The car stalled. Around it, showers of glass plummeted to earth. Behind it, the lorry’s gears growled as the driver prepared for a fresh onslaught.
Tony turned the key and the car coughed and missed. Frankie wound down his window and pointed the shotgun out. The engine refused to catch for a second time. Frankie fired at the back tires of the lorry, shredding them. The car’s engine ticked over, and Tony backed – the tires crunching broken glass, bit of masonry falling heavily on the roof.
There was no way past the lorry, Pedro thought. His opinion was obviously shared by the driver. As the car bumped off the pavement, Tony already had a tight lock on, so that they could go back the way they had come – down the one-way street.
Tony switched on the lights and pressed down on the horn. The battered Golf skidded and bumped its way into the oncoming traffic. One tire was flat, Pedro realized – at least one.
An Opel mounted the curb to get out of their way; a Seat Ibiza and a Mini Cooper, one only slightly behind the other, stopped dead on different sides of the road, and Tony drove a dog-legged path between them; a new BMW went into rapid reverse and almost made it into a side street before the Golf caught it a glancing blow.
And then, miraculously, they were clear, heading along the road that led to the Museum of Sacred Art. Pedro could see the third car – a Ford Escort – which Arnie had parked the day before. It was standing in a quiet alcove. There was no one around. He still felt shaky, but he was getting better by the second.
The car stopped and the team got out. While Pedro slipped off his ski-mask, loose trousers and jumper, Frankie and Harry transferred the rucksack and kitbag to the Escort, and Tony started its engine. Pedro got behind the wheel. He smiled at the three masked faces.
“Good luck, fellers,” he said, and then he was away, heading for the mountains.
The other men did not stop to watch his progress. They stripped off their clothes too, revealing the less conspicuous garments they were wearing underneath. Another car pulled up, and they quickly transferred to it the remaining contents of the boot. It drove away.
They headed off in three different directions. Soon, each had joined the woman who had been waiting for him, and they were a gang no more – just three independent couples taking an early morning stroll.
THIRTEEN
Constable Alberto Marques of the Policia Florestal arrived deliberately early that morning. He brushed aside Constable Barbieto’s friendly greeting, and went straight to his post.
“You still have half an hour's duty to do,” he reminded the other man, in icy tones, “but now that I am here, you may go.”
It was his way of showing that he was not a minute-counting, petty-minded time-server – like some people he could mention.
The day before yesterday had been his birthday, and because everyone had insisted on buying him drinks – which it would have been rude to refuse – he had not got to bed until well after midnight. He had overslept the next morning – that was only natural – and had arrived at work a little late. Well, two and a half hours late.
His head had been full of excuses as he approached the roadblock. He had been prepared to offer his colleague his sincerest apologies. But none of that had been necessary, because at nine o'clock, when his shift officially finished, that bastard Barbieto had gone home, leaving the roadblock completely unmanned. If their superiors had found out, they could both have been in serious trouble. So Marques was not about to forgive his fellow officer – not quite yet.
He heard a car in the distance, coming up from Funchal.
There was no need to stop vehicles from that direction. He could have pulled up the pole then and there, but it was far better to wait until the vehicle appeared, so that the driver could see his Forest Police working for him.
The car hove into view, a Ford Escort. Marques strode smartly towards the pole.
What a difference there was, he thought, between the crisp, efficient way he raised the barrier and the slovenly way that Barbieto did it. But then he was a real policeman, rather than merely a slave to the time clock.
It took him a second to realize that the Escort, far from slowing down, was actually accelerating. He waved his hands wildly, but the car continued to pick up speed. He jumped out of the way and watched, in amazement, as the car struck the barrier with a resounding crack. The pole groaned and then broke in two. The car skidded to the side, corrected itself, and then shot off into the distance.
The pole was Policia Florestal property, and had been ruined. Constable Marques ran to his Land-rover and set off in hot pursuit. It was only when he reached Poiso, where there was a crossroads and hence three possible routes the car could have taken, that it occurred to him that he should radio in the incident.
*
“A bank robbery!” Captain Silva's voice sounded unusually high-pitched, almost hysterical. “A bank robbery here on Madeira. It’s impossible!”
Gower looked down the street. The scrap lorry’s back axle had been jacked up and a mechanic was taking off the shredded tires. Outside the café, the waiters were sweeping up the shards of glass and pieces of rubble.
And the area was swarming with policemen. Some were questioning bank employees and the drivers of the cars which the Golf had met head-on; others were examining the Renault, which was still parked outside the bank; and a third group were diverting traffic and shooing away sensation seekers.
Though it was only nine-thirty – and still no more than pleasantly warm – beads of sweat were clearly visible on Silva’s brow, and great damp patches were forming under his armpits.
“Impossible!” he said again.
“Of course it’s not bloody impossible,” Gower snapped. “It’s bloody happened.”
“What am I to do, Ron?” Silva asked desperately.
“What have you done already?”
“I have had the airport and harbour closed, and I’ve sent men to look for the getaway car.”
And you haven’t a clue what to do next, Gower thought. You pathetic little wanker!
A pick-up truck with the spare tires for the crippled lorry edged its way around the police barrier. Someone was taking a hammer to the pieces of glass still embedded in the café’s window frame.
“Ron,” Silva said, “I have no experience of this kind of thing. Will you help me?”
Gower wanted to – oh, he really wanted to – but he needed to settle the ground rules first.
“I’m on holiday, Jose,” he said. “Besides, I’ve got out of the habit of taking orders from other people.”
“It would not be like that, Ron,’ Silva said, in a pleading voice. “We would be partners.”
Gower scratched his head.
“No,” he said reflectively, almost lazily, “that wouldn’t work. The only possibility, as I see it, would be if you let me unofficially take complete charge. And you’d have to give me your assurance, before we even started, that whatever I needed to do, you’d back me all the way.”
Silva looked defeated. “All right,” he said miserably.
Gower’s lethargy melted away, and he was suddenly very crisp and business-like.
“What can you tell me about the robbery?”
“There were four men, all wearing ski-masks. Only one of them spoke.”
“Was he talking in Portuguese – the one who spoke?”
“Yes, but he did not have a Madeiran accent. The manager said he sounded like a country boy from the mainland.”
“And you say they were driving a Golf?”
“They all left in a Golf, but one of them came in another car,” Silva pointed across the road, “that Renault 5.”
When he had first heard about the robbery, Gower had prayed that it was the Mason gang.
Sawn-off shotguns, ski-masks – it sounded just like the kind of job Frank would be involved in.
But this was simply not Frank’s MO. He always hit the bank with two other men, and left the driver – Tony Horton – in the getaway vehicle.
He had never been known to use two cars. Why the bloody hell would anybody use two cars?
“Get on to Lisbon,” he said to Silva, “and have them fax out photographs of all bank robbers known to be operating on the mainland. Issue your men with the pictures, and then get them on the street. I want all hotels, holiday apartments, time-shares – everything – fully checked out. And while you’re at it, do a cross-reference on the names to see if any of the mainland villains have got relatives living in Madeira. If they have, pull the relatives in for questioning.”
If only it could have been Mason! He’d really have had the bastard this time.
*
“Bloodys bastards luck, bloodys bastards luck,” Pedro muttered to himself, over and over again, as he drove along the road to the Pico de Arieiro at a speed far in excess of the one Mason had instructed him to keep to.
Why had there been a roads block today? There had been no roads block yesterday, when he was ‘simulating actual conditions’.
Bloodys bastards luck.
He screeched to a halt in the cafeteria car park, opened the boot and shouldered the rucksack. The timing had all gone wrong. He should have had half an hour to get round the curve of the mountain before the cafeteria opened and there was any chance of him being seen. But the police would already be looking for him. And it was vital he hid the money before he was spotted.
“They can't prove a thing if they haven’t got the money,” Frankie had said.
He set off down the steps, trying to make better time than he had the day before, but the rucksack and kitbag slowed him down. He reached the vale and began to ascend again, and that was even harder work. The sweat trickled down his back, and his breath was coming in short, sharp gasps.
The day before, he’d thought it a great honour to carry the money, but now it just seemed like a grind. And, for the first time, he began to wonder why he had been chosen for this particular job. Tony was a better driver, Frank was stronger. Even Harry Smell could have made quicker time along the trail.
So why him?
He was almost at the bend when he heard the sound of voices further up the trail.
Police?
Already?
No, one of the voices was a woman’s and they were speaking in English.
Hikers!
He looked frantically around for somewhere to hide the money, but there wasn’t anywhere. In desperation, he slid the rucksack off his shoulders and sat on it.
The people who’d been talking appeared from round the corner. There were two of them, young and fit, dressed in shorts, T-shirts and stout hiking boots. Their faces were open and friendly. The man smiled at Pedro.
“Just taking a rest?” he asked.
“Yes,” Pedro mumbled, “very tired.”
He silently cursed himself for being so stupid. Why hadn’t he pretended he couldn’t speak English?
The man looked with interest at Pedro’s kitbag and rucksack. He himself had only a small knapsack, which nestled comfortably at the base of his spine.
“You seem to be carrying rather a lot of equipment with you,” he said.
Mind you own bloodys business, Pedro thought.
He wished he still had his shotgun with him.
“Must be jolly heavy,” the woman said.
“Y … yes, but is necessary,” Pedro stammered. “Are hammers and ropes. For rocks. I am a rock studier.”
“Ah … I see,” the woman said, sounding unconvinced.
Pedro wondered if it would be possible to push them both off the edge, then dismissed the idea. The man was too strong for him, and even if he managed to take him by surprise he would still have the woman to deal with, and she looked like she could put up a good fight.
The man seemed uncomfortable – embarrassed.
“Well, goodbye,” he said as he edged round Pedro, “and the best of luck.”
“Yes, goodbye,” the woman said, not even looking at him.
They’d take twenty minutes to reach the cafeteria. It would be open by then, so they’d probably stop for breakfast. And they would be likely to mention that they had met a strange man on the trail.
“Bloodys bastards luck,” Pedro moaned, picking up his rucksack.
*
Gower surveyed the scene. The car was dented, one of its tires was flat, the paintwork badly scratched. A sticker in the back window announced that it belonged to Avis Rent-a-car. But it was the other evidence – some in the car, some scattered around – which was interesting. There were four shotguns, four ski-masks, four black sweaters and pairs of over-trousers, and three zipper bags. The bags and trousers were all from Millets, the sweaters from Marks and Sparks.
Gower clicked his fingers. “Pen, paper!”
Silva came running with them.
Gower rested the pad on the roof of the police car and wrote down three rapid, accurate descriptions. He tore them off and handed them to Silva.
“Get these translated and distributed to your men on the streets,” he said. “One of them is Portuguese, the other two are British. They won’t be registered under their real names, but they’ll be here somewhere.”
The MO was all wrong, but the equipment fitted the bill exactly.
“Oh, Frank,” Gower said happily, “however could you have been so bloody stupid?”
FOURTEEN
The easy chairs were removed, and a gunmetal desk for Gower’s use brought in. Silva’s office still looked too much like a maiden aunt’s sewing room for the Chief Superintendent’s taste, but at least it had two telephones, one of which he commandeered.
He knew that Mason had used Portuguese Pedro on this job, and he always worked with Tony Horton, so that left one name missing. Gower flicked through his mental record of Mason’s known associates and any other shotgun specialists he might have recruited.
Willy Baxter? No, he was doing time on the Moor.
Jock McGuire? Same as Willy, except that he was in Durham.
Sid Cranshaw? Maybe.
Harry Snell? He was out, but it was generally agreed that his nerve was gone;
Phil Bolton? Possibly.
He jotted the likely prospects on a pad in thick, heavy handwriting, his pencil almost cutting through the top sheet of paper.
What he really needed was access to proper files. He put through a call to London and was told that Scott was out.
“Well, tell the idle young sod he’d better ring me as soon as he gets in,” he ordered the duty sergeant. “And you’d better make sure that he does – because your neck is on the line, too!”
Intimidation as a management technique, he thought as he hung up. It was the only way to get things done – at least, the only way that he knew.
The phone rang on the other desk, jolting Silva out of his terrified stupor. But as the call progressed, his voice became more animated and his eyes grew brighter.
“That was the Policia Florestal,” he said. "A car – an Escort with only one occupant – crashed their roadblock on the way to Santana about half an hour after the robbery. The two things have to be connected.”
Despite himself, Gower was impressed.
“You were bloody quick getting that set up,” he said grudgingly.
Silva looked suddenly sheepish.
“It was not there for bank robbers. It was to stop the Christmas-tree …” he groped around for the right word, “… the Christmas-tree rustlers.”
“Christmas-tree rustlers?”
“In the days near to Christmas, there are people who go up into the mountains, and cut down the trees,” Silva explained. “That is why the Policia Florestal …”
Christmas-tree rustlers! Forest Police! What a bleeding set-up!
Gower stood up and walked over to the map behind Silva’s desk.
“Where exactly was this roadblock?” he asked.
“There,” Silva replied, pointing to a wavy line high in the serra.
“And what’s to stop the rustlers from going the other way, to San Roque or S
anto da Serra?”
“There are roadblocks there, too.”
“In other words,” Gower said, “we’ve got the bastard bottled up. He’s either still on this stretch of road between the road blocks,” he traced it with his finger, “or he’s turned off here to Pico do Arieiro – which is a dead end.”
“I’ll get some men up there now,” Silva said, reaching for the phone.
Brilliant! Gower thought to himself. I wonder why I never come up with good ideas like that.
“And while you’re at it,” he said, “see if any of the agencies have rented out an Escort today – and if they have, who they’ve rented it out to.”
Silva had no sooner put the phone down than it rang again.
This was how Gower liked it – thick and fast.
“The two cars,” Silva said, “the Renault and the Golf, they were both rented by an Englishman, the day before yesterday. His name was …”
“Arthur Blake,” Gower supplied.
“How did you know that?”
Because it explained exactly what Arnie the Actor was doing in Madeira, and why he had been using an alias.
“Where is he?” Gower asked. “Down in the cells?”
Silva shrugged uncomfortably.
“I don’t know.”
“You don't know! I told you to pick him up last night.”
“You said he would be here for a week, and we have only skeleton staff at night, so I thought … I will have him brought in now.”
“You’ll be too bloody late,” Gower said. “He was never going to take part in the actual robbery – that’s not his style – so he’ll be long gone by now. But don’t worry – Arnie is a louse, and he’ll crawl straight back into his own woodwork, which is London. My lads will pick him up.”
So now he knew about four of them. The net was closing.
“If you can get out of this one, Frank,” he said to himself, “you’d better change your name to Harry-sodding-Houdini.”
*
As a man of business, Francisco Reis, Chief Cashier at the Banco do Lisboa, deplored the fact that the bank was closed for the rest of the day because of the robbery. As a handsome bachelor, still under thirty, he saw it as an unexpected bonus, an extra opportunity to try to inveigle one of the shapelier tourists into his bed. And there was one, just across the street, gazing into a shop window.
The Madeiran Double Cross Page 14
