booksnew/source/Full Proof/C25.txt

     </p>
     <p>Neil was at the controls of the crane in the wee cold hours, when the night watchman on the site was asleep and snoring loud enough to make the hut shake. It was too early for any movement except the flutter of small birds in the bushes beside the fence. The town was  almost silent.</p>
     <p>The crane, that hadn't been difficult to get a hold of, not when Shug Cannon was the chargehand in the direct works site yard. Neil had told him he'd only need it for a couple of hours and would put it back long before the shift started. Shug was okay about it for a couple of bottles. It was a town council mobile job and security was would be so haphazard that nobody would ask any questions unless Neil hit an overhead cable or a passing bus, but he promised not to do that.</p>
     <p>Big Lars called at half past midnight when he and the Valkyrie and his four-strong crew were down off the south tip of Kintyre and heading round to the little port at Tarbert on the Atlantic coast of Argyll, the jump-off for the western isles. Jack took it on the spare mobile in the back seat of Jed's runaround.</p>
     <p>"We have to change the plan <em>Yack.</em>"</p>
     <p>"We can't change the plan. We're getting ready to move right now."</p>
     <p>"It's the harbour at Tarbert." Lars bawled against static on the ship-to-shore. "There's a big boat stuck on a shoal. They have to wait for the high tide to tug her off. You can't get in there with the load and I can't get in with the Valkyrie."</p>
     <p>"So what do we do? Put it on a boat and row out from shore?"</p>
     <p>"It's okay. I spoke already to the harbourmaster at Oban. It's only two more hours and they have a boom rig to lift heavy cargo. All fixed up, it is now. And the Valkyrie, the screw is okay. She is running sweet."</p>
     <p>"Problem?" Ed asked. His face was rough with the scrapes and scratches of his flight through the bushes after he had climbed out to battle Foley. Otherwise he was cool as ever.</p>
     <p>"Was there ever a day without one? Eric the Red says we can't load at Tarbert. It has to be Oban. But at least his screw is working."</p>
     <p>Neil leant back over the seat. "Der scroo is voorking in de vooter." It got a laugh.</p>
     <p>"How many miles to Oban?"</p>
     <p>"Just over a hundred. It's nearer here than Tarbert, but he'll need another two hours, which is two hours more exposure. We have to move now before the town wakes up."</p>
     <p>The keys were in the crane truck. It belched black fumes until the engine heated up and Neil used the side roads to get it beyond the building site and down the little track road on the other side of the fence, hidden from view from most of the building site. Ed had the snippers and unzipped the chain-link in a matter of seconds. He and Tam squeezed through the gap and made their way to the stack of big tanks.</p>
     <p>"What's the weight of these things?" Neil was getting used to the controls. He was a good singer and good with his hands. Jack thought he under-rated himself because of his weight.</p>
     <p>"A zillion tons," Jack said. "Each of them's full to the top."</p>
     <p>"This should take it."</p>
     <p>"It better. You spill one and we're done for."</p>
     <p>"We spill one and Donny will get down in the mud on his hands and knees and start licking."</p>
     <p>They used the cradle hawsers to snag the first tank, Ed and Tam working fast and quiet. Tam  stood on the stack and  waved the all-clear and Neil eased back on the sticks, taking the weight. The whole crane shuddered and the line sang with tension and then, very slowly, the ponderous weight sucked up from the rain-wet earth and swayed in the air.</p>
     <p>"Told you it would take it." Neil pulled back on the little control with one hand and flipped down his sunglasses against the sharp rays of the rising sun.</p>
     <p>"Thank God for that." Jack allowed himself to exhale. Neil touched the lift again and the crane creaked and squealed in a protest of metal and the big yellow tank raised slowly upwards until it was just over the height of the fence.</p>
     <p>"This is the tricky bit," Neil said. Jack said nothing while he worked. The crane arm swung slowly to the left and the tank began to pendulum even more slowly, following the motion.</p>
     <p>"Perfect," Neil said, but Jack's breath was backed up again as the first load approached the  concrete fencepost.</p>
     <p>Without any warning everything tilted downwards in a blur of movement and Jack was thrown forward so hard his bruised cheek thudded against the window. The crane groaned as it lurched down and to the left.</p>
     <p>Beyond the fence, somebody shouted in alarm and the yellow weight careened to the end of the pendulum swing, hit against the post and then dropped to the ground again. Everything stopped.</p>
     <p>Jack picked himself up, shook his head.</p>
     <p>"What the hell happened?"</p>
     <p>"Maybe it couldn't take the weight after all."</p>
     <p>The whole cab was canted forward and the  cables on the gantry arm had gone slack. Beyond the hedge and the fence, Ed was bawling at them to lift the tank. A sharp whiff of whisky soured the morning air.</p>
     <p>"Shit, we've sprung a leak," Neil said.</p>
     <p>Ed came  pushing through the hole on the fence.</p>
     <p>"You have to lift it up again. Tam was under the tank when it came down."</p>
     <p>"Is he hurt?"</p>
     <p>"I don't know. He's yelling like a banshee."</p>
     <p>Jack hauled himself out of the cab and ran for the hedge. It was only five in the morning and everything was going wrong. He just had time to notice the crane's front wheels were buried up to their axles in the soft earth at the side of the track and the whole machine was leaning at a drunken angle. He shoved through the gap in the fence.</p>
     <p>"Get this off me," Tam was yelling. At least he was alive.</p>
     <p>"Shhh...you'll wake the whole town." The early sparrows scattered in alarm.</p>
     <p>"Screw them. Are you trying to kill me?"</p>
     <p>Tam was face down in the mud, arms splayed out to the side. The back of his thighs and his calves were jammed underneath the big tank and a tiny jet of good whisky was hissing from a puncture close to the top where the tank had slammed into the upright. It splashed on Tam's back and soaked into his shirt.</p>
     <p>"Are you hurt?"</p>
     <p>"How should I know. I can't feel my bloody legs."</p>
     <p>Neil came barrelling through, snagged his sweat shirt on either side of the gap.</p>
     <p>"I can fix it," he said. "There's a set of bracing legs on the front, but I need something to wedge them on. Hi Tam, are you okay?"</p>
     <p>"No thanks to you. I thought you could operate that crane?" Tam made the statement a question. His fingers were scrabbling at the rough earth, trying fruitlessly to pull himself free.</p>
     <p>"I need some planks and I'll get you out."</p>
     <p>"If my back's broken I'll kick your arse," Tam threatened. Jack managed a laugh despite the panic, sounding almost hysterical. It was clear Tam was just stuck and not hurt. It took them another fifteen minutes to get some scaffolding planks from the site and form a thick platform to brace the jacks against the mud. Neil was up in the cabin again and the runners protested at the cable went taught again. Jack watched from ground level, just able to see Neil beyond the hedge.</p>
     <p>The big tank sucked upwards an inch at a time and when it was just clear of the muck, they dragged Tam free.</p>
     <p>"Look at the state of these,"  he said, clawing the thick clay off his trousers. "I got these in the Gap sale and they're totally ruined."</p>
     <p>This time Neil got it right and the container cleared the fence by at least a foot, drizzling whisky all the time. The hole in the tank was very close to the top, and they'd have to live with the small loss. If Jack could find the duct tape he'd make an emergency repair to minimise the damage, but they were getting near to the end now.</p>
     <p>It was almost six thirty when they got the last container onto the back of the flatloader and lashed into place. Ed had found a hose hear the cement mixer and used it to jet the mud from Tam, pressing his thumb over the flow to set it at stun. Clay flew everywhere but after a few minutes, most of it was elsewhere. Tam stood glowering and dripping.</p>
     <p>By seven they were gone and it was only when the flatloader cranked up to move out in a rumble of gears that old Charlie Oliver woke up in his watchman's hut and stumbled out into the morning. It took him another half hour to notice that the big tanks had disappeared and when he went to investigate the vacant space, he discovered the miraculous puddle of pure scotch whisky.</p>
     <p>He used an old enamel mug to scoop some for a cautious taste and by eight in the morning he was as drunk as a lord. That's how the site foreman found him when the shift started and he called the police right away.</p>
     <p>By that time the boys were on the road again.</p>
     <p>"I never knew you had a gun until you started firing," Neil said. He'd taken the crane back to the old depot on the broad meadow near the river and now they were all at the lorry park close to Gus Ferguson's yard, with the tall tanks lashed and wedged in-line on the back of the flatloader. "It sounded just like a pop-gun from up there."</p>
     <p>"It was like a cannon down there," Donny said. "He never told me what was happening. I nearly shit myself."</p>
     <p>"I had the binoculars right on them. You should have seen the look on Cullen's face. He was like a goldfish when you pointed the shooter at him. I kept thinking of that guy in Dirty Harry."</p>
     <p>"What guy," Donny asked.</p>
     <p>"You know the one." Neil's voice went husky and western. He held up his hands together, finger on an imaginary trigger.</p>
     <p>"I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?"</p>
     <p>Jack laughed, and not just at Neil's word perfect soliloquy. He was picturing his uncle in mask and balaclava in Whitehead's scrap yard, with the fake gun up at Foley's ear. <em>"Go on, make my day."</em> He'd been doing Clint Eastwood too.</p>
     <p>Neil snorted with laughter. "And then the cops came in. Oh, you should have seen that. Cullen  was down there in the puddle with the gun in both hands, and six of those swat guys on him. It was like Lethal Weapon all over again."</p>
     <p>       "What do we do about him?" Donny asked.</p>
     <p>       "He was caught shooting at the cops. We don't need to bother about him."</p>
     <p>"No, I mean <em>him.</em>" He  jerked his thumb towards the top of the tanker. Nobody had mentioned Foley for a while.</p>
     <p>"Better get him down here. We have to use everything we got. By now Baxter will have my name and I don't want to be around when he comes sniffing. Old Sandy,  he'll keep the family tight, but very soon Tam's site boss is going to notice a big space where these tanks used to be, and with the amount of hooch we managed to lose, somebody's bound to make a connection. So it's diversion time."</p>
     <p> After he'd told them he had a market for the stolen whisky, four of them had gone out in Jed's wreck and Tam's bike, scouting possible routes north. In this part of the west, roads are narrow and twisting and some of them won't take a heavy load. It was imperative to Jack to have alternative ways to go, just in case of trouble. As he told them many a time, straight from the manual of good business practise: <em>There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.</em></p>
     <p>Tam came rolling up on the bike. He'd gone home and changed into his leathers. The spare helmet dangled on the pillion hook and he swapped it with Jed's white racing lid. He slipped on the pale jacket with the big reflectors while Jed carefully stuck the chequered tape round the helmet.</p>
     <p>"All set?"</p>
     <p>"Ready to rock and roll," Neil said. "Give us a hand with old Wiggy, would you?"</p>
     <p>"I just had a shower."</p>
     <p> Jack rapped his helmet with hard knuckles. "Don't get squeamish on us."</p>
     <p>They got the heavy roll down from the frame Neil had fixed to disguise the tanker's shape, manhandled it to the ground, and then stood it up as best they could against the lorry.</p>
     <p>"Jed, you and Neil take him with you. But you better unwrap him first."</p>
     <p>"Aw, come on," Neil protested. "I'm not travelling with that stinking up the place."</p>
     <p>"It's okay," Jack said. "Me and Jed, we were out yesterday checking out some places. You just go along with him and we'll be cool. Both of you, keep listening to the police band and make sure you watch my back. Make sure you run interference all the way."</p>
     <p>Foley's grey face lolled from the top where the canvas unpeeled and his wig was askew. Dried blood stuck to the scalp where the hairpiece had been scraped off by the rough oak bark.</p>
     <p>"God, he smells as bad as ever," Neil said dismally. "It's like Weekend at Bernie's."</p>
     <p>Despite his misgivings, he hauled the stiffly sagging corpse up to the passenger seat, with a look of serious disgust twisting his mouth downwards. </p>
     <p>"Who's got the spare phone?" </p>
     <p>"What happened to yours?" Neil reached for the bag.</p>
     <p>"I stood on it. It's as dead as he is."</p>
     <p>Jack took the mobile and put it in his inside pocket.</p>
     <p>"Okay, this is it. We blow it now and we're blown away, so try hard not to blow it."</p>
     <p>Jed took the other helmet, hauled Neil's arm and pushed him ahead into the cabin, up against their unwelcome passenger. Ed climbed up into the second tanker and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, no need for words. He started the engine and gunned the throttle.</p>
     <p>Jack waved to them, got in the cabin of the flatloader and closed the door. He clapped Donny on the shoulder, checked the phone, made sure Neil had programmed the one-touch.</p>
     <p>"Calling Elvis?"</p>
     <p>"Uh-huh-huh."</p>
     <p>"Wagons <em>ho!</em>"</p>
     <p>"Thang you ver' much, ladies n' gennelmen."</p>
     <p>The big diesel snorted and the whole frame shuddered. He eased the long stick forward and the transporter picked up speed as it headed for the gate. They all went in convoy and Tam paused outside, closed the gate behind them and then got back on the bike, following the trail of new blue exhaust fumes.</p>
     <p>Jack took the north route that would take the load up past Loch Lomond, easing the rig round the bends on the Quarry Road where Foley had taken his fatal last powered flight.</p>
     <p>The phone rang.</p>
     <p>"Retro?" Neil's voice.</p>
     <p>"Speak to me."</p>
     <p>"It's 106 miles to Oban," his Philadelphia accent was spot-on this time. "We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses."</p>
     <p>"You keep your mind on the job and tell him to keep his eye on the road."</p>
     <p>"Sure. But which movie was it." Jack could hear Jed laughing in the cab.</p>
     <p>"Elroy Blues. Blues Brothers."</p>
     <p>"Got it in one....."</p>
     <p>A tremendous crash blasted through the receiver and Jack jerked the phone away from his ear. He tapped his foot on the brake. Neil bawled a curse that even through the phone could be heard yards away.</p>
     <p>"What's happened?" Donny turned round.</p>
     <p>"Sounds like they've wrecked the truck."</p>
     <p> </p>
     <p>Angus Baxter hunkered down to examine the marks on the scaffolding planks on the other side of the fence, puffing furiously at his pipe. He'd been on his way to ask a few questions when the call came in and he'd diverted fast when he heard the mention of whisky. The solid clay had kept the puddle from draining away.</p>
     <p>"Is the watchman sober yet?"</p>
     <p>"Not until next Tuesday," Jimmy Balloch said. "He's had a tankful."</p>
     <p>"These marks here. Something heavy was pressed down on them. They've made square indentations in the surface."</p>
     <p>Colin Dundas bent to join him. "Those are struts. You can see where the wheels went down in the mud, but the planks took the weight here."</p>
     <p>"And there's a yellow mark on the concrete post," Baxter said. "So it seems they used a crane to steal your tanks."</p>
     <p>"That's a bit risky for what they're worth," Dundas said.</p>
     <p>"Not if they were filled up with the finest Glen Murroch, which is what I'm thinking."</p>
     <p>He eased to his feet and turned to Balloch. "Get me control room. We've a chance to tie this whole thing up today."</p>
     <p>He walked away with him to gain some privacy.</p>
     <p>"From the barrels in Ferguson's yard, they had only half the load, assuming the rest of it didn't all go down the drain, which it didn't from the evidence here. But we know there were two tankers, so my guess is, they hid the other half of it here where nobody would think to look. But they're moving now, and from the amount in that puddle, they're not gone long. I want every available patrol car out looking for big loads."</p>
     <p>"Where should they look?"</p>
     <p>"Every damned where. I want tankers and containers. They're not daft, these people. They'll either have pumped the stuff back into the tankers, or they'll have covered those big drain sumps so they don't show. One thing we can be very sure about."</p>
     <p>He sucked on the pipe until  it blazed: "They won't be travelling very fast."</p>
     <p>______</p>
     <p>Manky Franky Hennigan got such a fright that he fell off the pile of pallets he used for a bed and dropped his last bottle of Eldorado wine. It shattered like a bomb on the old brickwork floor. The whole place shook and shuddered the way it had on the night the black figure had come striding out of the light and replaced the wine with whisky. He stumbled out of his little niche into the misty morning, pushed his way through the undergrowth until he came to the side of the road and then he stopped dead, swaying only slightly.</p>
     <p>The big silver thing was only yards away.</p>
     <p>Franky took two steps backwards, reaching a dirty hand into his pocket for his glasses.</p>
     <p><em>     "We come from a distant galaxy far far away. We know who you are."</em> The clarity of that memory was pretty spectacular for Franky at this time in the morning.</p>
     <p>The figure had pushed in further and a black shiny finger touched him in the middle of the chest. <em>"Tell no-one, or we'll be back with a death ray to fry your brain."</em></p>
     <p>A sudden panic filled him. That crafty big policeman had got him to tell everything and then they'd stuck a microphone in front of him and he just couldn't help himself. Didn't the thing in the black suit know he was a drunk?</p>
     <p>Had they come back? Had the come all that way for him?</p>
     <p>The frame was a clear foot higher than the cabin roof and when they came to the low railway bridge behind Aitkenbar Distillery, that bare twelve inches was just enough to catch the cast iron lintel edge as they went underneath.</p>
     <p> It hit the metal with a sound like an explosion and the force of it ripped back the entire covering off the top, the way Foley's wig had peeled.</p>
     <p>"What the hell was that?" Jack heard the blurted question on the other phone.</p>
     <p>Jed stamped on the brake and brought the whole rig to a sliding stop. His heart had somersaulted into his throat and sat there shuddering. He finally got his breath.</p>
     <p>"I think we hit the bridge."</p>
     <p>Foley's body had pitched violently forward and was now jammed against the windscreen, the grey mouth oddly fish-like.</p>
     <p>"Put a seat-belt on that, would you?" Jed opened the door and hauled out. He swung on the footplate, looking backwards and let out a groan. All of Neil's handiwork was a tangle of metal struts and tarpaulin, accordioned back from the leading edge and piled at the rear.</p>
     <p>"So much for the camouflage," he said. "The truck's okay, but we'll have to shift that lot."</p>
     <p>He took the phone.</p>
     <p>"It's okay, we did hit the bridge."</p>
     <p>"You did what?" Jack sounded furious and incredulous all at once.</p>
     <p>"No, it was just the covering on the tank. It was too high. We'll just strip it off and dump it." </p>
     <p>"Nobody hurt?"</p>
     <p>"Just Foley. He wasn't wearing a belt."</p>
     <p>"I'll send him a get-well card. No more crazy stuff, Bullitt. Remember it's not a stock car."</p>
     <p>"Roger wilco."</p>
     <p>It took them only five minutes to rip the thin framework from the back and leave it beside the road under the bridge. They were just about to pull away when Jed spotted Franky Hennigan standing in the undergrowth, face wide and pale, mouth working silently. He grabbed the phone from Neil and reached out from the cab.</p>
     <p>"You've been told before," he said, pointing the antenna straight at him. "You saw nothing."</p>
     <p>Manky Franky Hennigan slowly sank to his raggedy knees, closed his eyes tight and clasped both hands together in unspoken plea. By the time he opened his eyes again, the big silver machine had vanished in a swirl of blue smoke. </p>
     <p>They were rolling through the morning countryside by the time Inspector Baxter got round to Jack's house and already Jack knew the big policeman had got the arithmetic right. Ed had picked up the cavalry call on the police band and relayed it to him as he drove up past Luss on the Loch shore road.</p>
     <p>"They're looking for tankers and heavy load," he said.</p>
     <p>"Contact Bullitt and let him know. I need those diversions now."</p>
     <p>Ed made the call and waited until he got to the  junction of the main road crossing east to west and took the west route, which could keep him well in range while Jack hurried on northwards. Here, the roads were narrower, and allowed for some manoeuvre, especially with the height and panoramic advantage you got from the cabin as you travelled past the country hedges. Sometimes you could get plenty of warning in the distance and take action.</p>
     <p>Sandy Bruce let Baxter and Jimmy Balloch in. Alice sat at the table with a cup of tea. After the one-day lapse when Michael was missing she had reverted to non-smoking mode. Michael ate his toast, nose buried as usual in a text-book.</p>
     <p>"I'm looking for Jack Lorne," the inspector said. He flashed a card very quickly. Sandy Bruce recognised him alright, but he wasn't in the mood to make it easy.</p>
     <p>"Who are you?"</p>
     <p>"Detective Inspector Angus Baxter, Levenford CID."</p>
     <p>"Show me your card."</p>
     <p>"I showed you already."</p>
     <p>"You must think I've got eyes like a hawk, young fella." </p>
     <p>Baxter showed it again. Sandy took it, made a play of unfolding his glasses and putting them on. Jimmy Balloch smirked behind his superior's back. Michael  bit down on his toast to keep from laughing, despite his own nervousness. Jack always said, <em>keep them off balance.</em> He must have got that from his uncle..</p>
     <p>"Police eh? What do you want our Jack for?"</p>
     <p>"Can we come in?"</p>
     <p>Sandy stood back for a moment, rubbed his chin as if considering and finally nodded. "I suppose so. I expect he's found some money and you're here to return it? Maybe a reward?"</p>
     <p>"No, not that. Is Jack in? Or his brother?"</p>
     <p>"Jack's down in London. He went two days ago, looking for work. It's a crying shame what a young fellow has to do to get work around here these days. It's cost him an arm and a leg in train fares. Hey Alice, you think Jack should apply to the police? He's got the height for it. And he's easily got the brains as well."</p>
     <p>Michael snorted, unable to keep it in. Sandy made it sound as if he was rambling. Alice looked up as the two policemen came crowding into the kitchen.</p>
     <p>"Sit down," she said. She offered them a cup of tea, which both of them accepted, and then she asked what this was about.</p>
     <p>"We're hoping to speak to your son Jack."</p>
     <p>"My brother-in-law just told you he isn't here."</p>
     <p>"And is this your other son, Michael?"</p>
     <p>Mike looked over the edge of the book, grinned and stuck his hand out quickly. Baxter took it, shook it, taken by surprise. Sandy threw the boy a wink. <em>Keep them off balance.</em></p>
     <p>"Pleased to meet you. You're an inspector? CID? Cool." He made himself sound naively enthusiastic. "Can I see your badge?"</p>
     <p>Baxter showed him the warrant. "Michael, can you tell us where you were on Monday at eleven am?"</p>
     <p>"I don't think so, Mr Baxter," Alice butted in. She put both hands on the table. "You're in my house and you haven't told us what you're doing here. I asked you what this is all about and so far you haven't answered."</p>
     <p>Jimmy Balloch looked at her with some respect. His boss had been wrong-footed three times now. Baxter leant back, seemed to ponder a moment.</p>
     <p>"We're investigating a number of incidents surrounding the disappearance of a large quantity of Scotch Whisky."</p>
     <p>"And you think my Jack is involved?"</p>
     <p>"We're just checking out some information, which may or may not be correct. But unless we ask, we won't find out." Baxter was trying hard to get control of this. "Now, can you tell me where Jack was on Monday at that time?"</p>
     <p>"Sure," Sandy said. "I can tell you. He was up at his lawyers in Glasgow. He had an appointment. Do you want the number?"</p>
     <p>"What would he need a lawyer for?"</p>
     <p>"That's surely none of your business, inspector," Alice cut across.</p>
     <p>"Maybe we should call the lawyer, Alice. This sounds like harassment."</p>
     <p>Baxter changed tack. "We have information that Jack may know some thing about the disappearance of whisky from Aitkenbar Distillery."</p>
     <p> "Where did you hear that?"</p>
     <p>"I'm not at liberty to say. Michael, were you down at Ferguson's car yard on Brewery Lane?"</p>
     <p>"Me? I don't have a car. I'm still at school."</p>
     <p>"Is that where the shooting was?" Alice demanded.</p>
     <p>"You think my nephew was involved in that?" Sandy put both hands on the table. "That's taking a big leap, Mr Baxter. The boy's still at school, he just told you that."</p>
     <p>Michael's nervousness was evaporating. He could see the big policeman struggling.</p>
     <p>"What happened to your face son?"</p>
     <p>Michael's hand flew to his cheek. Baxter smiled. Changing direction often produced results.</p>
     <p>"It was my uncle. He hit me with a big bit of wood."</p>
     <p>"He what?"</p>
     <p>"Yeah, I was helping him with his pigeon hut and he turned round with a plank. It was an accident. That was on Monday. At about eleven, I think. Grandad took me to the cottage hospital for a check.. Then he bought me a burger."</p>
     <p>"And you weren't down in Ferguson's yard?"</p>
     <p>"What would I go down there for?"</p>
     <p>"Has Jack ever owned a gun?"</p>
     <p>"You should check your records, inspector," Sandy came in. "And you should check with Jack's lawyer. Here's the number. And if you have any more questions about guns and shooting, that's awfully serious business and I really think you should speak to him. And when Jack gets back from London, I'll get him to call on you. With Mr Deane, of course."</p>
     <p>Jimmy Balloch tried not to smile. His boss only had Cullen's word for it, and while they had to check out every statement, the big man had been on to a hiding here. Baxter said his grudging thank-you and after he left, he sat in the car for a while.</p>
     <p>"There's something not right about them," he said.</p>
     <p>"What's that?"</p>
     <p>"They had that too pat. As if they expected me and had rehearsed it."</p>
     <p>"Or maybe they were just telling the truth."</p>
     <p>"Maybe. We'll see when we speak to Mr Jack Lorne himself."</p>
     <p>Before Jimmy Balloch could reply, the radio coughed and he put it to his ear before handing the receiver over to the inspector.</p>
     <p>"They've a possible sighting of one of the dairy tankers," he said.</p>
     <p>"Bingo." Baxter smiled for the first time that day.</p>
     <p><em></em></p>
     <p>The patrol spotted Ed's rig just south of the Cardross Hills on the back road from Levenford. He was driving alone, the way he preferred it, rather than having Donny in the cab chattering for an Olympic title. Jack said he needed Don to help with the unloading up in Oban and Ed reckoned that had been diplomacy. Whatever it had been, Ed knew he had room to manoeuvre when he only had himself to worry about and he'd thought about this for a while. He was in so deep there was no point in worrying at all. That's the way he had felt when he had climbed out the back of the truck to face Foley. It was make or break. </p>
     <p>       They all had a chance to make it.</p>
     <p>He saw the white top of the patrol car from half a mile, well before the policemen saw him. It was moving fast on the parallel road that would curve north to meet this road  when it turned south, at the Cross Keys junction. Ed had the phone stuck against the dashboard with glued-on velcro and the fine hands-free clipped to his shirt pocket. There was no point in calling Jack. He had Donny to listen out on the radio and watch the rear-view. He keyed the third number and raised Tam.</p>
     <p>"Harley here. What's happening?"</p>
     <p>"I'm coming down to the Cross Keys, heading east. A mile and a half to go and there's a boy scout coming up to it, moving pretty fast."</p>
     <p>"Got the picture," Tam said. The wind was muffling his words, but he shouted over it.</p>
     <p>"Bullitt's four miles away with the canopy ripped off, so he'll be right in line if they keep going and it's a dead giveaway. I think we try Plan B."</p>
     <p>"Give me some time to catch you up," Tam said. He clicked off, dropped the visor and the front wheel lifted off the tarmac when he fed the engine in a tight twist.</p>
     <p>Ed hammered down to the cross, needing to get to the junction in time to catch their attention. The road curved to the left and he held the rig close enough to the hedges on the slow bend that  the thorns spanged off the struts that held the green canvas taut. Any closer and he'd rip the whole cover right off.</p>
     <p>Down in the distance, the white top bobbed above the hedgerow and a flash of red showed every time the patrol passed a gate. Beyond it, about a mile away, Ed got a glimpse of the pale helmet. Tam was moving on the straight at suicide speed, racing to catch up. They had gone over this in a lot of detail, using the road maps and a big cross country ordnance survey job that covered the table, and then they'd gone out to get it first hand, Ed and Jack and Jed and Tam, working out a few moves, if they ever got the chance.</p>
     <p>The policeman saw him just as the patrol car crossed the junction. Ed had hoped it would be sooner, but on these roads he couldn't get the weight moving fast enough, and he was doing plenty by the time he got to the cross.</p>
     <p>The car reached the corner, nosed out. Ed was aware of it before the driver saw him. The policeman did his crossing code, right, left and right again, judging the distance by the size of the truck and the speed of the road. He was half-way across when he realised the big rig was moving faster than anything should have been on the narrow country route.</p>
     <p>The man's face was a pale oval and his mouth a dark one inside it that expanded hugely as Ed's juggernaut barrelled down the road, clipping off pieces of straggly hedge that remained untrimmed. The patrolman let out a one-syllable sentence that Ed lip-read with no difficulty whatsoever, and stamped on the accelerator. The car jumped across the junction and almost into the hedge at the corner, so fixed was the driver's attention on the approaching destruction. He compensated just in time and  scooted up the  north side of the cross as the lorry hurtled west, buffeting them with its passage and missing them by mere feet.</p>
     <p>The police driver cursed non-stop for forty seconds without repetition. He stamped on the brake just as hard as he had hit the throttle,  slammed into reverse for a very swift three-point turn while his colleague, equally pale and shaking with the fright of near miss, dropped the receiver and had to bend to pick it up again and call in.</p>
     <p>Baxter heard about the close call just two minutes later.</p>
     <p>By this time the patrol car was moving in the opposite direction, following the tail of exhaust and  clipped hawthorn flourish in the wake of the big covered tanker that was doing at least sixty on a road where thirty was risking it, but Ed had the height advantage and could see everything coming. Nothing was.</p>
     <p>The phone beeped and he answered. "Ace."</p>
     <p>"Harley. You've got an audience."</p>
     <p>"I see them. I've got five miles."</p>
     <p>"Okay, let's take them round the houses. Stay on line."</p>
     <p>Tam was coming up fast, with the police car a half mile ahead, seen only occasionally on the few straight sections. The patrol were closing quickly on the rig, pushing their own luck, but the driver was determined to get this one, get in on the kudos of the Aitkenbar job, and to get revenge for the little cooling wet patch in his jockeys after the fright he'd just had.</p>
     <p>He looked in his mirror, saw the white shape on the bike, and the chequered helmet, and growled under his breath. No traffic cop was going to steal this one. The road here was twisted and narrow and nothing could get past him on the tight zigzags.</p>
     <p>Ed pushed the speed up, now assured that Tam was close behind, and they kept going all in a line round the twists for close to five miles until they got to the  curve behind Cardross Hill where the road leads down to the little village of Arden on the Clyde. Here there is a short straight section that has been widened to let traffic filter down to Arden, and Ed knew the patrol would make their move at this junction, using their acceleration to get ahead. He slowed down just a little, swaying from side to side, sure there was no oncoming traffic, keeping them behind him.</p>
     <p>The swerving kept the driver's attention on the shifting back of the big twelve wheeler where the tarpaulin flapped like a loose flag. Because he was so focussed in front, he mistimed the straight by only a couple of seconds, but that's what Tam had counted on. He came right up to a couple of feet from the patrol rear lights, and as soon as the little filter gap expanded, he gunned the engine and went through it in a flash of white.</p>
     <p>"Bastard," the policeman snarled. "What's that idiot up to?"</p>
     <p>Tam never heard that. He was up parallel to the patrol car window and without changing his line, he took his clutch hand off the grip and thudded the white gauntlet against the glass, three hard slaps. The driver was so startled, he almost lost control and had to jerk the wheel again to avoid ending the chase in a ditch.</p>
     <p>"Okay. I've got it," Tam spoke into the throat mike. "Give Bullitt a call and then get back." He keyed the off, twisted the clutch to lower gear and swung right in front of the car.</p>
     <p>"Who <em>is</em> that lunatic?"</p>
     <p>The bike was careering left and right, only inches from the front bumper, blocking their passage and slowing down as it did so. The high rig picked up speed, got past the wider straight and onto the narrow. There was no change of getting past the bike now. It slowed still further.</p>
     <p>"That's not a BMW," the passenger said. "It's a... it's like a Harley D."</p>
     <p>"Son of a bitch. He's not even a cop." Realisation hit them simultaneously. "You better tell them he's getting away."</p>
     <p>In front of them, the drag-bike with the white jacketed figure had slowed from fifty down to thirty, crazily risking a collision with his back wheel. The truck disappeared round the corner. Two  small vans came in the opposite direction, but each time one passed, the bike swung out to prevent a sneak overtake. He slowed to twenty, then ten.</p>
     <p>The police driver was now fuming with frustration. The bike slowed even further, forcing them to follow suit and then eased to a halt right in the middle of the road. The patrol stopped just behind it, and for a moment of impasse, nobody moved. The biker looked just like a police cyclist on an outlandish set of wheels. He cocked his head to check the rear view, held his right hand up and waggled his fingers.</p>
     <p>"Cheeky bastard. Get his number."</p>
     <p>"I got it. They're checking."</p>
     <p>"What next?"</p>
     <p>"We arrest that joker," the driver said. "Then we get him in the back here and kick the shite right out of him."</p>
     <p>The driver plipped the lock, pushed the door, hauled out warily. The bike engine revved and the cop almost got back in the car. but the machine didn't move. He walked forward and his companion got out the other side. There was only a twenty yard gap between bike and car. They got half way and Tam gave it a little fuel and eased away from them.</p>
     <p>They started back to the car and he stopped. They turned, knowing he was taunting them.</p>
     <p>"We'll never catch him on foot."</p>
     <p>"This is why they should give us guns," the driver said.</p>
     <p>"What's that smell? Did you piss yourself."</p>
     <p>"Don't <em>you</em> start."</p>
     <p>They began to walk forward again and the biker turned right round in the saddle, beckoned them on. He held both hands up. The big driver thought he had an opportunity and broke into a sprint. His hat flew off as he raced to make a grab.</p>
     <p>The phone chirruped a warble of notes and the biker dropped his hands to the grips. The cop skidded to a halt, turned back to where his companion was now racing towards the car. For a second he looked as if he couldn't make up his mind, which was true, and then he dashed forward again, hand outstretched to grab. </p>
     <p>The engine roared and the bike took off like stallion, wheel in the air, rear treads burning a black strip on the good country road.</p>
     <p>"Come on," his partner bawled, quite unnecessarily. The patrolman reached it just as the bike was disappearing round the corner.</p>
     <p>"Hurry. We'll lose him." He hit the pedal and the car fishtailed crazily as he took off in pursuit.</p>
     <p>"I see you," Ed said into the phone.</p>
     <p>The bike came whizzing round the corner, going like a streak and seconds later the patrol car shot into view, lights flashing, siren wailing. Ed was up the farm track where a big line of new birches had been planted as a windbreak from the sea breezes  pushing up from Arden. They were just tall enough to give the rig some cover. Ed eased the clutch off, held everything still with the brake, though the powerful engine tried to shove everything forward. With no load in the tank, there was a lot of spare muscle.</p>
     <p>He was forty yards up from the entrance, watching through the only gap where he could see the road on both sides. It would all depend on whether some innocent passer-by was travelling in the opposite direction. Ed craned in his seat, making sure no farmer was plodding up from Arden. None was. He  held his breath, fed in fuel.</p>
     <p>Tam hurtled past the gap and was gone in a blur. Ed heard the protest of gears and axle as he launched the truck forward right across the road and stamped on the brake. The tyres squawked like the angry geese and ground like rasp files as they dragged grit across the surface. The rig juddered and  the engine stalled. The road was now completely blocked.</p>
     <p>Out to the left, the police car was doing sixty, just coming out of the turn. He got a blur of white, a flash of blue and red, and just an impression of two pale faces in aghast mode. He snatched up the phone in his gloved hand, shouldered the door and was out the other side and running hard. All he could hear was the wailing ululation of the siren and the urgent scream of rubber against rough road metal.</p>
     <p>If he had been in the patrol car he would also have heard two grown men screaming.</p>
     <p>The driver forgot every lesson he had learned on the advanced pursuit course. Maybe it was his temperament, or the way the rider had blatantly taunted him, thumping the window, slowing them down, daring him to hit. </p>
     <p>Whatever it was, all caution and prudence turned to uncontrolled rashness. He saw the bike disappear in a flicker of white past the trees on the bend and took off in pursuit, cut the corner on the wrong side of the road, causing his partner to grab the strap-handle and pray a hay-spiker or anything else big and mechanical wasn't out for a trundle at that moment.</p>
     <p>The pursuit cop double-declutched, dropped a gear tight on the cusp of the corner and used the centripetal force to gain him another couple of clicks on the turn.</p>
     <p>"I'll get that bastard if it's the last fuckin' thing I........"</p>
     <p>The  tanker lurched across the road like a charging dinosaur, its green tarpaulin skin iridescent in the spangled light through the leaves, and sun glittering on the curve of the windscreen.</p>
     <p> "Holy mother of......hit the brake...hit the fuckin' braaaa......"</p>
     <p>That last consonant was lost forever in the horrified wail.</p>
     <p>The driver stamped down, gripped the wheel in two death grips, eyes bulging in sudden realisation as the big truck stopped dead, jolted back on its massive wheels as if pausing for breath.</p>
     <p>The patrol car just kept on going. Hedges whizzed by in a blur and the slab-like side of the juggernaut just got bigger and bigger until it filled the screen.</p>
     <p>"You stupid  mother-fucking pratt... we're going to hit the..."</p>
     <p>The sound of the tyres on the road and the wide mouthed yell drowned out everything else. The patrol car fishtailed again, burning parallel curves from one side of the narrow road to the other. They clipped  a sturdy hawthorn stump a foot in from the verge and lost the driver's mirror in one hard crack and then they were juddering forward, smoke billowing from underneath as the brakes seized entirely. A tyre burst like a bomb.</p>
     <p>"Hold on we're going to hit the....."</p>
     <p>They were twelve feet away from the exposed nearside when the partner realised what would happen if a saloon car their size hit the trailer-chassis that was four feet from road level. In a sudden burst of frantic motion, he scrabbled to get  the  belt release and squirm downwards, out of the path of that murderous edge.</p>
     <p>"Oh Jesus," he blurted feebly when the belt refused to loosen.</p>
     <p>They hit with an almighty crack and the nose crumpled into the low protection bar, dived under it and  the angle of metal sliced the whole bonnet  backwards in one violent rip.</p>
     <p>The driver let out one last yell just as the  side stanchion loomed towards his face and then everything just stopped in a tremendous wrench of torn steel and the two airbags exploded simultaneously, smashing them back against the head rests.</p>
     <p>It took a couple of minutes for both of them to realise they were still alive.</p>
     <p>The partner clutched his chest where the expanding bag  had punched so hard it cracked two ribs. The driver made a little mewling sound.</p>
     <p>"You crazy fucking lunatic," the other man groaned weakly from behind the deflating bag. "You nearly had us decapitated."</p>
     <p>The driver moaned, got a hand to the door. </p>
     <p>"What's that smell?" he managed. "Did you just piss yourself?"</p>
     <p>"No I didn't," his partner grunted.</p>
     <p>"Oh fuck. Tell me you haven't shit.....!"</p>
     <p>Ed was on the back of the bike and they were gone down the Arden Road in a streak, leaning forward against the wind. He was already on the phone, sheltering behind Tam, shouting to make himself heard over the slipstream.</p>
     <p>"This road's blocked. You got ten minutes or so. Anything else will be coming up the Loch Shore Road."</p>
     <p>That plan had worked, just as Jack said it would. He'd known just what Tam could do on a bike when he put his mind to it, after the record-breaking runs up to Skye. Now they had one team  out of the running. Ed had seen the sudden gout of steam and smoke from the far side of the tanker and he'd known they had hit, but the loud cursing after the crash told them they weren't dead, which was a bit of a relief.</p>
     <p>"There's only one more car up here," Neil came back. "They're not happy with you."</p>
     <p>"I'll live with it. Where are they?"</p>
     <p>He and Ed shared the details they needed. The patrol was diverted north to check out a heavy load at the head of the loch and they all knew there was a fair chance somebody had spotted Jack and Donny. There was a possibility the tarpaulin had come loose and the big yellow tanks were showing. Anything could have happened.</p>
     <p>"Do you need a back-up?"</p>
     <p>Jed's voice came on the line. "No. Once they see us they'll follow. We lost the cover at the bridge, so the sign's there for anybody to read."</p>
     <p>Ed tapped Tam and he slowed.</p>
     <p>"Drop me off at the junction. I'll get you back at the car." </p>
     <p>He told him what Jed was planning, and Tam  gave him a thumb's up from behind the visor. A few minutes later Ed patted him on the helmet, waved him off, and began to take a short-cut through a grove of tall beech trees. The sun was well up now and it was promising to be a good day. There was nothing else for him to do but enjoy it. A woodpecker beat out a rap rhythm somewhere in the shade and Ed started to whistle  a happy tune along with it.</p>
     <p>Constable Derek Travers was cruising up the Loch Road, knowing he was on a wild goose chase, knowing he'd been sent on it because he and Walter Crum had drawn the short straw and been called out to a couple of barking dogs on the night of the biggest heist in the history of Levenford since Bruce took the castle and its garrison back from Edward Longshanks; the night he'd seen them in action and failed to notice a thing.</p>
     <p>It would take a long time for his career to get over this hiccup. It would need the equivalent of a Heimlich manoeuvre and maybe even cardiac jump leads.</p>
     <p>"There's a million wide loads up this road every week."</p>
     <p>"We just have to check it out."</p>
     <p>"They've sent us because we're the total numpties of the entire force."</p>
     <p>Walter nodded glumly. "What's the opposite of Mensa?"</p>
     <p>"Dunsa. We get to wear the pointy hat and sit in the corner with everybody laughing and pointing. Swear on my mother's grave Walter, that big highland git would have been fooled himself. <em>Totally</em>."</p>
     <p>"I've asked for a transfer."</p>
     <p>"You what?"</p>
     <p>"I have to get out of...." Walter paused. "Wait a minute, what's that?"</p>
     <p>A big silver tanker crossed the main road about a half a mile up ahead.</p>
     <p>"Go faster," Walter urged. </p>
     <p>"What, you don't think....?"</p>
     <p>Walter was scrabbling in the glovebox for the little binoculars he used for birdwatching on the quiet afternoons when the pair of them sneaked up beyond Overburn for a smoke. They'd been having a contest for months, totalling the sparrows and robins and magpies. It passed the time very equably instead of cruising around Corrieside and being stoned by teenage layabouts and harangued by junkies.</p>
     <p>He pushed the focus ring, just the way Neil had on the high tower block.</p>
     <p>"You're not going to believe this," Walter said. For the first time in days there was a confident ring to his voice. He thumbed the zoom just to be sure. The blue lettering stood out against the silver on the massive cylindrical tank.</p>
     <p>"Levenford Dairy," he said. "Prop. A. Kerr. Established 1934."</p>
     <p>He turned to Derek Travers. "Consider that transfer application withdrawn. You and me, we're back in business."</p>
     <p>A bird fluttered in a streak of black and white across the road.</p>
     <p>"<em>Magpie</em>," Travers bellowed triumphantly at exactly the same time.</p>
     <p>"We'll split the points later. Let's go catch those arseholes."</p>
     <p>
Chapter 25:  Full Proof                                                                                                                                   Joe Donnelly




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