I had told Ricky to call me any time, but I didn't expect it to be at two in the morning. He doesn't sound excited very often, but this time he did, and no mistake.
"I don't know what the hell you said," he exclaimed, as I rubbed sleep out of my eyes, and as Susie growled beside me, 'but it worked and no mistake. If you saw a Porsche whistling past you on the M8 it was Natalie Morgan. She went straight to that address she visited before; got there by quarter to ten."
"She didn't overtake me in that case."
"Not for the want of trying. My guy had a job keeping her in sight in his poor wee MG. He did, though, trailed her all the way there. This time she stayed longer; till well after midnight, in fact. And while she was there, guess who else turned up?"
"One of the Bears?"
"Better than that. All three of the buggers; by the time the last one arrived my people were tripping over each other at the scene. We've got film and still photos of them arriving, separately, between half ten and eleven, and of them leaving, together and looking rattled."
"What about Natalie?"
"She left a few minutes after them. She had the makings of a right sore face too: I'd say someone gave her a belting."
"Shame. She's still walking, though?"
"No thanks to you. How did you kick all that off anyway? What the hell did you tell her?" I gave him a run-down of my pitch to Natalie, in her apartment. Susie was wide awake now, listening to every word.
When I finished, he was laughing. "She is definitely not as bright as she thinks she is. Not only did she not twig she'd been followed to Glasgow the first time, she went straight back again."
"So who's the guy she went to see?" I asked.
"That we don't know yet. We know the flat he was in, because this time we saw which button she pushed. But we won't be able to find out who he is till tomorrow at least, till the council offices open and we can have a look at the register of electors."
"Why not just ring his fucking bell? Right now, in fact."
"I think I'll hold off on that, if you don't mind. Whoever the guy is, he's serious enough to be able to call the Three Bears and have every one of them drop what he was doing and come to see him. Ravens, Perry and Cornwell may not be the Kray brothers, but anyone who can make them jump when he whistles must be a very serious player indeed. Before I go thumping on that door, or have any of my people do it, I want to know who's behind it."
"So what do we do now?"
"Like I said, we find out who he is."
"But apart from that. What do we do about Morgan to spike this takeover?"
"Sit on it for a day or so. Let's find out who's behind it."
"We don't need to. We've got Natalie and the Bears all in the same place at the same time. We could take that to the police."
"Alleging what, exactly?"
"Conspiracy."
"There's no such criminal charge in Scotland."
"Extortion."
"They never asked you for money. In fact when you offered it, they turned you down. Oz, I'm sure that the Crown Office would come up with a charge, under the Companies Act, maybe, but it would take them a bloody long time to decide what it would be. Let's get the whole picture. Let's find out who the man in the apartment is. Then you can decide what you want to do. But you might be better going to the Sunday papers than the police."
For once, I could see the sense in everything Ricky said.
"Okay," I agreed. "Let's do it that way. But listen, you and your team have done bloody well tonight. Keep a watch on Natalie, and on the mystery man, but give as many of them as you can some time off.
I'll do the trace on the owner of the apartment; I've got time, and I can handle that." I found a pen and a notepad in the drawer of my bedside table. "Gimme the address," I said, and began to scribble down what he said.
He hadn't reached the street name before I exploded. "Jesus Christ, Ricky!" But then I realised that he had never been there before; there was no reason for him to have known.
"What's up?" he demanded.
"That's our old address," I told him. "That's where we used to live."