On Borrowed Time

  On

  Borrowed Time

  Long Time Dying 8

  Solomon Carter

  Great Leap

  On Borrowed Time – Long Time Dying 8

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Great Leap

  Digital Edition April 2015

  Copyright © Solomon Carter 2015

  Solomon Carter has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  Edited by OnlineBookServices.com

  This book is a work of fiction and except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this e-book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Would you like another free story?

  Don’t miss out on more Long Time Dying thrills - Join the readers group at solomoncarter.net and receive your free copy of the Long Time Dying adventure Out of the Traps. It’s not available anywhere else!

  The Long Time Dying series

  by Solomon Carter

  Thrilling adventures featuring Eva Roberts & Dan Bradley, private detectives

  Series list - in reading order

  Out With A Bang

  One Mile Deep

  Long Time Dying

  Never Back Down

  Crossing The Line

  Divide and Rule

  Better The Devil

  On Borrowed Time

  The Dirty Game

  Want more Long Time Dying? Sign up for the mailing list and receive the free “inside story” to Eva and Dan’s adventures at www.solomoncarter.net

  One

  In a large open plan office of green walls and brown carpet Eva Roberts stood speaking to a small and red-faced elderly accountant about some strange numbers which were appearing and then disappearing in the company account logs. The energetic old boy told her the anomalies could be accounted for in various ways other than crime, but Eva Roberts had a suspicious mind and her cool logic told her fraud was the only answer. As her eyes roamed around the office she was already identifying those in the staff who were paying particular attention to her presence. A large lady with dark tied-back hair and glasses was pottering around her desk, moving papers from one side to the other and occasionally she would glance Eva’s way. Another man with dark Mediterranean skin and brushed back, Brylcreemed hair sat at a big important desk at one end of the room. He picked up the telephone and spoke fluently in Spanish for one phone call and then fluent Italian in another. This man with olive skin and slicked back hair paid Eva no mind whatsoever. Already she had ruled him out. Not so for the large woman with the tied-back hair.

  Eva took in as much detail as she could, enough to fill two sides of A4 paper, but then her logical brain stopped listening.

  “I'll need to speak to all of your staff,” she said.

  “Help yourself my dear - go wherever you want but I’m sure it can't be anybody here I can tell you. Most likely it's one of these Internet phishing jobs - perhaps they've gained remote access to our systems or something like that.”

  “Perhaps” said Eva, sounding unconvinced.

  “I'll need a copy of all your security systems and to speak to the companies who set them up. Also I will need a set of the accounts with all of the anomalies highlighted.”

  “Yes, yes fine. Whatever you need. We can’t go on shipping money like this. If it is one of us I want to know about it. I've worked here 25 years, Sue has been here seven, and Frank over there was here before I was. If it turns out to be one of us, then that's betrayal.”

  “When it comes to money, Mr Greer, in my experience all things are possible.”

  “Then what a cynical old world we live in, Miss Roberts.”

  “I'd agree with that. If you think of anything else Mr Greer then call me immediately and I will add it to my thinking.”

  “Right you are.”

  The spritely old man led her to the front door and pointed the way to the main stairs. Eva shook his little warm hand and smiled. This was a normal job. A paper chase, safe as houses, tedious as hell, but it would pay the bills and she would stay alive another day. At least she hoped she would.

  Eva shuffled her pack of papers and put them in another folder which she carried for paper chase jobs while she absent-mindedly thought about a million different things. She walked down the stairs. Eva’s assistant Jess was in the process of leaving the agency. She had decided to jump before Eva had the chance to push. Eva felt some regret, but at least the girl had saved her a tough decision. The thought of losing Jess reminded her of what she’d regained. She recalled the light in Dan’s eyes, the fine jaw line and face still flecked with the scars received back in Shad Thames. Considering what he went through it was remarkable that Dan was still as handsome and wild as ever. Their brief dinner dates since his return were fleeting but Eva enjoyed them and indulged in thinking about what life might be like if she were in love with him again. In truth she knew love had never left. From the time of his absence she knew there was a need to have Dan in her life somehow. Maybe not as a lover but certainly as a friend. Images of Maggie Gillespie’s murdered lover invaded her mind and the memory of her sinking to the floor in death making her wince, and those pictures were followed quickly by others of Gerrard's face pressed against pristine white floor tiles in a pool of blood flashing through her mind. The nightmare images came of their own volition, and they brought with them tension, disgust and a loss of time.

  Alabaster Properties where accountant Jim Greer was on the top floor of a wide grey five-storey building opposite Rendon railway station. The office building sat at the foot of the steep hill from Rendon’s petite town centre. Rendon station was perched along the railway line from Southend to London, no more than an hour’s journey between both. As Eva tried to push thoughts of Gerrard and Kendra away as she reached the foot of the stairs and looked out towards the red brick huddle of Rendon station. She caught sight of something unusual, something which tugged for her attention and made her look twice, but on the second time there was nothing to be seen. She dismissed it. Her mind was playing tricks and she didn't want more evidence of her madness –normality was what she needed. Eva buttoned her jacket, and drew her long winter coat close around her. It was almost December and winter had come early with the autumn winds giving way to relentless cold and pale murky skies.

  Eva pushed the glass exit door and the cold air rushed in, biting at her face and neck as soon as she was outside. She paused at the top of the entrance steps and looked across at Rendon station. Still nothing there…was there? Her mind filled with a sense of forgetting something very important. She waited another second and the chill on her skin sunk into her body over her shoulders and deep into her chest. She gasped not for the cold, but a sudden unusual fear. She took the first few steps down and hesitated again. Across the road at the station she saw a shape now - the edge of a body, as if someone was hiding behind the archway entrance to the station. She looked hard. She made out the outline of a figure in dark winter clothing. There was nothing unusual about strangers waiting at a station, but something wasn't right here and she knew it. Someone had been looking at her before, so it made sense the person would now be hiding. It made sense in her life, maybe no one else's. Eva’s eyes dropped down to the right and found her gleaming red Alfa Romeo below her in the car park. Her car looked like home, safety and the chance to escape. As she took the last few steps the figure across the road emerged from hiding. He was weari
ng thick black fleece clothes and a balaclava. No matter how cold it was no one really ever wore balaclavas, not in England, except that vigilante. But this man wasn't the vigilante; this man’s build was all wrong, he was too thickset, too lumpy. The way he stood facing front and peering straight ahead, Eva knew he was looking at her directly. She froze. Tension filled her bones, her tendons, her skin, every part of the body. Not now. Please not now. She took the last two steps down to the tarmac. Then something happened. Two stones bounced on the concrete surface in front of her making little divots in the surface. The bouncing stones didn't make sense. She looked again at the floor, and saw where the concrete had broken off there were two small pits left in their place. A silencer. A rifle shot. Eva skipped back up the steps, her heart thudding against her rib cage, her eyes looking wildly left and right. The man across the road spoke into the cuff of his fleece. Eva had to assume he wore a radio or mobile phone and he was directing the shooter. Maybe the shooter was on the roof in which case Eva was safe for now. Maybe the gunman was inside the residential flats at the rear side of the office block. If so he would be taking aim right now. If the gunman was on the roof he would have no shot while Eva hid in the recess near the glass front door. She had to make a decision when there was no decision to be made. Her car was so near… but could she risk being exposed to any more gunfire? She could hear her heartbeat and the rush of her own blood in her ears. Do something! She scolded herself. The masked man dropped his hand to his side and began to move forward. He would be armed too, no doubt. She had to escape now. Eva pointed the key fob at her red car and unlocked it, both indicator lights flashing once. The attackers would have seen that. The seconds stretched long and tense while Eva called up all the courage she could find. Where was the man in the balaclava now? She couldn’t see him. She had no time, no time at all. Eva turned ready to go back into the building, when a group of office workers, men and women in suits and smart clothing, began approaching the exit door from within the lobby. They were chattering and laughing, oblivious to the danger outside. Eva had a decision to make. Logic told her the assassin would not risk shooting a number of innocent people and morals told her that she should warn them. But Eva was no hero, she simply wanted to live. She had already gambled on omitting Kendra's murder from her police statement. It was time to gamble again. The office workers emerged in a small chain holding the door open for one another. Eva waited for them to fully emerge then made an awkward push into their number as they walked down the stairs. They looked at her oddly and she smiled back at them, the tension in her eyes keeping them from questioning her. The small bunch walked directly across the car park towards the second set of steps which led down to the street level. At the end of the car park, right before they made the second set of steps, Eva veered to the right and grabbed the car door handle and threw herself into the passenger seat of the Alfa. She dragged herself across the gearstick and handbrake, got into position behind the steering wheel and started the engine, gunning it backwards. New concrete shrapnel flew up by her right hand side. The car roared and wheels screeched as she shot towards the car park exit. Just as she pulled onto the street she heard two thuds like a hammer striking the car’s shell. But Eva wasn't hit. Turning left she threw the car into second then third gear plunging her foot down on the accelerator all the way through 30, 40 and up to 50 miles an hour in the residential zone. She looked once back to Rendon station and saw the big man in the balaclava watching after her.

  Three miles past Rendon when she could finally breathe Eva saw the folded white paper tucked underneath the windscreen wiper. She kept driving. Southend was just another three miles away. When she got home she snatched up the paper, walked into the office and locked the door behind her. She walked past Jess’s empty desk and planted the piece of paper on the surface. In a big thick ugly black scrawl were the words NOT LONG NOW. The foot of the note was signed BB in slanted lettering. Eva Roberts had survived long enough to taste almost three weeks of normality. But she had been kidding herself. Normal was finished. Survival was the only way ahead.

  Two

  Within an hour Eva was with Dan Bradley in a hotel room and yet making use of the neatly made bed was far from their minds. Eva paid cash in advance for the room under the name of Penny Brown. Dan gave her a sideways glance at the reception which said where the hell did that name come from, but Eva was in no mood for levity. It was a basic room in a budget hotel on the edge of town, with a desk, a bed, and a tea set on a no frills white plastic tray. Dan put the kettle on and took the seat nearest the TV. Eva threw herself on the bed. She looked drawn, the tension she felt inside etched all over her face. Her eyes were wide open.

  “I can’t bury my head in the sand anymore, Dan,” said Eva “These people are after me and they’re never going to give up. What the hell did I do to deserve this?”

  “You know what you did, Eva. You took on Brian Gillespie. What did you expect him to do, send you a thank you card? The guy cares about his rep almost as much as Victor Marka ever did. Surely you knew if you took him on there were gonna be consequences,” said Dan.

  “That sounded a little like I told you so, Dan. I really don't need that right now, I need some solutions and I need them fast.”

  “I’m thinking already,” said Dan. But Dan didn't like thinking for long. “Okay, let’s look at this again,” said Dan. “The whole situation with Maggie Gillespie and Alex Galvan was very messy. When Maggie and Kendra arrived on your doorstep they hoodwinked you. First you were hauled in by the direct approach by the old witch. I think she knew you were vulnerable and she struck while the iron was hot.”

  “Vulnerable, why would I have been vulnerable?”

  She knew why she was vulnerable and so did Dan. The agency business was on the slide while Eva had been pretending it was all hunky dory. Dan had moved on and left her and Jess to it. Apparently Eva needed him more than she had ever let on. Dan made a face, “I've no idea. But the fact is she wanted you involved in a big way. Maggie knew all about how you had taken on Victor Marka, and she personally saw you take on her husband in Hammersmith and get the better of him. I think she was genuine about some of what she said. She believed you were a hard nut able to mix it with dangerous men and had the ability to come out the winner. In that respect she was right. But she also wanted revenge on you for not playing her perverse little game last summer. I think, she wanted another chance with you, to bully you - to cajole you - to imprison you so she could get what she wanted.”

  “You mean that she wanted my hot bod. But don't they all?” Eva was going for humour, but her face wasn’t following suit.

  “Sure they do, and Maggie was a bitch in heat, and an absolute psycho to boot. She wanted you on side and she wanted to own you too.”

  “I get that part. But it still doesn't make sense, Dan. Jess already proved the photograph of Gillespie's kiss was false. I didn’t like it when I found out, but yes, it was false. The whole pretext for the protection job and the assassination was all wrong. But who would fake that and why?”

  “I'd say there were plenty of people who'd like to cause trouble for Brian Gillespie but causing trouble for you, a small fry private detective in an Essex backwater? No I don't believe there's a conspiracy surrounding you.”

  “You always knew how to boost a girl’s ego.”

  Dan made a thin smile.

  “Let’s be honest, Eva, you made a huge mistake in saying yes to Maggie Gillespie without checking things through thoroughly. Mistake one was the photograph. You should have checked that out right at the start. Mistake two was underestimating her, not thinking clearly about her crazy motives.”

  “Sustained. I know all that Dan. Again that's not helpful. The fact is we got away. I need to deal with what’s on the table right now, as we speak. ”

  “Okay, but you should have told me the business had been in such bad shape. I would have helped you, we could have worked something out.”

  “Dan you haven't got a penny to your
name. No disrespect, but moral support is about all I could have hoped for.”

  “That's a low blow, but as you're hurting I’ll let you have that one for free.”

  Even shook her head and swept back her long red hair. “We’re getting lost here Dan.”

  “No we're not. What’s on the table and what’s not? An assassin is after you. I think we can assume the previous assassin was hired by Brian Gillespie. Maybe the kiss was fake – which means this Kendra story didn’t stack up. But Gillespie still probably assumed that Maggie had left him for her. Maybe he wanted her killed for that. So, there we go, Brian put out the contract on Maggie and Co. whether there was a photo or not. Maybe the photo turned Maggie against Brian, or maybe Maggie had it faked herself to give her a pretext to leave Bad Boy Brian. Maybe she just used it to recruit you. I bet you felt some sympathy as soon as she showed it to you.”

  “Yeah. But it was more than that. For me it showed that Maggie needed my help, not anything more sinister.”

  “There we are, Eva. The photo did its job. The photo was faked and in hooking you into the mess and helping you believe her, it worked.”

  Eva didn’t like the implication about her judgement, but Dan was working all this out as he spoke. She had to let him run with it.

  “We still have the assassin on the table. What’s her motive?”

  “Gillespie’s insane desire for revenge against those who cross him. In one year I crossed him twice, Dan. I crossed him in London last summer, and then I crossed him by working against him with his wife.”

  “Yes. And there were the heavy breathing calls and the visits from his stooges a while back. All the signs were there that he wasn’t ever going cold on us.”