Stormfront

by R. S. Sutton

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Blood flushed around his cheeks as he became aggressive. ‘I did my job. Full stop. Now get out of here!’

  ‘Robbie, I can call you Robbie, yes?’ She attempted to connect with unresponsive eyes as he kept looking around. ‘This refusing to come clean, refusing any help, and believe me, you need help… you’re putting yourself and family in great danger.’ He continued to check the street, looking anywhere but directly at Valerie. ‘And if you think they’re keeping you under supervision, then think on this: they’re probably watching you now, so you might as well ask me in.’

  He moved back, pushed at the door and waved her in. ‘On the left.’

  Valerie sat on a soft corded settee and waited for a fidgeting Hardy to settle down on the matching chair. ‘Don’t worry. If you tell me what happened, I’ll make sure you and your family will be safe.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He managed a strangled, sarcastic laugh. ‘How are you going to do that?’

  ‘You let me worry about that. Your concern is telling the truth.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. Or almost nothing,’ he added quietly. ‘This woman came here.’

  ‘What, here? Your house?’

  He nodded and went to a nearby cabinet. ‘You want one?’ he said, sliding the flexible door to one side. ‘Only Scotch, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ said Valerie with a negligible shake of the head.

  He poured out near half a tumbler of Tesco’s own brand, then added a splash of soda. ‘Told me there was a body arriving at the mortuary that evening.’ He swilled down half of the whisky and, shaking, sat back down. ‘She gave me a bottle with a couple of swabs inside. Said there would be a DNA test request, as well as the standard autopsy, and that I was to use the sample on the swabs for the result.’

  ‘That was it?’

  ‘Yes. She looked around at the photos of my wife and children, even picked one up and said what a nice family I had.’ He finished off the drink and, coughing slightly, held the back of a hand to his mouth. ‘She didn’t have to say another thing; I knew exactly what she was talking about. Then she got up, threw a large envelope on my lap and walked out. Never heard from her before or since.’

  The first whisky had done nothing to steady his trembling hands as he took the bottle by the neck and poured another. ‘And now I’ve put my family in danger. What am I going to do, run off down the road with a kid under each arm and a screaming wife following on behind? Why the hell did you come here? All you’ve done is screw things up, and anyway, who the bloody hell are you? Working for the insurance company my bloody left foot. Sell jokes on the side when you can’t fuck up people’s lives, do you?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Valerie tried to soothe his agitation. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean, don’t worry?!’ he said, getting angry again. ‘What the bloody hell can you do about it? I might as well put a gun to my kids’ heads!’

  Valerie pulled the mobile from her pocket and retrieved the recently stored number. ‘Dennis? It’s Valerie. We need some transport at Hardy’s house.’ Hardy sat back down with his, now third, drink and listened as Valerie reeled off the information. ‘Presume we have a safe house?’ She nodded while making positive murmurings. ‘Oh, and a ruddy big dog,’ she added before ending the call and looking at the now half-cut Hardy. ‘Better get a couple of cases packed, they’ll be here in an hour.’

  He still looked worried, so she added, ‘It’s safer this way, believe me. Not sure even keeping your mouth shut would have been of any help. We’re dealing with ruthless people. If they decide they’d be better off with you no longer around…’ Preferring to let her remarks sink in, she left the rest unsaid.

  Hardy stumbled to his feet. ‘Thanks a fucking bunch’

  Valerie wondered if it was a particularly low threshold to alcohol or just plain terror as he put out a hand to balance himself.

  ‘Get your family together,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Hardy, leaving the room.

  ‘Right now? I’m your guardian angel.’

  ***

  The impressive, but deserted, detached house stood in its own grounds of about an acre. ‘Must have been well paid,’ Valerie mused as she stood on the gravel drive. ‘And more than just a secretary.’

  The woman that identified Preston’s body was about the only line of investigation Valerie could think of. And if there was going to be anything to find, a start at her house would be as good as anywhere. She looked around, noting the alarm box under the eaves. There was a chance to get in unseen, so she took a Swiss army knife from her pocket and slid the sash window catch to one side. Then she opened the window enough to set the alarm off, before pulling it back down and pushing the catch back in place. The side of the house lit up by a pulsating light set in the alarm box. She turned and slowly walked into the garden, sat behind a large elm, and lit a cigarette.

  Forty minutes and two cigarettes later, a white security van crunched along the drive towards the house.

  ‘A pound will get you ten it’s another bleedin’ false alarm.’ An overweight man eased himself from the passenger seat.

  ‘Good job it’s your turn then, ain’t it?’

  The guard let himself in while cigarette smoke from the driver’s side curled out of the van window. Five minutes later he pulled the front door shut, before testing it with his shoulder. ‘Nowt, I’ve re-set the panel.’

  Valerie looked at her watch as the van disappeared down the drive. She gave it twenty minutes before releasing the window catch again. She had to do it three times, in all, before the guard came out and told his mate that he couldn’t find a fault and that it would have to wait until the morning.

  ‘I’ve closed it all down, can’t be doin’ with coming backwards and forwards all bloody night.’

  After watching the van’s lights fade along the road, Valerie checked the indicator on the box above her head and entered. As there was now little chance of anyone interrupting a search, Valerie switched on the lights and looked around the impressive room. ‘Money,’ she said quietly, ‘and plenty of it. No wonder everything in this enquiry gets nowhere if everyone is on megabucks.’

  Pulling open desk drawers and skimming through papers seemed to reveal little more than domestic receipts. Before looking over the rest of the house, she switched on the desk computer and left it going through its start-up routine. Moving from room to room, it crossed Valerie’s mind that, exactly the same as the yacht, everywhere was clean and tidy to the point of obsession.

  There’s going to be nothing on here, she thought, pulling out her mobile on returning to the computer. ‘Jane, sorry to phone so late. Got a computer here that’s probably been wiped clean, but we’d better have a look. Talk me through copying it all down.’

  ‘Got a memory stick?’

  ‘Sorry, not on me. No—’

  Jane cut her short. ‘Well, you can’t copy it onto thin air.’

  Telling her to wait, Valerie went back into the drawers. ‘Probably need more than one if there’s lots on it,’ Jane added. ‘Like a bloody handful.’

  ‘Five,’ said Valerie, lining them up on the desk.

  Without a clue what she was doing, Valerie followed Jane’s instructions and, with just the occasional ‘okay’, they were finished in under an hour.

  ‘What the hell happened to the good old days?’ she said, looking at the USB sticks. ‘Lobbing a house brick through H Samuel’s high-street window.’

  Sixteen

  Valerie looked over Jane’s shoulder. ‘Well?’

  ‘Give me a chance, let the dog see the bleedin’ rabbit.’

  ‘Thought you’d have had it done by now. You’ve been at it since eight.’

  ‘Do you mind? It takes the forensic bogies ages to break into deleted files.’

&n
bsp; ‘Christ.’ Valerie went across to her desk and slumped into the chair. ‘What do we do in the meantime?’

  ‘I said it takes the fuzz ages. But me…’ She made a show of deft fingers diving into a pool of computer keys. ‘Not all my expertise was learnt on my back.’

  Absentmindedly, Valerie started playing a losing game of cat’s cradle with an elastic band. ‘No, I’m quite sure…’ She stopped and threw the band back into the drawer. ‘Sorry, I’m putting you off.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Jane, ‘we’re both female, I can multitask same as you. What were you going to say?’

  ‘What did you think about when… you know?’ Jane’s fingers didn’t hesitate in their dexterous journey across the keys.

  ‘Not very original in your questions, are you? I seem to remember you asking me that before, back in the bad old days when we were exchanging traumatic experiences.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’ Valerie pulled out a cigarette and raised her eyebrows towards Jane.

  ‘Go on then,’ Jane replied, looking towards the “No Smoking in These Premises” sign. ‘Just blow it the other bloody way. That’s one vice I’ve never had to deal with.’ She watched momentarily as Valerie slid the top on the Zippo. ‘Should be “No Smoking on These Premises”, shouldn’t it?’ she said, emphasising the on.

  ‘Suppose,’ said Valerie, making an effort to blow smoke over her shoulder. ‘But getting back to what I said. All I got from you then was “oh, you know”.’

  ‘Right, I see, you want an in-depth view of “How to Be a Hooker”. Well, I suppose if I was paying tax on the money, I should have been thinking of England.’

  Valerie coughed a laugh on the next lungful of smoke. ‘And?’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to give the inadequate bastard his money’s worth, you just have to moan and compliment him in all the right places. Especially when he… you know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ said Valerie. ‘But that’s not what you’re thinking about, is it? That’s just doing the job to the best of your ability… for want of a better expression.’

  ‘Thinking about?’ Jane stopped typing and looked over the monitor. ‘Jesus, you wanting to descend into my soul?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Valerie, ‘none of my damn business.’

  ‘No, no. If anyone’s got a right to know, it’s you. Still have been swimming around in the sewer if you hadn’t come along. Best thing I ever did, fall into your doorway.’

  A thoughtful gaze crossed Jane’s face. ‘I tried to keep my mind clean. Sounds daft, I know. But somewhere inside there’s a place no one can touch, all private. I’d go there and hide. Like sitting by a stream in the spring sunshine. Then all the moaning and groaning is automatic. I got very good at it. I could be seeing to this deficient and his every need, and be sitting by my little piece of water. Stupid sod would be thinking I was smiling at the size of his prick. But I’d be smiling at the little ripples catching the sunlight.’ Not even remotely able to put herself in the same position, Valerie said nothing. ‘No one that hasn’t been there could ever understand. Don’t worry, don’t mind telling you.’ Then, smiling, she added, ‘I had a priest once. Well, more than once actually.’

  As if dragged from a deep well, Valerie’s mood switched instantly. ‘What!’ She laughed. ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘Bloody right, he used to call it his weekly cleansing.’

  ‘Never!’ Valerie screamed. ‘This is a joke, yes?’

  ‘No way, sure as I’m a demon typist. Straight up.’ Like a perfectly paired duet, they broke into uncontrollable giggling. ‘And he could too,’ said Jane, trying to regain control. ‘Stand, I mean.’

  ‘Christ almighty,’ said Valerie as the tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘That’s one struck from the list of hundred things to do before you die.’

  ‘Sometimes didn’t remove his collar.’

  Concerned that she’d choke on the next lungful of smoke, Valerie pushed the cigarette into an ashtray hidden in the desk drawer, while Jane looked over her computer screen and grinned.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Valerie, chivvying Jane along, ‘I’m not buying that one.’

  ‘It’s bloody true. True as I’m waiting for this bus,’ said Jane, still typing. ‘After the first couple of times, he brought a black habit with him.’

  ‘Dear God in heaven. For him or you? And more to the point, where did he get it?’

  Again, Jane looked mischievously over the screen. ‘Don’t know, but he had us both in it,’ she whispered. ‘I charged extra, of course.’ She sat back up and looked serious. ‘I wasn’t risking everlasting hell and damnation for a flat fee.’

  Valerie took two cans of Coke from the drawer and handed one over. ‘And how did he square this with his Christian calling?’

  ‘Like I said, he thought it a kind of cleansing. He said if I wanted cleansing I’d go to church, so he came to me. Kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Valerie, pulling the ring and tossing it in the bin. ‘Think he’d have a hard time getting that one past his bishop. Is there anything you wouldn’t do, you know, off limits?’

  ‘Apart from the obvious?’ Jane looked down, examining her fingernails. ‘Never let them kiss me. Ever.’

  ‘What! Sex from here to Christmas and no kissing?’

  ‘If you’ve never been there, then you wouldn’t understand. Kissing is for someone special, it’s intimate. Secrets told with the lips. Not for no bloody money. No,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘definitely not for sale.’ Momentarily she looked at the wall with unfocused eyes. ‘Here, put that into your laptop.’ She tossed a USB across. ‘Four to go,’ she added quietly.

  Valerie could almost hear the USB laughing as she searched through old business files. ‘Hope you can come up with better than this.’

  ‘I can only find what’s there,’ said Jane.

  ‘Yeah, I know, I know. But I think our new masters are expecting a little more than tax-dodging.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Jane, ‘that’s how they got Al Capone.’

  ‘Yeah, but he was alive. At least he was when they caught him. Didn’t he die of—?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jane, shuddering, ‘he bloody did. Yuk.’

  Valerie’s mobile suddenly stopped the supposition.

  ‘They got to him,’ said Thompson. ‘He’s shut up as tight as a clam. If there was more to come, he’s not telling.’

  Valerie furrowed her brow. ‘Got to the safe house?’

  ‘No,’ said Thompson, ‘his mobile. Stupid idiot that was looking after them forgot to take it away.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ One-handed, Valerie took a cigarette and slowly tapped it on the desk. ‘Thought you had better than that in the department.’

  ‘We do,’ said Thompson. ‘He was still protesting his innocence as Simonds kicked him down the street. He’s back on the beat, or wherever he was found.’

  ‘But they’re safe?’ she asked.

  ‘For now, yes. But you’ll have to get it sorted before they can go home.’

  ‘Let him keep the money, Colonel.’

  She ended the call just as Jane threw another USB across. ‘Not sure that one’s any different from the first,’ said Jane.

  ‘What about getting pregnant and things?’ asked Valerie, forgetting her cigarette as she looked through the files.

  ‘And things?’ said Jane. ‘Well, you know about “things”, you hoicked me off to the clinic. Funnily enough that was the only time I needed to go. I insisted on condoms, but one must have slipped or got damaged. Thank Christ it was just the clap and nothing worse.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Valerie, ‘it’s a dangerous bloody game.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  Requesting silence, Jane held up a hand and buried herself in the next load of files. Occasionally making notes, she qu
ietly mumbled to herself for the next fifteen minutes, then sat back and took a sip from the can of Coke. ‘Got pregnant once. Not when I was on the game. It was just before Vinnie got his claws into me.’

  ‘Blimey, you must have been young?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jane, smiling innocently. ‘Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. Nor nothing else neither.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You remember me telling you about that Scottish lad?’

  ‘Andrew something or other,’ said Valerie, ‘used to work at Asda.’

  ‘That’s him, Andy. Still does. Climbed up the ladder. Assistant to something or other he is now. Well, I’d only been going out with him for a few weeks and popped in on my way home from school.’ She blew her cheeks out and wriggled her nose at the screen. ‘He was working on the fish counter, very smart he looked in his white coat.’ She stopped and smiled again.

  ‘And?’ said Valerie. ‘If you’re going to reminisce, do it out loud.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well… we’d been very close to doing it once or twice, but never quite made it… you know, never got over the finishing line. I think we should both have had L plates. It was my first time and I’m damn sure it was his too. There had been lots of fumbling in his mum’s front room, but little else.’ She paused, looking a little vacant.

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘Oh.’ She jumped before continuing. ‘Yes. It was quiet when I went in and we both made a grab at each other. Then he shoved me through into the storeroom. It wasn’t very romantic being pressed up against cases of frozen cod fillets, but we must have been building up a head of steam for too long. No resistance left, as it were. Me knickers came off and his trousers dropped around his ankles then away we went. Of course, I’d got romantic thoughts of crisp white sheets and Chanel Number Five. Instead I came out with a sore you-know-what and smelling like a Grimsby trawler. Anyway, next thing I knew I was in the club. Me mum went absolutely bleedin’ spare. Dragged me off screaming and kicking to have a termination.’