Gallery Whispers

50

'That's the best news I've had in a long time, sir,' said Mario McGuire.

'That carry-on at the airport last week was just about the last straw for me.

'Those Dutch guys made no attempt to go through the landing cards at their end. If they had done that, and filtered out the obvious no-users, instead of just collecting the bloody things and handing them straight on, they'd have saved a hell of a lot of our time.'

'Blame the Poles first, inspector,' Skinner told him. 'They were included in the Hawkins alert, yet it took them the best part of a week to make the connection to the dead man with the phoney passport.'

'The identification was made from dental charts?' asked Andy Martin.

'That's right. Verified by a CIA agent from Berlin, or so Jock said after his third whisky, and by one of our own spooks.'

'So the body was a mess?'

'Flame grilled. Chief Superintendent, flame grilled.' He caught Martin's eye. 'I know what you're thinking, Andy, you're a suspicious bastard just like me. But the dental pattern was absolutely unmistakable, right down to the ruby and the bridge work on the left side of the lower jaw.

'On that basis, the Director of the CIA and the DG of MI6 have pronounced Hawkins dead. We humble beat-pounders have to accept it. So, like I said, you can stand down, Mario, and you, Neil, can forget about co-ordination and daily reporting.' Mcllhenney smiled and nodded.

'Andy, Karen Neville will be back on your staff as of this morning.'

He looked back towards McGuire. 'By the way, what's this I hear about her pulling a suspect?' he asked, sharply.

'I think it was the other way round, boss, he pulled her,' McGuire answered, more than a little defensively.

'Come on, Mario, she didn't exactly batter him with her handbag, did she. Didn't the words "No thank you" occur to her?'

'She did what she thought was best at the time, sir. She saw this guy, he had no obvious reason to be at the conference, he fitted the Hawkins profile and he had a limp. When he asked her to have dinner with him she accepted as a means of making contact rather than anything else.'

The DCC grinned, finally. 'Okay, I accept that.'

McGuire continued. 'The first thing she did after she made the date was to check him out; before she even told me about it. The guy is legit. He's who he says he is, beyond doubt. I know because I did a back-up check myself; even had the guy's photo faxed across from Australia.'

'That's fine, but once she'd checked him outthere was no need to keep the date, was there?'

'No,' the inspector conceded. 'Other than the obvious: she likes him.'

'But he turned out to be gay.'

'She told him the same thing.'

'She did?' Skinner laughed. 'And he believed her?'

'Ah, well,' McGuire murmured, hesitantly. 'I'm not so sure about that. Karen seemed very pleased with herself yesterday morning. I think those cover stories might have been blown.'

The DCC shook his head. 'Let's just draw a veil over the whole thing,' he said. 'Sounds like Neville was the only person who got anything out of this operation. If that's so, good luck to her.'