Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

‘And this is your farm?’

‘Yes, although I do not really farm in the accepted sense. What I produce here – eggs, milk, a few vegetables – is solely for my own use. I am self-sufficient. The farm and its flora are my recreation, do you understand? Botany is my life. This is not a profitable venture, if that is what you thought. I don’t believe there is any profit to be made from this land.’

‘That is an interesting story,’ Ram said, unsmiling, his voice a shade harder still. ‘It is well told and indeed almost convincing.’

The old man frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Is it not true, Dr Vyas – if that is your name – that this farm, these very premises, are used for the briefing of drug couriers before they set out to make their deliveries?’

‘I don’t understand …’

‘I said it plainly enough, didn’t I?’

‘Please,’ the old man said, ‘there is no need to raise your voice, I am happy to co-operate with you, but your accusations are so wild, so fantastic–’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me!’

Now the old man looked frightened. Philpott came forward, slipping into his role. He muttered something to Ram, who instantly looked huffy and stepped aside.

‘I apologize for my colleague’s manner,’ Philpott said, laying a hand gently on the old man’s shoulder, ‘and for his crass misapprehension. We will go now without troubling you further, and we will make our report strictly on the basis of what you have told us.’

They hurried outside and across to the gate. Philpott paused, watching for a sign of movement in the cottage.

‘Back to the wagon fast,’ he said. ‘I don’t fancy we’ll have to wait long.’

In the jeep Ram switched on the VHF scanner mounted in the radio slot. He began slowly turning the sensor knob from side to side. After a minute the speaker clicked and there was the sound of pulsed dialling. Ram pressed the LOCK button.

‘He’s using a mobile, and it’s calling another mobile.’

‘How far away?’

‘No way of telling. We can only hope it’s not in another country.’

The old man’s voice came on. He sounded squeaky and agitated. An answering voice kept cutting in, making the old man’s voice go higher each time until he was practically screaming into the phone.

‘What are they saying?’

‘He said that two government snoopers have been to see him, and they’re on to the operation. The other one is telling him all the time to stay calm, it will be fixed, but he says he’s scared and if the government men come back and do a search the whole deal will be in the fire.’

Ram listened again. ‘They’re telling the old man he should have shot us. He says he didn’t get a chance.’

The squabbling continued, then the sound suddenly cut off.

‘The destination phone hung up,’ Ram said. ‘The old man kept saying he didn’t want to be questioned again, they had to get him out, he was scared he would say the wrong thing. The other man said he would fix it, then he cut off communication. ’

‘I thought the old boy was rather convincing,’ Philpott said. ‘Apart from the telltale eye.’

‘The running one?’

‘No, its neighbour. If they’d both been watering he would have been entirely convincing, I think, but the good eye kept jerking to the corner of the shelf behind you.’

‘What was on it?’

‘A pistol. Looked like an old Walther P38 from where I was standing.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Ram said. ‘Wait?’

‘Oh yes. This is drug business, remember. Every aspect, every feature of the drug trade is amplified to many times beyond the normal. These men have a problem, and they will fix it, and they will do their fixing with ridiculous-seeming haste and, no doubt, the most extreme means.’

They waited eight minutes before anything happened. Then a heavy black van came pounding along the road and drove straight through the farm gates, sending them flying and uprooting a row of fence posts.

‘Enter the extreme means,’ Philpott said.

The van stopped in front of the cottage and two men in dark suits got out and went inside. Almost at once they came out again, carrying what looked like file boxes, and put them in the back of the van. They went inside again. When they came out next time they each carried a full sack in one hand and one gigantic sack between them. These were loaded into the van, then one of the men got into the driving seat.

‘They don’t waste any time,’ Philpott said.

‘That other one’s taking out a gun.’

They watched the second man march into the cottage. A moment later a shot rang out. The man left the cottage and jumped into the van. It drove off in the direction it had come.

Ram and Philpott waited three minutes, then ran back to the cottage. Inside, the old man lay on the floor. He was dead. He had been shot between the eyes with a dumdum shell; part of his brain was smeared across the wall.

‘I suppose I better call the police,’ Ram said.

‘No, hang on.’ Philpott produced his own mobile and tapped in a number. He waited. ‘Is that Andrew Hamilton?’ He listened and smiled. ‘Yes, right first time, it’s Philpott. Long time no see. Look, it’s all a bit of a rush, but can I ask a favour?’

Philpott gave the man on the other end the farm’s map references, and asked if the full team could drop in and do a comprehensive sweep. Ram stood by, mystified.

When the call was over Philpott put the phone back in his pocket.

‘Commander Andrew Hamilton,’ he said. ‘Ex-Yard, now a senior Interpol forensic chap. Now and then, so long as we don’t abuse things, we can call on him and ask to use one of his local teams. They do a lovely job, and so quickly.’

‘Where are they based?’

‘New Delhi’s the nearest, at present.’ Philpott winked. ‘Don’t fret, they’ll be here before the deceased starts to ripen.’

The helicopter landed one hour and twenty minutes later. A seven-man, white-suited forensic team moved through the little house from one end to the other. They covered every inch, sifting, taking photographs and collecting samples of hair, fibre, dust and debris. Before they were finished, interim search results were being computed on an analytical bench inside the helicopter. The forensic officer in charge updated Philpott on what they had found, and Philpott passed it along to Ram Jarwal.

‘The tentative verdict is that vast quantities of various high-grade drugs have passed through the house, but there is no evidence of long-term storage.’

‘Then the farm is nothing but a waystage?’ Ram said.

‘Correct. But if there is anything here to provide a link with the source of supply, then these are the men to find it.’

‘And do you believe they will?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Philpott said. ‘Drug people are as devious as we are, they bury their tracks deep. But we’ve agitated them, and they won’t have missed this classy show of intent. They know that we’re trouble, and the worst kind.’

The techniques-and-procedures review was called for ten o’clock in the Dag Hammarskjöld room on the third floor of the UN Secretariat building. The Secretary General was in Switzerland; a deputy, Sarah Lawrence, a quietly-dressed young specialist in international law, sat in for him. Also at the long table at the far end of the room was Thomas Lubbock, Director of Policy Control, and beside him Secretary Crane. Three lawyers sat at a smaller table on the right of the room and C.W. Whitlock sat opposite, under the tall window, the sunlight on his back.

‘Every person having business with this review is now present,’ a clerk announced.

Without rising, Thomas Lubbock put the case for the Department of Policy Control.