Читать книгу Hot Pursuit - Gemma Fox - Страница 6

‘Oh my God, oh my God. I think the baby’s coming. I want to push. Oh no, oh God, it can’t be – oh, oh…’ squealed the woman, desperately trying to grit her teeth and hold on tight to her dignity.

Bernie Fielding stood his paint kettle down on the grey civil-service carpet and sighed.

‘No, yer don’t. Come on now, love, don’t get yourself in a state. You’ll be all right. Breathe, pant. I know what I’m talking about. I was in the Falklands, me. Paramedic, yomped into Goose Green, Iran, Iraq – you just want to take it steady, darlin’ – it’s probably only wind. Do you want me to go and get you something? A nice glass of water – what about a pillow?’

As he turned, the large ginger-haired woman dropped down onto her haunches and bit the desk, while droplets of sweat glistened and rolled slowly into the rising swell of her ample cleavage. She groaned and then as Bernie watched very, very elegantly rolled backwards onto the floor as the contraction passed, her floral pink sundress tight as clingfilm across her creamy-white flesh. She looked like a Homes & Gardens beach ball.

‘Ring Linda in security, will you?’ she hissed between tortured breaths and clenched teeth, waving wildly towards the phone. ‘Or Anthea in Human Resources. Oh, my God, I think there’s another one coming. I thought that it was a false alarm; the baby isn’t due for another fortnight…Oh my Godddddddd.’

The woman’s face contorted into a hideous snarling mask while Bernie stared, overwhelmed, at the switchboard beside her computer. One little light flashed and then another, and another. It looked like some bizarre children’s puzzle. It was no good; he had no idea which key to press. He looked down at the woman, desperately clutching her distended Laura Ashley abdomen – it was obvious that she wasn’t going to be any help at all. Bernie stepped over her with some care, and opened the office door.

Outside in the corridor, a fey-looking boy in a cheap blue suit was busy pushing a trolley along the linoleum. Bernie beckoned him over.

‘S’cuse me, mate, but there’s a woman in here having a baby. I really think that you ought to go and get someone to give her a hand.’ He glanced back over his shoulder as the woman heaved herself over onto her side, panting furiously, her face flame red with effort and exertion. ‘And you’d better make it snappy.’

The boy’s face turned ashen. ‘What? Really? Who? Not Ms Hargreaves? Oh my goodness, oh my…Wait here, I’ll go and fetch someone.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘God, it’s nearly lunchtime, everyone will be leaving soon – His last words were snatched away as Ms Hargreaves let out an unearthly screech and the terrified boy broke into a run.

Bernie leant back against the wall; all in all it had been a funny sort of morning so far. He had been roped in by a friend with a painting and decorating business to help him with a little job, cash in hand, no names, no pack drill – a bit of easy money – and Bernie most definitely needed the money. He had had a couple of bad years, when nothing had gone right. The Inland Revenue were after him, national insurance, VAT, the bank, the finance company, two ex-wives – not to mention the council-tax people and the bloody rent man: in fact you name it and they had Bernie’s name top of the list.

He thought his mate was taking the piss when they’d turned up in the works van at this place out on the Colmore Road, and that maybe he’d been set up. It was obvious, though there were no signs up outside, that the offices were government. The whole place reeked of tax returns and little men in grey suits with beady eyes hunched over columns of figures that didn’t quite add up. Just pulling into the car park had made him feel a bit queasy, but it had been okay – until now.

Ms Hargreaves wailed again.

Within a few seconds two middle-aged women in suits appeared, bustling down the corridor pursued by the boy, whose complexion had turned from grey to bright crimson.

‘In my opinion it’s best if we get her downstairs to First Aid,’ said one woman, elbowing her way past Bernie.

‘Shouldn’t we leave her where she is, Audrey? If we could just get her into the recovery position – I don’t think you should move a casualty –’ ‘But that is exactly my point, Lucinda, she isn’t a casualty is she? She is in labour –’

‘But I read –’

On the floor between them Ms Hargreaves let out a terrifying grunt as the women rolled her over onto her back and the boy slammed the trolley into the newly painted skirting board where, by some unspoken consensus, it was decided it would make a superb impromptu stretcher. One suited woman peered at Bernie from behind her wire-rimmed spectacles, then glanced down at his paint-splattered overalls.

‘Just keep an eye on the office, will you. Don’t touch anything. I’ll send someone up to – to –’

‘Oh, please hurry,’ snorted Ms Hargreaves, easing herself onto the trolley. ‘I don’t think I can hang on very much longer. I want to push –’

Seconds later there was an unpleasant wet sound and a great tidal wave of steaming liquid swamped the pile of manila folders on the trolley. The boy looked as if he might faint. Manfully, one woman braced herself behind the handles of the trolley and guided it and Ms Hargreaves back out into the corridor. She glared furiously at the boy.

‘Get a grip, Hemmingway; it’s all perfectly natural. Run downstairs and keep an eye out for the ambulance.’

After they vanished through the swing doors Bernie blew his lips out thoughtfully and stepped back into Ms Hargreaves’ office. Keep an eye on things they’d said. He pushed the door to and lit a cigarette in spite of the little notice on Ms Hargreaves’ desk thanking him not to. The clock ticked; the computer hummed. He ran his fingers idly across the contents of the in-tray. Shouldn’t be long before someone showed up, always assuming they’d remembered to tell anyone he was there. Bernie sighed and looked around the spartan interior of the little office before glancing out of the window.

Below him, outside the main doors, Ms Hargreaves was struggling to get off the trolley while the two women were doing their level best to ensure she stayed on it. The boy was throwing up into a bin, while from somewhere in the distance Bernie could just make out the wail of an ambulance siren. He puffed again, lowering himself into the swivel chair.

Despite Bernie’s initial apprehension and the distinct sense that he was walking into an ambush, the ample Ms Hargreaves had barely given Bernie a second look when he’d opened her office door first thing that morning and waved the paint pot in her direction. She had grunted on and off for most of the morning, but not at him.

Bernie put his feet up on her desk, thinking that he should be painting, really – as the boy had so rightly pointed out, it was almost lunchtime. He stubbed out his roll-up in Ms Hargreaves’ pot-pourri and glanced without much interest at the computer screen. Probably a requisition order for park benches and paving slabs.

The screen swirled with random dots until he moved the mouse. Instantly it cleared and an animated cartoon character ran across it on what appeared to be some sort of title page. Below the little bearded sprite the text read:

‘RUN STILTSKIN…?’

The words flashed enticingly. Bernie glanced over his shoulder into the empty office. Why the hell not? Who would ever know? Maybe he could top her best score.

He’d had a nice little PC until the bailiffs had been round to repossess it. Bernie clicked the mouse and the picture on the screen unfolded like an origami flower to an altogether more official-looking document. He leant closer to read the closely spaced lines of text and then grinned with pure delight. Maybe there was a God after all.

Very, very slowly, Bernie Fielding unpeeled himself from Ms Hargreaves’ ergonomically designed vinyl chair and closed the door of her office. He took the bentwood coat stand from against the wall and wedged it tight up under the door handle.

‘Bingo,’ he whispered as he sat down again, and typed his full name, address, and date of birth into the spaces provided.

Downstairs in another part of the building, Nick Lucas took a seat and the cup of coffee the woman offered him. He smiled his thanks. She nodded and screwed her mouth up into a little moue of professional pleasantness that may or may not have been a smile, Nick really wasn’t certain and didn’t intend pushing to find out. She had jet-black hair, pulled back like curtains off her angular face, and looked as if she had been constructed from white chamois leather stretched tight over a wire coat-hanger.

‘Now,’ said the woman in a soft Scots accent, turning the computer screen so that he couldn’t see what she was typing, ‘it’s all very simple. We will be getting your new details through any minute…oh, here they come.’

Beside her, a printer spluttered into life and started to dart back and forth across a roll of white paper.

Nick coughed nervously and took a sip of coffee. It tasted like sweet tar. ‘I’m still not sure about this, Ms Crow…’ he began. To say that the name suited her was going way beyond stating the obvious. ‘I know that you said that it would all be fine, but I –’

Before he could spill his fears and anxieties out all over the grey institutional carpet, Ms Crow nailed him with her icy blue stare, strangling his confidence into an unmanly falsetto, and then rolled her eyes and pursed her lips again. ‘I’m sorry? Did you say something?’ she growled.

Nick swallowed hard. ‘I’m worried about this – I mean, will I be safe? With this Stiltskin thing; will I be all right?’

Her face rearranged itself back into what passed for a smile. ‘We’ve been through all this before, Mr Lucas, our witness relocation plan is extremely secure. We operate one of the premier services in the world. Our record speaks for itself. A complete new identity at the press of a button.’ She pressed a button on her keyboard to emphasise the point.

‘Just don’t audition for Blind Date, and I’d steer well clear of Big Brother if I were you,’ said a distinguished-looking, thick-set man stepping into the office. He sounded cheerful in a brisk nononsense way.

Nick got to his feet. ‘And you are?’

‘Coleman, Danny Coleman. Senior liaison officer on the Stiltskin team. You’re high priority, Mr Lucas; trust me, you’ll be just fine. Ms Crow here is my assistant. My right-hand woman. I don’t know what we’d do without her.’ He smiled, and extended a hand to take Nick’s. ‘From now on, whatever you want, whatever you need, I’m your man.’

Nick noticed that the smile on Coleman’s face only warmed his mouth; his marble grey eyes remained resolutely cool. Nevertheless, Nick shook the man’s hand firmly and then said, ‘I’m still really not sure about all this.’

‘Everyone feels the same way,’ Coleman said. ‘Don’t you worry, believe me, it’ll be just fine.’

Ms Crow got up from the keyboard to let Coleman take her place. Nick tried to look relaxed but knew he was failing miserably.

‘So who am I now?’ he tried with forced good humour.

Coleman looked up from the screen. ‘Just hang on a mo’, we’ll have to wait for this to finish the run.’ He glanced up at his assistant who was hovering by the door like a prim, Viyella-wrapped bird. ‘Ms Crow, if you’d like to go into the other office and get someone to transfer all this stuff onto Mr Lucas’s new documents, please?’

She screwed up her face again and left.

‘New documents?’ said Nick haltingly.

Coleman nodded. ‘Uh huh. It’s very simple – all the same documents you’ve got now only they’ll be in your new name. Passport, driver’s licence, national insurance number, credit cards, bank accounts. We can do them all from here but we’ll need some photos before we take you to your new address. You haven’t had any photos taken yet, have you?’

Nick shook his head.

‘Okay, well that won’t take too long, and it says here that you’re divorced; I’ll just buzz through and make sure they knock you up a decree absolute while they’re at it.’ Coleman grinned, the warmth once again only reaching the equator of his rotund features: his eyes stayed ice cold. ‘Never know when you might need it – and besides, a damned sight cheaper than the real thing, eh? As I said, if you have any problems all you have to do is phone in. It’s our job to see that the transition goes nice and smoothly. It normally doesn’t take our clients too long to adapt. Obviously these things aren’t always as simple as we’d like, but we’ve got all kind of experts on the payroll who can help if you have any problems. I think you’ll be fine once you’ve got yourself a proper home again, and a job, obviously – gives you a sense of belonging. What do you do?’

On the desk the printer ground to a whining halt and Danny Coleman tore off a sheet of paper.

‘I was a chef,’ said Nick, realising with a start that he had used the past tense, but Coleman seemed oblivious, his attention on the documents.

‘Oh really? Shouldn’t be too hard to find work then, we’ll sort out your certificates and some references,’ said Coleman, and then, ‘Here we are.’ He presented the printout to Nick Lucas. ‘Mr Bernard Fielding, this is your life. Or should I say, this is your new life.’

Nick took one look at the sheet of paper and felt sick.

In a little village, deep in the heart of rural Norfolk, Maggie Morgan slammed her ageing Golf into reverse and teased the car back up along the narrow lane that led to her cottage. It complained bitterly. Overhanging branches scratched the already scarred paintwork.

‘Sit down, Joe, I can’t see.’

‘You heard what Mum said,’ added Ben, dragging his little brother down into the footwell. Joe shrieked.

‘Oh for God’s sake, will you two stop it. I haven’t got the energy for this. Now both of you shut up and sit down.’ Her headache was making her even more ratty.

‘But he started it,’ whined Ben, as the car crunched over the weed-fringed gravel.

‘I don’t care who started it – just be quiet.’ She glared at them crossly in the rear-view mirror. ‘Ben, can you nip round and open the boot and help get the cases out, please? I’ll go and open up. Joe, don’t just sit there, honey. You can go and tell Mrs Eliot that we’re home safe and sound and see if she got the milk in.’

As the boys clambered out of the car Maggie eased herself out of the driving seat. It felt so nice to be home. She was so tired that her body ached right through to her bones. She stretched and looked around. The little pantiled cottage basked like a big ginger cat in the summer sunshine; the climbing rose over the door weighed heavy with scented creamy-pink flowers. It looked wonderful, so why was her fickle mind so eager to point out that the lawn desperately needed cutting and the bay hedge ought to be trimmed back?

Maggie grimaced. This was what the summer holidays were for. No marking or lesson planning for a few weeks; just the kids and the house. The hedge and the lawn and all the other jobs on the list would get done another day in some glorious unspecified mañana. Once she’d got the mower fixed and found the hedge trimmer, obviously. Maggie sighed. There were days when doing it all alone seemed like a cruel joke. In quiet moments on holiday Maggie had yearned for a change. She pined for a little excitement.

She groaned and headed inside. The drive back up from Somerset had taken forever and, roses or no roses, excitement or no excitement, if she didn’t have a decent cup of tea and a pee soon she might just die.

Joe, who had just turned six, trotted round from the next door neighbour’s carrying two pints of milk in his arms. He grinned, as behind him their elderly neighbour followed.

‘Nice to see you’re home, Maggie. Nothing very much has happened while you’ve been away. Did you have a good holiday? Joe looks like he caught the sun – look at his hair, all bleached blond at the front.’ The old lady ruffled it affectionately.

Maggie smiled, taking the milk from Joe. ‘It was wonderful, exactly what we needed; lots of sun, sea, and sleep. Everything been all right here?’

Mrs Eliot nodded. ‘Oh yes, fine. No problems at all. Oh, and the gasman turned up to mend your boiler at long last. I gave him the keys like you said.’

Maggie smiled. ‘And not before time. Great, look, I’m just going to get in and get things sorted out. I’ll pop round later and tell you all about the holiday.’ She nodded towards the boys. ‘The kids have bought you a little present.’

The elderly woman smiled. ‘How lovely. I got their postcard, it was nice of them to think of me. I’ve put it on the mantelpiece; pride of place. You’ll have to come and have a look, boys.’

Ben, with a red face, hefted one of the suitcases up onto the front step.

‘Why did you have to tell her that?’ he hissed as Mrs Eliot made her way back inside. ‘You bought her that vase.’ At nine he was beginning to see himself as the man of the house.

‘Shush. Here, let me have that. You go and help Joe with the black bags; and be careful, they’ve got all the blankets from the beach hut in them – they’ll be heavy,’ she called as Ben headed back down the path. Maggie slipped the key into the lock and pushed open the door with her foot.

Inside the hallway it was still and cool. Maggie let out a sigh of relief. She always enjoyed the first few seconds when she arrived home, when the house seemed slightly unfamiliar and she could view it with new eyes; except that this time the sensation lingered a second or two longer than usual. There was something wrong, something out of kilter that Maggie couldn’t quite put her finger on. The two boys, bearing black bags, pushed in behind her and dropped them on the flagstone floor.

Ben picked up the milk. ‘Is it all right if I have some cereal, I’m starving.’

‘Of course, love, there should be some in the cupboard. Can you put the kettle on while you’re in the kitchen?’

Joe bolted upstairs to add his new holiday dinosaur to the collection on his bedroom windowsill. Still the strange feeling remained. Maggie shook her head. It was probably just that she was exhausted; the traffic on the way home had been terrible.

Ben came out of the kitchen as she piled the rest of the bags up in the hall.

‘Mum,’ he said accusingly, holding out a box towards her. ‘Somebody’s been eating my cereal.’

A split second later Joe glared at her over the banister. ‘And somebody’s been sleeping in my bed,’ he said before vanishing.

Maggie laughed and threw her handbag onto the hall stand.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, clutching her chest theatrically. ‘Don’t tell me. We’ve accidentally wandered into a police reconstruction of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’

As she spoke, the door to the study opened very, very slowly and a tall, rangy man wrapped in a bath towel stepped, dripping, into the hall.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he said, clutching the skimpy towel tight around his belly.

Maggie blinked, once, twice, strangling the scream that threatened. ‘I’m sorry?’ she mumbled. Her first thoughts were muddled; this couldn’t be happening. Next come shock, then fear, then surprise; a startled, bright, primary palette of emotions.

‘What are you doing in my house?’ he barked furiously.

Maggie settled on outrage, an unfamiliar scarlet glow, and looked round for something to defend herself and the boys with. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, everything sharp and clear and crisp.

Across the hall the man’s face contorted, and his body, already wound tight, hunched as if he meant to spring. ‘I said –’ he began.

‘I heard what you said,’ Maggie snapped, easing herself towards the hall stand. Her heart began to tango under her tee shirt. She could hear the reverberation in her ears as if reassuring her she was still alive and well. But for how long? She was acutely aware that Ben’s baseball bat stood amongst the umbrellas no more than an arm’s length away.

‘Well?’ demanded the man, the colour rising on his face and chest.

Maggie nodded towards her eldest son. ‘Quickly, love, go into the kitchen and phone the police,’ she called, and, as the man turned to watch Ben scurry away, she lunged forward. Grabbing the bat, she hefted it up to shoulder height.

The man took a step back, lifting one hand to ward her off, as Maggie settled into a batter’s stance.

‘For God’s sake,’ he yelped, as she took a practise swing in his direction, his other hand still clutching at the towel. ‘Are you mad? You nearly hit me with that. And there’s no point ringing the police.’

What did he mean? Was he going to kill them? Had he cut off the phone lines? Maggie narrowed her eyes, wondering just how hard she would have to hit him to subdue him. ‘I don’t know who you are, or what you want, but this is my house –’ She swung the bat again. ‘And I want you out. Now.’

Ben appeared in the doorway with the phone and began to tap in the number.

‘There has to have been some sort of mistake’ the man said, his voice still tight. ‘They brought me here.’

‘They? Who’s they? Little green men?’ Maggie said, more aggressively now, the adrenaline coursing through her veins like molten lava. She gestured towards the door. ‘Come on. Out.’

‘What?’ he said.

‘You heard me,’ she said, sidestepping towards the front door.

‘What? Like this?’ He sounded incredulous.

Maggie nodded. Once he was out she could lock the door, and throw his clothes out of a window. Let the police sort him out. Ideas spiralled through her mind like crows.

‘Here Mum,’ said Ben, waving the phone at her.

‘I’ve already told you, there’s no point ringing the police,’ the man protested.

Maggie felt another little plume of fear rising, her stomach contracting sharply as her fingers tightened around the hickory shaft.

‘Why not?’ she said, licking bone-dry lips, watching his every move. ‘Did you cut the wires?’

He sighed and ran his fingers back through his wet hair. ‘No, of course I didn’t cut the wires – don’t be so melodramatic. It’s just that the police know that I’m here already, they were the ones who brought me here in the first place,’ he said quietly. ‘How many burglars do you know who break in to take a shower, for God’s sake?’

Joe thundered halfway down the stairs two at a time and then froze when he spotted their unexpected guest. Maggie shooed him towards the kitchen. ‘Keep back, Joe. It’s all right – don’t worry. He’s just leaving.’

The man groaned. There was a look of total disbelief on his face. ‘Look, I’m not going to hurt anyone. There has to have been some sort of mix-up somewhere –’

Maggie balanced herself on the balls of her feet. She was ready for him if he made a move. ‘So what are you doing in my house?’

‘As far as I was – am – concerned, this is my house. The lady next door gave me the key –’ He waved towards Mrs Eliot’s house.

Maggie suddenly understood. ‘That’s because she thought you were the gasman.’

The man looked hurt. ‘She said that she was expecting me.’

Maggie swung the head of the bat back and forth speculatively. ‘She was – at least she was expecting someone from the gas board. It’s taken them six weeks to get around to repairing my boiler, although actually – unless you are the gasman, they still haven’t made it.’ The bat was getting heavy. ‘Now, can you explain what’s going on?’

‘They’ve never been the same since they were privatised,’ he said.

‘That wasn’t what I meant and you know it,’ Maggie hissed. She was having trouble sustaining her sense of outrage.

The man looked down at his damp belly. ‘Would you mind very much if I just nipped back upstairs and got dressed? I was getting out of the shower when the car pulled up and as I wasn’t expecting anyone I came down to see who it was.’

‘And then I opened the door?’

‘Yes – I thought I’d better hide. I wasn’t sure who you were. I won’t be a minute –’

Maggie watched him turn and hurry upstairs still clutching one of her best fluffy white towels around his midriff. He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t sure who was who.

Ben, still carrying the cordless phone, looked at her from the kitchen doorway. ‘Do you still want me to ring the police, Mum?’

Maggie shook her head, feeling vaguely ridiculous standing in the hall brandishing a baseball bat, all wound up and ready to go.

‘No, love – just go into the kitchen and make us some tea, will you?’

‘Oh, go on, Mum, let me, please,’ Ben whined. ‘I know the number and everything.’

‘No,’ Maggie snapped.

Standing beside Ben, Joe pulled a face. ‘You told Mrs Eliot that you were going to go round hers for tea. You promised and she’s got chocolate biscuits.’

Maggie sighed. ‘I did, didn’t I? Just nip across the garden and tell her the gasman is still here and I’ll try and get round later if I can. And then come straight back.’

It didn’t take the honorary gasman more than ten minutes to reappear, dressed in faded jeans and a sun-bleached blue cotton shirt. Maggie couldn’t help but notice that his shirt had four odd buttons. One wasn’t sewn on in quite the right place, revealing an interesting glimpse of tanned, hairy chest. His feet were bare, his dark hair slick and damp. He was still rolling up his sleeves as he loped into the kitchen.

‘Now,’ she said, across the kitchen table, still holding the baseball bat as she handed him a mug. ‘How about we take this from the beginning? Is tea all right?’ she asked, thawing slightly.

The man looked uncomfortable but pulled out a chair. ‘Tea’s fine. I don’t know what to say really.’ He bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘As far as I’m concerned this was – my new start,’ he said. ‘I belong here. I don’t understand what’s happened. This is my place –’

Maggie tucked the bat under her arm and opened the biscuit tin. There was a two-week-old Jammy Dodger and a half-eaten Wagon Wheel inside.

‘No,’ she said firmly, closing the lid and looking up to meet his gaze. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. You don’t belong here. If you belonged here I’m quite certain I would have remembered. Tell you what, let’s start with something simple, shall we? How about you tell me your name?’

He pulled another face and then said, ‘Hang on a minute,’ extricated a wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and opened it. ‘Oh yes,’ he said brightly, taking out a driving licence and handing it to her. ‘There we are, I’m Bernie Fielding.’

Maggie suddenly felt dizzy, as if somehow she had managed to wander into a waking dream – or perhaps a nightmare.

‘No,’ she said again, but more firmly this time. ‘That isn’t true either. You see, I was married to Bernie Fielding for eight years and believe me, unless he’s had a personality transplant and a lot of plastic surgery you are most definitely not him.’

The man glanced back into the hall, where Ben was watching him with all the concentration of a trained sniper. ‘Bloody hell – the boys, your boys, I mean, are they my boys, too?’

Maggie took a long pull on her tea. ‘No, that’s something else I’m sure I would have remembered, and no, before you ask, they’re not Bernie’s either. I married Bernie when I was eighteen, which seems like a very long time ago now. I’ve been married again since then.’

‘Oh my God, this is a total bloody disaster,’ said the man uneasily, clambering to his feet, his colour draining rapidly. ‘Where is he? Is he parking the car, walking the dog? On his way home from work? Oh my God. Bloody hell, this is such a mess.’

Maggie waved the bat in his direction, encouraging him back to his seat. ‘Relax, I’ve got the most terrible taste in men. I asked him to leave a couple of years ago and, surprise, surprise, he did.’

The man ran his fingers back through his dark wavy, still damp-hair. ‘Thank God for that.’

Maggie sniffed. ‘I know. I don’t understand what I ever saw in him,’ she said, and then, smiling, continued briskly, ‘Right, I’m going to get the kids some crisps and fruit out of the car. Then I’m going to park them in front of the TV, and while I’m away –’ she glanced at her watch ‘– that gives you about five minutes. I’d like you to come up with a persuasive and, if possible, plausible argument for exactly what you’re doing in my house and why I shouldn’t call the law and have you dragged out of here.’

Maggie picked up her car keys. ‘Oh, and it had better be good, Ben’s still got the mobile phone with him. One squeak from me and the Old Bill will be round here before you can pack your shower gel.’

‘Actually, I think I’ve probably been using yours. I thought it was really odd that the house had so many personal things in it. I was going to get some boxes, pack it all away – the policeman said I should just chuck out what I didn’t want.’

Maggie shivered, wondering what might have happened to her possessions if she had been gone another week.

Meanwhile, in a small sub-post office in an Oxfordshire village, the real Bernie Fielding was busy pushing a large pile of envelopes across the counter.

The woman smiled up at him. ‘Wedding?’

Bernie, dragged away from an entirely different train of thought, peered at her.

‘Sorry? What? Whose wedding?’ he said.

The envelopes contained a bevy of application forms for all the documents he’d need for his new identity, everything from a birth certificate through to a duplicate driving licence and American Express card. Numbers and account details all courtesy of Stiltskin. Courtesy of Stiltskin, James Cook also had a very healthy bank balance. Bernie had already been to the bank in Banbury to pick up his temporary cheque book and some cash.

‘Yours?’ she asked, nodding down at the thick bundle over the top of her horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Or are you throwing a party?’

Bernie sighed. God save him from women with tongues.

‘Change of address actually. Can I have a dozen, er…’ he peered at the handful of change he had in his hand. ‘Second class, please.’

The woman opened the stamp book and counted them out.

‘Not local, are you?’

Bernie puffed thoughtfully and looked at his inquisitor. She had a great tumble of teased blonde hair, while behind the horn-rims, rather attractive fiery conker-brown eyes watched him with barely concealed curiosity. What the hell, he had nothing to hide, at least not now he didn’t.

Bernie warmed up his smile a degree or two. ‘No, actually I’ve just moved onto the caravan site at the back of the Old Dairy.’ He saw the fleeting glint of disapproval in her eyes as he plummeted earthwards in her estimation.

‘Although,’ he added hastily, clawing himself back from the brink of social-security oblivion, ‘it’s only temporary, obviously, just until I can find myself a decent house to buy. I was pipped at the post for the last one – I’ve already sold mine and needed somewhere to stay fast, you know how it is. I’ve been to see several others but…’ Bernie hesitated, tangled up in the strings of his own lie. He backtracked, wondering if he was finally losing his touch. He really needed to concentrate more.

Over the counter the woman was watching him wriggle like a cat watches a baby bird that’s fallen from the nest.

‘To be perfectly honest I haven’t seen anything else that’s quite me yet. You need to like the feel of a place – feel like it could be home – you know what I’m saying? One man’s inglenook is another man’s naff old fireplace.’ The lie dropped down a gear and accelerated away so fast that Bernie could barely keep up with it.

‘And besides, I’m looking for something a little bit special, double garage for the BMW and my four-by-four, obviously. Stables would be nice; livery is so expensive. But there’s just nothing on the market at the moment that really takes my fancy. Trouble is I have to move around a lot with my job and I’ve always hated hotels. I was going to rent a house, but all the fuss –’ Bernie lifted his hands to imply some enormous complex puzzle that he hadn’t the time to unravel. ‘Whereas I could just walk into a caravan, no problem, pay the deposit pick up the key and wham bam, thank you, ma’am – there we are, in like Flynn. And they’re fun, aren’t they – caravans?’

Bernie knew he was waffling but he didn’t seem able to stem the flow. ‘My new contract starts next week, so it all fell into place. Hadn’t got time to hang about. Nice secure little number, three years…bloody good salary.’ Lungs empty, right down to the red line Bernie hastily drew in a long, calming breath.

Thoughtfully, Conker-eyes tipped her head on one side and looked him up and down.

‘Sounds interesting,’ she said in a low voice. ‘My name’s Stella; Stella Ramsey.’ She left a little breathy pause at the end of the introduction, a pause that invited a wild variety of possibilities.

Bernie coughed. ‘I’m new to this area, I was really hoping to find someone to show me all the sights.’

Stella smiled lazily. ‘There’s not a lot to see in Renham, to be honest.’

He grinned. ‘Well, how about we go out for a little drink instead, then?’

She lifted her eyebrows. ‘The local pub is a right dump.’

He leant on the counter, enjoying the show of token resistance. ‘Well, in that case, perhaps you’d like to show me another one, somewhere…’ he hesitated, ‘somewhere nice, tasteful, and expensive. I’ve always had very expensive tastes.’

Conker-eyes ran her tongue around the end of her well-chewed Biro. ‘Oh, have you?’ she said slyly. ‘Well, in that case, there’s always the Lark and Buzzard over at Highwell. They do a lovely chilli con carne, chicken in a basket, tikka marsala – very international cuisine, is the Lark.’

Bernie grinned, feeling a nice little buzz in the bottom of his belly as their eyes met. ‘Really? I don’t suppose I could tempt you to show me where this place is, could I? Only I’m at a loose end this evening –’

This time she hesitated, batting long eyelashes coquettishly. ‘But I don’t even know your name.’

Bernie smiled, pausing long enough to check that he remembered his new name before wheeling out a well-worn 007 impression. ‘Cook,’ he said, in a very poor imitation of Sean Connery, ‘James Cook.’

Conker-eyes blushed furiously. ‘Well, Mr James Cook, in that case, what time do you want to pick me up?’ she asked.

Bernie glanced up at the clock above the counter. ‘Shall we say about eight?’

She nodded. ‘Why not? I’ll meet you out the front.’

Bernie smiled, and without another word made his way to the door, opened it and lifted his hand in salute. As the shop bell rang to announce his departure, Stella Ramsey was licking his stamps and putting them on the envelopes that would secure all the things he needed for his new life. Her tongue was very, very pink.

In Maggie Morgan’s kitchen, the new Bernie Fielding, alias Nick Lucas, was watching with fascination as the woman who had burst into what he had truly believed was his new life and new home, went about cooking him and the boys supper. As she worked, the two lads ran a relay race of surveillance between the cottage kitchen and the sitting room.

Maggie had set the baseball bat down alongside the chopping board and was busily hacking an onion into uneven lumps with a large kitchen knife.

‘So, you can have some supper with us,’ she was saying, ‘and then you can go home.’

Nick sighed. ‘I’ve already explained to you, I can’t go home. I haven’t got anywhere else to go.’

She turned towards him, waving her knife like a conductor’s baton. He flinched. ‘You haven’t explained anything, and what you have told me is total baloney. What sort of an idiot do you take me for? You didn’t get here by magic, you came from somewhere. And everyone has somewhere they can go, even if they don’t want to. A sofa, a friend’s floor – back to their parents.’ She crushed a couple of cloves of garlic under the heel of the knife and shuffled them into the pan. ‘This just isn’t good enough. It won’t do. I need an explanation.’

Nick shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you anything else.’

‘What do you mean, you can’t tell me? Why not? How about name, rank and serial number? Me Maggie – you?’

He looked at her again. She was still smiling despite a sense of growing frustration. Casually dressed in a grey tee shirt and jeans, thick dark hair pushed back behind her ears, baseball bat within easy reach, Maggie almost looked as if she was enjoying herself.

‘You’re funny – I can’t imagine my ex-,’ Nick began and then stopped, an instant before he coughed his ex-wife’s name out onto the kitchen table. It stuck in his throat, a cold, grief-stricken, misery-laden lump. The pain caught him unaware, like cramp.

Maggie pushed her fringe back off her face and took a tomato out of one of the carrier bags on the work surface. ‘So,’ she said casually, ‘you were married, then?’

Nick reddened furiously. ‘Yes – but I’m divorced now – about a year.’

Maggie nodded. ‘Right. And so how does that relate to my finding you naked in my hall, exactly?’

‘It doesn’t. What I was going to say was are you always this unflappable? I can’t imagine my ex being – being so – so –.’ He couldn’t think of a word to end the sentence but fortunately for him Maggie could.

‘Accommodating? Calm under fire? My mother calls it robust good humour but trust me, it only lasts for so long and then poof –’ she gestured an explosion, ‘– it goes, just like that, to be replaced by raging fury.’

Nick sighed. ‘Look, Maggie, I am sorry about this – can’t you just pretend that I’m Bernie Fielding?’ he said miserably. ‘It would make life so much simpler.’

Maggie grimaced, plunging the knife deep into the heart of an innocent-looking red pepper. ‘No, I’m afraid that’s one of the things I most definitely can’t do. I’ve spent God knows how many years trying to persuade myself that all men aren’t Bernie Fielding. Why don’t you just give in gracefully and tell me what the hell’s going on here and then we can call you a cab. How hard can it be? How about we start with your real name –’

Nick groaned. ‘I can’t tell you – the thing is, if I could tell you that then I could tell you everything else. It’s just not possible. You have to believe me, there is a very good explanation for all this. I just can’t tell you about it.’ It sounded lame even to him.

‘Nice try,’ Maggie said. Instead of concentrating on de-seeding the pepper she was watching his face as he spoke.

‘Careful,’ said Nick anxiously. ‘You’ll cut yourself. Look, I’m good with food, would you like me to do that for you?’ he asked.

Maggie looked down thoughtfully at the long thin knife-blade and then slowly back at him. ‘Very kind but I think I can manage, thank you. Besides, you still haven’t answered my question.’

Nick sighed. There had to have been some kind of mistake. Surely Bernie Fielding wasn’t supposed to be a real person? Unless of course he was dead. ‘Is Bernie still alive?’ he asked hopefully.

Maggie lifted her eyebrows. ‘As far as I know, although after a night up the pub it was sometimes extremely difficult to tell. Except for the snoring and the scratching, obviously.’

‘Okay, okay – so what does he do?’

‘Bernie?’ Maggie wiped her hand across the chopping board guiding the great heap of mangled vegetables into a big saucepan and then looked skyward as if trying to frame a thought. ‘Gynaecology,’ she said, slamming the pan down onto the stove and lighting the gas. ‘He was always very good with his hands was Bernie.’

Nick felt his colour draining away. ‘Oh my God, are you saying that Bernie Fielding is a doctor?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘No, unfortunately not – just a keen amateur, which was a shame because we could have done with the money.’

Nick stared at her and then reddened as comprehension dawned. ‘God, I’m so sorry – I thought – sorry –’ he stammered.

Maggie waved the remark away. ‘What? It’s not your fault, is it? I’m assuming you’ve just got his name and not his moral outlook? What is it you know about food?’

‘Food? Oh, right, well I used to run a restaurant, before –’ said Nick, struggling to regain his composure. ‘Before all this happened.’

‘There, see, now we’re getting somewhere. It wasn’t all that painful, was it? And how about now?’

‘Now? Now I’m – I’m on holiday,’ he stalled.

Maggie snorted. ‘Don’t be silly. You can’t be on the run and be on holiday.’

‘I’m not exactly on the run, I’m…’ Nick squirmed. He couldn’t see how the hell he could go on with this and so he raised his arms in surrender. ‘Okay – the things I’m about to tell you are secret but under the circumstances I don’t see what else I can do. My real name is Nick Lucas and I’m in a witness protection and relocation programme. Bernie Fielding is, was, supposed to be my new name, my new assumed identity. The thing is there has to have been some sort of mix up, because I’m certain that I’m supposed to have a ficticious identity, not take over the tail end of somebody else’s life. The only problem is I’m not sure what I can do to sort out any of this at the moment. I genuinely haven’t got anywhere else to go – at least not straight away. I thought I’d ring the number they gave me –’

Maggie grinned, slapping the lid on the pan with a flourish.

‘You don’t hold up very well under pressure, do you?’ she said, pouring them both a glass of wine.