Pay Off (21 page)

'Carol got involved, you stupid, inconsiderate bastard, because you involved her. If you'd been straight with me from the start I'd never have let you within a million miles of her. She didn't deserve to die the way she did. Alone and screaming and blaming you and probably me too.'

'It's too late for what might have beens, Tony,' I said. 'We can't go back. God, I don't want to spout a load of cliches but what's done is done. If I could turn time back I would, believe me, but she's dead and McKinley's dead and I can't change that. I've got to look after myself, and Shona and David, and you've got to protect yourself. If Carol gave them your name then you're in as much danger as I am.'

'You think I don't know that?' Tony replied. 'That I hadn't worked that out for myself? I'm scared shitless, more frightened than I've ever been in my life. And you know how well protected I am.'

I did, too. The Lagonda Tony was flinging around the A217 was enough to turn heads in its own right, but he'd spent another twenty thousand having numerous refinements installed. He'd got the car from a South American dictator as part payment for an arms deal and it came complete with an ultra-sophisticated alarm system. A pigeon landing on the bonnet was enough to set off a howling siren and a personal radio bleeper which Tony always carried. Most of the money had gone on structural refinements, armouring the body panels and reinforcing the underside making it virtually bombproof, armour-plated glass replacing the original windows, a petrol tank that you could fire a bullet through without causing an explosion, if you could find a bullet large enough and with enough velocity to penetrate the armoured tank in the first place.

The tyres were practically invulnerable, you could drive then through fire or over broken glass without any problems, and a blow-out at ninety mph wouldn't even be noticed. The car had a common or garden radio telephone, but it was also equipped with a short-wave transmitter operating on a frequency used by diplomats and terrorist targets and constantly monitored by the Metropolitan Police.

At the touch of a button he could release five gallons of oil from the armoured boot which sounded like something only James Bond would need, but Tony swore he'd once had to use it and I believed him. There were other safety features he hadn't told me about, and as far as he was concerned it was money well spent.

His home was even more secure. It was a turn of the century five-bedroomed detached house on three floors in Notting Hill, standing alone in half an acre and surrounded 172 by an eight-foot wall. From the outside it looked like a highly desirable residence, which it was, the sort of house you'd expect to be occupied by a Channel Four film producer. It was also a fortress, and inside Tony was safer than the Crown Jewels. Anything larger than a cat moving across the lawn would set lights flashing on a console within the house and in the police station a mile away. The front and back gardens were covered by closed circuit television cameras. Just like the Lagonda all the windows were of toughened glass, and the outside doors were reinforced with steel. Tony had no household insurance. He didn't need it.

Underground was a wine cellar which doubled as an inner sanctum, lined with concrete and entered through a threeinch thick steel door. Once locked it was airtight with a self-contained oxygen supply and virtually bomb-proof. There was a separate and well-protected telephone link with the local police station, and more than a few guests had remarked on the mauve telephone on the wall behind the chateau-bottled claret.

At home, in his of rice and in his car, Tony was safe, but we both knew that he was vulnerable when he moved between the three and we also knew that the sort of men we were dealing with now were fanatics with very long memories. If they decided that Tony was a target then it might be days, weeks, months, even years, but eventually they would come for him. Maybe while he was on holiday, playing squash, walking his Labrador, in his local pub, anytime, anywhere. No wonder he was frightened.

'But it's not myself I'm worried about, it's you, and those close to you,' he said. 'I got hold of Shona at the office today so at least she's safe. But there's no sign of Sammy. Where is she?'

I'd been honest with him up to this point, but if I had any chance of getting Sammy and David out of this then I had to work alone. The last thing I wanted to do was to lie to Tony 173 but I had no choice, if I could handle it myself and quickly then perhaps I could close the circle once and for all.

'She's safe, out of harm's way,' I lied, as casually as possible. Another stain on my hypothetical painting.

'If that's the case, sport, what do you need those for?' and he glanced at the Harrods carrier bag.

'I'm going to take them on at their own game, Tony. And it's best you don't know the details. Either way you'll be OK. If I win then it'll be over, if I lose then perhaps they'll let it die with me. Whatever, I have to try. And you can't help me, nobody can. It's best you don't know.'

'I might be able to help. I have friends. And don't forget that Laing could still be on the loose.'

'God, Tony, I know that. If anyone could help it would be you, believe me. But I have to do this myself.'

'A man's got to do what a man's got to do? Very macho. I'm your friend, let me help.'

'I can't, Tony. I'm sorry.'

He drove on in silence, burning up the miles along the M25 towards Heathrow at a steady ninety mph, flashing his headlights at anyone impertinent enough to stay in the outside lane and several times overtaking on the inside. 'Where are you going?' he asked after a while.

'Stonehaven,' I said. 'There is one thing you can do for me.'

'What's that?'

'You can order a hire car for me at Edinburgh Airport. Something big and powerful. I've got my Access card and a cheque book so there's no problem in paying but it'll save time if you book it for me.'

'So Shona won't be there to collect you?'

'No. I'd rather she kept out of the way until this is over. And I'd feel safer if you did the same.'

'Don't worry about me, sport. Just be careful. And if I can help, let me know. I'll be there like a shot.'

'I know, Tony, I know. You've done more than enough 174 already, more than I deserve. I won't ever forget this.' I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently but he didn't look at me and he didn't speak again until we arrived at Heathrow. He waved me goodbye and good luck as I walked into the terminal with the case in one hand and the carrier bag in the other. I'd left the duty free with Tony. I wouldn't be drinking for a while.

'The car will be waiting for you at the airport,' he shouted after me, and it was when I arrived in Edinburgh two hours later. It was bitterly cold and the wind tugged at my hair as I loaded the luggage into the red Cavalier.

My watch said 2.55 and in just a little over four hours I'd know when and where this was going to end, one way or another. The Cavalier started first time, it had a full tank of petrol and it kicked me in the back as I put the accelerator pedal to the floor and headed for Stonehaven.

I stopped off at a hardware store on the outskirts of Edinburgh, one of those tiny shops that have been in the same family for years, where they'll sell you fifty different types of nails, a brown paper bag of assorted screws and the sort of tools that Spear and Jackson no longer bother to make.

It smelt of wet string and candle wax and oil and the old man behind the counter in a stained brown overall called me Sir. I bought a hacksaw, a small wood saw and a strong carpenter's file. I couldn't see any packets of sandpaper but the old man asked what I wanted, dived under the polished wooden counter and came up with four single sheets of large grain paper.

'Anything else?' he asked eagerly, like an old Spaniel 175 begging for a stick to be thrown.

'I don't suppose you've got any foam rubber, about so big and so thick?' I said, marking out the size with my hands.

'I think I have, in the back,' he said, and scurried off. I wandered round the little shop, running my fingers through barrels of bulbs, a huge cardboard box full of assorted bundles of string, and racks and racks of screwdrivers, spanners, hammers and things for getting boy scouts out of horses' hooves. Before long he was back, a piece of yellow foam rubber clutched to his chest which he carefully rolled up, tied with string and placed in a carrier bag with the rest of the purchases.

I paid him and drove the rest of the way to Stonehaven trying to work out exactly what I had to do and the order in which it had to be done.

The day after my father's funeral the house had been closed, I had driven David to the nursing home and then gone straight to London in the Porsche. A lady from the village came in twice a week to air the rooms and dust the fur- niture, but other than that the house had been left alone, deserted. That's exactly how it looked as I drove up the drive and parked in front of the stone porch. It wasn't a home any more, it was a building waiting for a family. It had no heart, no soul. The leaves had started to fall from the sycamores that marked the boundary with the road and they swirled around my feet as I groped in my jacket for the keys.

It was early afternoon but the house seemed gloomy inside and it felt and smelt damp. I'd planned to bring David back to the house when this was all over, bring in a housekeeper to clean and cook for us, but now I was having second thoughts. Without our parents as a focus it was just a collection of stones and slates and wood and we'd be better off starting afresh.

I opened the door to the study and walked over to the green velvet curtains which had been drawn since the police 176 forensic team had left. The room had been dusted once or twice, certainly not as thoroughly as the rest of the house, and though somebody had tried to wash the blood off the wallpaper there was still a speck or two there, and on the bookcase I could see a piece of lead shot looking no more sinister than the stuff anglers use to weigh down their lines. I found the key to the security cabinet in the bottom lefthand drawer of the desk.

From the outside the cabinet appeared to be a simple mahogany box, about five feet high and three feet wide with double opening doors. It could have held drinks or files but it was lined with steel and the lock was better than the one on the front door, and inside was a rack with spaces for a dozen shotguns including the one my father had used to kill himself.

The key turned easily and silently and I drew back the doors. The guns gleamed and light glinted off the engraved plates. There was a pair of Denton and Kennell Number Ones, walnut stocks and delicate engravings, and three Midland over and under shotguns my father used to give guests who fancied a little rough shooting. There was a Winchester over and under and a couple of Beretta Sporting Multichokes that he lent to more serious shots, but my father's pride and joy was a pair of Purdeys that he'd bought for nigh on �12,000 six years ago at a Sotheby's auction at Pulborough.

They used to belong to one of the best game shots of all time, the second Marquis of Rippon, who was reckoned to have blown apart something like half a million birds in his lifetime. They had a history and my father loved them.

He'd spent hours polishing and cleaning the pair, but it was only one of them that he'd used to blow his brains out and that was the one I took from the cabinet and tucked under my arm as I grabbed a handful of cartridges and relocked the doors. I picked up the carrier bag of tools and foam rubber, walked down 177 the hall and unbolted the door leading to the back garden.

At the end of the garden next to the grey stone boundary wall was an old brick building that in years gone by had been a stable but which was now used as a tool shed, a place to store gardening equipment during the winter months and the place where we went to look for anything that had gone missing from the house. It was filthy and the wooden door was covered in cobwebs. It wasn't locked because there was nothing inside worth stealing, but it had the one thing I wanted which was a solid oak workbench with a huge steel vice, made like they don't make them any more.

The light switch wouldn't work or maybe the bulb had gone, but there was still enough light coming in through the cracked and dirty window panes to see by. I opened the vice as far as it would go, placed the shotgun between the heavy metal plates and clamped it as tightly as I could. The hacksaw cut easily, surprisingly easily, through the barrels, but I was still sweating by the time they clanked noisily onto the stone floor.

The stock was a lot harder. I tried to remember the shape of the gun Iwanek had used but he'd moved so quickly once the shooting had started that I'd barely caught a glimpse of it. I decided to try to cut it into the general shape of a pistol grip and I scratched into the walnut with a rusty six-inch nail I'd found on the bench, marking out the lines where I would use the wood saw. I had three or four goes but it still didn't look right. Eventually I attacked it with the saw, hoping that once I'd got started the shape would become obvious, like a sculptor chiselling away at a block of stone, allowing the material to define its own form rather than having one imposed on it.

It took half an hour of solid sawing to take off the bottom eight inches of the stock, the wood was hard and compact, more like metal than the product of a tree and I'd really worked up a sweat by the time I had finished. I used the hacksaw to cut the remaining bit of the stock into some 178 thing approaching a grip but it was very uneven and wouldn't sit in my hand. The balance was completely gone and it was going to need both hands and a lot of concentration to fire accurately, but I planned to follow Iwanek's advice and get in close so maybe that wasn't too important.

It was starting to cloud over and I could hardly see what I was doing inside the shed so I picked up what was left of the shotgun and the sandpaper and went back to the study.

I sat in my father's captain's chair in front of the desk and rubbed and sanded the grip until it was smooth and slid into my hand and my finger could reach the trigger without straining. I loaded two cartridges into the breech and went into the garden again carrying a thick blanket from one of the spare bedrooms, down the crazy paving path to the stable building.