I heard the hiss of his indrawn breath. “What is it with you?” he muttered tightly, then, louder: “All right. Tell me.”
“One we think is a diamond courier, murdered in the gents’ toilet of a petrol station just outside Naas. The other was Slick Grannell’s girlfriend, murdered in a hotel room nearby.”
“Grannell’s girlfriend?” he said sharply. “Wait.” And he hit the silence button at his end without waiting for my acquiescence.
I did as I was told, listening to the static. The boys waited with me, most of them so tense I don’t think they’d remembered to breathe. Only Sean looked at all relaxed and that, I knew, was deceptive. It seemed to take a long time before MacMillan came back on the line.
“Mr Grannell was doing some deals with some nasty people involved with smuggling gemstones out of Africa,” he said without preamble when he returned. “Since his death we’ve had a few enquiries in from other forces and from Interpol. I’m not at liberty to discuss the details with you, Charlie, but I would strongly advise you, for what it’s worth, to contact the local police, to cooperate with them fully, and leave it to them,” he said, spelling out each word very precisely as though someone else might be listening in. “I did try and warn you but, trust me, you do not want to get yourself any deeper involved with this one than I fear you have done already.”
I shook my head. A useless act since he couldn’t see me do it. “It’s not as easy as that,” I said. “After they killed Tess they grabbed one of the lads – Jacob Nash’s son, Jamie.”
“Ah,” MacMillan said, not needing to be told about the strong bond I had with Jacob and Clare.
“We think we might know where they’re taking Jamie, and we’re going to see if we can catch up with them,” I said, deliberately cagey. The last thing I wanted was for MacMillan to try and intercept or divert us. Or, for that matter, ask too many questions about how we intended to go about our task.
As if he could read my mind MacMillan paused again and then said, “Is Meyer with you?”
“Yes.”
He made a humph of sound. “So, why are you telling me this – apart from to make me a possible accessory to whatever it is you’re going to do?” he said, the sarcasm sharp in his voice now.
“We’ve a man injured,” I said, eyes trailing over Gleet where he lay against the pillows, his face still partly clotted with old blood. He’d lost his battle with sleep again, his head lolling sideways in a way that echoed starkly how Tess’s had been. “He tried to stop them taking Jamie and they laid into him. When the police get here, it would help if there was someone who could vouch for him, otherwise I think they’re going to give him a pretty hard time of it.”
“And why can’t you vouch for him yourselves? No, on second thoughts don’t answer that,” he interrupted quickly before I had chance to speak. “I really don’t want to know.” He sighed again, an annoyed release of pent-up breath. “All right, Charlie. If they call me I’ll put in a good word for your friend. What’s his name?”
“Officially he’s Reginald Post, but he’s known as Gleet,” I said.
“Ah, that wouldn’t be the same Gleet who runs a custom bike workshop from his sister’s farm near Wray, would it?” the policeman asked.
It was my turn to pause, taken aback. “Yes, it is. How do you know that?”
“We wondered where he’d got to, and that sister of his is doing sphinx impersonations – or should that be gargoyle?” MacMillan muttered. “We raided his place yesterday and discovered the remains of Slick Grannell’s bike there. I could do with a word with the mysterious Mr Post myself.”
“I’m sure if you can get him away from the gardai unscathed, he’ll talk to you all you want,” I said.
“Hmm,” was MacMillan’s only reaction to that. “Oh, there is one thing you might be interested to learn,” he went on. “Once we’d recovered Grannell’s motorcycle we were able to compare paint traces we found on a Transit van abandoned the day after the accident. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the lab to do their stuff for it to be definitive, but our lads are pretty sure they’ll be a match.”
He paused again, as though carrying out some internal debate on how much more to tell me. Eventually, when I didn’t interrupt him, he sighed and said, “The van was reported stolen, as you would expect. But, interestingly enough, the registered owner is a property company based in Northern Ireland – the director of which is one Isobel Nash. In light of what you’ve just told me I think we might well be having a word with Mrs Nash in due course.”
“I think the person you should really be aiming to talk to is her boyfriend, Eamonn Garroway,” I said. “And watch your step when you do. His idea of a conversation tends to hurt.”
Sean tapped his watch and I nodded to show I understood.
“Sorry, Superintendent,” I said, brusque, “but we need to get moving.”
“All right, Charlie,” MacMillan said, resigned. “I should know by now that trying to talk you out of whatever it is you’re going to do is a pointless exercise so I’ll save my breath, but . . . good luck.”
“Thank you, John,” I said gravely. “We’re going to need it.”
Twenty-seven
We were just on the outskirts of Dundalk, less than ten klicks from the border, when we finally caught up with the van that had taken Jamie. If it hadn’t been for Isobel’s information, I would have begun to believe we were heading in totally the wrong direction long before then.
As it was, William and Daz voiced their doubts several times during the frantic ride north. When they had the breath to do it, that is. It made no difference to the pace Sean set. He’d abandoned his previous laid back style and was going like a lunatic. I tried to work out where the rustiness had worn off his riding abilities. Somewhere between the ferry to Belfast, and here, Sean had shed his inhibitions like a second skin.
Now he went for hairline gaps in traffic that made me wince, surviving on gut instinct and sheer brass neck. The rest of us followed him with a kind of reckless faith that where he could get through, so could we.
Nevertheless, all I could hear in my ear-piece was Daz swearing as he missed yet another collision by fractions. Paxo was probably being quite vocal with his opinion, too, but nobody could hear him. He’d given Sean his headset and radio before we set off.
“You’re going to need this more than I am,” he’d said, dumping the whole lot onto the seat of the Blackbird. Jamie’s headset had been still in his helmet, but the radio itself was missing, otherwise we would have had a spare.
Sean had looked up from carefully packing the bottles we’d prepared into his tank bag. We’d loosely wrapped them in more towels filched from the hotel bathroom to stop them clashing together.
“You’ll need this, too,” Paxo had said and handed over his Zippo lighter. “And it’s my favourite, so don’t lose it, all right?”
“Thank you,” Sean had said, and meant it. “I won’t.”
Paxo had nodded and rammed on his helmet, cutting short any further talk. He’d slotted the Ducati in behind me as we roared out of the car park. I’d glanced up at the hotel just once as we’d ridden away past the front of it.