Authors: Caro Ramsay
McAlpine pointed at Steve McQueen. ‘Is that the baby’s father? There were drawings of him at the bedsit. Drawn by her, I think…’
Graham took the photograph and put it face down on his desk. ‘He’s Pieter van der Kerkhof. A thief, an intelligent non-violent one, but still a thief. Two years ago he went to the theatre in Paris one night and met a blonde heiress who was studying at the Sorbonne.’ Graham turned his gaze to the photograph of Anna on the beach; he knocked the sand with his knuckle. ‘She was studying fine art, interested in jewellery design; her family are diamond merchants. Blonde, beautiful, with a brain – he was in love right from the off. Her name was Agnes Geertruijde de Zwaan.’ Self-consciously, Graham pronounced the name correctly. ‘Her friends called her Aggi.’
McAlpine smiled to himself. She would always be Anna to him.
‘The other chap is interesting to us. Jan Michels. He was found dead at Schiphol Airport. He’d been tortured before being shot. There was a theft of uncut diamonds from a high-security warehouse in Brussels in March, and Interpol have been on the lookout for the happy threesome ever since.’
‘According to Interpol, one Kommisaris Hauer to be exact, diamonds are fast becoming the purest form of currency these days. If 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 airiness subsided, she tried again.
Take it carefully… a little bit at a time.
So far, so good.
Now the hands…
The wrist ties seemed to be of fabric, not a strap with a buckle but something stretchable. She pulled hard on one, feeling the bandages cut into the dressing on her arm. It lengthened a little. Why had she never tried to free herself before? It wasn’t so hard. But until now she hadn’t needed to. If she couldn’t hold her daughter, she had no need to do anything. It was always easier to do nothing.
She lay there, moving her hand up and down, backwards and
forwards, sensing tightness and restriction, slack and give, working her wrist until she could slip her hand free.
Then she found that with her thumb and forefinger she could pull the soft bands on the other wrist to stretch, until she slipped her other hand out.
A quiet exhilaration overtook her. No more of this helplessness. She knew, at last, where peace lay.
The bitch! His vision was clouded with tears, but the burning in his eyes had nothing to do with the fumes from the traffic pulsating at the lights. He was running, down the hill at Highburgh Road on to Byres Road, past the Tennant’s pub, to the traffic lights. He ran quickly, pacing himself along the pavement. Bitch. She had known! She had known! And all the time he had been pouring his heart out to her she had been hiding behind that mask. Laughing at his every word. He punctuated each step with the words as he went.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
Along Church Street, he weaved through the traffic; a yellow Fiat blasted its horn, missing him by inches. He backstepped on to the pavement, wishing the traffic away. Once he reached Dumbarton Road, he stopped to gather his breath, feeling alone in the city’s rush hour. The sandstone façade of the building opposite glowered down at him. She was in there, lying in her little cocoon, thinking she was safe, thinking she had fooled him. Impatiently shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he looked up at the hospital tower, stark white concrete against the old red of the college. The traffic jammed again, a juggernaut with W. H. Malcolm on the side stopped in front of him. He looked upward: John Anderson, the hospital’s founder, was there, immortalized in stone, in the middle of a group, bending over benevolently, holding the hand of the sick. A scene of compassion. The lorry released its air brakes with a hiss and
pulled away, the vibration juddering up through his boots.
The truck slowly moved from his view, revealing a woman standing on the other side of the road, looking up the street, wishing the lights would change. A wee girl, not more than four years old, looked back at him. She had a little pink dress on, pink ribbons, soft blonde hair that caught in the wind. McAlpine looked at her little chubby legs, her little pink shoes and little pink socks folded over at the ankle. Her fingers folded into the palm of her mother’s hand, not at all sure. She looked at him, a thin man on the other side of the road, in a big hurry as if he was late for something. She ducked behind her mother’s arm as he stared back at her, then she peeked out at him again with big blue eyes. A car passed between them and she was lost to him for a moment. Then she was back, and their eyes met. Another lorry thundered by. Her mother’s hand tightened on hers, ready to cross. The girl smiled at him, a wide innocent summertime smile, and gave an absent-minded wave of her free hand. As they walked towards him, the mother tightened her grip further. She was keeping her child from danger, just as Anna had done with hers.
He couldn’t blame her for that.
As soon as he entered the long corridor, McAlpine knew something was wrong. Two doctors in white coats stood at IC reception, on the point of arguing. There was a press of people outside her room. He saw the uniform, notebook out, writing something down, and felt his stomach tighten. He started to run, his eyes fixed on Anna’s door.
An arm stretched out to stop him. ‘Al, it’s not –’
‘Fuck off,’ McAlpine told him quietly and punched him in the face.
∗
The bed was empty.
So she had been moved, and he was in the wrong room. All this fuss was about someone or something else.
The red-headed nurse had the baby in her arms, the little head nestled into her neck. She avoided looking at him. Her eyes flicked warily to the bundle of bloodstained bedclothes piled up on the floor near the sink, ready for the laundry.
Only…
It was not bedclothes.
It was her.
She was a marionette with cut strings, folded and crumpled, her face nothing but a pink and purple mulch blackened at the edges, a Halloween mask melted by a slow flame. In one eye, a tiny slip of white was visible. The other eye was closed flat, no eyeball in the socket to give it definition, and her nose was a bifurcated hole. Her outstretched right hand, missing all but two fingers, seemed to point in benediction.
He saw the slits in her wrists, gaping, still moist, and so recent they glistened in the sunlight, the blood fanning out on the floor and soaking into her white gown. He registered the broken mirror and the slices of glass.
And a single wisp of blonde hair.