Red Crystal (40 page)

She brought in the heavy bag and, opening it, pulled out five magazines of ammunition for the Kalashnikov and placed them on the floor. She wrapped them in a towel. The bundle was bulky. There was no hope of hiding it under the kitchen unit with the other things. Besides, secrecy didn’t seem so important now. No one could possibly know about this place and she would only be coming back here if everything went wrong. And if everything went wrong she’d be fighting her way out.

She would love to use the Kalashnikov on Nick Riley. For the twentieth time she imagined killing him. In her mind’s eye she saw herself creeping up on him and bursting in with the rifle in her hand. He would stand up and stare in horror. He would raise his hands and look at her imploringly. He would stammer, ‘Please don’t.’ Then she would smile and step forward. He would stumble backwards and start to shake with fear. The sweat would show on his forehead and he would beg her not to shoot. She would let him sweat a little longer, perhaps even make him kneel, then she would tell him what she thought of him. Finally, when he was so scared that he couldn’t speak, she would pull the trigger.

She licked her lips. What she would give to make the scene a reality. Anything to obliterate the other vision that kept coming into her mind, the vision of him on top of her, pretending to love her, laughing secretly as he made love to her. She bit back the acid taste of humiliation, and thought: I’ll get him one day.

She examined all the possible hiding places in the kitchen and settled on the gap between the wall and the back of the fridge. The bundle sat neatly on the condenser, and could be reached easily by sliding a hand down the wall.

She picked up the empty bag and, locking the flat, went down to the street. She looked carefully around before walking across to the car.

As she got in, Giorgio started the car and asked, ‘Where now?’

‘To eat. Then to visit your little friend.’

He gave her a curious glance. Pulling out into the King’s Road, he laughed, ‘She’s not little.’

‘Maybe not. But she’s useful.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. She’s going to get Max back for us.’

I
T WAS LATE
afternoon by the time they left London and it took an hour to get on to the motorway. It was raining heavily and very dark, making the road treacherous. The driver, a young detective constable, was silent with concentration. The other man, an inspector with fifteen years’ service, made the occasional attempt at conversation, then gave up.

Nick sat in the back, feeling tired and depressed. It had seemed a good idea to make this trip but now he wasn’t so sure. What would he find? Proof that Wheatfield had been involved in the robbery? That would be nice, but it wouldn’t necessarily get him anywhere. What he really needed was the identity of the others – and that would be a lot to hope for. Cheshire CID hadn’t found any evidence, and they’d been working on the case for weeks.

In fact, the trip could well be a complete waste of time. And yet he was intrigued by the hint of inside knowledge. That, and the reason Wheatfield and his friends had chosen such an out of the way place as Chester: somewhere a long way from London, with banks presumably no easier to rob than those elsewhere. There might just be a good reason.

At the same time he was impatient to get back to London, to follow up the explosives lead and the Petrini connection. He decided he would stay in Chester for the night and perhaps two hours of the morning, but no longer.

As the car sped on, he brooded. He had made so many mistakes with this case. Not grabbing Wheatfield at the demonstration. Not getting Black Beard. Finding Wheatfield at St Mark’s Villas and then
watching
him buy the ingredients for his bombs. Then losing him again – not strictly his fault, that one, but something he should have prevented. And now a nice comfortable unsuspecting woman who’d had the reasonable expectation of living out her life in peace and fulfilment was dead, blown to pieces in her own kitchen, her only crime to be the wife of the Commissioner.

There mustn’t be any more mistakes.

Wheatfield was safely locked up. But Nick wanted to get his friends. Very badly.

They arrived in Chester at eight-thirty. Inspector Morrow had the case file ready for them. He also had the assistant manager of the bank, Mr Chesil, waiting in an interview room.

Nick started with the assistant manager. ‘Now, Mr Chesil, I understand you got a glimpse of the driver of the getaway van.’

‘Only the
briefest
glimpse.’

‘I see. But I’d still like you to look at some photographs for me.’ He placed the mug shots of Wheatfield on the table. ‘Is this the man?’

The assistant manager stared hard at the pictures and shook his head. ‘It
might
be. But I couldn’t be sure. It happened so quickly, you see. I hardly had a chance.’

Nick nodded. ‘Okay, now I’m going to show you some more photographs and some names. I want you to tell me if any of them are familiar. I mean in any context at all.’

He pulled out a sheaf of photographs of Wheatfield’s known associates, a list of their names, and of the organizations that Wheatfield had been involved with.

Chesil went through them slowly, then shook his head.

Kershaw’s detectives took over, and Nick returned to the inspector’s office.

Inspector Morrow said, ‘Some of the other witnesses are coming in during the evening.’ He explained who the various people were, and Nick chose to interview Miss Izzard, who was waiting in another room.

She told him about the guns and how she’d identified them as Skorpions. She also described how the first gunman had gone straight to the shopping bag full of money.

‘That gunman was a woman?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Izzard definitely.

Inspector Morrow prompted, ‘And the other acted like a gangster.’

Nick asked Miss Izzard, ‘Oh? How was that?’

She explained about the ‘Shut up or I kill you.’ She paused, then added thoughtfully, ‘You know, in hindsight I could have been wrong. Maybe I’ve seen too many films. Now I’ve had time to think about it, well – perhaps I was
too
certain.’

Nick sighed inwardly. Inspector Morrow had described this lady as a perfect witness and now she was back-pedalling.

‘You see,’ continued Miss Izzard, ‘in actual fact when you come to think about it all he did was to speak like a
foreigner
. Not just a gangster.
Any
sort of foreigner.’

Immediately, Nick thought of Black Beard. Nevertheless, he showed Miss Izzard the photographs and the list of names that he did have. After fifteen minutes she admitted defeat, saying firmly, ‘I know none of these people.’

There were no more witnesses to interview for the moment so Nick spent the next hour in Morrow’s office going carefully through all the statements in the case file. He kept thinking: There’s nothing here. I was wrong to come. After a while his mind wandered. He imagined the remainder of the terrorist cell – perhaps three or four of them – hiding out in London. Would they be lying low? Or would they be busy planning more bombs? He tried to picture them. They would be arrogant, like Wheatfield. And cruel. One failure wouldn’t put them off: it would probably encourage them. Even now they were probably planning their revenge.

Uneasy, he phoned Conway in London. Conway told him the explosives had been traced to a batch stolen from the French explosives factory at Cugny the previous June. Ten sticks of Nitramite 19C from the same batch had been discovered in Bilbao, northern Spain, in January, in a raid on the hide-out of some Basque Separatists.

What did it prove? Only what he’d known before; that the terrorists co-operated with each other.

There was no other news.

He rang off and returned to the pile of statements. At ten-thirty Morrow put his head round the door.

‘The financial director of Bradbury’s has come in. Would you like a word?’

It was Bradbury’s payroll which had been in the shopping bag, Nick remembered. Picking up his batch of photographs, he said, ‘Yes, why not?’

Morrow led the way down the corridor. ‘Well, don’t expect too much. He’s a taciturn bugger, this fellow. And he says he can only stay ten minutes.’

Kershaw’s detectives were already interviewing the man. Nick sat down and listened. The man’s name was Leonard Wilson. He was about sixty, thin-faced with grey hair receding at the temples. He was neatly dressed in a grey suit, and sat stiffly in the chair with his hands folded precisely on the table in front of him. It was soon apparent that Mr Wilson was not best pleased at being questioned again. He was quietly but firmly dismissive, and answered the questions as briefly as possible. He obviously didn’t suffer fools gladly.

No, he was saying, he had nothing new to add to his statement. He certainly had no idea why some terrorists should have chosen to rob the bank at the precise moment the payroll was being passed over.

After a few minutes he looked at his watch in an obvious way.

Nick stepped forward. ‘Would you mind very much looking at these photographs, sir?’

Mr Wilson gave a small but unmistakable sigh of annoyance. ‘If you insist.’

He looked at pictures of Wheatfield and raised his eyebrows in vague distaste. ‘I’ve never seen this person before.’

He barely glanced at the other photographs before shaking his head.

‘And just a list of names and organizations, if you wouldn’t mind.’

The list was quite long, but within ten seconds Leonard Wilson had passed it back across the table.

Nick thought: Oh no, you don’t. Pushing the paper back, he said firmly, ‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir, taking another look. It
is
very important.’

A momentary flash of irritation crossed Leonard Wilson’s face, then, pulling the list towards him, he began to read again. Nick watched his eyes travel down the list, flicking from side to side as he read each name.

Half-way down he seemed to pause. Then he started again, reading more slowly, taking more care.

Finally he looked up. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think I know any of the people or organizations on this list.’

It was the longest reply he had given that evening.

He stood up to go. Morrow caught Nick’s eye and raised his eyebrows as if to say: What did I tell you.

Wilson picked up his coat from a chair. Standing up, he looked unexpectedly thin and frail. As he unfolded the coat a pair of gloves and a scarf fell to the floor. Nick picked them up and handed them to him. He noticed that Wilson’s hand was trembling. Well, he was sixty or so; that was old age for you.

Nick helped him on with his coat.

Wilson said, ‘Thank you.’

Nick looked up sharply. There was something different about the voice: a warm tremulous quality. Almost as if he were relieved. Or nervous.

The tiniest suspicion crept into Nick’s mind.

He opened the door for the older man and walked with him down the corridor. He said, ‘The people who robbed the bank are terrorists. Did Inspector Morrow tell you that?’

Wilson nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Former students who think they can change the world.’ Nick glanced across at him. ‘Do you have any children yourself, Mr Wilson?’

‘Not any more.’ The answer came very quickly.

A child had died, obviously. ‘I’m sorry.’

They reached the main entrance of the police station. Nick stopped so that Wilson was forced to pause for a moment.

‘It was very good of you to come over. Do you have transport?’

‘Thank you. I have a car.’ He turned and, pushing rapidly through the doors, was gone.

Nick stared after him. He could swear something wasn’t quite right there, although he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He went back to the interview room and looked thoughtfully at his list. There was no Wilson on it. And
yet
.

He racked his brains. The name rang a very distinct bell. It was maddening, but he couldn’t quite place it. He tried matching it with a dozen Christian names but nothing clicked.

Records would turn it up. He got one of the detectives to phone Conway in London to start the hunt through the files, then he went in search of Morrow.

‘Who else can I talk to?’

The inspector thought for a moment. ‘Well – there’s always our friend Mrs Ackroyd. The lady who carried the payroll. She’s worked at Bradbury’s for twenty years. But I thought I’d save you an ear-bashing by not asking her in—’

‘Would you mind telling her that I’d like to come round?’

Mabel Ackroyd dropped the receiver on to its cradle and raced upstairs in panic. Reaching the bathroom she tore off her hairnet and, grabbing a tissue, rubbed the cold cream mercilessly off her face.

It was important to look her best. Scotland Yard indeed! In the last few weeks it had gone very quiet on the robbery front. She’d told everyone her story, and some of them had been interested enough to hear it several times. But more recently people had started to drift away when she’d mentioned the subject. It was most disappointing. If only Harry, her husband, were still alive. He would have listened. She missed having someone to talk to.

But now! Scotland Yard indeed!