KILL ME IF YOU CAN (Dave Cunane Book 8) by Frank Lean Page A

fatal.
    ‘Thank God for that. Listen Dave, I’m beginning to wonder if knowing you might be bad for my health.  I’ve got spare wheels here that you can have but the difficulty is getting them to you. I can’t leave and I don’t trust you with Tammy … ’
    ‘Oh come on, Bob!’
    ‘No, stranger things have happened. Knowing your reputation as a lady’s man I wouldn’t care to put temptation your way. Back in the day you used to like your women hot and your curries mild.’
    ‘Bob, I’m happily married now.’
    ‘And wasn’t Tammy’s previous boyfriend the same, until his wife found out, that is.’
    I could hear Tammy’s protests in the background.
    ‘Right, Dave, I’ll get a car to you. The keys of the house will have to wait for a while. I don’t have them here.’
    I told him where I was.
    ‘There’s just one little problem. The only spare hands I’ve got here belong to your old prison buddy No-Nose Nolan and his oppo, what’s his name, the Scouser with the red hair?’
    ‘He’s called Lee and he wouldn’t thank you for calling him a Scouser. He’s just as much a Mank as you are.’
    ‘Nobody’s as Mank as me. Anyway, I use them as a pair of bookends on club security. It’s charity really because they’re both useless for anything apart from picking up litter. Sorry, rewind that. No-Nose has improved a lot since his illness which is why I give him house room. In fact he’s becoming boring, giving me advice on my accounting system the other day he was but I’ll let you discover the new No-Nose for yourself. All I’ll say is brains can ruin a perfectly good gofer, which is what he was. He’s lumbered himself with that Lee, carts him around as if he’s his nurse. Lee is bad news and if I let him go, No-Nose will have to go too. Anyway, I’ll send them to meet you in Whitworth Street in two cars and they’ll leave you one.’
    ‘Thanks a bunch Bob,’ I said drawing in my breath. Was I going to get away without Bob’s ‘big ask’ which is what he usually calls taking responsibility for Clint?
    I wasn’t.
    ‘Dave,’ he asked cautiously, ‘you don’t by any chance need Clint do you? No-Nose can pick him up on the way to you.’
    ‘Bob, I’m not in any danger. Let Clint get his sleep. Just the car, that’s all I need. I’m an innocent bystander in all this.’
    ‘I can go with bystander but innocent doesn’t sound like you, Dave, or maybe it’s the other way round, but if you say so I’ll take your word for it. It might be nice if you live to see that baby you’re expecting so how about Clint? He can watch your back.’
    ‘I’ll be fine, Bob.’
    ‘Go on, man, you need Clint and your Baby does too. I’ll tell No-Nose to pick him up. OK?’
    He put the phone down before I could reply.
    I stepped out of the call box.
    There was still plenty of activity along Whitworth Street. Taxis were on the go the whole time, picking people up from the clubs that line the bank of the Rochdale canal. With its footbridges across the canal this small part of Manchester has an exotic feel. It’s definitely not Amsterdam or Venice but there’s something that draws the crowds. Maybe it’s the atmosphere of a big city where drinks and entertainment are on tap 24/7.
    The people, drunk and sober, were predominantly young, students blowing their loans.
    I looked at my watch. It was well after three.
    I briefly considered my options and decided that I didn’t have any. Convincing them I didn’t know a thing about them was a chance in a million. OK, make that ten million but I had to try.

 
    9
    Tuesday: 3.50 a.m.
    It began raining heavily while I waited for Bob’s soon-to-be redundant bookends.
    The streets cleared.
    Lights gleamed on the dark waters of the canal. The clubs began shutting their doors.
    I shivered in my dark water-proof. It kept the rain off but provided little warmth.
    Finally there were two cars, both large and dark, one a BMW estate, the other a Volvo. They entered the