Kickback

I gambled on Nell shutting up shop and going off to find brother Brian. Since it was just after half past five, I thought there was a good chance that she'd head straight for home, so I checked back in to my cheap and cheerful guest house. The landlady nearly burst with curiosity at my return, especially when she spotted the electronic equipment. I closed the door firmly behind me and settled down at the window, the directional receiver on a low coffee table beside me. I plugged an earphone from the microphone receiver into my ear and waited. So far, nothing. Either Nell was too far away for me to pick anything up or she'd found the bugs and flushed them down the toilet. Given the state she'd been working up to when I left the shop, I frankly didn't think she'd have noticed if they'd jumped out of the bag and bitten her.

Then the screen started to flash. The bug itself has a radius of about five miles, and it transmits back to the receiver. The screen shows the direction of the bug relative to the receiver, and there's a display of figures along the bottom of the screen which gives the distance in metres between the bug and the receiver. At first, the numbers started climbing, which got me twitching. Had I guessed wrong? Was she heading for some building site where her brother would be working late? Just as I reached the point of panic, the direction changed and the numbers started to plummet. When it showed 157, I could actually see the white Golf racing up the hill towards the house. Then the earphone came alive and I could hear engine noise.

She was driving like a woman who'd lost control. It was a miracle she didn't leave her front bumper on the gatepost as she shot into the drive. As it was, I heard a harsh scraping as she pulled off the road. She didn't even bother garaging the car, simply abandoning it on the Tarmac in front of the house. I watched and listened as she jumped out of the car, slammed the door and let herself in.

'Brian,' she shouted. I could hear her footsteps, the rustle of her clothes and her quick breathing as she hurried through the house calling his name. But there was no reply. Then it sounded like she'd taken her coat off and thrown it down somewhere.

I heard the electronic chirruping of a phone as she keyed in a number. I could faintly hear the distinctive ringing tone of a mobile phone. Someone answered, but even I could hear the static on the line. 'Brian?' she said. 'Is that you? Brian, I've got to talk to you. Brian, it's that Bra

'Brian? Where are you?' she yelled. There was a pause, and I couldn't hear what was coming down the phone at all. 'You'd better get here soon, Brian. This is real trouble.'

It was working. I waited patiently while Nell poured herself a drink. Luckily she was one of those women who are attached to their handbags by an umbilical cord. More often than not, they're smokers, I've noticed. I heard the unmistakable click of a lighter. She was on her third cigarette by the time Lomax turned into the drive. Seemingly unperturbed by his sister's panicky phone call, he calmly garaged the E-type and strolled unhurriedly round to the back of the house.

A moment later, I heard Nell shout, 'Brian?'

'What the hell's the matter with you?' I heard, the voice muffled at first but growing clearer as he approached her.

A chair scraped on a hard floor, then Nell said, That Bra

'And you fell for that bullshit? Christ, Nell, I told you, no one can pin a thing on us. We're in the clear now. What did she say anyway? She could only have been bluffing.' He sounded angry rather than edgy, as if he wanted someone to blame and Nell was handy.

'She said she knew all about the land deals, and the mortgage scam, and about using the old houses to launder the money,' Nell reported, surprisingly faithfully.

'Jesus, that really is bullshit. She must have been guessing. And even if she did guess right, there's not a shred of proof.' Another chair scraped on the floor and a different lighter clicked.

'She said she had proof,' Nell said.

'She can't have. I got rid of everything after Martin. Every bit of paper, every computer disc. There isn't any proof. For Christ's sake, Nell, get a grip.'

'What if she does have evidence? What if there was something you don't know about? I'm telling you, Brian, she knows. And she knows Martin's death wasn't an accident.'

'Now you're really on Fantasy Island,” Lomax snapped. 'Look, the cops think it was an accident. The inquest is going to say it was an accident. You and me are the only ones who know any different. How the fuck could this private eye know anything? She wasn't there, was she? Or did I miss her? Was she there giving us a hand to drop your precious boyfriend over the banisters? Did that somehow escape my notice?' he demanded. 'Listen, there's no way she could know anything about that gutless little shit.'

'Don't talk about him like that,' Nell said.

'Well, he was. Saying he wasn't going to have anything to do with violence,' Lomax mimicked in a namby-pamby voice. 'Saying he was going to the police if I didn't lay off the nosy bitch. As if it wasn't his stupid fault in the first place that something had to be done about her. If I'd done the fucking job properly to begin with, we wouldn't be getting any fucking aggro off this Bra

In spite of myself, I shivered. There's something very stomach-churning about listening to someone who's tried to kill you whingeing because they didn't succeed. A bit like reading your own obituary.

'Well you didn't do it properly, did you? And now she says she knows. And she wants sixty thousand from you or she'll go to the cops,' Nell said. Her voice sounded shaky, as if she was forcing herself to stand up to her brother.

'Sixty grand? She's trying to blackmail us?' Lomax's voice rose, incredulous.

'Not blackmail. She says you ripped off her client for five thou, and there's another eleven in the same boat. She wants their money back.'

'She wants their money back,' Lomax echoed, a snort of laughter in his voice.

'And she wants it back before you catch the plane on Monday night. What plane is that, Brian?' Nell's voice cracked. Even at my remove, I could sense the tension between these two.

'I told you, she's a bullshit merchant. She's just trying to drive a wedge between us, to make you crack and tell her all the stuff she doesn't know but wants you to think she does,” he said. He was as likely to win an Oscar as his sister.

'You're ru

There isn't going to be any mess, I keep telling you. And I am not doing a ru

Confusion reigned in my right ear. It sounded like a chair scraping back, a scuffle then a slap. 'Oh no?' Nell almost screamed. 'So why have you got a bloody passport in your pocket?'

'Give me that,' he yelled.

'You thought you could just clear off and leave me? You bastard, Brian! You said we were in this together. I've put up with all the worry while you and Martin were playing your silly games. I was even stupid enough to listen to you when you said Martin was too much of a risk. And now you think you can just write me off and sod off with the money that's mine by rights?' She was ranting hysterically now.