Out of control (13 page)

Completely straddling the road was a large tree trunk.

Instinct took over. It told me that the one thing you don’t want is a head-on collision with an immovable object. Anything’s better than that.

I swerved left and slammed on the brakes – no other option - and the car left the road at about thirty miles an hour, shot over the verge and plunged into the loch.

Fortunately I had braked hard so that we came to a juddering halt only a cars’ length into the water. And at that point the water was only about three feet deep.

We were both flung forward. My hands on the steering wheel absorbed some of the shock. Liam however had been flung sideways and cracked his head on the inside of the top of the door. He slumped forwards, blood oozing from the side of his forehead.

I forced the door open against the weight of the water and staggered out. I had to get Liam out and make sure he was OK. I managed to pull his door open and he turned his head, eyes wide open but obviously in pain.

“I’m OK,” he assured me, “but something’s happened to my leg.”

I made a first attempt to see if I could move him but he screamed in pain. I checked and assured myself that the car was solidly on the bed of the loch and wasn’t going to move again and told him to sit tight. I’d get help as soon as I could.

Worry dispelled, anger took over.

As fast as I could I got myself back up onto the road looking for the bastard who had been pushing me to drive so fast.

I looked around completely stunned. He wasn’t there. Nobody was there. Not even the bloody tree.

Standing in the middle of the road, hands on hips, I looked both ways. Nothing. All I could see were tyre marks from heavy braking just before the place where we had shot off the road. The gouges on the verge caused by my wheels were evident. The tyre marks must have belonged to the BMW. But where was it?

And where the tree had been there were just a few scattered twigs and small branches. Otherwise the road was clear.

What in the hell had happened? Then the shock set in and I started to shake. I called back to Liam to make sure he was OK and was rewarded with an “I’m fine”. Reassured, I slumped down on a tuft of grass and let the shakes take over. By dint of slow deep breathing I managed after a few minutes to control the effect of the shock. I called again. Liam was still alright so I got wearily to my feet and considered the next move.

I knew we had been very lucky but I’d also reasoned out that what had just happened had been intentional. The tree had disappeared. The scattered twigs and leaves were evidence that I hadn’t imagined it. The fresh tyre marks proved that the BMW had been there.

Someone had just tried to kill us or at least injure us and scare us badly. While I sat there I tried to recall what I’d seen. It had all happened so suddenly and I had been concentrating so hard on my driving that it wasn’t easy. I’d seen the tree. The BMW had been pressing up hard from behind. Then we’d hit the water. But there was something else. Then I remembered. I had this vague notion of having seen a van parked beyond the tree, facing the other way. I

stood up and looked again. That was when I noticed the tree lying on the verge beside the loch ten yards further on. I staggered over to have a look at it. It wasn’t an enormous tree. It hadn’t needed to be. On closer inspection I found what looked like rope marks around one of the lower branches.

I played out a possible scenario in my head:

BMW tail-gating me to force me to drive too fast and also to distract me.

Accomplice pulls tree across when they know I’m coming.

How?

Mobile phone or someone up in the field who could see the road and signal down to the van?

Didn’t matter which.

As soon as I leave the road the van pulls the tree away and both vehicles head off down the road.

Result - headline in local paper ‘Local motorist drives too fast and ends up in loch’

*

I heard the sound of an approaching car and stepped out into the road to flag it down. A fairly smartly dressed middle aged lady wound down the window. She was very concerned when I explained to her that I’d had a puncture and come off the road. She immediately got out – a model of calm efficiency.

I told her that my grandson was still in the car but he was hurt. It turned out she had some first aid training. Without any ado she hiked up her tweed skirt and waded into the cold water, to see how he was. She was back in a minute. ”I shouldn’t worry. It’s his ankle. I don’t think it’s broken but it might be. He’ll need to get to a hospital and have it X-rayed,” she reported. “I’ll call an ambulance for you.”

She disappeared into her car to phone and was soon back out again. “Shouldn’t be more than about twenty minutes. Here, have some of this. It might do you good,” and she handed me a hip flask which she had fished out of her glove compartment.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“Always have it with me,” she said with a smile and a wink; “Never know when it might come in handy.”

The ambulance arrived within fifteen minutes and the paramedics confirmed the diagnosis. They whisked us both off to the hospital. We had to go down to Kirkcaldy because it was the nearest one that had the proper orthopedic facilities. Liam was handed over to the care of the NHS and I went out to arrange for my garage to go and recover the car. Bill, my garage man, said he would send his mechanic down to pick me up and bring me back to Cupar where he’d willingly lend me a temporary replacement.

I went back in to see how Liam was.

He had been installed in a private room and was half-sitting up in bed, a dressing on his forehead and his leg immobilized. He told me that they had X-rayed the ankle and it was going to need a pin inserted into the bone.

“The surgeon’s going to operate tomorrow and I’ll be out in a couple of days,” he said chirpily.

“You seem cheerful.”

“Well, better this than drowned in a Scottish loch. Bloody big kangaroos you’ve got in this country,” he said with a grin.

I sat down beside him and asked him what he could remember about the whole incident. He couldn’t remember much more than I could. He did confirm, however, that he had thought he’d seen a van of some sort parked behind the tree. We both agreed that my scenario seemed to be the likely one. That led us inexorably to the conclusion that someone had been out to either injure or kill.

“Both of us?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, were you the target or was I the target?” he paused. “Or maybe we both were,” he added with a touch of Australian optimism. “We’ll work that one out later.” And I left him, promising to come or call the next evening after his operation.

Bill’s mechanic arrived and took me back to Cupar where I picked up my replacement wheels and drove back home very carefully.

Whether it was me, Liam or both of us, I could only think of one person who might possibly think of us as a danger. Macek seemed to me to be the only possibility. I remembered what Brian had said about him. He must have tracked me down. Maybe we weren’t being quite as smart as we thought.

*

When I got home I made three phone calls.

First I rang Helen to apologise for not having been able to get through for our meeting, blaming a car accident. We agreed that the next day would be fine.

Then I had to call Heather because she had been expecting Liam. I tried the ‘minor car accident’, but I should have guessed that she would want to know chapter and verse. I kept it simple, not mentioning what had caused it. I had to tell her more or less what had happened.

“I skidded off the road. I’m fine but Liam’s got a broken ankle. He’ll be laid up for a while I’m afraid so he won’t be able to help you with the horses.”

I was told, in no mean terms that I should be less reckless when I‘ve got my grandson as a passenger. I got the feeling that if I’d been on my own she’d have just told me that it served me right.

The third call was to Mike.

“Change of plans,” I announced and told him the whole story, suspicions included.

The only person I could think of who might want to harm either or both of us was Macek. Was it stretching the imagination that he might have something to do with Irina and drugs – or even Irina’s death? Would he know of the patent business and connected me with Liam through the common surname? Could he have traced me back to Letham? We discussed the implications and decided that a bodyguard might be an idea for the next few days and it seemed to him that it was all the more important to do the shadowing job on Macek.

“I’ve heard from Sophie. She’s coming back a few days early. I’m picking her up this evening so we’ll come over to ride shotgun. And I’ll leave Macek to Mac and Doug. How’s that?”

“Fine. See you both this evening.”

I’d no sooner finished with Mike when the phone went.

It was Maggie. I might have guessed. Heather had called her as soon as I was off the phone and told her the news.

I soon realised that I was glad she called. I had so far told her little of what I was up to - partly because I didn’t want to worry her and partly for the very selfish reason that I didn’t want our evening phone calls, nor the little time we had together, to be burdened by my concerns. She had enough to worry about running her hotel.

She was all concern. “Had I hurt myself?” “No, not even a bruise.” “And Liam?” “He’ll heal. Don’t worry.”

“But I’m afraid the car will be off the road for about a week.”

“Shall I come down this weekend then? I’ve no guests booked in and I could easily close for a couple of days?”

I put her off that idea very quickly. If Macek had tracked me to Letham and arranged for me to be followed and run off the road I didn’t want her to be exposed to any danger. I wanted to keep her away from the place as much as possible.

“No. It’s OK. I’ve got a replacement which should make it up to Lochbervie.”

Then I remembered that Pierre had called and told me he was coming over as well. Why didn’t we all go up to Lochbervie? It should be perfectly safe. Heather would be more than happy to have Liam for a few days recuperation.

“I’ll come up on Friday evening, as promised. Are you sure you’ve got no bookings for the weekend?”

“None. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”

“I’ve just had an idea. Why don’t I bring Mike and Sophie and Pierre? He’s coming over and so is Sophie. You haven’t met either of them yet and I’m sure they’d love to meet you and see Lochbervie.”

“And I thought we would be able to just cuddle up all weekend and play scrabble….or whatever.” I could detect her grin coming down the line.

Then she said “Of course, great idea.”

She whispered soft words of love and goodnight and rang off.

Good, I thought. We can have a safe summit meeting up there.

Macek wouldn’t have the number of my replacement car so he couldn’t follow me. Then I suddenly remembered that I had parked it just outside the front door as usual. To be on the safe side I went out and moved it fifty yards up the street in front of someone else’s house.

The next morning I communicated the new arrangements to everyone. Pierre was coming over on the same plane as Sophie and would hire a car and drive straight up to the hotel. Mike and I would go up from Stirling in two cars after my meeting with Helen. We decided that, although two cars meant twice as much petrol, it would be better if Mike followed me on the journey through to Stirling to watch my back. Heather had no problem in taking Liam. She’d send Oliver through to pick him up from the hospital when they discharged him.

I left Mike to his own devices while I had my meeting with Helen and Richard. He was quite happy and said he would take the opportunity to visit the castle which, I was astonished to hear, he had never visited. Helen and Richard had prepared well. All the science was there. They explained clearly what they were trying to do and had done a good job in making clear the market potential. They assured me that they were virtually certain that there was no one else working along the same lines. That was what the investors would want to hear.

It wasn’t a brand new discovery. They had developed a technique for more rapid identification of different types of cancer - a technique which would save enormous amounts of time and money to the medical profession and obtain just as good, if not more reliable, results.

The science baffled me and I pointed out to them the importance of making their story as simple as possible so that non-scientists would understand it, at the same time stressing the strong commercial possibilities.

The cash requirements were not enormous and the projected returns were good even under a conservative scenario. My view was that it was good enough to persuade Albion to hang onto their shares. We decided to add a few hypotheses about what it would mean to the value of the company over the next few years and, as that is what a venture capital company wants to hear, the likely types of buyers who would be interested.

The key thing was that they could reasonably expect to sell their shares three years down the road for somewhere between two and three times the price that LyonPharma had offered.

I congratulated them, suggested a few changes to accentuate the financial aspects and we finished over coffee.

This gave me a chance to tell Helen what I had heard from Brian – not all, but what was useful for her to know.

“Do you think Dugain could have heard about this stuff,” I asked them.

“I doubt it very much,” she replied. “Diagnostics is not their area and I can’t think why they would suddenly want to get involved in that.”

“Helen, one thing you have to realise is that there are an awful lot of acquisitions or investments that take place which don’t seem to have any strategic sense. We’re talking about people here and you can never tell what their real motivations are. Maybe a Director is on a bonus of forty per cent of his salary if he achieves the objective he’s been given of making one acquisition a year. He’ll push anything through to line his pockets. It’s not his money he’s investing. It’s the shareholders’.”