LITMIR.BIZ

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you can get them uncut, unregistered, you have millions of pounds in untraceable assets. Diamonds are small and don’t smell, handy if you’re in organized crime.’ Graham paused, flicking the photograph with his fingers. ‘So, Alan, consider the chain of events as our friends at Interpol see it. Stealing stuff like that is a specialized job. They think somebody ordered Piet to steal them, probably threatened his life if he refused. Or threatened hers. Anyway, he does the job but doesn’t get round to handing the merchandise over. He disappears, Jan disappears, Agnes disappears. Jan was trying to fly to Johannesburg, but fate caught up with him. Agnes took a circuitous route and entered Britain at Inverness Airport.’

      ‘An airport with no customs, if you pick the right flight.’

      ‘Really?’ Graham paused. ‘I didn’t know that. Interpol think – and this is pure speculation – that Piet’s paymasters persuaded Jan Michels the hard way to tell them where Agnes had fled to. No one knows where Piet went to ground. Possibly Jan didn’t know. So either the Dutch gang came over to find Agnes, or they asked some Scottish associates to find her. It wouldn’t take long: Glasgow’s a small place, bedsit land is even smaller, and she was very beautiful. Not a face you would forget. A photograph would be all they’d need. We think she came here bringing the diamonds with her. Four months later Jan was caught trying to leave the country and was tortured. Then they tracked her down and, by making a very public statement that they had found her –’

      ‘They flushed Piet out,’ added McAlpine.

      ‘And tried to flush the stones out. They didn’t succeed.’ This time Graham tapped Piet’s photograph with his knuckles. ‘He probably thought that by sending her away he was keeping her safe. The lovebirds had some way of communication, so that when he didn’t hear from her he broke cover to go to find her. Which suggests she has the merchandise. And she would have put them somewhere safe, and we want to know where. Did she ever indicate to you where they might be?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘We’re pulling that bedsit apart right now and interviewing everybody in the building.’

      ‘What happened to the guy?’

      ‘That’s the difficult bit.’ Graham coughed slightly. ‘‘‘A’’ Division had received some intelligence in June that there might be a shipment of illegal diamonds coming in here, west coast. Not much interest to them; they’re too busy chasing drugs. The boys at Customs and Excise, though, had a different take on it.’ Graham paused a moment, holding another photograph in both hands, waiting for that to sink in.

      ‘Robbie worked for the Excise, he was –’

      Graham tapped his lips with the tip of the photograph. ‘On HMS Alba.’

      McAlpine nodded, but his expression had changed slightly; a look of apprehension clouded his brown eyes.

      ‘And on 2 July, at 3.15 a.m. exactly, the Alba intercepted a yacht called the Fluisteraar, registered in Amsterdam.’ He turned the photograph over – a small wooden yacht, a huge hole ripped in her hull, shards of raw wood sticking obscenely from her side – and put it side by side with the photograph of the same yacht moored in some resort in southern France. McAlpine looked away. ‘The Alba sailed that night with a complement of seven –’

      ‘And only six returned,’ said McAlpine quietly.

      McAlpine did what a hundred victims had done before him: he stated the obvious, trying to turn things to his own reality, where it all made sense. ‘No, there’s a mistake. He was just on manoeuvres. That boat collided with the Alba, it was just a routine thing . . . Robbie jumped in to effect a rescue; man overboard.’ He looked up at Graham for reassurance.

      ‘I’m sorry, Alan, but all Customs officers say they are on manoeuvres. Robbie died in the line of duty.’ He handed the younger officer a glass of water, noticing the slight tremor in the hand as he passed it over.

      McAlpine said nothing, so Graham continued. ‘Small yachts like that aren’t difficult to track; Kerkhof took a strange route, so he didn’t have to register the boat anywhere. It took him only five days to sail from Amsterdam to the Clyde. God must have been with him going through the Caledonian Canal at this time of year, that’s all I can say. You know the rest of the story: the Fluisteraar wasn’t armed, she wasn’t smuggling, there were no diamonds. On impact with the Alba, Piet went into the water. The witnesses say your brother didn’t hesitate – just went straight in to get him. Robbie died a hero.’

      McAlpine dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to take it all in, to shake off the appalling images that besieged his brain. He sighed deeply, and his eyes came to rest on Anna’s picture, on her lovely face, her lips slightly shy, ready to break into a smile.

      ‘He – Piet – was coming to join her,’ McAlpine whispered, as though he hadn’t heard. He looked up. ‘So, there is some honour among thieves.’

      ‘Maybe not honour, certainly love.’

      The guy who gave you the ring – he’s a good guy, then? And the finger twitching – slowly – yes.

      ‘The story didn’t end there, though. If she had brought the diamonds here, where are they now?’ asked McAlpine.

      ‘That was my question for you.’ ‘If they loved each other that much, they loved their daughter . . . So somewhere safe, untraceable...’

      They sat for a minute or two in silence, thinking their own thoughts. A phone rang somewhere downstairs.

      ‘But whoever did that to her is still out there. We’re going to apply for specialized security for her and the baby; so rest assured, she will be safe.’ Graham raised his head, his eyes uneasy. ‘I’m so sorry, Alan. I would never have put you in this position, never let you anywhere near her, if I had known anything about the circumstances. I am genuinely very sorry.’

      McAlpine stood up and bowed slightly in front of his superior officer. He seemed perfectly in control except that his brown eyes looked past Graham, staring at the photograph on the wall. ‘The thing is, sir, it wasn’t you who put me in this position, was it? It was her,’ he said and left.

      Graham picked up the phone and dialled the hospital, just in case.

      She was relieved to be awake. Her dreams had been brutal and bloody: she was rolling in acid, watching through burned-out eyes as her own blood seeped into concrete. Yet, awake, her thoughts were a confused tumble running round her head.

      Somebody knew exactly who and where she was. She was the only link in the chain left. If she stayed alive, the baby was in danger . . . but if the chain was broken...

      Suddenly it was all so clear.

      There was only one way she could protect her child.

      Wide awake, more alert than she had felt for weeks, she began to plan.

      Remembering everything she had learned, she mapped the room in her mind. The door to the corridor, the door to the toilet, the trolley laden with medical equipment, the waste bin with the clunking pedal, the sink with the mirror above it where the nurse with the squeaky shoes checked her mascara: all were plotted and fixed.

      Just before afternoon visiting, the hospital was busy and noisy with people coming and going. The ward doors opened exactly on the hour, and, until visiting was over, no nurses would come unless her alarm sounded. She would be left alone for an hour or more.

      Carefully she pulled herself up a little, her hands still tied to the frame of the bed. She felt the wound in her stomach twitch with the effort, then the dreadful sensation of her face falling. She collapsed again, waiting till the spinning in her head stopped. The gauze had slipped, nipping painfully where it had been tugging on underlying skin.

      When the dizziness subsided, she tried again.

      Take it carefully . . . a little bit at a time.

      So far, so good.

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