Dead Line

FORTY-ONE

Dougal had been warned by the hotel manager that Israelis could be rude. But the three he was showing around Gleneagles that morning were perfectly polite – if uncommunicative. They spoke to each other in Hebrew, and to Dougal barely at all.

The three Israelis were not staying in the hotel; they had taken one of the Glenmor timeshare houses, where their country’s delegation would also be staying during the peace conference. Normally the manager himself would have been escorting them, but he had even bigger fish to fry: the Secret Service had arrived the night before, and were already combing the hotel, where the American President would be staying.

The timeshares were pleasant, high-gabled houses, laid out in a meandering line around a pond and little stream just across a road behind the hotel grounds. When Dougal had collected the three visitors first thing that morning, they had no complaints about the accommodation.

The woman in this trio, Naomi, was about forty, a little haggard-looking, and perpetually talking on her mobile phone. She seemed to be consulting her superiors in London or Tel Aviv about every detail, from the way each room should be arranged to the food and kitchen utensils required to make two dozen kosher breakfasts. The younger of the two men, Oskar, seemed to be her assistant; he deferred to Naomi in any discussion, and agreed with everything she said.

It was the other man whom Dougal found unsettling. He kept himself aloof, and spoke to Dougal only when he had a question. He didn’t say much to Naomi or Oskar either, and Dougal had the distinct impression that the other two were a little nervous of the man. They called him Danny.

During the morning they focused on finalising domestic arrangements, inspecting each of the houses assigned to the Israeli delegation, the catering arrangements for those who might want to cook for themselves, and a tour of the hotel – Dougal showing them the restaurants, the pool and the small arcade of shops.

Dougal left them to themselves as they lunched, claiming he had to check in with the office – it wasn’t true, but he needed a break, especially from the dark-haired Danny, whose blank eyes Dougal found unnerving.

When they reconvened after lunch, on the gravel drive by the hotel entrance, Dougal sensed that something had been decided. Naomi was no longer on the phone, and she hung back as Danny stepped forward.

The Israeli said, ‘On the evening before the conference begins, we are planning to give a dinner for one of the delegations. We think the golf club restaurant would make a nice venue.’

Dougal nodded. ‘That can be arranged. The view of the hills is grand. Would you be wanting to go down there now and look at it?’

‘Later,’ said Danny, a little curtly. Dougal wondered if he’d been in the military, but then, hadn’t all Israelis? ‘We also want to provide some entertainment for our guests. Something local to this region that they might enjoy.’

‘Would you like live music?’ He could rustle up some pipers in kilts to give an ‘authentic’ Scottish flavour to the entertainment.

But Danny shook his head. ‘No, no music. We’d like something before the dinner. Something outside.’

‘Outside? The weather can be up and down, you know, especially now it’s autumn.’ And chilly, thought Dougal.

‘We’ll take the chance. Let’s go to the falconry centre,’ Danny said. The preoccupied man of the morning had given way to the leader, somebody who knew what he wanted. It was clear now that Danny was in charge of this curious trio.

‘They say all Arabs like birds of prey,’ Naomi said.

‘Is it Arabs you’ll be entertaining?’ asked Dougal as they stood waiting for Danny to finish his conversation with the head of the falconry centre. They had been there for over an hour; Dougal had had to struggle to look interested as Danny asked the falconry man another of his countless questions. How much did the birds weigh? Did their transmitter bother them? Would they mind being handled by strangers? This assuming the guests of the Israelis would want to have a go themselves.

‘Actually, I’m not supposed to say,’ said Naomi, looking guiltily towards Danny, who fortunately was listening intently to the falcon man. But Dougal noted that she had already nodded.

At last Danny was finished. He spoke sharply to Naomi and Oskar in Hebrew. Turning to Dougal, he said, ‘Now we need to look at the golf club restaurant. But on the way, let’s stop at the gun dog school.’

Danny strode confidently towards the school, and Dougal followed with Naomi and Oskar. He was beginning to feel like a spare part. You’d think he knew this place better than I do, thought Dougal crossly.

They stood outside a large fenced compound as a dozen black Labradors, cooped up inside the fence, jumped around friskily. The handler, a smiling woman with a mop of blond curly hair, came out to meet them. Danny took her to one side, talking earnestly to her, and Dougal could hear only snatches of their conversation. A retrieval display… duck decoys… no problem.

Gradually it dawned on Dougal that the Israeli wanted the dogs to be part of the entertainment he was planning for the evening before the conference began. He was surprised. In his experience, Arabs didn’t like dogs, regarding them as barely a step up from vermin.

The handler led one of the Labradors out of the pen on a lead, and walked to the kennel building, where she left the dog tied to a post and went inside, emerging a minute later carrying a couple of decoys and a large rag. Behind her another dog followed obediently, without a lead. It was bigger than the Labradors, and short-haired, with a rich chocolate coat and a white-and-brown speckled face.

‘This is Kreuzer,’ the handler said, walking towards the edge of the adjacent lawn, a wide grassy square of several acres, dotted by the small greens and sand bunkers of the pitch and putt golf course. ‘He’s a German pointer. Give him one smell of something and he’ll find it half a mile away.’

She stopped and called the pointer to her. Kreuzer came up and sat obediently, his keen face looking up awaiting his orders. The handler took the rag she held in one hand and passed it once, then twice, in front of Kreuzer’s nose. She stood back, then handed the rag to Oskar, Naomi’s sidekick. ‘If you go across the field I’ll distract the dog.’ She pointed towards the distant trees across the expanse of lawn. ‘Hide it wherever you like.’

As Oskar set out, she turned around and faced the kennel building in the opposite direction. Kreuzer obediently did the same. Danny stood beside her and they talked for a minute, while Dougal wondered what was going on. He looked across to the trees and saw Oskar go round a clump of rhododendrons then emerge again, no longer holding the rag.

The handler turned around as Oskar rejoined them. ‘Now watch this,’ she said, and gave a sharp high whistle. At once the German pointer began moving agitatedly in circles, its nose held high in the air as it sniffed carefully. Suddenly it turned and raced at high speed across the grass, heading straight for the shrubs where Oskar had been. The dog charged right into the middle of the dark foliage and was lost from sight; when it came out seconds later, it had the rag in its mouth.

‘Bravo!’ shouted Naomi, as the dog trotted back with its find.

The handler nodded with satisfaction. ‘Good enough?’ she asked Danny, who was watching the dog intently.

‘Let’s try the decoys,’ Danny said, pointing with one arm in the direction of the small lake near the entrance drive.

‘Okay,’ said the handler. ‘I’ll just get the Labrador.’ As she walked off, Danny looked at Dougal. ‘There is no need for you to stay with us,’ he declared.

‘Oh,’ said Dougal, taken aback. ‘I’ll be getting back then. You know how to find me if you need me.’

Danny started towards the lake before he could even shake his hand. Graceless kind of bloke, thought Dougal, as he walked back to the hotel and his office. I don’t mind if I never see him again.

But he did, that very evening, as Dougal drove home to the small grace and favour cottage he lived in on a neighbouring estate. He had just left the hotel grounds and was passing the equestrian centre when he saw the Israeli, under the cover of some trees. He was talking urgently to a girl – a pretty girl with strawberry blond hair who was certainly not haggard-looking Naomi from the delegation. There was something about the look on the Israeli’s face that made it obvious he knew this girl; he wasn’t just casually saying hello. As he drove past, Dougal saw the girl’s face in his headlights, only fleetingly, but enough to recognise her at once – it was one of the waitresses in the hotel’s Italian restaurant. A foreign girl, very attractive. Janice? Something like that. Danny, you sly bastard, thought Dougal, not without a note of envy.