They moved towards the end of the groyne, where the light flashed.
He could see, from the wheel-house, the big plate-glass window and could make out the small shapes of the assistant harbourmaster, the duty coastguard and the Customs woman, who was doing the night shift. They'd all have had their binoculars up, but Harry didn't see that because the rain ran rivers on the wheel-house. Ricky Capel had called him again and had given him co-ordinates for the German coast, but had sounded sort of distant and had said, 'It's not a hundred per cent, Harry. It may not happen. Just as likely you'll get a cancel from me. A good chance of a cancel, but you get moving. Don't tell the world where you're headed. If it's a cancel I'll call you on the mobile and turn you back. It'll probably be that, a cancel.' But the cancel call hadn't come.
The old boys, eighty years before, going to sea in a beam trawler under sail power and taking on a force nine or ten – fifty-knot wind speed – had had a saying:
'Grumble you may, but go you must.' He thought of them, weather hardened, and of the boat that would be his one day, which they had gone to sea in. She passed the end of the groyne, where a solitary lunatic watched his fishing-rod, and left the safety of the harbour. Waves slashed against the Anneliese Royal, lifted and dropped her.
'My chief waited for you, Mr Gaunt, but he's gone now. Has a dinner this evening with Home Office fat cats – I don't reckon wild horses would have pulled him off that. For my chief, a dinner with them is like a call to the Sepulchre. He asked me to hang on and see you, see how we can help. So, I'm what you've g o t…
Sorry about that.'
'I'm grateful to you, Detective Sergeant. I hope I haven't mucked up your evening.'
'You haven't – and please call me Tony.'
'Fine, Tony. Could we set some ground rules?
Official Secrets Act, no notes taken, conversation that didn't happen – you know the game. I don't want the party line, just want it straight, the way it is, and don't ask me why I requested this meeting. The subject of my interest is Ricky Capel.'
'Aged thirty-four, married to Joanne, one son, lives at nine Bevin Close, that's south London on the east side.'
They were in a chief superintendent's office with beech panelling, pastel slat blinds and photographs from courses of sitting and standing participants; there was a picture of the office resident in uniform and shaking the hand of the grinning prime minister. Among the photographs there were shields presented by Texan, Jordanian and Brazilian police forces – and the room was scrupulously tidy. Gaunt wondered balefully if, as a visitor, he should have removed his shoes before entering. What was a refreshing relief, the detective sergeant had pushed aside the leather-tipped blotter and the crystal ink-stand, and had planted his backside on the desk.
Immaculate as always in his suit and waistcoat, with his tie over the collar button, Gaunt could recognize a worker ant. A damned tired one… He liked such men.
'I'm assuming there are a hundred places you'd rather be than here, and I'll try not to waste your time.
What is the single most important thing about Ricky Capel?'
'That he's never been nicked.'
'He's a big player. Why has he never been arrested and charged?'
'Cunning, not educated, intelligent but clever.
Doesn't overreach himself.'
'As easy as that?'
'A guy who's never been nicked, each year he gets to be more careful, cuts down on the risk factor.'
'But you target him?'
The detective sergeant snorted, almost derision.
Gaunt liked that near streak of contempt for his question. It was not the right place for him to pace and intimidate, so he leaned back in the visitor's chair, swung his feet on to the desk and rested them beside the baggy flop of the policeman's jacket. He thought it would show a welcome disrespect for the high and mighty whose office it was.
'How does he walk round you?'
'Because we're in the quick-fix world. Focus groups and think-tanks rule us, and they say that targets must be met, must be. We have a slop of money coming in here at Criminal Intelligence, and there's budgets for Crime Squad and the organized-crime people at the Yard. Best way to justify the cash is to get results, achieve those bloody targets. What you don't do – and it's my chief's Bible – is think long-term. Resources are allocated at targets where results can be guaranteed.
Then my chief can go down the Home Office, take a dinner and spiel out the statistics of success. To go after a clever, cunning bastard – Ricky Capel – takes cash, manpower, commitment, with no promise of getting the handcuffs on him. He's doing very nicely, it's what he'd tell you… There's all sorts of wars being fought at the moment and I reckon we're losing the lot of them. My war, people-trafficking for vice and the importation of narcotics, is going down the plug-hole and fast. Not that my chief would tell you, but we got it wrong and we're losing. Is that out of order?'
'I wouldn't say so, Tony.' He asked with effortless casualness, well practised, 'What business would take Ricky Capel to Hamburg?'
He saw the policeman's eyes flash, and the rhythm with which he slapped his heels against the front of his chief's desk was cut.
'You're well informed, Mr Gaunt.'
'Why would he be there?'
'You know about Albanians?'
Gaunt said easily, 'I cast an eye over matters Albanian from time to time.'
'The big hook-up is with Timo Rahman, godfather of that city, supplier of the heroin that Capel brings in.
I don't know the route used but Rahman is the source.
The link goes back a long way, right back to Capel's grandfather. I read that in the file. The grandfather, that's Percy Capel, did time in the war in Albania and worked with a gang led by Rahman's father. That's where you'd find what the link is. Percy's an old thief and lives next door to Capel… not that he'd give you the time of day.'
'No, I don't suppose he would.' He knew more, and it gave him little pleasure, than the policeman – could have told him about a boat supposedly coming to an island off the Frisian coast of Germany, but that would have meant sharing. It was Gaunt's habit to leech blood, a one-way trade. He lifted his shoes off the table and glanced, with slight ostentation, at his watch, as if he had consumed enough of the detective's time. 'I much appreciate you staying on and meeting me.'
'What I'm saying to you, Mr Gaunt, is that Capel's supping with the devil, but for both of them it's a mistake.'
'How's that?'
'We've learned it. The Albanians suck a man dry when he thinks they're just partners, then move in and ditch him. The other side, Capel isn't in Rahman's league of skills and on anything big he would be the weak leg.'
'An interesting observation. I'll let you get on home.
Been grand meeting you.'
But the man was not finished, and gushed, 'I tell you, Mr Gaunt, it pisses me off that we're losing, that Capel and his like are winning. We've the courts and the legislation and the prisons, but we're not filling them. I could take you to an estate, not much more than a mile from here, where there's addicts and pushers who sell to them, and dealers, where there's old ladies who live behind barricades and in fear. I don't suppose that's in your remit, Mr Gaunt, old ladies getting their arm broken for what's in a purse.'
It seared in Gaunt's mind. He recalled the long signal sent him by Polly Wilkins that detailed hours spent in the Planten und Blumen garden and what a man had told her. It fell into place. A man had tried to claw back his life by climbing a pyramid. He offered no sign of it, and stood.
'Very helpful you've been, Tony. A last chore for you. Please, see if there's anything in the Capel file that might equate with a rat run – you know, a round-the-houses short-cut as an importation route