Present Danger

35

Liz stared out at the old barracks parade ground as the last flicker of sun gave way to the chill dusk of the February afternoon. Information was beginning to seep in but so far it was all negative. She still had no idea what had happened to Dave.

No results yet from the various CCTV cameras in the car park and the area around Milraud’s shop, but at least she now knew, thanks to Judith’s thespian efforts at the premises, that Dave had actually been there. If the shop assistant was to be believed, he had left safely and on his own at two forty-five. But that might not be true. Judith thought that at the very least the woman was not telling all she knew, and in spite of what she had said, Milraud had certainly not taken the flight to Paris on which he had a reservation. Nor had he been found on any airline manifest leaving Ireland in the last forty-eight hours. It was still possible that he had taken a private plane from one of Ireland’s thirty-odd airports but nothing had been found to point to that, and if he had changed his plans, the question remained why had he done so. Preliminary checks with the ferry services in the North and in the Republic had come up with the same result: no sign of the man.

The main interest had come from analysis of the photographs taken by the camera on the gate of the National Trust property in County Down. There had been an unusual amount of movement in and out since the previous afternoon. Timed at three-forty-four, the red Vauxhall Vectra had gone in, with the dark-faced thug and the man identified as Malone in the front seat. There seemed to be no one in the back, though the camera could not see the back seat clearly. At four Piggott had gone in driving his Audi, with an unidentifiable back-seat passenger. At five-thirty the Audi had gone out again, driven by the Spaniard, and had returned at seven-thirty, again driven by the Spaniard. Nothing more had happened until seven-thirty the following morning when the Audi had been driven out by Malone, possibly with a back-seat passenger who might or might not have been Piggott.

At the offices of Fraternal Holdings in Belfast, where A4 had been on watch since eight a.m., very little had happened. At nine a.m. the female receptionist had let herself into the offices with a key. She was now sitting in the reception area, clearly visible to Arthur Haverford and Jerry Rayman in their observation post across the street. She was painting her nails.

Two policemen had been to Piggott’s house on the National Trust estate during the morning. The old housekeeper who had answered the door said that her employer had left the previous day and had not told her where he was going or when he would be back. The police officers had been told to do no more than enquire for Piggott and if he was there to ask him some question about an imaginary rave on the National Trust land. So they’d accepted what the housekeeper said and, after walking round the surrounding land and seeing nothing to arouse their suspicions, they had left.

As Liz was turning all this over in her mind, Michael Binding appeared in her office doorway, eyebrows raised in a questioning look. Liz shook her head. ‘Nothing firm yet,’ she said flatly. ‘Still waiting for the CCTV.’

‘I wish they’d get a move on,’ he said, coming into the room and fiddling with his tie. He didn’t sit down. ‘I promised DG a progress report this evening. All I’ve got is a lack of progress report. It won’t do.’

Liz didn’t reply. It wasn’t quite true. The threads of an investigation were beginning to emerge. The problem now was making sense of them and deciding what to do about it, without precipitating a situation that might put Dave in more danger than he was already in – that was if he were not dead already, something she did not wish to contemplate.

Binding wasn’t finished. ‘You were supposed to be in charge here, Liz. You go away for two days and your people end up all over the place. God knows what’s happened to Dave, or why he felt he could just go charging off on his own.’

‘He certainly didn’t have my permission to do that.’

‘So you say,’ Binding replied infuriatingly. ‘That Judith Spratt didn’t tell me what was going on is something that I’ll want to pursue.’

When Liz started to protest at the unfairness of this, Binding waved a dismissive hand. ‘Later. There’ll be plenty of time for post-mortems. Right now we need to do something. I want to talk to the police and put out an all-persons alert.’

‘For Dave? Or for Milraud?’

He looked momentarily flustered. ‘For Dave, of course.’

Liz turned away. What was he proposing to say? Have You Seen This Man? He’s an MI5 Officer and We Can’t Find Him. This was ludicrous. She decided to ignore it and said, ‘I’ve been thinking over the leads we have.’

‘None that I can see.’

‘That’s not entirely true. Remember, our informant Brown Fox said Seamus Piggott wants to kill policemen and an MI5 officer. Jimmy Fergus got shot three days ago and now Dave’s disappeared. We know he went to Milraud’s shop and we’re pretty sure from what Brown Fox told Dave that Milraud is working in some way with Piggott, probably supplying him with arms. It might all be coincidence, but that’s what we’ve got to go on right now. If we can link the attack on Fergus to Piggott, that will let us grab Piggott, assuming we can find him, and that should lead us to Milraud. And with luck to Dave.’

He looked at her as he considered what she said. ‘It’s a tenuous chain you’re building there.’ But he said this quietly, always a good sign with him.

‘I know it is. But we’ve got to start somewhere. I want to step up the investigation now. I want to put telephone intercepts on Milraud’s shop and we need to identify that woman who works there and get her communications intercepted too. Also all the communications to and from the Fraternity offices need to be on check, and I’m wondering if we shouldn’t ask the police to go back to Piggott’s place and go in. As you said before, Michael, time is of the essence.’

Binding sat down heavily. There was a pause. Eventually, ‘You’re right,’ he conceded. ‘We need to work on the assumption that Dave has been taken by someone. We should waste no more time. We’d better get that investigative team over.’

‘No. We do need reinforcement but not an investigative team. I still think that would cause delay and confusion. What I want is to get Peggy Kinsolving from counter espionage over here. If there is anything to find out to connect all this, she’ll do it.’

‘Well, if that’s what you want and if you can persuade Charles Wetherby to release her, then go ahead.’

So Liz now had two phone calls to make and she realised that she was looking forward to one much more than the other. And she realised with some surprise that her preference was not in the order she would have expected.

First she rang Charles Wetherby in London.

‘Hello, Liz. I’m glad you rang. How are you all over there? We’re very concerned about Dave. Is there any news? Is there anything I can do to help?’

On any other occasion Liz would have taken the opportunity to tell Charles everything that had happened and ask for his advice. But now something was stopping her. She seemed no longer to feel the old closeness to him, the unspoken understanding that they had had in the past. She didn’t want to prolong the conversation, so she just asked if she could borrow Peggy Kinsolving to help with the case. When Charles readily agreed, she rang off.

Why had she done that? It seemed that rather than getting closer, as she had expected they would after Joanne’s death, they had got further apart. She knew what it was, though she didn’t want to dwell on it. It wasn’t just that they were separated by the Irish Sea. It was the thought of Alison, his neighbour, and in particular their ‘friendship’ as her mother had tactfully called it.

But that wasn’t all. She had cut short the conversation with Charles because she wanted to get on with her next call. This was the one she was looking forward to.

‘Ah, Liz, how nice to hear from you.’ The warm Parisian tones were what she wanted to hear.

‘Martin, I need your help. Or at least your advice. I’m trying to find our friend Milraud, but he seems to have disappeared.’ She explained how they could find no trace of the arms dealer having left Northern Ireland.

‘That is a little puzzling, but perhaps he took another way back – a private plane even. Or he’s taken a holiday somewhere in Ireland. Is this urgent?’

‘It is, I’m afraid. One of my colleagues has disappeared. He had an appointment with Milraud at his shop here but he hasn’t been seen since.’

‘When was this?’

‘Yesterday.’ She heard his small exclamation of surprise, and she went on, ‘I know, it hasn’t been very long. But our man isn’t one to take off like this. Our observations had confirmed our suspicions about your old colleague. He was here to do business with Seamus Piggott, the American I told you about.’

‘I remember. And Milraud’s disappearance is connected in some way, no?’

‘Yes,’ she said, relieved that Seurat understood. ‘We have a source who claims that Piggott wants to kill a policeman and an MI5 officer.’

‘Could that not be dramatic on your informant’s part? You know they always want to have something to sell.’

‘Not in this case, I think. From what I’ve learned about Piggott’s background, he’s looking for revenge for something that happened in the past. And just before I came to Paris, a senior policeman was shot outside his own house – he survived, but they were definitely trying to kill him.’

‘Liz, if it’s any consolation, Milraud is not a murderer. Remember, I know the man well. It’s not that I view him through – how do you say it? Rosy spectacles?’

‘That’ll do,’ said Liz with a laugh.

‘It’s rather that I know he’s too ambitious to risk spending the rest of his life rotting in prison. For Milraud, his business, legitimate or not, would always come before revenge. In that sense, he’s too professional to kill your man.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. The problem is, we can’t find Piggott either. And he may not have Milraud’s scruples.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘I was hoping you might be able to locate Milraud.’

Seurat paused. ‘Hmm. As you know, we have our own interest in Milraud, though we’ve never had enough evidence to devote much time to him. We haven’t asked our colleagues in the DCRI to place him under any kind of surveillance. What I can do is speak with Isabelle in DCRI – you met her, yes?’

‘Of course.’ Mme Florian, the woman in jeans whom she and Bruno had visited in the office near the Eiffel Tower.

‘I would ask her as a matter of urgency to discover if Milraud has returned to Toulon. If not, I will also ask her to try and find out if someone there knows where he is.’

‘That would be very helpful, Martin.’

‘It may not help very much at all. But it’s at least a start.’