The Ring of Death (21 page)

‘That seems more than reasonable, my dear Chief Inspector,' Forsyth said, taking his defeat gracefully.

Mike Traynor stood under the bridge, looking down at the brackish water. If he'd had any real empathy with history, he could have been thinking that this was, in many ways, one of the most poignant spots in the whole of Whitebridge. For it was along this now-lonely canal that scores of barges had once travelled, bringing bales of cotton to the mills and taking away the cloth that the mill workers had produced from it. If he'd had an ounce of poetry in his soul, he might have seen the stagnation of the canal as a symbol of the wider stagnation which had overtaken the whole town. But he had no interest in either history or poetry. And instead of
thinking
at all, he was busy
nursing
a sense of grievance over the fact that, instead of meeting in a cosy pub, Ted Walker had selected this grim spot for their rendezvous.

He saw Detective Inspector Walker coming along the towpath with a folder under his arm.

‘And about time!' he thought.

‘Evening, Mike,' Walker said, as he drew level.

‘You sound bloody cheerful,' Traynor complained.

‘You will, as well, in a minute or two,' Walker told him. He held up the folder for the journalist to see. ‘What I have in here, Michael, is a nice little earner for me, and a nice little scoop for you.'

‘A nice little scoop for me,' Traynor repeated sceptically. ‘Do you know how many
real
scoops there are around?'

‘Very few, I should imagine, or they wouldn't be scoops at all. But they do exist – this is undoubtedly one of them.'

‘Anyway, however good it is, we're
already
too late to catch tonight's edition,' Traynor said peevishly.

‘Indeed we are,' Walker agreed, his good humour unabated. ‘But then this story would be wasted on a nasty little provincial rag like the
Lancashire Chronicle
. This, my friend, is a story for the nationals.'

Traynor felt his hands start to itch.

‘Let me see it,' he said, reaching out.

Walker jerked the folder away. ‘Before I show it to you, we should talk about how much you're going to have to pay for it,' he said.

‘How can we possibly do that before I even know what the bloody story's about?'

‘I've been thinking about what it's worth,' Walker continued, as if the other man hadn't spoken, ‘and I've decided I'd like two hundred quid for it.'

‘Two hundred quid?' Traynor repeated. ‘Are you mad? Have you gone completely off your head?'

‘No, I leave that sort of thing to DS Cousins, who's much better suited to it,' Walker said. ‘The reason I fixed on that amount is that I reckon you can sell the story to the nationals for at least twice that – or maybe even more. But I'm not a greedy man by nature, so I'll settle for the two hundred smackers.'

Traynor licked his lips, and discovered that they'd suddenly gone very dry. ‘It must be one hell of a story,' he said.

‘It
is
one hell of a story,' Walker agreed.

The policeman wouldn't try to con him, Traynor thought.

Not for two hundred quid.

Not when they had an ongoing business relationship.

‘All right, you'll get your money,' he agreed. ‘But if the story's not as good as you say it is, I'll expect a discount on the next one you give me.'

Walker smiled complacently.

‘Read the story and tell me what you think,' he said, handing the journalist the folder.

Traynor opened it, and flicked through the contents. Then he read it again, much more slowly, this time.

‘Bloody hell, if this is true, it's a dynamite story,' he said when he'd finished. Then a concerned look came to his face. ‘But
is
it true?' he continued.

Walker's smile widened.

‘No,' he said.

‘Then what the bloody hell do you think you're doing wasting my time with this piece of crap?' Traynor asked angrily.

‘It's not true
now
,' Walker said, ‘but by the time the story's published it
will be
true.'

EIGHTEEN

W
hen it happened, it happened so quickly that if DC Jack Crane had blinked, he might well have missed it.

One moment, Crane was sitting in the lobby of the Royal Victoria – pretending to read the newspaper and deciding that since Forsyth had gone straight up to his suite after consuming his large and expensive meal in the Balmoral Restaurant, the spy was probably bedded down for the night.

The next moment Forsyth himself appeared, crossed the lobby, and stepped out on to the street.

Crane glanced down at the sweeping second hand of his watch. He'd give it a minute before he set off in pursuit, he told himself. For caution's sake, a minute was the least he should allow.

But how long that minute seemed to be lasting!

How listlessly that hand on his watch seemed to be performing its duty!

His resolution broke down after forty-five seconds, and as the hand reached fifty, he was at the exit.

Even with the broken resolution, he had almost left it too late – because the doorman had the door of a Rover 2000 held open, and Forsyth was already climbing into the driver's seat.

‘I didn't even know he
had
a bloody car,' Crane thought.

‘No, you didn't, did you?' sneered a malevolent voice from another part of his brain. ‘But you should have made it your business to bloody
find out
.'

The doorman closed the car door, Forsyth started the engine, and the Rover pulled away from the kerb.

Crane – forcing himself to walk at a leisurely pace – made his way towards his Vauxhall Victor, which was parked a little way further down the road.

‘Thank God that I at least had it pointing in the right direction,' he thought, as he slipped behind the wheel and fired up the ignition.

He joined a stream of vehicles which was moving with typical downtown sluggishness. Looking ahead of him, he saw, with increasing panic, that there was no sign of Forsyth.

This was the first really
independent
assignment that the boss had given him, he reminded himself – and he'd fallen before he'd even reached the first post.

How would he explain that to her?

Would she blame him?

And what were the chances of her ever allowing him to work on his own again?

When he caught sight of the Rover, held up by a red traffic light on Market Street, he let out a huge sigh of relief.

It was going to be all right!

He hadn't blown it!

What was important now was to let the boss know exactly what was going on. He picked up his radio, pressed the right button, and waited for the reassuringly competent voice of someone in Whitebridge Police Headquarters.

There
was
no reassuringly competent voice.

There wasn't even a static crackle to offer him a little hope that there might be one eventually.

‘You bastard!' he shouted at the radio. ‘You bloody useless bastard!'

But so what if he was on his own, he asked himself, calming down a little.

Did that really matter?

It was now ten thirty-seven and Forsyth couldn't possibly be going
too
far at this time of night.

It did not take long for him to realize how wrong that supposition had been. Forsyth was not heading for the centre of the town – as a man in search of a late-night drink, or a late-night prostitute, might have been. Instead he was driving towards the ring road.

It was a quarter to eleven by the time the Rover 2000 and its tail reached the A677.

The road was still busy at that hour. Carloads of middle-aged drinkers were returning from expeditions to isolated country pubs. Married couples were heading home, after spending the evening with one of their families. Heavy-goods lorries were setting out on overnight runs, and an ambulance – having completed a mad dash to the hospital – tootled sedately along on the journey back to its base.

Crane slid his Vauxhall Victor into the space between a Mini and a blue builder's van. He was perhaps a hundred yards behind Forsyth's Rover, and as long as the traffic remained as thick as it was now, he was reasonably sure he could stay undetected.

‘But what happens if the bloody traffic starts to thin out?' he worried, as the A677 joined the A59 at Whalley. ‘And, even worse, what happens if Forsyth decides to turn off the main road and go down a minor one instead?'

If Forsyth did
do that, there'd be no choice but to follow him, the detective constable decided.

But it wouldn't be easy – without the protective covering of other vehicles – to remain unnoticed. In fact, on the scale of suspicious behaviour, driving along a country lane – late at night, and in an area you probably weren't familiar with – ranked quite highly.

What was it the boss had said?

Something like, ‘
Forsyth's not that kind of spy. He's never been one of the pieces on the chessboard of espionage. He's the bastard who moves the pieces around. He wouldn't spot a KGB agent if he had his rank tattooed on his forehead – and I doubt he'll spot a fresh-faced young detective constable, either.
'

Yes, that sounded all very well –
in theory
.

But how good a spy did Forsyth have to
be in order to spot the fact that a car was following him up a road to the arse-end of nowhere?

Crane tried the radio again – pressing down on the button so hard that his thumb hurt – but the sodding machine was still refusing to cooperate.

As they were approaching the boundary of Clitheroe, Forsyth indicated that he was intending to turn off the main road, just as Crane had feared he might.

He had no option but to increase the distance between them, Crane decided, as he flickered the intention to turn himself. That meant, of course, that he was running the risk of losing his quarry – but at least it was dark now, and Forsyth's lights would provide some help in keeping track of him.

The road Forsyth had chosen to take was indeed a country lane – quite a narrow one, with high hedgerows either side, and drainage ditches running along its edges. Crane didn't know where it went, though from its general direction he supposed it must be leading towards the moors.

But why the hell would Forsyth want to go anywhere near the moors at that time of night?

Well, there was only way to find out.

Forsyth was driving slowly – almost as if he wished to make the detective constable's job easier for him – and there was a real danger they would soon be bumper to bumper.

Crane slowed down to a halt. He reached into the Victor's glove compartment and took out a map.

As he studied it, he began to count, ‘One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .'

By the time he had reached ‘thirty', he had both familiarized himself with the map and given Forsyth time to get well ahead of him. He could no longer see the Rover's back lights, but he was not unduly worried by that. All it meant was the car had turned a bend. On this road, the man couldn't lose him by making an unexpected turn – because, as the map clearly showed, there was nothing for him to turn into.

It was growing dark outside, and Edward Dunston – who had been nervously gazing through his lounge window for over two hours – fretted about what that might mean in terms of his own survival.

Would the man who had rung him up with the rescue plan see the onset of darkness as an opportunity to put that plan into action, he wondered desperately.

Or would the men who the would-be rescuer said were watching the house choose that moment to swoop down on him?

‘I wish you'd tell me what's worrying you, Edward,' said Mary Dunston, from the other side of the room.

She sounded very calm – eerily calm – at that moment, but he knew it wouldn't last. In the hours which had passed since the phone call, her mood had swung from the hysterical to the numb, and then back again.

She had begged him to allow her to call the doctor, or the police – or
anybody
. He had refused each time. He was putting his faith in the man who had called him – because he didn't see he had any choice.

‘We are married, you know,' Mary said. ‘And a problem shared is a problem halved.'

‘For God's sake, can't you just shut up, you stupid bitch!' Dunston said angrily.

Mary started to sob softly to herself.

He wanted to turn round and comfort her, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. The only suffering he could handle at that moment was his own, he told himself – and he was not even making a particularly good job of that.

How had he allowed this to happen, he wondered.

Whatever had possessed him to put himself in a position in which, after over twenty years of happy – if unexciting – marriage, he could find it so easy to be brutal to his wife?

It wasn't his fault, he argued.

What he'd done would have passed without comment a hundred years earlier.

Jesus, a hundred years earlier, he'd have been rubbing shoulders with lords and clergymen while he did it!

But perhaps he wouldn't have found it so enticing back then. Perhaps it was the very illegality of the act – and the frisson of danger which accompanied it – which had so attracted him in the first place.

‘Whatever it is you've done, Edward, tell me about it,' Mary said, in a choked voice. ‘Tell me about it, and we'll face it together.'