Val Mcdermid - Clean Break

A hand groped along the far wall, followed by a shoulder. I leapt through the doorway, pivoted on one foot and put all my weight behind a straight kick at stomach level, yelling as loudly as I could to multiply the fear and surprise. My foot made contact with flesh and the body staggered back against the door with a heavy crash, the air shooting out of it in a groaning rush as it crumpled on the floor. I stepped back, keeping my weight on the balls of my feet, and reached for the lights.

Richard was doubled up on the carpet, arms folded defensively over his guts. For once, I was lost for words. I relaxed my fighting stance and stood staring at him.

“Fucking hell,” he gasped. “Was that some traditional Belgian greeting, or what?”

“It’s a traditional private eye’s greeting for uninvited visitors,” I snarled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Richard struggled to his feet, still clutching his stomach. “Nice to see you too, Brannigan.” He pushed past me and stumbled on to the bed, where he curled into a ball. “Oh shit, I think you’ve relocated my stomach somewhere round my left shoulder blade.”

“Serves you right,” I said heartlessly. “You scared me shitless.”

“That why you were in the bathroom?” he said innocently.

“What was wrong with the phone? Was it too much for you to handle, a foreign phone system? Besides, how did you get here? How did you find me? Did Shelley tell you where I was?”

Richard stopped rubbing his stomach and eased up into a sitting position. “I thought I’d surprise you. I don’t know, call yourself a detective? I’ve been tailing you ever since you got off the ferry, and you didn’t even notice,” he said proudly.

I moved across the room to the only chair and sat down heavily. “You’ve been tailing met”

“Piece of piss,” he said.

He had me worried now. If I’d been so busy watching Nicholas Turner that I hadn’t spotted a car as obvious as a snazzy U.K.-registered coupe on my own tail, it was time I gave up detective work and settled for something like social work where I could get away with a complete lack of observational skills. “I don’t believe you,” I said. “Shelley told you where I was and you got a flight over here.”

He grinned. For once, it made me want to hit him, not kiss him. “Sorry, Brannigan. I did it all by myself.”

“No way. I couldn’t have missed seeing the coupe on the ferry,” I said, positive now. The Saab had been one of the last cars to board. He simply couldn’t have got the coupe on board without me spotting it.

“That’s what I thought too,” he said complacently. “That’s why I left it at Hull. I traveled as a foot passenger, which meant I got off the ferry before you. I hired a Merc at the ferry terminal and picked you up as you came off. Then I followed you here. I thought I’d lost you when you got on the tram, but I managed to get a taxi and he followed the tram. Just like the movies, really. I waited outside while you were in that museum, and I hung about just inside the station when you came in here first time round.”

I shook my head in bewildered amazement. “So how did you get a key for the room?”

His grin was beginning to infuriate me. “I had a word with the desk clerk. Told him my girlfriend was here on business and I’d come to surprise her. It cost me two thousand francs. Most I’ve ever paid for a good kicking.”

Forty quid. I was impressed. “I suppose you’re potless now, are you?” I said sternly.

He looked sheepish. “Not as such. I forgot to go to the building society with the nine and a half grand, so I brought it with me.”

I didn’t know whether to be furious or impressed. There was no doubt the money would come in handy, the rate I was spending at, but I didn’t want Richard round on the chase. I had enough to worry about keeping tabs on Turner without having to be constantly aware of what Richard was up to. “Thanks,” I said. “I was wondering what to do when I ran out of cash. You can leave it with me when you go home tomorrow.”

He looked crestfallen. “I thought you’d be pleased to see me,” he said.

I got up and sat down beside him on the bed. “Of course I’m pleased to see you. I just don’t need to have to worry about you while I’m trying to do my job.”

“What’s to worry about?” he demanded. “I’m not a kid, Kate. Look, these are heavy people you’re after, there’s no two ways about it. You could use an extra pair of eyes. Not to mention an extra set of wheels. If he’s going on a long haul, you can’t use the same car all the way, and you could lose him while you’re swapping over at some car-hire place. If I stay, we can rent a couple of mobile phones and that way one of us can stay with him while the other one does things like fill up with petrol or stop for a piss.”

The most irritating thing was that he was right. I’d been worrying about that very thing myself. “I don’t know,” I said. I wanted to say, this is my territory, my skill area, my speciality and you’re just an amateur. But I didn’t want to throw that down on the bed for both of us to look at. The thing that worried me most was that after the debacle when he’d last tried to help me out, Richard felt he had something to prove. And there’s nothing more dangerous on a job that needs patience than someone with something to prove.

At quarter past six the following morning, I was sitting in the dark in my rented Mercedes on Pelikaanstraat. Richard was on the Keyserlei, a couple of hundred yards up from the hotel. Whichever way Turner went, one of us would pick him up. I checked the equipment on the passenger seat one more time. Richard hadn’t been strictly honest with me the previous evening. Once I’d reluctantly agreed to let him tag along, he confessed that he’d already hired a pair of mobile phones, so convinced was he that I’d see what he called sense.

We’d already agreed on a modus operandi. I would use the bugging equipment to keep tabs on Turner. Richard would sit tucked in behind me. If I wanted to stop to change cars, fill up with petrol or go to the loo, I’d phone him and he’d overtake me. Then, when he had Turner in sight, he’d call me and I’d go and do whatever I needed to. Once I was back on track, Richard would fall back behind me again. That was the theory. I’d put money on it working like a windup toy with a broken spring.

I sipped the cup of coffee I’d bought from the vending machine in the station and watched the screen. The buckle wasn’t moving yet. I ate one of the waffles I’d bought the evening before. I could feel my blood sugar rising with every mouthful. The combination of sugar and caffeine had me feeling almost human by the time the phone rang at five to seven. “Yes?” I said.

“Z-Victor one to BD,” Richard said. “Target on move. I’ve just pulled out in front of him. Heading for the traffic lights. He’s staying in the left-hand lane. Roger and out.”

If he carried on like this all day, I might just kill him by dinnertime, I decided. I stepped on the accelerator and swung round the corner. I was just in time to see the two cars turn left at the traffic lights. No way was I going to catch them, so I settled for watching the screen. I caught up with them about a mile from the motorway. It looked like we were heading southeast, toward Germany

Once we hit the motorway, I called Richard and told him to fall back behind me. I kept a steady two kilometers behind Turner, which was far enough at 140 kph, and five minutes later, Richard appeared in front of me, showing down enough to slide into my slipstream with a cheery wave. By nine, we’d sailed past Maastricht and Aachen, the bug had seen us safely through the maze of autobahns round Koln and Bonn was fast approaching on the port bow as we rolled on to the west of the Rhine. The boring flat land of Belgium was a distant memory now as the motorway swept us inexorably through rolling hills and woodland. Somehow, the motorways in Europe seem to be much more attractively landscaped than ours do. Maybe it’s just the indefinably foreign quality of the scenery, but I suspect it’s more to do with the fact that the Germans in particular have had to take Green politics seriously for a few years longer than we have.