Kick Back

by Val McDermid

  However, in this case, none of the usual ploys would work. And I didn’t really want either Brian or Mary Wright to see me, since I’d be the person hanging round the street checking out the surveillance tapes. Hence Sammy’s van. I’d given him a quick crash course

  Sammy had marched up the path in his Telecom overalls ten minutes ago, and the woman who answered the door had let him in without even asking to see the carefully forged ID card he always carries. Perhaps she’d tried to dial out in the five minutes since I’d fiddled with her phone at the junction box round the corner. The reason I know about all these exotic things is that I once had a fling with a Telecom engineer. He came to install a second line in my bungalow for my computer modem and fax machine and stayed for a month. He had wonderfully dexterous fingers, and, as a bonus, he taught me everything I’d ever need to know about the British telephone system. Unfortunately, he felt the need to tell me it five times over. When he started telling me for the sixth time about new developments in fiber optic technology, I knew he’d have to go or I’d be risking a murder charge.

  What I was waiting for now was the sound of Sammy’s voice over my headphones. As soon as I was receiving him loud and clear, I’d nip back to the junction box, restore the telephone to full working order, and leave the receiver in my car wired up to a very clever tape recorder that a sound engineer friend of Richard’s built for me. It links the mechanisms of six Walkmans to a signalactivated mike/receiver. When the bug’s signal comes in, the first tape starts running. When the counter mechanism hits a certain number, it sets tape two running and switches off tape one. And so on. So, it gives a minimum of six hours’ recording time when you’re not actually there listening in.

  Five minutes later, I heard, “Two sugars, love,” booming in my ears. Thanks to Sammy, I was all wired up and ready to roll. Half an hour later, I was back in the office, ready to debrief Bill. He was, of course, horrified about my brush with death on Barton Bridge. Together we went through Paul’s photos and the report from

  “Paul’s done a good job there. You did absolutely the right thing, laying him on like that,” he rumbled, shuffling the pics together into a neat pile. “I’ll go and see them this afternoon.” He got to his feet, shouting, “Shelley? Get Brian Chalmers at PharmAce and tell him I’m on my way to see him.”

  “Wait a minute,” I protested, angry at what felt like Bill pulling rank. “I’d planned to take those pictures over myself.”

  “I’m sure you did,” he said. “And I don’t have a problem with the way you’ve handled things. But I want someone with Chalmers when he fronts up the lab technician. And I’d rather it was me if only to show this creep that he’s up against more than a onewoman show. If it was him that ran you off the road, he’s got to be made to realize that there’s no point in trying to write you off because it’s not just you who knows what he’s up to. Besides, we need a lot more information about this stolen van, and you’ve got enough on your plate right now with your missing conservatories.”

  I couldn’t find any good reason for arguing with Bill. Personally, if I had his six foot plus towering over me, I’d admit to just about anything to get him to back off. So I left him to it. On my way out the door, I picked up the hand-held computer scanner which had been his monthly contribution to the office gadget mountain back in June. At last, I had found a use for it. As I crossed the outer office, Shelley said, “Ted Barlow’s been on. That’s the second time today. He’s really starting to get desperate. He says he can pay his staff this week’s wages, but he’s not sure about next week. He wants to know if he should warn them or whether you think you’ll have sorted it out by then.”

  I sighed. “I’m doing my best, Shelley,” I said.

  “Can’t you do it a bit faster, Kate? Ted’s scared he’s going to lose his business.”

  “Shelley, I’m dancing as fast as I can, OK,” I snapped, and stomped into my office. I’m ashamed to admit that I slammed the door. Unfortunately, I used the muscles that were still solid as a rock from the accident, so I lost out on comfort as well as dignity.

  I picked up the phone, dialled Josh’s number and asked for Julia. I’ve never actually met her but her voice conjures up this image of a bright-eyed blonde with her hair in a neat bun, a Country Casuals suit and the hips of a girl raised on the Pony Club, The nearest I ever got to that was reading Bunty.

  “Hello, Kate,” she enthused down the phone at me. “Fabulous little challenge, darling!” I swear she really does say “darling.”

  “Any joy?” I asked gruffly. For some reason Julia always brings out the peasant in me.

  “I only tried three of them,” she said. “With the charges all being held by the same finance company, I had to be a little bit cautious. However, the interesting thing is that, in each case, what we’re looking at is a hundred percent remortgage. The people I spoke to all said the same thing. ‘There’s not a shilling of equity left for your client.’ So there you have it, Kate.”

  I could have kissed her. But she’d probably have misunderstood and taken my name off her database. I thanked her prettily, just like my mother always told me to, put down the phone and yelled, “Yo!” in satisfaction. The way things were heading, I was going to make Shelley a very happy woman.

  I booted up my computer and entered my notes. Then I used the scanner on the Land Registry documents and saved them all to disc. It wasn’t as easy as it was supposed to be, since the scanner had the unhelpful tendency to turn things into gobbledygook unless I kept my hand steady as a rock. I felt virtuous enough after all that to ring Richard and suggest a movie that evening. “Sorry, Brannigan,” he said. “I’m going to a rave.”

  Richard may be four years older than me, but at times he makes me feel like my Granny Brannigan. Except that my Irish Granny B would probably love the idea of an all-night party where you can dance as much as you want. She’d even feel at home with the smell of the Vick’s Vapor Rub that the ravers massage each other with

  I could picture the shrug. “I need to keep in touch. Besides, they’ve got this new DJ. He’s only thirteen and I want to take a look.” Thirteen. Dear God, the Little Jimmy Osmond of Acid House. “You can come if you want,” he added.

  “I think I’ll pass, Richard. Nothing personal, but frankly I’d rather go on a stake-out.” At least I could choose the music. At least I’d be able to recognize what I was hearing as music.

  I left the office just after four, picked up a pizza from the local trattoria and headed back out to Stockport in the Little Rascal. I parked round the corner from the target house, strolled round to the Fiesta and checked out the tape machine. The third was rolling, and I had a quick listen on the headphones. Blue Peter, by the sound of it. That’s the trouble with Elint (electronic intelligence, or bugs to you). It has as much discrimination as a hooker on smack. I restrained myself from listening in to the rest of the Blue Peter tape, helped myself to the two I’d made earlier, and locked up the Fiesta.

  Back in the van, I munched my pizza and listened to the tapes. The first one featured ten minutes of small talk with Sammy, a phone call to the hairdresser, a phone call to a friend who whined for twenty minutes about her business, her ex and her garage bill. Then the TV had gone on, its tinny sound an interesting contrast to the live voices I’d been hearing. An Australian soap, then a pre-teen comedy drama, then cartoons. I whizzed through the programs on double speed, ear cocked for any more real conversations amongst the Mickey Mouse squeaks. Nothing.

  Bored, I went back to the Fiesta and listened in again. By now, we were on to Granada Reports. Why couldn’t my target have been one of these quiet, refined people who don’t feel the need of some kind of audio wallpaper? I reset the recording machine with fresh tapes and decided to give my eavesdropping another hour before heading home. I reminded myself that I had a right to some free time of my own. Besides, I was feeling cold and stiff and I was longing to get to grips with my latest computer game purchase. Civilization promised to be the most ent
hralling strategy game I’d

  I was trying to work out an approach that would be more fruitful when everything changed. The noise in my ears suddenly stopped altogether. For a few heart-stopping seconds I thought she’d discovered the bug. Then I heard a dialling tone and the click of numbers being keyed in. Maybe I’d be able to identify the number when I had the chance to analyze the tape at more length. The phone at the other end rang three times before it was picked up. An answering machine clicked and a man’s voice said, “I’m sorry, I’m not taking calls right now. Leave your message after the bleep, and we’ll talk soon.” The voice was cool, with a suggestive edge that made me smile rather than squirm.

  After the tone, the woman said, “Hi, it’s me. It’s just before seven. I’m going round to my mother’s, then I’ll be at Colin and Sandra’s. See you there. Love you. Bye.” There was a click as she put the phone down. I scrambled out of the car and hurried down the street towards the van. The last thing I wanted was for her to become suspicious of the Fiesta.

  I had just shut myself into an atmosphere of stale pizza when a square of light from the front door spilt over the drive of my target’s house. The light disappeared as she shut the door and opened the garage. I concentrated on the features. The hair might change, the clothes might change, the height might change with the shoes, but the face wasn’t going to, especially the profile. I registered small, neat features, sharp chin, face wider across the eyes. Just like Diane Shipley’s sketch. A couple of minutes later, a white Metro emerged and drove past me, heading south towards Hazel Grove. I’d gambled when I parked that if she was going to drive off anywhere, she’d be heading north into Manchester. Wrong again. I did as quick a three-point turn as I could manage, which wasn’t fast enough. By the time I reached the end of the road, she was gone. There was just enough traffic around to make it impossible to guess which set of distant taillights were hers.

  There was nothing else for it. I’d just have to go home and

  When I got home, my answering machine was flashing. I pressed the playback button. “Kate, Bill here. I’ve just got back from PharmAce. We need to talk. This is the number where you can reach me this evening after seven.”

  He rattled off a Didsbury number, which I failed to recognize. Hardly surprising. Bill changes his girlfriends as often as Rod Stewart in his bachelor days. When I dialled the number, true to form, a woman’s voice answered. While I waited for her to fetch Bill, I conjured up the image her voice generated.

  “Twenty-five, Home Counties, graduate, blonde, smokes,” I said when Bill answered.

  “Well done, Sherlock. You’re two years too generous, though,” he said.

  “You said we need to talk. Will the phone do, or shall I come over and meet you for a drink?” I asked maliciously.

  “The phone will do nicely,” he said. “First, the good news. Brian Chalmers is delighted, and has sacked the senior technician on the spot, with no reference. And tomorrow I’m meeting someone from Knutsford CID to see if they’d like to pursue the company receiving the stolen goods.”

  “Fine,” I said. “And the bad news?”

  “It wasn’t a PharmAce van that ran you off the road. They had a call today from the police in Devon. The van that was stolen from PharmAce was written off in some village on Dartmoor on Friday morning after being used in a supermarket robbery down there. So it couldn’t have rammed you on Friday night. Kate, whoever had a go at you on Barton Bridge is still out there.”

  Chapter 15

  I could get used to being waited on hand and foot at breakfast. What I couldn’t handle is the early rising that seems to go hand in hand with business briefings over the bacon butties. The following morning, I was back in the dining room of the Portland at Josh’s invitation. “I’ve got someone I want you to meet,” he’d said mysteriously on the phone, refusing to be drawn further.

  I approached with caution, since I could see Josh’s companion was a woman. I hoped he hadn’t dragged me out of bed to tell me he was getting married. That was news I couldn’t handle on an empty stomach. I saw Josh spot me and say something to his companion, who glanced over her shoulder at me. She didn’t look Josh’s type. For a start, she looked in her middle thirties, which made her at least ten years too old. The most striking thing about her was her hair, the color of polished conkers, hanging down her back in a thick plait.

  When I reached the table, Josh half-stood and said, “Kate! I’m glad you could make it. Della, this is Kate Brannigan, the private investigator I told you about.”

  A potential client, then, I thought. I smiled. Josh continued, “Kate, this is Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice. She’s just been transferred to the Regional Crime Squad. We were at Cambridge together, and I thought the pair of you ought to meet.”

  I tried not to look as gobsmacked as I felt. There aren’t a lot of women who make it to the rank of DCI, especially not at the sharp end of crime. Della Prentice smiled and extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Kate,” she said. “At the risk of making your heart sink, Josh has told me a lot about you.”

  “I wish I could say the same about you,” I replied, shaking a dry,

  “He tries to keep me under wraps because I know where the bodies are buried,” she said, as she gave me the same scrutiny. “I could tell you a tale …”

  Josh cleared his throat and said hastily, “Della’s something of an expert in the kind of fraud you seem to be dealing with in your conservatory case,” he said. “I rather thought she might be of some help to you.”

  “I’ve just done eighteen months with the West Yorkshire Fraud Squad,” Della said. “Now I’ve been transferred to the RCS to be the operational head of a fraud task force.”

  “How are you finding it?” I asked.

  “It’s always a bit of an uphill struggle, learning to work with a new team.” Of course. She wouldn’t have climbed that far up the ladder if she hadn’t been something of a diplomat.

  “Made five times worse because you’re a woman?” I asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “I can imagine. Plenty of that dumb insolence, literal interpretation of orders and no respect till they decide you’ve earned it.”

  Della’s twisted smile said it all. “What we’re doing is working with banks and other financial institutions on the kind of small-scale fraud that doesn’t warrant the attentions of the Serious Fraud Office. Usually, it involves forgery or the kind of deception where people assume someone else’s identity for the purposes of obtaining goods or cash.”

  “At the risk of sounding like the punters I meet at parties, that must be fascinating,” I said.

  She smiled. “It can be very satisfying to put together the pieces of the jigsaw.”

  “Yes, you get a better class of villain in your line of work than your colleagues who get lumbered with the ram raiders and the drug dealers,” I said. “For me, it’s a little out of the usual run

  Della leaned back in her chair. “Now, that really must be fascinating. No, I mean it. I’d love to have the time to learn more about computers. Mind if I smoke?” I shook my head. She took out a pack of Silk Cut and a Zippo lighter. As she lit up she said, “Josh tells me you’ve got a problem with defaulting mortgagees. Maybe we could do each other a bit of good here. I might be able to shed some light for you and, frankly, if you can stand it up, I could really use the collar.”

  I liked Della Prentice’s candor. And she came vouched for by Josh, which in my book was the seal of professionalism. So I took a deep breath and said, “This is off the record. Agreed?” I had no authority from Ted to involve the police. Added to which, as yet, I had no real evidence that a crime had been committed, only a lot of circumstantial coincidences.

  A waitress appeared and we ordered our breakfasts before Della could reply. When she’d gone, she said, “Off the record.”

  I gave Della the bare bones. To her credit, she heard me out in silence. Most of the questions she asked afterwards were sensible a
nd to the point, just as I’d expected. “The banks have got their own investigators, you know,” she said at last. “I’m surprised they haven’t been digging around in this one themselves.”

  “I don’t know that they haven’t been,” I said. “But if they have, they’ve been going at it from a different angle. They’re probably trying to prove Ted Barlow is bent, whereas I’m trying to establish the exact opposite.”

  She nodded. “I don’t mean to sound like I’m teaching you to suck eggs, but I suppose you have considered that your client might be at it?”

  “It was the first thing I thought of. But people who know him say he lacks the imagination or the inclination to be that bent. Besides, he’s telling the truth about the missing conservatories. Even I can see they were installed originally, and if he was behind it himself, he wouldn’t have to bother with that,” I explained.

  Della considered while she lit another cigarette. Then she said, “He might have been doing that to cover his own back

  I shook my head. “It’s not Ted. I know it’s possible to find an explanation that points the finger at him. But the clincher for me is that he just doesn’t match the descriptions I’ve got of the man who spends the night at these houses.”

  “It’s an unusual one, Kate,” she said. “Very unusual. But if it really is a scam that’s being pulled by one or two people rather than a string of coincidences, then they must have cleared a lot of cash by now.”

  “Over half a million after expenses, by my estimates,” I said calmly. “They probably can’t believe their luck. If I was them, I’d be planning to pull out before the shit hit the fan.”

  “How do you know they haven’t?” Della asked.

  “I don’t. I’m banking on the fact that they haven’t. That way, the next time they pull one, I can get on their tail while the trail’s still warm.” Much as I liked Della, I wasn’t about to tell her that I thought I’d spotted the next target. I was perfectly happy for her to think I was playing a waiting game. It would keep the Regional Crime Squad off my back. Besides, I didn’t want to get into a discussion on the subject of illegal phone taps. I hate the sound of people in glass houses throwing stones.