Out of control (27 page)

“Wow! He must have brought them over specially. Didn’t want to trust anyone else, I suppose.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“And Macek?”

“Apparently not. Either he’s got through the net on a false passport or he’s still here. If he is I can pick him up for questioning later.”

“Ross, hold on a minute.”

My mind was racing. It had clicked back into gear again.

“What if he’s stayed behind just to check that I’m out of the way?”

“Shit. And you’re still around. You think he might try again?”

“It’s possible.”

“I’ll send you up Sergeant Maclean to keep an eye on you for a couple of days.”

“No, don’t do that.”

I paused for a few seconds.

“You still there?”

“Yes. I’ve maybe got another idea. Can I call you back?”

I put the phone down slowly and walked out into the front garden, trying to think through what I would do if I was Macek. He wouldn’t come back up here. Too dangerous. But the one place he would watch was Letham. He knew that was where I lived and, if I had survived, I would go back there sometime – probably straight away. All he had to do was keep a check on the house for a few days. If I didn’t turn up he could safely assume that I’d perished. If I did appear, he could finish the job.

Here was perhaps an opportunity to snare Macek. I went out for a walk to think it over. Was it reasonable to ask Mike if he would do it? I could always ask. I felt pretty sure that, knowing him, he would but still…… Deciding that I would, I went back in and called him.

I immediately relayed the news about Dugain and his two brothers.

“Great,” was his immediate reaction. “So it’s all wrapped up?”

“Not quite. Macek is still on the loose and he’s dangerous. I’m certain he was the one that killed Irina remember.”

There was a silence at the other end.

“I’ve had an idea that I’d like to discuss with you. Could you come up as quickly as possible and I’ll tell you about it. We’re staying with the MacPhails. Anyone in the village will direct you to their house and you’ll see my car parked outside. But just tell Sophie and the others that you’re only coming up to collect me. Don’t say anything about Macek, OK?”

“I’ll be up in about an hour and a half. Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.”

I called Ross back and explained to him my reasoning for a different course of action. He asked me a couple of questions, we discussed the potential outcomes and, finally, he agreed – provided that Mike was OK with it.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve discussed it with him. He’s on the way up here right now.”

*

Maggie was still asleep when Mike arrived. We went up to look at the wreck of the hotel and on the way back I put my proposition to him.

As I suspected, he liked the idea. We went over the details and he agreed he would keep me informed as soon as anything happened. Everything was quickly sorted out and he left for the south.

I watched him drive off down the road, hoping to God that he was going to be alright. I’d never forgive myself if anything serious happened to him.

I went up to see how Maggie was. She had just woken up and made a half-hearted effort to smile at me.

She stretched out her arms to me and I went over, sat down on the edge of the bed and held her hands. I’m not much good with words in situations like that but I did my best.

She wanted to go up to the hotel to see what was left.

“Are you sure you’re up to it.”

“Definitely. Come on. I need to see it with my own eyes and know it wasn’t a horrible dream.”

I tried to warn her as we walked up but when we got there she just stared at the mess and burst into tears. “Everything I own has gone,” she said, sobbing in my arms. “What am I going to do?”

“What
we
are going to do,” I replied “is get the hell out of here for a few days and get the insurance people in. We’ll recover all that you’ve got in the filing cabinets and the safe which have been recovered and put in the garage. Archie has said he’ll do whatever is necessary up here and we can go down to Heather’s and ….”

She was nodding, only half listening.

“It was that man, Dugain, wasn’t it? That man who tricked Liam?”

“Yes. And while you’ve been asleep I’ve heard from Ross that they’ve caught him at Edinburgh Airport trying to get out of the country.”

“Good. That’s some compensation. I hope he gets locked up and loses everything that he owns.”

She looked up at me. There was no reproach in her eyes.

“Bob, it’s not your fault. I told you that you had to do what you thought was right and worse things have happened to these girls than what’s happened to me. When I think of what could have happened to Ana it makes me shudder.”

She took a last look around the devastation and turned to leave.

“Hey, where’s your car?”

“Mike came up and took it away. He thought it would be more useful for us to have his big four wheel drive for taking stuff down south.”

In the circumstances it seemed to be a reasonable half-truth.

I left Maggie at the MacPhails’ and went down with Archie to the post office to see if they had any cardboard boxes. We then went up to empty the filing cabinets and the safe and loaded everything into Mike’s car.

There was no point in hanging about. There was nothing else left to salvage and I thought it best that we get as far away as possible from the disaster area to give Maggie a chance to recover.

I had warned Heather we were coming so we thanked the MacPhails for all their help.

“Dinna worry, Bob. I’ll take care of things up here,” Archie assured me. Maisie gave us both a big comforting hug and, with tears in her eyes and a sniff, she waved us off.

As soon as I put the phone down I went through and told Sophie I had to go and collect Bob and Maggie. She was busy working on her laptop, emailing clients or whatever. She seemed to be phoning and emailing at the same time – multi-tasking! – so she only half heard me, I think.

All I got was a wave and “How long will you be?”

“Don’t know. About four hours I guess.”

“Ok. See you,” still pecking away at her keyboard.

Perfect, I thought. Avoids any awkward explanations. Liam was in the living room reading. I told him I was off. Ana must have been upstairs.

“No nonsense while I’m away,” I told him. I’d noticed that he and Ana seemed to be getting on ‘rather well’ so I thought it was time to warn him about the rules.

“What do you mean?” he replied, a slight flush showing on his face.

“You know bloody well what I mean. No bonking in the house while I’m away. The only person that’s allowed to do that in my house is me. Right?”

“But….”

“No ‘buts’. You can go off into the heather somewhere if you want like I had to do when I was younger.”

And I left, casting a glance at the mantelpiece which now held only one photograph of Sophie. The collection that had been there before had been removed. I smiled to myself. Memories of the past were all starting to fade now that I had Sophie. Reminding myself how lucky I was I popped back into the room where she was working, gave her a quick kiss on the back of her neck and went off to get the car.

As I was driving through I thought about what had happened. I didn’t understand much about the patent business. Tough for Helen, who seemed to me to be a very nice and competent lady. As for the share dealings and all the ramifications that might come out of that, I knew nothing about that kind of stuff.

The ring of traffickers, however, made my blood boil. During my army days I’d seen what goes on in other parts of the world – in the Middle East, in Africa, in the Far East – but I thought that, here in Europe, we had got past that. Bastards, I thought. And Bob had my full support if there was anything we could do to nail them.

Ana was a super kid now that we had got to know her better. She was bright, intelligent and fun. The thought that she could easily have fallen victim to their machinations had got my fingers and my brain itchy to do something about it.

Bob had told me that they had detained this guy Dugain and his two Romanian brothers at the airport. That was great news. I’d only seen him via a video screen at the meeting but I knew I didn’t like him one little bit. My God what a performance Bob had put on. I had known what the vague objective had been but he handled it brilliantly. Oscar stuff. And the looks on the faces of the others was a hoot. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. But I have to admit I was a bit worried when I saw that bloody chair flying through the air.

I’d got to know Inspector Ross a bit while he was sitting with us in that wee cabin and I liked what I saw. I was sure he would do what he could to make something stick.

This Macek was another matter. A probable killer on the loose. And maybe Bob as the target?

That made me think about my elder brother. Being seven years older than me I’d always kind of looked up to him when we were kids and he’d looked after me. During our adult life we’d kept in touch but not seen so much of each other because I had spent so much time abroad, but over the last couple of years or so we’d become close again. Maybe it was now my turn to start looking after him.

He is, after all, slowing up a bit. The brain’s still acute but I can see that physically he’s getting a bit past it. He’s lost about twenty five yards on his drive I thought to myself, grinning!

Well, we’ll see how he is when I get there. He and Maggie must have had a horrific experience and apparently she had lost everything in the fire. Maybe that’ll get them permanently together which, as far as I was concerned, would be a damned good idea. Liz had been lovely and it had been a tragedy when she had died but these things happen. Maggie is different but just as nice in her own way and seems to be exactly what he needs. Bob deserves companionship.

I’d see what the situation was when I got to Lochbervie so I put these thoughts on one side and concentrated on enjoying a nice fast drive up through the hills.

*

It didn’t take long to find them. Bob’s blue Mercedes was parked outside a neat-looking house on the main street.

Bob told me that Maggie was still in bed, knocked out by a barrow load of sleeping pills.

I nodded. “She must have had a hell of a shock.”

“We were damned lucky to get out alive,” said Bob, shaking his head ruefully. “Come on, I’ll take you up and show you.”

God, what a mess it was. What I saw was familiar. I had seen it before. The results of warfare in different parts of the globe. Ashes, broken glass, blackened stumps of wood, gaping holes which had once been doors or windows. It was much as I had expected. For Bob and Maggie, however, it must seem very different.

We stood there gazing at it, each lost in our own thoughts.

I put my round Bob’s shoulders.

“I hope Ross can make this stick and these bastards get locked up and they throw away the key.”

“So do I, Mike, so do I,” he replied.

He turned and we started to walk slowly back to the house.

“Mike,” he said, not looking at me but down at the ground in front of him, as if nervous, “Macek is still on the loose and I’m worried.” His voice was slow and deliberate. He was speaking softly. He seemed to be picking his words carefully.

“I was wondering if you would be up to doing something. It’s a lot to ask but it could be an opportunity to grab him. I’m frankly a bit shattered by all this and I honestly don’t feel up to doing it myself. Maggie wouldn’t let me for a start and also I don’t want to leave her alone at the moment. I’ve discussed it with Ross and he agrees that it’s a chance but there may be a bit of risk involved. That’s why Maggie wouldn’t agree to me doing it.”

Patience is not my strong suit but I managed to keep my mouth shut and let him continue.

“Ross has agreed to supply back-up. It would need to be kept secret from Sophie because she won’t like it either and she’d probably tell Maggie. And I wouldn’t blame her.”

We walked on another few paces in silence. What in the hell was he on about? I looked across at the worried face beside me of my elder brother whom I loved dearly. He was clearly having trouble getting this out.

He started again.

“I’m not sure if it will work but it might and if it does we can nail Macek.”

I stopped, exasperated.

“Bob, what are you twittering about? Get it out. If you want me to do something, of course I will if I can. Tell me what you’ve got in mind.”

He turned and looked me in the eye.

“Ok,” he said, stopping by a low wall and leaning on it, staring off into the mountains. ”Let’s talk it out here but if you don’t want to do it I’ll perfectly understand. It’s a lot to ask and I won’t think the worse of you if you say ‘No’.”

“Christ, Bob, get it off your chest.” I leant there beside him and waited.

“Right. Here’s my thinking and here’s a plan.”

He took a deep breath and started.

“I reckon that Macek must have followed me up here. He knows my car. He must have tracked me to Letham – car number plate or whatever – and that’s how he managed to organize the accident at Lindores. OK?”

“OK, so far.”

“He must have found out where I was staying – maybe he followed me up here because he knows my car - and reported back to Dugain. Dugain then got his brothers over because, presumably, they didn’t want to use outside people. They came up here, fired the place, obviously planning to get rid of me, and scarpered. Because I survived and was able to phone Ross we got lucky and were able to grab the three of them at Edinburgh Airport - but no Macek.

“Now why would Macek have stayed behind? Why didn’t he get the hell out as well? The only reason I can think of is that they wanted to be sure that they’d got rid of me. Now Macek is not going to risk coming up here again to find out. That would be too dangerous. So the only thing he can do is watch Letham. If I’ve survived I’m bound to go back there sometime – and sometime soon. Does that make sense?”

“So you think he’ll watch Letham for a couple of days and if you don’t turn up he’ll assume the problem is solved and if you do he’ll try again?”