‘What’s wrong Uncle Dan?’ she asked.
‘You mustn’t speak to strangers Carrie,’ said MacLean.
‘Sorry, Uncle Dan.’
MacLean’s mind was full of nightmare possibilities. He tried to eliminate them by considering a more ordinary one. The man lived locally; he was picking up his own child from school and had simply asked Carrie where her daddy was. MacLean wasn’t convinced. He moved on to the darker ones. The man was some kind of weirdo who hung around school playgrounds. The third possibility loomed like a black cloud across the sun. It said that the man was from Lehman Steiner. They had found him.
‘Are you all right, Uncle Dan?’ Carrie asked.
MacLean looked at her and tried to smile reassuringly. ‘What did this man look like Carrie?’ he asked.
‘Old.’
Anything over eighteen, thought MacLean. ‘Can you tell me any more?’
‘He was a bit like Uncle George,’ said Carrie thoughtfully.
‘And what is Uncle George like?’
‘Important,’ said Carrie.
‘Important?’
‘Uncle George is in charge of pots of money. Mummy told me. He works in a bank.’
The man was wearing a suit and a tie, thought MacLean. That did not automatically make him one of Leavey’s ‘professionals’ but it certainly didn’t rule it out.
MacLean felt as if his limbs were weighed down with lead as he walked along the towpath behind Carrie. He couldn’t concentrate on anything the child was saying. Self-recrimination played a major role. He had foolishly allowed himself to start believing that a new life was possible and now he was going to have to pay for such stupidity. The merest suspicion that he had been found by Lehman Steiner meant that he would have to leave Tansy and Carrie immediately. They would be in great danger if he stayed and they had come to mean so much to him. Idiot! He should have known better.
Carrie stopped to look down into the water again and MacLean watched her. This would be their last expedition together. The dreams he had begun to nurture about being around to see her grow up had turned to nothing. The love he had come to feel for Tansy was just a cruel quirk of fate, one last twist of the knife. He would have to be on his way and soon.
Carrie knew that something was wrong. She didn’t know what but that was usually the way with grown-ups, she had found. They went quiet and didn’t seem to hear what you said. MacLean had not been involving himself in her discoveries like he usually did. He had not even bothered to look at what she had in the jar and he kept looking at his watch.
Carrie felt uneasy. She wanted to cry but didn’t because she didn’t know what for. She didn’t protest when MacLean said that it was time to turn back but she didn’t run on ahead as usual. She stayed beside MacLean and took his hand, looking up at his face from time to time, hoping to find a smile of reassurance. MacLean was aware of the warmth of Carrie’s hand in his. He wanted the moment to last. He was filled with sadness and anger.
Tansy turned round from the sink where she had been peeling potatoes and prepared herself to meet Carrie’s verbal onslaught but it didn’t materialise. Carrie smiled but said nothing as she put her jar down on the kitchen table. Tansy looked to MacLean for answers but found only darkness there. The water from her wet hands dripped on the floor as she waited for him to say something.
MacLean asked Carrie to put the fishing nets away in the garden hut and she complied without saying anything. As soon as she went outside MacLean told Tansy about the man on the canal bank. Tansy searched for innocent explanations but MacLean’s face told her that he feared the worst. ‘I must go,’ he said, ‘You and Carrie could be in great danger.’
Tansy’s eyes were shining with frustration as she tried to find an argument, ‘You can’t just disappear from our lives,’ she said. ‘There must be another way. You don’t know for sure that this man is who you think he is.’
Carrie returned and caused the conversation to stop. Tansy held MacLean’s eyes in a silent plea. Carrie joined in the silence and Tansy turned to her and asked her to put away her raincoat and Wellingtons. Carrie did as she was bid, again without saying anything.
‘Aren’t we worth fighting for MacLean?’ said Tansy.
MacLean looked troubled. ‘That’s not the point,’ he began but Tansy interrupted him, ‘That is exactly the point! You should at least find out who this man is before you ride off into the sunset like some self-sacrificing martyr. Don’t we matter to you?’
‘Of course you do,’ snapped MacLean, needled by what Tansy said.
‘Then find this man! Find out who and what he is. Even if he turns out to be one of your “professionals” you are a match for him; you said so yourself. Fight MacLean! Don’t just run away! Fight for us!’
MacLean was wavering. Tansy had got through to him. ‘But the danger to you and Carrie… ‘ he protested.
‘We’ll take the chance if you will. We mean a lot to each other, wouldn’t you say?’
‘An awful lot,’ said MacLean.
‘Good,’ said Tansy, eyes still shining with emotion. ‘Where do we begin?’
All vestige of suicidal complacency left MacLean. Tansy and Carrie wanted him as much as he wanted them. He would find this man and find out just who the hell he was and if he should turn out to be from Lehman Steiner… God help him.
Tansy had expected MacLean to go out and start looking but instead, he played a waiting game. If the man was who he feared he was there was no doubt that he would come to him. He would bide his time.
The loft of the bungalow had been converted into two rooms. One, Carrie’s bedroom had a dormer window. MacLean decided that this would be the best place to keep vigil from. He moved the bed over to the window and positioned it so he could lie along it and keep watch on the garden. If anyone was interested in the bungalow and its occupants they would have to approach from that side. He steeled himself to lie there until dark if necessary.
In the event MacLean had been keeping watch for just over two hours when he saw a movement in the trees. He felt his muscles tense but didn’t move in case he altered some reflection in the window which would alert the intruder. The top half of a man appeared from behind one of the conifers outside the garden fence. MacLean made mental notes. He was around five ten with dark hair, a swarthy complexion and was wearing a dark business suit. He had come from the right side of the tree, holding back the branches with his left hand; he was possibly left-handed.
There was no need to ask Carrie to confirm that this was the man she had seen at school. The mere fact that he had come to the house told MacLean that his worst fears were being realised. Lehman Steiner had found him. He remained perfectly still until the man had moved back into the undergrowth then he moved quickly. He had the initiative; he mustn’t lose it.
MacLean ran downstairs and gripped Tansy lightly by the shoulders. He told her to keep Carrie inside, lock the door behind him and do nothing until he had returned. He checked the gun and put it back in his inside pocket. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins. He didn’t say anything more to Tansy nor she to him. Tansy closed the door behind him and locked it. She rested her forehead on it for a moment, breathing unevenly because of fear, until she became aware of Carrie looking up at her. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘Come help me in the kitchen.’
MacLean ran swiftly to the bottom of the garden and vaulted the fence. He dropped to his knees and listened, holding his breath so that he would not miss anything. He heard movement somewhere ahead of him and guessed at twenty metres. Good! If he had heard nothing there would have been a different game to play, a game, which said that the opposition was waiting to see if he was being followed. There was no reason to believe that the man would have any reason to suspect this but MacLean considered every possibility. The stakes were very high. The comforting snap of twigs up ahead told him that he was still holding all the aces in this encounter.