She Was a Pretty Girl: A spy story

by S G Read

  As soon as they were inside Marion attacked. The bundle in the bed was made up of pillows and she was waiting for such an intrusion. She used the Taser she was carrying to immobilize Peter who was the first inside and he fell down. Jacob barged through the door and knocked Marion across the room, knocking the bed over.

  Jacob followed and they struggled with the Taser until Jacob took it from her and used it to subdue her. Now he had to lock up and wait for Peter to wake up. While he waited he tied Marion’s hands to stop her trying anything. He also gagged her in case she woke up first.

  Lorna was woken at three in the morning by the phone and heard about John. With no buses available she took a taxi to the hospital to see him but he just lay there with the neck brace on and his eyes closed.

  She left for work when there was no sign of him waking up and knew that he was in no imminent danger. When she walked in to find Marion the put you up bed was on its side and there was no sign of Marion. The safe was wide open and investigators were double checking everyone coming in and going out.

  When John opened his eyes he was in hospital. He looked about and the events from earlier came back to him. The skip, like John, had no lights on it. That is why he had not seen it in time to go round it and he felt annoyed but with no lights on himself he could not really make too much noise about it.

  One by one he moved all his arms and legs to find out which hurt, then he tried his fingers and toes before trying to move his head but that was held in place by something which would not let him move it! The sudden worry that he was paralysed was replaced by feeling foolish as he had just been moving everything that was not held firm. He still wondered about his neck and if it was broken but there was nothing he could do about it until he saw a doctor.

  The call button lay by his hand and he pressed it to try to find out what he had broken, if anything. All he could do now was wait until someone came to see him. He could see a clock and timed the nurse’s arrival to just under four minutes.

  ‘So you are awake Mr. Fairchild. How are you feeling?’ She asked pleasantly.

  ‘Foolish. Is my neck damaged?’

  ‘A precaution until we have all the results of tests and x-rays. The first x-rays were not conclusive and it is not a thing to take lightly.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ John replied.

  ‘I will tell the doctor on call that you are awake and he will be in to see you.’ The nurse explained. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  Lorna was fuming, no one was looking for Marion, they had concluded that she had gone home and was late in. Lorna thought different, she was no one to sit back if she thought a friend was in trouble. She left the office and took a taxi to Marion’s house but as she expected, it was deserted. She reported back to the investigators and now the investigation took a very different turn, the office had been breached and a worker taken away. That was serious. Winfield sat in his office drinking tea.

  When news came that John was awake, Lorna left work and took a taxi to the hospital. She ran inside and hurried to his room but John was asleep. She had to wait for him to wake up. She waited impatiently for him to wake, although with him in bed with a neck brace on, she did not know what he could do to help Marion.

  He opened his eyes and saw her sitting there.

  ‘You look like I feel.’ He croaked.

  ‘They took Marion.’ Lorna answered.

  A pained look passed over John’s face.

  ‘When.’

  ‘The night you decided to ride into a skip.’ Lorna answered. ‘Three days ago!’

  ‘Three days! So she didn’t get to speak to the PM and didn’t present her evidence.’ John exclaimed. ‘We thought that that was a possibility so Marion gave me copies of everything to present to the PM should she be stopped from doing so.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘Did you send off the post?’ John asked.

  ‘I did.’ Lorna answered.

  ‘In the usual place then,’ John answered, ‘but it will be a while before I can present it.’

  ‘I can do it!’ Lorna offered. ‘It might save Marion.’

  ‘Three days, too late for that, unless they took her without her seeing who it was. What was it like in the lab?’

  ‘The bed was turned over and there was a mess.’ Lorna explained.

  ‘So she was ready for them and she is now dead.’ John answered. ‘For you to try to present the evidence to the PM will take planning and it will be dangerous.’

  ‘Marion was willing to do it and if she has paid with her life then Winfield must pay.’

  ‘He is a slippery son of a bitch, so just you be careful. The best idea is to wait until I am on my feet again and then you will have some semblance of protection.’

  ‘And miss the window with the PM. I rescheduled your meeting due to you not being able to go through a skip and it is tomorrow. I will get the copy from its hiding place and present it. That way Winfield will be on the back foot and possibly on the run.’ Lorna declared. ‘Just you get better, you will have to do Winfield’s work when you get back.’

  ‘Sounds easy but be very careful who you talk to.’ John warned.

  ‘I will. Now get some rest and I will see you tomorrow.’ She kissed him on the cheek and hurried away.

  John lay there thinking about things. He tried to get up but had to sag back onto the bed due to the pain, he was not going anywhere yet. He ate a grape and dwelt on his stupidity for riding into a skip. It had no lights on it but then he did not have his lights on to make sure he was not seen so he could not make too many waves about the incident. He looked up to see a policeman waiting to talk to him and smiled, it never rains but it pours. He had not thought of what to say yet and here was PC plod to ask him about it!

  Lorna took a bus from the hospital to the middle of London then started walking. She saw no one following her but still walked. When a bus stopped in front of her she jumped on it but there was no hurried action by anyone else when she did, so she assumed she was on her own. Now she went to the PO box and retrieved the things she wanted to present to the prime minister and jumped on another bus.

  ‘Where is she now?’ Winfield asked.

  ‘Shepherds Bush, on a bus. It looks like she is heading for home.’ Peter answered. ‘Do we go in tonight and get it?’

  ‘No. Take her out. Make it look like a hit and run. With John in hospital the cat will play.’ Winfield answered. ‘I am fed up with her attitude to me anyway and with her out of the way I might be able to put someone in who works for me.’

  ‘John will hardly wear that.’ Jacob argued.

  ‘You have no faith Jacob. Just send her to her maker and bring me the incriminating evidence.’ Winfield ordered.

  The two men left to obey while Spearforth sat at the desk saying nothing. He had liked Marion and he liked Lorna but for now there was nothing he could do, but his day would come.

  Lorna stepped off the bus and walked along the well lit road. No one was about and there was little traffic about so she felt safe. She heard a car approaching but did not worry about it as she was on the pavement and it was a wide pavement. The noise grew louder as the car speeded up, causing her to look round as it mounted the kerb, she had time to gasp before the car knocked her into the air. Peter jumped out of the car and picked up her scattered belongings before returning to the car which then lurched forward and drove over her before screaming away up the street.

  Lorna saw Peter and tried to speak to him as he picked up her belongings. He would not look at her as he collected everything, then he hurried away. She saw the car lurch forward and felt a scream coming but it did not arrive before the car did.

  Peter walked in with Lorna’s things in a black bag and stood them on Winfield’s desk, then stood waiting for further orders.

  ‘What about Fairchild?’ He asked when Winfield did not say anything, he just looked through the paperwork in the bag.

  Winfield did not say anything.

&
nbsp; ‘He’ll be out of his tree over this.’ Peter urged.

  ‘Yes he will.’ Winfield agreed. ‘And as we have just pulled his teeth he will just have to grin and bear it and that will be worse than a quick injection.’

  ‘Don’t underrate him!’ Jacob warned.

  ‘I won’t. I know he is a clever man and he will be after my hide. That will keep us on our toes for some time to come. Without Lorna he is nothing.’

  ‘All the same…’ Peter started.

  ‘Just do as you are told and don’t try to think, it doesn’t become you.’ Winfield interjected.

  John lay in bed the following morning. He had no paper and had no inkling to turn on the television, he was content just to lay there imagining Winfield squirming. Nurses came and went during the day and he saw two doctors as well but he had no visitors apart from them.

  That night he slept uneasily. Lorna said she would come and it was not like her not to come, without some sort of message. By morning he had worked himself into a bundle of nerves. He could not go out to see where she was and waited impatiently for her to show during that day but without any joy.

  When visiting time was nearly over a woman walked in to his room. She looked a bit like Lorna but she was not Lorna.

  ‘Are you John Fairchild?’ She asked.

  ‘I am, who are you?’

  ‘I am Lana Riley, I am- well was- Lorna’s sister.’

  ‘Was?’ John asked worriedly.

  ‘Yes she was hit by a hit and run driver last night, she was dead when the ambulance reached her.’ Lana answered. ‘She talked about you when we were together and I was the one she entrusted the PO box to.’

  ‘It was the things in that box that got her killed!’ John declared.

  ‘That was what I thought. She took some of it out yesterday and now it is nowhere to be seen but we still have the petty cash files.’ Lana declared. ‘What should I do with them?’

  ‘Sit on them until I am out of here and then I will take them to the PM.’

  ‘But I want to get the bastards who killed my sister! I don’t want to sit around on my butt until you get out of here!’

  John resisted the urge to say that it was a very pretty butt as now was probably not the time to say such a thing.

  ‘What do you do Lana?’

  ‘I was a secretary but the crunch has lost me that job. You know I had been there ten years and they issued a redundancy notice just like that!’

  ‘If you apply for Lorna’s job I will put in a good word for you.’ John declared.

  ‘Who with? Who chooses your secretary?’

  ‘Me!’ John answered with the best smile he could manage under the circumstances. ‘Lorna was the best secretary a man in my position could have and I hope you aspire to equal her.’

  ‘I aspire to beat her as I always did, after all she was my big sister.’ Lana quipped.

  ‘Anyway I can help?’

  ‘Not in here. I am making the arrangements for her funeral but I will wait until you can make it to the crematorium. The post mortem showed she died from being run over by a car and the police have no leads. They found the car burnt out on the outskirts of London, so there was nothing to be gained from that. All in all I thought you might know just who was responsible so that I can kick their butt.’

  ‘We will talk about that when I am out of here as I don’t want you on a slab like the other two, that’s if they have found Marion yet.’

  ‘Two? Has someone else been killed as well?’

  ‘My forensics expert decided to take on Winfield as well and no one has seen her since. There is a good chance she is part of a new motorway by now.’ John sighed. ‘So you just keep your head down until I am out of here, then we’ll kick butt!’ John answered.

  ‘Said like that, I will be like Tinkerbelle until you are fit to do the deed Mr. Fairchild.’

  ‘The name is John and that sounds like a sensible approach. Leave me a phone number and I will phone you when I am back at work, if I live that long.’ John replied.

  ‘Do you want me to stay on guard so that you do stay alive?’ Lana asked worriedly. ‘I’d hate to have to fight on alone.’

  ‘I think the fact that I am still alive now and the damning evidence has been recovered by my enemy, probably means that he wants me alive to realise that he cannot be beaten.’ John answered. ‘He is, however, wrong and I will have his head on a platter sooner or later.’

  ‘In that case I will make myself scarce.’ Lana replied, pressing a note into his hand.

  ‘You do that and I will telephone you when I am fit for battle.’ John agreed.

  He watched her walk out and dwelled on the recent goings on. Lorna was dead and Marion was most likely dead. All he could do now was attack with the petty cash figures which would cause a few very red faces and hopefully Winfield his job but the backup information about Victor and Winfield’s part in his death was lost. That would have certainly tipped the balance in John’s favour whereas the petty cash might just curb his actions for a while. He felt completely helpless and wanted to scream but that would help no one.

  Chapter 8

  John walked out of the hospital a week later. He was still a little restricted in movement but he refused the wheelchair to an ambulance and took a taxi home. He walked into his empty house, through to the shed in the back garden and turned on his music loudly. Then and only then did he cry for both Lorna’s and Marion’s deaths. There was a faint chance that Marion was still alive but he did not hold out much hope of saving her. Even if he could find out where she was, as soon as he tried to get to her she would be killed. He dismissed any thoughts of riding to Lorna’s aunt’s house, he could not face that yet.

  On Wednesday morning he drove to work, parked in his usual car parking place and walked inside. The security guard saw him coming and hurried to open the door for him.

  ‘Good morning Mr. Fairchild, nice to have you back.’

  ‘Thank you George, it is nice to be back.’ John answered.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss, Lorna was a good woman.’

  ‘Yes George, she was but believe me, the person behind her death will suffer, sooner or later!’

  ‘You have a line on the drunk driver already?’ George asked incredulously. ‘I hope you get the son of a bitch and not necessarily to arrest him.’

  ‘My sentiments entirely George.’ John answered, put his gun and ammunition into the tray and walked through the metal detector.

  From now on he would always be armed and he felt extremely dangerous.

  The office seemed empty which made him feel sad again but whenever that happened, he pictured himself shooting Winfield in the head, it made him feel happier. He looked at Lorna’s empty desk and remembered Lana but he would not ring her from the office, too many ears. He sorted through the pile of post, filing it where it needed it and binning anything he did not want to keep. With all that post the shredder gave up the ghost with a puff of smoke and set off the smoke alarm.

  John did not have enough get up and go to evacuate and merely carried on working until George came in. He waved to him when he looked in the door which surprised George.

  ‘You are supposed to evacuate when the fire alarm goes off.’ He pointed out.

  ‘No point, it was my shredder which made it go off and I doubt if Winfield has gone out.’ John answered. ‘I have already phoned the fire service to tell them it is a false alarm.’

  ‘I am just going up to see.’ George declared.

  ‘Well if he goes out, I will go out!’

  George groaned and left.

  Winfield and his staff had not moved when George arrived and they told him in no uncertain terms that they were not evacuating the building, they were too busy as they were in the middle of important negotiations. George closed the door and walked back outside. He filled in his duty sheet to show a total evacuation, marked it as a false alarm and allowed the rest back inside. Angela went up to John’s office to see him, she had heard he was i
n today and wanted to see him.

  ‘I see the rules don’t apply to you then.’ She accused from the doorway.

  ‘By the time I got out it would have been time to come back in Angela. How are you getting on?’

  ‘I have a new boss. A man and one of Winfield’s plants, I am afraid and not much use to you.’ Angela answered.

  ‘Any news on Marion, Angela?’

  ‘Not a word. I policed the lab to find any evidence and they did leave some in the safe, it might convict somebody when I go through it properly, they were pretty sloppy.’ Angela answered and winked.

  John looked at her and smiled. She was well aware that his office was almost certainly bugged and was playing the people listening, like fish on a line.

  ‘Well as we lost the Victor evidence, it will help sort out those responsible.’ John answered candidly. ‘Wait until I see the PM and I will tell him more evidence is on its way.’

  ‘It is safe under lock and key. Since the safe was opened during Marion’s abduction they had to put in a new safe and this one is a doozy. All mod cons and no one is likely to get into it without the combination!’

  ‘Good, leave it in there and when you are ready to start on it I will come down with a couple of security bods to make sure you aren’t interrupted.’ John advised, then added. ‘We will all be armed, just in case.’ For effect.

  Angela smiled.

  ‘Okay but don’t be too long, some of it is special; although it will all keep until I get round to it.’ She replied.

  ‘We’ll do it by the book and make sure we get the people dead to rights when we do it, with no chance of them squirming out of it!’ John explained. ‘What about your new boss, what does he say?’