Like False Money

by Penny Grubb

  Like False Money

  Penny Grubb

  Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  THE FILM HE shot the day before yesterday plays through Terry’s head. A dull, malodorous corridor thick with stale dust. A locked door. That awful close-up. Bile rushes the back of his throat. In the dark and the panic, he must have caught the zoom control. His clenched fists drive fingernails into palms. When he gets back he’ll edit that bit out.

  Forget what it shows. Remember only that it’s worth big bucks. Terry peers through the windows of the killer’s house, but it still lies empty. He isn’t in control, can’t threaten someone he can’t find.

  ‘Where the fuck are you, Balham?’ He kicks out at the wall in frustration before he turns back to the road and makes his way down the hill.

  A door slams. Terry glances across. Sees the woman on the doorstep. The adulteress.

  ‘Beckes split over brook,’ he murmurs. Catchy title. He thought at one time he might see his name in big print over that. Stares lock for a microsecond. Lying bitch.

  He cuts through to the alleyway. Incredible what that creaky old git, Balham, has been up to, but the evidence is plain on the film.

  A small figure meanders ahead of him. He watches for a moment, lengthens his stride and catches up.

  ‘Hi,’ he says. ‘I just went to call on Mr Balham. Do you know where he’ll be?’

  ‘Out in the fields.’

  ‘No, I’ve tried all over. He’s not been at home the last couple of days.’

  ‘Gone walkabout then. He does that. He goes off.’

  ‘Where does he go? How long for?’ Long enough to kill.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘So who’ll know? Who should I ask?’

  Terry leaves the small figure behind and heads for a new target. He feels good now. Back in control.

  There’s a ritual to go through. ‘Good turnout for the show at the weekend…. They were lucky with the weather…. Nice day….’

  Once that’s over he goes right to the heart of it. ‘I went to call on Mr Balham but he wasn’t in.’

  ‘Anything I can help with?’

  Terry laughs inside himself. No, there’s no one can help Balham out of this one. He pauses a moment, wondering what line to take. He has an old damp squib of a story he tried to follow at one stage. It’ll do for bait.

  ‘It was about his church work.’

  Church is a good topic to stoke discussion in Milesthorpe. Everything in Milesthorpe leads to the church like every road once led to Rome.

  Terry bats the conversational ball back and forth as the image of a killer plays in his mind. He’s known all his life that knowledge is power. Now he feels it as a reality in his gut. Balham’s going to pay, just as soon as he can find him.

  In the glow of anticipation he loses the thread of the dreary chat. ‘Sorry, what did you say? You’ve … oh yes, I see. Just a sec, I’ll get it.’

  As he bends forward, the hint of a latent instinct nudges him to turn his head a fraction. Not enough. And not quickly enough.

  In the third of a second that’s left of awareness, Terry sees the sturdy wooden bar close in. His thoughts zip ahead, dart back, unravel the whole of the story he’s wrestled with these last few weeks. Yes, of course … so simple…. A burst of fear almost dulls its edge on something close to pride. He’s found the killer.

  There’s time to feel wonder at the clarity of his thoughts, at the razor sharp precision with which they home in on the facts.

  What there isn’t time for is to sidestep death.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE JOURNEY FROM King’s Cross to Hull’s Paragon Station allowed Annie a couple of hours with only strangers and her own thoughts for company. A flutter of unease, the same that had plagued her all week, unsettled her again. It was Vince Sleeman, the man who’d interviewed her. Each time she thought of him she experienced a gut-crunching what-if over her recklessness when he’d stepped out of the room. What if he’d caught her? The coldness of his pale-blue eyes made clear he wasn’t a man to mess with, even without the rugged features and misshapen nose, or the sheer solid bulk of him. He had disappeared from the room and she’d clicked open his briefcase and taken a peek inside.

  The recollection generated a shiver, but she’d got away with it. The memory shouldn’t spook her. Vince Sleeman would play a six-week bit part in her life, then be gone forever. She knew from the laziness of his questions at the interview that she would be no more than a filing clerk but it didn’t matter. On paper, she was to cover the sick-leave of one of the firm’s directors. And boy, would this six-week placement boost her CV.

  Sleeman had barely glanced at the certificates she’d thrust under his nose, which came as a relief because she was fed up with trying to justify the thinness of her qualifications.

  Then he’d really floored her. ‘So you’ve wanted to be a private investigator all your life, have you, since your father hired one to catch a burglar?’

  He didn’t have the facts straight, but he’d touched on a closely guarded secret. Anger had blazed inside her; not at Sleeman but at her flatmate, Kara, and her loose tongue. Kara had taken the call when Sleeman rang to set up the interview.

  Sleeman followed his crack about her father with a series of questions about a temporary job she’d had in a nursing home. Irrelevant and easier to answer, but not great in terms of impressing him.

  As the train rattled through a landscape beginning to lose clarity with the fading light, Annie thought ahead to the end of this six-week stint. She’d made it up with Kara but refused to promise she’d be back. Where she’d go was a bridge to consider later. It wasn’t easy finding decent accommodation with her credit rating.

  Determination to make an impression on Sleeman had been at the root of her impulsive raid on his briefcase, but it had told her nothing. All she’d seen was a thin newspaper, the East Yorkshire something-or-other, the title semi-obscured by a fold in the page, showing a posed group-photograph flanking the text, ‘Glorious weather for Milesthorpe’s tenth annual show last Sunday.’ She’d snapped the case shut and leapt back to her chair as she heard him return.

  He needled her a bit about not having the Security Industry Authority licence.

  ‘I’ll get it as soon as I have a proper footing in the business. I’m only twenty-two.’

  ‘I can’t contract you out though, can I?’

  She acknowledged the point with a tip of her head. Her unlicensed status had been plain on her application.

  It hadn’t looked good, but then out of nowhere he’d ended the interview with the incredible words, ‘Six weeks cover for Pat Thompson. You’ll do whatever she needs you to: filing, making coffee, whatever. She’s laid up with a broken leg, but you can stay with her so no bother about accommodation. You can drive, can’t you?’

  The real status of the job and
that it was hers hit simultaneously. Pat Thompson was one of the firm’s directors. She fought for nonchalance as she answered Sleeman’s question. ‘Uh … yes. Five years. Clean licence.’

  And that was it. A contract had been thrust into her hand and she’d signed it.

  No need to worry over Sleeman, and any residual guilt about walking out on Kara at such short notice would soon dissolve. She shut them both out of her mind as the scenery changed from the warehouses and railway sheds of Doncaster to fields, then waterfront and finally back to cityscape as a booming announcement told her, We are now arriving in Hull. This train terminates here. Thank you for travelling on Hull Trains….

  Annie lugged her cases on to the platform and struggled to get her rucksack on her back. Hull’s station turned out to be a buffered terminus, no through track, just like London except that where King’s Cross led out into the noise and bustle of vibrant city life, this was strangely lifeless. Banks of shop windows reflected the streetlights and duplicated the stillness. More a dead-end than a gateway to somewhere new.

  Despite her tiredness, she felt the thrill of adventure as a cab sped her through the empty streets. The city had the newness of unfamiliarity and a nautical air. Boats with high masts wobbled just by the road and the fading horizon seemed to show a giant liner tipping up as though about to slide beneath the waves, but there was no air of panic about it so it must be something else. Then they were swallowed up into a smart housing estate and Annie fixed her stare on the meter willing it not to move.

  Outside a waterfront apartment block, Annie parted with a handful of her dwindling funds, and watched the taxi execute a swift three-point turn to head back towards the main road. After Vince Sleeman’s factoring in board and lodging this was the worst-paid job she’d ever had bar none.

  Pat Thompson’s apartment was on the first floor. There was no lift. The weight of the cases fought with her all the way up the stairs. She knocked briskly on the wood-panelled door and waited.

  After a minute she knocked again, and immediately heard locks clicking open and a voice snap out, ‘Bloody hell, give me a chance.’

  The door opened on a mountain of a woman balancing on a crutch and with an enormous plaster cast from toes to thigh on her left leg.

  ‘Pat Thompson?’ asked Annie.

  The woman nodded.

  Annie held out her hand. ‘I’m Annie Raymond.’

  The woman looked blankly, first at Annie then at her two enormous cases. ‘Not interested, whatever you’re selling,’ she said, and shut the door in Annie’s face.

  ‘No … No, wait!’ Annie leapt forward, but her bulky luggage prevented her getting a foot in the door.

  As she banged her hands on the wooden panel, she remembered the cold blue of Sleeman’s eyes and the mental alarm bells they’d set ringing. But why? Annie was a stranger to him. Why would he lure her to this godforsaken place just to strand her here?

  Annie banged on the wooden panel again, this time using her fist. ‘I’ve come to work for you,’ she shouted. ‘Vince Sleeman sent me.’

  After a pause, a muffled voice answered, ‘Who did you say?’

  As the door reopened, Annie scrabbled through her bag for the paperwork.

  ‘Vince sent you?’ Pat Thompson held the door only half open. ‘At this hour on a Sunday? To do what?’

  ‘He told me to arrive this evening. He’s hired me to cover while you’re … uh … off sick. He said I’d be able to live here.’

  Annie pushed the contract at Pat Thompson who took it with a terse, ‘He did, did he? Wait here.’

  The door shut in her face again. Annie waited longer than was comfortable, but eventually Pat Thompson reappeared with a phone in her hand which she stared at with exasperated disbelief, before looking Annie up and down. ‘Bloody hell. Well, I suppose you’d better come in.’

  Feeling a surge of relief, Annie lifted her cases once more. In the wake of her lumbering new boss, it was a slow journey across the apartment’s small inner lobby and into the living area where a huge LCD screen played speckled fog into the room. A picture window framed a ribbon of lights in the far distance beyond a dark stretch of water, the scene disjointed by the multiple reflections of moonlight on the river and that the view was from a lighted room out into darkness.

  Once she’d slumped herself into the settee, Pat Thompson looked up at Annie with a shake of her head. ‘I suppose it might make some kind of sense,’ she said. ‘Spare bedroom’s that way. You’ll find bedding in the cupboard. Dump your stuff, then we’ll talk.’

  Annie shoved her cases into the tiny bedroom, threw some bedding at the bed and returned to the living room where she sat in an armchair. She’d counted on some conventional hospitality; an offer of something to eat or drink, but then she’d counted on Pat Thompson expecting her.

  Pat clicked the TV remote and the screen blanked. She shifted her bulk on the sagging cushions of the settee, sat upright and turned to face her new employee.

  ‘Let’s be clear on one thing,’ Pat opened. ‘If you’re here to work, you’re here to work for me. Not Vince Sleeman. You report to me. How well do you know him?’

  ‘Not at all. I met him when he interviewed me, that’s all. Why hadn’t he told you I was coming?’

  ‘Hadn’t got round to it … he said.’ There was a pause Annie couldn’t bridge, and then Pat looked her in the eye and began to rattle out all the questions she’d expected a week ago. Gathering up her wits, Annie batted back the answers as efficiently as she could, fighting not to let her inner squirming reach the surface as her lack of experience was laid bare.

  ‘I’ve done self-defence and I did the conflict management course in Birmingham.’ She passed across her meagre stack of certificates and watched Pat Thompson’s left eyebrow rise higher as she scrutinized them. ‘So what will I be doing exactly?’

  ‘Not sure what I can give you to match this lot.’ Pat gave the paperwork a hard stare. ‘Where did you say Vince picked you up?’

  Annie drew herself tall in her chair. ‘Through a recruitment agency,’ she snapped, pulling out the crumpled advert.

  Pat blew out her cheeks and shrugged. ‘Why London, for pity’s sake? Oh well, nothing ventured … It’ll be on his head. There’s only the one case I was working on when this happened.’ She gave a nod towards the giant cast. ‘Some bother on an estate in the city. I can give you the gen tomorrow. Have a look through the notes if you want.’

  Annie reached for the folder as a rush of anticipation grabbed her. Despite her flaky CV, Pat was going to let her have a go at the real job. Her tiredness vanished as excitement mingled with anxiety. She swallowed to moisten her suddenly dry throat and ducked her head over the papers as she pulled them out and scanned them.

  ‘Just the one case?’ She asked the question at random. It wasn’t what she wanted to know. What she wanted to know was who would be out there with her? Who would show her what to do?

  ‘Uh … yeah. That’s right.’

  Annie looked up at the hesitation in Pat’s reply. Pat met her eye impassively. Annie turned back to the papers in her hand. There was precious little to read, a few scrawled notes, a name and address and an unsigned contract. As Pat yawned and began to gather together a mass of scattered tissues that she shoved in her bag, Annie couldn’t stop questions tumbling out. What was it about? Who was Mrs Earle? Why was the contract unsigned?

  ‘She lives in a tower block and some kids have taken over her landing. Dealing drugs by the sound of it. She wants them cleared out.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she go to the police?’

  ‘Small-time drugs dealing is way down the list. You’re used to London ways, I suppose. Humberside Police don’t have London resources. So unless we hit a drugs crackdown initiative, Mrs E isn’t going to get more than a crime number from her local nick and that only if she gets her door kicked in.’

  ‘So what are we supposed to do?’

  Pat shrugged. ‘I hadn’t got that far.’ She indicated her l
eg with a glance. ‘Find out who they are, then get a handle to move them on.’

  Annie’s tongue hovered over a question about the giant plaster cast, but she decided it would be unprofessional during a discussion of the case.

  ‘People learn to live with it,’ Pat added. ‘If you want a drug deal round there, just throw a brick. This Earle woman’s got some particular reason for calling us in, but I hadn’t got round to finding out what it was. Anyway, we’ll talk in the morning.’

  With that, Pat heaved herself to her feet, grasped her stout metal crutch and hobbled out of the room.

  *

  The next morning, Annie surfaced from sleep and felt the strangeness of new surroundings. Silence hung all around, no engines revving, no hum of traffic, no bustling city waking up with her, and no friend in easy reach. She tasted adventure, but also insecurity; climbing without a rope. The face of the bedside clock emerged from a haze to a neat set of figures, and she pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the bed.

  The early morning light danced on the walls. The bedroom window was small, giving the room a cell-like feel. From this first-floor apartment there was a good view of the water and mud flats. This was one aspect of the area she hadn’t needed to research. One of her teachers, an avid naturalist, passionate about the ecology of the north-east coast, infected them all with his enthusiasm. Thanks to him, she could tell a coot from a moorhen, but couldn’t imagine a use for such a skill in Pat Thompson’s world. She stood up, stretched and peered out across the Humber. A small boat forged its way up the estuary. The water ripped apart and mended as the craft sliced through. The sun’s heat warmed her face. A scorcher of a day in the making.

  Neat, but practical, she thought, rummaging through the clothes in her case for jeans and T-shirt. Once dressed, she went through to the living room where the settee, Pat’s territory, still bore the indentation of her new boss’s form from the night before. She listened to the background rasp of snores from the master bedroom and wondered if she was expected to get things moving on her own initiative. If so, she had no idea where to start, hadn’t even a street map of Hull.