Cold War

ELEVEN

Having worked out the solution to a seemingly insoluble problem, the mind longs for verification. It is not simply enough to know intuitively that something is correct; humans desire external confirmation. A math student wants the proof to be convincing and communicable. A police officer making an arrest wants the satisfaction of a conviction in a court of law.

Nessa wanted the Picasso, or more likely, the series of Picassos. She had consulted experts on her theory of a painting from the time of Guernica; there had been no firm consensus, but to her mind that made it even more convincing. Even more convincing was the buzz from certain quarters that she was not the first to make such inquiries. A Japanese collector had approached a professor in Barcelona, a curator in Los Angeles had been queried by a Belgian entrepreneur — there were questions in the air.

If she could find Elata, Nessa figured she would know within a half hour if she was right or not. She would charge him with theft and threaten him with a jail term of several years for stealing the letter from the museum. She would find out about the Picassos — as well as many other paintings. For he was a nervous man, haughty but on the edge and easily broken; she’d seen it in his eyes on the platform.

She could have grabbed him then. But at that moment there had been nothing to charge him with.

Nessa stared at a list of the men and two women who were suspected of having employed Elata over the last decade; it was not a long list, but every name was a prominent member of the art community and the world at large. Two had net worths that topped that of several countries. To say that their wealth and power protected them was an understatement — though with the right evidence, such as a sworn confession from the master forger himself, even the difficult might be attempted.

Others had tried to take Elata down. To fantasize like this was dangerous.

Her boss wanted him. More — he wanted the Picassos. He salivated over them — phony or real made little difference. Find them, and his career would be made; the French government would undoubtedly issue a medal.

Her boss wasn’t kidding. He’d authorized her to go “anywhere in pursuit of tangible leads.” Whatever resource she wanted, she could have.

As long as she succeeded.

Nessa pushed the thick pile of papers into the case folder. It was late, far past quitting time; the other offices were dark. She shoved the printouts and her notes into the top drawer of her desk, locked it, and went to leave.

The phone rang. She nearly blew it off, but then decided to pick it up — sometimes her ma called her here when she couldn’t reach her at the apartment.

Then again, her mother was sure to ask her whether she had a boyfriend for the umpteenth time. Perhaps she should just let it ring.

Nessa grabbed it a half second before the voice-mail system would have taken over.

“Nessa Lear,” she said.

“Put more snap into it, lass. You want ’em tremblin’ before they start talking to you.”

“Gorrie!”

“I won’t argue with you,” said her old partner. “It’s too good to hear your voice.”

“How are you?”

“Up to the kilt in muck n’ mire.”

“You’re drivin’ roun’ Inverness in a kilt these days? Do you carry your bagpipes with you?”

“ ’Neath the kilt.” His voice suddenly downshifted. “Ness, dearie, I need a favor.”

“Favor?”

“I have a string of accidents that add into something more than accidents, if you know what I mean. Murder, I think.”

“In Inverness?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“How can I help?”

Gorrie told her about the records involving the nuclear plant’s waste. Interpol had a database of international terrorists, and he wondered if he might have her check the names against them. He also had the name of the transport company that moved the waste.

“This isn’t an Interpol matter,” she told him.

“I know,” said her old partner. “But I’m beginning to think the woman at UKAE is involved. Constance Burns. Ever hear of her?”

“Not at all. You want me to run her name too?”

“Couldn’t hurt. She’s in Switzerland on vacation, or at least supposed to be. Hasn’t returned my calls yet, an’ I was just settin’ here wonderin’ why.”

“Technically, you’re supposed to be dealing through MI5,” she said. “Or at least—”

“I called to London and there’s no one can help me till the morning,” he said. “You would have liked this case, Nessa. Deputy Chief Constable is in a twit over his detection rate.”

She typed in her password and entered the data bank. She hadn’t been here long enough to know what the bosses might think of helping out a fellow police officer; she imagined the reaction could run from awarding her a commendation to kicking her back to Scotland.

“Nothing on any of your hits. Transport company again?”

“Highland Specialty Transport. I have done some checkin’ on my own. Seems to be a subsidiary of a Yank concern: Aesthetic Transfers.”

“Aesthetic Transfers?”

“Aesthetic Transfers Inc. I have the address here.”

“Hold on, Gorrie.” Nessa pulled open the drawer. Her fingers trembled as she clawed at the file.

Aesthetic Transfers — an international transportation firm specializing in international art and antique shipments and used by several museums. Sole stockholders — Morgan Family Trust (II).

Part of the Morgan empire controlled by Gabriel Morgan — a suspected dealer of fraudulent and black-market artworks and current tax scofflaw wanted by the U.S. Treasury Department. A suspected associate and possible employer of Marc Elata. Holed up in Zurich, Switzerland, where he had successfully fought off extradition by U.S. authorities.

“Frank,” she said, picking up the phone again. “Tell me everything again, very slowly. No, wait — give me your number. I’ll call you back on my mobile phone.”

“Department will pay for the call.”

“That’s not it — I want to get going. I’ll talk to you on the way.”

“Where are you going?”

“Switzerland. Give me your number.”

When he hung up with Nessa, Gorrie glanced at the clock. Though he had told his wife he’d be home by eight, he realized there was little sense making it there on the dot; she’d be talking schoolteacher talk with the visitor for hours and he’d only end up brooding in the corner. Better to take the time to work on this tangled knot.

Talking to Nessa made things no clearer, though it was good to hear her voice again. She seemed to be making a splash.

Gorrie’s thoughts returned to Cardha Duff. If the murder had anything to do with the power plant and its waste, the lass didn’t fit — unless Mackay had told her about the goings-on there.

Possible.

He drew out the file on the murder, looking over the report on her belongings. Nothing unusual, but then they hadn’t bothered with an extensive inventory, given the circumstances of death. The apartment hadn’t appeared ransacked. He could go back there and hunt around, but wouldn’t a murderer have done the same?

If it was murder. The lab report leaned heavily toward accident.

If someone intended on killing her — if someone really wanted to do her in — why wait for several days after the others?

Maybe they didn’t know about her until then.

Gorrie went back through his notes to make sure that Christine Gibbon hadn’t given the name during their initial interview. It didn’t appear there — but DC Andrews had conducted the actual interview, and he had not as yet typed his notes for the file.

A week late at least. Nessa would not have been so tardy, even as one of the unwashed.

Gorrie picked up the phone and called the young detective constable at home. Andrews’s wife answered, giving a timid hello.

“Hello, Marge,” Gorrie told her. “I just need a word with your husband. I won’t keep him, I promise.”

“Inspector Gorrie, how are you,” she said loudly, undoubtedly intending her husband nearby to hear and decide whether he wanted to be bothered or not. Their two-year-old cried in the background.

“A quick question’s all,” promised Gorrie again.

“Here, Inspector,” she said as the babe’s cry crescendoed.

Andrews came on the phone with his husky voice. “Inspector?”

“When you spoke to Christine Gibbon, did she mention any of Mackay’s alleged girlfriends?”

“You mean the Duff tart?”

Gorrie didn’t answer.

“She may have,” said Andrews. “Timing blurs a bit.”

“Can you check your notes?”

“Haven’t got ’em, sir,” said Andrews, turning from the phone a moment as the baby continued to cry. “Can you shush ’em?” he asked his wife.

“Never mind, Andrews.”

“That’s it, sir?”

“Good night.”

Gorrie dialed Gibbon’s number, but got only her answering machine; he left a message asking her to call back. Finally he opened another of the files on his desk and fished out the news items on the case. Christine Gibbon had given more interviews after the murder than a movie star promoting a new film. He glanced through the stories, but none included Ms. Duff’s name, only hints that there was “another woman.”

One story declared that the interview had taken place in the “historic taproom of Brown Glen Hall, where the interviewee is a well-regarded raconteur.”

The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, thinking it was Gibbon returning his call.

Instead, it was a man who identified himself as Phil Hernandez, an executive with UpLink International.

“What precisely is that?” Gorrie asked the man, who had an American accent.

“We’re an international communications concern,” said the man, adding that he was in the security division, filling in for another person Gorrie had never heard of. “One of our people at Glasgow intercepted a hacker trying to break into our e-mail system.”

“Computer crimes are a bit out of my expertise,” Gorrie told him. “And Glasgow—”

“It’s rather complicated.” Hernandez explained that in investigating the attempted hack, they had uncovered possible evidence of another crime. They were alerting Scotland Yard’s computer branch, but some of the e-mail they encountered seemed to pertain to Inverness and they had been referred to the local CID.

It appeared from the e-mail that the owner of an estate there named Cameron had been targeted for murder.

Until Ewie Cameron’s name was mentioned, Gorrie paid scant attention. Now he pulled over a pad and began taking careful notes. The man read four e-mails; only one was directly incriminating — it mentioned Cameron by name and gave a price for his death. But there was another one referring to a “trashman,” and still another advising that the job would not be considered complete until all complications were eliminated.

That one was dated two days ago. All were signed “CB,” and all had come from the UKAE computer system.

“I don’t know that these are authentic,” said Hernandez, “but we can help you find out. Scotland Yard will undoubtedly be in touch.”

“I’ll arrange for a detective to go to your Glasgow office,” said Gorrie. He wrote down the contact information, unsure who he could send who might actually understand how they had managed to come up with the information.

CB — Constance Burns, of course.

It was all suspiciously easy, just like finding the truck with a spot of blood still on the fender.

Gorrie hung up — then hit *69, which on their phone system redialed the number that had just been connected. On the third ring, a Yank picked up the phone.

“UpLink International,” he said. “How can I direct your call?”

“Is there a Mr. Hernandez who works there?”

“Hold on and I’ll connect you.”

“Thank you, but it won’t be necessary now,” Gorrie said, hanging up. He started a new folder for the UpLink information, then put it on top of the others at the side of his desk. The large clock on the wall read five minutes to eight.

He must not show up at home too late, he decided. This new business would hold off the higher-ups for some days, perhaps even win him more men. Russell would bristle when he heard Scotland Yard had been contacted.

Still, there was time to stop by Brown Glen Hall and see if he could find Christine Gibbon there.

She was not there, which didn’t surprise him terribly. And no one remembered anyone odd hanging around who might have overheard her running her mouth.

“Tourist types this time of year? Not many,” said the regular bar girl, Sallie, as she delivered a few Guinnesses to a pair of regulars near the dart board. “Haven’t had but a one these past few weeks. No monsters in our parking lot.”

“We’ve got a ghost,” said the bartender, as if making a pitch. “Two.”

“Aye, but you don’t advertise him, that’s your problem,” Sallie told him. “What we need is a good sighting or two.”

“Nice American girl a week or so ago, about the time you’re talking,” said the bartender. “Good-lookin’, if she’d put on a little weight up top. Needs titties. Wouldn’t kick her outta bed, though.”

“Nice arse, you ask me,” said an older man standing at the bar nearby.

“Christine Gibbon bent her ear that one night,” said Sallie. “Maybe she’s the one you’re looking for, Inspector.”

“I didnae say I’m looking for anyone,” said Gorrie.

“I don’t know that Chrissie bent her ear,” said the bartender. “The Yank paid for the drinks.”

“What’s happened to the wee boy, Inspector?” asked Sallie.

“They’re hoping a sister will take him.”

“Best thing for it.”

“Did anyone else listen to Christine Gibbon?” Gorrie asked.

“Only five of us ever here most nights, Frank,” Sallie said. “Until the winter ends.”

“And school lets out,” added the bartender. “That’s when business picks up.”

“You serving kiddies now?” said Gorrie.

“What I mean is, that’s when the tourists come up,” said the bartender.

“No one else unusual?” Gorrie asked Sallie.

“We’re not unusual enough for you?”

Gorrie hunched his shoulders and considered ordering a drink. But then he remembered his wife and her schoolteacher friend.

A schoolteacher in Scotland in March, the middle of the school year.

“Did Miss Gibbon mention a Cardha Duff?” he asked them.

“She might have,” said Sallie. “One of the girlfriends?”

“Describe the tourist, would you?” Gorrie said, instead of answering.

“Five-eight, curly auburn hair not very long, no tits as I told you.”

“Dark clothes, large purse. Has money, though she tries to hide it,” added Sallie.

“How so?”

“Leather bag, very nice shoes. Drove a common Ford, blue little thing, type anyone would rent.”

“Did she use a credit card?” Gorrie asked.

“Cash. No trouble with the money like some Yanks,” said Sallie.

“Where was she staying?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Still around,” said the man who had spoken before. “Saw ’er at Grant’s using the telephone one day. Chemist’s the next.”

“Couldn’t’ve been her,” said Sallie. “She had a mobile phone — I saw it poking from the top of the bag.”

“I wouldn’t forget an arse like ’ers.” The man went back to his beer.

Paranoia tickled Gorrie’s senses as he left the pub. The coincidence of the killer seeking out his wife was just too great — and yet, if someone had come to town so skilled as to make four related murders seem completely unrelated, wasn’t it just possible that he would seek out the one person trying to tie them together and prove they were murders, not accidents?

He, not she. A woman couldn’t have committed these crimes, or wouldn’t.

Why not? Held down Cardha Duff while she injected her? Duff was a wee lass, and if sleeping, might have been easily overwhelmed. The small chest bruise at her ribs might have come from a knee or an arm.

Losh, as Nan would say. You’ll be seeing pipers in the mist next, and soldiers manning castles that haven’t existed in five hundred years.

A schoolteacher in March. Two schoolteachers in Inverness.

Maybe the Yanks all had mid-winter holiday.

Gorrie saw the blue Ford in his driveway and kept going, continuing down the block to Peterson’s house. He put the car in their driveway, then got out and walked back, feeling foolish. A small lorry approached from the opposite direction; he tensed as it slowed, then saw it was only the local gas service.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the driver, leaning out the window. “We’ve had some phone calls of gas smell in the neighborhood this afternoon and evening. Have you smelled anything?”

“No,” said Gorrie.

The man nodded solemnly. “Probably a disturbed person but we’re required to check it out. Missed my dinner over this.”

The man drove on. Gorrie crossed the street and stopped in the front yard next to his house, trying to see past the curtains into the sitting room. He could just make out Nan on the couch. Her visitor sat in the armchair at the corner, back to him.

Nan rose and went to the kitchen. The visitor got up as well, took a look after her, then went to the window. She had short, curly hair and a thin, attractive face.

Why would she look out the window?

Any of a million reasons, Gorrie thought.

Nan returned to the room with a fresh pot of tea. The visitor turned back, gesturing out at the window. They began laughing.

What a fool I’m being, Gorrie told himself. He went back to Peterson’s, got his car, and went around the block as if just coming in.

“Hello there,” he said, stomping his feet at the front door. “Good evening, miss.”

“Hello,” said the Yank, rising as Nan came and took his coat. The visitor held out her hand. “Stephanie Plower.”

“A pleasure,” he said, shaking her hand and looking into her face. She was of the right height to match the lass Sallie and the others had described; her hair was right as well. But she seemed heavier than their description, a bulky, loose-knit sweater camouflaging what he imagined was a fullish top.

A sweater that hid a bullet-proof vest?

He wasn’t merely paranoid but delusional, he thought to himself.

“You’re a schoolteacher?” said Gorrie, taking a cup from his wife.

“Oh yes. In the States. I was just telling your wife, we’re on vacation. Holiday, I think you would say.”

“You’ve seen Loch Ness, I expect.”

“Of course — but no monster, I’m sorry to say.” Miss Plower rattled off a full itinerary. She had been to the ruins of Fortrose Cathedral, Chanory Point, Fair Glen (though the cherry trees were dormant), and two dozen other local highlights.

A lot of time in Inverness, Gorrie thought. And a lot of visiting in the area where Cameron was found.

“Have you tried our pubs?” he asked.

“Doesn’t drink,” said Nan, with a hint that perhaps others might take the example.

“A visit to Scotland without stopping in a pub?”

“I expect I’ll visit one soon,” answered Miss Plower. “Your wife said you were a detective.”

“An inspector, yes.”

“You must have interesting cases.”

“The odd sort, now and again.”

She smiled. Gorrie noticed that her bag wasn’t nearby — Nan would have put it in the closet straightaway.

If she had a gun, she’d have it there, he thought. And if she was a killer, she would have a gun.

A simple thing to make an excuse, get up, and check.

“Frank has been with the police twenty-five years,” said Nan. “Tell her the story of the boat rescue. That’s a favorite.”

“Wasn’t much.”

“A boat rescue on land,” Nan told Miss Powers. “Some wee lads were havin’ a bit of fun—”

“I saw some police up on the highway near Rosmarkie yesterday afternoon,” said Miss Powers. “Must have been an accident.”

“Wouldn’t know,” said Gorrie. “Traffic constables, I expect.”

The American sipped her tea.

“She’s heard about that business on Eriskay,” said Nan.

“Terrible,” said the American.

“Oh, yes.”

“Jealous wife? That’s what the paper said.”

Gorrie got up. “I’ve forgotten to put out the garbage. Let me take care of that before it slips my mind again.”

“Frank,” hissed his wife. “The garbage now? Manners,” she added in a stage whisper.

He ignored her, walking quickly to the closet. He reached inside, past his jacket, looking toward the floor for the American’s bag.

“Now, Inspector, do you think I would be so foolish as to leave my weapon in the bag?” said the American behind him. “Back out now, with the pocketbook please, and keep your hands high. Stay where you are, Nan.”

Gorrie thought of taking the umbrella near the corner of the closet and smashing her with it, but he couldn’t tell how far she was away from him. There was also Nan to consider. So he complied slowly.

“What sort of accident will you dress this up as?” he asked, still facing away from her.

“Something will occur to me, I’m sure,” she said. “Slide the bag on the floor.”

“And if I don’t?”

Instead of answering, she reached forward and grabbed it from his hand.

His chance — he’d missed it.

“There have been reports of gas in the neighborhood,” she said, sliding something from the bag and placing it on the floor. “I don’t suppose they’ve found the leak yet.”

“They’ve already checked here,” said Nan.

“Incompetence is rife,” said the American.

“I wouldn’t think even my detective constable would accept the coincidence of six accidents so close together,” said Gorrie. He turned halfway toward her, about six feet away in the small room.

Not quite enough for a lunge.

“Into the kitchen now, both of you.”

Gorrie glanced toward his wife. The teapot was near her; if she could just pick it up, it might catch the American off guard.

Surely the woman’s reflexes were quick enough to kill both of them before the water even scalded her.

She’d kill them soon anyway.

But she wouldn’t shoot them if she didn’t have to. She wanted this to look like an accident, and the bullets might be found.

“The kitchen, Inspector,” said the American, sidling past him toward the door.

She wanted to lock it. She could just barely reach it and still cover them.

Not both at the same time. He had to do something quickly.

“Nan, the kitchen!” he shouted.

As the killer jerked her head toward his wife, Gorrie twisted around and sprung at Plower. The gun went off near his face, but he heard it as if from a vast distance away, muffled by his surging adrenaline. She was stronger than he’d guessed, far stronger, and the bulk at her chest had come from a special vest; he felt the hard panel with the first punch. He slammed his skull against her chin, felt a sharp pang at the back of his neck, pushed himself against her with everything he had, hoping Nan had the sense to run and save herself.

She didn’t. But it was quite likely the smash she gave the American with the hammer from their tool drawer was the blow that rendered her unconscious.