Confessional. Part 44

And then Hardy and the woman were swept away into the past as the guard pulled the sliding door shut and the train surged forward.

Trent couldn't resist phoning Ferguson in London and the Directorate-General patched him in to the Cavendish Square phone. Fox and Devlin were out and Ferguson answered himself.

Trent here, sir, Chief-Inspector, Special Branch, Glasgow. We think we've got your man, Cussane.'

'Have you, by G.o.d?' Ferguson said. 'What shape is he in?'

'Well, I haven't actually seen him, sir. He's been apprehended in a village some miles south of here. He's arriving by train in Glasgow within the hour. I'll pick him up myself.'

'Pity the b.u.g.g.e.r didn't turn up dead,' Ferguson said. 'Still, one can't have everything. I want him down here on the first available plane in the morning, Chief-Inspector. Bring him

yourself. This one's too important for any slip-ups.'

'Will do, sir,' said Trent eagerly.

Ferguson put down the receiver, reached for the red phone, but some innate caution stopped him. Much better to phone the Home Secretary when the fish was actually in the net.

Brodie sat on a stool, leaning back in the corner watching Cussane and smoking a cigarette. The guard was checking a list on his desk. He totalled it and put his pen away. Til make my rounds. See you later.'

He went out and Brodie pulled his stool across the baggage car and sat very close to Cussane. Tve never understood it. Men in skirts. It'll never catch on.' He leaned forward. 'Tell me, you priests - what do you do for it?'

'For what?' Cussane said.

'You know. Is it choirboys? Is that the truth of it?' There were beads of perspiration on the big man's forehead.

'That's a h.e.l.l of a big moustache you're wearing,' Cussane said. 'Have you got a weak mouth or something?'

Brodie was angry now. 'c.o.c.ky b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I'll show you.'

He reached forward and touched the end of the lighted cigarette to the back of Cussane's hand. Cussane cried out and fell back against the mailbags.

Brodie laughed and leaned over him. 'I thought you'd like that,' he said and reached to touch the back of the hand again. Cussane kicked him in the crutch. Brodie staggered back clutching at himself and Cussane sprang to his feet. He kicked out expertly, catching the right kneecap, and as Brodie keeled forward, raised his knee into the face.

The police sergeant lay on his back moaning and Cussane searched his pockets, found the key and unlocked his handcuffs. He got his bag, checked that the contents were intact and slipped the Stechkin into his pocket. He pulled back the sliding door and rain flooded in.

The guard, entering the baggage car a moment later, caught a brief glimpse of him landing in heather at the side of the

track and rolling over and over down the slope. And then there was only mist and rain.

When the train coasted into Glasgow Central, Trent and half-a-dozen uniformed constables were waiting on platform one. The door of the baggage car slid open and the guard appeared.

'In here.'

Trent paused at the entrance. There was only Lachlan Brodie nursing a b.l.o.o.d.y and swollen face, sitting on the guard's stool. Trent's heart sank. 'Tell me,' he said wearily. Brodie did the best he could. When he was finished, Trent said, 'He was handcuffed, you say, and you let him take you?'

'It wasn't as simple as it sounds, sir,' Brodie said lamely.

'You stupid, stupid man,' Trent said. 'By the time I'm finished with you, you'll be lucky if they put you in charge of a public lavatory.'

He turned away in disgust and went back along the platform to phone Ferguson.

Cussane at that precise moment was halted in the shelter of some rocks on top of a hill north of Dunhill. He had the ordnance survey map open that he'd purchased from Moira McGregor. He found Larwick with no trouble and the Mungos' farm was just outside. Perhaps fifteen miles and most of that over hill country, and yet he felt cheerful enough as he pressed on.

The mist curling in on either hand, the heavy rain, gave him a safe, enclosed feeling, remote from the world outside, a kind of freedom. He moved on through birch trees and wet bracken that soaked his trouser legs. Occasionally grouse or plover lifted from the heather, disturbed by his pa.s.sing. He kept on the move, for by now his raincoat was soaked through and he was experienced enough to know the dangers of being in hill country like this in the wrong clothing.

He came over the edge of an escarpment perhaps an hour

after leaving the train and looked down into a valley glen below. Darkness was falling, but there was a clearly defined man-made track a few yards away ending at a cairn of rough stones. It was enough; he hurried on with renewed energy and plunged down the hillside.

Ferguson was looking at a large ordnance survey map of the Scottish Lowlands. 'Apparently he got the coach in More-cambe,' he said. 'We've established that.'

'A neat way of getting to Glasgow, sir,' Fox said.

'No,' Ferguson said. 'He took a ticket to a place called Dunhill. What in the h.e.l.l would he be doing there?'

'Do you know the area?' Devlin asked.

'Had a week's shooting on some chap's estate about twenty years ago. Funny place, the Galloway hills. High forests, ridgebacks and secret little lochs everywhere.'

'Galloway, you said?' Devlin looked closer at the map. 'So that's Galloway?'

Ferguson frowned. 'So what?'

'I think that's where he's gone,' Devlin said. 'I think that's where he was aiming to go all along.'

Fox said, 'What makes you think that?'

He told them about Danny Malone and when he was finished, Ferguson said, 'You could very well have something.'

Devlin nodded. 'Danny mentioned a number of safe houses used by the underworld in various parts of the country, but the fact that he's in the Galloway area must have some connection with this place run by the Mungo brothers.'

'What do we do now, sir?' Fox asked Ferguson. 'Get Special Branch, Glasgow, to lay on a raid on this Mungo place?'

'No, to h.e.l.l with that,' Ferguson said. 'We've already had a cla.s.sic example of just how efficient the local police can be; they had him and let him slip through their fingers.' He glanced out of the window at the darkness outside. 'Too late to do anything tonight. Too late for him as well. He'll still be on foot in those hills,'

'Bound to be,' Devlin said.

'So - you and Harry fly up to Glasgow tomorrow. lou check out this Mungo place personally. I'm invoking special powers. On this one, Special Branch will do what you want.'

He went out. Fox gave Devlin a cigarette. 'What do you think?'

'They had him, Harry, in handcuffs,' Devlin said, 'and he got away. That's what I think. Now give me a light.'

Cussane went down through birch trees following the course of a pleasant burn which splashed between a jumble of granite boulders. He was beginning to feel tired now in spite of the fact that the going was all downhill.

The burn disappeared over an edge of rock, cascading into a deep pool as it had done several times before and he slithered down through birch trees through the gathering dusk rather faster than he had intended, landing in an untidy heap, still holding on to his bag.

There was a startled gasp and Cussane, coming up on one knee, saw two children crouched at the side of the pool. The girl, on a second look, was older than he had thought, perhaps sixteen, and wore Wellingtons and jeans and an old reefer coat that was too big for her. She had a pointed face, wide dark eyes, and a profusion of black hair flowed from beneath a knitted Tarn O'Shanter.