‘I’m trying to explain,’ Ian said patiently. ‘The problems of the successful crook are only beginning when he’s grabbed the goods. The little crook either gets ripped off by the fence or sells the stuff for peanuts in the pub the same evening. The bigger man, swindling on a large scale or stealing to order, gets a bigger percentage but then he has a problem explaining his affluence. If the police see a sudden improvement in his lifestyle shortly after a robbery bearing his hallmark, they want a damned good explanation of where the money came from; and the courts are becoming less credulous about gambling wins. Yet you can see the problem from the law’s viewpoint. Once money’s been juggled a few times, is it still the same money? To put it at its simplest, you have a hundred quid, you steal another hundred and you spend a hundred. Which hundred do you still have?
‘Multiply that by many thousands and you begin to get some idea of their operations. The two ingenious ladies set up or bought up a whole string of companies, here, abroad or in offshore oil, mostly paper companies but some small ones with real capital and activities. If somebody has something in need of discreet disposal – bullion, art treasures, jewellery or what have you – it goes in at one end and out at the other end pop shares in BP or the deeds to a house.’
Without losing sight of her apprehensions, Sheila was diverted by this glimpse into a new world of affluence and adventure. ‘The money still had to have originated from somewhere,’ she said.
‘True. And that was where Dora’s ingenuity came in. As one example among many, but an example which I know about because it impinged on a case where I was used as a dogsbody, it seems to be widely known in certain quarters that if you’re old and infirm and short of assets you can go to Dora and pick up a piece of money or a place in a nursing home in exchange for signing a blank will form, before witnesses of her choosing. Then, when you shuffle off this mortal coil – surprise, surprise! – it turns out that you had thousands in an unsuspected safe-deposit or owned a large house in a good neighbourhood, all bequeathed to your unfortunate old friend who, by coincidence, is so unjustly suspected of having opened Cartier’s safe.
‘So much for Dora,’ he added.
‘And the man?’
‘Him we don’t know. I wish to God we did. American from the sound of him. He might be another intermediary, but from his reaction to your sudden appearance I’d put him down as the hit-man. Nor do we have any idea who the target might be.’
Ian broke off. Visibility was patchy as the sun and the wind toyed with patches of mist, but where they were it had extended to about a mile, giving an illusion of a day clear but for a slight haze, so that a yacht on a reciprocal course, instead of lifting over the horizon, appeared to be born, full-rigged and with colourful spinnaker set, less than a mile away. Soon the two boats were abeam. The helmsman waved cheerfully as they passed.
‘I hope he’s not going into the Tay,’ Ian said. ‘He’s only got to cast up at Broughty or thereabouts and he’ll sure as hell be asked whether he crossed with Lonely Lady.’
‘Is that this boat’s name?’ Sheila asked quickly. ‘How do you know?’
‘Read it on the stern as we climbed aboard. He was a bit far out to be heading for the Tay. If he’s going on to Arbroath or Montrose they’ll still get to him, but it’ll take longer.’
‘Where are we going?’ Sheila asked. ‘No, first tell me how you came to be under the caravan.’
‘All right. That, after all, is the easier of the two questions.
‘I was watching the gunsmith’s workshop. It was a thin chance but the best I could do. We had a description of his woman client. It didn’t ring any bells at the time, but I recognised Dora as soon as she came out and a whole set of chimes started ringing. One of the Dundee officers was with me but I lost touch with him when I took off after her. And I don’t have a radio – I was told not to go through any Control Rooms.
‘Dora drove to Broughty Ferry, parked in the grounds of a house and walked over to the yacht club, escorted by several men, and went down towards the shore. The escort, I suppose, was in case her client decided to accept the weapon without parting with the cash. I found another way down and watched from a distance. I didn’t dare to go to a phone in case I lost track of her.
‘She strolled around, looking at her watch from time to time. I was sure that she was planning to meet somebody. When I saw the haar rolling in, I thought I’d better get closer. Nobody was looking, so I crawled under the caravan. I was right at the back end and I didn’t even see you. When the man first spoke to you, I thought he was talking to me. I nearly answered him. The rest you know.’
Sheila might be unversed in the ways of the underworld but she was not without intelligence. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight. That man was a professional killer with a – what do they call it? – a contract?’
‘Or a courier taking the weapon to the contract killer. Those are the only two explanations I’ve been satisfied with so far.’ He was frowning, but not at Sheila. ‘I should have grabbed the weapon while I had the chance.’
‘We’d have drowned,’ she pointed out. ‘I’m sure that the man was the killer and that the killing’s to be in Britain,’ she said positively.
‘How on earth do you figure that?’
‘My turning up put the cat among the pigeons.’ Sheila spoke slowly, fumbling to turn her intuitive reasoning into logic. ‘But it was the man who grabbed me first. If he was only a courier who was going to take the weapon abroad, I don’t see him hanging about and taking the risk of disposing of a witness. And why would Dora Whatsit get involved?’
‘If the target was a big enough figure – a President, a Prime Minister or the figurehead of some sectarian body – your sketch could be a deadly threat to both of them.’
Sheila thought in silence. The tale hung together well as far as it went, but would a humble detective sergeant from the outer reaches of some other constabulary be pursuing the villains on his own?
‘I’ve got it,’ she said. ‘You’re Interpol, aren’t you?’
‘No, I am not! That’s your least likely guess yet. Interpol’s only a centre for the exchange of intelligence.’
‘Special Branch, then?’
Ian’s denial was as vehement as if she had suggested that he was a talent scout for the white slave trade. ‘Believe whatever you want to believe,’ he added. ‘At least you can’t doubt that I’m on the side of the good guys.’
That seemed indisputable. Sheila certainly counted herself as being one of the good guys and he had proved to be on her side. But, from her occasional reading of spy fiction, it seemed to Sheila that even the good guys were prone to sacrificing the occasional pawn. She decided not to put the thought into his mind.
They thought their own thoughts for a minute. The yacht rode easily through a short seaway coming in from the east. They seemed to have the sea to themselves but that was an illusion created by the lingering haze. The beat of large engines reached them from seaward and later a succession of waves marked the wash of some vessel.
‘So where do we go now?’ Sheila asked suddenly. ‘Have you thought about that?’
‘I’ve thought about nothing else, in between answering your questions,’ Ian said. ‘Would it help if I did my thinking aloud?’
‘Yes. Of course it would.’
‘You may not like some of it. Dora and her friend may have said “Oh, the hell with it!” and gone home, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it, would you?’
Sheila shook her head.
Ian pulled a face. ‘I wish now that I’d spoken to that yacht that crossed with us. At least we could have asked him not to mention us, and have given him a message to pass along. I must be going gaga in my old age.’
‘The best ideas always arrive too late,’ Sheila said comfortingly.
‘Thank you for that much. Now, every thug in the country had some business with Dora or is likely to need a favour at some time in the future. And she must know more guilty secrets than
St Peter. So we must assume that she can call on all the help she needs. And so we can’t just wander ashore and drift around looking for a phone or the nearest police station.
‘Northward was a bad risk, a rugged coast overlooked from a main road and few harbours. And we don’t have enough food and water for a long trip. But south of here we have dozens of bays and anchorages within a day’s sail. God, how I wish we had a phone-book aboard and a copy of the Yellow Pages!’
The change of subject took Sheila aback, just when she thought that she was coming to grips with the problem. ‘But we don’t have a telephone. Or do we?’ she added. Agents, she knew, were equipped with all sorts of devices for communication.
‘No, of course we don’t,’ Ian said, trying vainly to mask his impatience. The damned woman still seemed to think that he was James Bond. ‘But the books might help me to choose the right harbour, one with telephones and police but without the sort of harbourmaster who could already have been reached by phone with some message or other. Something like, “I’m trying to reach an old friend to break bad news to him. If you get sight of Lonely Lady, say nothing and phone this number and there’s a hundred quid in it for you.”’
Sheila would never have thought of anything so devious. ‘Do you think that’s what they’re doing?’
‘It’s what I’d do. We’re crossing St Andrews Bay just now. St Andrews would be the first place they’d think of. I could take us into the Eden and up to Guardbridge, but the main road to St Andrews runs beside the Eden estuary.
‘Round the corner into the Forth we’ve got the Neuk of Fife and a whole string of harbours from Crail onward. And every damn town has a harbourmaster who’d be on the phone before we could get inside and bribe him not to. And in most of them, we’d be stuck on the mud at low tide. We might make it to the police station before they caught up with us, but would you feel safe in the local cop shop with one unarmed man on duty and the other out on patrol?’
Sheila shook her head decisively. An unarmed policeman would be little deterrent to the pair who had dragged her off the beach. ‘But we’ve got to get ashore before we starve,’ she pointed out.
‘That’s for sure,’ he agreed. ‘What’s more, the longer we skulk out here the more chance they have of getting word from some passing skipper and organising a reception. I think we’ve got to get further south. Dora’s city-bred. I don’t know about the man, but I don’t think he’d be boat-oriented. They’ll think of the shore and the local phone-book. To them, Dunbar’s a hell of a long way from Dundee, which indeed it is by road. But it’s only a short sail across the mouth of the Forth estuary.’ He broke off, looked at his watch again and listened. From off the starboard bow, out of the haze came a mournful bellow. ‘North Carr light vessel,’ he said. He set a new course on the compass. ‘We’ll take a rest in the anchorage at May Island and head into Dunbar in the early morning. Could you steer a compass course while I make a meal? Shout if you get into difficulties or if you see or hear anything. Anything at all.’
Chapter Four
Keith Calder filled the tank of his jeep with unleaded at the Newton Lauder Filling and Service Station, looked at his tyres, decided that they would do until next time and went in to present his credit card to the girl at the till. When he came out into the afternoon sunshine, Chief Superintendent Munro’s official Ford Granada was parked on the forecourt and his driver was under the bonnet, in discussion with one of the mechanics.
Munro himself emerged from the toilet and caught sight of Keith. He hesitated and then walked to meet Keith at the jeep. ‘A word in private,’ he said.
‘Hop in.’
Keith’s daughter was in the passenger seat. At a nod from her father she moved and curled up in the back with the two dogs. The men seated themselves in the jeep and Keith drove off the pump-apron and parked beyond the Granada.
‘I don’t know what you want with this toy car,’ Munro said peevishly.
‘It’s cheap to run,’ Keith said. ‘And I’d back it against that thing of yours, across country. What did you want a word about?’
‘A man came to see me this morning. An American. He saw the firearms staff first, but with Sergeant Fellowes away they couldn’t deal with him, so they sent him to me. He was asking for the Big Cheese. Is that what I am around there? The Big Cheese?’
‘The very biggest. What did he want?’
‘A firearms certificate for a pistol. To carry. For self-defence, of all things.’ Munro’s voice was shrill with indignation. ‘He said that he was a retired policeman and he’d made a lot of enemies.’
Keith was nodding. ‘That follows,’ he said. ‘And you told him that it was the business of the police to protect him but that they couldn’t do it and he wasn’t allowed to protect himself. So it was up to him to get killed, after which you would become interested and exact revenge on his behalf?’
‘Yes,’ Munro said. ‘I mean, no. It is getting beyond anything, Keith, when you twist a man’s words before he has even uttered them. I certainly told him that he would not get a certificate to carry a firearm for reasons of self-defence.’
‘Not even a retired American cop?’
‘Especially not a retired American cop. He will be accustomed to carrying a gun, using it first and explaining to a Board of Enquiry afterwards. We do not do things that way.’
‘I’d noticed,’ Keith said.
‘I thought I would warn you,’ Munro said. ‘He may call on you at the shop. His name is Cardinal. And if I discover that he has got his hands on a pistol, I shall be very interested in finding out where he got it from. You understand me?’
‘Somebody with an American accent was trying to reach me the other day. But I’ll be good,’ Keith said lightly.
‘Have you heard from Ian Fellowes?’ Deborah asked from her nest between the dogs.
Munro looked sideways at Keith. ‘I keep forgetting that he is sweet on young Deborah here. He told you of his . . . errand?’
‘Who do you think fixed him up with the van?’
‘I should have known. Perhaps we should have this conversation in private.’
‘I’ve no secrets from Deborah,’ Keith said.
‘And I know that we can trust your discretion. To tell the truth,’ Munro said, ‘I am concerned.’
‘You’re what?’ Deborah said from the back.
‘I think that you heard me. Your boyfriend reported last night, after a day spent in unproductive observation. But this afternoon, my contact at Tayside police phoned me. A woman, answering the description given to you by your witness, collected something from Ailmer’s workshop. One of my contact’s men was with the Sergeant at the time, but lost touch with him. The van has been found near the Royal Tay Yacht Club, causing a dangerous obstruction in the main road where I’m told they have a sea-fog. There seems to have been some sort of a stishie on the foreshore below the yacht club and two boats are missing, a yacht and one of those inflatable dinghies.’
‘And no sign of Ian Fellowes?’ Keith asked.
‘Not for the moment. And I am gravely concerned.’
‘So you should be,’ Deborah said.
‘Yes. If the Sergeant has not obtained any useful evidence, and if it should come out that I sent him there against the orders of his immediate superior, I could be open to criticism.’
‘And I would be leading it,’ Keith said. ‘Can I give you some advice?’
‘Why not? I have given you plenty, over the years. Not that you have ever taken any of it.’
‘Well, you’d better take this to heart. Your feud with McHarg will damage both your careers, one of these days. That wouldn’t bother me a whole lot. But – it’s my turn to utter a warning – if you let it get Ian Fellowes into danger or trouble, you’ll have me to answer to as well as the Disciplinary Board.’
‘And me,’ Deborah said hotly. ‘Especially me. I think you’ve got a nerve, Mr Munro, sending Ian alone and unarmed after an American hit-man and then worrying about your own re
putation. If anything’s happened to Ian, I’ll . . . I’ll do something awful. I don’t know what yet, but I will.’
Munro opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking. After a few seconds, he said, ‘Will you be at home this evening, Keith?’
‘I expect so. Why?’
‘A body has been found, cause of death so far undetermined.’ He twisted to look behind him. Deborah’s face, usually carefree and delicately pink, was an almost luminous white. ‘No,’ he said quickly, ‘it is not the Sergeant. And it was found in the Forth. It might be Robert Hall. If no other identification turns up shortly, they may be inviting you to go and identify it.’
‘Just what I needed to round off a perfect day,’ Keith said. ‘What happened to the van?’
‘I believe that it has been towed away.’
‘Tell them to take good care of it. I’m responsible. Also it has some of my things in it.’
When the Chief Superintendent had disentangled himself and left them, Deborah climbed over into the passenger seat. ‘Dad!’ she said reproachfully. ‘How could you? Ian may be in the most awful trouble and all you can think of is the things you lent him.’
Keith drove off, out of the town and along the road towards home. ‘That isn’t all I’m thinking about,’ he said. ‘But we don’t know that Ian’s in any bother and I don’t see that he’d be helped by my forgetting about a good pair of binoculars.’
‘Well, I think we should be doing something.’
‘So do I. But what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Deborah said miserably.
‘Nor do I. When I do know, we’ll do it. Meantime, I know what I’ve got to do and that’s to find somebody else to take on Robert Hall’s job.’
‘Dad, you’re heartless!’
Keith had never felt less like laughing but he managed to force a chuckle. ‘Remind me of that, next time you want a favour,’ he said.
*
An elegant upstairs room in a spacious old house in Broughty Ferry was doing duty as a command post. Usually a haven of peace, it was pulsing with the nervous energy of its occupants.
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