The Purple Contract (23 page)

This was a ritual he had performed many times before.

He had found peace here in the wildness of western Scotland. It was the only place in the whole world that he called home. The only place, yes, that he felt truly safe. Safe from vendettas and arrest. Safe from
people
. The only place he could live like a civilized human being instead of a hunted animal.
A hell of a way for a man to make a living
. But he had reflected on that before: many times before. 'No-one forced you, boy!' He spoke aloud without being aware of the fact. Above his head a herring gull, wheeling gracefully in the air, called as if in response.

For years now, the last thing he had done before leaving to fulfil a contract was to sit here and enjoy his beloved solitude. He had never expressed the feeling in words, even to himself, but these few moments of peace might represent the last time he would ever see this place. His affairs were in order: were always in order. In a solicitor's vault in Inverness was a Will making Gojo the sole beneficiary of everything Mike Hollis owned, including the Swiss bank account and whatever it contained at the time.

The careful planning was completed. The preparations were finalized and even the bags packed and ready to lift. Today was Friday thirteenth of August. Hollis had smiled to himself when he discovered which day he would have to commence his journey. An omen or what? Fortunately he was not a superstitious man. He had a reservation for tomorrow on the Orkney ferry sailing at 12 noon sailing from Scrabster, just outside Thurso on Scotland’s north coast. The operation would take place in precisely one week.

He had done everything possible to ensure the odds were in his favour. And hopefully he had a better than even chance of coming out the other side in one piece. One more job––no, one
last
job and it was over. Finally. Thankfully.

The fishing boat had passed out of sight and he knew it was time for him to leave. But Lord, this time he was afraid.

Mike Hollis closed his eyes and let the sounds of his world engulf him, unimpeded by the distractions of visual stimulus ...

Alison Basker watched nervously as the huge French truck rumbled past in the outside lane. She glanced across at the speedometer and saw that Ken was keeping it steady on 70 mph. The truck pulled ahead and rapidly increased the gap between them before pulling out to pass another vehicle. This time it stayed in the outside lane, powering northwards up the M6, overtaking the long stream of traffic and finally taking up front position nearly a mile ahead.

'Well, he'll be happy now he's at the head of the queue!' commented Ken sourly.

'Are those thing allowed to travel that fast?' Alison asked.

Ken snorted. '
Nobody's
supposed to drive at that speed. Least of all articulated trucks this size. Damned French juggernauts!'

Alison looked round to check on the two youngsters. Eric appeared to be dozing and Joanne was engrossed in a book. Alison had tried reading in the car herself but always ended up feeling slightly nauseous. She envied her daughter's immunity to motion-sickness. 'They seem to be everywhere: these foreign lorries.'

'They
are
everywhere! Blame the EC and their policy of open markets.' Ken grumbled.

His wife smiled. Ken wasn't a Euro-fan, and that was a fact. With little provocation he would explain in great detail what he thought of the UK being rapidly submerged in the European Superstate. Not, of course, that ordinary folk had much choice in the matter.

But this wasn’t the time for gloomy introspection about politics, this was
holidays
. Like millions of working people, Alison looked forward to the annual family holiday. A break from work, from routine––from the city. She had lived in Wolverhampton all her life, but a nice little cottage in the countryside … one of these days.

Holidays usually meant cramped flights and package-deal hotels, with endless sunshine as the only compensation. This year, however, they had decided on something different. Something
really
different. The Orkney Islands.

As her husband Ken had commented sourly, ‘We might as well have a look around before the Customs barriers go up!’

When they crossed the Scottish border, Alison was surprised to see just a minor signpost at the side of the road. She watched it pass and wondered whether the Scottish Parliament really considered such a trivial delineation acceptable. She doubted it.

The M74 runs from the Borders through Lanarkshire and ultimately ends in Central Scotland. From there, good links exist east to Edinburgh, west to Glasgow and north to Perth and Inverness.

For the Baskers, approaching from the south, the immediate problem was where to find some lunch. They were now passing through a heavily populated and industrialized area. Apart from the colourful sward of Strathclyde Park, only the motorway itself appeared to separate the uninspiring conurbations on either side.

'There’s a Services area, that'll do.' Ken pointed to the roadside sign coming up on their left.

Alison was not a great fan of motorway service station food––few folk are––but the only alternative in the short term was either to struggle with the traffic in a strange town, or carry on in the hope that something better would appear before too long. Hunger triumphed over speculation.

Both the children had perked up by this time and were taking great interest. Not so much in where they were, more in the knowledge that lunchtime was imminent! They led the way across the car park, racing each other and full of energy after the long journey from home. Alison and Ken followed more slowly, but they were also glad to stretch their legs and breath some fresh air.

Alison looked about her. A humble lunch stop it might be, but it was the first of a great many new places for all of them on this holiday. She had taken a bit of convincing about the Orkney trip, but as time passed and the holiday loomed ever closer, she had found herself looking forward to it more than she would ever have thought. Ken was right, it
was
much more fun to go somewhere new, rather than the same familiar haunts. Wait until those two saw the boat tomorrow …

Inverness town centre, like many others, is not the sort of place a sensible man expects to find a parking slot just when he needs it. The multi-story car park opposite the bus station is not often full, except at weekends, but today Hollis had no need to fight with the traffic on the partly one-way ring road around the town centre. He circled the town, well clear of the traffic problems, and entered Longman Industrial Estate. He pulled in at a small motor-repair business. He had something to collect following a visit the previous day.

The earliest references to Inverness appear in the sixth century AD, in Amdamnan’s account of the life of St Columba. He describes Columba’s visit to King Brude’s stronghold in an attempt to convert the northern Picts to Christianity. “Inver” means “mouth”, and the town grew up around the mouth of the River Ness where it flows into the Beauly Firth. The original Castle has been suggested as the location where the murder of King Duncan by Macbeth actually took place. The present Castle, now local government offices, was built between 1834 and 1846.

Ten minutes later Hollis emerged, carrying a rectangular piece of yellow plastic. One more problem dealt with. He had been running around for quite a while now with an illegible rear number plate. He could do without any well-meaning police officers taking an interest in it.

He left the industrial estate at a junction on the A9 giving access to the Kessock Bridge. Turning away from the bridge road, he drove back into Inverness past Raigmore Hospital, through the districts of Culcabock and Crown. After a few minutes of searching, he found a space for the Range Rover in Ardconnel Terrace.

The footpath down the steep hill of Stephens Brae brought Hollis into the town centre opposite the Eastgate Shopping Centre. The main business centre in Inverness forms a large extended triangle, bounded on its longer sides by Academy Street and Church Street. The short base being the ancient High Street, at whose northern end lies the bright new shopping precinct of Eastgate.

Mike Hollis walked down Academy Street almost to the railway station and turned left into Union Street, which runs through to Church Street on the opposite side of the triangle. His main purpose was to extract a fairly large sum of money from one of several bank accounts he held in false names. As always, everything on this trip would be paid in cash. Nothing to trace, nothing to find.

He planned to stay the night in Thurso or thereabouts––it didn't really matter. Better that than an early start from home tomorrow and then a chase all the way up the A9 to catch the ferry at noon. It would be just dandy to get stuck behind a couple of tourist caravans or something on the notorious twisting road north. With little opportunity of passing he could easily miss the sailing time while the holidaymakers gauped at the passing landscape. Hell with that.

His business completed, and a fat wallet tucked securely inside his jacket, Hollis went for lunch. Better to eat here as try to find something further along the road. There was no hurry after all.

An hour later he was on his way back to the car. He was about to turn into Church Street when he caught a glimpse of a blond-haired young man walking through the Hotel entrance opposite. For a second Hollis was puzzled: he knew that face, but couldn't put a name to it. Then it came to him, along with a surge of adrenaline through his entire system.

The mugger from Wexford!

Hollis knew the Cairngorm Hotel well. He strode rapidly down Bank lane at the end of the block. At the bottom of the small incline he turned right alongside the River Ness, where it flowed on the last half mile or so of its journey to the Beauly Firth. A few metres along was a small car park belonging to the hotel, and the rear entrance. Hollis went in the door and up the stairs leading to the main foyer.

Just short of the top he stopped. He was facing the glass double doors where the blond figure had entered the building. The reception desk was behind him, about ten metres away, and unsighted. Reflected in the glass doors, Hollis could see three figures standing at reception, and he could hear them talking among themselves as they waited for the receptionist to finish a phone call. Blondie was one of the three and they were clearly together, but that wasn't the worst of it. Hollis listened to the voices and felt shivers run up and down his spine.

German. They were speaking in German.

Hollis wasn't given to premonitions. Nor was he subject to feelings of persecution or any other form of neurosis. But he
was
a careful man, who liked to think he was still alive because he paid close attention to the world around him. A world full of dangers and uncertainties. A world where few things happened by chance.

And he didn't have much time for coincidences, either.

It had been three years since the Berlin thing, but that was but a blink of an eye to the memories of fanatics. There had always been a very real possibility of the Neo-Nazi movement using their more unorthodox contacts around the world to track him down. It was a curious, and disturbing, observation that such a group might well have better means of doing so than the forces of law and order.

Hollis studied the reflections of the older man and the woman in the glass door. He couldn't recall seeing either of them before, although his eyes paused significantly longer on Helga Wrasse. As if deep down in his mind a faint echo had stirred.

'37 and 44 please.' The woman's English was good, with a very slight accent. Hollis watched as the receptionist handed over two keys: he couldn't tell which was which, but the older man was clearly sharing with the woman.

The three headed for the stairs leading up from the foyer, almost directly above where Hollis stood. Quickly, he moved back down to the lower floor and out the back door. Well, at least he knew where to find them again. It was going to foul up his schedule, but this situation had to be dealt with. Right at this moment he did
not
need some stupid vendetta going down.

Back in the Range Rover, Hollis sat looking out the window, his mind far away. After a time he looked down at the seat alongside him and, reaching out, picked up his new rear number plate. He had only noticed the broken one when he was unloading the car back at the cottage. Whatever had happened to it had occurred during the Irish trip. Thinking back over the incident in Wexford, he remembered reversing the car onto the pavement to get clear of the adjacent vehicle. He certainly went pretty close to the wall, had he touched something hard enough to break off a piece of the plastic plate? Must have.

For a time, Hollis sat idly studying the new number plate. Then his eyes narrowed and he sighed heavily. Using his fingers, he teased up and removed a shiny metallic-effect sticker from the bottom edge of the plate. He held the thing up accusingly in front of him, a corner stuck to his index finger. It bore the name and address of the company in the industrial estate where it had been made earlier that afternoon.

'Bastard!' Hollis cursed himself violently. 'Stupid bastard!'

Frank Wedderman read through the latest batch of faxes for a second time. Interpol had been of little help. Other than the Berlin event a few years ago, there had been no unexplained or mysterious deaths of prominent people. Sure, there were one or two terrorist groups about that needed watching. But a bomb in a carrier bag outside a department store, or nerve gas released in a Tokyo subway simply wasn't in the same league as a long gun in the hands of a marksman without a conscience.

Neither had the Interpol data banks turned up one single reference to anyone called Hollis––even for so much as a parking ticket.

Wedderman was in no way surprised: it fitted the pattern. This contract killer was no-one's fool. That was why Wedderman had resorted to sending secure faxes to every police force in Europe individually. It was a faint hope, the Interpol network was wide ranging and very efficient. He had seen plenty of examples of its capabilities during his career. That's why it went against the grain so much to bypass it. Not that it was doing him much good.