Jack Higgins - Midnight Never Comes

'With a depression just beginning?' Mallory shook his head. 'They took to the road in the Outback following that great Australian custom like thousands of others. Donner's father died in 1933 at a place called Clay Crossing. We know that from the death certificate.'

'When the boy was seventeen?'

Mallory nodded. 'From then on, he was on his own. Just another swagman walking the Outback at a time when half the men in the country were out of work. He joined the army in Kalgoorlie the day after war was declared.'

'And you don't know what happened in between?'

Mallory shook his head. 'From the death of his father at Clay Crossing in 1933 to his enlistment in the army in 1939-a great big blank and I don't like it.'

'And what's he up to at this end?'

'I'm not sure, that's the trouble, but I could make a reasonable guess. For the past couple of years, we've been losing people in a steady trickle. People like Simmons. Not all that important, but important enough. Confidential clerks engaged on classified work, cypher clerks and so on. Thirty-eight in all.'

'Too many,' Chavasse said. 'Only a really efficient organisation could tackle such a number.'

'And an organisation that never misses. This is really classified information, Paul, but twice during the same period, we've been about to arrest a really big fish. In each case he's been spirited away.'

'Forty in all,' Chavasse said. 'That's really very good.'

'Add to those, eleven poor devils who having defected to this country and having applied for and been granted, political asylum, have also completely disappeared. And they've turned up again on the other side, by the way.'

'You're sure about that?'

'Certain. As a matter of fact we've just lost another this week. A rocket expert called Boris Souvorin. Even our American friends didn't know we had him.'

'And you think Donner's behind all this?'

'I'm certain of it. He's been hovering on the fringe in too many cases for my peace of mind.'

'Couldn't you pull him in?'

'On what charge?'

'What about that bearer cheque of his that Ranevsky cashed? Wouldn't that do for a start?'

'Not a chance.' Mallory shook his head. 'Everything would depend upon the bank clerk's evidence that the cheque Ranevsky cashed was Donner's. He wouldn't last ten minutes on the witness stand with a really good counsel having a go at him. Everything else is merely supposition and guesswork.'

'Which you happen to believe?'

'I've never been more certain of anything in my life.'

'Then what are you doing about it?'

Mallory applied another match to the bowl of his pipe. 'How well do you know North-West Scotland and the Hebrides?'

'I went for a climbing holiday in Skye when I was seventeen. I don't think I've ever been back. Why-is it important?'

'There's a place called Moidart on the north-west coast between Loch Shiel and the sea. About a hundred and twenty square miles of mountain and moorland, very sparsely inhabited. A wild, lonely place. Donner bought a house and ten thousand acres of deer forest up there about eighteen months ago.'

'Did he now,' Chavasse said. 'And why would a fun-loving boy like Max Donner suddenly take to the highlands like that? I thought Cap d'Antibes was his stamping ground.'

'So did I.'

'Is there anything in particular he could be after up there?'

'I don't think so.'

Mallory took a map of Scotland from a drawer in his desk and unrolled it. 'There's the atomic submarine base at Holy Loch, of course, and various missile testing ranges in the Outer Hebrides. At Lewis, for instance and South Uist and here at Fhada, south of Barra.'

'Any research work going on there?'

'Not within the meaning of the term, although there's some very interesting stuff being handled. We aren't quite the laggards in the rocket business that some people would like to imagine. No, the places I've mentioned are mainly used for personnel training and test firing. The training part is one of our NATO commitments and very important. Of course the French don't come any more, but we regularly train personnel from German army guided missile regiments.'

'I'd have thought there would be plenty there to interest Donner?'

Mallory shook his head. 'He wouldn't get within smelling distance of one of these places. Civilians aren't even allowed to land and as regards seeing the damned things go up …' He shrugged. 'Plenty of foreign trawlers, Russian and otherwise, fish those waters.'

'Then what's he doing there?'

Mallory tapped a finger on the map. 'There's Moidart and there's Donner's estate, Glenmore, a bare half mile from the sea. As I've already said, a wild, lonely place with few people about. A trawler, or even a submarine, could run in close most nights without being observed.'

'So you think that's the other end of his pipeline?'

'Certain of it. He had a similar house on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales for six years. He moved when a dam project started five miles away.'

Chavasse nodded. 'I must say it sounds likely. Is Donner in residence?'

'He flew up in his private plane the day before yesterday.'

'Do you think he took Souvorin with him?'

Mallory shrugged. 'He certainly wasn't visible. No, I don't think he'd take that kind of risk. If he is behind Souvorin's disappearance, he'll have shipped him north by some other route. I'm certain of that.'

'And if he is there, how do we prove it? If this place is as isolated as you say it is, I'd stick out like a sore thumb.'

'I've taken care of that,' Mallory said, 'and rather ingeniously, though I do say it myself. There's a small estate about ten miles from Donner's place, called Ardmurchan Lodge. A five-year lease was offered a month ago with three thousand acres of deer forest adjoining Donner's property so I snapped it up and dug a friend of mine out of retirement to play tenant, an old M.I.5 man, Colonel Duncan Craig. He's seventy if he's a day. Officially he'll be your uncle.'

'And what am I supposed to be doing there?'

'You'll be on vacation. Lecturer in French Literature at the University of Essex. I've fixed the whole thing up officially. As a matter of fact, they're expecting you to start in October.'

'Presumably Craig's been nosing around up there already?'

'Not really, although he has sent us some useful information. He's an old man, remember. Active for his age, but still an old man. I was hoping he might strike up an acquaintance with Donner, but it hasn't worked out. He's met him three or four times. Apparently, Donner's always perfectly civil, but hasn't handed out any invitations to Glenmore House.'

'Then how do I get in?'

Mallory held up the photo of Donner and his stepdaughter. 'There's always the girl.'

Chavasse frowned. 'How?'

'Wait and see.' Mallory pressed a buzzer on his desk.

A moment later, the door opened and Peggy Ryan entered. She moved to the desk, a slight, calm smile on her face. 'You wanted me, Mr. Mallory?'

'Yes, Peggy. Tell Mr. Chavasse about Asta Svensson.'

Peggy turned to face him. 'I was enrolled at the University of Stockholm at the beginning of last term, ostensibly as an exchange student.'

'The idea being to cultivate Asta Svensson's acquaintance?'

She nodded. 'She's a nice girl, Mr. Chavasse. We became great friends.'

'What about Donner? How does she get on with him?'

'I think she's a little afraid of him. He visited her twice while I was there. Nothing's too good for her as far as he's concerned. He's taking her on a tour of the Far East this vacation.'

'When do they leave?'

'He's joining Asta in Stockholm ten days from now. They're to fly from there.' She smiled. 'He's in for a surprise, though.'

'What do you mean?'

'This place of his in Scotland-Asta's never been. Apparently he's always fobbed her off with grimy old Nice or Cannes or somewhere instead.'