eyes filled, too. ‘Oh, James.’ She was wearing a pink leather mini-skirt with matching high heels and a little sleeveless white cotton top, her bleached blonde hair sculptured in a great corona of curls and waves. For a postmistress she was an absolute cracker, Bernie thought.
Bernie brightened visibly. ‘Now, whereabouts did you say this pub is that you were going to take me to?’ he said, sliding his hand down over his back pocket to check he had his wallet.
‘James?’
It took Bernie a second or two to register that Stella meant him; he would really have to start thinking of himself as James Cook.
‘Yes?’ he said, relieved that Stella had taken his hesitancy for tearful reflection.
She leant closer, resting her hand very lightly on his thigh. ‘I want you to know that if you need to talk about your wife I perfectly understand. I mean, I don’t want you to feel you have to hold anything back. It’s good to talk about these things.’
Bernie nodded. ‘Thank you – not everyone understands. Her name was Maggie,’ he said unsteadily. ‘She was such a lovely girl…’ And as he spoke, the old Bernie Fielding faded slowly into oblivion to be replaced by James Anthony Cook; sensitive, caring widower.
While the old Bernie Fielding slipped seamlessly into his new persona and the new Bernie Fielding waited for Maggie Morgan to finish cooking the bolognaise sauce, an aircraft was landing at London Heathrow and out at Elstree a small television production company was busy finalising the details of its midweek schedule.
Aboard the aircraft two tall, good-looking, suntanned men in mirrored shades and expensive charcoal-grey suits waited for the cabin doors to open. Cain Vale tucked a newspaper into his flight bag.
‘What d’ya think then, Nimrod?’
Nimrod Brewster, sucking on a Minto, grinned the cool, even smile of a basking shark and glanced out of the window at the clear blue sky.
‘No problems, my son,’ he said in an undertone. ‘In. Out. We’ll be back in Marbella by teatime tomorra.’ He mimed a sharp-shooter’s draw with his index finger and then blew away a phantom wisp of smoke so real that he could almost smell the cordite. They had been offered a nice fat fee to cream a nobody. Nimrod would have done it for nothing if it wasn’t for the fact that he liked to maintain his professional status.
Cain cheered visibly. ‘Right, so in that case can I have the window seat on the way back?’
Nimrod considered for a moment or two. ‘I’ll toss you for it. Afterwards.’
‘All right. Where’s the business happening?’
Nimrod tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. ‘You worry too much, Cain, we’ll know the details all in good time. It’s all arranged. We’ll be met at the hotel with the rest of the stuff – we already know the who, we just need to know the where and when.’
Nimrod patted the computer printout in his jacket pocket.
‘What’s his name again?’ asked Cain.
‘Nick Lucas.’
Cain nodded as if fixing the information somewhere deep in his mind.
‘Maybe we should ring him,’ said Nimrod with a sly grin. ‘Tell him he ought to kiss his ass goodbye while he still has the opportunity.’
Cain giggled.
Robbie Hughes, sitting in a darkened office in Elstree, had been chasing Bernie Fielding for a very long time – years, in fact. First as a researcher for the BBC and now as a presenter for Gotcha, a twice-weekly, prime-time, consumer TV programme. He had never had any problems filling the available airspace with the public’s worst fears. But for Robbie the hunt for Bernie Fielding had become something of a personal vendetta. He was Robbie’s very own Holy Grail.
The blinds in the upstairs office were closed to cut out the early evening sunlight. At the front of the room one of the younger researchers was busy showing everyone his latest PowerPoint presentation, pitching an idea to the show’s boss for his very own one-off special. A whole show devoted to one person, one topic, one major crime was the brass ring that everyone on the Gotcha team was aiming for. Their baby, broadcast to the nation.
The boy clicked onto the next image. ‘Potential here for some great visuals,’ he was saying as the camera panned around what looked like a normal suburban living room. There was a murmur from the assembled audience although Robbie wasn’t sure whether it was of agreement or boredom.
There was a glitch in the air conditioning and the room was unpleasantly warm. People were stripped down to shirtsleeves and strappy tops, sipping Evian, iced tea and coffee frappé, trying to ignore the growing miasma of antiperspirant battling with Mother Nature, while still looking cool and interested – after all, it might just be their turn next.
Robbie sat at the back, a little apart from the crowd as befitting his status as cohost, letting the puppies play. All of a certain age, four of them rotated the job as studio anchor – two old hacks, a female newscaster and him. If not in the studio the presenters would be out in the field just like the good old days. It was his turn today to ride shotgun on the Gotcha creative crèche to make sure there weren’t too many stories about fake designer tee shirts and imported DVDs.
Robbie had his own idea for a Gotcha special but now was not the time. He certainly had no intention of making his pitch in front of the children.
It had always seemed, in the great scheme of things, that he and Bernie Fielding had been destined to meet again and again – star-crossed consumer synchronicity. Bernie Fielding’s name, if not his face, had haunted Robbie night and day for years; an ever-present name amongst a flurry of other directors on a dozen dodgy letterheads, that signposted sharp practice, deceit and cheap Asian imports. It seemed to Robbie that Bernie saw himself as King-Con.
First it had been the floral sun-lounger that had nearly disembowelled Robbie on a south coast beach; Bernie’s company name was there on the instruction slip. Later there had been the conservatory that had spontaneously combusted when his mother-in-law turned on the spotlights. Robbie’s dodgy second-hand Merc that had turned out to be two cars welded together, his sons’ radiocontrolled exploding cars, his sister’s garden swing – Bernie Fielding had – it miraculously seemed – had a hand in them all.
And when, just before Christmas one year, Robbie Hughes’s wife had said she’d put a deposit down on a time-share villa in Tenerife as a surprise present, Robbie knew, even before he opened the phoney letter of receipt, whose name would be there up above the date. Oh yes, he had an idea for a special all right. Bernie might have been quiet for a while but Robbie’s senses were tingling; something was up and he planned to find out what. He was going to nail Bernie Fielding’s arse to the mast on prime-time TV – and he was going to do it soon.
While supper cooked, Nick Lucas nipped the phone between cheek and shoulder and hung on as instructed, waiting for someone, anyone, to talk to him.
‘Your call is currently in a queue,’ repeated a cool synthetic female voice. ‘All calls are being answered in strict rotation. If you would like to hold the line, one
