by Robin Flett
But this wasn’t the time for gloomy introspection about politics, this was holidays. Like millions of working people, Alison looked forward to the annual family holiday. A break from work, from routine––from the city. She had lived in Wolverhampton all her life, but a nice little cottage in the countryside … one of these days.
Holidays usually meant cramped flights and package-deal hotels, with endless sunshine as the only compensation. This year, however, they had decided on something different. Something really different. The Orkney Islands.
As her husband Ken had commented sourly, ‘We might as well have a look around before the Customs barriers go up!’
When they crossed the Scottish border, Alison was surprised to see just a minor signpost at the side of the road. She watched it pass and wondered whether the Scottish Parliament really considered such a trivial delineation acceptable. She doubted it.
The M74 runs from the Borders through Lanarkshire and ultimately ends in Central Scotland. From there, good links exist east to Edinburgh, west to Glasgow and north to Perth and Inverness.
For the Baskers, approaching from the south, the immediate problem was where to find some lunch. They were now passing through a heavily populated and industrialized area. Apart from the colourful sward of Strathclyde Park, only the motorway itself appeared to separate the uninspiring conurbations on either side.
'There’s a Services area, that'll do.' Ken pointed to the roadside sign coming up on their left.
Alison was not a great fan of motorway service station food––few folk are––but the only alternative in the short term was either to struggle with the traffic in a strange town, or carry on in the hope that something better would appear before too long. Hunger triumphed over speculation.
Both the children had perked up by this time and were taking great interest. Not so much in where they were, more in the knowledge that lunchtime was imminent! They led the way across the car park, racing each other and full of energy after the long journey from home. Alison and Ken followed more slowly, but they were also glad to stretch their legs and breath some fresh air.
Alison looked about her. A humble lunch stop it might be, but it was the first of a great many new places for all of them on this holiday. She had taken a bit of convincing about the Orkney trip, but as time passed and the holiday loomed ever closer, she had found herself looking forward to it more than she would ever have thought. Ken was right, it was much more fun to go somewhere new, rather than the same familiar haunts. Wait until those two saw the boat tomorrow …
Inverness town centre, like many others, is not the sort of place a sensible man expects to find a parking slot just when he needs it. The multi-story car park opposite the bus station is not often full, except at weekends, but today Hollis had no need to fight with the traffic on the partly one-way ring road around the town centre. He circled the town, well clear of the traffic problems, and entered Longman Industrial Estate. He pulled in at a small motor-repair business. He had something to collect following a visit the previous day.
The earliest references to Inverness appear in the sixth century AD, in Amdamnan’s account of the life of St Columba. He describes Columba’s visit to King Brude’s stronghold in an attempt to convert the northern Picts to Christianity. “Inver” means “mouth”, and the town grew up around the mouth of the River Ness where it flows into the Beauly Firth. The original Castle has been suggested as the location where the murder of King Duncan by Macbeth actually took place. The present Castle, now local government offices, was built between 1834 and 1846.
Ten minutes later Hollis emerged, carrying a rectangular piece of yellow plastic. One more problem dealt with. He had been running around for quite a while now with an illegible rear number plate. He could do without any well-meaning police officers taking an interest in it.
He left the industrial estate at a junction on the A9 giving access to the Kessock Bridge. Turning away from the bridge road, he drove back into Inverness past Raigmore Hospital, through the districts of Culcabock and Crown. After a few minutes of searching, he found a space for the Range Rover in Ardconnel Terrace.
The footpath down the steep hill of Stephens Brae brought Hollis into the town centre opposite the Eastgate Shopping Centre. The main business centre in Inverness forms a large extended triangle, bounded on its longer sides by Academy Street and Church Street. The short base being the ancient High Street, at whose northern end lies the bright new shopping precinct of Eastgate.
Mike Hollis walked down Academy Street almost to the railway station and turned left into Union Street, which runs through to Church Street on the opposite side of the triangle. His main purpose was to extract a fairly large sum of money from one of several bank accounts he held in false names. As always, everything on this trip would be paid in cash. Nothing to trace, nothing to find.
He planned to stay the night in Thurso or thereabouts––it didn't really matter. Better that than an early start from home tomorrow and then a chase all the way up the A9 to catch the ferry at noon. It would be just dandy to get stuck behind a couple of tourist caravans or something on the notorious twisting road north. With little opportunity of passing he could easily miss the sailing time while the holidaymakers gauped at the passing landscape. Hell with that.
His business completed, and a fat wallet tucked securely inside his jacket, Hollis went for lunch. Better to eat here as try to find something further along the road. There was no hurry after all.
An hour later he was on his way back to the car. He was about to turn into Church Street when he caught a glimpse of a blond-haired young man walking through the Hotel entrance opposite. For a second Hollis was puzzled: he knew that face, but couldn't put a name to it. Then it came to him, along with a surge of adrenaline through his entire system.
The mugger from Wexford!
Hollis knew the Cairngorm Hotel well. He strode rapidly down Bank lane at the end of the block. At the bottom of the small incline he turned right alongside the River Ness, where it flowed on the last half mile or so of its journey to the Beauly Firth. A few metres along was a small car park belonging to the hotel, and the rear entrance. Hollis went in the door and up the stairs leading to the main foyer.
Just short of the top he stopped. He was facing the glass double doors where the blond figure had entered the building. The reception desk was behind him, about ten metres away, and unsighted. Reflected in the glass doors, Hollis could see three figures standing at reception, and he could hear them talking among themselves as they waited for the receptionist to finish a phone call. Blondie was one of the three and they were clearly together, but that wasn't the worst of it. Hollis listened to the voices and felt shivers run up and down his spine.
German. They were speaking in German.
Hollis wasn't given to premonitions. Nor was he subject to feelings of persecution or any other form of neurosis. But he was a careful man, who liked to think he was still alive because he paid close attention to the world around him. A world full of dangers and uncertainties. A world where few things happened by chance.
And he didn't have much time for coincidences, either.
It had been three years since the Berlin thing, but that was but a blink of an eye to the memories of fanatics. There had always been a very real possibility of the Neo-Nazi movement using their more unorthodox contacts around the world to track him down. It was a curious, and disturbing, observation that such a group might well have better means of doing so than the forces of law and order.
Hollis studied the reflections of the older man and the woman in the glass door. He couldn't recall seeing either of them before, although his eyes paused significantly longer on Helga Wrasse. As if deep down in his mind a faint echo had stirred.
'37 and 44 please.' The woman's English was good, with a very slight accent. Hollis watched as the receptionist handed over two keys: he couldn't tell which was which, but the older man was clearly sharing with the woman.
The thr
ee headed for the stairs leading up from the foyer, almost directly above where Hollis stood. Quickly, he moved back down to the lower floor and out the back door. Well, at least he knew where to find them again. It was going to foul up his schedule, but this situation had to be dealt with. Right at this moment he did not need some stupid vendetta going down.
Back in the Range Rover, Hollis sat looking out the window, his mind far away. After a time he looked down at the seat alongside him and, reaching out, picked up his new rear number plate. He had only noticed the broken one when he was unloading the car back at the cottage. Whatever had happened to it had occurred during the Irish trip. Thinking back over the incident in Wexford, he remembered reversing the car onto the pavement to get clear of the adjacent vehicle. He certainly went pretty close to the wall, had he touched something hard enough to break off a piece of the plastic plate? Must have.
For a time, Hollis sat idly studying the new number plate. Then his eyes narrowed and he sighed heavily. Using his fingers, he teased up and removed a shiny metallic-effect sticker from the bottom edge of the plate. He held the thing up accusingly in front of him, a corner stuck to his index finger. It bore the name and address of the company in the industrial estate where it had been made earlier that afternoon.
'Bastard!' Hollis cursed himself violently. 'Stupid bastard!'
Frank Wedderman read through the latest batch of faxes for a second time. Interpol had been of little help. Other than the Berlin event a few years ago, there had been no unexplained or mysterious deaths of prominent people. Sure, there were one or two terrorist groups about that needed watching. But a bomb in a carrier bag outside a department store, or nerve gas released in a Tokyo subway simply wasn't in the same league as a long gun in the hands of a marksman without a conscience.
Neither had the Interpol data banks turned up one single reference to anyone called Hollis––even for so much as a parking ticket.
Wedderman was in no way surprised: it fitted the pattern. This contract killer was no-one's fool. That was why Wedderman had resorted to sending secure faxes to every police force in Europe individually. It was a faint hope, the Interpol network was wide ranging and very efficient. He had seen plenty of examples of its capabilities during his career. That's why it went against the grain so much to bypass it. Not that it was doing him much good.
He dropped the slim bundle of papers onto the desk, sitting back in his chair with his hands steepled under his chin. He hated to ask the insufferable son-of-a-bitch for help, but he had run out of options. There were only two weeks left to the Royal visit and––when was it that Tony Blair intended to walk the streets of Aberdeen? He ruffled through the papers on his desk, finding the right one at last. ‘Oh shit,’ he mumbled. It was the same day. That was guaranteed to give everyone involved with security a headache.
Wedderman could not have said when or how he formed the conclusion, but he knew that one of these two was Hollis' true target. The other possibilities he regarded as being irrelevant––they simply weren't important enough to make it worth someone's while paying the sort of fee Hollis would want.
No. Tony or Charles. It was one or the other.
God help them, because I'm not sure I can.
He picked up the phone, punched for an outside line and dialled Greenside's private number...
In the depths of winter, the mountains bordering much of the A9 route through the highlands of Scotland can resemble an Arctic wilderness. Where vicious winds can whip snow from the ground and cause blizzards to blow for hours without a single new flake falling from the sky. A place where people die every year, many of them because they underestimated or ignored the drastic climate changes found on the upper slopes. Where wind-chill alone can plummet the effective temperature to 20 below, even with the sun splitting the sky.
On a pleasant summer day, though, the landscape is transformed. There are few places in Europe, and some would say the world, that can surpass the sheer majesty of these same mountains and glens. Alison Basker had never seen anything like it. Even the children were awed into silence by the towering mass of Carn nam Bain-tighearn as they passed the sign procliaming: Slochd Summit.
Shortly afterwards they emerged from the mountain pass on the last leg of the A9 to Inverness. Breasting the final hill they were presented with a breathtaking view down over the town and the Moray Firth.
'That's where we're going.' Alison looked up from the large road atlas on her knees and pointed through the windscreen. 'Just across the bridge. North Kessock is on the Black Isle.'
'Where?' Ken couldn't see any bridge, and he couldn't see an island either.
'There, look!' His wife's finger jabbed in front of his nose.
Ken finally spotted the Kessock Bridge, looking like a toy from this distance. 'Oh.'
Alison went back to the map. 'The Black Isle isn't actually an island at all,' she said. 'It's just a promontory jutting out from the mainland. I wonder why it's called that?'
'God knows!'
Alison grinned. It had been a long journey, with an early start, and she really had not been looking forward to it at all. However, the truth was that it had been a marvellous day. Full of sights and experiences she had never encountered before. Why had they never thought of coming here in the past? She couldn't understand it. But she knew what had become her over-riding impression, reinforced with every hour that had passed.
She had never before realized that Scotland was so big.
Mike Hollis had spent over two hours exploring the A82 down Loch Ness-side almost to the village of Drumnadrochit. He was well pleased with what he found. The road was wide enough for only a single lane in each direction for most of its length. A few wider stretches had been carved from the living rock of the hillside, solely to provide passing opportunities. The frustration of more than a few impatient drivers had resulted in death on this undulating highway. Hopefully late at night other traffic wouldn't be an inconvenience.
Satisfied, Hollis turned in a parking space alongside the dark, swirling waters of the loch and drove back towards Inverness. It was going to delay his trip north by a few hours, but this thing had to end here. Tonight. He simply couldn't spend the next week looking over his shoulder all the time. Searching for Germans under every bush. Seeing enemies and disaster in every shadow. No way. Completing the mission and getting clear afterwards was going to take his full attention. That was all that mattered at this point.
Nothing was going to be allowed to interfere.
Nothing.
Klaus Ditmar and Helga Wrasse watched their reflections brightening in the windows as the deepening twilight outside turned the glass into mirrors. Klaus drained the last of the lager, his third of the evening, and set the pint glass down on the table. The chairs in the hotel lounge bar were comfortable and he was loath to move. But it would be closing time soon anyway. Uwe was out on the town somewhere, trying to get laid. He probably wouldn't be back before morning. With this thought in his mind, Klaus started toying with the idea of taking Helga upstairs for an early night.
'Do you really think it's going to be as easy as this to find the bastard?' Helga asked. As always, when in public, they spoke in German. The typical British disregard for any language but their own had proved useful on several previous occasions. The odds against a casual acquaintance or eavesdropper understanding German were high. Just the same, it didn't pay to be too explicit.
Klaus shook his head. 'I doubt it. Finding the dealer who sold him the Range Rover was one thing. The problem is he paid in cash so you can be pretty sure the address he gave them was false.'
'Yes, it obviously made quite an impression,' Helga's voice was sour. 'Not every day he gets handed eightteen thousand pounds in banknotes!' She recalled the salesman's face as he had recounted the story of the nondescript American who had walked in off the street and purchased the second-hand Range Rover without so much as a trial run.
The Germans had given the dealer a tale about a hit-and-run accident
which had left a piece of number plate with their logo on it at the scene. Could they recall selling a steel-blue Range Rover ... ?
'Well, we checked the address here in town and there was no-one at home. No Range Rover outside either.'
'Yes, we can look again tomorrow but I think it's a false trail.' Helga agreed with an irritated edge to her voice.
'We can keep on looking for a while yet.' Klaus watched the passing traffic for a time. 'If we can't find the bastard, then we can't find him. But it's got to be worth trying.'
'Of course it’s worth it!' Helga was for abandoning the task ahead and keeping after Hollis, but she knew Klaus would never agree to that. Still, they could always come back ...
The bar door burst open and Uwe came through, almost at a run. Heads began to turn as other patrons looked round at the disturbance. Even before he reached their table he was spluttering: 'Here ... he's here!'
'Sit down!' Klaus Ditmar's voice was hard. People were taking notice: the last thing he needed. Fortunately Uwe too had used German automatically.
'But––'
'Sit down!'
He must have learned that tone of command, Helga thought admiringly. It certainly brought Uwe up short. Subdued, he sat.
'Keep your voice down. What is it?'
'He's here, I'm telling you! Outside!'
'What are you talking about, boy?' Klaus snapped, unsettled with the sudden disorder of his quiet evening.
'That bloody Range Rover, that's what! It's outside.' Uwe tapped the tabletop for emphasis. 'Hollis is here!'
Helga couldn't help it, she glanced around the lounge bar as if expecting a grinning face at the next table.
'Are you sure?' Klaus was definitely not in the mood for jokes. Uwe would need hospital treatment if this was some bloody game.
'Of course I'm sure!' Uwe was stung. How much lager had the stupid sod had tonight? 'I passed it on the way in. The rear number plate is still broken!' He jerked a thumb in the direction of the rear entrance to the hotel.