Adrian Magson - No Peace For The Wicked

Riley smiled. “Of course. But I bet you’ll be seeing him soon.”

The girl shook her head. “I don't think so. We probably won’t be handling their account anymore.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Mrs Grossman’s got herself a private plane. Gary said these tickets would be the last ones.”

Riley took one last chance and nudged the girl a bit further. “You couldn’t tell us who they were for, could you?”

The girl stared up at her, before shrugging and tapping at her keyboard. “They were for a Mr Duggan, a Mr Howard and- ” She paused as if teetering on the edge of changing her mind, then added, “ — and a Mr Mitcheson.”

Riley turned and walked out, leaving Palmer to thank the girl for her help. When he joined her on the pavement, her face was pale and tight. She spoke briefly before listening, then switched off.

“Riley-” Palmer began, but she cut him off with a raised hand.

“Don’t, Frank.” She glanced at him, her face softening a little, but the muscles in her jaw were bunched with tension. “Please don’t say a word. That was the International Operator. She couldn’t put the number any closer than Malaga — which doesn’t help us. Come on. I need some tea.”

Now, in the quiet of the café, she pulled out the other two bits of information she’d found in the kitchen drawer. One was the leaflet about the airfield at Rickmansworth, the other was the motorised wheelchair brochure. “All we’ve got is these.”

“Interesting,” Palmer commented, studying the wheelchair details. “I wouldn’t have thought this would be very practical around all those terraced bits of garden, would you? I didn’t see any ramps.” He reached for her mobile and dialled a number. While he was doing that, Riley stood up and went to the washroom. When she came back he was sitting with two fresh cups of tea looking very pleased with himself. On the brochure he had written an address. Villa Almedina, Moharras . In brackets he had written the word Nerja .

“Are you going to tell me how you did that?” Riley asked coolly. “Or are you just going to sit there all day looking smug?”

“I told them I’d been asked to fit ramps for a wheelchair at the Grossman house, and could they give me some measurements. They told me it was being delivered anytime now — but by special instructions to this place in Spain.” He grinned. “Easy when you know how.”

“Don’t be a smart-arse. What about the airfield?”

He handed her the phone. “That’s more an insurance thing, I reckon.”

“I see.” Riley gave him a flinty look. “And playing the insurance role is a girlie kind of thing.” She snatched the phone and dialled the number on the leaflet, asking to be put through to the airfield manager.

“Hi, General Accident here,” she announced smoothly. “We’re just checking details of a group of policies on behalf of a client. Could you confirm the location of a private plane? ” Riley fought for the name of a likely model. “ It’s a Beechcraft, I believe, with secure facilities at the airfield. Mrs Grossman is the owner. Thanks, I’ll wait.”

The manager came back moments later. “Yes, we have a plane owned by Mrs Grossman, but it’s a Cessna Titan.”

“That’s great,” Riley intoned. “If we need to inspect the aircraft, would that be possible? It’s only a formality.”

“It would, normally,” the manager told her. “But the plane’s not here. The pilot filed a flight plan for Spain, I think, coming back in a day or two.” He hesitated. “Why are General Accident involved? The plane’s already insured. We checked all that out.”

Riley clicked the off button and turned to Palmer. “Well, we know they — whoever they are — are in Spain, and they’ve got a Cessna Titan. The question is, who is the wheelchair user?”

Palmer shrugged. “Whoever they are, they’ve got plenty of money. Motorised wheelchair delivered to Spain, a Cessna, a tasty house, a live-in odd-job man and a team of former military gophers. You don’t get all that on a company pension.”

Riley chewed her lip and tapped the address on the wheelchair brochure. “Spain. That’s where I first saw Mitcheson, before we met at Gibraltar airport. If this villa is near Malaga, it makes it only a couple of hours from Gibraltar — three at most.”

A shadow loomed over the table and the proprietor cleared the cups and plates. “This ain’t the boardroom of Microsoft, you know,” he muttered bluntly. “You two gonna sit here all day, or what?”

Riley smiled sweetly and stood up. “Thanks, but no. I’m not sure all my jabs are up to date.”

They went outside where Palmer looked up at the grey sky, and stretched. He turned to Riley: “How important is this assignment to you?”

“Important? I don’t follow.”

“Well, the investigation. Would it matter if you dropped it here and now?”

Riley looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “I took this assignment on,” she said with quiet resolve, “and that means I have to see it through. And time is getting short. Are you suggesting I quit?”

“No.” Palmer was unfazed by her reaction. “I just want to know if you’re sure about it, that’s all.” He held up a hand to forestall her objections. “Frankly, I reckon the only way of getting more information is to follow the band.”

“You mean to Spain?”

“Can you afford it?”

Riley nodded with certainty. “If this story is worth anything, it’ll lead onto other things. I’m prepared to take a punt on it. How about you?”

“If you’re paying, why not? I could do with a spot of sun.”

Riley nodded. “I was thinking the same. I hope your passport’s up to date.”

Palmer patted his breast pocket. “Never travel without it. Shall I book tickets and rooms in the name of Mr and Mrs Palmer?”

Riley gave him a withering look. “In your dreams.”

In the villa at Moharras, Mitcheson sat across the living room from Lottie Grossman. Alongside him sat Doug and Howie. Gary and McManus hadn’t yet returned from disposing of Bignell’s corpse.

Outside, the sun was sinking over the hills behind the villa, lending a soft, heavy appearance to the landscape. To the front, overlooking the sea a mile away, a fast boat carved a pale scar across the flat surface of the water, and closer inshore, two jet skis sent up fantails of spray. On the patio Ray Grossman sat in a new, motorised wheelchair, idly toying with the controls. An instruction manual lay on the ground.

Lottie glanced at her watch and put her cup down. “Well, I can’t wait all day for the others. As you know,” she said, looking at each of them in turn, “our first priority was to take over the controlling interest in three night-clubs — two in London and one in Brighton. This has been accomplished, and the managers are now happy to be reporting to a single owner rather than three. Business is good, but we’ll be making adjustments where necessary to reflect the change of… shall we say, emphasis.” The woman smiled coldly behind her glasses, oblivious to the lack of response from the three ex-soldiers. “We’re now moving into the next phase, which means improving turnover in this part of the world. And I’ve decided to make some changes.”

They all looked at her and she smiled with evident satisfaction. Mitcheson gritted his teeth at the false school teacher manner and wondered how he had ever managed to get embroiled with this madwoman.

“Shipping more drugs, you mean?” he said bluntly.

Lottie turned her eyes towards him. “I prefer to call it ‘the product’, Mr Mitcheson.”

“So where is this product going?”

“I think that’s obvious, isn’t it?”