'Got ony mair Pepsi?' Neville reached into her bag and handed him a
can. 'Thanks, hen,' said Impey as he opened it. The sergeant fought
off an urge to make clucking noises.
'Normally we give a' the cars coming off the ferry a quick once
over, looking for familiar faces from the circulation list. Things might
be quieter in Ireland these days, but old habits die hard, like. My oppo
was up the ramp, and I was at the exit with a uniformed polis. It was
fine till we got taste this bloke. He takes a look at the uniform coming
towards him, shouted something at him and put his foot down. Ah
didnae have time to wait for my oppo. My car was handy, so I jumped
in it and got after him.'
'Why would someone like Hawkins panic at a police ferry check?'
Neville asked casually.
'How the bloody hell would I know, hen?' Impey snapped at her,
then turned once more to look at the back of McGuire's head. 'I
couldnae be sure where he was going until he turned off the A74 for
Moffat. That was when I phoned Mcllhenney, only he wisnae in, so I
phoned your boss.'
'He told me,' muttered McGuire, as he drove into the centre of
Penicuik. 'I don't suppose you called anyone to ask for a number trace.'
'Naw,' Impey replied. 'Ah was concentrating on the subject, wasn't
Ah.'
68
'That's okay, for we did. Our man's driving a hired car. We're trying
to dig up someone in Eurodollar to give us the hirer's details. Bugger.'
He swore softly as the traffic lights in the middle of the small
Midlothian town turned to amber. As he watched, helplessly trapped
behind two other vehicles, their quarry hit the accelerator and shot
across the junction.
'Pull out and go through,' Impey urged.
'Don't be daft, Joe. If he looked back and saw me do that, he'd
rumble us for sure - if he hasn't already that is. Patience, man, he's
got traffic in front of him; we'll catch him up.'
Like a watched kettle, the lights seemed to take forever to change,
but eventually the three police officers resumed their pursuit. For a
time it seemed that McGuire's confidence had been misplaced, as
they found themselves trapped behind two articulated lorries which
had pulled out of a small industrial estate just beyond the town centre.
They had reached Glencorse Barracks before the road cleared far
enough ahead to allow overtaking, but once they had passed the
obstruction, the inspector was able to put his foot down.
They were nearing a stretch of dual carriageway, when Neville
pointed to a coach less than two hundred yards in front of them. 'I
think he's in front of that bus. I caught a flash of red just then.'As if
to prove her right, the red Vauxhall pulled into the overtaking lane of
the widened roadway and speeded up. McGuire accelerated steadily,
keeping pace with it but being careful not to be drawn too close.
Their target led them down the straight road towards Edinburgh,
reaching, after five minutes, the double roundabout of the Straiten
junction with the city bypass. At the second of the huge islands, the
suspected Hawkins indicated right and swung off the Edinburgh road, heading eastwards.
'Why are we going this way, I wonder?' McGuire mused aloud.
'He's heading away from the posh end of the city.'
'Maybe he's going south?' Impey suggested.
'Maybe, but I doubt it, Joe. If he was heading, say for Berwick,
he'd have taken another route. Unless, of course, he spotted us way
back and he's been pulling our chains ever since. We'll find out when
we get to the end of the bypass.'
'How's that, like?'
'Because if he heads for Leith, he's probably close to his destination.
If he heads down the Al, then he's taking the piss and I'm going t
have him. You got your firearm handy?'
'Ah'm not carrying, Mario,' Impey confessed, sheepishly.
'Christ, are you going out of your way to wind up Bob Skinner?
Did you not hear his instruction at that briefing?'
69
'Aye, but Ah just dinnae like guns. Ah had a mate once shot himself
in the leg with his.'
'I hate to think where the boss'11 shoot you if he finds out you've
ignored his order. Okay, Karen's armed and able to back me up, and
we're only going after one bloke, but if we'd been after a team, you
could have put us all in danger.'
Impey growled. 'Ach you city polis. Yis are all fuckin' cowboys.
Excuse my French, hen.'
'C'est rien,' Neville replied.
In a little under ten minutes they came to the junction which marked
the end of the bypass. McGuire drew the Nissan a little closer to the
red car, ready to cover his move, whether he headed north or south.
Beside him, his sergeant shifted edgily in her seat.
Their quarry took neither option. Instead he headed straight through
the junction and turned into the service area on the other side of the
wide Al. 'Going for petrol,' McGuire guessed. He slipped quietly off
the roundabout, hanging back as far as he dared, then turned into the
narrow access road, slowing to check that the Vauxhall had not turned
into the motor lodge car park, but had indeed carried on to the filling
station beyond.
There were six pumps on the forecourt, all occupied. The red car
stood a little back from them, waiting for one to clear. As he slid
quietly behind him, McGuire could see the driver clearly for the first
time, in profile as he looked at the pumps. He had lit a cigarette; his
right arm was leaning on the open window. 'I can see the likeness
right enough, Joe. And yet. ..' Something gnawed at the back of his
mind.
'Mario.' Karen Neville touched his arm, interrupting his search of
his memory. 'One of the pumps just cleared. Why isn't he moving
up?'
'Maybe he needs diesel?' Impey suggested.
'Unlikely in a hire car. Maybe he's just finishing his fag before he
goes to fill up. Whatever, he's off guard and I'm having him. Otherwise
I'll have to buy bloody petrol or he'll twig us. Karen, you take the
passenger side. Joe, you stay here.'
Mario McGuire was a big, easy-going man, until the action button
was pressed. He opened his door and stepped out of the car, his gun in
his hand in an instant. Swiftly and noiselessly, he closed the gap to the
red car.
The man inside was drawing on his cigarette; he started in surprise
as Karen Neville stepped into his line of vision. In the same moment
the inspector reached through the Vectra's open side window and
pressed the cold muzzle of his Walther to the back of the man's head.
70
'Good evening, sir,' he said, in a quiet, conversational tone. 'Just in
case you're in any doubt, we are police officers and that thing you feel
against your skull is not a piece of pipe, or a banana or anything like
that. It's a real gun, and they make me nervous, so if you move the
wrong muscle you won't move any others, ever again.
'Now, I want you to step out of the car, keeping your hands in the
air; then I want you to lie face down on the ground
.'
71
21
'Where is this man Impey now?' said Bob Skinner. He spoke quietly,
but there was something in his tone which send a cold shiver running
down Mario McGuire's spine.
'On his way back to Dumfries, boss. I told him to get the you-
know-what out of Edinburgh before you got your hands on him.'
'Well the bugger can't run fast enough, or far enough. Wherever he
surfaces again he's going to find out that my bite is a hell of a lot
worse than my bark.'
'Don't be too hard on him, boss. He was showing initiative; he just
made an honest mistake.'
'So did the captain of the Titanic. Thanks to that man and his
monumental stupidity, I've had the commander of the Interpol task
force on counterfeiting moaning down my phone for the last half
hour. You were advised of this operation, as was every other Special
Branch office in the country, including Dumfries and bloody Galloway.
You were all told that they were watching a major software forgery
centre in South Armagh and you were all given photographs of the
agents involved.
'In spite of that, because oflmpey's "honest mistake" we've ruined
the culmination of the operation. The guy you lifted was following a
courier; the purpose of that was to discover the bootleggers' main
distribution route and from that to catch their customers with the stuff
in their possession. The Interpol people even sent a fax to Impey's
office warning him that the man was on the move. I've checked; it's in
his in-tray and it was there when he left to check the ferry passengers.'
McGuire scratched his chin. 'Oh shit,' he groaned. 'Poor old Joe.'
'Don't waste your sympathy on the guy, Mario. He should have
committed that information to memory, and he should have had that
man's face imprinted in his brain. That's standard SB procedure as
you know well. If Impey isn't up to following it, he isn't up to the job.
But he won't be in it for much longer.
'He'll have a very embarrassed chief constable waiting for him
when he gets back to his office tomorrow morning, and believe me,
Archie Deas is not a man anyone wants to embarrass.'
72
'What'll he do to him?'
'Hang him up by his soft bits until they drop off, probably. Once
they have, he'll stick him back in a uniform and post him to
Auchencross, or some place like that, with a bike to get around on. At
least that's what I've suggested to Archie that he should do.'
He swivelled in his chair. 'What about Mr Steyn, the agent? Have
you calmed him down?'
'Just about. I've booked him into the George for the night, on our
tab. He'll go back to Ireland in the morning.'
'Take him out to dinner, just to show real contrition. Take Mags
along if you like.'
McGuire frowned. 'I can't do that, boss. I've promised to meet
Neil tonight. He says he's got something to tell me.' The frown turned
into his dazzling smile. 'From the way he sounded, I suspect that
Olive's in the club again.'
73
22
It seemed to Stevie Steele that while Joan Ball couldn't have been
more than fifty-five, her hands looked as if they could have been
ninety. They hung from her wrists like two claws as she spoke to her
visitors, knuckles hugely swollen, fingers twisted cruelly into her
palms.
She caught the young detective's glance. 'What do you think of my
talons, sergeant?' she asked, holding one up against the light from a
table lamp beside her chair.
'I think it's a damn shame. Miss Ball. Don't they make it difficult
for you to live out in the country? I mean, you can't drive, can
you.'
'No, I can't. But I manage all right. The Social Services are very
good; they provide all sorts of support. Home help; someone to do my
shopping and so on. Then there are the disabled charity people; they
helped me with adapting the house, and in other ways too. I have a
brother in North Berwick who takes me about, and a sister in
Edinburgh. And of course, Gaynor was a great help to me too, in all
sorts of ways. For example she was good with a sewing machine, so
she would alter clothes for me. I can't manage buttons or zips any
more: too small and fiddly. She would replace them with Velcro
fastenings. She was a very kind person, very thoughtful; I'll miss her
a great deal.'
Her steady gaze moved from Steele to Rose. 'I take it that you want
to ask me more questions about her.'
'You take it right,' the chief inspector replied. 'Did you see much of
Mrs Weston in the two weeks before her death?' she asked.
'Quite a bit, really; she was off work all that time.'
'Did she tell you why?'
'She said that she had a little women's trouble, and that she had
been ordered to stay at home for a couple of weeks. No gentleman
callers.' Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Rose. 'Would I be correct
in guessing that it was a little more serious than that?'
'Yes you would. Mrs Weston was very ill; without hope of recovery
in fact.'
74
'I see. So she decided to end her life, and now you're looking for
the person who helped her.'
'How do you work that one out?'
'Come on sergeant.' She threw him a withering look. 'Almost the
first question I was asked when I was interviewed before was whether
that night.'
'And you still can't recall seeing either one?' asked Rose.
'No, because they weren't there. But that doesn't matter a damn.
The covered parking at the far end of the square is never full. There's
no car in my space, for example. If Gaynor had a visitor he could
easily have put his car in there, or even left it on the approach road.'
'None of the other residents saw anything parked on that road. I
don't suppose there's any way of checking the other possibility. In any
event, we're pretty satisfied that neither Professor Weston nor Mr
Futcher were there that night, so we have to look for alternatives.
'We've been through Mrs Weston's address book; as far as we can
tell most of the entries and telephone numbers in there relate to
business associates.'
'Yes; that would be right. Gaynor's work was her life; her professional
and social circles were pretty much interchangeable.
However, I don't believe that there was anyone at work with whom
she was particularly close.'
'No one at all?'
'I suppose you could talk to her secretary, and the other staff in her
business.'
'We have,' said Steele. 'The secretary knew of her relationship with
Futcher, but that was all. The other three employees didn't even know
where she lived, other than that it was in East Lothian. Rosamund, the
secretary, is the only one who's ever been out there.'
'However,' Rose continued, 'Mrs Weston once made a remark which
suggested that there might have been a third man in her life. Do you
know anything about that?'
Joan Ball frowned.
'Gaynor never mentioned anything to me about a
third man.' Rose groaned inwardly, but even as she did, the woman
drew in a deep breath, clasping her twisted hands together. 'Nevertheless,'
she went on, 'I did have a suspicion that there might be.
Whenever she had a visitor she would always mention it at some point.
I always knew when Futcher was there, or Nolan such ... a nice man,
Nolan. I remember the times when Rosamund came to visit; if they had
a rush job on, sometimes Gaynor would work at weekends.
'But there were, I think three occasions on which I saw a car there,
at night, following which she didn't say anything.'
75
'Can you describe the car?'
'Four wheels and a roof, other than that I'm lost. I have no memory
for colours, and I wouldn't know one make from another .. . other
than Beetles; I used to have one of them. But this wasn't a Beetle.'
'You can't be sure the visitor was a man, though,' said the chief
inspector.
'No, I can't, but the car was still there in the early hours of the
morning on at least two of the occasions ... I'm a poor sleeper .. .
but gone by my breakfast-time. Read into that what you will. I can't
help you any further I'm afraid.'
'Can you remember when these visits took place? That might help.'
'Over the last six or seven months. The most recent occasion was
about a month ago.'
'Good. Even that gives us some extra help.' She stood, and Steele
followed. 'Thank you very much. Miss Ball. We'll just go next door
to Mrs Weston's now. I've brought the keys, and there's something
inside I want to check.'
Their arthritic hostess showed them slowly to the door. 'Enjoy your
holiday,' said Rose.
'I'll try. I'm going with a disabled group; they have people to help
you pack and so on. I'd rather be on an ordinary tour, but it's for the
best. The important thing is to get some warmth into these things.'
She held up a ravaged hand to wave them goodbye.
'She's a game lady,' Steele remarked as they stood outside in the
evening darkness. 'Listen, ma'am, what did you mean about checking
next door? I'm expected home at some point tonight.'
'It won't take long. I want to take a look at Mrs Weston's laptop.
She didn't keep personal appointments on her office machine. Maybe
she had a computer diary out here. I looked at her Filofax myself, and