Val McDermid - Kickback

'Great job,' I said, meaning it. 'Can you do me a favour? Can you drop the prints in tomorrow at the office and tell Shelley what they're about? I won't be in first thing, but I'll get to it later in the day'

'No problem. Oh, and Kate?'

'Mmm?'

Thanks for thinking of me,' he said, sounding sincere. I'll never understand men. Stand them in a dustbin for hours and you've made their Saturday night.

Alexis was pacing up and down the hall, doing that agitated flicking of the filter when there's no loose ash that smokers do when they're feeling twitchier than nicotine can soothe. When she saw me, she stopped pacing and started rattling her car keys, unnerving the poor receptionist who was trying to do my bill.

Reluctantly, I climbed into Alexis's car. Journalists seem to need to take the office with them in all its horror wherever they go. Alexis's Peugeot contained more old newspapers than the average chip shop could use in a week. The ashtray had been full since a month after she bought the car last year. The parcel shelf was home to a clutch of old notebooks that slid back and forwards every time she cornered, and there was a portable computer terminal that lived under the passenger seat and bruised the passenger's heels every time Alexis braked. I'd be ashamed to let anyone in my car if it was like that, but journalists always seem strangely proud of their mobile rubbish dumps.

First, we went to the local cop shop and checked out the electoral roll. There were two residents at that address, Brian and Eleanor Lomax. His wife, I presumed. Next, we slowly drove past the house. The black BMW had gone, but the van was still parked outside. I told Alexis to park up, and she turned the car round in the side street and drove back towards Lomax's house. She stopped about one hundred yards away from the house. We could see the front door and the drive, though we couldn't actually see the van.

Alexis, as much a veteran of the stake-out as me, pulled a paperback out of her handbag and settled back in her seat to read, secure in the knowledge that any movement round the house would instantly register in her peripheral vision. Me, I sucked peppermints and listened to the radio.

It was a couple of hours before there was any sign of life. We both spotted him at the same moment. Alexis sat up in her seat and chucked her book into the back seat. Brian Lomax had appeared round the side of the house and was walking down the drive. He wore the familiar black leather blouson and jeans, this time with a cream polo-neck sweater. At the end of the drive, he turned right, down the hill and towards the traffic lights.

That him?' I asked. Nothing like the obvious question.

Alexis nodded grimly. T.R. Harris. I'd know the bastard anywhere.' She turned the ignition key and the Peugeot coughed into life.

'Wait a minute!' I said sharply. 'Where are you going?'

'I'm going to follow him,' Alexis said sharply. 'And then I'm going to front him up.' She shoved the car into gear.

I pulled it out again. 'No you're not,' I told her.

'I bloody am!' Alexis exploded. 'That bastard is walking around with five grand of our money, and I want it back.'

'Look, cool it,' I commanded. Alexis obviously recognized I meant it, for she subsided, showing her feelings by revving the engine at irregular intervals. 'Now you know his name and where he lives, you can lay your hands on him any time you want to. And so can the cops.'

Alexis shook her head. 'No cops. I want our money back, and if the guy's in custody, he's not earning. All I want is to front him up and get our money back.'

'Fronting him up isn't going to get your money back. He'll just laugh at you. And even if you go round with some of your less pleasant associates, I'm not convinced he's the kind of guy who'd be scared into handing the money over.'

'So what do you suggest? I just lie down and die?'

'No. I know it's a bit radical, but why don't you sue him? As long as you don't use Cheetham, that is,' I added, trying to get her to lighten up a bit.

'Because it'll take forever,' Alexis wailed.

'It doesn't have to. You get your solicitor to write a letter demanding payment, and if he doesn't cough up, you get her or him to issue a Statutory Demand, which means Lomax has to pay up within a certain time or you petition for bankruptcy. And since what he's done is illegal, he's not likely to quibble about repaying your money as soon as you start making legal noises,' I explained.

Alexis sighed. 'OK, you win. But on one condition.'

'What's that?'

That you keep tabs on him for a day or two. I want to know his haunts, where he works out of, who he works with, just in case he decides to go to ground. I'll pay you, of course. Put it on an official footing.'

It was my turn to sigh. 'You've picked the worst possible week. I'm up to my eyeballs with vanishing conservatories and hooky drugs.'

'I won't institute proceedings till I know where we can lay hands on him if he's not home,' Alexis said obstinately.

My exertions of the previous day and a half had finally caught up with me. I didn't have the energy left to argue, so I caved in. 'OK. Put the car in gear. I'll get to it as soon as I can.'

The Birkenhead Land Registry's address is Old Market House, Hamilton Square. Sounds almost romantic, doesn't it? I pictured a mellow stone building, Georgian, with perhaps a portico. Wood panelling, maybe, with grey stooped figures shuffling past in a Dickensian hush. Fat chance. Negotiating the one-way system brought me to a modern dark red brick building, seven storeys tall with plenty of windows overlooking breathtaking views of the entrance to the Mersey tunnel.

I found a space in the car park for the Fiesta I'd hired to replace my wrecked Nova and tagged on to a group of women heading for the building. They were having the Monday morning chatter to each other about the weekend, obviously familiar with each other's routines. The leading pair stopped at the entrance to the building and keyed a number into a security lock. The women swept on into the building. One of them held the door open for me. That was when I noticed the sign informing me that the public entrance was at the front of the building. One of the great truisms of our business is that the more security a building has, the easier it is to penetrate. I caught the door and stood uncertainly for a moment. It was tempting to waltz in the back door and have a good wander round, just for the hell of it. But prudence won over my sense of adventure and I reluctantly let the door swing closed. I was too busy to spend a day down the police station explaining why I'd hacked into the Land Registry computer network.

I walked round to the front of the building, distinguishable from the back only by the double doors. I entered a cheerless foyer with a security booth and banks of stainless-steel lift doors. The Scouse security officers were as efficient as if they'd been privatized. Name and purpose of visit, who visiting, where car parked, car registration number. Then they note your arrival time and issue a security pass. If I were a dedicated hacker, I could see half a dozen ways to get my hands on one of their terminals.

Again, I restrained my more piratical instincts and went across the hall to Inquiries. It was like a dentist's waiting room, complete with year-old magazines sitting on a low table. The chairs were the cloth-upholstered sort two grades up from those hideous orange plastic ones you get down the Social Security. Everything was a bit scuffed, as if it was last redecorated before Thatcher came to power. I walked over to a high counter in the corner of the room. It was empty except for a cash register and a computer monitor and keyboard. I craned my neck round to read 'Welcome to the Land Registry Computer System' in amber letters on the black screen.