‘Running away? But where would you go?’
‘My grandma. My mother’s mother. She’s a true gypsy. Her name’s Brana – Brana Smith, but she calls herself Gypsy Rose.’
‘I seem to have heard a name like that before,’ Cussane said, smiling.
‘She has the gift,’ Morag told him seriously. ‘Second sight in all things, with the palm, the crystal or the Tarot cards. She has a house in Wapping in London, on the river, when she isn’t working the fairgrounds with the travelling shows.’
‘And you’d like to go to her?’
‘Granda always said I could when I was older.’ She pushed herself up. ‘What about you? Do you intend to make for London?’
‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly.
‘Then we could go together.’ This she said to him calmly and without emotion, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t think so. For one thing, it would only get you deeper in trouble. For another, I have to travel light. No excess baggage. When I have to run, I have to run fast. No time to think of anyone but me.’
There was something in her eyes, a kind of hurt, but she showed no emotion, simply got out of the jeep and stood at the side of the track, hands in pockets. ‘I understand. You go on from here. I’ll walk back down the glen.’
He had a momentary vision of the wretched encampment, imagined the slow and inevitable brutalization of the years. And she was worth more than that. Much more.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘Get in!’
‘What for?’
‘I need you to drive the jeep, don’t I, while I follow the map? Down through the glen below and over that centre hill. There’s a farm in a place called Glendhu outside Larwick.’
She got behind the wheel quickly, smiling. ‘Have you friends there?’
‘Not exactly.’ He reached for his bag, opened it, pulled open the false bottom and took out the bundle of banknotes. ‘This is the kind of stuff they like. What most people like if it comes to that.’ He pulled several notes off, folded them and put them in the breast pocket of her old reefer coat. That should keep you going till you find your grannie.’
Her eyes were round in astonishment. ‘I can’t take that.’
‘Oh yes, you can. Now get this thing moving.’
She selected a low gear and started down the track carefully. ‘And what happens when we get there? To me, I mean?’
‘We’ll have to see. Maybe you could catch a train. On your own, you’d probably do very well. I’m the one they’re really after, so your only real danger is in being with me.’
She didn’t say anything to that and he studied the map in silence. Finally, she spoke again. ‘The business about me and Murray. Does that disgust you? I mean, the wickedness of it?’
‘Wickedness?’ He laughed softly. ‘My dear girl, you have no conception of what true wickedness, real evil, is like, although Murray is probably animal enough to come close. A priest hears more of sin in a week than most people experience in a lifetime.’
She glanced at him briefly. ‘But I thought you said you only posed as a priest.’
‘Did I?’ Cussane lit another cigarette and leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes.
As the police car turned out of the carpark at Glasgow Airport, Chief Inspector Trent said to the driver, ‘You know where we’re going. We’ve only got thirty-five minutes so step on it.’ Devlin and Fox sat in the rear of the car and Trent turned towards them. ‘Did you have a good flight?’
‘It was fast, that was the main thing,’ Fox said. ‘What’s the present position?’
‘Cussane turned up again, at a gypsy encampment in the Galloway Hills. I got the news on the car radio just before you got in.’
‘And got away again, I fancy?’ Devlin said.
‘As a matter of fact, he did.’
‘A bad habit he has.’
‘Anyway, you said you wanted to be in the Dunhill area. We’re going straight to Glasgow Central Railway Station now. The main road is still flooded, but I’ve made arrange-no