STANDPOINT a gripping thriller full of suspense (6 page)

“Just let me sweep the house for . . .”

“Intrusions,” Miranda chipped in helpfully.

“Well,” John concluded, “that’s about it. Miranda, why don’t you and your mother make us all some tea.”

Oh bollocks, Thomas thought; here comes the real discussion. John waited less than five seconds after the kitchen door closed. “I don’t like deceivers, Thomas, but I respect loyalty. The main thing is that you still looked out for Sam and Terry. I appreciate that. All I want to say is this . . .”

Thomas braced himself. John and the boys leaned in as one.

“How much do you think we could charge to check out other people’s places for these intrusions? I know plenty of people who would be interested in that sort of service.”

“Hey Dad, I could get some cards printed.”

Thomas looked over at Sam. God help him, he was serious.

* * *

Miranda seemed unseasonably chirpy on the drive back to Caliban’s; a marked difference from Thomas who felt like he’d lost a tenner and found a black eye. “Cheer up, babe, it’ll be fine.”

He rubbed a thumb against his forehead in disbelief. “Your dad wants to offer a counter-intelligence service to the criminal fraternity, your brother wants to get me business cards and your mum probably hates me now.”

“Nah, I talked with her while you four were playing
The Godfather
. She knows it wasn’t personal, what with you not telling
any
of us.”

Seconds out, round two.
“Look Miranda, it’s the Official Secrets Act not a bloody Cluedo game.”

“So, do you
like
your job, then?”

Now there was a question he’d never been asked. Not even Christine Gerrard had drawn that one out of the hat, come appraisal time. “Most of it, yeah. But I don’t like the idea of being at the other end of the lens.”

Miranda squeezed his thigh. “You used to pose for me though!”

In the club’s car park, she turned off the engine. He wanted to say something meaningful; he been thinking about it all through the drive over. The best he could offer was: “Look, I’m sorry.”

She kissed him matter-of-factly on the cheek and that hurt more than anything else. And she’d know it. Nothing pained him as much as Miranda drawing away again.

He trudged towards his car and consoled himself. Not a bad weekend, all things considered. He’d played with guns, had some great sex, shared a family meal and admitted to the people he cared about most in the world that he’d been lying to them for months. Oh yeah, and found out that his best mate at work had been spying on him. Roll on Monday.

Chapter 8

He got into the office early and flicked the main lights on. At the far end of the room, Christine’s sanctuary was ablaze like an electric fly-killer. Ann Crossley’s chair had a bag hung over the back of it so someone had already started playing brown-noses with the boss. But then, today was the big day when Bob Peterson joined the gang. In all the weekend’s excitement he’d almost forgotten that piece of joy.

At 8.15, the impossible happened; Karl had somehow twisted the space-time continuum and arrived before most of the rabble. As soon as he was in the door, he marched over to the vending machines. Good to see that military training hadn’t gone to waste. Then he appeared at Thomas’s desk with coffees and two Twixes. “I, er, think I may have been a bit over-dramatic. All quits now?” Karl put the goods down and extended his hand. Thomas reciprocated, grabbing the payoff before Karl changed his mind.

Karl had clearly been at a different ‘prioritise your work’ seminar. First on his agenda was clearing out the spam emails from the web filter, with occasional commentary. “Jaysus, you’d think they could at least
spell
sperm? Fancy writing it with a ‘u’!”

“Why do you bother reading them?”

“I don’t read
all
of them — I just find some of titles intriguing. Lookie here Tommo; what do you reckon? Genuine herbal Viagra from Naples!”

Christine’s door opened and the sound of chatter and laughter floated out. Thomas and Karl exchanged a customary glance of contempt. Ann Crossley strode out, with all the confidence that a Cambridge education could buy, even if it had diluted her native Cardiff accent along the way.

“Good morning, gentlemen!” she crooned and returned to her desk.

“Ann, have you lost a few pounds by any chance?” Karl asked.

She glanced over herself admiringly. “Well, yes, as it happens.”

Karl daggered in with lightning speed. “Because I found a fiver on the carpet.”

“Karl,” she scowled, “you can be a real prick sometimes.”

“That’s because sometimes only a real prick will do!”

She huffed and fired up her laptop.

“Why do you do it, Karl?” Thomas shook his head. Karl just flashed a grin. Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas saw a figure filling up Christine’s doorway. The elusive Mr Peterson was surveying all that he owned. Thomas snapped a Twix finger in his teeth and stared at the screen, waiting for the inevitable call to visit the grown-ups. He managed a good five minutes of stoic activity under Bob Peterson’s gaze, including Karl’s emails declaring that Bob Peterson must be a busy man if he had time to engage in a one-way staring contest.

At eight thirty a mobile alarm went off; Bob Peterson cleared his throat. “Thomas, could you pop in please?” The poor sod was obviously a slave to the clock.

He drained the last of his coffee and picked up a notepad and pen. He imagined, for an instant, that Bob Peterson had been one of the targets he had fired bullets into. It helped put a smile on his face.

He sat down and tried not to react as Christine closed the door and sat closer to Bob than he would have liked.

“Thomas, glad to have you on the team.”

He noted the lack of a pronoun — a good way to spot liars and sociopaths. Even so, he made the supreme sacrifice and shook Bob’s hand.

“I’ve arranged to see everyone over the next couple of days, but I really wanted an opportunity for the three of us to, er, clear up any lasting misunderstandings.”

“Do you mean the one about me
not
knowing you two were carrying on together before Christine and I split up?”

Bob and Christine exchanged an ‘I told you so’ glance; Christine folded her hands earnestly. “Thomas, we’ve been through this. Bob’s interest in me was purely professional — when will you get that into your thick . . .” she paused and Thomas touched his tongue to his lip. The next words used to be: working class. But patronising the lower ranks would never do in front of her boss.

“—Head?” Thomas offered, generously. He had to be smart, smarter than Peterson, anyway. He glanced at Bob’s hand — same ring as he wore at Harwich. As clear as the blow-up he’d printed at home. He swallowed his pride and did what needed to be done. “Look, can we start again? My stuff with Christine is all in the past, but your arrival stirred things up a bit for me.”

“Sure, sure!” Peterson beamed as if he’d just successfully hidden a pair of Christine’s knickers in his back pocket. “I’ve checked through your record, Thomas, and it’s exemplary. I’m sure we can work together — I’d hate to have to lose you from the team.”

Thomas made no attempt to hide his shock. He looked straight at Christine, who seemed similarly surprised. “I’ll wait to hear from you, then.”

“Absolutely,” Peterson opened the door, as if he was making a point. “Don’t go too far; I want the whole team in at 9.30.”

Thomas returned to his desk with a face like thunder. Christ, he’d really made a mess of that; nearly played his hand too soon. He went over to Karl. “Fancy a walk? I need some air.”

“Be right with you Tommo, just closing down. Don’t forget to lock your laptop.”

Something else he hadn’t done properly.

* * *

Karl ushered him to a café five minutes away. They both ordered a full breakfast. “I take it that your tête à tête wasn’t all you hoped for?”

“I made a complete dick of myself,” he shook his head slowly. “I accused him of sleeping with Christine before we’d officially split.”

“Don’t be expecting a good appraisal then!”

Two preposterously large mugs of tea arrived. Karl waited until the waitress had turned her back then made pretend swimming strokes over his tea.

Thomas just sighed; he’d lost his sense of humour.

“You know, Tommo, I loved and lost this girl, once. We were both stationed in Germany and we got together quickly. It was all brilliant and then I had to go back to Blighty on some urgent family business.”

Thomas stopped drinking tea and paid closer attention.

“Anyway, she bumps into this officer on base, while I’m gone — turned out that she’d had a bit of a thing with him, over in Cyprus.” Karl rotated his finger to show the passing of time. “So I get back to barracks and there’s another fish in my kettle, so to speak.”

Thomas had already decided that Karl made these phrases up. “How long were you away, Karl?”

“Long enough, evidently. I wasn’t very mature about it all. And unfortunately for me he was a nastier fighter,” Karl lifted his sweatshirt to reveal a series of white scars.

Thomas gasped.

“Listen now, I was no angel either. We wrecked the bar, apparently. I was certainly pretty wrecked at the time!” He winked then calmly took a sip of tea before he continued. “Anyway, not to be outdone, I tried a different tack and sent some photos of them together to his wife. Did I mention he had a wife?”

Thomas remembered that Bob Peterson was married, too. “And?”

“His wife divorced him. And later on, so I heard, the ‘Officer and Bastard’ married my lovely Jennifer.” Once he’d stopped talking, the waitress returned; Karl’s face lit up like a beacon. “Beatrice, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Your husband is a very lucky man!” He was rewarded with a demure smile and the all-day breakfast — so named because it could take a slow eater all day to finish it.

Further conversation was parked as they made their way through a meal fit for a king — a king who enjoyed mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes, sausages, bacon, toast and beans.

Thomas clapped his hands appreciatively. “That hit the spot.”

“You can always rely on your uncle Karl to make things better! Come on now or we’ll miss the party.”

* * *

The team filed into Christine’s office, all clutching pen and paper. Karl had brought along his Homer Simpson pad and novelty snake pen.

Bob Peterson introduced himself and shook everyone’s hand warmly. It was the usual ‘we’re in this together’ speech, with a potted history of where he’d been working before and the assurance that he wasn’t going to bring in change for change’s sake — which always meant the exact opposite.

Christine chipped in here and there, as if they were a double-act already, and managed to not look in Thomas’s direction. At one point Peterson made a joke about Sir Peter Carroll and asked Thomas not to repeat it the next time he saw the ‘old man upstairs,’ a blunt reference to Thomas having been interviewed by Sir Peter himself. Thomas swallowed his pride and smiled on cue.

Later, Ann Crossley asked about an accelerated development programme and Peterson agreed to look into it. Thomas managed not to mention that Christine herself had done something similar. So far, so good.

Karl wondered aloud what had made Peterson come to their branch of the SSU. Peterson laughed it off without committing himself. Thomas had been listening through a haze of indifference, but now he saw an opening. “So Bob,” he adopted a matey tone, “how was the move up from Southampton?”

“A nightmare — still a work in progress!” Peterson grinned. “Most of our things are still in storage — I was working in Southampton right up to Saturday night. We’re still waiting to exchange on the house so I guess I’ll be commuting, unless one of you has a spare floor?”

Laughter all round. Thomas laughed too, at Peterson’s audacity — the lying bastard. Gotcha! Christine’s face was a study in marble. Then an alarm bell went off in his head. What if she and Peterson were engaged in their own little re-enactment society?

Later, Thomas sat at his desk, deep in thought. He had what he wanted — Peterson’s denial, even though the photo proved he’d been at Harwich — but he didn’t know what to do with it. ‘Bang to rights’ as Sam or Terry would put it. He smiled at himself. How ingrained the London-isms had become after years of living there. Even his accent was more East End than Yorkshire, these days. On those rare occasions when he contacted his own family, the first thing they usually said was that he gone ‘all southern.’

Karl had stayed on for a few minutes — probably a prelude to his assessment. Thomas watched as he walked out of Christine’s office, holding up the Simpson’s pad as a face. Karl, his only ally — someone he still didn’t know if he could trust.

“How did it go, then?”

Karl took a deep breath. “Fantastic, Tommo. They’re thinking of putting me up for the George Cross.”

“You’re a funny man, Karl McNeill.”

“That’s just what Bob Peterson said — now are you sure you weren’t listening at the door?”

Thomas held up a hand, Honest Injun style. His mobile bleeped; a text from Miranda:
Thanks for a lovely weekend. M. x.
He blushed and switched off the phone, remembering to pick up a sweeping kit from Stores, for Caliban’s and the family home.