we do.’ Robbie smiled indulgently in her direction and opened the first of the box files.
They were labelled by date with Bernie Fielding 1–5 along the spine. Lesley had stayed behind to lend him moral support. A couple of years out of university she was still a little overwhelmed by the whole set-up at Gotcha, and for some reason by Robbie Hughes in particular. Maybe because he had personally plucked her out of a backwater in the company to join his personal staff. Unconsciously, under her adoring limpid gaze Robbie puffed out his chest further.
‘That’s exactly what this is – war. It’s this kind of dedication that brings in the awards year after year: ITV viewers’ Community Service Award three years running, Senior Citizen’s ‘We’re Fighting Crime’ special award for five years on the trot, Senior Ladies’ Circle best programme award. This is the cutting edge, but we mustn’t get complacent. Oh no – we need to continue with the good work, we must track these con men down, sniff them out wherever they’re hiding. We have a duty to the people of this country.’ Robbie allowed himself the ghost of a smile and turned up the Winston Churchill just a smidgen. He pulled himself up to his full five-foot-two-and-a-half inches while holding tight to his lapel and tucking his elbow firmly into his side in his favourite ‘leader of men’ stance. Shame they weren’t filming him, really.
Lesley nodded enthusiastically – Robbie thought for one glorious moment she might actually burst into spontaneous applause, but no, she just blushed furiously and pushed her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose with her index finger. It was an endearing little habit Lesley had, and sometimes when they were in bed together he noticed that she would do it even though she hadn’t got her glasses on and would then giggle self-consciously. Robbie smiled indulgently for a few seconds, coming over all soft and sentimental; what a precious little thing she was.
Lesley understood of course that Robbie would never leave his wife for her: he’d made that perfectly plain right from the very start. Robbie had decided that Lesley probably saw herself as the latest in a long line of valiant, self-sacrificing, much-overlooked women who attempted to sleep their way to the top and eventually settled for a place in the shadow of great men. The wind beneath his wings. Not that someone like Lesley was actually destined for the top, but even so he wasn’t the sort of man to disillusion a girl, particularly not one who was a natural blonde and so pleasantly perky and eager to please. No, Robbie Hughes was genuinely fond of Lesley, and she hadn’t said a word nor batted an eyelid when he’d slipped on her tights one night after work and suggested she might like to let him try on her shoes some time. Oh yes, as a personal assistant Lesley was perfect in lots of ways.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ she asked, as he opened up the first of the files. ‘It might help us to concentrate?’
‘Thanks, but no thanks. Not really a good idea, Lesley, not with my prostrate the way it is, I’d be up and down all night, but you have one by all means. We’re both in for a long hard session.’
She giggled although Robbie decided not to pick up on the double entendre; it wouldn’t do for them to get distracted when there was work to be done.
‘How about a mug of Cup-a-Soup instead, then?’ she suggested, padding over to the side table where the kettle, mugs and drinks were kept.
Robbie nodded, all the while surveying the notes he had piled on his desk. ‘Why not. I’ll have one of the ones with croutons. Now what we have to do is to imagine that we are big game hunters, Lesley. It’s important to understand our quarry if we stand any chance of catching him. So how do we find this man – where do we start?’ It was a rhetorical question and one that Robbie would try and work into the commentary if they ever managed to track Bernie Fielding to earth.
‘Let’s start with what we know, shall we? How about his background, his family?’
Waiting for the kettle to boil, Lesley gazed up at the ceiling and recited from memory, ‘Born 1952 to Shirley Elizabeth Fielding. His father Ernest Charles left when Bernard was just four years old, under a cloud of suspicion about his relationship with Lily Smith from the chip shop, to name just one of his numerous liaisons, and the whereabouts of the Glee Club Christmas money. Bernie left school at fifteen and has had various jobs since, including working on a market stall, delivery driver for Sunblessed, taxi driver and window cleaner – although he likes to tell people he was a paramedic in the Army or served undercover in the SAS. In 1972 he opened his first shop, importing cheap electrical goods, and he has been married twice; to Doreen Jean Parker in 1972, and in 1982 to Margaret Ann Morgan. Divorced twice, 1980 and 1990, a string of lovers and live-in girlfriends in between and on occasions at the same time, no children – or at least none that he pays maintenance for.’
Thoughtfully, Lesley stirred a heaped teaspoon of Nescafé into her mug, although her attention still seemed to be focused somewhere in the middle of the office ceiling. It disturbed Robbie a bit when she looked like that; it was as if Lesley could see something that he couldn’t, and then she turned and said thoughtfully, ‘You know, Robbie, if I’d have been married to Bernie Fielding I’d jump at the chance to stitch him up, once and for all. I mean I can’t see him playing straight with his wives any more than he did with any of the other punters.’
Robbie nodded. Lesley had picked up a certain streetwise patois since working at Gotcha, a little at odds with her nicely clipped Home Counties accent. She hadn’t quite got a real grasp of mockney yet but Robbie noticed with some pride that she was really giving it her best shot.
‘So you think we should start with his ex-wives, do you?’ he said hesitantly. It sounded a bit too close to home.
She nodded. ‘Uh huh, and previous lovers. I’ll go right back to the beginning, that way we won’t miss any potential leads; we’ve got lots of his old addresses on file. I’ll chase up all the Fieldings as well. I’ve got a copy of the electoral roll on the computer –’
Lesley handed him a mug of Cup-a-Soup and as she did Robbie engineered it so their fingertips touched for just an instant. She blushed deliciously, giggled and went to pick up another of the files.
‘It’s a real shame that we haven’t got a decent photo of him,’ she said, although Robbie could see that her mind – like his – had at least momentarily moved away from Bernie Fielding and onto something more carnal, more pressing, more immediate. They both knew that moral support wasn’t the only thing that Lesley had stayed behind for.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ he said in a low purr.
Eyes glittering like a feral cat, Robbie took the file out of her chubby little fingers and set it down alongside her coffee. A grainy press cutting of Bernie Fielding’s second marriage to some poor unsuspecting girl in Norfolk slipped out onto the desk top. The dots that made up the image were so blurred that it looked as if a giant hat was marrying an Afro with a Mexican bandito moustache. The clipping fluttered with surprising grace into the puddle around the bottom of Robbie’s mug and sucked up the liquid like a parched man, tinting the bride and groom a not unattractive sunbed beige.
Not that Robbie took a lot of notice. If they were going to pull an all-nighter what was half an hour between friends on the office couch? He picked up his digital camera from the desk and pointed it at her. ‘How about I get a few good close-up shots of you for the album?’ he purred, in what he liked to think was a deep, seductive tone.
‘Oh Robbie,’ Lesley giggled furiously as he leant closer and unbuttoned the top of her blouse. As she wriggled like a fish, he pulled her down onto his lap.
‘You are such an animal,’ she gasped, as Robbie focused the camera on her cleavage.
‘Why don’t you take the rest of your clothes off,’ he said. ‘Get yourself nice and comfortable?’
Lesley put her hand over the lens, while with the other hand she tried to undo his trousers. ‘No publicity,’ she whispered thickly as the buckle gave way.
In the small but snug sitting room of a residential caravan at the back of the Old Dairy in Renham, Stella Conker-eyes had pulled off a miracle comparable only to the raising of Lazarus; and so far she