Pursuit of Arms

by Gerald Hammond

  “It was.”

  “Some protecting!”

  “Four policemen were guarding it,” Keith said. “One was killed.”

  She stopped in her tracks and blinked at him. “I hear this,” she said. “Is bad. Is bloody awful, but does not make losing my guns less worse. Guns were not mine only. Belong to a . . . a group.”

  “A consortium?”

  “I suppose. But I . . . I have responsibletitty. If my arse is on block, why should you be off bloody hook? If court of law not clobber you, I . . . I clour living fuck out of you,” she finished with gusto.

  “Sit down,” Keith said, “and let’s discuss this reasonably.”

  The use of that part of Ronnie’s disreputable vocabulary which he had so far conveyed to her seemed to have relieved her feelings, but instead of sitting down she went to look out of the window. The low sun struck through her dress as if it had been muslin, revealing every detail of her figure. Keith, usually, would have looked his fill with a comfortable feeling that he was stealing an advantage. But Butch knew exactly what she was doing and he had a feeling that if any advantage was to be stolen she was the girl to do it. He fixed his eyes firmly on a corner of the ceiling.

  “What to discuss?” she asked abruptly. “You lose my guns, I kick up shit.”

  “That’s agreed,” Keith said. “Now let’s go and have a drink.”

  “What you doing about it?” she demanded. “Ronnee tell me you are damn good at recovering lost guns, buy this house with rewards from insurance companies.”

  “Ronnie talks too damn much,” Keith said. “But yes, I’m doing all I can to find the damn things. It might help if you told me who, in this country, knew about them.”

  “The crew of the Mazorian, and you and Ronnee, is all.” She spun round suddenly and caught him peeping. “Any other body, they learn it from you.” She was looking smug.

  “I fixed the transport through the man who owns the rest of the load,” Keith said. “And my partner knew, of course. That’s all.”

  “Is too many. And if you get guns back, how I know you don’t keep them yourself?”

  It was not like Keith to dislike conversing with a pretty girl who was showing off her figure to him, but this was one such occasion. “Ronnie can keep you posted,” he said stiffly. To his great relief, he heard Molly calling them through for their meal. He got up.

  “Is right,” she said slowly. “Ronnee not let you swick me.”

  She preceded him out of the room. Keith kept his eyes off her rump. He knew what it looked like anyway.

  The rest of the working party were already assembled and discussing, in suitably shocked tones, what the papers were already calling the ‘Gunjack Massacre’. Ronnie and the superintendent were neat in tweed suits; Wallace, Keith’s partner, very much the businessman in sober pinstripe; Wallace’s wife Janet, golden as always, in something pale; Mrs Enterkin, plump and charming in something dark; Sir Peter Hay, untidy in his best kilt; Molly, flushed from cooking, hastily changed into what Keith recognised as her best cocktail dress; Deborah, unusually clean and shiny; and another unexpected guest, Mr Enterkin, the solicitor, plump as his wife and looking embarrassed.

  Ronnie had taken over Keith’s duties as host and dispensed drinks with a generous paw. Keith provided Butch with a large gin, and himself with a much-diluted malt whisky. He would have preferred to get his fair share of his own drink, but a clear head would be needed that night.

  Molly called them to table. Even with all the leaves in, it was a tight squeeze. While they were milling around, Mr Enterkin took Keith aside. “I came only as chauffeur,” he said. “Your good lady insisted that I remain.”

  “Quite right,” Keith said. “We may need a good lawyer before this is over.” He could guess who was next in line for short rations. Molly, however, had made up the portions with kidneys and bacon. Keith, who had eaten nothing since his late breakfast, felt ready to dribble down his chin.

  Deborah monopolised the conversation at first; not at the wish of her parents, who did not believe in such indulgence, but because she was unstoppable. She recounted at length her own major contribution. Chief Superintendent Doig had collected her personally from the shop, and it seemed that she had declaimed at length before an admiring throng of senior officers. Ballet was forgotten. What she now wanted was her own Identikit set.

  Butch had not got the whole of her grievance off her chest and by the time the sweet was on the table she had managed to take over the conversation with a recital of her troubles.

  Mr Enterkin, who enjoyed the sound of his own voice, was not a man to accept a silent role. When Butch paused for breath and to take food, he took over. “Miss Baczwynska’s loss raises an interesting point,” he said. “Was the robbery committed for the antique guns or for the modern, for the arms as arms or for the cash value of both? Keith, which consignment would have been the more valuable?”

  Keith shrugged. Any figure which he mentioned now would be pounced on and become a firm valuation, later appearing in the press; this he knew from bitter experience. “The value of anything is only what the next fool to come along can be induced to pay for it,” he said.

  “You mentioned figures this morning,” Munro said.

  “Those were off the top of the head,” Keith said. “I wouldn’t want to be quoted on them.”

  Mrs Enterkin leaned forward to speak down the table to him. “But you value guns every day,” she said in her soft, West Country voice. “You must be able to put a figure on them.”

  “I haven’t seen any of them yet,” Keith said.

  “Mine are very good,” Butch said. “What you call mink.”

  “Mint,” Keith said. “I could make a guess on that basis, and if they really are mint and if we don’t hurry the selling I wouldn’t expect to be very far out. But if there isn’t a collector or a museum waiting for a particular gun with the money in his fist, we either drop the price or we have to wait. On the black market, without provenance, I doubt if thieves would get a tenth as much.”

  “What about the modern guns?” Molly put in.

  “Depends who you are,” Keith said. “Look at it this way. The biggest arms warehouse in Britain is in Manchester. If you have four hundred thousand to spend you can walk in and buy a Centurian tank, fully armed and in good working order. They might even give you a trade-in on your old one. But if you’re a government suffering an arms embargo, say South Africa, you’re in a different game. By the time it’s been bought through the Middle East and trans-shipped at Marseilles, and everybody along the line has had a cut, it might cost you a million.

  “On a smaller scale, it’s even more complicated. Each of those Brownings, new or in perfect order, has a legitimate price of about a hundred quid. The Sterlings, slightly more. If you wanted to buy a pistol to knock off —” Keith paused. He had been about to say your brother-in-law, which would have been a Freudian slip and the end of an imperfect friendship “— your worst enemy,” he resumed, “you’d pay several times that value. After you’d done the deed, if you were fool enough to want to sell it instead of dropping it into the nearest loch, you’d be lucky to get a fiver for it.”

  “But,” he went on, “knowing Eddie, I doubt whether his guns were much better than junk. As new, that load would be worth about the half-million which I mentioned to Mr Munro today. If Eddie undercut the bigger dealers, I’d guess that he quoted about four hundred thousand. The guns probably cost him about a third of that. He’d be expecting to spend about another third on transport and on our costs for overhauling them, the remaining third covering his profit and the overheads of his business. That’s one way of looking at the figures. On the other hand, sold to a revolutionary army or into organised crime, they could realise a whole lot more. And that’s not counting the value of the ammunition which was on the lorry, because I don’t know how much there was.”

  “You seem,” said Mr Enterkin, “to be evading the question put by my fiscally-minded wife.”

/>   “I’ll say this much and then we’ll drop the subject,” Keith said. “On the legitimate market, the antiques might have approached the modern guns in value. Once stolen, the value of the modern guns would go up, the antiques down.”

  Superintendent Munro had been eating in silence, but now he looked up. “From the time when it could have been known that the antiques were on that vehicle,” he said, “until the time of the attack, there would not have been enough time to do the necessary planning and to put together a team with such professional ruthlessness.”

  “Unless the team were already assembled for some other purpose,” Mr Enterkin suggested.

  “I prefer,” said the superintendent, “to believe that the modern guns were the target all along. And I do not seem to be alone in my belief. I hear that Special Branch are on the scene already and actively observing a number of persons who appeared within hours after the robbery and murders.”

  “That was going to be my news,” Mrs Enterkin said, “and now you’ve stolen my thunder. Two different groups are staying at the hotel. They keep themselves very much to themselves. Their names and passports are British, their accents would get by, but sometimes they give themselves away over little things like the value of the new coins or how to use the telephones. It’s the same in the other hotels, I hear.”

  “That makes sense,” Keith said. “The hijack was public knowledge more than twenty-four hours ago. It wouldn’t take the embassies long to get their men here.”

  “I don’t understand,” Molly said plaintively. “What embassies? Who are these people? Why does it make sense?”

  “Look at it like this, Mrs Calder,” said the superintendent. “There is only one good market for the stolen guns, and that is a group of — well, call them terrorists or freedom fighters, it depends on your point of view. So there are two possible motives. Such a group siezed them for their own use, or some criminals wanted the guns to sell to that group. Consider, for example, the P.L.O. They have been disarmed and scattered, but their leaders have ready access to finance. To rearm and regroup, they need a large source of purchased or stolen guns. When the news broke that a large consignment of guns had been stolen, Mossad would have men here immediately, to watch and wait and if necessary to take action, to ensure that those guns did not end up in the hands of the P.L.O. Conversely, unless the guns were stolen by or for the P.L.O., they would send their men in the hope of making contact with the thieves and buying them.”

  “Substitute any other subversive group and its opponents,” Wallace said, “and you have the same story.”

  “I was in the George at lunchtime,” Ronnie said. “There’s two strangers putting up there, I was told, and a mannie was saying he’d heard them talking Russian to each other.”

  “And how would he be telling Russian from Polish, say, or Turkish or Czech?” Munro asked.

  “If they was Russians,” Butch said darkly, “likely they here to be sure guns do not go to Afghans.”

  Molly paused in the act of pouring coffee. “Has it reached the stage where we’re really, seriously, talking about Russian spies?” she asked. “For Heaven’s sake, Keith, how is it all going to end?”

  “Probably with a bloody great bang,” Keith said. “Unless the police get there first, I can see the first on the scene destroying the lot just to prevent it falling into the hands of whoever they see as their opposition. Don’t get all het up,” he added quickly as Molly turned pale. “I was mostly joking and, anyway, we’re not going to be that close. All we’re trying to do is to help Mr Munro to look better, and help the police to find Butch’s guns. We won’t stand too near.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Molly said.

  Butch found her voice again. “But if somebody blow up guns, they not look to see which are antics. They blow up whole lot. What we do? We offer reward?”

  “That could help,” Keith said. “Could you afford to offer a reward?”

  “You offer reward! We refund when guns sold.”

  Keith glanced at Wallace, the money man. Wallace shook his head firmly. “You could raise money on the prospect of selling the guns,” Keith told Butch. “I could give you a provisional valuation to support the loan. After all, if you don’t get them back you don’t pay out the reward.”

  Before Butch could launch herself into another tirade of grumbles, Molly cut in. “Time for your bath,” she told Deborah.

  “Can I have a story?”

  “You’ve heard enough stories today.”

  “But, Mum . . .”

  “No nonsense,” Keith said sternly. “Off you go. And, remember, not a word to anybody about anything you’ve heard in this room today.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Not until I tell you.”

  Deborah thought it over and then nodded. “All right,” she said. “Will Butch come up and see me dance?”

  “Not this time, my darling,” Butch said. “I need myself here.”

  “Come down and say goodnight when you’re ready,” Molly said, taking her daughter to the door. Keith’s heart turned over, as it so often did when he saw the two of them as a unit of mother-and-child, symbolising all that had ever been comforting in his own life. Molly, mother of a piece of himself, returned and sat down. Keith could feel a new mood descend. This group, or others very like it, had tackled and solved many problems in the past despite, or perhaps because of, their diversity of knowledge and background. Whatever the question, somebody would know the answer or where to go for it.

  “Now,” Keith said. “Paul York will be here soon, so let’s see if we’ve covered the ground.”

  “I mustn’t meet York,” Munro said. “What do we do while he’s here?”

  “I’ll see him alone in the study,” Keith said. “It was once a dining room before we changed the house around, and there’s a hoist down to the utility room which used to be the kitchen. The hoist’s a cupboard now, but if I leave its door ajar anyone who wants to can hear every word.”

  Munro nodded satisfaction. “Now I’ll bring you up to date,” he said. “In following up the information supplied by your wean, a bronze Granada Estate was discovered, parked behind the Town Hall.”

  Sir Peter Hay had spent the meal listening with the rapt air of a theatregoer, but now he broke his silence. “Does this not let you off the hook, Superintendent?” he asked.

  “I realise that I am being a trouble and an expense to you all,” Munro said. “And I appreciate —”

  “My dear chap,” Sir Peter said quickly, “I didn’t for a moment mean to imply that you weren’t welcome to any help it was in my power to provide. It just seemed to me that you’ve done what you set out to do. You’ve found a witness who has contributed to the investigation. Surely that gives Chief Superintendent Doig a good reason to make a favourable mention of your zeal and intelligence in his report?”

  “That would depend,” Munro said. “The car was stolen, as it turns out; but because the owner is abroad, it would not have been reported stolen until he looked for it on his return. So the car was not on the stolen list. It can’t be denied that, with some help, I’ve produced the car before it would otherwise have been found, and if it provides useful information then I think that the blot on my record will be cancelled. The lads from Forensic will be making all the usual tests, and I have passed on the suggestion that paint might have been carried. But if nothing comes of their work, then I’m still under a cloud. I’d be grateful . . .”

  “We won’t stop until we’re sure,” Keith said. “One way or the other,” he added. It never did to let Munro get over-confident. “Any other news?”

  Munro shook his head.

  “Then we’ll go round the table, although it’s too early to expect much.” Briefly, he told them of his talk with Dougie Scott on Deer Hill. Then he turned to Janet on his left.

  “No word yet of a stranger asking questions,” she said, “but we’ve put the word around and something may come back. We’ve found an angler who was after
trout in Skelly Burn. He didn’t see anything.”

  “He wouldn’t,” said Ronnie, who was on Janet’s left. “That burn’s in a deep gulley all the way. Me, I’m doing what you said. I’ve covered about half the ground, looking for traces, but I’m wasting Sir Peter’s time.” He glanced at his employer.

  “Never mind that,” Sir Peter said. “Just finish the task.”

  “If you say so. I’ve marked up your map, Keith, lad. So far, there’s one place I’ve found which I can swear no heavy vehicle’s crossed. Otherwise, I can’t tell either way, let alone tell if one particular vehicle out of dozens has gone by. The ground’s that baked.”

  Keith’s eye passed over Deborah’s empty chair to Wallace. “Janet’s told it all,” Wal said.

  “I’m only an interested observer,” said Mr Enterkin.

  “So’m I,” said Molly.

  Keith began to come down the other side of the table. He skipped over Munro, who had already made his report, and looked at Butch.

  “I know nothing,” Butch said.

  “Peter?”

  “Nothing helpful, I’m afraid,” said Sir Peter. “My two gangs of foresters were at work and a contractor had men doing a drainage job for me. They’ve all been contacted. The short answer is that nobody saw any vehicles that weren’t fully identified. They’ve all been told to mark their locations on a map in the estate office, and from the marks so far made it doesn’t look as if anything could have been east of the town and gone unseen.”

  Keith hesitated and then moved on to Mrs Enterkin, who was sitting on his right. “I’ve no more news,” she said.

  “No rumours, even?” Keith asked.

  “There’s always rumours, but nothing to help. The one, steady rumour at the moment is that there was a conjuring trick, and the guns are already out of the district.”

  “Surely,” Wallace said, “there never was any doubt that the whole thing involves a trick of misdirection. I think it might help if Sir Peter got more details from his men. Firstly, details of the vehicles they saw, in case the lorry with the guns was seen, but had been disguised and wasn’t recognised. And, secondly, where was each man at what time? Because there may still have been gaps.”