Deadly Zeal

by Jean Chapman

  Then it looked as if a large section of snow moved, but this much nearer he could now see the man’s clothes were not quite as white as snow. Cannon moved on at the same pace but slightly altering his line as the figure moved away and upwards at an angle, taking advantage of every tree as cover. Cannon frowned as the man was forced to move into the open for two, three seconds, and he saw how very much of the trunk and branches he masked. He looked a big man, but distance made size difficult to judge in this landscape – and who else could it be? And if it was not Bliss, why was he running?

  ‘Stand still if you’ve done nothing; they chases runners’: a phrase from his old dad’s philosophy.

  ‘Indeed they do,’ he added aloud as he became aware that there were figures – skiers – coming rapidly into view to the left and to the right. The man Cannon followed topped the hill and stood momentarily exposed – great snowman against blue sky – then, as he saw his pursuers, he threw himself forward and down, out of sight.

  Things happened quickly now; the skiers swooped in, converging on the spot where the man had disappeared from the skyline.

  There would be no escape – then there was a shot, echoing loud across the snowy wasteland. Heart pounding as he raced to top the rise, Cannon found it difficult to know where the shot had come from. Had one of the skiers shot Bliss? Had the end already come? Perhaps, though, Bliss was only injured, shot maybe in a leg to stop him running?

  Many ifs and buts crowded his mind as he took great strides, half running, half glissading, down towards a great disturbed area of snow where the man – or his body – had fallen and rolled.

  Liz, like everyone else, had her eyes fixed on all that was happening ahead, until the shot rang out, and Higham shouted, groaned, clutched his chest and slewed sideways against his son.

  She was at Higham’s side almost as soon as Forstmann. Toby had his arm around his father, taking his weight, lowering him as gently as he could down to the ground.

  ‘Dadda?’ Cathy gave an agonized shout and ran towards them.

  ‘Stand back!’ Forstmann ordered and gestured to Liz to stop Cathy hampering what needed to be done, while at the same time telling all of them, ‘He has body armour so …’

  Higham took a great staggered gasp of air as he lay with Toby’s arm under his head, but his hands fell from where he had clutched his chest as he lost consciousness.

  ‘Undo his anorak,’ Forstmann said, which Liz did as he felt in Higham’s neck for a pulse. Immediately under the anorak was the bulletproof vest. There was a deep, puckered depression exactly over the heart. ‘Such an impact could –’ Forstmann began and was immediately on his radio requesting an air ambulance. Liz carefully pulled apart the Velcro straps and opening the vest revealed where the tip of the embedded bullet made a sharp point at heart level.

  There was no blood but Liz frowned as she imagined the trauma and extent of internal bleeding that could have caused. She organized Toby and Cathy to bring all the furs from the sleighs and swathed the unconscious man in them.

  A message on the radio told them that an air ambulance was diverting from another incident. ‘Fifteen minutes,’ Forstmann informed them.

  ‘Thanks,’ Toby said.

  ‘Watch his breathing,’ Forstmann told him, ‘if it changes call out.’

  ‘Come on … Dadda,’ Cathy pleaded, ‘help is … coming.’

  Forstmann received two more messages in quick succession, and walked away from the group to take them, but his gaze was on his men grouped on the skyline. He gave rapid orders in Norwegian.

  Liz was concerned about Cannon, but was convinced of one thing and followed Forstmann to give her opinion. ‘The bullet that struck Higham didn’t come from the man they’re chasing over there – if there was a man. I would have said it came from our left.’

  ‘They’ve caught someone,’ he answered shortly.

  Cannon was on the spot as the man in the off-white suit was pulled from the miniature avalanche he had caused as he fell and rolled. That it was not Bliss was immediately apparent; he was far too tall, too hefty. Cannon wondered if he was a hunter, though he had no idea whether hunting was allowed or done anywhere in the area. He dismissed the idea that he was either an innocent visitor or resident. Why should he hide behind trees or run when challenged?

  It was taking several men to overpower him and in the end Cannon saw one of them point his automatic rifle and order him in several languages to put his hands in the air. At last, with several more weapons threatening, he did as he was told. Handcuffs were quickly snapped on and he was encouraged to begin the walk back.

  Cannon went nearer as the hood was pulled down from the man’s head and his goggles removed. He stopped in his tracks. It was not Bliss, but he recognized the man well enough. It was the joker who had disrupted the quiz evening at The Trap, the man who had somehow helped trigger a series of events and murders – and had now turned up in the northernmost tip of a foreign country. Cannon would have judged him hardly capable of undertaking such a journey, at least not without considerable help. Perhaps that was the clue, and that help could surely only have come from Bliss. The stay in Bliss’s apartment, the van hire and visit to the antique shop, the keys to the jewellery cabinets – it added up.

  ‘Spier!’ Cannon exclaimed. ‘Why?’ Then he shook his head. Perhaps he knew why; it was more the ‘how’ that puzzled Cannon.

  ‘You know this man?’ one of the skiers asked.

  ‘I do,’ he said and both men looked round as Forstmann arrived.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘This man, I think it would be correct to say, is Bliss’s paid accomplice,’ Cannon said.

  ‘So where is the boss man?’ Forstmann demanded of Spier. ‘Where is Bliss?’

  Spier shrugged, shook his head, glared at Cannon. ‘What’re you doing ’ere, Mr Landlord?’ he asked.

  ‘Is he armed?’ Forstmann asked.

  ‘Not so far as we can see or feel,’ one of his men answered, indicating the spot where they had dug Spier out. ‘We’re looking around to make sure he’s thrown nothing away.’

  ‘Take him back to the restaurant,’ Forstmann ordered. ‘The rest of you spread out and work your way back down. This is not the man we’re looking for, so keep a sharp eye out for anyone or anything else. The shot could have been fired from …’ He indicated a spread of snow over beyond where the sleighs and Higham waited. ‘But keep the flat ground the other side clear for the air ambulance to land. It should be here in about ten minutes. Also see no one leaves the whole area – no one!’

  A skier pointed southwards: the helicopter was already a growing dot on the horizon.

  ‘Right,’ Forstmann said, turning to Cannon, ‘I think you and I better have a chat as soon as we’ve seen Higham away.’

  They hurried back to the fur-wrapped figure. Higham was still unconscious and his breathing ragged. Toby looked anxious. ‘Will I be able to go with him?’ he asked.

  ‘And … me,’ Cathy begged.

  ‘That is the pilot’s decision,’ Forstmann said briskly. ‘Does anyone else in your party know the man we’ve arrested?’

  ‘My partner,’ Cannon said.

  Liz glanced swiftly and questioningly at him and then towards the group of men surrounding their prisoner.

  ‘It’s Spier,’ Cannon told her.

  ‘Spier!’ Her incredulity could not have been greater. ‘Spier? The man who … at home … caused …’

  ‘Yes,’ Cannon confirmed.

  Liz glanced at the concerned son and daughter crouched over their father, and but for them Cannon was sure she would have laughed aloud in disbelief, as she repeated again, ‘Spier, from …’

  He nodded towards the group as they drew nearer. She could see for herself.

  There was no more talk as the helicopter now hovered above the landing spot and all crouched or turned their backs as the rotors stirred up a miniature blizzard.

  It was quickly apparent that no one other than the p
atient could be taken; they already had a road accident casualty aboard. Higham was carefully strapped to a stretcher and within minutes was away, leaving a frustrated Toby and a devastated Cathy behind.

  Then Forstmann came striding back, radio in hand, to say that he had a police vehicle waiting for them to follow their father to Kirkenes Hospital. They could leave immediately but he wished to talk to Cannon and Liz in the restaurant he had commandeered.

  Cannon was wondering where they might all catch up with each other again – and whether they were going to be on the Nordsol when it sailed – when one of Forstmann’s officers brought in another man Cannon recognized. It was the driver of the hotel minibus he had used the previous day.

  ‘Sir,’ the man reported, ‘this driver says he took a man from the area, and has just come back to pick up the hotel guests he brought earlier.’

  ‘So what is the problem?’ the driver asked, throwing out his hands in bewilderment.

  ‘Can you describe this man?’ Forstmann asked.

  ‘He was just an old man in trouble.’ The driver was impatient. ‘An old man with a walking stick and a bad back.’

  ‘Was he grey, dark, bearded?’ Forstmann persisted.

  ‘He was grey, what hair I could see under his hat and hood. He was well bent over his stick, middle sixties perhaps, and was, as I say, in trouble, could hardly get along because of his back.’

  ‘You didn’t glimpse his face?’

  ‘He was clean shaven, freshish complexion, and I would say he was English,’ the driver said.

  ‘Where did you take him?’ Cannon asked.

  ‘He said he needed to get his back sorted before it got worse.’ The driver looked to Cannon for understanding. ‘That’s why I left my hotel people here while I took him to the hospital.’

  Bliss taken to the hospital where Higham was probably even now being offloaded. He met Forstmann’s eyes and read the same thoughts.

  ‘I’ll have to leave you in the hands of another officer,’ Forstmann told the driver, ‘and we’ll need forensics to look at your vehicle.’

  ‘But for God’s sake, the man will still be at the hospital!’ The driver was irate. ‘I wish I’d just left the old man here suffering, just left him to his fate!’

  No one answered him.

  ‘You and your partner come with me to the hospital,’ Forstmann said to Cannon.

  Whether it was an order or a request, Cannon was not sure, but he answered ‘Yes’ with alacrity.

  There was no time wasted and as the police car raced, siren blaring, to the hospital, Forstmann radioed ahead. He said it was most urgent that the hospital detain an elderly man about sixty years of age, with a walking stick and possibly complaining of back trouble, until they got there. There were clearly questions at the other end and he added, ‘Discretion, if possible, of course, but otherwise …’ His voice changed. ‘Anyway at all – just keep him there until we arrive. OK.’ He cut the high-pitched questioning voice off.

  The hospital was on one of the peninsulas that surrounded Norway’s deeply serrated coastline and seemed to be near the ferry terminal. The deep, long blast from a boat’s horn echoed across the water. Forstmann saw Cannon straining to look out to the sea and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid the Nordsol has sailed,’ he said. ‘We’ll try and reunite you, all of you, hopefully, later.’

  Their entry into the reception area was hardly unnoticed. Forstmann’s car had been followed by two others, and these men had been detailed to watch all exits. Forstmann led the way to the main reception counter where the girl had obviously already alerted her superiors.

  ‘We have no man here with a back problem,’ she said defensively, looking to an older senior nurse to support her.

  ‘That is true, Officer, we have in fact had no “walk in off the street patient” as yet day. Could your man still be on his way here?’

  Forstmann was explaining that the man had been brought in by a minibus, while Cannon was walking slowly around the reception area and saw Cathy and Toby sitting in another area of chairs along a corridor. He touched Liz’s arm, indicating he was going to them.

  ‘Is there any news of your father?’ he asked.

  ‘He has not regained consciousness, the doctors are still with him,’ Toby said, ‘but why have all the police come?’

  Cannon explained. ‘We think Bliss may have fired the shot and escaped the scene by persuading a hotel minibus driver to bring him to hospital.’

  ‘If he was my old professor …’ Toby began.

  Cannon shook his head. ‘I doubt you would have recognized him. He was walking very bent over, supposedly coming to the hospital with severe back trouble.’

  Cathy gasped and nodded. ‘There … was a man … he kept looking our way. He was … sitting … almost … opposite me … then …’

  Cathy was becoming breathless with the story.

  ‘Take your time,’ Cannon said, sitting down beside her.

  ‘Toby was still … talking with the doctor,’ she said, ‘but there was another … call and I heard the receptionist repeat … something about a patient with a … bad … back … and the man got up and left.’

  Cathy paused, but when Cannon would have spoken she lifted a hand. ‘But …’ she went on, ‘nothing was wrong … with his … back … I think. He … walked out … quickly.’

  ‘Did you talk about your father while he was here?’ Cannon asked.

  ‘A doctor just came to say to move to these chairs, so we would be nearer to him,’ Toby said.

  The door at the far end of the corridor opened and a nurse came to them. ‘Mr Higham, Miss Higham,’ she said quietly, ‘the doctor would like to see you both.’

  Chapter 28

  Shock, trauma, time were the words coming from the intensive care unit. Meanwhile, the police threw a cordon around the town. Liz said she felt a mouse would have problems escaping.

  Toby and Cathy were at their father’s bedside. Forstmann, having heard all Cannon and Liz could tell him, and spoken to Betterson, was at police headquarters directing operations. Liz and Cannon had been directed back to the hotel where Cannon had spent the previous night.

  At the hotel they found the room Cannon had vacated was free. As they stood at the desk, a well-dressed man strode out of the rear office, fury written on his face. He nodded perfunctorily to them and stood back as they signed in. Once they turned away, Cannon heard him ask the receptionist if the minibus hire had been arranged.

  ‘I do not want my guests waiting around for their trip to the Russian border tomorrow morning. You did tell them we had a driver?’ His tone suggested that even so, the man left a lot to be desired.

  Liz grimaced at Cannon but said, ‘Know what, I’m really hungry.’

  Cannon remembered the highly coloured pasta from the day before, and then the American fast-food restaurant almost next door to the hotel.

  ‘Yes, come on.’ He changed direction. ‘We’ll eat now, you never know what might happen later.’

  The restaurant was bright and glitzy with pictures of mountain scenes on the walls. Cannon was sure that these were not local photos but the American Rockies. A demonstrative dark-haired waiter was seeing a large group of satisfied customers away with enthusiastic goodbyes – ‘Ha det! Tilbake!’ – then turned with ease to Cannon and Liz and wished them welcome in English.

  ‘You like here?’ he asked as he showed them to a table on a raised section of the restaurant. They both automatically chose the long bench seats against the wall so they could see the whole of the dining area.

  Cannon had seen the minibus driver as soon as he sat down. When the waiter had taken their order and moved away, Cannon nodded to him. Mentioning him to Liz, she looked casually that way and reported not only did he look uneasy but that he was leaving his table.

  ‘Going,’ Cannon guessed.

  ‘No, coming over,’ she whispered.

  ‘Could I just speak with you for a moment?’ he said as he reached Cannon’s side.


  Cannon moved along the bench for him to sit down.

  ‘There was something I did not say.’ The man’s tone was repentant. ‘But I shall lose my job I think if the hotel manager gets to know.’

  ‘What is that?’ Cannon asked.

  ‘The man I took to the hospital gave me money, quite a bit of money really. He had it all ready in an envelope.’

  ‘He had it ready?’ Cannon’s voice was low and urgent.

  The driver put his hand into his pocket. ‘I’ve taken the money, I needed to settle a debt, but it was in this.’

  The envelope was well crumpled but as it was put on the table they could both see that written on it was ‘the driver’.

  Cannon pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and turning it inside out carefully pulled the envelope into the packet.

  ‘So it is that serious,’ the driver stated soberly.

  ‘Yes, and if I were you I’d get back to the hotel. They’re hiring another minibus for you to drive.’

  The man looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘We’ve just rebooked in there for the night and overheard the manager saying so,’ Cannon told him. ‘He’s not a happy man but he did say that it was only the bus, as they had a driver.’

  ‘Oh.’ The man swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t know. I’ll get back. Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Not sure he’ll get away with it,’ Liz said, as they watched him go, ‘but hope he does. On the scale of things he’s done very little wrong.’

  ‘He’s withheld important evidence,’ Cannon condemned, putting the plastic bag back in his pocket. ‘This tells us that once more Bliss has outwitted everyone. It proves he planned even this, a bribe to secure a lift away from the scene of what he hoped would be, and yet may be, his final act of revenge against Higham.’

  ‘And if it’s not he’ll probably come back and have another go,’ Liz said. ‘That seems his usual style too.’

  ‘Not here, I wouldn’t have thought,’ Cannon said, ‘he’s too canny for that.’