At Risk

26

So tell me,” said Liz, when she and Goss were established, once again, in the saloon bar of the Trafalgar.

Goss considered. “Going on the evidence of that tape, I’d say we were still in the dark. I think Ray Gunter was one of the two people in the cab of that truck, and I think he followed whoever was in the back to the toilet block, and got himself shot. The question is, who was in the back? Don Whitten, I know, thinks that we’re looking at a people-smuggling operation, and that the person that Gunter let out was part of the cargo, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support that theory. All sorts of people travel in the backs of trucks, and most people-smugglers take their cargoes to one of the cities, they don’t drop them off at rural transport cafés to be collected by people in saloon cars.”

“Looked more like a hatchback to me,” said Liz. She felt slightly guilty for keeping the Special Branch officer in the dark about “Mitch,” Peregrine Lakeby, and the Zander calls, but until she had spoken to Frankie Ferris, as she was due to do this evening, she could see no sense in sharing what she had discovered. What had happened, she was now almost certain, was that a low-level Melvin Eastman people-smuggling operation had been hijacked in order to bring a specific individual into the UK unannounced. Someone who, for whatever reason, couldn’t risk coming in with a false passport. Eastman’s “Pakis and ragheads” rant suggested that the individual in question was probably Islamic, and assuming that this was the case, the use of the PSS pistol suggested a specially armed operative. Whichever way you looked at it, it was worrying.

“Two haddock and chips,” said Cherisse Hogan breezily, depositing large oval plates in front of them and returning a minute later with a bowlful of sauce sachets.

“I hate these bloody things,” said Goss, tearing at one of the sachets with his large fingers until it more or less exploded in his hand. Liz watched him without comment for a moment, and then, taking a pair of scissors from her bag, neatly decapitated a tartare sauce sachet and squeezed it on to the side of her plate.

“Don’t say it,” warned Goss, wiping his fingers. “No brain versus brawn gags.”

“I wouldn’t dream of any such thing,” promised Liz, passing him the scissors.

They ate in companionable silence. “Beats the Norwich canteen,” said Goss after a few minutes. “How’s your fish?”

“Good,” said Liz. “I’m just wondering if it was one of Ray Gunter’s.”

“It’s had its revenge if it was,” said a familiar voice.

She looked up. Bruno Mackay stood at her elbow, car keys in hand. He was wearing a tan leather jacket and carrying a laptop computer in a satchel over one shoulder.

“Liz,” he said, extending his hand.

She took it, forcing a smile. Did his presence mean what she thought it meant? Belatedly, she glanced at Goss, frozen opposite her in an attitude of enquiry.

“Er… Bruno Mackay,” she said, “this is Steve Goss. Norfolk Special Branch.”

Goss nodded, lowered his fork and guardedly extended his hand.

Bruno shook it. “I’ve been asked to come up and share the strain,” he explained with a broad smile. “Lend a helping hand.”

Liz forced a smile of her own. “Well, as you can see, the strain’s not too unbearable yet. Have you had anything to eat?”

“No. I’m ravenous. I might just go and have a quick word with Truly Scrumptious over there. Would you mind…” Dropping his keys proprietorially on the table, he marched off to the bar, where he was soon locked in intimate consultation with Cherisse.

“Something tells me you’ve been stitched up,” murmured Goss.

Liz emptied her face of her feelings. “No, I’ve just had my phone switched off. I obviously missed the message that he was on his way.”

“Get you anything?” Bruno called out cheerfully from the bar.

Liz and Goss both shook their heads. Cherisse’s eyes were shining, Liz noted with irritation. Mackay, meanwhile, looked roguishly at home.

“Bit of a personality, then, your chum?” Goss remarked drily.

“Indeed,” Liz confirmed.

The rest of the meal was distinctly unrelaxing. There were too many listeners-in at nearby tables for any discussion of the case to be possible. Instead, Mackay quizzed Goss about the area’s competing attractions. Treating him, thought Liz, like a Norfolk Tourist Board representative.

“So, assuming that I was in the market for a weekend cottage, where would you advise me to buy one?” asked Mackay, pocketing the credit card with which he had just, with cavalier nonchalance, paid the bill for the three of them.

Goss regarded him levelly. “Perhaps Burnham Market?” he suggested. “That’s very popular with the Range Rover set.”

“Ouch!” Mackay displayed his preternaturally white teeth. “That’s me well and truly put in my place.” He stood up and reached for his keys. “Liz, might I just detach you from Steve here for an hour or two? Ask you to bring me up to speed?”

“I’m due back to Norwich at two o’clock,” said Goss. “So I’ve got to make a move anyway.” He gave Liz the ghost of a wink and raised a hand to Mackay. “Thanks for lunch. Next one’s on me.”

“Cheers,” said Mackay.

“Will you just excuse me a minute?” Liz murmured to Mackay when Goss had left the bar. “I’ll be right back.”

She called Wetherby from the public phone outside on the sea front. He picked up on the second ring, and sounded tired.

“Please,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he answered. “You have to have Mackay with you. I’ve no choice on this one.”

“Fane?”

“Precisely. He wants his man there. In fact he insists on him being there, as indeed he has every right to insist.”

“Full disclosure? Full data-sharing?”

The briefest of pauses. “That was the agreement between our respective sevices.”

“I see.”

“Make him work,” suggested Wetherby. “Make him earn his keep.”

“I certainly will. He’s here for the duration?”

“For as long as it takes. He’s reporting direct to Fane, just as you are to me.”

“Understood. I have a meet with Zander tonight that I’m hopeful about. I’ll call you afterwards.”

“Do that. And take our mutual friend to the meet.”

The phone went dead and Liz stared for a moment at the receiver in her hand. Conventionally, agent RVs were only ever conducted by one officer at a time. Shrugging, she returned the phone to its cradle. Strictly speaking, Zander was no longer her agent, but Special Branch’s. And reading between the lines-interpreting the pauses rather than the words-she knew that Wetherby wanted her to continue playing her own game, whatever the notional ground rules. At the same time, however, she was under no illusions that Mackay would be sharing everything that he and his service knew with her. He would also be playing his own game. For that reason, it made sense to be the one who initiated the data-share.

“My room’s called Victory,” grinned Mackay, when she went back into the saloon bar. “I thought you might like to know that!”

“Fascinating. You’ve booked in already?”

“I have indeed. With Miss Scrumptious.”

“I hope you’re not teasing her,” said Liz. “She’s a potentially useful source on this one, and I’d like to keep her onside.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t frighten her away. In fact I have the feeling I’d be very hard pressed to do so.”

“Hooked already, is she?”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant that she’s not a girl who gives the impression of scaring easily.”

“I see. Do you want to walk while I brief you, or sit upstairs? Sea breeze or gas fire, in other words?”

“Let’s walk. I suspect that today’s lunch wasn’t the first outing for that chip oil. I could use some air.”

They walked east to begin with, as far as Creake Manor, where Liz told him about her initial recce of the village and her calculations concerning the sailing club. After passing the Manor they turned, and strolled back to Headland Hall, which Mackay examined with interest.

Liz filled him in. Zander’s calls. The conclusions she had drawn from the armour-piercing round. Her questioning of Cherisse Hogan and Lakeby. Her near certainty that the man in the front of the truck with Ray Gunter was “Mitch.” Her hope that Mitch was an associate of Melvin Eastman, and that Zander would be able to help identify him.

“And if you do get an ID on this Mitch?” asked Mackay.

“Give him to the police to pick up,” said Liz.

Mackay pursed his lips and slowly nodded. “You’ve done well,” he said without condescension. “What’s the score on Lakeby? Are you going to have him lifted too?”

“Not much point, I’d say-he’s just one of the links to Mitch. Once we’ve got Mitch in the bag and talking, we won’t need Peregrine Lakeby.”

“Do you think he knew what was actually going on on that beach of his?”

“Not really. I think he preferred to take the money and not think about it. Hid behind the idea that they were honest smugglers bringing in a few cartons of booze and fags. He may be a snob and a bully, but I don’t think he’s any kind of traitor. I think he’s just someone who found out that when you start taking the bad guys’ money, the ratchet only ever turns one way.”

“What kind of sweets do you like?” asked Mackay after they had taken another half-dozen paces.

“Sweets?”

Mackay grinned. “You can’t walk along an English sea front without a paper bagful of something brightly coloured and sugary. Preferably poured into the bag with a plastic scoop.”

“Is that official MI6 policy?”

“Absolutely. Let’s go and see what the village store has to offer.”

Inside the small shop a woman in a blue nylon overall was straightening copies of the Sun and the Daily Express. Elsewhere there were plastic toys, knitting patterns, and shelves of dusty sweet jars.

“Flying saucers!” Liz heard Mackay exclaim in reverent disbelief. “I haven’t seen these since… And Love Hearts!”

“You’re on your own,” said Liz. “Those fish and chips were enough for me.”

“Oh go on,” said Mackay. “At least let me stand you a liquorice bootlace. They make your tongue go black.”

Liz laughed. “You really know the way to a woman’s heart, don’t you?”

“Gobstopper?”

“No!”

In the end he left with a bag of flying saucers. “At school,” he said, as the door chime rang behind them, “I used to empty the powder out of these and sell it for a fiver a line. No finer sight than a group of well-heeled public schoolboys snorting lemon sherbet and then trying to persuade themselves that they’re completely off their heads.” He passed the bag to Liz. “What do you think our man’s here to do?”

“Our man?”

“Our shooter. Why do you think he’s gone to so much trouble to get himself here in particular?”

She and Wetherby had discussed this the night before, but without reaching any particular conclusion. “Some sort of spectacular, perhaps?” she hazarded. “There are the USAF bases at Marwell, Mildenhall and Lakenheath, but they’re on a very high state of alert, and would represent very difficult targets for a single individual or even a small team. There’s the Sizewell nuclear plant, I suppose, and Ely Cathedral and various other public buildings but again, a very tall order. More likely, to my mind, is the assassination possibility: the Lord Chancellor’s got a house in Aldeburgh, the Treasury Chief Secretary’s got a place at Thorpeness, and the head of the DTI’s up at Sheringham… Not the most high-profile of targets, internationally speaking, but you’d certainly make headlines if you managed to put a bullet through one of them.”

“Have their people been warned?” asked Mackay.

“In general terms, yes, they’ve been told to step things up.”

“And the Queen’s at Sandringham for Christmas, I suppose.”

“That’s right, but again, you’d really be pushed to get anywhere near there with a weapon of any kind. Security’s as tight as a drum.”

Mackay placed a flying saucer into his mouth.

“I guess we’d better get back and see what the plods have uncovered. What time do you want to make a move for Braintree?”

“Not later than five?”

“OK. Let’s go back to the Trafalgar, order up a pot of coffee from the lovely Cherisse, spread out a few Ordnance Survey maps, and try and think ourselves into this man’s mind.”