Present Tense

by William McIntyre

  I’d been afraid he might say something like that.

  ‘I don’t really understand your difficulty,’ he continued. ‘You tell me it’s a video file, but you say you haven’t been able to view it. Therefore, you don’t know what evidence it contains. Correct?’

  ‘Billy Paris left it with me, so I’m pretty sure—’

  ‘But you don’t know for certain, do you? For all you know it might show nothing at all.’

  It was certainly possible, and, yet, Billy had been sure enough that what he’d stuck to the bottom of my chair was worth a great deal of money to somebody. If it wasn’t proof of the identity of the person who’d sabotaged the helicopter, what else could it be?

  ‘There is no reason why you need to help the police at all.’ Thorn was unrelenting in his speech to the hard-of-thinking. ‘If you don’t know what you have, how can you possibly be under any moral or legal obligation to hand it over to the authorities? After all, the Government could very well be implicated. A lot of people seem to think it is.’ If he pushed any harder on the swing door that was the Robbie Munro conscience, he’d fall flat on his face. ‘In any event, I happen to believe that what you have in your possession is my property, so if you don’t hand it over to me it would be tantamount to theft.’

  It was certainly a persuasive argument, then again, persuading me not to hand over something to the police, in exchange for a tax-free lump sum, had to be one of life’s easier arguments to make. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘where are you?’

  He was in Aberdeen trying to sell St Edzell Bay Airport to a company providing offshore helicopter transportation services to the oil industry. It wouldn’t go for Spaceport prices, but at least it would net Philip Thorn a few quid. It seemed the race for space had been won by Kirkton Perch and his Ayrshire constituents.

  ‘It’s nearly six o’clock now,’ he said. ‘Let me see... I’ve still one or two things to clear up here. I can meet you at St Edzell, say, the back of nine tonight. How would that suit?’

  It suited fine. If I put the boot down I could do the round trip and be home by midnight.

  ‘You could do it even quicker if you took my car,’ Joanna said. She dangled the key to her car at me. ‘That vehicle of yours is just a series of rust spots flying in close formation. It’ll probably break down halfway.’ Another person who had no trouble persuading me to do something. ‘And when I see you next, I want you to have made your mind up about us and where we go from here.’

  Why put the onus on me? I thought I’d left the ball firmly in Joanna’s court. Hadn’t she been listening to my single-parent, failing-business, living-with-my-dad speech that morning? We swapped car keys. Unsure how exactly I should go about leaving, I gave her a peck on the cheek. As I began to walk away, she grabbed me by the lapels, pulled me to her. ‘For luck,’ she said and kissed me hard on the lips. ‘See you later. Unless you damage my car, that is. In which case, don’t bother coming back,’ she laughed and then stopped. ‘I mean it, Robbie, when you get back we’ve got a lot of things to talk about. Or, if you prefer, we can talk now.’

  Meaningful relationship talks with women seldom went well for me. Past performance was not necessarily indicative of future results, but like the weather I couldn’t see how the forecast was going to improve any time soon. I suggested it would be better if we held discussions at a time when I wasn’t working to such a tight schedule. Joanna agreed it was best. Another thing I was right about was the weather. When I crossed the Forth into Fife, the snow was starting to fall. At Perth the snowploughs were cutting about on the M90 and by Dundee, with a good forty miles still to go, I could hardly see the road ahead. The rapid deterioration in conditions meant that I didn’t reach St Edzell Bay Airport until around ten o’clock, where by some means or other they’d managed to clear the final stretch of service road leading to the security barrier. This time the small glass hut was occupied by a youth reading the Press & Journal. He was swathed in layer upon layer of winter clothing, a woolly hat pulled down, almost meeting the Burberry scarf that was wrapped around his neck and across his nose and mouth. He didn’t bother coming out to see who I was, forcing me to leave the warmth of the car and go up to the window. When I knocked he opened it an inch or two and gave me a muffled greeting.

  ‘Robbie Munro. I’ve got an appointment to see Philip Thorn,’ I said, shouting to be heard, the wind slapping my cheeks.

  He pulled the scarf away from his face just enough to make his mouth work. ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Where is he?’ I hadn’t bothered with a coat and the tail of my suit jacket was flapping like a seagull in a hurricane. ‘He told me he was on his way down from Aberdeen to meet me. He was supposed to be here at nine o’clock.’

  His scarf back in place, the youth found it easier to raise his hands in a what-can-I-do? gesture than speak.

  From the direction of the control tower and main building, a pair of headlights shone through the curtain of white. A golf buggy with a four-inch cushion of snow on its roof sailed across a sea of snow towards me and pulled up at the barrier. Oleg jumped out, marched over to the door to the glass hut and yanked it open. Like me he had no coat on. Unlike me he seemed impervious to the freezing conditions. ‘Frankie! Have cleared this area of snow immediately!’ he bellowed, and the young man leapt from his seat. Oleg turned to me, shook my hand and gestured to the buggy. ‘Please. Come.’

  I climbed in beside him and together we trundled off through the snow, down to the main building. After kicking the slush from our shoes, we ascended to the same small room I had visited previously, the gloom illuminated by banks of CCTV monitors and the single bar of a portable electric fire glowing orange in one of the corners.

  ‘Mr Thorn is not here,’ Oleg said. He let me have the only seat and leaned himself against the metal desk where a mug of coffee steamed gently. ‘You want coffee?’ He picked up the mug and drank from it.

  I declined. ‘When is he going to be back?’

  Oleg shrugged. ‘In the morning. Maybe. The A90 north is closed at Stonehaven. No traffic moving on it for nearly two hours now. I am stranded too. I cannot go home.’

  ‘Can you phone him?’

  ‘There is no need. Give what it is you have to me and I will make certain he gets it.’

  I wasn’t sure about this change of plan. ‘I’d need to speak to Mr Thorn first. He’s got some money for me.’

  The door was slightly ajar. Making an unconvincing show of hugging himself and slapping his body, Oleg walked over and closed it firmly. ‘Very cold tonight.’ He came over to where I was sitting and held out the flat of a hand the size of a snow shovel. ‘Give it to me and you can have money later.’

  I stood up. Our faces were only inches apart. ‘Get Mr Thorn on the satellite phone or I’m leaving.’

  Oleg held my stare and then abruptly turned away. With a screech of metal he yanked open the desk drawer and removed the phone.

  ‘You know who killed Jerry?’ he asked, punching buttons.

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  ‘You are Billy’s lawyer?’

  ‘I was Billy’s lawyer. Billy’s dead.’

  ‘But he tell you who killed Jerry and his girl, yes?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He didn’t.’

  He handed me the phone. I put it to my ear, eyes fixed on the Russian.

  ‘Oleg?’

  ‘No, Mr Thorn, it’s me, Robbie Munro. I’m here at St Edzell Bay. I gather you’ve had some travel problems.’

  ‘I’m not far away, stuck in a snowdrift. I’m waiting for a recovery vehicle. But never mind that. Have you got it with you? Good,’ he said, after I’d replied in the affirmative. ‘I do not want you to give what you have to Oleg, understand? Take an envelope. If you are in the main building, there should be plenty lying around. Place what you have inside and seal it. Then I want you to go to the VIP guest lounge. Oleg will take you there. Behind the bar is a hidden safe. The combination is forty-three, twenty-two, thirty-six. You will find your mo
ney inside. Leave the envelope, close the safe and go.’

  ‘That’s very trusting of you,’ I said.

  ‘There is no reason why I shouldn’t trust you. We are both businessmen and this is a business deal. You have what I want, and I have what you want. It’s a fair swap.’

  A business deal. That sounded so much better than concealing evidence from the authorities.

  ‘Oh,’ Thorn added. ‘But if I have misplaced my trust, Oleg is ex-KGB. I will have him find you. Find you and do cruel and horrible things to you.’

  56

  The man I was confident would not require to do anything cruel or horrible to me, led me out of the main building and down a small path to the prefabricated structure where I’d been a few days before. The heating was on just enough to avoid frozen pipes, but it was a lot warmer than outside where the snowfall had become a skin-tearing icy sleet. He flicked the electricity switch, the lights came on and the hot air system began to hum.

  ‘What is it that Mr Thorn say?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve to open the safe, put what I’ve brought with me inside and take my money,’ I said. ‘After that I’ve got a long drive home.’

  I raised the flap in the counter and slipped behind the small bar. It took me some time to find the safe, concealed as it was behind a false front of shallow shelves on which sat miniatures of vodka, gin and malt whisky. I pulled it open to reveal a squat dark-grey safe, bolted to the concrete floor.

  ‘You want vodka make you warm?’ Oleg asked. I thought what I had to do was best done with a clear head and so rejected the offer of alcohol and hunkered down in front of the safe. The dial was black with white numbers from zero to ninety marked out in fives. In between the numbers were white lines. I turned the dial left to forty-five and clicked it once more. Forty-six.

  Oleg came around the counter and stared down at me. ‘What is it you have?’

  I really wished he’d stop asking questions. ‘I’ve got what Billy Paris gave to me. Mr Thorn says it belongs to him and so I am giving it back.’

  ‘You are giving it back for money?’

  ‘It wasn’t easy to find.’ I had no more to say. If Philip Thorn didn’t trust the airport’s own head of security, he had to have a reason. I wasn’t about to risk twenty thousand pounds finding out what that was.

  I pushed his leg, forcing him to step back and let some light in so that I could see the notches on the dial more clearly, cupping my hand around it so that he couldn’t.

  Right, twenty-two. Left thirty-six. The combination worked. I hauled the door open. Inside was a canvas bag, some papers and several blocks of money similar to those I’d been given in Holyrood Park. First things first, I slipped a chunk of cash into each of my jacket’s two outside pockets. Then I reached into an inside pocket and removed the white A5 envelope stamped with a TAS logo into which I’d already placed the USB stick. I laid the envelope on top of the remaining stacks of notes and was swinging the door closed when Oleg lifted a foot and shoved me with the sole of it sending me sprawling.

  I jumped to my feet. Oleg took a step forward. So did I. He pushed me aside, knelt and removed the envelope.

  ‘Put it back,’ I said.

  He didn’t. He ripped the corner off the envelope and emptied the tiny black memory card into the palm of his hand.

  ‘I go look at this,’ was all he said, before turning and walking through the gap in the counter.

  ‘You’re wasting your time. You won’t get the file to open. I’ve tried. It’s encrypted or something,’ I called after him.

  ‘It will work here,’ he replied, not looking back, striding for the door.

  It was amazing how a surge of adrenalin helped concentrate the mind. If the USB stick did indeed contain the evidence of who killed Jeremy Thorn, I realised that up until that moment I had not included Oleg in my otherwise limited list of possible suspects. How could I have overlooked him? As head of security, the Russian could access all areas of the airport at all times and raise no suspicions. Why was he even here tonight? I thought he didn’t work nights? And who’d ever heard of a Russian getting stuck in the snow?

  If the evidence did implicate Oleg, all he had to do was destroy it and say I’d never brought it with me. Thorn would be none the wiser and simply assume I’d tried to rip him off. I had to think. What were my options? Leave the money and go? The go part of that was an attractive proposition, not so much the part where I left the money behind. No, I had to persuade the Russian to return the USB to the safe and lock it up just as his boss had ordered. I darted after Oleg, overtaking him as he reached the door. ‘Look, be reasonable about this and put the envelope back,’ I said as calmly as possible.

  Oleg wasn’t to be so easily persuaded. I discovered that a split-second after he’d propelled the heel of one of his iron hands into my solar plexus. I staggered, thumping my back off the door. He grabbed me and threw me aside. I bounced off the pool table and landed on the floor, chest heaving, sucking in great sobs of air. The Russian had gone, slamming the door behind him, before I could drag myself to my feet. I looked around and found a rack of pool cues on the wall. I grabbed one and broke it across my knee. Holding the heavy half by the jaggy end, I opened the door and stared out at the snow-covered path leading down to the picket fence. Beyond it Oleg marched purposefully onwards, his feet leaving deep gouges behind as he went. I hefted the broken half of the pool cue, slapped it into the palm of my hand, took a few deep breaths and followed in his snowy footsteps.

  I hadn’t taken more than a few paces when I heard a bleeping. The phone behind the bar. It might have been that noise in the silence that brought me to my senses. Why did I care who killed Jeremy Thorn? I’d never known him. He’d lived, loved, crashed and died before I even knew he existed. Did Billy Paris sabotage his helicopter? Did he do it on the instructions of Kirkton Perch as part of some political conspiracy to land a spaceport at Prestwick? Or was it Oleg? And, if it was, what could I realistically do about it? Fight the Russian, wrest the evidence from him? Me against the ex-KGB man? He’d probably take the thick end of the pool cue, shove it somewhere it fitted snuggly, roll me in the snow and make the world’s biggest ice-lolly.

  What was I thinking? I had a daughter waiting at home for me, a beautiful woman who for some reason seemed to think I was playing hard to get and twenty grand in readies on my hip with the same again stashed under my bed. Why should I care if multi-millionaire Philip Thorn did think I’d ripped him off? Let him send Oleg to find me if he liked. I knew people who for a lot less than forty grand would find the Russian for me long before he found West Lothian, far less Linlithgow, far less my chimney.

  I threw the broken pool cue away. With the adrenalin draining from my system like anti-freeze from a leaky radiator, I started to feel the cold again as I set off for the shelter of Joanna’s car and a treacherous drive home.

  As I approached the security barrier, the miniature full moon of a torch shone my way, the beam swinging from side to side. The young security guard shone the light in my face, hooking a finger over the edge of his scarf and pulling it down to his chin. ‘You leaving? Where’s Oleg? I’m just after trying to get him on the phone.’ The young man tapped the satellite phone tucked inside a leather holster that was strapped to his belt. ‘Mr Thorn called to say he’ll be here in a couple of minutes. He got his roadster stuck. Rear-wheel drive. Murder in this weather. Council had to pull him out. Come on, I’ll take you back to the VIP lounge. You’ll freeze to death out here.’

  ‘No thanks,’ I said. If I was going to meet with Thorn after all, I wanted to catch him as soon as he arrived. ‘I’ll wait in my car.’ I’d hardly finished my sentence when a red, snow-topped, E-Type came skidding to a halt alongside Joanna’s Merc, and Philip Thorn alighted wearing a heavy coat, a white scarf and a furry hat with ear flaps that would have brought back memories of home to Oleg. I met him at the barrier as he walked through with a regal salute to the young security guard who had now been joined by a famili
arly bulky shape in a hi-vis vest. Homer’s face was bright red and his hands shook as they clasped a mug of something hot. I took it he’d been out on patrol. He gave me a stiff little wave when he saw me.

  ‘Everything sorted?’ Thorn asked. ‘Good,’ he said, not waiting for me to answer.

  ‘Mr Thorn—’

  ‘It’s Philip. Come on, I’m frozen. You must be too. Let’s go have something to heat us up.’ His hand in the small of my back, he guided me down the central avenue. ‘Envelope in the safe all right? I take it you’ve got your money?’ He smiled. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t like that smile.

  I stopped. ‘You know, I’ve a long drive ahead of me and with this weather…’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Thorn slapped my back. ‘Have something to warm you up before you go.’ He pushed me forward with more hollow words of encouragement. A few yards away the stocky figure of Oleg materialised through the falling snow, silhouetted by the arc lights on the front of the main building.

  ‘Mr Munro’s going to have one for the road,’ Thorn told him when we met outside the main building, and the three of us returned to the VIP lounge where Thorn squeezed behind the bar while Oleg and I drew up high stools on the other side of the counter. ‘And you have still not managed to view the video file yet?’ he said.

  I hadn’t, but I was fairly certain Oleg had, though, if I said as much I was sure the Russian would deny it. What should I say? It had been made very clear that the security guard was not to be given the video evidence.

  Thorn set up two shot glasses and filled them to the brim with vodka. He pushed one towards me.

  ‘I tried to play it,’ I said, ‘but couldn’t get it to work. It seems it needs specific software to run.’

  Thorn liked my reply. Lips pursed he nodded gently. ‘Good. In that case…’ He withdrew the shot of vodka he’d offered me. ‘I think I’ll have my money back. You can keep the first instalment.’