by Ian Rankin
‘You’ll have to ask Robert Gissing that.’
Laura had spotted them and was heading their way. She touched Ransome on his forearm. ‘Any chance of a word with the prisoner?’
Ransome seemed reluctant, but her eyes won him over and he noticed that Chib Calloway was being led out of the hall in handcuffs, having woken up to find himself surrounded by Lothian and Borders’ finest.
‘I’ll just be a minute,’ Ransome warned as he headed off in Calloway’s dazed direction. Laura leaned in towards Mike and pecked him on the cheek.
‘I asked you to save the day,’ she told him, ‘and you duly obliged.’
‘You might not have noticed,’ he reminded her, ‘but really it didn’t have much to do with me.’
‘Actually,’ Allan piped up, ‘if we’re discussing life-savers . . .’
Laura beamed a smile at him and gave him a hug and a kiss, before turning back to Mike. This time when they kissed it was on the lips. Allan made a show of turning away, so they had at least the semblance of privacy. She wrapped her arms around Mike and he felt warmth flowing through him.
‘Will you be in prison for a long time?’ she asked.
‘Will you be waiting for me?’
‘I asked first.’
‘Ransome reckons three years. He also says I should get the best legal team money can buy, and a psychiatrist who’ll vouch for my insanity.’
‘So you’ll probably end up a pauper?’
‘And a lunatic - is that going to affect our relationship, do you think?’
She gave a little laugh. ‘Let’s wait and see.’
Mike was thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’ll have to find out how often I’m allowed visitors . . .’
‘Don’t count your chickens, Mackenzie - will jail be smelly and full of leering sex maniacs?’
‘Probably - and that’s just Allan.’
A couple of uniformed officers were approaching, ready to usher Allan and Mike into the van. Laura and Mike embraced again and shared a final, lingering kiss.
‘If I’d known,’ Mike mused, ‘that this was all a fellow had to do to win you over . . .’
‘Break it up now,’ one of the uniforms said.
‘One more thing,’ Mike told Laura as they were separated. ‘When you visit, I’ll need you to bring me stuff. Maybe I can give you a shopping list?’
‘What sort of stuff?’
He pretended to be thinking. ‘Atlases,’ he said at last. ‘World atlases . . .’ He was halfway into the back of the van. ‘Plus travel books, art books, list of museums and galleries of renown.’
‘You’re going to better yourself, is that it?’
He decided that the best thing to do was nod his agreement. She didn’t get it, not just yet. Allan did, though, and gave him a glance that said as much.
Said there was someone Mike needed to find, just as soon as they let him out . . .
Epilogue
Professor Robert Gissing was in the study of his whitewashed home in the centre of Tangier. His reverie had just been broken by the sound of a motorbike misfiring. The windows had been thrown wide open, and the sun was high overhead in a clear blue sky. He could hear the varied noises of business wafting up towards him from the market downstairs. Bartering and general gossip, plus the diesel clatter of antiquated vans and lorries. They never really disturbed him, and now the motorbike’s surly engine had been switched off, too. He could sometimes smell spices and coffee in the air, and cardamon, citrus fruits and incense. They all added to the sensations of a life being lived to the full in a world rich in everyday wonder. He was happy here, with his books and a glass of infused mint. There were fine rugs overlapping on the floor and fine paintings covering a good deal of the available space on the walls. He had no telephone and he received no mail. He had access to the internet, thanks to the café at the end of the street, but only used it once or twice a month to catch up on the news from Britain. He would do a word search, entering names such as Mackenzie and Calloway, Westwater and Ransome. He didn’t know enough about computers to be completely confident that he wasn’t leaving a trail of some kind by doing this - he remembered reading an article once about how the FBI would monitor people’s borrowings from libraries, names being flagged up if they were taking out items such as Mein Kampf and the Anarchist Cookbook. He didn’t suppose the internet would be very different, but all the same felt it a risk worth taking. Know your enemy and all that.
Of course, it was entirely possible that he’d been forgotten about, dismissed by the police as untraceable. And if they couldn’t catch him, what chance did amateurs like Mike and Calloway have? Okay, so Mike had some knowledge of computers, but Gissing doubted this extended to covert tracking and the like.
For the first couple of years, however, he hadn’t stayed anywhere for too long. Fake passports had been provided in a variety of names, costing him thousands but worth every penny, euro and dollar. One of the paintings that had come into his possession happened to be by an artist coveted by a Saudi businessman. Gissing had known as much when he’d taken it. The collector had paid Gissing half what the piece was worth on the open market, on the understanding that it would remain in his private gallery.
‘For both our sakes,’ Gissing had warned him, ‘but especially yours.’
The gentleman had understood and had been delighted with the purchase. That deal alone had allowed Gissing to travel in some style: France, Spain, Italy and Greece, then Africa. He had now been in Tangier for four months, but had moved his things here from storage only once he was confident that he would be staying. At the local cafés he was known as ‘the Englishman’, a misapprehension he had done nothing to correct. He had grown a beard and often wore a panama hat and sunglasses. He had also fought hard to lose three and a half stones in weight. Only on a few occasions had he wondered if it had all been worth it. He was, after all, a fugitive. He could never return to Scotland, could never see friends again or drink whisky with them in a decent pub while the drizzle fell outside. But then he would spend a while gazing at his paintings, and a slowly spreading smile would replace any lingering doubts.
The CD he had been listening to stopped abruptly at the end of its final track. Bach, played by Glenn Gould. He was working his way through the classical repertoire. The same thing went for books - he had vowed to try Proust again, and to reread Tolstoy. There was even a plan to study Latin and Greek. He reckoned he had another fifteen or twenty years in him, plenty of time to savour each morsel, each sip, each musical note, word, and stroke of the brush. Tangier was similar to Edinburgh in some ways - a village masquerading as a city. He was no longer a stranger to his neighbours and the market traders. The owner of the internet café had invited him to dine with his family. Street children liked to tease him. They tugged on his beard and pointed at the bow ties he’d taken to wearing. He would sit at outdoor tables, picking at his dinner and sometimes wafting air across his face with the brim of his hat.
It was, he had concluded, neither better nor worse than the life he’d once had in Edinburgh - it was different, that was all. He regretted the involvement of Michael and Allan, naturally he did. But Calloway had been Mike’s idea, and a very bad idea at that, though in retrospect almost perfect for Gissing’s own purposes. Of course, it hadn’t worked precisely to plan. Michael and Allan, not to mention Calloway, had been able to persuade the authorities that the missing artefacts had nothing to do with them. Gissing’s photo had been published in a great many newspapers across the globe, hence his nomadic existence. But all that was in the past now, and he could start to relax a little. The book containing the Picasso lithographs was written in Spanish - some folk tale or other. He’d vowed to teach himself Spanish also, so as to savour it all the more. His favourite painting, however, was a Peploe still life, full of glassy realism and romance. He wasn’t sure now about the one Wilkie portrait in his collection. If he ever needed additional funds, it would probably be the least painful to part with. The Saudi had said he would be inter
ested, should future negotiations prove possible. For now, though, Gissing was quite content.
The doorbell sounded, followed by a knocking. He didn’t get up immediately, but when the knock was repeated, curiosity got the better of him. He rose with a little effort to his feet and padded barefoot across the floor. Was he expecting someone?
The answer was yes. Yes, and always. It was a couple of weeks since his last search of the internet. Anything could have happened in the interim. People could have been released from jail. All the same, once freed from custody, they would still have a job on their hands to track him down . . .
Before he had quite reached it, the door began to open.
‘Hello? Is anyone home?’ The voice was accented, but he couldn’t quite place it.
‘Can I help you?’ Gissing was saying as he went to meet his visitor.