Solo (Aka the Cretan Lover) (v5) (16 page)

'Just another drunken little Jock gone missing. Ring Sam at the club. Tell him I want the recovery team round here fast. I want this place clean by morning. They can dump him in the new Hendon bypass. There's five hundred tons of wet concrete a night pumping into those foundations. Thank God for progress. Now, help me into the car. You'll have to drive.'

Arnold did as he was told. 'I'm sorry, Harvey.' He was almost in tears.

'Never mind, Arnold. He was right. Put it all down to experience and forget it.'

He patted his brother on the cheek and fainted.

When they reached Douro Place, Morgan switched off the engine and turned to face her.

'I'm sorry about that.'

'No, you're not,' she said. 'You're a driven man, Asa, I see that now. You'll do anything to reach this mythical goal of yours. Pull anyone down with you as you nearly pulled me down tonight. And to what end? Are you any further forward?'

'No.'

'I've had it. You're too rich for my blood. I'm going straight in to pack and then I'm driving back to Cambridge - tonight.'

'If you're worried about what happened back there, don't be. The last thing Jago wants is police nosing around.'

'You mean he'll have no trouble disposing of the body? For God's sake, Asa, does that make it all right?'

She got out of the car and slammed the door. He stayed behind the wheel and pressed the button so that the that the electrically operated window slid down silently.

'I'm sorry, girl,' he said. 'But I've no choice, see?'

He started the engine and drove away. She stood there for quite a while, listening to the sound of the Porsche fade, then slowly, wearily, she went up the steps, fumbled for her key and got the door open.

10

It was raining heavily in the first grey light of dawn as Seumas Keegan went up the path to the back door of the cottage two miles outside Ballymena on the Antrim road. He was tired clean through to the bone and his right arm hurt like hell in spite of the white sling the doctor had given him.

Tim Pat Keogh had watched him approach from behind the kitchen curtain. Tully sat at the table by the fire eating bacon and eggs.

Tim Pat was holding a Sterling submachine-gun. He said, 'It's Keegan and he doesn't look too good. Shall I take him out?'

'Not yet,' Tully said. 'Let's see what he wants.'

Tim Pat opened the door. Seumas Keegan stood there, his face under the tweed cap pale and drawn, the old belted trenchcoat saturated by the heavy rain.

'Christ Jesus, but you look like a corpse walking.' Tim Pat said.

'Could I see Mr Tully?' Seumas asked.

Tim Pat pulled him into the kitchen and ran his hands over him expertly. He found a Colt automatic in the left-hand pocket of the trenchcoat and placed it on the table.

Tully kept on eating, looking the boy over at the same time. 'What do you want?'

'You said you could always use a good man, Mr Tully.'

Tully poured himself another cup of tea. 'What's wrong with your arm?'

Seumas glanced down at the sling. 'Broken, Mr Tully.'

'Now there's a thing,' Tully said. 'I mean, with a gun in your right hand, you were the best there was, O'Hagan always swore to that. But with your left, he said you couldn't hit a barn door.'

'A month or two, I'll be as good as new, Mr Tully, if you'd give me the chance.'

There was desperation on the boy's ravaged face now. Tully picked his teeth with a match. 'I don't think so, Seumas. To be honest with you, I'd say you could do with a long rest. Wouldn't you agree, Tim Pat?'

'I would indeed, Mr Tully.' Tim Pat smiled and cocked the Sterling.

Seumas stood there, shoulders hunched, head down for a moment, but when he looked up he was actually smiling.

'Somehow, that's what I thought you'd say, Mr Tully.'

He fired the Luger he was holding inside the sling, killing Tim Pat instantly.

As the big man's body was hurled back against the dresser, crockery cascading to the floor, Tully pulled at the drawer in the table, frantically reaching for the gun inside. Keegan's next shot took him in the left shoulder spinning him round, knocking him off the chair.

He crouched there for a moment, crying aloud in agony as he tried to get up. Keegan fired again, the bullet smashing into the base of Tully's skull, driving him head-first into the open hearth to sprawl across the burning logs.

There was a sudden spurt of flame as his jacket caught fire. Seumas stood there looking down at him for a moment, then turned and let himself out.

Morgan had tried going to bed but had slept only fitfully. Just after six, he gave up and went into the kitchen. He was making coffee when the phone rang. He could tell it was a public call box by the tone. There was the rattle of coins and then the ummistakable Ulster accent.

'Is that you, Colonel? This is Keegan - Seumas Keegan.'

'Where are you?'

'Not far from Ballymena. I thought you'd like to know I've just taken care of Tully and Tim Pat Keogh.'

'Permanently?'

'As the coffin lid closing.'

There was a silence. Morgan said, 'Now what?'

'I'll go down South for a rest.'

'And then?'

'What do you think, Colonel? Once in, never out. That's what we say in the IRA, you know that. You're a good man, but you're on the wrong side entirely.'

'I'll try to remember that next time we meet.'

'I hope for both our sakes that never happens.'

The phone went dead. Morgan stood there for a moment then replaced the receiver.

'Up the Republic, Seumas Keegan,' he said softly, then turned and went back into the kitchen.

He sat by the window, drinking his coffee, over-tired and depressed and not because he'd killed a man. There had been too many over the years for that. And he had no regrets. Ford was, after all, a murderer by profession.

'And so are you, old son,' Morgan said softly to himself in Welsh. 'Or, at least, that's what some people might argue.'

He thought of Kate Riley then and of what she had said. She'd been right. He was no further forward. He'd had two possible leads only. Lieselott Hoffmann and the Mausers. Both had led him only into blind alleys.

So, what was left? The newspapers, the magazines on the table, each with a different account of the Cohen shooting. How many times had he pored over them? He pulled the
Telegraph
forward and once again worked his way through the relevant article.

When he had finished, he poured another coffee and sat back. Of course, the one thing that was missing was the death of Megan in the tunnel, because the press had not been allowed to link the two events.

There was a mention, entirely separate, treating it as an ordinary hit and run accident in which the driver of a stolen car had run down a young schoolgirl and later abandoned the vehicle in Craven Hill Gardens, Bayswater.

It was with no particular emotion he realized that, for some reason, he hadn't actually visited the place where the Cretan had dumped the car. Not that there could be anything worth seeing. On the other hand, what else was there to do when you were at the final end of things at six o'clock on a wet, grey London morning?

He parked the Porsche in Craven Hill Gardens, and sat there with the Geographia map book of London on his knees, open at the relevant page, tracing the course of the Cretan's wild progress that night, imagining the panic as things had started to go wrong. And when he'd dumped the car, what then?

Morgan got out and started along the pavement, doing what seemed natural. He turned into Leinster Terrace and there only a few yards away, was the busy Bays-water Road, Kensington Gardens opposite.

'And that's where I'd have gone in your situation, boyo,' Morgan said. 'Straight across the road, head down in the darkness and run like hell to the other side.'

When he crossed the road, he made automatically for the nearest entrance and followed the path, passing the Round Pond on his right. In spite of the hour, there were people about, the occasional jogger in tracksuit or early-morning riser exercising a dog.

He emerged at Queen's Gate, opposite the Albert Hall. From here, anything was possible. The underground would have been the obvious place to make for. Once on a tube train, the possibilities were endless.

He went back across Kensington Gardens to the place where Leinster Terrace joined the Bayswater Road and paused, full of anger and frustration, unable to let go.

'You must have gone somewhere, you bastard,' he said softly. 'But where?'

He crossed the road and started to walk along the pavement towards Queensway. It was hopeless, of course, he knew that as he paused wearily at the Italian restaurant on the corner and lit a cigarette.

There were a number of posters on the wall beside the main window of the restaurant. It was the pale, handsome face that caught his attention first, the dark eyes and the name Mikali in bold black type.

He started to turn away but the coincidence made him turn again to read the poster, remembering that according to the file Baker had shown him, Mikali had been one of the celebrities present in the hotel at the Cannes Film Festival when the Cretan had shot the Italian film director for the Black Brigade.

And then he saw the date on the poster and the time. Friday 21 July 1972, at 8.00 p.m.

It wasn't possible, it was absolutely crazy and yet he found himself turning and hurrying back along the pavement to Leinster Terrace. He stood there for a moment, imagining the Cretan dumping the car and emerging here.

In the far distance, he could see the dome of the Albert Hall above the trees. He crossed the road quickly and plunged into the Park.

He went down the steps from the Albert Memorial, crossed Kensington Gore, dodging the early-morning traffic and paused outside the front entrance of the Albert Hall. There was a selection of posters on the boards, advertising various concerts and their programmes. Daniel Barenboim, Previn, Moura Lympany and John Mikali. The Vienna Philharmonic and John Mikali playing Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, Friday 21 July 1972 at 8.00 p.m.

'Oh, my God,' Morgan said aloud. 'This was where he was making for. It had to be. That's why he came through the Paddington tunnel. That's why he dumped the car in Bayswater.'

He turned and walked away quickly.

It was a nonsense and yet, when he got back to the flat, he started to go through those newspapers again. The facts of the Cohen shooting and Megan's death were both mentioned on different pages of the
Daily Telegraph
for Saturday the twenty second.

He found the music page and there it was. A lengthy piece by the paper's critic reviewing the concert of the previous evening and a picture of the pianist alongside.

Morgan studied it for quite some time. The handsome, serious face, the dark hair, the eyes. It was stupid, of course, but he went and got
Who's Who
from the bookshelf anyway and looked Mikali up. And then a couple of sentences seemed to leap right out at him - the reference to Mikali's service in the French Foreign Legion paratroopers in Algiers - and he didn't feel stupid any more.

*

It was just after nine when Bruno Fischer's secretary unlocked the door of his office in Golden Square and walked in. She'd hardly had time to get her coat off when the phone rang.

'Good morning,' she said. 'Fischer Agency.'

'Is Mr Fischer in yet?' It was a man's voice, rather deep with a touch of Welsh about it.

She sat on the edge of the desk. 'We never see Mr Fischer much before eleven.'

'I am right, he does represent John Mikali?'

'Yes.'

'My name's Lewis,' Asa Morgan told her. 'I'm a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music doing a thesis on contemporary concert pianists. I was wondering whether Mr Mikali might be available for an interview?'

'I'm afraid not,' she said. 'He's just had a concert in Helsinki, then flown straight to Greece on holiday. He has a villa there on Hydra.'

'And when might you be expecting him back?'

'He has a concert in Vienna in ten days' time, but he'd probably fly there direct from Athens. I really couldn't say when he'll be back in London and there wouldn't be any kind of guarantee that he could see you.'

'That's a pity,' Morgan said. 'I'd hoped to be able to question him about particular cities he likes to play in. Any personal favourites and why.'

'Paris,' she said. 'I should say he plays Paris and London more than anywhere else.'

'And Frankfurt?' Morgan inquired. 'Has he ever played there?'

'I should say so.'

'Why do you say that?'

'He was giving a concert at the university there last year when that East German minister was assassinated.'

'Thank you,' Morgan said. 'You've been more than helpful.'

He sat by the phone, thinking about it. There had to be something wrong. It was too simple. And then the phone rang.

Kate Riley said, 'Asa, I'm sorry. I was so shattered by what happened...'

'Where are you?'

'Back in Cambridge at New Hall.'

'Hell of a thing happened to me this morning,' he said. 'I visited the street where the Cretan dumped the car that night, moved on foot from there, as he might have done.'

'All supposition, of course.'

'But it took me across Kensington Gardens to the Albert Hall. Where I noticed a poster. One of many, but more interesting than the others, advertising a concert at eight o'clock on the night Megan died.'

'A concert?' She was aware of a coldness in her, a quickening of breath.

'John Mikali playing Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto and that name struck a chord. An Italian film director called Forlani was shot dead at the Cannes Film Festival in nineteen seventy-one in his hotel by the Cretan who vanished completely in spite of the French security guards. Mikali was one of a number of famous celebrities staying in the hotel at the same time.'

'Well?'

'Last year, when that East German minister was killed at Frankfurt, guess who was giving a concert at the university?'

She took a deep breath. 'Asa, this is nonsense. John Mikali is one of the greatest pianists in the world. An international celebrity.'

'Who spent two years in the Foreign Legion as a kid,' Morgan said. 'All right, so it doesn't sound very probable, but at least it's worth following up.'

'Have you spoken to Chief Superintendent Baker about your suspicions?'

'Have I hell. This is mine - nobody else's. I'm going to do some more checking. I'll keep you posted.'