The Madeiran Double Cross

by Sally Spencer

  *

  “Well I don’t understand what all this is about,” Linda said loudly, tucking into her fried breakfast with relish. “Why have we booked into this hotel for three days when the flight from Lisbon’s …”

  “The day before Christmas, darlin’. I know,” Mason replied, equally loudly. “So we don’t have to leave here until the twenty-third.” He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “That’s right. Why don’t you tell everybody what we’re bloody doing.”

  “There’s no need to swear,” Linda said huffily – but quieter. “I only want to know what’s going on.”

  “I’ll tell you as soon as I know myself,” Mason said.

  He looked out of the window across the Gran Via. The Renault 19 was parked illegally on the other side of the street and Fawn-overcoat leaning casually against it. There was no sign of Leather-jacket – he’d be somewhere near the hotel entrance.

  It was a low-level operation. Mason was sure of that now. The English police didn’t know anything specific – they just had suspicions – and the Spaniards were keeping him under surveillance as a simple matter of professional courtesy. That was why there was only one car and the two tails were novices.

  But they were causing him as much trouble as if they’d been the most experienced men in the Spanish police force. He could lose them – easily – but then the low-level operation would be stepped up. Airport and railway police would be informed, car-hire firms would be checked on. Yet if he didn’t lose them, then they would find out exactly where he was going – and that would be fatal.

  He glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock. The plane out of Lisbon left at ten o'clock that night – just fifteen hours. And if he didn’t catch it, there would be no Madeiran job.

  “I’ve told you often enough, Frank,” Elsie's voice echoed mockingly in his head, “you should always leave the planning to me.”

  There had to be a way out of the mess!

  He forked a piece of egg into his mouth. It tasted of ashes. He pushed his plate to one side.

  “I’m going up to the room to freshen up,” Linda said.

  “Don’t be more than half an hour,” Mason instructed her.

  Not a long time to devise a scheme that would fool the Spanish police force with all the resources at their command, but he daren’t allow longer. Lisbon was only 700 kilometres away, but if he didn’t come up with something soon, it might as well be a million. He bought a guidebook and map at reception and sat down to study them.

  By the time Linda returned, he had a plan. It was not a thing of beauty, it was a desperate improvisation depending on the opposition acting exactly as he had predicted they would, and, more worryingly, on his getting a lucky break. It was inflexible, it was clumsy – but it was all he had.

  “So what do we do now?” Linda asked.

  “You,” Mason replied, “have got a lot of shopping to do.”

  He handed her a fistful of money and told her what it was he wanted her to buy. They left the hotel together, then separated, Linda going left down a side street towards the Puerta del Sol, Mason heading for the Gran Via Metro station.

  At the entrance to the Metro, he bent down to tie his shoelace and risked a quick glance behind him. Fawn-overcoat, only a few yards away, suddenly became absorbed in a bookshop window; Leather-jacket, on the other side of the street, had stopped to light a cigarette. Thank Christ they had both decided to follow him!

  At the ticket office, he asked for a map of the system. “Plano?” the ticket clerk asked.

  Mason nodded, and was handed a small blue leaflet. He followed the signs to the southbound platform. There were perhaps fifteen or twenty people waiting, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Leather-jacket.

  A train rattled into the station. Mason got on, and stood just inside the doorway. He unfolded his map and pretended to study it. The whistle blew. Mason frowned as if he had made a mistake, and stepped on to the platform just as the doors were closing. He caught sight of Leather-jacket trapped in the moving train. He did not look around for Fawn-overcoat, but he knew he must be somewhere on the platform. Even amateurs like these did not make that kind of mistake.

  He took the northbound train, changing at Alonso Martinez. He made no effort to throw off his tail. The longer they thought they had lost him accidentally, the more time he would have – and every minute was precious.

  He got off the train at Goya, and instead of walking to the exit, he followed the tunnel that led directly to the Corte Ingles department store.

  It was only a little after ten o'clock, but already the place was crowded with pre-Christmas shoppers. Fawn-overcoat would not be more than fifteen yards behind him, which gave him only seconds if he wanted to make his break unnoticed.

  He emerged in the bargain basement and took the escalator up. He behaved sedately until he reached the ground floor, then ran up the next escalator, pushing his way past the bag-laden shoppers. On the fifth floor, he headed for the service stairs and took them three at a time. He left by the side door and hailed a passing taxi. His heart was pounding and he was out of breath, but he had probably lost his tail.

  “Malasaña,” he told the cabbie.

  Had he been in London, Mason would have known exactly where to look, but in Madrid, he could only guess. And the guess had to be right, because there would be no second chances – every minute that ticked away made it less likely he would catch his plane to Funchal.

  At night, the guidebook said, the Plaza de Dos de Mayo was crowded with tourists and students who had come to listen to the guitarists and watch the acrobats and magicians. At a quarter to eleven in the morning, the only people around were a street sweeper and a man walking his dog.

  There was no time to go anywhere else. Mason began to walk up the steep street that led out of the Plaza. He was looking for anyone vaguely bent – a con man, a pickpocket, a mugger – but that someone, whatever else he was, had to have two vital qualifications.

  As chance would have it, it was a drug-pusher – making his first sale of the day – that he chanced upon first.

  The pusher was in an alley, slowly and carefully counting out the bills in his hand, while his pathetic client twitched and fretted. Both were so intent on the transaction that they did not notice Mason until he was almost on them, and by then it was too late. He grabbed them, one in each powerful hand, and slammed them against the wall.

  They were both wearing anoraks and jeans. The pusher was twenty-three or twenty-four, the customer younger.

  They looked up at him in wide-eyed terror.

  “Policia?” the pusher asked.

  “No, I’m not the police.”

  Mason could feel the young man relax a little under his grip.

  “S – señor,” he stuttered, “I am not a criminal. I sell only a little to pay for my studies.”

  He spoke English. One of the two hurdles out of the way.

  “Can you drive?” Mason demanded.

  The pusher looked puzzled.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “How long have you had a license?”

  “Three years.”

  Mason turned to the buyer. “Have you got a syringe on you?”

  “Que?”

  “Ask him,” Mason ordered the pusher.

  “Tienes jeringuilla?”

  “Sí.”

  “Tell him to give it to you.”

  The instruction was conveyed and the boy put a grubby hand in his pocket, produced the syringe, and handed it sideways to the pusher.

  Mason took his hand off the customer’s shoulder.

  “Get out of here!”

  The boy did not understand the words, but he caught the meaning, and scuttled off down the alley. Mason took a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to the pusher.

  “Wipe the syringe!” he barked.

  The pusher obeyed.

  “Now, hold it in your hand, carefully, so that we get some really nice fingerprints.”

  Relucta
ntly, the pusher did as he was told.

  “Wrap it in the handkerchief – carefully so you don’t smudge the prints.”

  When the operation was completed, Mason put the syringe in his pocket.

  “I want you to do a job for me,” he said. “If you don’t do it properly, I’ll see the police get this. But that will be the least of your problems, sunshine, because I’ll come back looking for you – or else send some of my friends, which could be even nastier. Understand?”

  The pusher nodded.

  “That’s the bad side. The good side is that if you do the job properly, there’ll be money in it – lots of money – some now, some later.”

  Mason read a mixture of emotions on the pusher’s face – reassurance because now he realized that the man he was dealing with was not straight; greed at the prospect of the money; and a deepening fear as he came to understand that Mason was way out of his league.

  He would do for the job Frank had in mind – he would have to do.

  *

  Although he could not understand the words, Mason could tell from the tone of the clerk’s voice that he regarded the young pusher with grave suspicion. It was not really surprising; with his scruffy anorak and long, greasy hair, he did not look at all like the sort of person who usually deals with Avis.

  “For how many days do you wish the car, señor?” his own Avis assistant asked him.

  “Just the one.”

  “And are you paying in metálico – cash?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case I must charge you for the kilometres now. Any you have not used will be re-paid when you give in the car.”

  By the time this job’s over, Mason thought wryly, the car-hire companies will have made nearly as much out of it as I will.

  “Fine,” he said aloud.

  He risked a glance at the other desk. The pusher was just signing the forms.

  *

  At the bar, a group of lorry drivers was talking loudly, in the corner by the door the one-armed bandit was playing its punter-enticing tune, and the wall-mounted television was blaring out the early afternoon news. It was the third roadside cafeteria that Mason had stopped at, and by far the noisiest. But it had one big advantage over the others – the public phone was on a meter, so there would be no continual feeding in of coins to tip off those at the other end that he was calling long distance.

  He dialled the hotel.

  “This is Mr. Mason. Room Three-One-Seven,” he said.

  “Just a moment, señor,” the clerk replied.

  There was a faint click.

  A second phone being picked up.

  Someone – probably Fawn-coat or Leather-jacket – did not want to miss this particular conversation.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Mason?” the clerk asked.

  “Has Linda – my wife – come back yet?”

  “Your room key is still in the casilla, señor.”

  “I see. Has she rung? Has she left a message?”

  “No, señor.”

  “The bitch!” Mason exploded. “She’s done it again!”

  “Señor?”

  “She’s picked up another man. She’s always doing it.”

  “Señor …” The clerk's voice sounded embarrassed.

  “I’ll find the cow,” Mason shouted. “I’ll find her if it takes me all day and all night. The lousy bitch.”

  He slammed down the phone, paid for the call, and left the bar.

  *

  Linda was waiting for him in the hire-car.

  “What’s all this about?” she demanded.

  “I told you – precautions.”

  “Well, I think it’s crazy. I had to leave some nice clothes in that hotel.”

  “I gave you the money to buy some more this morning, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” Linda conceded, “but I liked the ones I left behind as well.”

  And that was Linda all over, he thought. Some wasn’t enough for her – she had to have it all.

  They made good time on the Spanish side of the border, traveling along a well-surfaced autovía through majestic mountains. Once they had crossed into Portugal, it was another story. Though the traffic was lighter, the roads were narrower. And to make matters worse, there appeared to be an extensive repair and improvement program in place, so that every few kilometres they were brought to a halt by heavy-plant or single-file traffic.

  Each time he was forced to stop to let a flock of sheep cross the road, each time he found himself stuck behind a slow-moving lorry, Mason edgily checked his watch. If they missed the plane, there would be no chance of booking another one – not that close to Christmas. And without him on the island, there could be no Madeiran job.

  Once they hit the ring road which ran around Lisbon, they picked up speed again, but it was still going to be a push. Mason’s original plan had been to muddy the trail a little by parking the car somewhere in the city and catching a cab out to the airport. Now, he realized, he would have to run the risks entailed by leaving it in the airport car park.

  He shook his head doubtfully. The Madeiran job had not even really started yet, and already it seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

  TEN

  Gower only just made it down to breakfast on the morning of the twenty-first, which was an improvement on the day before, when he hadn’t woken up until eleven – a sign, he supposed, that even if his mind didn’t need the rest, his body did.

  The previous evening, three-quarters down the bottle of whisky, Jose had quoted the island’s annual crime figures – 67 crimes against order and public tranquillity, 36 against persons, 58 against property – as if he’d actually been pleased with them.

  “Any murders?” Gower had asked.

  “We did have a murder last year, but it was only a … what is the word? Domesticated?”

  “Domestic.”

  “Yes, that is right. It was a domestic murder, and the killer give himself up.”

  His own division would have more incident reports than that in a single day, Gower thought – so how the hell would Jose cope with a proper crime wave?

  All right, so his own job could be frustrating, especially when the Commissioner of Police was an old woman who wanted criminals treated with kid gloves. And it was a strain, too – his blood pressure was too high, he smoked so much his lungs looked like kippers, and once in a while he’d experience a violent contraction of the chest muscles. But at least it kept him busy – gave him a purpose in life. He wondered what Jose used to fill his mind.

  He spotted the solicitor-accountant sitting a few tables down from him.

  “I do know him,” he said softly, “I definitely know the bastard.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the scene. He could see a table in an interrogation room with the other man sitting nervously across from him. His hair hadn’t been white then, it had been brown – and brushed back, as if he thought he was Clint Eastwood.

  What had he done?

  Robbery with violence

  Housebreaking?

  No, he wasn't the type. Embezzlement or fraud would be more in his line.

  Try the name then.

  Reginald something?

  Archie?

  Still not quite right.

  He had dealt with so many bad’uns over the years that it was difficult, without the help of records, to pull out a name immediately. But it would come to him… it would come to him.

  When he opened his eyes again, the other man had gone.

  *

  “It’s time,” Linda said. “If we don’t go now, we’ll be late.”

  Mason rose reluctantly from his chair. After what had had happened in Spain, he didn’t want to show himself outside the Madeira Savoy. But it was necessary – it was all part of The Plan.

  They walked along the sea front to the iron kiosk where Mason had first had the idea – back when everything had seemed so simple. A fair-haired young man in a Benetton sports shirt and light trousers wa
s talking to a pretty blonde girl in a black and white dress. Mason was glad that Tony had bought Susan some new clothes.

  “Nobody sees anybody else,” he’d said at the last meeting Pedro attended. “If you run into someone accidentally, ignore them.”

  But Pedro wasn’t on Madeira yet, he wouldn’t be arriving until the evening.

  Mason sat down. “Good flight?”

  Tony merely shrugged.

  Nothing was as it should be, Mason thought. Those last couple of weeks in London, Tony had been acting very strangely. After seven years of working together, of being friends rather than just associates, Tony had suddenly erected a barrier between them, as if he had something to hide.

  “You seem edgy,” Linda said. “Like you were last night.”

  Ah yes, last night. He had wondered how long it would take her to bring that up. The crossing into Portugal had stretched his nerves almost to breaking point, and when they’d finally arrived in Madeira – when they were finally in bed – he hadn’t been able to get interested in sex, despite all Linda’s encouragement. And she’d taken that as a personal insult.

  That was all she saw in a man, he thought, a body to give her pleasure, a wallet to feed her acquisitive appetite. His dreams – his interests – meant nothing.

  “I said, you seem edgy,” Linda repeated, her voice grating on his mind like a nail dragged down a blackboard.

  “Oh, piss off!” he snapped.

  “Right!” Linda said. “Right, I will.”

  She stood up, and flounced off down the street. Heads turned to look at her.

  A mistake, Mason realized. She shouldn’t be making herself conspicuous – not yet. And they couldn’t afford disunity on an operation like this one.

  He knew he should get up and go after her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – not at that moment.

  “Catch her up, Tony,” he said. “She'll listen to you.”

  Horton looked startled. “Me? Why … Sure thing, Frank.”

  Linda was already fifty yards away, carving a path through the afternoon strollers. Tony jogged along the promenade after her.