There was a click as the receiver went down.
Skinner switched off the player. He and Arrow stared at each other in silence across the table.
'Fookin' hell!' said the little soldier, eventually.
'Yup, that just about sums it up,' said Skinner. 'He's right, you know, Adam. We do think of him as just a loud-mouthed wanker, capable of causing bother up to a point, but no further. I mean, I know the Five computer spat out his name, but I didn't think for a minute that he'd have the stones to be into this sort of thing. From the sound of it, I was wrong.'
'So what do we do. Bob? Pick him up?'
'On what grounds? One meeting in a pub in London, which he'd claim was a co-incidence? One funny telephone call? Even anti-terrorist squads need evidence, if they're going to go around arresting MPs.'
'I'm not a copper. Bob.' Arrow spoke slowly, as if weighing his words. Skinner noted that his accent had disappeared. 'Let me go underground for a couple of days, and you'd never hear of the man again.'
Skinner looked at him steadily and seriously. 'Adam, I know what can happen in Ireland, but it's not going to happen here. I'm a policeman, not a judge. Listen, chum, I knew a man once for whom that was the only way. You may have gone to the same school, but you're not like he was – so far. Be careful you never get that way, because if you do, sooner or later you'll come up against someone like me, who'll have to stop you.'
Arrow smiled at him, and when he spoke, the accent was back.
'Rather not come up against you. Bob. Don't worry, mate. That's not my choice. But these people are fookin' butchers, so I had to make the offer.'
'Ok. Enough said. Anyway, taking Macdairmid for a trip wouldn't necessarily stop anything. He may be mixed up in it, he may even be a leader, but no way is he doing the heavy stuff himself. No, we'll watch him like a hawk till Saturday, then we'll pick up his messenger, and the other one. Now, that's a job you can handle. My face is too well known.'
'Be glad to. Will you give me someone to work with?'
'Sure. It'll be McGuire and Rose. Mcllhenney and Macgregor are already watching Macdairmid, so it could be they'd know the messenger by sight, and he in turn might clock them. So you'd better have a different team. And if it comes to a bundle, McGuire's your man!'
'I can hardly wait.'
'Right, I'll brief them. Now what about the other voice on that tape. Any ideas?'
'Not a voice I know, put it that way. It sounded like a fookin'
Libyan, though.'
'Could have been, but I'm hardly an expert in Middle Eastern languages. I'll have copies of the tape made and get someone on a plane down to London. We'll let Five have a listen, and Six for that matter. Let's see if it strikes a chord with anyone down there.'
41
Stow – the place with the funny name – was a drab little village.
'It's pronounced as in "cow" not as in "blow",' Mackie, a Borderer himself, explained to Martin.
They reached Stow just on 4:00 pm, after a forty-five-minute drive down the A7, the road from Edinburgh to Galashiels and the Borders heartland of rugby football. The place clearly offered no attractions to delay the northward flood of tourist traffic on the scenic route into Scotland.
The business base of 'Frank Adams, Theatrical Props', as the Yellow Pages listing read, was difficult to locate, even in such a pocket-sized community. Eventually, with the help of the subpostmistress, they found their quarry in a cluster of buildings which, Mackie guessed, had once been part of a small farm.
Before leaving Edinburgh they had checked out 'Frank Adams, Theatrical Props' as far as they could, using the Department of Social Security and the Inland Revenue as their starting points.
The business had only two staff; Francis Snowdon Adams, listed by the tax office as self-employed, and Hugh Minto Dickson.
Both were in their forties, with Adams three years the elder at forty-seven.
From a friendly bank manager, contacted through the DSS, they had learned that Mr Adams made acceptable annual profits from business contacts all around the UK. These were steady throughout the year, and peaked during August, and also over the Christmas season when the British pantomime craze was at its height. The company operated on a cash-and-carry basis. Mr Adams owned the premises, and his overheads were restricted to the two salaries, rates, heat and light, motor expenses, hotel costs arising from his buying and selling trips around the UK, stationery, including a modest catalogue, stock purchases and insurance. To the bank manager's certain knowledge, the last category included a substantial indemnity premium to cover death or injury to any customers arising from defective stock.
'Wise man, Mr Adams,' Martin had commented.
Although Adams lived in Lauder, a few miles away from Stow, the bank manager knew him well not only as a customer, but also as a neighbour. He had described him as a forthright man, with abiding interests in rugby football, golf and cricket, but little else.
He was also an avowed Conservative, who regarded nationalism and its exponents as 'just plain stupid'.
Hugh Dickson was employed as stock controller, dispatch clerk and book-keeper. He was exceptionally well paid, possibly – the bank manager surmised – due to the fact that he was Mr Adams' brother-in-law.
Neither man was personally extravagant, although Mr Dickson, who was single and lived in Stow rent-free in a cottage alongside the company's storage barns, was known to have a close relationship with the village pub. However, he was known most of all for his reluctance ever to leave Stow.
It was said that his last journey of more than one-anda-half miles had been to Galashiels by bus, eighteen months before, to buy clothes and Christmas presents for his sister, her husband his employer, and two nephews. Mr Adams and Mr Dickson enjoyed a cordial, proper relationship, but, said the bank manager, they could not be described as bosom companions.
Martin related all this account to Mackie as the Detective Inspector drove them southwards down the A7.
'From the sound of it.' said Skinner's personal assistant, 'we'll get nothing from these guys.'
'On the face of it, that's right, but maybe there's someone else in the chain that we don't know about, someone who fits in between them and the Aussies.'
Both men were taking a coffee.break in the company's small office, when Martin and Mackie arrived unannounced. Neither Adams not Dickson seemed in any way surprised by their visit.
Frank Adams stood up to greet them, shaking each by the hand, and making steady eye contact. He was a big man – not exceptionally tall, but big – with a hand that swallowed even Brian Mackie's oversized paw. As Martin looked at him, remembering his own rugby days, he guessed that once he might have been a member of the closed brotherhood of front-row forwards.
'We've been expecting you guys, after that thing last night,' said Adams. 'We supplied that company – but you'll know that already, I suppose.'
Dickson remained seated. Even in his chair he seemed dwarfed by his brother-in-law, yet he had that air of aggressive selfassurance that small men often adopt to compensate for their lack of size.
'Never under-estimate a wee man,' Skinner had said of Adam Arrow. "That one there'll kill you just as dead as anyone.' The words returned unbidden to Martin, as he returned Dickson's confident gaze. He switched his attention back to Adams.
'What exactly have you heard or read?'
'Only that the explosion happened on the stage itself, in midperformance. Nobody would leave a bomb just lying about, so it must have been planked somewhere.'
'You guessed right. Tell me about the radiogram you hired out to the Australians.'