‘It wasn’t as simple as it sounds, sir,’ Brodie said lamely.
‘You stupid, stupid man,’ Trent said. ‘By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be lucky if they put you in charge of a public lavatory.’
He turned away in disgust and went back along the platform to phone Ferguson.
Cussane at that precise moment was halted in the shelter of some rocks on top of a hill north of Dunhill. He had the ordnance survey map open that he’d purchased from Moira McGregor. He found Larwick with no trouble and the Mungos’ farm was just outside. Perhaps fifteen miles and most of that over hill country, and yet he felt cheerful enough as he pressed on.
The mist curling in on either hand, the heavy rain, gave him a safe, enclosed feeling, remote from the world outside, a kind of freedom. He moved on through birch trees and wet bracken that soaked his trouser legs. Occasionally grouse or plover lifted from the heather, disturbed by his passing. He kept on the move, for by now his raincoat was soaked through and he was experienced enough to know the dangers of being in hill country like this in the wrong clothing.
He came over the edge of an escarpment perhaps an hour
after leaving the train and looked down into a valley glen below. Darkness was falling, but there was a clearly defined man-made track a few yards away ending at a cairn of rough stones. It was enough; he hurried on with renewed energy and plunged down the hillside.
Ferguson was looking at a large ordnance survey map of the Scottish Lowlands. ‘Apparently he got the coach in More-cambe,’ he said. ‘We’ve established that.’
‘A neat way of getting to Glasgow, sir,’ Fox said.
‘No,’ Ferguson said. ‘He took a ticket to a place called Dunhill. What in the hell would he be doing there?’
‘Do you know the area?’ Devlin asked.
‘Had a week’s shooting on some chap’s estate about twenty years ago. Funny place, the Galloway hills. High forests, ridgebacks and secret little lochs everywhere.’
‘Galloway, you said?’ Devlin looked closer at the map. ‘So that’s Galloway?’
Ferguson frowned. ‘So what?’
‘I think that’s where he’s gone,’ Devlin said. ‘I think that’s where he was aiming to go all along.’
Fox said, ‘What makes you think that?’
He told them about Danny Malone and when he was finished, Ferguson said, ‘You could very well have something.’
Devlin nodded. ‘Danny mentioned a number of safe houses used by the underworld in various parts of the country, but the fact that he’s in the Galloway area must have some connection with this place run by the Mungo brothers.’
‘What do we do now, sir?’ Fox asked Ferguson. ‘Get Special Branch, Glasgow, to lay on a raid on this Mungo place?’
‘No, to hell with that,’ Ferguson said. ‘We’ve already had a classic example of just how efficient the local police can be; they had him and let him slip through their fingers.’ He glanced out of the window at the darkness outside. ‘Too late to do anything tonight. Too late for him as well. He’ll still be on foot in those hills,’
‘Bound to be,’ Devlin said.
‘So – you and Harry fly up to Glasgow tomorrow. lou check out this Mungo place personally. I’m invoking special powers. On this one, Special Branch will do what you want.’
He went out. Fox gave Devlin a cigarette. ‘What do you think?’
‘They had him, Harry, in handcuffs,’ Devlin said, ‘and he got away. That’s what I think. Now give me a light.’
Cussane went down through birch trees following the course of a pleasant burn which splashed between a jumble of granite boulders. He was beginning to feel tired now in spite of the fact that the going was all downhill.
The burn disappeared over an edge of rock, cascading into a deep pool as it had done several times before and he slithered down through birch trees through the gathering dusk rather faster than he had intended, landing in an untidy heap, still holding on to his bag.
There was a startled gasp and Cussane, coming up on one knee, saw two children crouched at the side of the pool. The girl, on a second look, was older than he had thought, perhaps sixteen, and wore Wellingtons and jeans and an old reefer coat that was too big for her. She had a pointed face, wide dark eyes, and a profusion of black hair flowed from beneath a knitted Tarn O’Shanter.