She took it into the kitchen and attacked the hasps with a hammer until she had broken them and opened the case. It was stuffed full of banknotes. With trembling fingers, she lifted them all out onto the kitchen table and began to count them. The notes amounted to nearly 780,000 pounds.
Milly stared at the money. She thought of her late bullying husband who had made her life a misery and then she thought of Tam’s perfidy. Suddenly as cold as ice, she packed up the money. Then she went upstairs and packed two suitcases with her clothes. She went outside and covered up the hole where the attaché case had reposed and covered the raw earth with clods of grass and weeds. She returned to the house, took off her engagement ring, and left it on the kitchen table.
She then went out, locking the door behind her. She drove to Inverness airport where she bought herself a ticket to London.
Once in London, she booked into the Waldorf Hotel in Aldwych, then went to a travel agent and reserved a cabin on a cruise of the Caribbean on a liner due to leave Southampton on the following day. She had not used the money in the suitcase… yet. That would do for spending money on board.
Tam was lying in his bed in his flat in Strathbane, nursing one of the worst hangovers he could ever remember having. He had been careful not to drink too much in Milly’s company but he had run into some colleagues the night before and set out on a drinking spree.
His doorbell rang. With a groan, he struggled out of bed and went to open the door. A fellow reporter stood there.
“Where have you been?” he demanded. “Harcourt’s going apeshit. I heard him phone you at that widow woman’s and give you a rocket.”
“But I wasnae there,” exclaimed Tam, who suddenly felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. “Did you hear what he said?”
“Oh, jist ranted on about he knew you were romancing the Davenport woman for a story and getting engaged to her was maybe going a bit far because she could sue you for breach o’ promise. Something like that.”
Tam swore and clutched his aching head. “It’s nothing like that,” he howled. “I’ve got to see her.”
“You’d better see Harcourt first if you want to keep your job.”
It was evening before Tam got to Drim. He found the door locked and let himself in with the key Milly had given him. He went into the kitchen. Milly’s engagement ring sparkled up at him from the table. He sat down heavily. Harcourt had told him he had thought he was talking to Tam because Tam had always answered the phone.
It’ll be all right, thought Tam desperately. I’ll wait until she comes home and explain everything.
He waited and waited all the long night but Milly did not return.
In a villa outside Rio de Janeiro a week later, the four wanted men sat on the terrace of a rented villa just outside the city with their four wives. They had not wanted to bring their wives but Prosser said it would be dangerous to leave them behind in case one of them opened her big, silly mouth.
“The new passports should be ready today,” said Prosser.
“But we’ve already got good forgeries,” protested Ferdinand Castle.
“Better be on the safe side,” said Prosser.
Bromley shifted uneasily in his rattan chair. He wished he had given himself over to the police. The whole thing was a nightmare. Why had he let Prosser talk him into something so idiotic as trying to set Davenport’s house on fire? Milly left the door open during the day, and he had hidden in one of the attics until nightfall. Why had he let Prosser dominate him and frighten him? If he turned Queen’s evidence, then he might get a considerably reduced sentence. Maybe in one of those open prisons. He was tired of his nagging wife and frightened of Prosser.
It was Prosser’s psychopathic vanity that had led them to exile in Brazil. He had tried to tell Prosser at one time to forget Davenport, but Prosser had said he wanted revenge.
Bromley miserably counted up the murders: Captain Davenport, the sweep, Philomena Davenport, Betty Close, and that prostitute. How had he ever become drawn into this web of murder and deceit? What if the SAS were sent to Brazil to seize them? They had bribed a fishing boat to take them to France and then journeyed overland by rented car to Lisbon, where they had booked flights to Rio. They had used cloned credit cards to pay for the rented car and their fares.
The thought of escape grew in his mind. At one point, he felt Prosser’s bottle-green eyes fixed on him and threw the man a weak smile. Prosser held the cloned credit cards. If he escaped, he daren’t pay the airfare with cash because that would ring alarm bells. But, he suddenly thought, a travel agent would be glad of the cash.
How to get away?
Charles Prosser said suddenly, “Have you got that photo of Diarmuid whatsisname? I told the waiter to snap it and you kept a print.”
“I think it’s in my case,” said Bromley.
“Go and get it.”
Bromley returned after some time and handed Prosser the photograph. He studied it, then brought out a magnifying glass and peered at it again.
He sat back in his chair, his face turning white with anger. “I think that bastard was that highland constable, Macbeth.”
Sanders let out a nervous laugh. “Come on. That great idiot?”
“He was on television. He’s solved a lot of murders. He was sniffing around Scots Entertainment and then John Dean reported he had called at the Canongate flat asking about Betty Close. I’ll have that bastard.”
“You can’t,” said Sanders gloomily. “We daren’t go back.”
“You can stay here. I’m getting even with that policeman if it’s the last thing I do.”
“You’ll get caught,” said Bromley.
“I won’t. As soon as the new passports arrive, I’m off.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” asked Sandra petulantly.
“Take up knitting. I don’t care.”
I have to get there before him, fretted Bromley. I know Prosser. If he gets caught, he’ll take us all down with him. He may even try to pin the murders on one of us!
“I’m off to get the passports,” said Prosser, getting to his feet.
Now’s my chance, thought Bromley desperately. He waited until Prosser had driven off. Sandra said she was going for a dip in the pool and the others said they would join her. “Coming, Tom?” she asked.
“Not me. I think I’ll have a bit of a siesta.”
Sandra Prosser turned on her road to the pool and watched Bromley walk into the house. Suddenly suspicious, she told the others to go ahead and then waited in the garden behind a stand of palm trees.
Soon she saw Bromley get into the old car he had bought and drive off. She took out the mobile phone her husband had bought her when they had arrived in Rio and spoke to him urgently.
Prosser, who had just collected the new passports, swore under his breath and headed for the airport.
There was a flight for London via Sao Paulo due to leave at seven o’clock that evening. He sat and waited.
Thomas Bromley also waited but in a bar facing Copacabana beach. It was surrounded by a low hedge. Bands played outside and then stretched their hands over the hedge for payment. Little children often sneaked in around the tables, begging for money before being chased off by the waiter. He kept taking out his air ticket and looking at it to make sure it was really there.
The sun beat down. Tall Brazilian girls wearing the minimum of beachwear strolled past on very high heels. He had noticed that some of them even did their shopping in the town wearing only thongs and tiny scraps of material over their firm breasts.