Overkill – Bentley 8

[For back story see lower numbers in archive]

It was only after the phone call with Shiela that Bentley had a momentary lapse in faith as to what he was doing. Having engaged no less than three slightly nefarious perhaps some might even go so far as to say dodgy people via the Internet to do some digging and protection work, he realised that for at least one of those people he could really do the job himself. After all he was approaching the point where he was paying someone (who called themselves 'The Vertibrain') to protect himself from someone (Darren) he was paying to help him, and when part of that deal was to get round Shiela and then Shiela wasn't actually being that bad, Bentley suspected his money might be better spent elsewhere.

Bentley was making a rod for his own back. The people he'd hired were loose canons and the nature of the job meant too loose would not be good. Needing information on his son was one thing, but doing it in a way that jeopardised his relationships with everyone else in the family was also not good. In particular he didn't want his new found granddaughter Natalie to be door-stepped by someone looking for her dad and offering money and threats in equal proportion.

Speaking with his ex-wife, Bentley had suddenly remembered that far from just being an email address and phone number from where abuse would occasionally flow, Shiela could actually be quite, how would he put it, human. Maybe not to the extent that he'd be able to sit physically alongside her with no problem at all but he had to face it, there were times when he remembered why he married her.

"I didn't forget the Orient Express," she'd said in hushed tones down the phone, "it's simply that there are occasions when it isn't wise to let on that I still think about... Previous occasions. You never know who may be listening."

Ironic, thought Bentley to himself since Darren may already be tapping her line and listening to this conversation with a grin on his face and a notebook in his hand. Did private investigators still use notebooks and pens, he fleetingly wondered?

Bentley had phoned Shiela ready to confess that he had hired Darren to get more information on Lawrence, but when it came down to it he didn't want to spoil the sort of special moment that had developed between them. Why end it all with a screaming row when you could just wish each other well and move on? And in doing so Bentley made the resolution – and even told her directly – that he would phone and text Shiela regularly just to make sure nothing – untoward – happened to her. At the moment. Or ongoing. For whatever reason. She'd think he was concerned for her welfare – which he was – but she wouldn't have to know precisely how and why he was concerned for it.

Natalie was a different and more difficult matter. She'd only just got in touch with him, was hesitant and understandably nervous around him and the appearance of Darren in her life was not something Bentley could stomach. He had to admit that he was a fool for thinking any enquiry into Lawrence wouldn't mean questions to her – but there you were, he was a fool.

He also had no way of contacting her directly – she had phoned him and he hadn't wanted to request details she didn't want to give. So with one person now tracking Darren's activities and another set to look after or at least find and monitor Natalie, Bentley thought he'd probably covered his bases. More than covered, obscured and entirely buries so he couldn’t see them anymore. Now all he could do was sit and wait for the phone to ring.

Except, after everything else, the damned thing then didn't and continued not to for a few days. Eventually, after another amicable and thankfully not at all eventful conversation with Shiela, Bentley took the Internet into his own hands, closed down his live train timetable page and headed out into the wide blue yonder of cyberspace to track down his granddaughter before anyone else did.

If he was good he'd be able to find her, talk to her and call off all his other 'helpers'. If he were not so good he would at least get his apology in early. If he were dreadful then 'Dark Shadow' the account he'd commissioned to find her, would deliver him the information he needed and then he'd have to start explaining things to her and not stop until he'd explained everything.

With the clock ticking Darren, with Dark Shadow and The Vertibrain now on his payroll, Bentley started off down the routes he could access. He was sure Darren had already been down these, but at least he had one thing on his side at the moment and that was Natalie’s good will. At least he hoped so.