by Dan Latus
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
‘I’m wondering that myself,’ I said with a shrug. ‘How about you?’
He frowned impatiently. ‘Where’s the owner of the house?’
I pointed towards the kitchen.
‘Stay where you are,’ he instructed, pointing a warning finger. ‘Don’t move! I’ll be right back.’
So now there were two of them giving me orders.
Anne reappeared, looking very angry now. I wondered if Josh had blotted his copy book again or if it was the police incursion that had tipped her over the edge.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘A neighbour tipped them off, apparently,’ she said bitterly. ‘There’s always somebody sticking their nose in.’
It seemed an odd comment, given what had just happened here. But, then again, it wasn’t my home that had been trashed. She had every right to feel aggrieved about something.
‘I’m very sorry this has happened, Anne.’ I glanced around and grimaced. ‘It’s not nice, is it?’
‘Oh, we’ll soon have it sorted,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Just you make sure they don’t get to Tom.’
A blonde girl, another new arrival, headed towards us.
‘The last thing I need!’ Anne whispered fiercely.
‘Where’s Tom?’ the girl said plaintively. ‘Where is he?’
‘Not now, Julie,’ Anne said. ‘Please. You’ve come at a bad time.’
The girl looked around, as if noticing for the first time that things were a bit amiss.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked even more plaintively. ‘Why can’t I see Tom?’
‘Tom’s not here, Julie,’ Anne said patiently. ‘If he was, you could see him.’
‘I’ll wait for him,’ the girl decided.
‘Not here,’ Anne said firmly. ‘Apart from anything else, the police have arrived.’
‘The police? Oh, God!’
Julie hurried away.
I looked at Anne and raised my eyebrows.
‘I know, I know,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s how we seem to live these days.’
I kept my counsel.
Then I saw the tall, long-haired woman reappear and head determinedly our way.
‘Who’s this?’ I asked. ‘Another one?’
‘My sister, Senga,’ Anne said with a giggle.
The sister came straight up to me. ‘I told you!’ she began angrily.
‘Hello, Senga,’ I said with a smile. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you.’
That stopped her. She scowled and looked from me to Anne, and back again.
‘This is Frank Doy,’ Anne said gently. ‘Frank’s an old friend.’
‘Why didn’t you say so?’ the woman said, glowering at me.
‘You didn’t really give me the chance.’
I received another fierce glare. Then she turned and walked away.
‘Don’t mind Senga,’ Anne said. ‘She’s upset.’
I nodded and didn’t bother asking what she was upset about. Anne had more important questions to address. Actually, I was a little disappointed Senga and I had got off to such a bad start. If anything, she was even better looking than Anne.
Soon afterwards, Josh told one of Marty’s lads to drive me home. He apologized for not doing it himself, but said he and Anne had too much to do. I was OK with that. In fact, I wasn’t sorry to get out of there and away from the Steeles. I needed to get my head around what had happened. Not only the violence, but also why they didn’t want the police involved. I had stepped into a situation that was hard to fathom, and it was worrying.
Senga followed us outside.
‘Help you?’ I said.
She stared at me for a moment, seemed about to say something and then shook her head and walked back inside. Clearly, I wasn’t worth bothering with. The feeling of being a spare part came back to me very strongly.
Chapter Ten
‘So how did it go?’
‘We got kicked out.’
‘Say again.’
‘We made a strategic withdrawal, on account of how we didn’t have enough manpower to sustain the fight.’
That set him off. Blue grinned and held the phone away from his ear for a moment.
When he’d calmed down, Logan said, ‘I hope the guys you did have gave a good account of themselves?’
‘They did great.’
‘Any casualties?’
‘One or two. You don’t need to know about them, though.’
‘Indeed I don’t. I take it you’re OK? I don’t need a new Chief of Staff?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘So what else?’
‘There’s this guy they visited yesterday. We’re going to pay him a call.’
‘What guy? Who is he? What is he?’
‘Some sort of private eye.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Wish I was. We’re going to warn him off.’
‘Agreed. We don’t want him getting in the way and messing things up. Make your visit count. What about the kid?’
‘He wasn’t there.’
‘Pity.’
‘We’ll get him. Sooner or later, we will. He’s only been out a couple of days, remember?’
‘Even so, I don’t want to hang about over this. I want it done. Then we can move on.’
Blue thought soon he would be moving on himself anyway. A few more days and it would be the end of the month. All this shit with the Steeles was more a distraction than anything else, so far as he was concerned. He could do without it.
But he had to keep Logan sweet for now. He needed him. Better to help Logan get what he wanted, in order to get what he himself wanted – and absolutely had to have.
‘You should have snatched the wife,’ Logan said belatedly. ‘Even if she didn’t know where the kid is, she could still have been useful.’
‘We never saw her. She disappeared before we got into the house, and when we did get in we couldn’t find her.’
‘You can’t have looked hard enough.’
‘Believe me – we looked! Then a whole fucking army arrived. We had to fight our way out.’
‘But the boys did all right?’ Logan said, backing down.
‘Pretty good. Steele’s lot will know they were in a fight. The house will take some clearing up, as well,’ Blue added with a chuckle.
‘Well, we’re not going to stop now,’ Logan growled. ‘We’ll keep going.’
Sometimes Blue wondered how much the kid counted. Oh, he did count. But how much, compared with everything else at stake? It was hard to know.
The phone went dead, call ended. Blue glanced at it and swore softly. He’d like to jam the damned thing down Logan’s throat.
‘Problem, boss?’ Eddie asked.
Blue shook his head. ‘Just the usual. Nothing I can’t handle.’
He hoped that was actually true. With Logan, you couldn’t be sure. You never could quite tell. On the other hand, he was pretty sure Logan knew there were limits to how far he could go. There were times when it was worth remembering that. It helped keep the peace.
From the driveway of a house on the other side of the road, a little further along the street, they could see the entrance to the Steele property through the giant cypresses and the rampant azaleas and rhododendrons. There was plenty of activity. Cars, including police vehicles, were going in and stacking up on the driveway and the forecourt outside the house.
‘Here’s one coming out,’ Eddie said.
Blue looked up. It was a big Mitsubishi SUV, the first vehicle they had seen leaving the premises. As it passed, he peered hard at the two occupants and swore. Then he called Logan again.
‘That PI Steele went to see has just been driven away from the house. So he must be involved now. He’s being taken somewhere.’
‘Steele with him?’
‘No. He’ll be busy sorting his house out.’
‘Follow the guy. See where he lives.’
�
��We already know that.’
‘Well, you know what to do – just do it!’
Indeed he did know, Blue thought, switching off. It should be fun.
Chapter Eleven
Tom was more or less where we’d left him, sitting in a corner, glancing without much interest at a picture book about Norway he had plucked from a shelf.
‘Everything all right, Tom?’
‘Yeah.’
I decided not to tell him about the fracas at the family home. Time enough for that later. The news wouldn’t cheer him up much.
‘Your dad’s having a car delivered first thing in the morning,’ I told him. ‘My old Land Rover isn’t the most comfortable of vehicles in this sort of weather.’
‘Right.’
‘I just need to make a couple of phone calls. Then we can have an early night, and be ready to take off as soon as the car arrives.’
He nodded, without seeming to have much interest in what I was saying or what we were going to do. I was beginning to wonder if he suffered from depression. He certainly had a lot of the symptoms. Then again, he had a lot to be depressed about.
I had to admit, I was worried about him. Given what we were going to be doing, I wanted him sharp and alert. I didn’t want a somnolent passenger without any interest in what was happening around us. I couldn’t do everything myself.
‘So nothing’s happened while I’ve been away?’
He shook his head. Then he changed his mind and said, ‘Some old guy came by for you. I said you weren’t in.’
‘Who was it? Did he say?’
Tom shook his head again. ‘Some old fisherman gadgy.’
I described Jimmy Mack, and Tom decided that had been him.
‘What did he want?’
‘No idea,’ Tom said with a yawn. ‘I just told him to piss off.’
‘In that case, you’re lucky you didn’t have a marline spike rammed down your throat.’
He looked slightly concerned about that, which was a welcome change.
‘Jimmy Mack,’ I said gently, ‘is my only neighbour, as well as my friend. He lives next door. If you really said that to him, you’d better apologize.’
‘Yeah, well.’
I left it at that, but I was having difficulty with Tom’s general attitude. He was stressed, I told myself. Leave him be a bit longer.
While I cooled down, I rang a guy I knew who had a couple of holiday cottages he hired out. No problem, Pete said. The business was welcome, especially at this time of year.
‘You’re into skiing or ice fishing, I take it?’ he added.
‘Cold, is it? No, I just want somewhere quiet and out of the way for a week or two. That’s all.’
‘You’re going to the right place, in that case,’ Pete said with a chuckle. ‘I keep saying to the wife it was the worst thing we ever did, buying them cottages. Nobody wants to go there, except in July and August. Or when we get one of them once-in-a-century heatwaves in March or December.’
‘It should suit me fine.’
I wrote down the address and navigation instructions, promised to put a cheque in the post and ended the call feeling I’d made some progress.
Tom wasn’t in a talkative mood. So I showed him the spare bedroom and where everything was. He seemed happy to take himself off to bed after that, and I was glad to have some time to myself. I needed some thinking time after everything that had happened. I was unsure what I’d got myself into. It had seemed so straightforward at first, but I could see now it was a long way from being that.
Things didn’t seem good between Mr and Mrs Steele, for one thing. That was a worry. They were my client, and a client divided can be awkward. Who do you listen to?
Then there was Tom. He and I were going to have some long, dreary days ahead of us if his attitude didn’t change. We didn’t have to be best pals but we ought to be able to have pleasant, sensible conversations.
The biggest worry of all, though, was that the Steeles seemed to have found themselves some serious trouble. They were up against a real bunch of desperadoes, if the attacks on their properties and even their home were evidence. Yet they had resented the arrival of the police; didn’t want them involved at all. Why was that?
It worried me. Any normal businesspeople in their situation would have been out there demanding a police presence and complaining about lack of protection. Did the Steeles really think they could handle it themselves? Or did they have things to hide?
In any case, what were they going to do to protect themselves if they didn’t want the police involved? Beef up their private army – Marty and the boys – to ward off further attacks, and deal their enemy a mortal blow? Or were they going to try to pay him off? That might be a safer option, although there was no guarantee it would work if avenging Logan’s dead son was what it was all about.
But was it? I wasn’t even sure about that now. They seemed to have something in mind but I didn’t know them well enough to be able to guess what it was. I decided to concentrate on what they had asked me to do, and leave the rest to them. I had no choice, really.
Looking after Tom for a week or two was going to be enough for me anyway. It would keep us both out of the way – and avoid incurring the wrath of Bill Peart for interfering – as well as earning me some much needed dosh.
Having got that far, I gave up and went to bed. I hadn’t thought any more about Anne’s sister or the other, younger woman, Julie. They just seemed to be part of the general craziness around the Steele family.
It was hard and cold the next morning before the sun came up. Frost had settled on the land and given the snow cover an icy crust. Pockets of fog had sunk into the hollows, and puffs of it were swirling around the cliff top. The sea was impressed enough to be doing no more than quietly murmur in the background.
God, it was cold! My Land Rover looked as if it had come out of the freezer. Just as well I didn’t need it. It takes some starting on mornings like that. I was looking forward to the arrival of Josh’s car.
The snow crunched beneath my feet as I walked over to the shed to collect a snow shovel, thinking I would clear a parking space for the car. Before I started work, I paused to blow warm air into my cupped hands.
It was then that I saw the first of them. A hundred yards or so away stood a motionless figure, its legs wreathed in fog, seemingly staring at me. My heart began to beat faster.
My eyes moved sideways and I spotted another figure, also immobile, and also staring at me. My eyes moved on and I spotted more. Altogether there were six of them. None moving. All looking my way. They formed a loose, menacing circle at a distance around the cottage, their very stillness extraordinarily sinister.
It didn’t look good. My grip on the snow shovel tightened. I assumed they’d come for Tom, but how did they know he was here?
When I heard feet crunching through the frozen snow I turned to look along the approach track to the cottage. A heavy-set man I’d never seen before was walking steadily towards me. Beyond him were two parked vehicles that must have brought my visitors.
I studied the approaching man. If he came alone, I could deal with him. If all of them started moving in together, I was going back inside for my shotgun. No messing. I might not be the brightest star in the sky, but I can count up to six, seven even, and I know when I’m outnumbered.
But for now, I just waited.
The man walking along the track drew steadily closer. He could have driven to my door. The others could have waited in their vehicles, or closed in with him. But no. They stayed where they were, alarmingly still and threatening.
Then it struck me. Something about this wasn’t real. It was … fantasy. Somebody understood the power of theatre, and was using it to try to frighten me.
I walked out onto the track and stood facing the approaching man. I could see now that he wasn’t young. Maybe in his forties. He looked big and powerful, and he had tidy, short black hair. Despite the temperature that morning, he wore only jeans and a check
ed work shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. I wondered if that was to demonstrate his strength or to let me see he was not armed. Having said that, he looked like someone who wouldn’t normally need weapons to get his way.
But this wasn’t the first time trouble had walked up to my door. I wasn’t someone easily intimidated, and I wasn’t going to back down now. I stood my ground, facing him, and waited.
He came to a halt when he was a couple of yards away. He stared hard, his eyes boring into me, his expression blank.
‘Mr Doy,’ he said in a low growl, ‘you’d be well advised to keep out of things that don’t concern you. Have nothing to do with the Steele family. Turn down any job offer they make. Refuse to accept their money. Have nothing to do with them. Is that clear?’
I nodded, having pretended to think about it. ‘And you are?’
‘Have nothing to do with them,’ he repeated, ignoring my question. ‘Take a holiday. Visit a sick aunt. Just keep out of the way. Then you’ll be safe.’
‘They with you?’ I asked, turning to look round at the figures in the landscape.
He didn’t deign to reply. I stared at each of them in turn, making a point of it. ‘I’ll assume they are. You’re on private land, you know. My advice to you is to get off it.’
‘I give people fair warning before I take further action,’ my visitor said, undeflected. ‘That saves a lot of bother and heartache. Unnecessary trouble, too,’ he added, as if I might be a slow learner.
‘I don’t frighten easily,’ I told him with a smile I didn’t find easy to muster. ‘I’m not intimidated by any of this.’
‘You should be. This is the only warning you’ll get.’
He turned and walked away, heading back towards the vehicles. The figures in the landscape began moving, too, as if he had pulled unseen strings to jerk them back into life.
It was impressive in its way, the performance, but it was still theatre of the absurd. Making sense of it was going to be a challenge.
Chapter Twelve
‘What did they want?’ Tom demanded when I got back inside.
‘Oh, you’re up, are you? Nothing. Don’t worry about it.’
He was hovering on the stairs, looking agitated.
‘They were after me, weren’t they? What did you tell them?’
I shut the front door firmly and made for the kitchen. ‘Let’s have some breakfast, Tom, now you’re up.’
