The Green Flash (41 page)

‘It might be a pity if I became a widow before all the shine had worn off.'

‘You were threatening me with a knife not long ago.'

‘Metaphorical one.'

‘They can wound.'

She said: ‘You'll never take that job, will you? You know that.'

‘What job?'

She sipped her wine. ‘You're a born loser, David … No, that's not it. You're a loser from choice. That's about the truth.'

‘I won you,' I said.

II

We sat in Van's little Morris.

I said: ‘You've seen the place. Now we've seen it together. Could you get in?'

‘Course. A piece of cake.'

‘How?'

‘Cut the wire. Or over the top with a rope ladder.'

‘There are lights.'

‘Not all round. You can see where they don't reach.'

‘And the building?'

‘One way or another. Windows break easy and quiet. But I'd like a go at the door. That's more my line. Can't see what sort of lock it is even with the binocs. But I doubt if they'd have it on a chain.'

‘Any sign of alarms?'

‘Nothink I can spot.'

‘Or dogs?'

‘Nah. Wouldn't want to be too conspicuous, would they?'

I said: ‘We've got to keep it in our tiny minds that this is not a break-in in search of plunder. All we want is information and maybe a sample or two of what we've found.'

‘I get.'

‘Does Coral know what you're up to?'

‘She knows I'm helping you.'

‘I suppose you realize it wouldn't look too good if a couple of old lags like you and me were caught breaking and entering.'

‘I'd lay a flyer you'd talk your way out of it.'

‘Don't rely on that. You've been on the narrow for a good many years now, and it would be a pity to spoil the record, wouldn't it?'

‘Same applies to you, guv.'

‘I know. But it's different for me.'

‘How?'

‘Can't explain.' I thought of Erica's challenge to me. Was I a born loser? Was I a loser from choice? Or a sham? Did I care about my own life? Intermittently, yes. I said: ‘Look, it may be enough to shine a light through the windows, if we can spot something incriminating. That would suit me best because we might even do the job then without letting anyone know we've been in.'

‘Not with me and the wire clippers, guv.'

‘Then let's go over the top.'

‘OK.'

I thought for a minute. ‘In any event they may suppose we're just land pirates looking for a quick touch and scared off before taking much. Sure the fence isn't wired up?'

‘Not sure, but fairly sure. I'd a good look when I bent to tie me shoelace at the gates.'

‘Well, we'll have to take the chance. Are you all right now? Head all right?'

‘Gawd yes. Right as I'll ever be.'

‘It was a full moon last week. By Thursday there'll be nothing but a sliver rising late. It should be as good a time as any.'

‘Suits me.'

III

Thursday Shona was not yet back from Vienna. It had been a busy day because the firm had gone in for extensive advertising over a free gift of a beauty pochette with every two or more Shona purchases, the pochette to contain Satin lipstick, handbag mirror, and Bio-E cream, ‘especially created to feed dehydrated skins'. Some of the big stores in the provinces were moaning that the advertising had been too successful and they were running dry of the Special Offer. It would, only have meant more emergency supplies being ferried around by our reps except for the fact that the handbag mirrors hadn't all come in, so there might be a shortfall for a couple of days. Anyway we did our best and I was still able to get home early, carrying a bag with a black sweater in it and a skullcap and a black silk stocking. These and a pair of old evening trousers and fencing shoes would make a reasonable fancy dress.

Erica was in a mood again. She had been reading about the departure of the various teams for the Moscow Olympics. I knew bloody well that for the next month there'd be practically nothing else to read in the papers.

She didn't ask what was in the bag, but when I came back from the spare room she said: ‘ There's a letter for you. Came by this afternoon's post.'

The postmark was Ross and Cromarty. It was from, of all people, my aunt:

Dear David,

You will perhaps be surprised to receive a letter from me, for we have not seen eye to eye on the majority of important subjects since we met. But now that you are married and have a charming wife and will no doubt soon have children, I felt I should bring up the subject of the family medals. There are, as I expect you may appreciate, since we have taken part in many wars over the last four centuries, quite a number of these – including one VC – and of course not only medals but battle souvenirs of many kinds. They make an impressive and historic array which I think cannot fail to move anyone with any pride of family in their blood.

When first Malcolm died and then your uncle, who willed no other disposition of them, I had thought of leaving these souvenirs to one of the museums in Edinburgh. When I met you first, you made it plain you were not interested in the family as such; but it could be that you would eventually like them – when I die – to hand on to your son. The unfortunate circumstances of the quarrel in our family will not concern him, and he might come to treasure them for all the history and the bravery and the sacrifice that they bring to mind.

If you are at Wester Craig sometime, you and Erica might call to see them and then let me know. There is, I imagine, no hurry.

Erica was helping herself to another vodka and tonic, but I put the letter on the table and she read it while sipping her drink.

She said: ‘What have you done about that offer for Wester Craig?'

‘Turned it down.'

‘You don't really want to sell the place, do you?'

‘Not to give it away, no.'

‘You can still have the money for the repairs if you want it.'

‘Thanks. You're very generous about that.'

She put the drink away in record time. ‘What you can't have, you know, my pet, is an heir.'

‘Who said I wanted one?'

‘I got the feeling that you were thinking, now the little woman has been cheated out of her fancy sport she can settle down into a comfortable
Hausfrau
, breeding and feeding children and spreading her hips and smelling of milk and nappies. It's what the chauvinist man wants, isn't it?'

‘I'll make a note of it in my diary.'

She said: ‘Come and fence for a bit, get the cobwebs out of your hair.'

‘Not with you in that mood. You'd prick your bottom sitting on the point.'

‘You think I'm drunk?'

‘Not really. But over the breathalyser limit.'

‘Rubbish.' She stared at me for a long moment. ‘How's Shona?'

‘She's in Vienna.'

‘Didn't take you this time?'

‘Didn't take me.'

‘You don't care for me at all now, do you.'

It was half joke, half serious, the way people in their cups can get, even slender pretty girls with clean limbs and fine features. You don't know which of two people you're talking to.

In the end I said: ‘I like you better off the booze.'

‘I meant what I said, you know.'

‘About what?'

‘Not giving you an heir. First, I don't want children. Who'd want to bring children into this lousy world? Having babies these days is a form of pollution … Anyway from your latest performances I doubt if you could produce one … But second you couldn't ever produce one on me.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘I had a steamy affair with a layabout called Edward Cromer. Remember? Well, I became pregnant. Horror of horrors, just when I was building up my fencing points. So I decided to lose it. I lost it. Something went wrong. With the op, you know. Result: I can't have any more. It doesn't worry me, of course. But I just thought I'd tell you in case you were having the same thoughts as Auntie.'

I took the vodka bottle out of her hand, ‘Scout's honour?'

‘Scout's honour. If you want the dreary details ask Shona. She knows all about it.'

IV

It was a draughty night, with a cold wind blowing up the Thames and an occasional spat of rain. After the hot weather of last week it didn't feel like summer.

But maybe better for nefarious purposes. If you want to break into a seedy warehouse you don't need a nightingale singing over the Dagenham mudflats. As it happened, in my chequered career as a public enemy, this and the little foray we'd made into Bickmaster's flat were the only times I'd ever done any breaking and entering. I was stepping out of my league. Conmen don't climb fences.

Which is what we were preparing to do now. Wire clippers might be easier; but I knew the whole foray would be a much greater success if no one knew we'd been in. Although there was no sign of any wired alarms, there might be some sort of signal relayed to the warehouse if the fence circuit was broken. My own bet was that they were wary of alarms because alarms go off in error sometime or another and they didn't at all want packs of flatfoots arriving in patrol cars. You try to read the mind of the enemy, and that was the way I read it.

So we'd brought rope ladders.

Van had done a good bit of looking around in the last two nights, and he said that there were two guards who spent most of their time in the warehouse in a room at the back, and who came out as regular as clockwork every hour on the hour and paced the perimeter. So just after three o'clock would do nicely. I'd never worn a stocking mask before, but Van advised it.

Three days ago I'd bought a small but expensive Japanese flash camera and had annoyed Erica by trying it out around the house. It bulged now in the back pocket of my evening trousers.

The fence was about ten feet high and bent outwards at the top. Van had chosen a place near the corner of the perimeter where a black shadow from the arc lights was cast by a tree. He threw the first ladder up a couple of times and it soon caught. With the other ladder under one arm and carrying his small professional bag, he clambered wobbling to the top and threw the end of the other ladder into the compound. He went down. I followed him and pulled the first ladder up to the top, rolled it up there and propped it against a stay where it would unfurl easily when we needed it to return.

Stocking masks are stuffy things. We went up to the tree. From there it was about fifty feet to the door of the building. We crossed the semi-darkness and came to the door.

There had been no way of knowing beforehand what the lock was going to be. Van peered at it and grunted and fiddled a bit.

‘Five minutes,' he said.

‘I'll look in at one or two of the windows,' I said.

‘Watch your torch.'

I slid round the building, peered in, flicked, the torch a couple of times. ‘Ask Shona,' she said, ‘if you want the dreary details. She knows all about it.' You could see boxes in here, some open, but it all looked more like machinery than perfume. ‘She knows all about it. Scout's honour.' Another window. Workbench studded with bottles, but too big for our stuff. More the size of lung tonic, hair restorer, etc. ‘ Scout's honour.' You're telling me.

A couple of cars droned past, and I flattened against the wall. I tried a third window but this had Venetian blinds and they were down. Back to Van.

‘Progress?'

‘Yeah. Take a bit longer than I was reckoning.'

Three fifteen. Plenty of time if the guards kept to routine. Stand against the wall and think of your wife. Think of an elegant blonde girl, tense, excitable, full of fun and full of spite. Jolly, vital, jokey, tongue barbed like an adder. Think of the Russian bitch, planning everything, influencing, suggesting, knowing the ultimate end of the
mésalliance
, the darkness and the frustration. Think of your broken-down inheritance and of the general nastiness of human nature.

‘These locks get ever so fancy,' said Van. ‘Thank Christ there's no chain.'

Stand against a knobby wall, its bumps pressing into your back, dressed like a bank robber, like a clown, like a gatecrasher at a fancy-dress party. What the hell are you doing it for? Not for anybody you could name. Certainly not for the Russian bitch. Maybe you're not here, it's just an illusion, like those damned dreams of locked cupboards and drunken men with straps. Are you growing out of that or growing into something worse?

‘OK,' said Van, and we were in.

Corridor, doors, divisions. This was machinery all right, nothing to do with Shona or Chanel. Might have come out of a car – or be going into one. Gears, time switches, air valves; you could hazard a guess. The cases in here looked well travelled – as if they'd contained the machinery, not that they were going to contain it.

‘Where are the guards?'

‘First floor back.'

I took out the camera; four snaps of the machinery.

‘Flashes'll show through the windows,' said Van.

We went into a longer room, probably used in the daytime for making up stuff. This was more like it. Benches, pulleys, labels, cartons, a printing press in a corner. Labels all blank but I found some unattached ones marked Lancôme.
Click, click
. Were Lancôme a group that ever farmed out their products?

Next room half empty. Cases of whisky in a corner. Proprietary brands: White Horse, Haig, Teacher. My father's dream room. In the corridor outside, stacks of Best Friend Dog Foods.

Stairs.

‘Look around down here,' I said to Van. ‘If there's anything you can pocket easily, grab it. I'm going to see what's up here.'

‘The guards for one thing,' said Van.