Pursuit of Arms

by Gerald Hammond

  “That’s in the contract.”

  “Which you haven’t signed yet.”

  “All in good time.” Eddie glanced at Paul York. “Mr York will be looking after my interests while the guns are with you.”

  “Their security, do you mean?” Keith asked.

  “He can help with that. Mainly, he’ll be there to check the number of jobs done.”

  “I didn’t know you were putting in a mincer,” Keith said.

  “You think I’m daft? I’m paying you so much per job, as in your breakdown, and by time for anything not covered. You could be robbing me blind.”

  “I could, but I wouldn’t,” Keith said.

  Eddie’s plump lips creased in a smirk. “Not now, you wouldn’t,” he said.

  “Does Mr York know anything about gunsmith work?”

  Paul York spoke for the first time. “Enough,” he said. His voice was tenor. Keith had expected something deeper from so large a frame.

  “We’ve been going over your costings,” Eddie said. From inside his jacket he produced a Browning Hi-Power self-loading pistol (commonly called an ‘automatic’). “You put in fifty-five seconds for stripping one of these. Paul did it in thirty-three.”

  “You couldn’t expect a man to keep up that sort of speed all day,” Keith protested.

  “Maybe. But Paul isn’t a practised gunsmith. I reckon half a minute’s long enough.”

  “Rubbish!” Keith said hotly. “I couldn’t do it in that time.”

  “I bet you could. Keith, a six-year-old could do it.”

  “Never,” Keith said. “No way. Impossible.”

  “Where’s that daughter of yours?”

  Keith realised that he had been trapped. Deborah, very much her daddy’s girl, had been following him around for years, in and out of his workshop, and taking a lively interest in whatever he was doing. “She’s gone out,” he said.

  Eddie raised his eyebrows. There came the sound of a troop of elephants descending the stairs, singing shrilly and off key. “Is that your wife?” Eddie asked. “You might just ask her to come in for a moment.”

  No summons was needed. The door crashed open and Deborah advanced to Keith’s desk. “Daddy, Butch says I’m making great strides.”

  “Dancers aren’t supposed to make great strides,” Keith said quellingly. “And you know you’re not allowed to come barging in here while I’ve got visitors. Now, say you’re sorry and run along.” He found it very difficult to be severe with this engaging little person, who was beginning to take on the look of his dark and pretty wife.

  Although Deborah forgot such rebukes within the hour, she took them very much to heart at the time. “I’m sorry,” she wailed. Her eyes filled with tears and she backed towards the door.

  “Never mind,” Eddie said. He produced his most engaging smile, which nearly caused Deborah to bolt from the room. “Come here and show your daddy how clever you are. Take this apart, and if you do it quickly I’ll give you a pound towards a new dolly.”

  Deborah looked at him with something like contempt. She had never cared for dolls. “If I do it quickly,” she said, “never mind about the pound, can I keep this?” She picked up the Browning.

  Eddie laughed fatly. “I’m afraid little girls aren’t allowed to own such things,” he said. “But if you do it quickly, I’ll give you one of your very own as soon as you’re old enough and have your own firearms certificate.”

  “You don’t know how, do you?” Keith put in.

  “Oh, Daddy, don’t be silly,” Deborah said, removing the magazine. She pulled the slide back, using all her strength, and caught it with the safety-catch, turned and withdrew the slide stop and disengaged the slide. She compressed the spring to release the nose of the barrel and withdrew the spring and its guide. She removed the barrel and laid it on the desk. “Is that enough?”

  “Quite enough,” Eddie said. He looked at his watch. “Twenty-two seconds. Very good indeed.”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Keith asked Deborah’s departing back. “And who,” he asked Eddie, “told you that my daughter could strip a Browning?”

  “Your partner,” Eddie said. He was grinning.

  Keith felt better. If he had to shave the price, Wallace could take the blame. “You think you’ll never have to cough up,” he said, “but you’re wrong. That little madam will want her own certificate the moment she’s old enough, and she won’t forget your promise. So, before we talk any more, let’s have it in writing that you owe her a nine-mil Browning in good working order.”

  Chapter Three

  There came a bright, clear day, one of those glorious days which, although rare, symbolised summer in Keith’s mind. It was a day for getting out with a dog and a gun, reducing the rabbits, decoying for pigeon or controlling predators around the release pens. The coo-cooing of wood-pigeon in the sycamores was, for Keith, a call to arms.

  But work was pressing. Guns which had been forgotten since February were still coming in for overhaul. And Eddie Adoni’s firearms were on the way.

  Eddie’s lorry was not due until nearly noon. Keith turned his mind away from the sights and sounds and smells of the great outdoors and settled to work at his bench, upstairs in Briesland House among the racks of antique guns. He took up an ancient Jeffries sidelock and gauged the barrels as he had done at this season for the past fifteen years. It would break Mr Darnleigh’s heart, but this time he would have to be told that the barrels were beyond redemption. It was time for sleeving, or for an honoured retirement over the mantelpiece. He laid it aside and took up an A.Y.A.

  The phone rang shortly after eleven. Keith waited, in the hope that Molly would answer it downstairs, and then picked up the extension.

  “Mr Calder?” said a voice.

  “Speaking.”

  “I’m driving Mr Adoni’s lorry. I’m phoning from Carfraemill. Mr Adoni’s instructions weren’t clear. Could you tell me how to get to where I’m supposed to deliver?”

  “I sent Mr York detailed directions and a map,” Keith said.

  “I didn’t see Mr York, I saw Mr Adoni himself. He said something about a change of place.”

  Keith frowned. It was against his instinct to pass out such information over the phone. “What make of vehicle are you driving?”

  “A DAF,” the voice said, after a long pause.

  “You don’t seem very sure.”

  “I’m not driving my own cab. Couldn’t remember, for a moment.”

  “Colour?”

  “Dark red.”

  “I’ll wait for you at the first junction to the main road,” Keith said. He disconnected.

  With his hand on the phone, Keith took time for thought. The driver would take half an hour from Carfraemill. If that was where he was. And if that really was the driver. He lifted the receiver again and dialled from memory the number of the police in Newton Lauder. The ringing tone sounded only once before the call was answered. He recognised the voice.

  “Sergeant Ritchie?”

  “Is that you, Mr Calder?”

  “It is,” Keith said. “Is Mr Munro there?”

  “Och, no. He’s away out in his car.”

  “You know about the lorryload of guns I’m expecting?”

  “I do that,” Ritchie said placidly.

  “Somebody just phoned me up, saying that he was the driver and wanting directions. But I gave the owner’s legman a map and a detailed route to pass on to the driver. And the voice didn’t sound right. So instead of telling him where to go, I said that I’d meet him at the north junction.”

  Ritchie was known in the town as a calm, unambitious officer; but, as Keith knew, he was capable of quick and logical thought within his own limits. “I’ll send a car to meet you at the junction,” he said.

  Keith shot a look out of the window. His car was still outside. “I’m going to the workshop first,” he said, “in case the real driver’s got there ahead of time. Tell your car to watch for anyone who seems to be watchin
g for me. And it might be wise to have a car at the other junction as well.” Newton Lauder was unusual in that only two junctions to the main road gave access to the town and its hinterland.

  “If there’s a car to spare,” Ritchie said doubtfully. “One’s already at your workshop. “You’ll not suggest I move it?”

  “No, by God! Do what you can, and let the superintendent know. It’s likely that I’m getting in a panic over nothing at all. But all the same . . .”

  “Aye,” Ritchie said. “Just as well to mak’ siccar.”

  *

  Keith knew that his most sensible course would have been to remain at home and near the telephone. But the more he thought about that phone-call, the less he liked it. And it would have run contrary to his impatient nature to have stood by and put his trust in the power and intelligence of a couple of unarmed policemen while there was likelihood of an attempt being made on anything that belonged to him, or was his responsibility, or indeed anything in which he had even the most fleeting interest. He ran downstairs and called to Molly that he was going out.

  Molly popped her head out of the kitchen. “Take Deborah with you. She’s playing in the car.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t let her do that,” Keith said. “She fiddles with everything.” But it was quicker to accede. He darted out to the car. Deborah saw him coming. She scrambled over into the back seat and strapped herself in. Her expression dared him to try to evict her, on penalty of a screaming tantrum. Keith only sighed. He started the engine, switched off the lights, radio, wipers, heater and demister, pushed the seat back and rammed the car into gear.

  “Go fast, Dad,” Deborah’s voice commanded.

  “Just for once, Toots, I’ll oblige you.” He urged the car out of the gates and fastened his own seat-belt as they wallowed too fast along the uneven byroad. Then they were out into the road to Newton Lauder, once the main road between Edinburgh and the south but now bypassed. He used the gears to coax maximum acceleration out of the hatchback and was doing eighty before they overtook a lumbering artic in the teeth of an oncoming car. Deborah was singing, always her sign of great joy. He held his speed for a few more seconds and then the streets of the town were ahead. He would have forced his way through at speed except that nothing must distract the police from their set course. So he cruised through the cluttered streets at forty-odd.

  The streets were thinning as they neared the southern outskirts of the town and Keith pulled the car hard left into a young industrial estate. The gaily coloured box-like structures lacked the dignity of their stone-and-slate precursors, but Keith had had to admit their many advantages. The first units were all let and the area showed signs of life, if only in the number of vehicles occupying the neat bays. Further in, beyond a tract of unbuildable land where landscaping had already been prepared and planted, the buildings began again, but of the six so far constructed, only the one that Keith had rented was so far in any sort of occupation.

  The six units were built around a small courtyard. Keith stopped at the gateway and wound down his window. Two men in suits stepped out from behind the screen wall where, Keith thought, they had been enjoying a quiet smoke. Keith recognised both of them. The older, a sallow man with narrow eyes, had once trapped him with the breathalyser, although Keith had been exonerated by the blood test and the skin of his teeth. The other, a pink-faced youngster, was a very active member of the clay pigeon club. Beside the loading doors, a small knot of men were playing cards on a discarded packing-case. A van was parked beside them.

  “No word or sign of the truck?” Keith asked.

  “Nothing,” said the older man.

  “Be canny. There may be something up.”

  The elder nodded. “We just had word on the radio.”

  Keith craned his neck to look at the labourers. There were faces which he could not see.

  “Each of them has a letter signed by yourself,” the younger man said. “I checked.”

  “Good!”

  The older constable, overcoming his reluctance to admit his ignorance, was ready with questions, but Keith ignored him. He spun the car in the width of the road and lay-by and accelerated towards the street. Rather than go back through the town, he turned left — the driver, even of a vehicle coming from the north, might well prefer to come by the south junction, which had an easier turn for long vehicles.

  Clear of the town, the traffic thinned again. Keith built up his speed. He slowed again when a tractor and trailer loaded with straw bales prevented him from overtaking a small car; then up to speed again. Three cars approached; a driver pulled out to overtake but drew in again when he saw Keith’s speed and realised that no quarter would be given. Keith slowed again for the right-hand curve towards the main road. The junction was deserted, but as he turned right and began to climb the long hill he saw in his mirror a police Range Rover arrive from the south.

  A low-loader passed him, descending in a howl of gears with a small crane on its back and a comet-like tail of impatient cars. Then he had the road to himself. He swung to his right so that he could look down towards the town. No large vehicles seemed to be moving on the lower road. He pulled back to the left and climbed for another half-mile, then crossed again to the wrong side. Now he could see two articulated lorries heading south into the town. One was blue and seemed to be in the livery of the local carrier. The other, grey, looked plain.

  At a scream from Deborah and a blare of sound he looked forward again. Siren blasting, another mammoth of the road was bearing down on him, already huge against the sky.

  It was too late to brake. Keith stamped on his accelerator and spun the wheel, hoping against hope that no other vehicle was overtaking. He went clear with nothing to spare. The car rocked in the wind as a blue wall rushed by. He twisted the wheel back but his momentum was too great. The nose dipped, the car understeered and he thumped into the banking and stalled. The monster rushed on down the hill, its siren blaring contempt. Keith wondered whether this was the vehicle which he had been trying to intercept. He twisted his head round. He found that he could still see the junction, but the blue shape held straight on.

  Shaking, Keith restarted his engine and backed out into the carriageway. Deborah had whimpered but was now quiet. He threw her a reassuring word. The bodywork damage seemed slight, but as he pulled away he found that the steering was unsteady even at modest speeds and at over fifty a serious wobble set in. He curbed his impatience and held his speed down to forty-five for the mile or two remaining.

  At the north junction, a single police-car was halted, its occupants boredly watching the empty road. Keith stopped, window-to-window with the driver.

  “Anything?”

  The driver recognised Keith and shook his head. “Nobody showing any interest.”

  “Have any heavy vehicles turned in since you’ve been here?”

  “None at all. But we crossed with two on the way out.”

  “I saw them from the main road,” Keith said. “Was the blue one local?”

  The driver shrugged, but the other man leaned across. “It belonged to some firm in Greenock,” he said. “I noticed because I’ve family there.”

  “The load was coming from Clydeside,” Keith said, “so that was probably it. And if he didn’t wait here, the phone-call I got was a fake. They told you about that? It was a trick and I think I’ve fallen for it. I suggest you get on your blower and tell Sergeant Ritchie what I said. If he’s wise, he’ll send more men to the factory. I’m going back there now.” As he drove off, he saw the police driver already speaking into his microphone.

  It is human instinct to set off along the route which points most directly at the destination. Keith took the old, low road for Newton Lauder. “Keep your eyes peeled, Toots,” he threw over his shoulder. “We may want to remember what cars we’ve seen.” He had a momentary qualm that the other road would have been faster and would have given him again his bird’s-eye view of the town, but by the time they passed Briesland House the vib
ration in the steering had reminded him that his speed was limited; the shortest route was the best. He called again on his slight reserve of patience and reminded himself that he had no real cause for alarm. So Paul York had forgotten to pass the route to the driver. Or the driver had lost it and was trying to hide the fact. And the voice on the phone had not been English trying to sound Scots, but Scots trying to sound less regional. And perhaps the man really had forgotten what make of cab he was driving . . . He fought off the urge to clear his way with his horn, and threaded decorously through the town.

  As he neared the centre he was warned by the sound of klaxons and slowed to a crawl. In succession, three police cars slewed through the square and headed south. The traffic opened for them. Keith fell in behind. This might be no more than a response to his message. But no, there was an ambulance in his mirror. Ahead of him, two cars headed into the industrial estate while the third took up position at the entrance.

  Keith stopped and reversed into a side street and let the ambulance go by. In the certain knowledge that the worst had happened, he knew that Deborah must not go there with him. He turned the car back towards the square, to leave her with Janet at the shop.

  Chapter Four

  The sunshine was grey and irrelevant, and the front of Briesland House had lost its power to solace. The bright flowers might have been blown toffee-papers. Keith sat still in the driver’s seat and gripped the wheel until Molly thought that it would break. “God!” he said. “It was terrible. Just terrible.”

  “But what happened?” Molly asked again. Hearing the car but waiting in vain for her family’s boisterous entry, she had gone out to find Keith sitting alone in the car and staring sightlessly through the windscreen. She had sat down beside him, ready to give comfort, but Keith had been less than coherent.

  “Bloody awful!” he said, not for the first time.

  Molly tried a fresh approach. “You guessed that there was something wrong,” she said. “You phoned the police. You went to the factory and everything seemed to be all right. You drove out by the south junction and up the main road, putting a bash in the car on the way. Right so far?”