On Dangerous Ground (12 page)

“Please, Mr. Dillon.” The man was pleading now. “I just work here.”

There was a sudden shout and Dillon turned to see the second of his kidnappers standing at the end of the corridor. He drew his Beretta, Dillon took a quick snap-shot with the Walther, the man went over backwards. Dillon shoved the Indian into the room, turned, and went headlong down the stairs. Before he reached the bottom a shrill alarm bell sounded monotonously over and over again. Dillon didn’t hesitate, reaching the corridor on the ground floor in seconds, running straight for the door at the far end. He unlocked it hurriedly and plunged out into the garden.

It was raining hard. He seemed to be at the rear of the house and somewhere on the other side he heard voices calling and the bark of a dog. He ran across a piece of lawn and carried on through bushes, a hand raised to protect his face from flailing branches, until he reached the wall. It was about fifteen feet high, festooned with barbed wire. Possible to climb a nearby tree, perhaps, and leap across, but the black wire strung at that level looked ominous. He picked up a large branch lying on the ground and reached up. When he touched the wire there was an immediate flash.

He turned and ran on, parallel to the wall. There was more than one dog barking now, but the rain would help kill his scent, and then he came to the edge of trees and the drive to the gates leading to the outside world. They were closed and two men stood there wearing berets and camouflage uniforms and holding assault rifles.

A Land-Rover drew up and someone got out to speak to them, a man in civilian clothes. Dillon turned and hurried back toward the house. The alarm stopped abruptly. He paused by the rear entrance he had exited from earlier, then opened it. The corridor was silent and he moved along it cautiously and stood at the bottom of the stairs.

There were voices in the distance. He listened for a moment, then went cautiously back up the stairs. The last place they’d look for him, or so he hoped. He reached the corridor on the top floor. Smith and the other man had gone, but as Dillon paused there, considering his next move, the door opened on his right, and for the second time that night the Indian doctor emerged.

His distress was almost comical. “Oh, my God, Mr. Dillon, I thought you well away by now.”

“I’ve returned to haunt you,” Dillon told him. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“Chowdray — Dr. Emas Chowdray.”

“Good. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Somewhere in this place is the person in charge. You’re going to take me to where he is. If you don’t” — he tucked Chowdray under the chin with the Walther — “you’ll loathe guns even more.”

“No need for this violence, I assure you, Mr. Dillon, I will comply.”

He led the way down the stairs, turning along a corridor on the first floor, reaching a carpeted landing. A curving Regency staircase led to a magnificent hall. The dogs were still barking in the garden outside, but it was so quiet in the hall they could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.

“Where are we going?” Dillon whispered.

“Down there, the mahogany door,” Chowdray told him.

“Down we go then.”

They descended the carpeted stairs, moved across the hall to the door. “The library, Mr. Dillon.”

“Nice and easy,” Dillon said. “Open it.”

Chowdray did so and Dillon pushed him inside. The walls were lined with books, a fire burned brightly in an Adam fireplace. Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein stood by the fire talking to the two fake telephone engineers.

She turned and smiled. “Come in, Mr. Dillon, do. You’ve just won me five pounds. I told these two this is exactly where you would end up.”

SIX

THE CAR WHICH DROPPED DILLON AT HIS COTTAGE IN Stable Mews waited while he went in. He changed into gray slacks, a silk navy blue polo neck sweater, and a Donegal tweed jacket. He got his wallet, cigarette case, and lighter and was outside and into the car again in a matter of minutes. It was not long afterwards that they reached Cavendish Square and he rang the bell of Ferguson’s flat. It was Hannah Bernstein who answered.

“Do you handle the domestic chores as well now?” he asked. “Where’s Kim?”

“In Scotland,” she told him. “You’ll find out why. He’s waiting.”

She led the way along the corridor into the sitting room where they found Ferguson sitting beside the fire reading the evening paper. He looked up calmly. “There you are, Dillon. I must say you look remarkably fit.”

“More bloody games,” Dillon said.

“A practical test which I thought would save me a great deal of time and indicate just how true the reports I’ve been getting on you were.” He looked at Hannah. “You’ve got it all on video?”

“Yes, sir.”

He returned to Dillon. “You certainly gave poor old Smith a working over, and as for his colleague, it’s a good job you only had blanks in that Walther.” He shook his head. “My God, Dillon, you really are a bastard when you get going.”

“God bless your honor for the pat on the head,” Dillon said. “And is there just the slightest chance you could be telling me what in the hell this is all about?”

“Certainly,” Ferguson said. “There’s a bottle of Bushmills on the sideboard. You get the file out, Chief Inspector.”

“Thank you,” Dillon said with irony and went and helped himself.

Ferguson said, “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it. Remarkable fellow this Yuan Tao. Wish he could work for me.”

“I suppose you could always try to buy him,” Dillon said.

“Not really,” Ferguson said. “He owns three factories in Hong Kong and one of the largest shipping lines in the Far East, besides a number of minor interests, restaurants, that sort of thing. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No,” Dillon said and then he smiled. “He wouldn’t have. He’s not that sort of bloke, Brigadier.”

“His niece seems an attractive girl.”

“She is. She’s also returning to Hong Kong this weekend. I bet you didn’t know that.”

“What a pity. We’ll have to find another way of filling your time.”

“I’m sure you won’t have the slightest difficulty,” Dillon told him.

“As usual, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I obviously wanted you back anyway, but as it happens something special has come up, something that I think requires the Dillon touch. For one thing, there’s a rather attractive young lady involved, but we’ll come to that later. Chief Inspector, the file.”

“Here, sir,” she said and handed it to him.

“Have you heard of a man called Carl Morgan?”

“Billionaire hotel owner, financier amongst other things,” Dillon said. “Never out of the society pages in the magazines. He’s also closely linked with the Mafia. His uncle is a man called Don Giovanni Luca. In Sicily he’s
Capo di tutti Capi
, Boss of all the bosses.”

Ferguson was genuinely impressed. “How on earth do you know all this?”

“Oh, about a thousand years ago when I worked with a certain illegal organization called the IRA, the Sicilian Mafia was one of the sources from which we obtained arms.”

“Really,” Hannah Bernstein said dryly. “It might be useful to have you sit down and commit everything you remember about how that worked to paper.”

“It’s a thought,” Dillon told her.

She handed him a file. “Have a look at that.”

“Delighted.”

“I’ll make some tea, sir.”

She went out and Dillon sat on the windowseat, smoking a cigarette. As he finished, she returned with a tray and he joined them by the fire.

“Fascinating stuff this Chungking Covenant business.” There were some photos clipped to the back of the file, one of them of Morgan in polo kit. “The man himself. Looks like an advert for some manly aftershaves.”

“He’s a dangerous man,” Hannah said as she poured tea. “Don’t kid yourself.”

“I know, girl dear,” he said. There were other photos, some showing Morgan with the great and good and a couple with Luca. “He certainly knows everybody.”

“You could say that.”

“And this?” Dillon asked.

The last photo showed Morgan on his yacht at Cannes Harbor, reclining in a deck chair, a glass of champagne in hand, gazing up at a young girl who leaned on the rail. She looked about sixteen and wore a bikini, blond hair to her shoulders.

“His stepdaughter, Asta, though she uses his name,” Hannah told him.

“Swedish?”

“Yes. Taken more than four years ago. She’s twenty-one in three weeks or so. We have a photo of her in
Tatler
somewhere taken with Morgan at Goodwood races. Very, very attractive.”

“I’d say Morgan would agree with you, to judge from the way he’s looking at her in that picture.”

“Why do you say that particularly?” Ferguson asked.

“He smiles a lot usually, he’s smiling on all the other photos, but not on this one. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘I take you seriously.’ Where does the mother fit in? You haven’t indicated her on any photos.”

“She was drowned a year ago while diving off a Greek island called Hydra.”

“An accident?”

“Faulty air tank, that’s what the autopsy said, but there’s a copy of an investigation mounted by the Athens police here.” Hannah produced it from the file. “The Brigadier tells me you’re an expert diver. You’ll find it interesting.”

Dillon read it quickly, then looked up frowning. “No accident this. That valve must have been tampered with. Did it end at that?”

“The police didn’t even raise the matter with Morgan. I got this from their dead file courtesy of a friend in Greek Intelligence,” Ferguson told him. “Morgan has huge interests in Greek shipping, casinos, hotels. There was an order from the top to kill the investigation.”

“They’d never have got anywhere,” Hannah said. “Not with the kind of money he has and all that power and influence.”

“But what we’re saying is he killed his wife or arranged to have it done,” Dillon said. “Why would he do that? Was she wealthy?”

“Yes, but nothing like as rich as he is,” Ferguson said. “My hunch is that perhaps she’d got to know too much.”

“And that’s your opinion?” Dillon asked Hannah Bernstein.

“Possibly.” She picked up the photo taken on the yacht. “But maybe it was something else. Perhaps he wanted Asta.”

Dillon nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.” He turned to Ferguson. “So what are we going to do on this one?”

Ferguson nodded to Hannah, who took charge. “The house at Loch Dhu, Morgan goes in this coming Monday. The Brigadier and I are going up on Friday, flying to this old RAF station at Ardmurchan, and we move into Ardmurchan Lodge where Kim is already in residence.”

“And what about me?”

“You’re my nephew,” Ferguson said. “My mother was Irish, remember? You’ll join us a few days later.”

“Why?”

“Our information is that Asta isn’t going with Morgan. She’s attending a ball at the Dorchester, which is being given by the Brazilian Embassy on Monday night. Morgan was supposed to go and she’s standing in for him,” Hannah said. “We’ve discovered that she flies to Glasgow on Tuesday and then intends to take the train to Fort William and from there to Arisaig, where she’ll be picked up by car.”

“How do you know this?” Dillon asked.

“Oh, let’s say we have a friend on the staff at the Berkeley,” she said.

“Why take the train from Glasgow when she could fly direct to Ardmurchan on Morgan’s Citation?”

“God knows,” Ferguson said. “Perhaps she fancies the scenic route. That train goes through some of the most spectacular scenery in Europe.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“The Chief Inspector has a gold-edged invitation for one Sean Dillon to attend the Brazilian Embassy Ball on Monday night,” Ferguson told him. “It’s black tie for you, Dillon, you do have one?”

“Sure and don’t I need it for those spare nights I’m a waiter at the Savoy? And what do I do when I’m there?”

For the first time Hannah Bernstein looked unsure. “Well, try and get to know her.”

“Pick her up, you mean? Won’t that look something of a coincidence when I turn up at Ardmurchan lodge later?”

“Quite deliberate on my part, dear boy. Remember our little adventure in the American Virgins?” Ferguson turned to Hannah. “I’m sure you’ve read the file, Chief Inspector. The late lamented Señor Santiago and his motley crew knew who we were just as we knew who they were and what they were up to. It was what I call a we know that you know that you know that we know situation.”

“So?” Dillon said.

“Morgan at Loch Dhu for nefarious purposes, an isolated estate miles from anywhere in the Highlands of Scotland, discovers he’s got neighbors up for the shooting staying on the other side of the Loch at Ardmurchan Lodge. He’ll be checking us out the minute he knows we’re there, dear boy, and don’t tell me we could all use false names. With the kind of company he keeps, especially his Mafia contacts in London, he’ll not have the slightest difficulty in sorting us out.”

“All right, point taken, but I know you, you old bugger, and there’s more to it.”

“Hasn’t he an elegant turn of phrase, Chief Inspector?” Ferguson smiled. “Yes, of course there is. As I’ve indicated, I want him to know we’re there, I want him to know we’re breathing down his bloody neck. Of course I’ll also see that the story, Morgan taking Loch Dhu and Asta standing in for him at the Brazilian Embassy affair, is leaked to the
Daily Mail
’s gossip column. You could always say later that you read that, were intrigued because you were going to the same spot, so you went out of your way to meet her. It won’t make the slightest difference. Morgan will still smell stinking fish.”

“Won’t that be dangerous, Brigadier?” Hannah Bernstein commented.

“Yes it will, Chief Inspector, that’s why we have Dillon.” He smiled and stood up. “It’s getting late and dinner is indicated. You must be famished, both of you. I’ll take you to the River Room at the Savoy. Excellent dance band, Chief Inspector, you can have a turn round the floor with the desperado here. He may surprise you.”

When Monday night came Dillon arrived early at the Dorchester. He wore a dark blue Burberry trenchcoat, which he left at the cloakroom. His dinner jacket was a totally conventional piece of immaculate tailoring by Armani, single breasted with lapels of raw silk, black studs vivid against the white shirt. He was really rather pleased with his general appearance and hoped that Asta Morgan would feel the same. He fortified himself with a glass of champagne in the Piano Bar and went down to the grand ballroom where he presented his card and was admitted to discover the Brazilian Ambassador and his wife greeting their guests.