Val Mcdermid - Clean Break

As he disappeared inside, I cruised into the estate and parked farther down the road, outside a company that made garden sheds. Just after nine, a battered Transit van pulled up behind Morley’s car. The two lads in overalls who got out looked as if they should still be in school. You know you’re getting old when even the villains start looking young. I gave it another ten minutes, then I grabbed my clipboard and the bag containing the video camera and headed for the unmarked warehouse.

I knocked on the door and marched straight in. At one end of the room were a couple of tall vats with taps on the bottom of them. On a platform behind them, one of the lads was emptying the contents of a white plastic five-gallon drum into a vat. The other lad was halfway down the room, pushing a trolley that held gallon drums identical to the ones Kerrchem used for KerrSter. Simon Morley had his back to me, doing something at a bench on the far wall. Compared to the high-tech world of Kerrchem, this was a medieval alchemist’s cell.

The lad pushing the trolley looked over at me, and called, “Can I help you, love?”

At the sound of his voice, Simon Morley whirled round, consternation written all over his face. “Who are you?” he demanded, crossing the room toward me.

“Is this Qualcraft?” I asked, casually swinging my bag through a gentle arc, hoping the video was getting the full flavor of the premises. “Only, there’s no name on the door, and I’ve got an order for Qualcraft, and I can’t seem to find them.”

By now, Simon Morley was feet away from me. He looked like the classroom swot twenty years on, gangling limbs, acne scars and glasses that were constantly slipping down his sharp nose. “You’ve come to the wrong place,” he said nervously. “This isn’t Qualcraft.”

If I hadn’t stepped backwards, he’d have trodden on my trainers. “Sorry,” I said. “You don’t know where Qualcraft is, do you?”

“No,” he said.

I smiled. “Sorry to have bothered you.” I carried on backing out the door. Morley closed it firmly behind me, and I heard a key turn in the lock.

I pressed my ear to the door and heard him say, “How many times have I told you to keep the door locked?” He said something more, but he was obviously moving back to his workbench, since I couldn’t make out the words.

Back at the car, I checked the video on playback. The picture was slightly hazy, but the vats and the gallon drums were clearly discernible, along with a nice clear shot of Simon Morley’s face. I set the video camera up on the dashboard and waited. I rang Shelley and filled her in on what had happened to me in Italy and told her to call me as soon as she heard from Richard. “Don’t worry if you get diverted to the message service,” I added. “I’m trying to avoid the cops, so I won’t actually be answering the phone.” Wonderful thing, technology. If I don’t want to take calls on my mobile, I can divert them to an answering machine. Then, when I want to pick the messages up, I simply dial a number and it plays them over to me.

By eleven, I’d had messages from Delia, Mellor from the Art Squad, a Superintendent from the Drugs Squad, Alexis and Michael Haroun. I didn’t feel like talking to any of them, but I made myself ring Michael. I still had a client, after all, something I’d kind of lost sight of as I’d chased across Europe. And Henry needed insurance. If I could convince Michael Haroun that the art thieves’ racket was over for the time being, maybe he’d be a little more flexible about Henry’s premium.

Michael was in a meeting, but I made an appointment with his secretary for three o’clock. I figured I’d be through here by then. Next, I took out my microcassette recorder and dictated a full report on the KerrSter scam. I’d drop it off with Shelley on my way to meet Michael so I could hand the client a copy this evening. I’d also be dropping off a copy with Inspector Jackson, just so Clever Trevor couldn’t go taking the law into his own hands.

There was movement at the warehouse just after noon. I hit the record button on the video and taped Simon Morley and the two lads loading up the van with pallets of schneid KerrSter. Simon went back indoors with one of the lads, and the van took off. I followed at a discreet distance. I needn’t have bothered. If I’d just driven straight to Filbert Brown’s Manchester HQ, I’d have been able to film them arriving just as easily.

I was astonished at their sheer cheek. Two people had died because of their crazy product tampering, yet they were still milking the racket for all it was worth. The more I thought about it, the more disturbing I found that. Simon Morley might well be crazy enough to carry on putting people’s lives at risk in his vendetta against Kerrchem. But Sandra Bates hadn’t struck me as a woman who would go along with random murder. I know people do ridiculous things for love, but I couldn’t get the scenario into a credible shape at all.

But if Sandra Bates and Simon Morley weren’t bumping people off, who was? It went beyond the bounds of credibility to imagine two lots of blackmailing saboteurs. I know coincidences do happen, but this wasn’t one I could buy into. I closed my eyes and groaned. All this time and effort and I had a horrible feeling I wasn’t any nearer the killer than I had been at the start.

Michael looked delighted to see me, greeting me with an unprofessional kiss on the lips. The tingle factor was still firing on all four cylinders, I noted as I moved away and sat demurely on the opposite side of the table from him. “You’ve been keeping a very low profile,” he complained jocularly. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Your secretary keeps telling me you’re unavailable. I was beginning to think you’d gone off me.”

“She wasn’t bullshitting,” I said. “I genuinely have been unavailable. I’ve been out of the country. The good news is that you’re not going to have any more trouble from this particular gang of art thieves.”

He leaned forward, his eyes surprised and interested. “Really? They’ve been arrested?”

“Let’s just say the market’s collapsed,” I replied. “Take it from me, the racket’s over and done with. So you can safely reinsure Henry Naismith’s property. They won’t be back for a second bite of the cherry.”

Michael ran a hand through his dark hair and shook his head. “This is incredible. What on earth have you been up to? It all sounds very unorthodox.”

“That’s a word,” I said.

“You’re going to have to tell me more than that,” Michael said, his face and voice equally determined. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. But I have to explain myself to higher powers, and they’re not going to be overly impressed if I tell them I’ve taken a particular course of action on the say-so of a private eye who isn’t even our employee.”

I was growing bored with this story already, and I was still going to have to repeat it more times than the sole survivor of an air crash. “Look, I can’t go into great detail. I’ve still got a lot of talking to do to the police, and there are going to be arrests to come. The bare bones go like this. I got a tip-off from a good source as to who was fencing the goods. I tracked him back to an international criminal consortium who have been using artworks as payment in kind for drugs. The fence is out of the game for good, and the police will be closing in on the rest of the syndicate. Without a guaranteed market, the thieves won’t be doing any more robberies. I promise you, Michael, it’s all over.”

He looked up from the pad where he’d been taking notes. “You’re sure? You don’t think the fence is going to start up again once everything quiets down?”

I closed my eyes briefly. “Not unless you believe in communications from beyond the grave,” I said.