Brendan. All of them were casually dressed in leather jackets or fleeces but all three had guns in their hands.

‘Get in the Ford,’ Bren ordered Tony. ‘You wait in the Jag, Dave.’