The Hard Way by Duncan Brockwell (electronic book reader .txt) 📗

found the way she fussed over him endearing. Rachel was a protective lioness. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect her family, which one day might include him. He sat there, stroking her belly, wondering why he was thinking such silly nonsense. He was having fun with her, no more, he kept telling himself, knowing he was lying. He was smitten already.

Day 4

Friday, June 15th

32

Richard switched off the engine and opened his car door. He noted Vanu’s BMW’s space next to his was empty. He frowned. In the three years since he’d hired his second-in-command, he’d only beaten Vanu to the workshop in the morning a handful of times.

Since they were nearing the end of their project, maybe Vanu was taking back some time? Or, God forbid, maybe he was sick? It happened, he guessed.

Picking up his briefcase from the back seat, Richard closed the door and locked it. By the cars parked, Paula Lang was the only one in so far. He stepped inside and found her tinkering with the Fiesta, putting some finishing touches beneath the bonnet. “Morning! No Vanu?”

“Not yet,” she replied from inside the engine.

“He was the last to leave last night, wasn’t he?” Richard walked towards the iron steps up to his office.

Paula said, “Uh-huh. I think so, yeah.”

And he continued on up. “Do me a favour, would you? Find out where he is?”

“I’m on it!” She came out from under the bonnet, her dark blue overalls covered in oil, and headed to Vanu’s desk, where the workshop’s landline lived. “He’s probably just running late.”

“There’s a first time for everything, I suppose,” Richard conceded. “I need to know if he’s going grace us with his presence today. Thanks, Paula.”

When he closed his office door, Paula was on the phone. The first thing he did was to plonk his case on the desk and step up to the closed blinds on the exterior windows. He parted a couple of slats and checked the transit van was still parked down the road. It was. “Bastards!” Of course, the van might have nothing to do with them.

If he had the nerve, he would march over there and knock on the doors, speak to the driver. Of course, he didn’t, in case Vanu was right, and they were watching him.

Closing the slats in the blinds, Richard sighed, turned, and noticed the answerphone screen flashing. The red digital display informed him he had eight new messages. At his desk, he pressed the messages button.

He’d never had much to do with Vanu’s wife in the past, yet he instinctively knew it was her desperate voice asking for help, even before she identified herself. The first message was her asking if he knew where her husband was, that he was an hour late. The next two were angry additions, scolding him for keeping Vanu from his family.

Richard ignored these messages, moving on to the next, recorded at 12:30 in the morning. Gone was her anger, replaced with sorrow. She informed him that the police had arrived on her doorstep, asking if she was the wife of Vanu Parekh. Her husband had crashed his car into a tree.

The final message was recorded at seven-thirty, asked him to meet her at the East Surrey Hospital, where Vanu’s body had been flown to after cutting him out of the wreckage. There was no anger, no animosity in her voice, only sorrow. Richard sat on his chair, his head hung.

“Richard, are you all right?” Paula entered the office, gingerly approaching him. “I’ve tried every number I have, including his home, but nothing. His wife didn’t answer.”

He didn’t want to say it out loud. “Something’s happened.” He kept his head down, not wanting to look her in the eyes. “He’s gone, Paula.”

Without looking at her, he only heard her approach. “What do you mean? Gone where?” She held his hand, knowing something was very wrong.

“His wife says he wrapped his Beamer around a tree.” Richard could probably have told Paula in a nicer manner, but he didn’t believe it himself. He only saw Vanu the previous night. “I need to get to East Surrey Hospital, now.”

Paula offered to take him, saying he was in no fit state to drive. Why was she acting so normal? When he looked at her, she was pale, her eyes wide.

Downstairs, he expected to find the rest of the team. They were nowhere to be found. He followed Paula out to her VW Polo and found himself cramped in the passenger seat. Moving it back, he put his seat in a comfortable position and waited while she prepped for the half-hour journey to hospital. “Thanks for taking me.”

“What’re friends for?” She reversed out and drove in silence.

On the way out, Richard checked the van. No one in it. And when they passed, he checked the transit van didn’t follow. “You don’t think–”

“What? That van had something to do with Vanu’s crash?” Her expression was incredulous. “Do me a favour, of course not. The driver probably leaves the van there in the daytime, or something. Vanu’s so paranoid since we tested it successfully.”

“What, you don’t think there are people out there willing to kill for it?” He smiled when he said it, letting her know he was joking.

Paula kept her eye on the road. “Don’t get me wrong, it is pretty special, a game changer and all that. But who would want to stop progress? It’s the future. Sure companies will wish they’d invented it, but do you really think they’d kill people to prevent us from building it? Give me a break. Vanu should’ve taken his pills, I mean no disrespect.”

“I know, I told him to remember them. And he was worse recently, especially the last couple of days.” The more Richard spoke to Paula, the more she eased his mind. If Vanu had crashed into a tree, it was an accident, not because of some demonic transit driver out to murder him for the Fiesta’s secrets. “Thanks.