Y. The Unfaithful Dead - Part 3 of 4

I woke up with a sore neck and smelling stale cigarette smoke and,
more enticing, coffee. I clambered into the front of the van to find
Frank drinking a mug of it, the clock on the dashboard said six
o-clock.

'Is that coffee?'

Frank grunted in the affirmative and gestured to the paraphernalia
arranged on the dashboard, there was a jar of instant coffee, a
collection of sugar and creamer sachets, a bottle of water, and a
cigarette lighter powered heating element. 'Just the one mug mate.' He
said. 'You can use it after me.'

'Cheers.' I said. 'I take it nothing happened.'

'You snored some.' He said. 'Oh, and I keep getting dodgy looks from
that lot over there.' He gestured to a field by the side of the road
that I could have sworn wasn't there last night, in it about a dozen
brown cows watched us curiously.

I got out of the van, stretched my legs and took a leak against the
fence while the cows looked on. A man walked by with a dog and looked
at me suspiciously, he was wearing a flat cap.

'Is this Yorkshire?' Asked Frank when I climbed back in.

'I think so.'

'I fucking hate Yorkshire.' Frank threw the last dregs of coffee out
the window and handed me the mug.

'You go home if you want mate, I can take it from here.'

He thought about it a moment and pointed down the street. 'See that
cafe there. I'll stay on till it opens and then I'll have some
breakfast and go home.'

My stomach grumbled. 'Tell you what.' I said. 'You stay on another ten
minutes after you've had your breakfast so I can have some.'

He nodded. I mixed up a cup of coffee using cold water and dropped in
the heating element. 'You think they do black pudding.' Said Frank.
'It's Yorkshire, they've gotta do black pudding.'

'And fried bread.' I said. 'And fried tomatoes.'

'I fucking hate black pudding.'

*****

I let Frank go after breakfast, bought myself a paper and sat in my own
car pretending to read it while watching the hotel. About a hundred
people walked by and I screamed stakeout so loud even sweet old ladies
who'd never seen a cop show in their lives could hear it. It didn't
matter so long as nobody told the lawyer.

He moved at eleven, walked straight to his car and drove away. I
followed at a long distance on the empty country roads for about
fifteen miles till he parked at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere,
I drove on by and doubled back after a couple of minutes. He didn't so
much as glance at me as I went by so I figured I was in the
clear.

I peered in the restaurant window and saw only one occupied table, the
lawyer was there with Stan Arkin, Alexander Hodder and Eowen Lombard. I
walked straight in, brushing away the attentions of a waiter, and sat
down at a spare seat.

'Hello folks.' I said.

Arkin reacted first. 'Who the hell are you?'

'My name is Michael. I work for the Van-Heer company.'

Both Alex and Eowen visibly quaked.

'And what are you doing here?' Said Arkin.

'Protecting company interests.'

Arkin turned to the lawyer. 'You idiot.' He said. 'You were
followed.'

Eowen and Alex looked at me and I smiled back, knowing that I had
caught them before any real damage was done and knowing that I was a
lot scarier the Arkin ever was. I noticed maybe seconds too late that
the table was set for five.

'You're in my place.' Said a voice from behind me. It was the sort of
big Yorkshire voice that only came out of big Yorkshire men. I stood up
sharply but a hand the size of a dinner plate pushed me back down and
then pulled my jacket down to my elbows so I couldn't move my
arms.

'Michael meet Peese.' Said Arkin. 'Peese is my personal assistant.
What's he got on him Peese?'

A second large hand rummaged inexpertly through my jacket pockets and
pulled out my wallet, mobile phone, car keys and half a packet of
mints, and passed them all to Arkin.

Arkin picked up my wallet and looked through it, 'Michael Prince.' He
said. 'Never heard of you.' He put the wallet back and picked up my
mobile phone, he snapped it open with one thumb and removed the battery
and tossed the rest of the phone back across the table, then he
pocketed my car keys. 'Sit next to him Peese.' He said. 'See he doesn't
go anywhere.'

The hand let go and I shrugged my jacket back onto my shoulders and
picked up my wallet and mints and the powerless phone. Peese pulled up
another chair and sat down besides me, I am not a small man but Peese
was huge, a great slab of pale meat in a monkey suit and not a day
older than twenty one or I'm a chinaman. There are two kinds of
heavies, those that hurt you because they enjoy it and those that don't
know any better, I made Peese as the latter but wasn't sure where it
got me.

'We've just ordered some coffee Michael.' Said Arkin. 'Do you want
anything?'

I said. 'A coffee would be good.'

Arkin smiled and relayed the order to the waiter. 'Right' He said, 'I
think we need a clarification, if only for Michael's sake. The last
time I met Alex and Eowen was at Dr Tsukimura's funeral on Monday.
After that I left the country on business, I had a call from them on
Wednesday when we arranged to meet here this morning to discuss their
options. Alex, would you like to tell us what you have been up to
between now and then. Everything since the funeral please.'

'Okay.' Said Alex. 'I met Eowen on Monday night to talk about what you
had said. We decided we would confront James Gassner about it...'

'Why him?' Asked Arkin.

'With Dr Tsukimura gone he is our boss.'

Arkin looked across at me, twenty quid says he guessed there and then I
did not know that the son was their boss. I swear to god nobody tells
me bloody anything.

'But before that,' Alex continued, 'we decided to take a copy of the
formula, as a kind of insurance, so I put a copy on disc and took it
home with me.'

'This was Tuesday?' Asked Arkin.

'Yes.'

'And you didn't say anything to James Gassner that day?'

'I didn't see him all day.'

'Me neither.' Said Eowen.

'Anyway.' Said Alex. 'After work we both went to visit a friend of mine
to err, well to ask about you.'

Arkin smiled.

'When I got home I found my flat had been broken into and searched. At
first I assumed it was robbers but when I saw nothing had been taken I
thought it might be connected, so I rang Eowen.'

Eowen continued. 'I'd just got off the tube when he called, when I got
to my flat I saw the lights on and people moving inside, so I just kept
walking.'

'What did you do then?' Asked Arkin.

Alex answered. 'We met up and stayed the night with my brother in Wood
Green and the following morning we called you.'

Arkin talked to me. 'I advised them not to go back to work and we
arranged to meet here.'

'Did you tell him you had a copy of the formula?' I asked Alex and
Eowen. They looked at each other and then nodded.

'And did you stay with Alex's brother Wednesday and Thursday
night?'

'No.' Said Eowen. 'We stayed with friends of mine in Sheffield.'

I had more questions to ask but Arkin interrupted. 'So you see,' he
said to me, 'nobody has done anything illegal.'

I ignored him. 'Why didn't either of you call the police?' I asked
Eowen and Alex.

'When?'

'When your flat was broken into.'

'I err?' Eowen started, 'I don't know.'

'If you had done nothing wrong?'

'She hadn't,' said the lawyer, speaking for the first time, 'they both
frequently took work home.'

'Quite right.' I said. 'It was a gift, you call the police and catch
them in the act, old man Gassner would pay you a fortune just to keep
it quiet and you would never have to have shady meetings in places like
this.'

'I was scared.' She said.

I said 'You had a guilty conscience.'

'A guilty conscience.' Said Arkin. 'Is the burden of honest men. I
think it is time we left. Peese would you drive Michael back to the
house' He tossed Peese my car keys. 'Alex and Eowen can come with
me.'

As they walked to the car Eowen and Alex held hands, I wondered just
how they had amused themselves during their two days on the run.

*****

On the drive, getting in and out of the car, there were about half a
dozen good chances to get away from Peese but none of them were a sure
thing, they worked on too many assumptions, that Peese was as slow as
he looked, that he was unarmed, that it was even a good idea. My best
bet right now was to keep close to Alex and Eowen, with the lawyer's
help I had convinced them they hadn't burnt their bridges yet, there
was a slim chance they would not go through with it, but I wouldn't
have put money on it.

I was driven to a large farmhouse out in the country and locked in a
bedroom. I put my ear to the floor but couldn't make out any of the
conversation, so in the absence of anything better to do I went to
sleep.

I was woken up at about five in the afternoon by raised voices from
below, I strained to hear but couldn't make out a word. Shortly
afterwards Arkin accompanied by Peese unlocked the door and came in to
the room. I sat on the edge of the bed while he pulled up a stool from
the dresser. Alex and Eowen turned up and hovered near the door.

'I take it you know you smell terrible.' Arkin said.

'I slept in the a back of a van.'

He smiled. 'So tell me Michael,' he said, 'who exactly do you work
for?'

'I get asked that a lot recently.'

'It can be very important.'

'I don't work for James Gassner,' I said, 'which is what you want to
know. Why is it important?'

'If you don't work for the son then you must work for the father.' He
said. 'It's a matter of motive. William Gassner is old school, he
values the people, he knows if you have good people the rest will
follow. That's why he kept so close to Tsukimura and it's why he
instructed you to get Alex and Eowen back. The son is different, he
only values the assets, that's why he snaked Tsukimura's department
from under me but let the old man keep Dr Tsukimura himself, and it's
why he scared the willies out of Alex and Eowen trying to get the
formula back, because the formula was all he wanted back, they could go
hang for all he cared.'

'Snaked the department from under you?' I asked.

'If I sound bitter it's because I am.' He said with a chuckle.

'So now you've snaked his precious formula from him.'

'Well that's just it isn't it.' He said.

'Just what?'

He looked at me suspiciously. They were all looking at me very closely
indeed, even Peese.

'You don't actually have the formula do you?' I said.

'Apparently not all of it.' Said Arkin, watching me as closely as a
poker player.

'That was careless.' I said.

'I took it off the server.' Said Alex, a little defensive, 'If it's not
on the disc it wasn't on the server.'

'So you think the son deleted it,' I said, 'to protect it.'

'The thought had occurred to us.' Said Arkin.

'So he deletes it,' I said, thinking out loud, 'and then tries to catch
them red handed stealing it. That sounds like him.'

They were all hanging on my every word. It occurred to me I might be
serving my employer better by shutting the hell up but I was too damn
curious. 'Only that doesn't add up,' I said, 'as your lawyer was so
keen to point out there was no crime committed at that point. The son's
an arsehole but breaking into peoples homes smacks more of desperation.
No it wasn't him.'

'Who then?' Said Alex.

'The old man?' I suggested.

'Not his style.' Said Arkin. 'If he wanted to prevent a theft he would
have talked to them directly, not play some silly trick. And why send
you, to scare them further?'

'Perhaps to catch you.' I said.

'He doesn't give a shit about me.' Said Arkin, ' he wouldn't think me
worth the expense.' It was the first time I'd seen him angry.

'Besides,' I said, 'I have no instructions to gather evidence, just the
retrieval.'

'So we're back at square one.' Said Alex. 'We don't know who did
it.'

I leaned back on the bed with my hands behind my head and addressed the
ceiling. 'No formula, no theft. You two may as well go home and invent
a good excuse why you've been away from work for three days.'

'Oh we're going back.' Said Eowen sharply. 'We're going back tonight to
get it.'

I sat back up. 'Now why would you do a thing like that?'

'The money,' she said, 'and three years work.'

'Three years work?'

'One thing hadn't occurred to them,' said Arkin, 'Van-Heer will not
manufacture the battery.'

I looked dumbly from person to person, 'why not?'

'It's an everlasting light bulb.' Said Arkin. 'You could make some
money selling it but imagine the money you could make not selling it.
How much do you think Duracell and others would pay to keep it under
wraps.'

'It's obvious when you think about it.' Said Alex. 'That's why they
kept it so damn secret.'

'I on the other hand,' continued Arkin, 'will manufacture and sell the
thing by the bucket load.'

I looked at Alex and Eowen in turn. 'For this,' I said, 'you will risk
a burglary.'

'There's no risk.' Said Alex. 'If we get caught we were only working
late, if not then we come straight back here and are home free.'

'Home free.' I said. 'Is that what he told you.'

Arkin cut me off and said 'I think this conversation is over.' And he
ushered everyone out of the room, I heard the key turn in the lock and
lay back on the bed again. In a few minutes I watched from the window
as the lawyer drove away with Alex and Eowen.

*****

About two hours later Arkin appeared at the door. 'You understand,' he
said, 'that I have to keep you here until I have the formula . After
that I will let you go.'

I said 'It's illegal imprisonment.'

'I have a very good lawyer.'

I smiled, the man was pure confidence. 'Did they really buy that
horseshit about manufacturing the battery?'

'I have every intention of trying to manufacture the battery.'

'Gassner will tie you down in litigation, you'll never be able sell one
of the things.'

'That's a possibility.' He said.

'But that's not the point is it.' I said, thinking out loud again.
'You'll have made the thing worthless to Van-Heer, they'll never get a
penny out of Duracell whilst your threatening to build it.'

He grinned this big toothy grin.

'You'd do all this to fuck over Gassner, all that money to lawyers,
he'll take your company from you if you loose.'

'I have a feeling we'll settle out of court.' He said. 'He'll buy the
rights to the formula off me in return for never admitting they were
mine to sell. It will cover my costs and in the end I'll have Alex and
Eowen and he'll have the battery.'

'And he'll have to make it.'

'It'll have been in all the papers.'

'It's still a gamble,' I said, 'what if you make him so angry he won't
settle.'

'Oh he'll settle, I know where too many of the bodies are buried for
him to risk making me desperate.'

I fell back on the bed and laughed. There was nothing else left to
do.

'Better a prince in hell,' said Arkin, 'than a serf in heaven. Anyway I
only came up to offer you some dinner.'

'Yes please.'

Peese came in five minutes later with a tray of food. I hid behind the
door and hit him in the back of the neck with the dresser stool. He
fell forwards and spaghetti Bolognese went flying all over the room. As
he struggled up I nipped out of the room and locked the door. Stan
Arkin came running up the stairs, I stood at the top, flexed my arms
and cracked my knuckles. He stopped dead.

'Can I have my car keys back please.'

I walked him outside with me, from upstairs I could hear Peese trying
to break down the door, it wouldn't be long until he succeeded. I took
a screwdriver from my glove box and stabbed the wheels of Arkin's car,
then I got in my own car and drove away. My stomach rumbled, if I were
a smarter man I would have dreamed up a plan of escape that involved
eating dinner first.