Hot Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page A

hopefully.
    Maggie lifted her eyebrows. ‘As far as I know, although after a night up the pub it was sometimes extremely difficult to tell. Except for the snoring and the scratching, obviously.’
    ‘Okay, okay – so what does he do?’
    ‘Bernie?’ Maggie wiped her hand across the chopping board guiding the great heap of mangled vegetables into a big saucepan and then looked skyward as if trying to frame a thought. ‘Gynaecology,’ she said, slamming the pan down onto the stove and lighting the gas. ‘He was always very good with his hands was Bernie.’
    Nick felt his colour draining away. ‘Oh my God, are you saying that Bernie Fielding is a doctor?’
    Maggie shook her head. ‘No, unfortunately not – just a keen amateur, which was a shame because we could have done with the money.’
    Nick stared at her and then reddened as comprehension dawned. ‘God, I’m so sorry – I thought – sorry –’ he stammered.
    Maggie waved the remark away. ‘What? It’s not your fault, is it? I’m assuming you’ve just got his name and not his moral outlook? What is it you know about food?’
    ‘Food? Oh, right, well I used to run a restaurant, before –’ said Nick, struggling to regain his composure. ‘Before all this happened.’
    ‘There, see, now we’re getting somewhere. It wasn’t all that painful, was it? And how about now?’
    ‘Now? Now I’m – I’m on holiday,’ he stalled.
    Maggie snorted. ‘Don’t be silly. You can’t be on the run and be on holiday.’
    ‘I’m not exactly on the run, I’m…’ Nick squirmed. He couldn’t see how the hell he could go on with this and so he raised his arms in surrender. ‘Okay – the things I’m about to tell you are secret but under the circumstances I don’t see what else I can do. My real name is Nick Lucas and I’m in a witness protection and relocation programme. Bernie Fielding is, was , supposed to be my new name, my new assumed identity. The thing is there has to have been some sort of mix up, because I’m certain that I’m supposed to have a ficticious identity, not take over the tail end of somebody else’s life. The only problem is I’m not sure what I can do to sort out any of this at the moment. I genuinely haven’t got anywhere else to go – at least not straight away. I thought I’d ring the number they gave me –’
    Maggie grinned, slapping the lid on the pan with a flourish.
    ‘You don’t hold up very well under pressure, do you?’ she said, pouring them both a glass of wine.

2
    There had to have been some kind of mistake, except of course that that was impossible. Stiltskin didn’t make mistakes. In the neat, well-ordered, air-conditioned government offices deep in the bowels of Colmore Road the clerk tapped at the keyboard of the computer keeping one eye on the door.
    ‘RUN STILTSKIN…?’ flashed up on the screen again. She had already run it twice and something strange had happened. Very strange. It was her responsibility to do the back-up files on those people her department took under its protective wing. Normally it only took a few minutes, but she had been working on this one for the best part of half an hour.
    First of all she’d needed to check up on the client’s new name and address. Except when she’d fed his name in, the computer kept coming up with two new names. Two sets of fictitious detailsscrolling merrily down the screen, side by side. Now, having repeated the process, the same unlikely combination of information rolled out again and again, like digital schizophrenia.
    According to the notes that went with the case, Nick Lucas should have become James Cook. That was what was supposed to have happened, that was what she had expected to have happened, except that somewhere in the wiry underbelly of the computer on Colmore Road a third name had entered the equation: Bernie Fielding. It was all very odd. She had never come across anything like it before, even on the trouble-shooting training course