Ken McClure - The Anvil

‘In a word, yes,’ replied MacLean. ‘With the best will in the world you cannot run a drug company for anything other than profit. That’s just a fact of life. The best companies will take on some charitable commitment and the worst will not but profit is the first motive for them all.’

‘I’ve never been able to understand how drug companies can sit on mountains of drugs while people all over the world are dying of the very diseases they could cure,’ said Tansy.

‘That’s a very simplistic view,’ said MacLean. ‘In our society you can no more give away drugs than you can TV sets.’

‘You sound as if you support them?’ said Tansy.

‘I’m a realist,’ said MacLean. ‘If the last three years have taught me nothing else, they’ve taught me that. Only governments have the power to give away drugs.’

‘So why don’t they?’ asked Tansy.

‘I don’t know.’

Tansy smiled and apologised. ‘I’m sorry, I’m giving you a hard time. Go on. You had this new job?’

‘Everything seemed to be going well and then it started all over again. It was August, one of these beautiful summer evenings when the air is still and the grass green, the trees hung heavy with their leaves and the whole world seemed a haven of peace. There had been a brief shower of rain about seven o’clock, but just enough to feed the flowers and make the grass smell fresh. I left the hospital about nine and started to walk home, feeling good. As I turned the corner into the street where I lived I noticed a man standing on the other side of the road. He was looking in a shop window. I’d walked another fifty yards or so before I realised that I’d seen him before.

‘You knew him?’

‘No, but I’d seen him. He’d been looking in the same shop window on the previous evening.’

‘Maybe he was waiting for a bus?’ suggested Tansy.

‘I went through the list of possibilities too,’ said MacLean. ‘But I’d arrived home at a different time on the previous evening, so he couldn’t be waiting for the same bus. My instincts had been sharpened by Doyle and Leavey. I had to at least consider the possibility that he was from the company.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Tansy.

‘My first reaction was to panic,’ confessed MacLean. ‘I couldn’t believe that they were still after me. I didn’t want to believe they were still after me! I jumped on a bus and went down town, giving myself time to think. I wandered round aimlessly for a couple of hours and came up with a thousand innocent reasons why the man should be waiting near my flat but in my heart I knew different.’

Tansy put her hand on MacLean’s shoulder.

‘When I got back I approached the flat from a lane that ran along the back of a public park near where I stayed so that no one would see me coming. Sure enough, he was in a doorway opposite my apartment. He hadn’t bothered to follow when I went down town because he knew where I lived. He knew I’d be coming back; he had followed me before. He was doing his homework, establishing the patterns of my life, biding his time, waiting for the right moment. This was no skinhead waving a union jack. He was a professional and I was scared. Nick Leavey used to say, “Don’t bother about the leather-jacket mob. They come out of slot machines in packets of five; knock one down and they’ll all wish they’d stayed home and watched telly. Real pros look like bank managers. They don’t have to look hard; it’s a positive advantage not to.’

‘Did you go to the police?’ asked Tansy.

‘Tell the Glasgow Police a man was following me?’ said MacLean with a smile. He shook his head.

‘You could have told them the whole story,’ said Tansy.

‘I had tried the Swiss police and the French,’ said MacLean. ‘Ours would have been no different. All police forces are uncomfortable when asked to investigate the established order of things and Lehman Steiner was certainly part of that. It’s much easier for them to write off one individual as a head case than rattle any cages in the realms of power and influence.’

‘I think you do them an injustice,’ said Tansy.

‘Like I said, I’m a realist,’ said MacLean.

‘So you didn’t go to the police,’ said Tansy. ‘But you obviously survived. What happened?’

‘The man underestimated me. It was his only mistake and it wasn’t really his fault. He had done his homework. He knew who I was, where I lived and where I worked. There was no way he could have known about my year with Doyle and Leavey. He also didn’t know that I had spotted him. It was time to put what my friends had taught me into practise.’

‘How did you feel about that?’ asked Tansy.

‘Nervous,’ confessed MacLean. ‘I felt as if I had learned to swim from a book and was now going to dive into the water for the first time.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Tansy.

‘No you can’t,’ said MacLean without smiling. ‘I deliberately altered my routine every day so that he couldn’t plan to make the hit along the route to the hospital. It would be too dangerous for him to attempt anything actually in the hospital so I was forcing him to opt for the flat. That meant the evening. For four nights in succession I watched him from behind the curtains standing in the shop doorway across the street. On the fifth night he was carrying a briefcase. I knew he was going to make the hit.’

‘The tension must have been unbearable,’ said Tansy.

‘When I saw him cross the street to enter the building I thought I was going to be physically sick. When the doorbell rang I was so paralysed with fear that he had to ring a second time before I answered. I opened the door slowly and casually, gambling that a pro would not shoot me on the public landing. He introduced himself as Mr Miller from the Prudential Assurance Company. He wondered if I was interested in life insurance.’

‘Good God,’ said Tansy.

‘A nice touch,’ agreed MacLean.

‘He held out his card and I pretended to take it. Instead I grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm up his back. He reacted well. He nearly took my head off with his other hand but I knocked him out and dragged him into the flat.’

‘You didn’t kill him did you?’ asked a shocked Tansy.

‘No, I searched him and found the gun in the briefcase; it was already fitted with a silencer. There was no identification on him so I waited till he came round before I stuck his own gun in his face and suggested that he tell me everything.’

‘Did he admit that he was working for Lehman Steiner?’ asked Tansy.

‘He admitted nothing,’ replied MacLean. ‘It was almost as if he found the whole thing funny in some way.’

‘Funny?’ exclaimed Tansy.

‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ agreed MacLean. ‘My hands were shaking and my pulse rate was topping a hundred and fifty and he sat there smiling as if in some way resigned to everything that was happening.’

‘Surely he said something?’

‘Nothing that made any sense,’ said MacLean. ‘He said, ‘You surprised me, Doctor but it’s no use. You can’t win. Der Amboss is too big.’

‘What did he mean?’

MacLean shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘You must have called the police at that point? You had the man and the gun as evidence,’ said Tansy.

‘I tried,’ said MacLean.

Tansy looked puzzled.

‘I went out into the hall to call them and I had got to the second nine when I felt a breeze on my cheek. Someone had opened a window. I rushed back into the room to find that my guest had left.’

‘He escaped?’ asked Tansy.

‘In a way,’ replied MacLean. ‘I lived on the fourth floor… When I looked out I saw him spread-eagled on the road below.’