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  I looked at Gerard and then again at Kenneth Charter.

  ‘And you know,’ I said slowly. ‘You know who wrote the message.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘My son.’

  Highly complicating, as Gerard had hinted.

  ‘Um…’ I said, trying to make my question as noncommittal as Charter’s own voice. ‘What does your son say? Does he know where the bulk in the tanker vanished to? Because… er… six thousand gallons of scotch can’t be hidden all that easily, and the Silver Moondance wouldn’t use three times that much in six years, let alone six months… if you see.’

  The blue eyes if anything grew more intense. ‘I haven’t spoken to my son. He went to Australia two weeks ago for a holiday and I don’t expect him back for three months.’

  There was an element of good riddance in that statement, I thought. He wasn’t so much grieving over his offspring’s treason as finding it thoroughly awkward. I smiled at him faintly without thinking and to my surprise he grinned suddenly and broadly back.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. The little bugger can stay there, as far as I’m concerned. I’m certainly not trying to fetch him home. I don’t want him charged and tried and maybe flung in jail. I don’t, I definitely don’t want any son of mine behind bars embarrassing the whole family. Making his mother cry, spoiling his sister’s wedding next spring, messing up his brother’s chances of a degree in law. If I have to sell up here, well, I will. There’ll be enough left for me to start something else. And that’s the end of the damage that sod will do. I won’t have him casting a worse blight on the family.’

  ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘When was it, did you say, that he went to Australia?’

  ‘Two weeks ago yesterday, laddie. I took him to Heathrow myself. When I got home I found this notebook on the floor of the car, fallen out of his pocket. I guess he’s sweating now, hoping like hell he dropped it anywhere but at my very feet. I opened it to make sure it was his.’ Charter shrugged, locking it back into the desk drawer. ‘It was his, all right. His writing. Nothing much in it, just a few telephone numbers and lists of things to do. He always made lists of things to do, right from when he was small.’

  Something like regret touched Kenneth Charter’s mouth. Any son, I supposed, was loved when small, before he grew up a disappointment.

  ‘The tanker’s number sort of shouted at me,’ he said. ‘I felt sick, I’ll tell you. My own son! There were the police and the Customs and Excise chasing all over the place looking for the crook who tipped off the thieves, and he’d been right there in my own house.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘So then I took advice from a business I knew who’d had their troubles sorted out for them quietly, and I got on to Deglet’s, and finally Mr McGregor, here. And there you have it, laddie.’

  Kenneth Charter’s son, I was thinking, had gone to Australia ten days after the scotch had been stolen and a week before the horsebox had rolled into the marquee. If he was truly in Australia, he’d had nothing to do with the disappearance of the Silver Moondance’s liquid assets or the murder of Zarac. For such small crumbs his father could be grateful.

  ‘Would it be easy for your son to find out when exactly the tanker would be going to fetch whisky?’ I asked diffidently.

  ‘Back in April, yes, easy. In June, not so easy. Last month, damned difficult. But there you are, I didn’t know I had to defend myself so close to home.’ Kenneth Charter got to his feet, his big body seeming to rise forever. He grasped the frame of the map of the British Isles and gave it a tug, and the map opened away from the wall like a door, showing a second chart beneath.

  The revealed chart was an appointments calendar with registration numbers in a long column down the left hand side, and dates across the top.

  ‘Tankers,’ Charter said succinctly, pointing to the registration numbers. ‘Thirty-four of them. There’s UNP 786 Y, sixth from the top.’

  All the spaces across from that number had a line drawn through: tanker out of commission. For many of the others some of the spaces across were filled with stuck on labels of many colours, blue, green, red, yellow, grey, purple, orange, each label bearing a handwritten message.

  ‘We use the labels to save time,’ Charter said. ‘Purple for instance is always hydrochloric acid. We can see at a glance which tanker is carrying it. On the label it says where from, where to. Grey is gin, yellow is whisky. Red is wine. Blue is sulphuric acid. Green is any of several disinfectants. And so on. My secretary, whom I trust absolutely, she’s been with me twenty years, writes the labels and keeps the chart. We don’t as a company tell the drivers where they’re going or what they’re carrying until the moment they set out. They change tankers regularly. We often switch drivers at the last minute. Some of the loads could be dangerous, see, if they fell into the wrong hands. We have an absolute rule that all the tanker doors have to be locked if the drivers so much as set foot out of the cabs, and in all three stolen loads the drivers swore they did that, and found nothing to alarm them when they returned. We’ve been careful and until this year we’ve been fortunate.’ His voice was suddenly full of suppressed fury. ‘It took my own son… my own son… to crack our system.’

  ‘He could come in here, I suppose,’ I said.

  ‘Not often, he didn’t. I told him if he wouldn’t work in the company, he could stay away. He must have sneaked in here somehow, but I don’t know when. He knew about the chart, of course. But since the first two thefts I’ve not allowed the whisky labels to be written up, just in case the leak was in our own company. Yellow labels, see? All blank. So if he saw the yellow label for that tanker for the Wednesday, it wouldn’t say where it was picking up. Grey for gin, on the Monday, that was written up, but only for the pick up, not the destination. If someone wanted to steal the return load of scotch they’d have to follow the tanker all the way from Berger’s Gin distillery to find out where it was going.’

  I frowned, thinking the theory excessive, but Gerard was nodding as if such dedication to the art of theft was commonplace.

  ‘Undoubtedly what happened,’ Gerard said. ‘But the question remains, to whom did Zarac pass on that message? He didn’t take part in the event himself. He wasn’t away from the Silver Moondance long enough, and was definitely at his post both the Tuesday and Wednesday lunch-times and also in the evenings until after midnight. We checked.’

  My mind wandered from the problem I didn’t consider very closely my own (and in any case unanswerable) and I found my attention fastening on the few red labels on the chart. All the information on them had been heavily crossed out, as indeed it had on the grey labels as well. Kenneth Charter followed my gaze, his hairy Scots eyebrows rising.

  ‘The wine,’ I said, almost apologetically. ‘Didn’t you say red for wine?’

  ‘Aye, I did. All those shipments have had to be cancelled. Normally we fetch it from France and take it direct to the shippers near here, who bottle it themselves. We used to carry a lot more wine once, but they bottle more of it in France now. Half the bottling plants over here have been scratching round for new business. Hard times, laddie. Closures. Not their fault. The world moves on and changes. Always happening. Spend your life learning to make longbows, and someone invents guns.’

  He closed the chart into its secrecy behind the map and dusted his hands on his trousers as if wiping off his son’s perfidy.

  ‘There’s life in tankers yet,’ he observed. ‘D’you want to see them?’

  I said yes, please, as they were clearly his pride, and we left his office with him carefully locking the door behind us. He led the way not to the outside but down a passage lined on either side by office doors and through a heavier door, also locked, at the far end. That door led directly into a large expanse given to the maintenance and cleaning of the silver fleet. There was all the paraphernalia of a commercial garage: inspection pit, heavy-duty jacks, benches with vices, welding equipment, a rack of huge new tyres. Also, slung from the ceiling, chains and machinery for lifting. Two tanke
rs stood in this space, receiving attention from men in brown overalls who from their manner already knew Charter was around on Sunday afternoon and gave Gerard and myself cursory incurious glances.

  ‘Over there,’ Charter said, pointing, ‘down that side, inside that walled section, we clean the tanks, pumps, valves and hoses. The exteriors go through a carwash outside.’ He began walking down the garage, expecting us to follow. The mechanics called him Ken and told him there was trouble with an axle, and I looked with interest at the nearest tanker, which seemed huge to me, indoors.

  The tank part was oval in section, resting solidly on its chassis with what I guessed was a low centre of gravity, to make overturning a minor hazard. There was a short ladder bolted on at the back so that one could climb onto the top, where there were the shapes of hatches and loading gear. The silver metal was unpainted and carried no information as to its ownership, only the words ‘Flammable Liquid’ in small red capitals towards the rear.

  The paintwork of the cab, a dark brownish red, was also devoid of name, address and telephone number. The tanker was anonymous, as the whole fleet was, I later saw. Kenneth Charter’s security arrangements had kept them safe for years from every predator except the traitor within.

  ‘Why did he do it?’ Charter said from over my shoulder, and I shook my head, not knowing.

  ‘He was always jealous as a little boy, but we thought he’d grow out of it.’ He sighed. ‘The older he got the more bad tempered he was, and sullen, and dead lazy. I tried to speak kindly to him but he’d be bloody rude back and I’d have to go out of the room so as not to hit him sometimes.’ He paused, seeking no doubt for the thousandth time for guilt in himself, where there was none. ‘He wouldn’t work. He seemed to think the world owed him a living. He’d go out and refuse to say where he’d been, and he wouldn’t lift a finger to help his mother in the house. He sneered all the time at his brother and sister, who are bonny kids. I offered him his fare to Australia and some money to spend there, and he said he’d go. I hoped, you know, that they’d knock some sense into him over there.’ His tall body moved in a sort of shudder. ‘I’d no idea he’d done anything criminal. He was a pain in the arse… Didn’t he know he would ruin me in this business? Did he care? Did he mean to?’

  The son sounded irredeemable to me and for the sake of the rest of the Charter family I hoped he’d never come home, but life was seldom so tidy.

  ‘Mr McGregor may save your business,’ I said, and he laughed aloud in one of his mercurial changes of mood and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘A politician, Mr McGregor, that’s what you’ve brought me here. Aye, laddie, so he may, so he may for the healthy fee I’m paying him.’

  Gerard smiled indulgently and we walked on through the length of the maintenance area and out through the door at the far end. Outside, as Charter had said, there was a tall commercial-sized car wash, but he turned away from that and led us round to the side of the building to where the fleet of tankers nestled in line.

  ‘We’ve some out on the road,’ Charter said. ‘And I’m having to arrange huge insurance for every one separately, which is wiping out our profit. I’ve drivers sitting at home watching television and customers going elsewhere. We can’t carry alcohol, the Customs won’t let us. It’s illegal for this company to operate if it can’t pay its workforce and other debts; and I reckon we can keep running on reserves for perhaps two weeks from now, if we’re lucky. We could be shut down in five minutes then if the bank foreclosed on the tankers, which they will. Half of these tankers at any one time are being bought on loans, and if we can’t service the loans, we’re out.’ He smoothed a loving hand over one of the gleaming monsters. ‘I’ll be bloody sorry, and that’s a fact.’

  The three of us walked soberly along the imposing row until we were back at the entrance, and Gerard’s car.

  ‘Two weeks, Mr McGregor,’ Kenneth Charter said. He shook our hands vigorously. ‘Hardly a sporting chance, would you say?’

  ‘We’ll try for results,’ Gerard assured him in a stockbroker voice, and we climbed into his car and drove away.

  ‘Any thoughts?’ he asked me immediately, before we’d even left the industrial estate.

  ‘Chiefly,’ I said, ‘why you need me at all.’

  ‘For your knowledge, as I told you. And because people talk to you.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Kenneth Charter told you far more about his son than he told me. Flora says she talks to you because you listen. She says you hear things that aren’t said. I was most struck by that. It’s a most useful ability in a detective.’

  ‘I’m not…’

  ‘No. Any other thoughts?’

  ‘Well…’ I said. ‘Did you see the rest of the son’s notebook, when you were there before?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Charter didn’t want me to take it for some reason, so I used his photocopier to reproduce every page that was written on. As he said, there were just some telephone numbers and a few memos about things to do. We’ve checked on all the telephone numbers these last few days but they seem to be harmless. Friends’ houses, a local cinema, a snooker club and a barber. No lead to how the son knew Zarac, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Mm. I’ll show you the photostats presently. See if you can suggest anything we’ve missed.’

  Unlikely, I thought.

  ‘Is he actually in Australia?’ I asked.

  ‘The son? Yes, he is. He stayed in a motet in Sydney the night he arrived. His father made the reservation, and the son did stay there. We checked. Beyond that, we’ve lost him, except that we know he hasn’t used his return ticket. Quite possibly he doesn’t know Zarac’s dead. If he does know, he’s likely to drop even further out of sight. In any case, Kenneth Charter’s instructed us not to look for him, and we’ll comply with that. We’re having to work from the Silver Moondance end, and frankly, since Zarac’s murder, that’s far from easy.’

  I reflected for a while and then said, ‘Can you pick the police brains at all?’

  ‘Sometimes. It depends.’

  ‘They’ll be looking for Paul Young,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Did Flora mention him? A man who came to the Silver Moondance from what he said was head office. He arrived while I was there with Detective Sergeant Ridger, who took me there to taste the Laphroaig.’

  Gerard frowned as he drove. ‘Flora said one of the managers had come in when you were tasting the whisky and wine, and was furious.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not a manager.’ I told Gerard in detail about Paul Young’s visit, and he drove more and more slowly as he listened.

  ‘That makes a difference,’ he said almost absently when I’d finished. ‘What else do you know that Flora didn’t tell me?’

  ‘The barman’s homosexual,’ I said flippantly. Gerard didn’t smile. ‘Well,’ I sighed, ‘Larry Trent bought a horse for thirty thousand pounds, did she tell you that?’

  ‘No… Is that important?’

  I related the saga of the disappearing Ramekin. ‘Maybe the Silver Moondance made that sort of money, but I doubt it,’ I said. ‘Larry Trent kept five horses in training, which takes some financing, and he gambled in thousands. Gamblers don’t win, bookmakers do.’

  ‘When did Larry Trent buy this horse?’ Gerard asked.

  ‘At Doncaster Sales a year ago.’

  ‘Before the whisky thefts,’ he said regretfully.

  ‘Before those particular whisky thefts. Not necessarily before all the red wines in his cellar began to taste the same.’

  ‘Do you want a full-time job?’ he said.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘What happened to Ramekin, do you think?’

  ‘I would think,’ I said, ‘that at a guess he was shipped abroad and sold.’

  TEN

  At the rear of the row where my shop was located there was a service road with several small yards opening from it, leading to back doors, so that goods coul
d be loaded and unloaded without one having to carry everything in and out through the front. It was into one of these yards that the bolted door next to my storeroom led, and it was in that yard that we commonly parked the van and the car.

  Mrs Palissey, that Sunday, had the van. The Rover estate was standing in the yard where I’d left it when Gerard picked me up. Despite my protestations, when we returned at six he insisted on turning into the service road to save me walking the scant hundred yards from the end.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ I said.

  ‘No trouble.’

  He drove along slowly, saying he’d be in touch with me the following day as we still had things to discuss, turning into the third yard on the left, at my direction.

  Besides my car there was a medium-sized van in the yard, its rear doors wide open. I looked at it in vague surprise, as the two other shops who shared the yard with me were my immediate neighbour, a hairdresser, and next to that a dress shop, both of them firmly closed all day on Sundays.

  My other immediate neighbour, served by the next yard, was a Chinese takeaway, open always; the van, I thought in explanation, must have driven into my yard in mistake for his.

  Gerard slowed his car to a halt… and a man carrying a case of wine elbowed his way sideways out of the back door of my shop: the door I had left firmly bolted at two o’clock. I exclaimed furiously, opening the passenger door to scramble out.

  ‘Get back in,’ Gerard was saying urgently, but I hardly listened. ‘I’ll find a telephone for the police.’

  ‘Next yard,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘Sung Li. Ask him.’ I slammed the door behind me and fairly ran across to the intruding van, so angry that I didn’t give my own safety the slightest thought. Extremely foolish, as everyone pointed out to me continually during the next week, a view with which in retrospect I had to agree.