Capitano Diaz was immaculate in brown suit and cream shirt, in spite of being called out in the middle of the night. We'd had language difficulties in the local station, so I'd suggested that he be sent for. He arrived within the hour, and now it looked as if he had taken over the investigation. I found his courtesy disturbing. If our roles had been reversed I hope I would have treated him similarly, but I doubted it. We were sitting in a bare interview room. My trousers were around my ankles and the police doctor was cleaning up my knees.
He'd already trimmed the fingernails I'd nearly ripped off, carefully dropping the clippings into a specimen bag. I now sported two muslin finger-pokes on my right hand and my knees were stinging like hell.
Diaz was asking the questions.
"You are saying, Inspector Priest, that Mr. Palfreeman had a red Jagwar very similar to you own, and that the gunman mistook him for you? Am I correct?"
"Yes, Captain, I'm sure of it. The day before yesterday, before I was arrested by your men, I'd been to Gibraltar. I visited a pub a bar called the Pillars of Hercules, which I believe to be one of Cakebread's haunts. I let them know I was looking for him, and I was followed back to my car. Unfortunately I'd parked in the police station."
"In retrospect, Inspector, that would appear to have been foolish of you."
"Do you think I need reminding, Captain Diaz?" I snapped.
"Quite. I apologise. Even though you only met Mr. Palfreeman two days ago you are obviously upset by his death. Please accept my sympathies."
The doctor stood up and gabbled something to Diaz. Diaz translated:
"You are to keep the dressings on for as long as possible, then you should be okay without one. Why did you not tell me about Gibraltar when we met yesterday?"
I pulled up my trousers and shouted a thank you after the doctor as he left, then went on: "It wasn't relevant at that time. However, I've written a rough report and it's all in there. It's in my hotel room."
"Good. Yesterday we made some enquiries into your Mr. Cakebread's movements. I'm afraid you missed him; he left Spain last Thursday." He flicked through the pages of his notebook, then said: "Here it is. He flies an aeroplane called a Piper Commanche, and according to his flight plan, he intended landing at… Teesside, after refuelling at Nantes, in France. He had one passenger, a man called Bradshaw. You know him?"
I shrugged, saying: "Never heard of him. Teesside's interesting though. It's in the north of England, about a hundred miles further on than he need have flown."
"Very strange. When you go home, maybe you should ask yourself why it is necessary for him to fly so much further. Do you not think so, Inspector?"
"Good point," I admitted. "We'll look into it." I knew he usually kept his plane at Blackpool airport.
Diaz stood up: "Come, Inspector, I will take you back to your hotel, then you can give me those reports. Can you walk okay?"
It was an effort. Both knees had scraped along the tarmac for several yards, and the doctor's ministrations, while no doubt of long-term benefit, had only aggravated the immediate pain. My fingers were singing a duet to each other, too. On the way to his car Diaz asked if this would change my leaving plans. I'd not given them any thought since the shooting.
After a while I said: "I'll rest up for the remainder of today, then, if you've no objections, I'll leave first thing tomorrow morning."
"None at all, but I'd appreciate it if you stayed near your hotel today, in case we need anything else. You realise, of course, that you may have to come back to give evidence."
"If you catch them," I said.
"We'll catch them," he replied, as he opened the door for me. "Of that, Inspector, you can be quite sure."
I sat down, easing the material of my pants off my knees. When he was in beside me I said: "Capitano Diaz, you are of a higher rank than me, and although we are in different forces I respect that. However, I'd like to point out that I am a plain-clothes officer. If you call me Inspector all the time it destroys the point of it. My name is Priest, most people call me Charlie." I wasn't sure what his reaction would be, but he'd been getting up my bodily orifices with his formality.
He turned to face me and held out a perfectly manicured hand: "And my name is Rafael. Pleased to meet you, Charlie. I think you are my kind of police officer."
We were driving along the coast road. Off to our right the sun was half out of the sea. It looked like a red tombstone, come to mark the first day for seventy-odd years of a world without George Palfreeman. I twisted in my seat and watched it slowly rise and detach itself from its reflection.
"You're lucky to live in such a beautiful place," I said.
"Yes, I know. But there are beautiful places in the south of England, too. My wife and I have spent several happy holidays in Cornwall and Devon. You live in the north, I believe. Is it very industrialised there?"
I laughed a little. "No, it's wild and rugged. I love it, but I wish we had some of your weather."
"Ah yes, the famous English weather."
"Your English is excellent, Rafael. Where did you learn it?" I asked.
"My wife was a lecturer in English at the University of Barcelona. We moved down here about ten years ago. Now she teaches English in a local school, we speak it at home and listen to the BBC I pointed to the hotel and he swung into the gateway. We went round the back so he could see my "Jagwar'. Then he accompanied me to my room and I handed over the rough drafts of the reports. We shook hands and he told me to take care. He tried to say something about George's death not being my fault. I already knew the speech, but it still sounded unconvincing.
I needed a shower, but didn't know how to have one without ruining my various bandages. I couldn't decide if I wanted breakfast or not, so I settled for two aspirin and stretched out on the bed. The housemaid woke me four hours later, but I excused her of her duties. I managed to have some sort of a bath, and changed into decent clothes. Diaz had told me that the British community would rally round and organise George's funeral there was no need for me to become involved. Once or twice through the day I looked at the number he had given me and thought about ringing it, but I didn't. Tomorrow I would sneak away like a plague rat, leaving only death in my wake. I wasn't proud of it, but I didn't know what else to do.
I dined in the hotel, then settled my bill and told the desk clerk I would be leaving in the early hours. The woman in the red dress wasn't in the dining room. Then I lay on my bed, thinking, until it was time to get into it and try to sleep.
Dawn broke as I brought the car round to the front of the hotel and loaded the boot with my few belongings. I stopped a few miles up the coast, and looked out to sea. I'd been hoping to see the sunrise again, but there was a mist over the water, and the sun was obscured.
It looked like being a hot day.
Driving is a good antidote for many things. You have to concentrate when you drive. If you drive fast enough you have to concentrate totally. I decided to take the auto routes all the way. Not the best way to see a country, but you could pack a hundred miles into an hour.
By early evening Barcelona was behind me. I refuelled and decided to have a rest.
Two hours later I was away again. The dim headlights were no obstruction to progress on the wide dual carriage ways and the E-type revelled in the type of cross-continent driving it had been designed for. I had a longer sleep, curled up in the back, near Lyons, and made it to the Paris peripherique in time for the rush hour. Afternoon tea on the hovercraft goes down well when your tongue has a relationship with your mouth like a sweep's brush has with a chimney.
You think you're there when you roll off the ferry, but it's not true.
The longest mile might be the last mile home, but the other two hundred and eighty were just as gruesome. It was another six hours before I slammed the car door under my own neighbours' window, and gratefully crashed out in my familiar bed. I'd been away just under nine days.
In the morning I looked at my mail. There were several never-to-be-repeated opportunities for me to win a total of three and a half million quid, and a note from Gilbert Wood. I sealed all the pre-paid envelopes in the junk mail and put them on one side for posting. The post office needs the revenue. Then I opened Gilbert's note. It read:
Charlie,
You've done the right thing being off. Hilditch has gone off his rocker. He sent ACC Partridge round with orders to suspend you for harassing Cakebread. Partridge was very embarrassed about it. Suggest you don't come back until after your holiday. Things may have cooled down by then.
Gilbert PS Sorry about the piles. Have you tried Germaloids?
I swapped the cars round and went to the supermarket to restock the freezer. Officially I still had a couple of days' leave left, but I knew I'd be as restless as a foreskin in a synagogue if I didn't get back to work straight away. I wrote full accounts of my trip and ran off three copies. Then I rang Gilbert.
"Hello, Charlie," he said. "How're the haemorrhoids?" Funny how people always say 'haemorrhoids', but write 'piles'.
"I haven't got frigging haemorroids," I told him. "I just said the first thing I thought of. Sorry I had to tell you a fib. Do I still have a job or am I suspended?"
"God knows, it's a bloody shambles. Hilditch wants you sacked, but he's way out of order. Partridge is his own man, though, and would have done the right thing. He's got the measure of Hilditch, I reckon, but I didn't want to tell him what it's all about. As far as I'm concerned you're still with us. Where've you been?"
"Spain."
"Christ, I knew it. Find anything?"
"Yep. Are you in tonight?"
"Sure. What time are you coming round?"
"Try this," said Gilbert. "Discovered it when I was up there at Easter. It's regarded by some as the finest single malt ever distilled."
We were sitting in his little study, surrounded by his books and his small but growing collection of whiskies. He wasn't a great imbiber, but he enjoyed the good things in life, and considered the elixir of the glens to be one of the best.
"Make it a very small one; it's wasted on me," I admitted.
"I'd no intention of making it a big one," Gilbert countered.
I took a sip, and let it wash around under my tongue and down my throat. "Mmm, quite pleasant," I said, 'for whisky. What is it?"
"Linkwood," he replied, with hushed reverence.
"Linkwood? Never heard of it. Japanese?"
"God, Priest, you're a peasant. Sit there while I fetch you a can of lager. What's that you've brought to show me?"
I passed him the sheaf of reports. "Read those, Gilbert, while I savour the Linkwood. Then I'll answer questions."
It took him nearly half an hour to get through them. Periodically he glanced up at me, then, towards the end, he said "Jesus Christ' under his breath. Finally he lowered the sheets and sat looking at me for a couple of minutes. I gazed into my glass.
He said: "You're lucky to be alive, Charlie."
"Yeah. And George Palfreeman's unlucky to be dead." I swirled the dregs of the straw-coloured liquid around the heavy tumbler. I didn't dare lift my head to look at him. "Between those two statements and the Linkwood, we've got the makings of a nice philosophical evening."
He went to ask Molly, his wife, to make some tea. I was grateful for the interlude.
Gilbert came back and sat down. We waited in silence until Molly brought the tea and left us. Then he said: "First thing in the morning I'll call in the Serious Fraud Office. It's spread too far and wide for us to handle. Sorry, Chas, but you're off it from now on. It's a pity I didn't give you a bit more support earlier; we should have bowled Hilditch a googly set him up, somehow."
"Never mind. It was one of his predecessors who said hindsight was an exact science."
"Doesn't make me feel any better. Are you coming in tomorrow?"
Tomorrow was Friday, the last day of my holiday. "Yes, I'd like to."
"Good. You'd better hang around the office no doubt they'll want a word with you. Let Willis see the week out as acting inspector."
"That's fine by me. What else has been happening?"
"I was just coming to it," he said. "We brought in young Rose and Makinson. They've come up with some good information. We're hitting four addresses early Monday morning, just when they're at their best.
Only two of them's in Heckley, though. The city boys are looking after the others. Will you want to take over?"
I thought about it. "No, if Tony's done all the planning, let him handle it. I wouldn't mind going in, though, if that's all right. A bit of aggression might do me good."
"All right by me. I'll let Willis fill you in tomorrow."
I went home and asked the word processor to run off copies of all the reports, for the Serious Fraud boys. According to the Data Protection Act I shouldn't store information like that on my computer, so I closed the curtains while I did it.
The first four people I met next morning asked me how my haemorrhoids were and suggested a variety of treatments. Then word must have passed round that it was a touchy subject, and concern began to diminish. I buried myself in the small hill of paperwork that Tony had decided I ought to know about, and fielded enquiries about my holiday. The first worthwhile phone call I received was from Diaz.
"Good morning, Charlie, or may I call you Inspector Priest?
I thought you would be back at work today. How was the drive?"
"Hello, Rafael, it's good to hear from you. The drive was hard work, not to be recommended. Any developments?"
"Yes. One of my men was in a bar and he saw a youth wearing a leather jacket which had some interesting marks on the back. He brought him in. The stuff we took from under your fingernails was a perfect match.
We now have the accomplice and the scooter, too."
"Well done. No gun?"
"Unfortunately, no, but they are known to be associates of gangsters.
Rest assured, they are the ones."
"Good, thanks for telling me, Rafael. I've put copies of all the relevant reports in the post for you. They should keep you entertained for a day or two."
He went on to tell me when the funeral was arranged for, and offered to send flowers on my behalf. After a shaky start, I decided that I had a lot of time for Capitano Diaz.
In the afternoon we had a briefing on Monday's raids. It was hard, but I had to drag myself down out of the clouds and start being a cop at Heckley again. There might be links stretching from our ram-raiders to Cakebread and Puerto Banus, but so far that was for the birds. Gilbert did the introductions and handed over to me. I split the troops into two teams and explained that Mr. Wood was in overall command and Acting Inspector Willis was running the show in the street. I'd be going in with the marines. We then split up to study our separate targets. That's when I discovered the identity of the occupier of the house I'd volunteered to enter. He was called Willy O'Hagan. I'd never heard of him, but his record said he had one conviction for armed robbery.
I put my finger on the relevant sentence and said: "Looks like we'll need to be armed."
"Sorry, boss," said Tony. "Didn't you know? Rose told us he keeps a gun in his car boot. I thought you were a bit eager to be up front."
We were nearly finished when I was called to the phone. "Priest here,"
I said.
"Good afternoon, Inspector. I'm Chief Superintendent Fearnside, Serious Fraud Office. I'd like to see you, in about fifteen minutes, if that's all right."
A real chief super, they meant business. "No problem, sir. Are you coming here?"
"No. I'll be at the Little Chef near Cattleshaw. I'll see you there."
I hesitated, remembering the last arrangement I'd made on the telephone. Fearnside must have read my mind; he went on: "If you ask Superintendent Wood, he'll tell you that he recommended the place. I'll be in a black Granada."
"Right, sir, I'm on my way, but fifteen minutes is pushing it a bit."
"Then you'd better get moving."
I rang Gilbert, more to tell him where I was going than to check on Fearnside. "What's the coffee like in the Little Chef?" I asked him.
He laughed: "Okay, they do decaffeinated."
"I'm going now."
"Give 'em hell, Charlie."
I parked a few spaces away from the Granada. There were two of them in it. We didn't go in for a coffee; as I approached the car the passenger got out. He let himself into the rear seat and gestured for me to join him. Fearnside was burly and prosperous-looking. He could have been a captain of industry. The one in the driving seat was tall and slim, and equally smooth. It was no good: if I wanted to get on I'd have to buy myself a suit. I took out my warrant card and offered it to Fearnside. He didn't look at it, but he got the message and they both showed me theirs. His aide-de-camp was an inspector called Longfellow.
The delights of production-line catering for hoi polloi apparently didn't appeal, for we went for a drive up on to the moors. I let Fearnside break the silence.
"Fascinating landscape," he said. "Absolutely fascinating. Am I right in believing the Bronte girls were from these parts?"
"That's right, sir, not too far away." I wanted to add: "And Robbie Burns, too," but managed to stop myself. Eventually we pulled into a lay-by.
"Right, Inspector Priest, let's get down to business. Superintendent Wood has told us the main story, but we need a few details from you.
First of all, tell us everything you can about Truscott."
I didn't tell them everything I knew, just the relevant stuff. I also handed over the copies of the reports.
When I'd finished he asked: "How do you believe the paintings were switched?"
"In the security van. The fakes were already in the van, laid flat under the carpet, or wherever. On the journey the genuines were removed from the frames and the fakes substituted. One of the guards riding in the back was about the same size as Truscott, so I'm assuming it was him. The tacks would go back into the same holes, so they still looked the same from the back, as well as from the front. The breakdown was to give them more time; the loud music covered the sound of hammering."
"Breakdown? Loud music?"
Gilbert had obviously not gone into such detail.
"Sorry, it's all in the reports." After a few moments' silence I said:
"I take it that the art world is making waves. Have the paintings been switched?"
He pondered on what to tell me. "Unofficially, yes," he confided.
I felt strangely pleased. I clean forgot to mention the Picasso, but later a chill ran through me as I realised that I'd gone away and left it hanging over the fireplace.
"And now, Inspector, let's hear about your Spanish trip."
They dropped me off back at the restaurant. It was out of my hands now. They had the resources and the intelligence network to really crack who was behind the theft of the paintings. A little bit of me was sorry, though George's death apart, I'd enjoyed my foray into international crime. Nicked videos and pensioners' purses lacked the glamour of drug cartels and international smuggling. It was Friday evening. I dallied in my car until the Granada left the car park, then I went in and ordered an all-day, American-style breakfast.