Ken McClure - The Anvil

Tansy had expected MacLean to go out and start looking but instead, he played a waiting game. If the man was who he feared he was there was no doubt that he would come to him. He would bide his time.

The loft of the bungalow had been converted into two rooms. One, Carrie’s bedroom had a dormer window. MacLean decided that this would be the best place to keep vigil from. He moved the bed over to the window and positioned it so he could lie along it and keep watch on the garden. If anyone was interested in the bungalow and its occupants they would have to approach from that side. He steeled himself to lie there until dark if necessary.

In the event MacLean had been keeping watch for just over two hours when he saw a movement in the trees. He felt his muscles tense but didn’t move in case he altered some reflection in the window which would alert the intruder. The top half of a man appeared from behind one of the conifers outside the garden fence. MacLean made mental notes. He was around five ten with dark hair, a swarthy complexion and was wearing a dark business suit. He had come from the right side of the tree, holding back the branches with his left hand; he was possibly left-handed.

There was no need to ask Carrie to confirm that this was the man she had seen at school. The mere fact that he had come to the house told MacLean that his worst fears were being realised. Lehman Steiner had found him. He remained perfectly still until the man had moved back into the undergrowth then he moved quickly. He had the initiative; he mustn’t lose it.

MacLean ran downstairs and gripped Tansy lightly by the shoulders. He told her to keep Carrie inside, lock the door behind him and do nothing until he had returned. He checked the gun and put it back in his inside pocket. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins. He didn’t say anything more to Tansy nor she to him. Tansy closed the door behind him and locked it. She rested her forehead on it for a moment, breathing unevenly because of fear, until she became aware of Carrie looking up at her. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘Come help me in the kitchen.’

MacLean ran swiftly to the bottom of the garden and vaulted the fence. He dropped to his knees and listened, holding his breath so that he would not miss anything. He heard movement somewhere ahead of him and guessed at twenty metres. Good! If he had heard nothing there would have been a different game to play, a game, which said that the opposition was waiting to see if he was being followed. There was no reason to believe that the man would have any reason to suspect this but MacLean considered every possibility. The stakes were very high. The comforting snap of twigs up ahead told him that he was still holding all the aces in this encounter.

The man was heading for the towpath. MacLean thought ahead to where he would confront him. He decided on the far side of the first stone bridge. He would circle round and wait for him to emerge on the other side. He headed off at an angle to ensure that he reached the bridge first. He did and pressed himself up against the cold stone to wait and listen.

He heard muted footsteps on the earth of the towpath and waited for the change in sound when the man moved on to the cobbles under the bridge. The change came and MacLean tensed himself. As the man emerged from under the bridge MacLean shot out his hand and gripped him by the neck. He swung him round hard and slammed him against the weeping stonework before twisting his left arm up his back and applying all his weight to keeping him immobile while he searched him. He found the gun in a shoulder holster under his right armpit. He had been right; the man was left-handed.

‘You’ve got it wrong!’ spluttered the man, almost incoherent because his face was being pressed up against the wall.

‘Oh, no,’ hissed MacLean, ‘You’re the one who’s got it all wrong.’

‘You don’t understand!’ insisted the man.

‘I understand only too well,’ growled MacLean. ‘I want to know who in Lehman Steiner paid you; I want to know where and when. I want dates, times, places and I want to know why?’ Is that clear? I do hope so because if you don’t start talking within the next thirty seconds and I am going to place the muzzle of this gun inside your mouth and I am going to pull the trigger. In short, I am going to blow your head off! Now is there anything there that you don’t understand?’ MacLean tightened his grip on the man’s arm until he cried out in pain. ‘No! I saved you… in Glasgow… I saved you from Der Amboss.’

The name had an almost hypnotic effect on MacLean. He relaxed his grip slowly but still kept the gun trained on the man. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘Jacques Vernay, Lisa’s brother.’

MacLean was dumbstruck. He lowered the gun. ‘Lisa Vernay’s brother? Lisa, at Lehman Steiner?’

‘Yes,’ said the man, holding a hand up to his grazed cheek.

‘What’s your connection with all this?’

Vernay rubbed his arm where MacLean had twisted it and said, ‘I am a policeman Doctor. When my sister was found dead in her swimming pool I didn’t believe for one moment that it had happened as they said. Lisa would never have dived into the water at any depth, let alone at the shallow end of the pool. She hated diving. I was convinced that she had been murdered and said so to my superiors. They instigated an immediate investigation. Three days later it was abandoned. No explanation was given. I was simply told that the case was closed. I couldn’t accept that. I decided to pursue the investigation on my own.’

‘How?’

‘If my own people wouldn’t help I decided to try the other side,’ said Vernay.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The underworld, Doctor. I used my savings to buy information about my sister’s death.’

‘What did you learn?’

‘I came up with the names of the two professional assassins who had been hired to kill Lisa. I took the information to my superiors expecting them to apologise and re-open the case immediately.’

‘And did they?’

Vernay smiled bitterly and said, ‘I was dismissed from the force for consorting with criminals. I now had no job and no sister. Lisa and I were twins you know.’

‘I didn’t,’ confessed MacLean. He hadn’t known Lisa Vernay well.

‘I decided to seek my own justice. I went after Lisa’s killers on my own and I caught up with one of them in Paris. To my shame I “persuaded” him to talk.’

MacLean did not enquire how. ‘What did he tell you?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ said Vernay.

‘But you said you made him talk.’

‘He didn’t know anything, Doctor. That’s often the way with these people. They are told only what they have to know. He had no idea why his employers wanted Lisa dead only that it was something to do with something called, Der Amboss.’ Vernay watched MacLean’s reaction when he said the word. He saw that it meant something.

‘That’s what the man in Glasgow said,’ said MacLean. ‘He said that Der Amboss was too big. I couldn’t win.’

‘The man you threw out of the window?’

‘I didn’t,’ said MacLean.

‘Whatever,’ said Vernay. ‘What else do you know about Der Amboss, Doctor?’

‘Nothing. Tell me.’

‘It’s a German word. It means “the anvil” but it’s some kind of code for an agreement between Lehman Steiner and ultra-right wing political factions. My sources say that this includes a group in the United Kingdom.’

‘Is that why you’re here?’

Vernay shook his head. ‘No I was following the second of the two assassins who killed my sister.’

‘The man who fell from the window?’

‘The man you led to the river,’ said Vernay.

‘Ah,’ said MacLean, suddenly making sense of what had happened by the riverside walk.