by Iain Cameron
Rosie started searching the cupboards on one side of the garage while Matt concentrated on the other. They opened both cupboard doors as if there was a gun inside pointing at their legs. To their relief, they didn’t encounter any such impediments this time.
The first cupboard was filled with information about the bikes. The thick documentation given to all owners on the purchase of their new machine: operating instructions, service book, and a list of worldwide service agents, was filed in a plastic tub, the make and model of the bike stuck to the side on a neatly typed label. The tub system was also used for cleaning cloths and materials, spare parts like spark plugs and leads, and a pile of motorcycle magazines. It was so neat and tidy, it suggested that Harris, or whoever looked the place, had been trained at a Porsche or Rolls Royce dealership. If done solely by Harris, it proved beyond doubt that the man suffered from OCD.
The second cupboard he opened looked more interesting, even though it contained nothing about bikes. Matt removed all the plastic tubs and put them on the floor. They were filled with money in different denominations and, in common with the bike cupboard, each tub bore a neat label: US Dollars, Euros, Brazilian Real, and a couple of Far-East destinations. Were those the places Harris needed to visit in the course of his work? Is so, it suggested he had a deeper involvement in Wood’s organisation than they first thought.
On the other hand, with the garage being used as an escape room, a more dynamic version of the panic room so beloved of rich Americans, the various currencies were perhaps an indication of the places Harris would flee to if the fat ever hit the fire. If he had the currency, what else had he set-up? Did he have property there? Did he own businesses? Was he or Wood in partnership with any organisation? When he returned to London, Siki would be tasked with finding out more.
The Proceeds of Crime legislation in the UK allowed law enforcement officers to sequestrate any funds, goods, and property in the possession of criminals if it could be proved it had been acquired through illegal means. The money recovered wasn’t handed over to HSA or the police, but paid into the coffers of the Home Office. This didn’t bother Matt. He would gain immense satisfaction from knowing it would prevent Harris from ever having the use of any of these items when he eventually came out of prison.
Continuing his search of the tubs, he found a couple of guns. Nothing too heavy, but new weapons by Glock, and Smith and Wesson. The main improvement in modern weapons over firearms manufactured ten or fifteen years ago was in their weight, reliability, and in their magazine’s capacity. The first guns Matt used when he started in the police many years ago, were capable of firing only six to eight bullets. The guns HSA agents carried now, not dissimilar from those in Harris’s arsenal, held seventeen rounds, and this could be replenished quickly from an easy-to-load magazine. This would give Harris sufficient firepower to hold off a small police assault.
‘Matt, come over here and take a look at this,’ Rosie said.
He walked over to where Rosie was seated on the floor, and picked up a pile of passports and various identity documents. At first glance, they matched country-for-country the currencies he’d found. Matt had never seen anything like it. Not just the range of options open to a fleeing Harris, but the quality of all the items. The passports, identity cards, store cards, and credit cards were indistinguishable from the real thing.
‘It’s quite a collection he’s got here,’ Matt said. ‘It must have taken him years–’
‘And loads of money.’
‘Plus loads of money to set it up.’
‘I suppose it’s the rational response of a well-compensated individual working in a precarious industry.’
‘For sure,’ Matt said. ‘When money’s no object, you do all you can to survive, because one day for sure, the wall could come crashing in.’
‘And for him, the time is now.’
‘How are we shipping him home?’
‘Someone was meant to be calling me back, but they haven’t. Let me put a call through to the office and find out how they’re getting on with the arrangements.’
‘What arrangements are those? All we need is some paperwork to release him into our custody and he’s on a plane.’
‘Let me make the call first, all right?’
Rosie pulled out her phone while Matt searched the rest of the cupboards. He didn’t find much in the way of interest except a few changes of clothes, not readily available to Harris the previous night as he was captured wearing only shorts and a t-shirt.
‘Right, it’s sorted.’
‘What is?’ Matt said.
‘Harris’s return trip to the UK.’
‘And?’
‘They’re sending over a couple of cops from the UK to accompany him back.’
‘What? I thought we were doing it. I want to make sure he gets there and his buddies don’t try and hijack him. They did it with Wood in the security van, if you remember.’
‘I do remember, but it doesn’t make sense for us to do it. He could be in hospital for three or four days. There’s no point in us sitting around here in Spain kicking our heels until then.’
‘I don’t know, I could do with a few days rest and recuperation after all the trauma and stress I’ve suffered. A few days on the beach with a couple of beers and some paella for good measure would help the healing process.’
‘Trauma and stress? Don’t make me laugh. The chance to ride someone else’s bike before crashing it? Without any cost to you, I might add. That passes for enjoyment in your book. Matt, you’re worrying about nothing. The Met are sending two of their finest.’
‘Hmph, I’m not happy. I’d rather we were doing it.’
‘So do I, but my hands are tied. Now, with your attention away from Harris, for the moment at least, I want the search for Patrick Doherty stepped up.’
‘I want to catch that scumbag too, but is there any particular reason why you mention it now?’
‘When I called about the arrangements for Harris, I also heard about a police intercept in Northern Ireland. They caught two gunmen on their way to a job. They don’t know if it was to shoot up a bar, or assassinate someone, but they suspect the weapons they carried came from our missing consignment.’
Chapter 40
Sam pulled on the oars and the inflatable dinghy edged closer to the Inishmore shore. It was early evening, later than they intended, but a barbecue on the beach at night would be just as much fun. After passing most of the morning sunbathing, they spent some time cleaning the boat, checking the repair made to the hull, and mending some of the ropes and pulleys in various inaccessible places, difficult jobs to do while they were still sailing.
They had also spent an inordinate amount of time looking for Zoë’s phone. She could be a bit dippy at times, and lost it more often than he could remember, but if this was her biggest fault, they had nothing to worry about in the years ahead. When it had happened in the past, they could simply call her number and it would ring, as she never turned it off. Out here in the sticks, they couldn’t do that as neither his nor her phone received a signal, making him wonder why she wanted to find it in the first place.
The crash, the repair, and now the search for the missing phone had left them both a bit boat-crazy and, to provide some light relief, they’d decided to escape to dry land and have a barbecue on the beach. In the dinghy they’d packed a cool box containing various meats, vegetables, and drinks, and in a bag, all the tools and bits of equipment needed for cooking. Before climbing into the dinghy, they’d checked the contents of the bag and cool box twice. At home, if anything important had been forgotten, the matches, mozzarella, or the mustard, it was a simple matter of running back into the house.
‘The yacht looks so small and insignificant out here,’ Zoë said. ‘It feels so much bigger when you’re on board.’
‘The ocean has a way of making even giant oil tankers look small.’
‘Do you think we’ll have any trouble finding wood?’
�
��I must admit, I haven’t given it much thought. Windswept coasts like this often throw up loads of driftwood, and as long as no one’s been picking it up or it’s not soaking wet, we should be fine. A barbecue without a fire won’t be much fun.’
‘And you know we should find driftwood how?’ she said smiling. ‘All the other girls you’ve brought for a barbecue on a deserted beach?’
‘Yes, hundreds of times.’ He paused. ‘Only kidding, but don’t try and play the jealous card, Zoë, it’s not your style.’
‘I thought I’d try it for size.’
‘I remember you telling me before, the past remains in the past.’
‘I can’t lie, I did say that, but you need to be aware a woman has the right to change her mind.’
‘More often than I ever imagined, as I’m discovering.’
The boat fell silent for no more than ten seconds before Zoë said, ‘This place looks well deserted.’
‘It is around here, but I’m sure if we move a bit closer to where the ferry comes in, we’ll be trampled underfoot by all the tourists and hikers.’
This cove did feel uninhabited. The only sounds Sam could hear, aside from Zoë’s wittering, as his new bride didn’t like to sit in silence, was the oars smacking the water and the gulls swooping and diving overhead. It had been a still day with little wind, the warm late-afternoon sun hanging over to the west and playing on his face, making it hard to make out all of Zoë’s features. At the risk of sounding more poetic than he felt, the sky looked larger here, stretching all the way from the horizon in front to the horizon behind.
They reached the island and beached the dinghy. He jumped off the bow, his hand gripping the bow rope, and landed on the damp sand. He hauled the dinghy higher up the sand, a job made a bit harder with all the kit they’d brought and Zoë still sitting on board.
This wasn’t a display of diva behaviour or playing the pampered wife, refusing to leave the boat too early for fear of spoiling her new trainers by getting them wet in the sea. Zoë had grown up around boats; her father had one berthed at Weymouth and she went sailing almost every weekend from March to October. Getting wet when sailing was part and parcel of the activity, and in the past, he’d seen her with hair like straw and with so much salt on her skin just kissing her made him thirsty. It had also made her impervious to the cold, handy in the flat they shared, as the sash windows leaked chilly air in the winter.
Zoë jumped off the boat holding her trainers in her hand and landed on the wet sand. She bounced over and threw her arms around him.
‘Our very own private beach,’ she said kissing him. ‘We can do whatever we like.’
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘We haven’t been married that long, but knowing you as I do, I think the answer is probably yes.’
‘Am I right in suggesting that after our activities on the deck of the yacht as we came through the Bay of Biscay, you have a proclivity for making love outside?’
‘My, my, such a big word for a Sunday. I may have, but I keep it well hidden. There’s not much call for it in central London.’
‘How about here, on an uninhabited beach in front of a roaring fire?’
‘I could be persuaded.’
He broke away. ‘The quicker we get everything done, the quicker we can christen this beach. Set-to woman, we need to get this show on the road before it gets dark.’
They emptied the dinghy of the cool box and bag and set them down on the rough grass bordering the narrow, sandy beach. It wasn’t a neat, sandy beach that every morning looked as though someone had gone over it with a rake. From a distance it looked dirty and unkempt, due to the amount of spiral wrack, kelp, stones, and sea shells littered across it.
‘You search this end of the beach,’ Zoë said pointing, ‘and I’ll take the other. See what we can find. Okay?’
‘Yep.’
‘See you later.’
By the time he reached the end of the short beach and climbed over some rocks, Sam expected to be carrying an armful of wood at least, but he was disappointed to find only five or six reasonable-sized sticks. He left them in a pile at the side of the beach, and debated edging around the rocky shore, or climbing up the grassy knoll and moving further inland. He didn’t feel it would be worth searching over the rocks, as any wood he might come across would be too wet. He turned and headed up a short incline, away from the sea.
He didn’t expect to find much; as an island without trees couldn’t drop branches for him to pick up, and driftwood wouldn’t be found so far from the shore unless the coast had recently been battered by violent storms. To his surprise, he did find a few pieces, but what he was enjoying most was the panoramic view over this part of the island and out to sea.
The yacht looked small from his elevated position, serene and majestic at anchor in its sheltered harbour. In the distance beyond the cove, he could see large ships ploughing their way north, the waves parting without drama or fuss. He hoped their passage along the same routes in the morning would be equally calm, although he’d patched up yachts before and the repairs had remained watertight for years.
Looking around on the land side, he could see what looked like a farmhouse about a half a mile distant, too far to try and cadge some bits of firewood, but then in the other direction he noticed the roof of a cottage, close to where he was standing. It seemed to be nestling in a hollow, unseen from the sea and difficult to spot even by those walking nearby.
He turned and walked towards the cottage. His parents used to own a holiday house in Largs, on the west coast of Scotland. When Sam and his sister became teenagers, they no longer wanted to go there and his parents rented it out. He imagined a place like this would be occupied by hardy tourists who would spend their days seeing the sights while enjoying the clear sea air; there didn’t appear much else to do. Alternatively, it could be the rural bolt-hole of some rich folks from Galway or Dublin.
Moving closer, he realised how well-situated it was, not only partially concealed from passing walkers, but its low position provided some shelter from Atlantic storms. He couldn’t see smoke rising from the chimney, a car or bike outside, and none of the windows or doors were open. If there was another sign to indicate someone wasn’t at home, he didn’t know what it would be.
He stepped through the garden gate and headed towards the back of the house. At the end of a well-tended garden he could see his target: a log store. Two log stores to be precise. One contained a fine collection of seasoned logs, birch, oak, ash, none of which grew on Inishmore, In the other, a rag-bag assortment of branches, bits of crates, pallets, and planks. No wonder he couldn’t find much driftwood on the beach. Whoever lived here had been out sweeping up all they could find at regular intervals.
Little alarm bells starting to ring in his head. This wasn’t the actions of an environmentally-conscious tourist, doing their bit to keep Inishmore tidy, but a local who lived here for most of the year. He turned to look at the house. Even from the back it still appeared empty, no open windows, clothes on the line, or dirty boots at the door. He approached the store containing the seasoned wood and removed several logs. By the weight, a couple had to be oak.
He turned and headed out. Zoë would be so jealous when he turned up with this little lot while she produced three short sticks and a piece of broken pallet. He walked towards the garden gate. He was debating how he would operate the latch with an armful of wood when he heard a noise behind him.
He turned to see a man staring at him, a look of malevolence on his face. In his hand he held a gun and it was pointing straight at Sam.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he said in a rough Irish accent.
‘Borrowing a few logs, that’s all.’
‘Borrow is it? In my book, borrow implies you’ll give me them back.’
‘I…I meant–’
‘I know what you fucking meant. You’re thieving, you dirty bastard.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know the ho
use was occupied. I’ll put them back.’
‘Too late for that now, sonny, but drop them anyway.’
Sam held his arms away from his body to ensure one of the logs didn’t bounce up and whack him in the shin. He dropped them on the ground.
He turned to face the gunman. The man’s face and the weapon he held offered some clues. It wasn’t a shotgun, a familiar sight with farmers, guarding their sheep from foxes, but a handgun, the weapon of bank robbers and terrorists. Christ! He imagined all Irish terrorists from the Troubles were either dead or retired. This one looked straight out of the 70s, a product of the Falls Road. On looking closer, behind the beard and tousled hair, he recognised him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. Oh no, Zoë was walking towards them.
‘You recognise me, don’t you?’ the gunman said.
‘What? Eh…no.’
‘Fucking liar.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You gonna report me?’
‘Why would I?’
‘Lying bastard.’
The gun fired once; twice. Sam fell to the ground dead.
Chapter 41
Zoë spotted the cottage from her vantage point up on the slope. She headed towards it after spotting Sam doing the same. At first, she thought Sam had seen someone at the cottage and wandered over to strike up a conversation. Moving closer, she realised the cottage appeared to be locked up, and wondered what he was doing. She’d told him she liked making love outside, but that didn’t include the gardens of strange houses.
She had lost sight of Sam as she descended to lower ground, but on moving closer, she first heard him then saw him talking to someone whose back was to her. In his arms, Sam held a pile of pre-cut logs that he must have taken from the cottage’s store. Sam liked to negotiate, and was perhaps offering a few euros for some logs, but when she could hear their voices more clearly, the Irish one didn’t sound the least bit conciliatory.
