Hot Pursuit

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.

2 (#ulink_c21eae37-4d1b-550b-8df9-f07e7e40ffad)

There had to have been some kind of mistake, except of course that that was impossible. Stiltskin didn’t make mistakes. In the neat, well-ordered, air-conditioned government offices deep in the bowels of Colmore Road the clerk tapped at the keyboard of the computer keeping one eye on the door.

‘RUN STILTSKIN…?’ flashed up on the screen again. She had already run it twice and something strange had happened. Very strange. It was her responsibility to do the back-up files on those people her department took under its protective wing. Normally it only took a few minutes, but she had been working on this one for the best part of half an hour.

First of all she’d needed to check up on the client’s new name and address. Except when she’d fed his name in, the computer kept coming up with two new names. Two sets of fictitious details scrolling merrily down the screen, side by side. Now, having repeated the process, the same unlikely combination of information rolled out again and again, like digital schizophrenia.

According to the notes that went with the case, Nick Lucas should have become James Cook. That was what was supposed to have happened, that was what she had expected to have happened, except that somewhere in the wiry underbelly of the computer on Colmore Road a third name had entered the equation: Bernie Fielding. It was all very odd. She had never come across anything like it before, even on the trouble-shooting training course she’d been on at Cheltenham.

Somehow, Bernie Fielding had become James Cook, and Nick Lucas had become Bernie Fielding.

The girl sniffed and glanced up at the office door, licked her lips and then stared at the screen. She’d only come in as a favour because the girl who usually worked on Stiltskin had shingles and no one else had the right security clearance.