Where There's Smoke

by Penny Grubb

  The door was high off the ground. There must be a ladder or mobile staircase to allow access, but the place was bare apart from some empty wall racks and huge coils of electrical wire, too heavy to drag across to use as a makeshift support to stand on. If the door were open, she might leap up, get a hold and haul herself in, but she had nothing long enough to reach up as high as the door handle and assumed it would be locked. Even if she could get up there, there was no window, nothing to look through.

  The only breaks in the blank sides were small slatted windows high up near the roof, three on each side. As she circled the huge trailer, she spotted something at last. The far back corner sported a rail. If she could get up to it, she could haul herself up on to the roof and lean across to see in through the high windows.

  Bracing herself, measuring the distance, the slant and shape of the rail, she took a leap from the floor and grasped the shiny metal with one hand and then the other, flinching as her feet banged noisily on the side of the vehicle. Once she had a grip, it was an easy climb to the roof, where she lay flat and eased herself along until she could peer over the side into the first of the windows.

  It was blacked out. Playing the torch through the slats showed her nothing. Frustrated and without much hope, she moved to the next. This one was not covered. Through the slats, she saw the inside of a small cubicle with a locker and a seat. She pulled back, and slid further along to the third one. An identical space showed through this one, too. She eased herself across the expanse of the roof to the other side and leant over to the corresponding window there. This, too, showed a similar space, but when she moved to the middle section she stared transfixed.

  Even in the gloom, the surfaces glinted back at her. Some kind of minimal showroom kitchen in gleaming stainless steel, walls, units, surfaces. A weird-shaped table sat in the middle of the space, reminding her of something she’d seen before, someone’s fantastically expensive experimental kitchen maybe. She was certain no horse had ever seen the inside of this place, and inched out over the edge to see further in. Two huge gas bottles attached to gauges and tubes came into view along with tantalizing edges of things she couldn’t quite see. And that table. It wasn’t a table at all, it was a sink. It had a drain hole. And so did the floor. What was it, some kind of wet room?

  She looked again at the central fixture, the focus of the strange space. Not a sink. Her first instinct had been right. It was a table. And she knew exactly where she’d been the last time she’d seen one like it. In a mortuary.

  CHAPTER 13

  Annie sat at the desk in Pat’s office. The monitor in front of her showed the satellite view of an isolated farmhouse that she might never have had the chance to look up. After a few moments, it flipped to its screen-saver picture of two swans gliding across a lake. The only sounds were the steady drip of the tap from the small kitchen down the corridor and the whisper of her own breathing. The area around the office, busy enough during the day, had nothing to bring evening visitors and now settled itself for night. If any legitimate key holder came on a late mission, they would find the outer door jammed. Annie was determined no one would catch her unawares tonight. The day had held hijack, incarceration in a stuffy car boot and the threat of fatal injury; it had led to a farmhouse that exuded tranquility whilst housing a mobile morgue. She had see-sawed between extremes of fear and bewilderment, been battered both mentally and physically.

  Her first act after putting distance between herself and the place where Carl had left her was to contact Pieternel from a pay phone in a pub. Pieternel had grumbled at Annie’s demand for a fast car swap, but only because calling in the necessary favour would make a serious hole in the firm’s fat profit from the Hull job. She’d told Pieternel everything and they’d tried to work their way to a plausible theory, but there were too many pieces missing. And Annie knew she was too hyped to think clearly when she heard herself saying, ‘Send me Christa. I need someone lighter on her feet than Pat. You’ve finished with her for now, haven’t you?’

  Pieternel laughed. ‘That’s just what you need. A loose cannon like Christa.’

  Annie smiled. Pieternel was right. The quickest way to an early grave in this situation would be to bring in someone as impetuous as Christa.

  ‘Just watch your back, Annie, and keep your wits about you. They’ve had two pops at you in a few days. That’s bordering on careless.’

  That was true, too. Irritated, Annie half-heartedly waved the rag at Pieternel for her lack of concern about insurance cover.

  ‘Not a legit case, Annie. No business risk. Get yourself shot and we might wangle a nice wad of compo.’

  On her way to an industrial park on the western outskirts of Hull where Pieternel’s influence would have a car ready for collection no questions asked, Annie stopped at a phone shop to renew a years-old contact who provided her with a new handset with a live battery and an untraceable SIM. With the change of car and a phone in her pocket, Annie clawed her way back towards being in control. She picked up her new handset, watched her fingers reach to the keypad to call Jean, but the number wasn’t there. Not in her phone … not in her head. Very deliberately, she put down the handset, drew in a breath and relaxed, allowing the tension to drain and give her memory the space to retrieve what she needed. After a moment, she picked it up again and punched in the number.

  After a couple of rings, Jean Greenhough’s voice was in her ear saying, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Are you at the racecourse?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve to stay on till all the ponies are collected. Someone must, and…’ Annie let Jean unload her worries for her aborted pony camp, listening to the way the woman’s relief that everyone was all right had become tempered by budding annoyance at the trouble the perpetrators had caused. ‘We know who the ring leaders were, but they’ve made sure to be the ones kept in overnight. Oh, I know I should just be grateful they’re all OK, but really…’

  ‘Go and see them at the hospital,’ Annie suggested. ‘If they’re still under the influence, they’ll tell you everything. Jean, has anyone been for my phone? No? OK, then I’d like you to do something for me. Can you go and get it now?’

  Annie talked Jean through removal of the SIM card, told her to put the handset back in the drawer and listened to her flush the SIM down the toilet. If Jean felt surprise at the request, it was drowned in her more immediate worries. Throughout the process, she chuntered on about the children who had initiated the drugged cola and wrecked her camp.

  She left the car on a parallel street with Pat’s office, thinking it probably unnecessary but reflecting she’d rather overdo the paranoia than have a gun shoved in her neck as she drove. The pain in her left foot, from some sharp edge in that graveyard, made itself felt and she flinched at every other step as she made her way through the tenfoots of Hull’s industrial wasteland, letting herself into the building when there was no one to watch and treading softly on the stairs to avoid notice from anyone working late in the downstairs office.

  Once sure she was alone inside, she did a thorough sweep for bugs and was amazed to find a crude device inside each of the telephone handsets. It was less the presence of the phone taps than the low level technology of them that surprised her. She’d assumed remote listening devices, nothing so crude as this, and kicked herself for not checking the handsets when she’d first suspected a tap. As she put the gadgets back into the phones - no need to alert anyone just yet - she thought of the way the sisters had fallen into sloth. They probably hadn’t swept their own office in years. There was no need for sophisticated technology to keep an eye on them. She took the time to do a thorough job and found nothing else.

  It would be a long night. She set the alarm on her new phone to wake her in time to unblock the outside door and tried to settle down to sleep. She’d been a fool to judge Carl Sleeman by the memory of someone she’d barely known eight years ago. And he’d been a fool, too, in his misjudgement of her. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Whatever she’d felt ea
rlier in the day, the fear, the bewilderment, the panic of losing control, it had all hardened into a knot of anger deep inside. She had no intention of letting this go.

  The dawn brought a text message that beeped from her phone as Annie lay half-awake. She sat up, grimacing at the crick in her neck from where she’d curled up in the pushed-together chairs. With a yawn, she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. Two messages. Pieternel and a number that was familiar but not yet known to her new handset. She clicked on Pieternel’s message.

  RU sure re Christa? U can change yr mind b4 6am, after that I’m offline rest of day.

  Annie glanced at the time. Ten to six. Pieternel was more worried than she’d realized. It would cost money to send Christa, but Pieternel was saying she was prepared to do it if Annie wanted. Annie smiled as she thought of the chaos Christa would bring. She’d floated the idea because her mind had been in a spin. And great though it would be to have someone as light on her feet as Christa, Annie had never been serious. Christa would be the worst sort of loose cannon to bring in to this situation. She texted back.

  100% sure. Thanks. Speak later.

  She yawned again as she turned to the second message, but as she glanced at the number, realization ran a shiver down her spine. It was Carl Sleeman. But he shouldn’t even know this number. He should be leaving messages on the dead SIM of her old phone.

  Keep yer hed down. Play dead or you will be.

  What the hell? She was on her feet, pulling her things together, certain she’d missed a tracking device. Cursing silently, she grabbed her shoes and jacket, wondering if there would be a reception party waiting outside the office. She’d thought all along he’d been too careless for credibility in allowing her to escape from that car boot. He’d planted something on her.

  Then she stopped and made herself sit back down. Think this through. He knew she’d left her phone at the racecourse. He might even have been back for it. Or maybe he’d rung Jean. Jean’s concerns were all for her pony camp. She wouldn’t have thought twice about giving out Annie’s new number. There was no tracking device. Carl was a slapdash operator. Maybe he’d let her escape because he couldn’t be bothered with her any more. She chided herself for over reacting and looked again at his message.

  Keep yer hed down. Play dead or you will be.

  It made some kind of sense with the events of yesterday, but what was his agenda? Pat must arrange another meeting, and this time, both Annie and Carl would be there. Annie rearranged the furniture and sat down to wait.

  Pat arrived early, just after eight, acknowledged Annie with a nod, and said, ‘Better news on Babs. She’s getting better by the hour.’

  ‘That’s good. Can we go and see her?’

  Pat gave a huff of exasperation and snapped, ‘No, not yet.’

  Annie held up her hand in a gesture of apology. No good came of firing questions at Pat at this time in the morning. ‘I’ll make coffee, but we really need to speak to her as soon as we can. How long will it be?’

  Pat’s gaze tracked Annie’s progress towards the kettle, the mugs, the coffee jar, but she waited until Annie went out of the office towards the kitchen to get milk, before calling after her, ‘I’ve been thinking about it. You’re wrong. Babs had nothing to do with you being brought here.’ She waited until Annie re-entered before adding, ‘I know you don’t think it was Vince, but things have changed since you were here before.’

  ‘Pat, you know full well it wasn’t Vince.’

  ‘I know nothing of the sort. We were hard-pressed and he brought you in to help out. Whatever Vince is, he’s not small-minded. He’s never liked you, but he knows you can do the work. He offered you a job once, remember?’

  Annie’s mind raced across several angry retorts: I turned him down … you weren’t hard-pressed at all … but she swallowed them. There was no time to argue. She pulled forward the computer monitor and brought up the satellite view of the house. Pat leant forward to see. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I’m hoping you’re going to tell me.’ Annie zoomed in on the square building. Close up, the resolution was poor, but Pat nodded.

  ‘Oh, yeah, it’s Vince’s place, but that’s somewhere you definitely want to steer clear of, whether Vince brought you here or not. It’s their home. Nothing to do with the business. It was going to be our home once, but Mum died and Dad had to have us in town where he could keep an eye. We used to go there at Christmas when we were little.’ Momentarily, Pat’s face took on a wistful look of fond memories revived.

  ‘Who lives there now?’

  ‘Just Vince and Leah. But it’s sacrosanct. Vince sailed a bit close to the wind a time or two and Leah put her foot down, said she wasn’t risking her home. What’s your interest?’

  ‘I was there yesterday.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Annie! Why? You keep your distance. If anyone gets to know, they’ll think it was us: me and Babs. We’ll get no more support if he thinks we’ve led you there. I told you. It’s sacrosanct, that place. How did you find it?’

  ‘Carl took me.’

  Annie watched Pat’s face drain of blood as she said, ‘Whoa,’ her voice a whisper. ‘He’s had it then.’

  Not wanting to waste time on details, Annie raced through an abbreviated account of what had happened to her. ‘He told someone he’d killed me,’ she ended. ‘And then he left me in the car by that house.’

  ‘He must have been in a panic,’ Pat said. ‘I know you can be a bloody Houdini when you’re cornered, but he doesn’t.’

  ‘Come on, no one’s that stupid. He must have known I’d get free. He didn’t tie my wrists properly. He didn’t make sure the boot was shut. He left the keys in the car.’

  ‘You said he tied your wrists on top of the handcuffs. If he was in a panic, he won’t have realized they weren’t tight enough. He wouldn’t have risked uncuffing you first. And he was planning to be back, that’s why he left the keys in. The boot was a lucky break.’

  Annie pulled a face. ‘It’s stretching it to believe he could have been that careless.’

  ‘Careless is Carl’s trademark. He’s had an uncle to pick him up out of the holes he’s got himself in. He’s never learnt better. It sounds improbable, I’ll give you that, but there’s one thing I’m sure of: Carl Sleeman would no more lead you to that house on purpose than he’d jump off the Humber Bridge. Suicide either way.’

  This was family stuff; history. Annie wanted hard facts. ‘Have you any idea who it might have been who called him? Who would have put him in a panic like that?’

  ‘The obvious one’s Vince.’

  ‘If Vince was happy to hear I was dead, how does that fit with him bringing me here?’

  Pat opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. There was a silence. It doesn’t fit, thought Annie. None of it fits. She knows it as well as I do. Annie changed tack and described the woman she’d seen hanging out washing. Pat shook her head. ‘Too young for Leah. An au pair or something. They have people in, especially since Vince got ill.’

  ‘Would Vince have been there yesterday?’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s where he’s been for weeks when he hasn’t been in hospital. He rules the roost from a bed upstairs.’

  Annie thought about the barn and the huge trailer, but decided to get everything else straight in her head first. She asked Pat, ‘What happened at North Point yesterday?’

  ‘Carl rang me, said he couldn’t make it. He was on at me for ages wanting chapter and verse on what it was about. I didn’t tell him anything.’

  Annie reconstructed this in her mind. Carl had rung the racecourse and left the so-called message from Pat. It wouldn’t have taken much to disguise his voice enough to fool the guy who’d taken the call; they’d all been wrapped up in the aftermath of the poisoning. Then Carl had called Pat to keep her phone busy in case Annie managed to ring back. ‘We’re going to need to catch up with him at some point.’

  ‘I’ll ring him now.’

  Annie held up her ha
nd to stop Pat as she reached for the handset. Instead, she pulled the phone towards her and opened it up to show Pat what was inside.

  Pat frowned at the device and looked up at Annie. ‘Have you done that? What for?’

  Annie shook her head. She told Pat of the suspicions she’d nursed since her call to Barbara had led to both of them being the targets of hit and run drivers. ‘I hadn’t had the chance to check it out properly before last night. It’s pretty basic but I don’t want to shift it till we know who put it there and what they’re after. There’s one in the other phone as well.’

  Pat stared round the office, indignation clear in every move. You’ve become too cosy in here, Annie wanted to say. You talk about Carl being careless, but it’s a family failing.

  ‘Who? Why?’ Pat swung round on Annie with a flare of anger. ‘That blasted copper of yours!’

  ‘No, he’d have used better kit than this. Anyway, they were there before he came poking about. And he’s not mine.’ She paused and watched Pat carefully, before asking, ‘Has Carl Sleeman been here much lately?’

  The answer was obvious without Pat saying a word. She looked up at Annie. ‘But why? Why us? What are we doing that he couldn’t find out just by asking?’

  ‘Could it be to do with one of the jobs they passed on to you? Not the pony camp, that was the ploy to get me here. What else have you done recently that came from Sleeman?’

  ‘Not much. Not since Vince was ill. There was the Egyptian guy. That was all very hush-hush. But I can’t see why he’d have bugged the phones. He called in a time or two, though, wanting every last detail. Babs dealt with it. It was a nothing of a case in the end.’

  Annie drummed her fingers on the doctored handset as thoughts chased through her head. Was this relevant or just one of Vince’s iffy cases? ‘What was it about?’

  ‘Someone wanted the guy out the way. Now, what was his name? Carl was jumpy, now I think about it, too interested, round here too often. That wasn’t like Carl. They wanted the evidence to get the guy deported. I think he had something to do with that hospital scandal in the Midlands; some doctor with dodgy qualifications. It made the national press.’