Road Kill

Six

Though I did my best to get answers out of him, Jamie was saying nothing. He left soon after his mother, collecting his helmet and his rucksack from inside the house as though he wasn’t planning on coming back. I didn’t try and persuade him to stay. My mind was on Sean and the actions he’d taken.

“Don’t you think you went in a bit hard on Eamonn?” I demanded as we walked back into the house with the Honda’s exhaust note still fading up the drive.

Sean had collected the fallen baton and was turning it over in his hands. He held it up towards me. “This is an older baton,” he said, not answering my question. “The police-issue ones have a plastic end – this one’s steel. You know why they don’t let the police use ones like these any more?”

I shook my head.

“Because you have an unfortunate tendency to split people’s skulls wide open with them,” he said, his voice like stone. “If Eamonn had caught you a good one with this he could have killed you. And he was certainly trying.”

I swallowed. “The rules on self defence don’t allow you to kill someone if you can disarm them another way,” I said sharply, even though I knew he was right. “We’re not in the jungle now.”

For a moment there was a silent gulf between us. Yes, I’d seen the violence and the cruelty running through Eamonn. But that didn’t mean I was prepared to dispense instant justice to deal with him.

Sean gave me a humourless smile and twisted the baton shut with the same kind of practised ease that Eamonn had shown. “A snake is still a snake, Charlie, regardless of where you find it.”

“Yeah? So what does that make you?”

I’d thrown it at him without thinking and regretted the words as soon as they were off and running.

Sean’s head came up and he turned towards me, moving very deliberately, making the hair prickle at the base of my neck. Suddenly I was reminded of a big dog you’ve always been wary of and who’s now decided he doesn’t want to obey your commands any longer. Instinctively, I flinched, took a step back.

A mistake.

I saw the flare in Sean’s eyes as he came for me. We were still in the hallway and I went back until the study wall brought me up short with a gasp. My heart was a leaden weight in my chest, the staccato beat echoing fiercely in my ears.

“Sean,” I said. “Don’t.” A breathless protest. Ignored.

He followed me back, crowded in on me. With my elbows against the wall behind me, I locked my wrists and wedged my fists into the tensed muscles of his stomach to keep him back. He leaned his weight against them, trapping me, and brought his head down until his mouth was within a whisper of mine. I could feel his breath fanning my cheek.

“You know what I am, Charlie,” he said in my ear, very quietly, mocking. “And we both know you’re out of the same mould, however much your damned parents have tried to have it psychoanalysed out of you.”

Anger pushed fear aside. I abruptly relaxed my wrists so I could squirm my right hand down the front of his jeans to grab a handful of his belt. Then I shoved the heel of my left hand up under his chin and pushed back, hard.

Sean’s spine arched as his head was forced back. I kept a tight hold of his belt to unbalance him, using the leverage to run him back a couple of strides, giving me room. Then I let go, breathing harder than I should have needed to.

Sean recovered his poise like a falling cat and smiled coldly at me.

“Face it, Charlie, you’ve got the reflexes and the moves and you’ve got the killer instinct,” he said. “Either you learn to master them or they’ll master you.”

“And you’re always so in control, are you?” I shot back. Another jibe I shouldn’t have voiced aloud.

“Half the secret of being in control is knowing when to let go,” he said. He fixed me with a bleak stare. “When we were in Germany you told me to accept you as you were or to get out of your life and leave you alone,” he went on, relentless, tearing me with my own bitter words. “That I should make a choice because you wouldn’t settle for half measures. Well maybe it’s time you made that same choice about me.”

I looked up, ripped inside, feeling my eyes begin to burn. I opened my mouth but he reached out and put a finger to my lips, shushing me.

“Don’t say anything now,” he said, gently, “but soon. Think about it and give me your answer soon. Because I need to know one way or another where I stand with you, Charlie.”

He took his finger away again and I could still feel the imprint of his skin on mine. The noises of the house intruded, grown suddenly louder. The ticking of the clock, the whining of one of the dogs behind the kitchen door. It was like they’d gone away and only just returned.

Sean stepped back, shrugged into a different day.

“So, who were they, that pair?” he asked, suddenly practical, level.

I shrugged too, trying to match him. “Isobel is Jacob’s ex-wife – or his estranged wife, at least,” I said. There was a wobble in my voice and I cleared my throat to get rid of it. “Erm, she wanted to make a deal over something. We didn’t quite get down to the details of what. I’m afraid I turned her down. Maybe,” I added ruefully, “I should have played her along a bit more.”

“Hmm, it didn’t take her long to find out the place was empty, did it?” he said. He gave me a tired smile, recognising the effort we were both making to strive for normality. “Did Jamie tip her off, d’you reckon?”

“She must have moved fast, if he did,” I said. “She lives in Northern Ireland. How long does the ferry take from Belfast? Four hours if you catch the fast cat to Heysham?” I shook my head. “She would have had to be on starting blocks.”

“So,” Sean said, “was she here already, or did they know in advance that Clare was going to be out of action?”

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning. “Eamonn made a weird comment, though. Before he had a go at me he wanted to know who sent me, then told me to tell my boss man it was a nice try, but if they thought that was going to stop him they could think again. Whatever that means.”

Sean’s expression had gone blank while he thought, the mental equivalent of an hourglass on a computer screen.

“So, what were they looking for here?” he asked. “And, more to the point, did they find it?”

“I don’t know where Eamonn was when I arrived, but Isobel was ransacking the study.”

“OK,” he said. “Let’s start there then, shall we?”

It took Sean less than five minutes to discover the safe I never knew existed. It was set into the study wall, hidden behind a loose section of the wooden panelling that lined the room from floor to ceiling, which was in turn behind a large limited edition print of the Isle of Man TT.

The safe itself was a small steel door, painted dark grey, with a handle and a combination dial. Sean tried the handle. It was locked.

“Do we assume Jacob would have changed the combination after his ex moved out?” he said.

I thought of Jamie’s comment the night before about his father being a creature of habit and shook my head. “Somehow I doubt it.”

“So, either Isobel’s been into the safe and re-locked the door behind her,” he said, “or she didn’t have time to get into it in the first place. What’s your guess?”

I frowned. “When I arrived she was throwing stuff all over the floor and not being too careful about it,” I said. “She didn’t strike me as the type who would have even shut the safe door, never mind put the panelling and the picture back.”

Sean shook his head. “The art of distraction,” he said. “What better way to make us think she hadn’t touched it?”

Something about Jamie nudged at my memory. When I’d entered the room I’d stood with my back to the wall where the doorway was – the same wall which housed the safe – and Jamie’s gaze had slid past me. “When Isobel said we were after the same thing, I thought Jamie couldn’t look at me, but he could just as easily have been looking at the safe behind me,” I said.

“One way to find out,” Sean said. He sighed. “OK,” he said. “I haven’t had to sneak my way into one of these for a while but it’s an old model so I might get lucky.” He shifted a small table away from the wall so he could get up close to the safe. “Why don’t you make yourself useful,” he said, smiling over his shoulder, “and go and put some coffee on?”

“Yes sir,” I said, sarky. But I went back to the kitchen and fed the dogs and messed about with the cafetière as I was told. As I waited for the water to heat I leaned against the sink and absently rubbed at the bruise on the side of my arm where Eamonn had hit me, and tried not to think about Sean’s ultimatum.

That I loved him wasn’t in doubt. I’d admitted as much to myself when I thought I’d lost him for good in America. But the reality of Sean was more complicated than the idea. He brought out the best and the worst in me and confirmed my darkest fears about what I was capable of. In the end, it wasn’t Sean I was scared of.

It was me.

When I took the filled cafetière through to the study, Sean was still up against the wall in a half crouch with his ear pressed against the safe door, inching the lock dial to the right with those long agile fingers of his. His movements slowed and finally stopped. He reached for the handle and I was aware of holding my breath.

It opened.

“Et voila!” He turned and grinned up at me, one of those breathtaking smiles that made him look young and carefree. One that made my heart flop over in my chest.

I grinned back. It was hard not to.

The safe turned out to be much smaller on the inside that it had first appeared.

“Data safe,” Sean said, as though I’d voiced the question. “There’s a canister of coolant in here that goes off if the temperature rises too high. Stops your computer disks getting corrupted if you have a fire.”

Sure enough, there were two boxes of floppy disks and several recordable CDs inside, together with a bundle of papers. He slid the whole lot out onto the nearest chair and started leafing through it.

“Sean,” I said, uncomfortable. “Are you sure we should be doing this? I mean, we don’t know Isobel knew the combination to—”

By way of answer Sean passed across a single sheet of paper. I took it reluctantly. It was a withdrawal slip from the local branch of a bank in Lancaster, for the sum of ten thousand pounds.

“Ten grand?” I echoed blankly. “Jacob might have taken it with him to Ireland. Supposing he wanted to pay cash at an auction—”

“He would have taken euros,” Sean interrupted. “And look at the date.”

I found the stamp and checked it. The slip was dated three days previously. Friday. The day Jacob had caught the ferry to Dublin. Even if he’d had time to get to the bank before he set off, why would he have taken the wrong currency with him?

“I don’t suppose there’s any sign of the money?”

Sean moved to run his hand round the inside of the safe, just to be certain, then shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “So either Clare went on a serious shopping bender on Saturday, or she had it with her on Sunday when she and Slick crashed.”

“Or someone’s been in here since and taken it,” I finished for him. I sat down heavily on the edge of the desk. “Shit,” I muttered. “How the hell am I going to explain this one to Clare?”

He put the disks and papers back into the safe and shut the door again. Gloomy, I pressed the plunger on the cafetière and poured two coffees. As I handed one across I saw Sean’s face go tense, like he’d been steamrollered by a sudden thought.

“What is it?” I said.

“Come with me.”

I almost had to run to keep up with his long stride down the hallway. He paused only to duck into the kitchen, quickly scanning the keys hanging on the rack behind the door and selecting a set.

“Sean?” I said. “Come on, talk to me!”

But he was already outside and halfway across the forecourt towards the coach house. I caught him up again as he was unlocking the door.

“Why did Clare say she accepted a lift with Slick Grannell in the first place?” he asked then.

“Because,” I said slowly, as it dawned on me what line he was taking, “she said the Ducati wouldn’t start.”

I glanced past him to where Clare’s beautiful scarlet 851 Strada sat on its paddock stand, looking like a refugee from a racetrack. Clare loved that bike and Jacob maintained it regardless of expense. Without another word I took the keys out of Sean’s hand and stuck one into the ignition, twisting it to run and turning on the fuel tap. I pulled the choke out a notch, flicking my eyes to Sean’s. He was watching me without expression. I hit the starter button.

The Ducati fired on the first spin and revved up without any hesitation. The exhaust note reverberated gruff and loud inside the old stone building.

I let it run for a moment or two, then cut the motor and pulled the key out again. I handed it back to him with a deep frown.

“You might want to look at it this way instead,” Sean said. “How the hell is Clare going to explain this one to you?”

***

An hour later, completely unexpectedly, the police turned up. Superintendent MacMillan in his usual unmarked Rover, plus two pairs of uniforms in a couple of full-dress squad cars.

Sean and I were back in the study, trying to make some sense out of the disorder and clearing up after Isobel’s destructive intervention.

We heard the drive alarm go off three times in quick succession. The first thought that went through both our minds was that Eamonn was back and he’d brought reinforcements. After that, MacMillan’s arrival came almost as a relief.

We met them on the forecourt just as they were getting out of their cars. MacMillan nodded gravely to me, then he and Sean locked gazes like a pair of rutting stags.

The two of them had run up against each other before and the collision had caused more sparks than a foundry. MacMillan had wanted Sean for murder and it had taken some fast talking to persuade the policeman to let us go after the real killer. The fact that we’d achieved our purpose had done little to inspire friendly feelings on either side.

“We’d like to do a search of these premises, Charlie, if you have no objections,” he said coolly, not breaking eye contact with Sean while he spoke.

“Do you have a warrant?” Sean asked.

“Do I need one?”

“Not necessarily,” I said carefully, moving between them and passing Sean a warning glance. “Not if you tell me what you’re looking for.”

MacMillan turned and rested his gaze on me, murky like canal water and just as difficult to see the bottom of. “A motorbike,” he said at last.

“Well, considering Jacob deals in the things, it won’t come as any surprise to you to find lots of those here,” I said acidly. “Try being more specific.”

MacMillan stilled for a moment, the only outward sign of his disapproval at my attitude. I was struck then by the similarities between the policeman and my father. And both of them made me nervous.

“Oh, we’re looking for something very specific,” he said then, moving over to join us. “We’re after a customised machine based, so I’m told, on Suzuki mechanicals and, I believe, a Harris frame,” he went on. He raised an eyebrow as he spoke, as though he was trying out words from a foreign language and was surprised that they were understood.

“A streetfighter,” I said blankly. “You’re looking for Slick’s bike. Why? I thought you already had it.”

“We did,” he said, emphasising the past tense.

“Careless.” Sean was back to the gently mocking tone he’d used on me earlier. The Superintendent didn’t appear to like it any more than I had.

“What happened?” I said quickly, as much to distract MacMillan as anything else.

He paused, as though reluctant to admit to any mistakes in front of an outsider. And particularly not in front of an outsider like Sean.

“The wreckage was transported to a nearby garage to await collection by our accident investigation lads,” he said at last. “When they came to pick it up today, it had already gone.”

“And what makes you think I might have had anything to do with that?” I asked softly.

“Someone was making off with Grannell’s bike at just about the same time you were sitting in my office this morning, thus providing you with a fairly unassailable alibi,” he said with a fraction of a smile. “Which could, naturally, be taken as a coincidence but I’ve never liked them much. Besides,” he added crisply, “even you must admit that you do have a bit of a reputation for taking matters into your own hands, Charlie.” His eyes went to Sean again. “And you could have had help.”

“Well, since I know I didn’t – search away,” I said, reckless. “Just tell them to wipe their feet and don’t break anything.”

We sat in the sun by the front door and watched them poke their way through every nook and cranny for the best part of the next hour, MacMillan supervising proceedings without actually getting his hands dirty. I wondered how I was going to explain to Jacob that I’d let the cops search his place. Still, on top of everything else it seemed a minor additional transgression.

Just as the searchers began to lose their initial fervour in the face of disappointment, one of the uniforms sidled up to announce that they couldn’t get into the locked coach house.

MacMillan looked at me enquiringly. I stood up but it was Sean who said, “I’ll do it,” and put his glass of iced water down, getting to his feet and heading for the front door.

MacMillan moved beside me and watched him go. “I can’t pretend I’m happy to see you renewing your association with Meyer,” he said quietly.

“That’s my business,” I snapped, my own earlier doubts making my voice sharper than I’d intended. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my leather jeans. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you believe that to be so,” he murmured, solemn. “Just be careful, Charlie.”

Sean reappeared with Clare’s keys and dutifully unlocked the coach house before rejoining us. Two policemen disappeared eagerly inside, only to return a few minutes later, shaking their heads, disappointed.

“Nothing, sir,” one of them reported. He jerked a thumb back towards the coach house door. “He’s got a lovely old Laverda Jota in there, though. Looks like new. I wouldn’t mind making him a bid at that.”

“That’s Jacob’s own bike,” I said, my voice cool. “He’d bite his own leg off rather than part with it.”

MacMillan glanced at me. “Everyone has their price,” he said, cryptic. He nodded to his men again and they made for their cars, then he inclined his head to me. “Thank you for your co-operation, Charlie. No doubt we’ll be in touch again soon.”

And with that slightly ominous promise, the police climbed back into their vehicles and departed up the dusty driveway. I turned and found Sean at my shoulder.

“So, if we haven’t nicked Slick’s bike,” I said lightly, “who has?”

“His friends?” Sean suggested. “Or his enemies?”

“I’m not sure who his enemies are,” I said, “but I do know how to get hold of one of his friends.”

I dug the number William had given me out of my jacket pocket, together with my mobile phone and dialled one into the other. William’s phone clicked straight onto voice mail and I didn’t think it was worth leaving him a message. I ended the call, muttering curses under my breath.

“Annoying, isn’t it?” Sean said, his voice suddenly cheerful. “When someone doesn’t leave their mobile phone switched on.”

***

The only person I could think of who might know something about Slick’s enemies was Clare. The only person I knew where to find, at any rate. I didn’t believe the remains of his bike had disappeared without good reason. Was it to protect Slick, or to hide the evidence of whatever had hit him? The only trouble was, I was increasingly unsure how much Clare would be prepared to tell us.

I wavered over calling the hospital first, to check it was OK to visit her again, but decided against it. Ask permission and you stand a chance of being refused – especially if the same nurse who’d chucked us out this morning was the one who answered the phone.

Sean offered to drive me into town and the prospect of being able to get out of my bike leathers in this weather was tempting enough to make me say yes.

I went upstairs and changed into the shirt and jeans I’d packed at the cottage. The skin round my knee was already starting to yellow where Eamonn had clouted it and a painful lump had come up on the outside of the joint. I prodded at it experimentally and was thankful I hadn’t taken the blow completely unprotected.

Sean was already in the Shogun with the motor running when I came downstairs and locked the front door. I hopped up into the passenger seat and we headed out along the drive.

Sean drove the same way he did everything, self-contained, with a relaxed casual competence. I found myself watching the way the definition formed and shifted in the muscles of his left forearm as he changed gear. Then I remembered those same muscles clenched around Eamonn’s neck, starving his brain. I looked away.

I sat in silence as we turned out onto the main road and travelled towards town. Even on a Monday a couple of big bikes passed us, heading in the opposite direction. The Shogun had air conditioning, which made the plush interior cool and bearable in the summer heat but I was aware of being one-step removed from the road and the conditions. Removed from the facts of what had brought Slick down.

The prospect of interrogating my friend as she lay helpless and injured in her hospital bed was not a pleasant one. That she’d lied to me and I knew it, only made it worse. Elderly Ducatis could be temperamental, but I couldn’t believe her bike had completely failed to start one day, and fired up first time the next. So what was she really doing out with Slick?

We pulled up at the traffic lights leading onto the motorway junction. There must have been another ferry into the port at Heysham from the Isle of Man or Belfast because a rake of bikes were waiting for the lights to change in their favour. Sports bikes rather than cruisers, but piled high with luggage like racehorses wearing donkey panniers.

“How do I handle this?” I asked suddenly. Sean hadn’t been privy to my thoughts but he seemed to know instantly what I meant, even so.

“It depends what you want to get out of it.”

I thought for a moment. “The truth?” I said. It should have been a decisive statement but it came out a lot more uncertain than that.

“About what, exactly?” The lights went green for the bikers and they flowed across the front of us like running deer. I watched them go, feeling the tug of not being on my Suzuki.

“About what Clare was really doing on the back of Slick’s bike,” I said, turning back to him. “About what really brought them off and why she won’t tell me what it was. And about what she was doing with ten grand in cash.”

“Come on, Charlie,” Sean said, mildly reproving as we moved forwards again. “You don’t know if she can remember the accident or not – anaesthetics can take you that way. And as for the ten thousand, we don’t know what’s happened to that. Not yet, anyway. The real question,” he went on, “is what are you prepared to sacrifice to find these things out?”

“Sacrifice?”

He smiled, although his voice remained cool and neutral. “Every victory is a compromise of gains and loses. You need to think about what you might lose in order to win the battle. What you can afford to lose.”

Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about me and you as much as about Clare, Sean? And what will I lose?

When I didn’t speak right away he added, “If you come right out with an accusation you might irrevocably harm or even lose your friendship with Clare. Is that a sacrifice you’re prepared to make?”

My mind gave a stark and immediate, “No!” But my mouth was contrary. “She lied to me,” I muttered, aware of the pain that fact caused me. “After everything . . .”

I fell silent as we rolled up through the centre of Lancaster, past Dalton Square with its immense green-tinged statue of Queen Victoria.

What could I say? Clare and I had been through a lot together, had come close to dying because of each other. Enough that I had thought she would trust me completely with any dark secret. I wasn’t just upset that she evidently did not but, I also recognised with a touch of shame, that my pride was wounded. It was an admission that made me feel rather small.

A few minutes later Sean braked to a halt in the hospital car park again. He unclipped his seatbelt and twisted to face me.

“Well?” he said.

“No.” I shook my head, took a breath. “I’m not prepared to lose Clare as a friend. If that means finding out what’s going on another way, well—” I broke off with a shrug.

“OK,” he said evenly. “Then that’s how you handle it.”