Chapter 13

The next morning began with a Council of War. The Chechens appeared to have withdrawn from the game, at least for the present. What we were left with was the colonel's papers. The theft of the bronze shipment weakened our position a bit but we weren't looking for admissible evidence. That was a job for the police. We were in the dark as to how they would now proceed. The talk went round in circles and led nowhere. The colonel was the most gloomy. He had pinned all his hopes on British Intelligence. Swann of Special Branch hadn't been too encouraging. Elsewhere, the news was bleak. The main story on the bulletins that morning was the car bomb that had killed Rollo Yeates and his two companions, now identified as 'members of the security services.' I thought the Chechens, assuming it was them, might have done us a favour. Murdering three men to keep the story quiet and then trying to kill us would surely prove something big was afoot.

According to the News stories, the police were pointing the finger at some splinter group from the IRA that had 'claimed responsibility' as the saying goes. Claimed responsibility - admitted their guilt, more like; but not on this occasion. There was no Irish connection in the colonel's lists. This seemed to be a piece of opportunistic publicity seeking on the part of some murderous bunch of thugs. Nothing made any sense. We wondered aloud how the opposition had cottoned onto the bronze shipment in the first place. We didn't have any answers for that one either.

"We need to find that bronze," Liam said after a deal of further aimless discussion. "If the Chechens took it, where would they take it? It's not small, you couldn't just hide it in the boot of the car or something."

The colonel then let fly a volley of excited Estonian. Angela translated:

"My father says that they would have to have had help, need contacts here in England. We should look at his list and see if we can see someone who might fit."

Of course, once she'd said it, it was obvious. The Chechens needed a base of operations. Mickey Cornell couldn't have been their only helper in the UK. He wouldn't have had the resources on his own. We needed to find someone with access to storage facilities. Someone who was wealthy and had underworld connections or, at very least, was known to be unscrupulous.

We pored over the colonel's lists and identified four or five who might fit the bill. Two were Asian businessmen who had come to prominence in a scandal a couple of years previously. They had been discovered to have links with Palestinian terrorist organisations. They would certainly be up for something like an Islamic Bomb but Niall thought they would be under surveillance; they were too obvious, somehow. The colonel's notes showed them as having helped finance the project but with no other involvement. We decided to discount them for now. Another man was a known head of an organised crime gang that operated out of South London. His involvement in the affair was suspected rather than proven. There was a large question mark against him because he was avowedly racist and unlikely to support Middle Eastern causes. On the other hand, there was a lot of money involved, which would certainly tempt him.

I had a thought.

"Look," I said, "I'll bet Special Branch are doing the same as us. I can't believe it would be anyone obvious. Let's have a look for the least likely looking ones. They'd still have to be rich, of course, but those on record as having the type of places that could be used are bound to get a visit from the police. I think this calls for some lateral thinking."

We went back to the list and came up with three names. One was a senior civil servant, one was an MP and the third was a newspaper tycoon of dubious origins. All three had become involved, according to the notes, simply for money. They were linked together and, more importantly, all had the possibility of being linked to Michael Cornell. We needed to find out more about them. Information in the public domain was one thing but we needed the hidden stuff. I thought immediately of Bernie. If anyone would know how to get the dirt on someone, Bernie would; and if he didn't personally then I was willing to bet that he had the contacts.

I called him and explained what I wanted.

"You're fishing in bloody deep waters, Mr Booth," he told me. "I don't know about this Travers geezer (Travers was the civil servant) but Charles Brownlock, MP, is a right nasty bastard. And as for Renfrew, you've only got to read that rag he calls a paper to know what he's about. Bloody thing ain't nothing but porn and attacks on decent people. If you go after him and he finds out, your name will be splashed all over that scandal sheet. Probably accuse you of cheating the taxpayer and throw in some allegations about child-abuse or drugs for good measure. You must remember what he did to Mr Young?"

I did remember but somehow it didn't matter what happened to my reputation. Three weeks before it would have bothered me. It didn't any more. The situation was too awful to let small things like personal reputation get in the way. Anyway, if he were involved, he wouldn't be in any position to blacken anybody's name for quite some time to come, if all went according to plan.

Bernie agreed that he would do some 'devilling.' He promised to get back to me as soon as he had something but said I wasn't to hold my breath. I reported the conversation back to the others and we agreed to let things take their course. There was always the chance that Special Branch would find the shipment before Bernie or his pals dug up anything interesting. All we could do was 'hurry up and wait' - as the saying goes.

Angela, Bill and I walked the dogs. Bill was determined to get Magic to act like a proper retriever but he had little luck. I told him Magic was simply a disgrace to his breed. He was simply too daft to get the hang of it. He treated the whole thing as a huge game. He'd fetch the stick Bill hurled far out into the sea but as soon as Bill approached him to pick it up, Magic would grab it again and be off down the beach. It was hilarious to watch. Bill was getting more and more and frustrated. Just at the point we thought Bill was ready to explode, Magic would drop the stick at his feet. He wanted Bill to throw it again and start off another round of 'tease the human.' Angela and I fell about laughing. The look of controlled fury on Bill's face contrasted perfectly with Magic's daft grin. He has this habit of curling his upper lip back to expose his teeth. It's supposed to be a sign of canine intelligence but I reckon Magic was the exception that proved the rule.

It was a dull, dampish morning with curtains of rain sweeping across the flat grey sea. All the rain seemed to be falling a mile or two offshore so we were spared a soaking. Even so, the damp was penetrating and with it came the cold. We were glad to be back in the warm and we shook out our coats and settled ourselves by the fire. It was far too early to expect to hear from Bernie and there wasn't much else we could do until we had the missing information. Angela decided to start work on a new sculpture so I went along to watch her. It is one thing hearing a process described but quite another to see it put into action.

She started to make some sketches of Trotsky. She sketched quickly. She never drew the whole dog, just portions of his anatomy; the curve of his leg, the line of his shoulders and the like. Then she did his face and captured him perfectly. One never thinks of sculptors as being draftsmen but she had real talent. I found myself staring at Trotsky's face on the paper. She had caught his expression perfectly, slightly disdainful but alert. The artist's model wandered over as to have a look for himself. He put his head on Angela's knee and gazed at her soulfully. After a minute or two of ear-scratching he decided his beauty had been sufficiently recognised and had received sufficient compliments for him to go back to his position away from the fire. In all truth he had probably just got too hot but it is easy to ascribe human reasoning to a dog like Trotsky, he's so damned bright.

Once Angela had made enough sketches, we went through to the studio and she began to make the clay model that would eventually form the mould. She worked quickly at first, throwing great handfuls of clay into position and roughly shaping them with her hands. Eventually she had a Trotsky-sized mass of wet clay that was only very roughly the shape of a dog. Now things slowed as she shaped and scraped until the outline of a husky was unmistakeable. Suddenly she said something in Estonian that didn't need translation and crumpled the whole thing back into a lump of shapeless clay. She smiled at me ruefully.