Death of a Kingfisher (16 page)

‘No, just the valuables.’

Hamish thanked them and rang off. Had Fern and Ralph Palfour known about the extra key? But he could have sworn they were genuinely upset to find some of the valuables gone. Had Mary known? But if she had, she wouldn’t have tried to blackmail Ralph Palfour.

Maybe Mrs Colchester had only kept a purse in the strong room with just enough money to pay the cleaners.

Mrs Mallard packed two suitcases for the Palfour children. A week before, they had given her a form to sign,
allowing
them to go on a school trip to Inverness and stay overnight. She told them to have a good time and waved them off.

The school counsellor had been off work with a bad cold. When she returned to work and switched on her computer, she found that everything on it had been wiped clean. The few children she had counselled were all interviewed except the Palfour children. She was told they were both ill and that Mrs Mallard had sent a sick note.

She decided to call on them. She could not believe that a member of staff could have tampered with her computer. It couldn’t be a virus. She had an excellent virus protector.

Mrs Mallard looked surprised. ‘But they’re not ill,’ she protested. ‘They’ve gone off on a school trip. They had a form for me to sign. A trip to Inverness with an
overnight
stay.’

‘There is no such trip,’ said Jane. ‘I’d better phone Hamish Macbeth.’

Hamish cursed when he heard the news. He suddenly felt sure he knew where the money from the strong room had gone. An alert was put out for Olivia and Charles Palfour. Mrs Mallard confirmed that both had passports and that their passports were missing.

Olivia and Charles settled back in their seats with sighs of relief on a Cyprus Turkish Airlines flight. They were travelling under the names of Fiona and Harry McBean. Fiona and Harry were black-haired and so they had dyed their hair black. ‘I nearly shat myself going through security in case they found the money,’ said Olivia. ‘But we got through. Thank goodness the money was still buried in the garden.’

‘Are you sure there’s no extradition treaty with North Cyprus?’ asked Charles.

‘None. I checked.’

Hamish went to see Jane. ‘Have you checked your credit card?’

‘No, why?’ she asked.

‘If the Palfour children were using your computer, it could be to book plane or train tickets.’

‘They couldn’t do that without my password. When I pay for anything online, my bank asks for a password to clear it.’

‘You don’t keep a note of your password, do you?’

Jane blushed guiltily. ‘It’s in my address book.’ She frantically began to search in her wallet. ‘My credit card’s gone!’

‘Phone your credit card people and see if anyone’s been using it.’

He waited while Jane phoned. He heard her exclaim after she had identified herself by answering a series of security questions, ‘Oh, no. That’s awful. Someone has been using my credit card. Block it immediately.’ She rang off.

‘Those villains!’ she said to Hamish. ‘They booked two plane tickets on Cyprus Turkish Airlines.’

‘Under their own names?’

‘No, under the names of Fiona and Harry McBean. They are pupils at this school.’

‘Get them in here!’

When Fiona and Harry came into the counsellor’s office, Hamish said, ‘Olivia and Charles Palfour are travelling under your names. Have you lost your passports?’

‘You’ll need to ask our dad,’ said Fiona. ‘He keeps them in his desk. Oh, the Palfours were at my birthday party last week.’

Hamish asked them for their home address, left the school, and set off.

Mrs McBean answered the door to him and looked shocked when he said that the Palfour children had
probably
stolen her children’s passports. She hurried to her husband’s desk only to confirm that the passports were gone.

Hamish phoned police headquarters and put out an alert for the two Palfours, this time under the names of Fiona and Harry McBean.

Jimmy phoned Hamish that evening to say that both had been on a Cyprus Turkish Airlines flight. There was no extradition treaty with North Cyprus, but they had opened negotiations with the Turkish Cypriot government. ‘And that’ll take forever,’ he said gloomily.

Hamish told him about the money from the strong room. ‘I wonder when they took it?’ said Jimmy.

‘I think that precious pair are more cold-blooded than their parents. It wouldn’t surprise me if they slipped into the strong room and helped themselves while everyone was out on the terrace, looking at the dead woman’s body.’

Olivia and Charles rented a small room in a back street in Kyrenia.

‘The first thing we have to do,’ said Olivia, ‘is to pinch another couple of suitable passports. It’s coming up to Christmas so there should be a good few tourists around. We don’t want a couple who look like us. I need the
passport
of someone older and then I can disguise myself. With this black hair and a fake tan and some tarty clothes, I look a lot older. I’ll get down to the Dome Hotel this evening. You’d better stay here. They’ll be looking for a girl and boy. Scotland Yard have probably already got someone on the island looking for us.’

‘As long as Hamish Macbeth doesn’t decide to come,’ said Charles. ‘I think that one can see through walls. I wish Andronovitch had got rid of him.’

Olivia grinned. ‘All things are possible. I’ve got the Russian’s number. He owes us.’

‘Too risky,’ said Charles. His face had gone wizened somehow, pinched with anxiety. ‘Have you got an email for him?’

‘Yes, we could send him a coded message. His email’s registered under an alias. He called me Little Flower. There’s an Internet café off the main drag. I’ll try there. I’ll log in a new mail account.’

Olivia went down to the Dome Hotel that evening. She had returned to the cybercafé several times but there was no reply from the Russian. She had sent an email saying,
‘Dear Daddy, Here in North Cyprus and need your help. Will be at the restaurant in the Dome Hotel in Kyrenia every evening. Little Flower.’

She sat at her reserved table and looked around. The evening was mild and everyone was dining outside. A belly dancer was performing and a group of noisy English tourists was cheering her on.

Olivia scanned the room, looking at faces, noticing
handbags
. She felt suddenly uneasy. It was going to be more difficult stealing passports than she had imagined. She would need to wait until some of them got well and truly drunk.

A young man stood at the entrance, looking at a
photograph
of Olivia on his mobile phone. He had been warned she might have tried to change her appearance. But she had a black mole on her left cheekbone.

Then he saw Olivia sitting alone. Her black hair looked as if it had been dyed and there was that mole.

He pulled up a chair at Olivia’s table and sat down. ‘I am here to help you,’ he said in slightly accented English.

‘That was quick,’ said Olivia.

‘I was over on the Greek side when I got the message and came as quickly as I could.’

‘How did you find me?’ asked Olivia.

‘We have people who are good at finding out things. What is it you want?’

‘My brother and I need two passports. We want to move on.’

‘That will cost you a lot of money.’

‘We have a lot of money.’

He waved away a hovering waiter. ‘Then tell me where you are staying. That we could not find out. I will meet you there to arrange photographs and details at ten tomorrow morning.’

Olivia surveyed him with her flat grey eyes. He was swarthy with black hair and dark eyes. Suddenly cautious,
she did not want to meet him at their little flat. Better to meet them where there would be other people.

‘We’ll meet you here,’ she said, ‘in the bar.’

He shrugged. ‘Okay.’

He rose quickly and walked out of the restaurant.

Olivia and Charles were waiting in the bar, promptly at ten the following morning.

At ten minutes past ten, they were beginning to wonder whether he would show up when he appeared.

‘I have to take you to a place to get your photographs taken.’

Olivia hesitated, suddenly nervous, but Charles said, ‘Let’s get it over with.’

‘First,’ he said, ‘I want twenty thousand pounds.’

‘I haven’t got it on me,’ said Olivia. ‘If you wait here, I’ll go and fetch it. Charles, you stay with him.’

Olivia hurried back to the flat, unaware that she was being followed. She felt all-powerful and clever.

In the flat, she prised up two floorboards in the corner and lifted out a leather bag stuffed full of money and started counting out twenty thousand pounds. She did not hear the door opening. A sudden premonition of danger made her turn her head just as a strong arm came round her neck and a syringe was stabbed into her arm.

Charles looked at the man uneasily. Olivia had been gone for an hour.

‘I hope nothing has happened to your sister,’ he said.

Charles could not bear the wait any longer. With Olivia around, he felt older than his twelve years. Without his sister, he felt like a lost child.

‘Let’s go and see,’ he said.

It was a sunny day. Hard to believe it was winter. Charles mounted the staircase to the flat, shouting, ‘Olivia.’

He stopped in the doorway, aghast at the sight of his sister’s body before a man stepped from behind the door seized him and stabbed him with a syringe.

The two men who had attacked the Palfour children were in a casino that evening. They knew they would have to get the money they had recovered to Andronovitch, but both were gamblers and they were sure their boss didn’t know the exact amount of the money. ‘Think they’ll be all right?’ asked one.

‘Sure,’ said the other. ‘We’ll ship them out at dawn.’

Olivia recovered consciousness. She had been carrying a wad of notes taped to her body, so the syringe, plunged into the notes, had only delivered a small amount of tranquillizer.

She was violently sick. Then she went to her brother and tried to shake him back to consciousness, but without success. She suddenly thought of Scotland, of the security of school, of the fact that if she did not move quickly then the men would be back. She ran to the door. It was locked. She went to the window overlooking the street and screamed for help.

People stared upwards, then three men came pounding up the stairs and broke down the door. One called the police while another called to women in the street to come up and comfort Olivia.

They were taken to a hospital in Nicosia where Charles had his stomach pumped out. The news of their rescue went from Interpol to Scotland Yard and up to the Highlands.

Hamish heard the glad news that the Palfour children would be returning to Scotland as soon as Charles Palfour had recovered. The men who had attacked them had not been found. He wondered what awful fate had been planned for them. Maybe the men hoped to sell them on some sex market.

A particularly cruel winter released its grip on the Highlands and the villagers of Lochdubh began to look
forward
to the short but welcome summer.

The Palfour children had escaped prosecution because Olivia said she knew that Andronovitch would come after them. They denied knowing anything at all about the murders. Hamish was sure they were lying, but they had received so much sympathy from the press that Daviot decided not to charge them. Charles and Olivia were back at school and living again with the Mallards. Olivia was studying hard for her final exams and planned to go to university. Hamish, on going to interview them, found them as flat-eyed and as unchildlike as ever.

Ivan Andronovitch, travelling as a German businessman called Hans Berger, had endured plastic surgery and by rigorous dieting had lost several kilos in weight. He was now tall, and thin, with a pale smooth face and a shock of grey hair. He wore blue contact lenses. He checked into the Tommel Castle Hotel. His quarry was Hamish Macbeth. He had enjoyed living in London and going to first nights and society parties. Hamish Macbeth was the one who had taken that all away and Hamish Macbeth was going to pay with his life.

The Russian had dressed in new heathery tweeds ‘to blend with the surroundings’, as he thought, not
knowing
that he was the subject of great speculation amongst the staff.

Word of the stranger reached Hamish Macbeth. He felt a sudden odd feeling of apprehension. In his bones, he had always felt the case was not closed until Andronovitch was found. He had warned the Palfour children to be cautious.

He decided, without telling headquarters, to take the Palfour children up to the Tommel Castle Hotel to see if they recognized anyone. He said, ‘If you see anyone who looks like thon Russian or either of the men who attacked you, don’t let it show.’

With the Mallards’ permission, he collected the children from school and drove them up to the hotel. He couldn’t help hoping that Priscilla had made one of her lightning visits.

‘Now, don’t be nervous,’ he said as he drove them into the car park at the hotel.

Olivia looked at him with contempt. ‘I am not nervous,’ she said.

Both Palfours had fair hair once more and Hamish thought, as he had before, that with the fairness of their hair and their flat grey eyes and the whiteness of their skin, they looked like visitors from another planet. Olivia at almost seventeen could hardly be thought of as a child any more, although in her school uniform she looked younger than her years.

Mr Johnson, the manager, said that no, Priscilla was not visiting, and yes, Mr Berger was in the lounge.

Hamish took out a photo of Andronovitch and studied it. He then showed it to Olivia and Charles. ‘Just to refresh your memories. Now take a good keek round the door of the lounge and then let me know.’