‘Good afternoon.’ A woman stood up from a chair behind a low glass cabinet. She was middle-aged, smartly turned out, with elegantly coiffed grey hair and wearing a dark wool dress with a choker of pearls. She eyed Judith cautiously.
‘Is Mr Milraud in?’ Judith began, walking towards her and giving an eager, slightly goofy smile.
‘Monsieur Milraud is not available, I am afraid. He is out of the country in fact.’ Judith adopted a frown of disappointment. ‘Did you have an appointment?’
‘That’s the thing. I don’t know, and I’m not sure if I have the right day in any case. My cousin Simon asked me to join him here. He collects little guns, you see, and he said he was coming to see Mr Milraud about buying one. He asked me to meet him here this afternoon because we have to go down to the country after Simon has finished here. At least I think it was this afternoon, but if he’s not here, perhaps I’ve got the wrong day – or the wrong time.’ She gave a small sigh, and went on talking. ‘But I know it was here we said we’d meet. He wants me to hold his hand while he negotiates with Mr Milraud. You know, to stop him spending too much money. Not that I’m an expert on guns…’ Her voice trailed off.
The woman stared at her. ‘As I said, Monsieur Milraud is not here.’
‘Don’t think I don’t believe you. The only question then is what I’ve got wrong, not did I get it wrong – since we have established that.’
Judith saw the look of doubt in the woman’s eyes and wondered if she was overplaying her role.
‘Let me have a look at the diary, and perhaps I can see when your appointment might be.’ The woman went through a door marked ‘Private’ at the back of the shop, returning a moment later with a leather-bound desk diary. ‘Your name is?’
‘Crosby. Heather Farlow Crosby.’
Judith watched as the woman consulted the pages of the diary. ‘I see nothing here,’ she said.
‘Oh how silly of me,’ said Judith, putting a hand to her cheek. ‘It wouldn’t be my name at all, would it? It would be my cousin Simon’s.’
‘Simon?’ the woman said, her expression suggesting she was having to work hard to keep her patience.
‘Willis. His mother was the Crosby, which is why my cousin and I have different surnames.’ And she continued prattling while the woman ran her finger up and down the page, until she stopped at one line. When she looked up at Judith now her face was wary. ‘A Mr Willis was here,’ she said slowly. ‘Yesterday in fact.’
‘Ah,’ said Judith with relief. ‘So at least I was close.’ Her smile went unreturned. ‘And was I right about the time?’
‘The time?’ The woman was watching her carefully.
‘Yes.’ Judith glanced at her watch, a slim antique with a silver strap that, like most of the rest of her attire, she had borrowed from a colleague. ‘Two o’clock?’
The woman made a show of looking at the diary. She seemed suddenly nervous. ‘Yes, that is correct.’
‘And could you tell me how long he was here? Did he make a purchase? I’m wondering if he went off to the country by himself. Do you remember when he left?’
‘They left…’ and the woman paused.
Judith pounced. ‘They?’ There was nothing ditzy in her voice now. ‘Did he and Monsieur Milraud leave together then?’
The woman said carefully, ‘No. Your cousin left, then Monsieur Milraud left shortly afterwards. He had his plane to catch.’
‘What time was that?’
‘It must have been about two-forty-five that your cousin left. Monsieur Milraud left about three-fifteen to catch the plane.’
‘And my cousin left alone? You’re absolutely sure of that?’
‘Quite sure, madam,’ replied the woman tersely, dropping her mask of politeness.
‘You see it’s very important,’ said Judith levelly, returning the woman’s stare. There was little pretence left between them.
‘I can assure you that he was on his own when he left.’ The woman had regained her sangfroid and the shutters had come down with force. It was obvious that she knew more than she was letting on but Judith could see that she would get nothing else out of her now. ‘I’m afraid I cannot help you further.’ Judith was being ushered firmly towards the door.
Outside on the pavement Judith found that her nervousness had been replaced with anger. It was obvious that something had happened to Dave and that this woman knew more about it than she was letting on. Now the woman also knew that someone was looking for Dave, and Judith doubted she believed for a moment that it was his cousin.
35
Liz stared out at the old barracks parade ground as the last flicker of sun gave way to the chill dusk of the February afternoon. Information was beginning to seep in but so far it was all negative. She still had no idea what had happened to Dave.
No results yet from the various CCTV cameras in the car park and the area around Milraud’s shop, but at least she now knew, thanks to Judith’s thespian efforts at the premises, that Dave had actually been there. If the shop assistant was to be believed, he had left safely and on his own at two forty-five. But that might not be true. Judith thought that at the very least the woman was not telling all she knew, and in spite of what she had said, Milraud had certainly not taken the flight to Paris on which he had a reservation. Nor had he been found on any airline manifest leaving Ireland in the last forty-eight hours. It was still possible that he had taken a private plane from one of Ireland’s thirty-odd airports but nothing had been found to point to that, and if he had changed his plans, the question remained why had he done so. Preliminary checks with the ferry services in the North and in the Republic had come up with the same result: no sign of the man.
The main interest had come from analysis of the photographs taken by the camera on the gate of the National Trust property in County Down. There had been an unusual amount of movement in and out since the previous afternoon. Timed at three-forty-four, the red Vauxhall Vectra had gone in, with the dark-faced thug and the man identified as Malone in the front seat. There seemed to be no one in the back, though the camera could not see the back seat clearly. At four Piggott had gone in driving his Audi, with an unidentifiable back-seat passenger. At five-thirty the Audi had gone out again, driven by the Spaniard, and had returned at seven-thirty, again driven by the Spaniard. Nothing more had happened until seven-thirty the following morning when the Audi had been driven out by Malone, possibly with a back-seat passenger who might or might not have been Piggott.
At the offices of Fraternal Holdings in Belfast, where A4 had been on watch since eight a.m., very little had happened. At nine a.m. the female receptionist had let herself into the offices with a key. She was now sitting in the reception area, clearly visible to Arthur Haverford and Jerry Rayman in their observation post across the street. She was painting her nails.
Two policemen had been to Piggott’s house on the National Trust estate during the morning. The old housekeeper who had answered the door said that her employer had left the previous day and had not told her where he was going or when he would be back. The police officers had been told to do no more than enquire for Piggott and if he was there to ask him some question about an imaginary rave on the National Trust land. So they’d accepted what the housekeeper said and, after walking round the surrounding land and seeing nothing to arouse their suspicions, they had left.