The streetlamps threw meagre pools of light onto the cobbles and I ran between them, bent over, across the road and down into the ditch on the far side. I was about three hundred yards away from the gates and the watchman’s shed when I took the wire cutters from the bag and snipped at the steel wire fence, folding it back like curtains and crawling through, hidden by the long, uncut grass.
I made my way along the inside of the fence, still keeping low because I would still be visible from the road until I reached the area where I remembered the Nissen huts to be. There was only one lamppost and the Nissens loomed darkly, with little to distinguish one from another. I didn’t want to use the bicycle lamp out in the open and it took me five minutes to find the sign Barnier and Clement. The front door was reasonably solid, but this was an office rather than a store, and the padlock that secured the door fell away with a sniff of the crowbar. I caught the padlock before it hit the ground and let myself into the Nissen.
Normally, I would have switched the lights on: a fully illuminated room attracts less attention than a torch flashing around; but out here in the dark of the warehouse area, switching the lights on would have been as inconspicuous as a lighthouse on a clear night.
The offices seemed pretty much as I had seen them when I had called and asked to see Barnier. I went over to the filing cabinets and was soon saying a little appreciative prayer for Miss Minto. Her filing was meticulous and easy to follow. It took me only twenty minutes to find what I was looking for: a ship’s manifest order and duplicates of a ship’s insurers claim form with a Lloyd’s Register stamp on it.
I smiled. The last thing Barnier would have wanted was for an insurance claim to be put in, but this had to be seen as a scrupulously legitimate business.
I laid the manifest on the desk and shone the bicycle lamp on it, running my finger down the list of items. There it was, as bold and innocent as could be:
ITEM 33a. 12 VIET KYLAN NEPHRITE JADE FIGURINES. CRATED. DESTINATION: SANTORNO ANTIQUES AND CURIOS, GREENWICH, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Except there were only eleven now. KYLAN. When I had first turned up without an appointment, Miss Minto had thought I was there about the ‘ key lan ’. And they weren’t Chinese. They were Kylan, not Chinese Qilin. They were Viet, from French Indochina. Alain Barnier was an established importer from the Far East, exactly the kind of link that John Largo needed in his supply chain. Except now Barnier was a weak link. Taking notepad and pencil from my bag, I wrote down the details of the shipment, put all the paperwork back in the files and the files back in the cabinet.
I heard a sound outside.
I killed the light from the bicycle lamp and crouched down. Grabbing my sap from the bag, I scuttled under the lidded reception counter to the door. There was a small window next to it and, pressing myself against the wall, I stole a peek through the window. I saw the watchman’s back as he walked through the pool of light from the lamppost and out of sight. I waited for several minutes, straining my neck to watch through the window, before deciding it was safe to put my sap back in the bag, go back to the files and switch the lamp back on.
Barnier was my way to Largo. If I kept tabs on the Frenchman, there was a chance he would lead me to Largo. Or at least take me a step closer. I needed an address. Again I blessed homely, unfriendly Miss Minto, who had channelled all of the sexual and social frustration of the spinster into a fanatical efficiency. Her address book was not tabulated or indeed a proper address book. Instead it was a hardcovered notebook into which she had written all of the company’s most important contacts. It was impressively obsessive: not a name was out of perfect alphabetical order. Barnier lived some distance out of town on the Greenock Road, in Langbank. He was on the telephone and I noted both address and ’phone number. I found myself wondering about the mysterious M. Clement, and after I got the address of the Barnier et Clement French office in Cours Lieutaud, Marseille, I looked up and found the name Clement: Claude Clement lived somewhere called Allauch. I wrote down both addresses and put my notebook back in the bag. A worthwhile night’s work.
It was just as I had put everything back in my bag that I heard the footsteps outside the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I had already switched off the bicycle lamp and put it back in my bag. I dropped down behind Miss Minto’s desk and tucked myself into the knee-hole. There was no point in trying to go out through the door: whoever it was I had heard was out there. Again, I played out all my options in my head. It could simply have been the watchman again, making a second round of this part of the bonded area; or it could have been that the watchman had noticed the missing padlock and twisted bar on the door and had called the police.
I slowly unzipped my holdall. Just enough to put my hand in and rummage around until I found my sap. This was potentially a situation where I couldn’t win; if it was the elderly watchman, I’d have to use my sap judiciously. Too hard a blow and I’d end up facing a murder charge. Added to which, although I had an unpleasant propensity towards violence, I avoided using it against the totally innocent. If it turned out to be a copper, then I’d have to hit him hard and run for it. Hitting a City of Glasgow copper usually turned out to be a much more painful experience for the attacker; the boys in blue liked to hold a little reception for you in the station. Allegedly, it normally involved being stripped naked and wrapped in a soaking wet blanket. For some physiological reason beyond my ken, the wet blanket stopped bruising when twenty or so Highland lads set in about you with their boots and truncheons. The second painful element came judicially: police assault usually combined a prison sentence with corporal punishment. The birch. You would be tied to a table and thrashed with some dried foliage. Quaintly traditional but incredibly painful.
I considered my options and huddled beneath the desk. I heard the door opening. A torch probed the recesses of the Nissen hut for a moment. It switched off and the neon strip light above me fizzed and crackled into life.
‘You was right, Billy.’ The voice had a Highland lilt to it. A copper. Option two. I guessed ‘Billy’ was the elderly night watchman. ‘Someone’s broken the lock.’
A pause. I remained absolutely still beneath the desk, controlling my breathing, ignoring the thunder of my heartbeat in my ears. All my time in Glasgow, I had avoided being charged with a criminal offence. I would do time for this. Unless I dealt with the copper and the night watchman.
‘All right…’ the unseen Highlander called out into the Nissen hut. ‘This is the police. I know that you’re in here.’ No you don’t, I thought… I could tell from the tone of his voice. ‘Show yourself now and don’t make any bother.’
Silence. I sat tight and silent. The sap was gripped so tight in my hand that I could feel the heartbeat in my fingers keeping time with the pulse in my ears.
‘Come on now… let’s not be having any silliness…’ Again the voice had the sound of someone who thought they were speaking to an empty room. I heard wood on wood: the lid on the reception counter folding over. He would be stepping through it, his baton drawn. Scottish police batons were made of Caribbean lignum vitae — one of the densest and strongest woods on the planet. Bone-crackingly and muscle-deadeningly hard. Whatever I did, I was going to have to avoid a blow to the head. I heard his boots now. He was at the desk in front of mine. He moved forward. One step. Two. His breathing, slow and deliberate. Not frightened. He moved something around. A chair or something. Three. Four. He was next to my desk, but couldn’t see me. Yet.