Death of a Sweep - M. C. Beaton [56]
‘Come ben,’ he said. ‘What brings you north?’
‘A holiday owing.’
‘Didn’t the Australian job work out?’
‘It was a contract computer job which ran its course. I’ll start again in London when my agency finds me something. Now, let’s sit down and you can tell me all your news.’
Hamish began at the beginning, telling her the latest disturbing news that Bromley had been found dead on a plane at Heathrow. As he had used a genuine passport, police had figured that he meant to turn himself in – but someone had followed him on to the plane. ‘The UK has a extradition treaty with Brazil so we hope the Brazilian police are rounding up the rest of them.’
But Sandra had received a call from her husband at Heathrow. ‘Get out of there,’ Prosser had said. ‘Bromley’s taking a plane to London and he’s going to betray all of us.’
Meaning you, Sandra had thought, numb with shock. The fact that her husband was a serial killer finally hit her. Why should she run like a fugitive? She had access to her husband’s money squirrelled away in the Cayman Islands. She had done nothing wrong. She could hear the others talking on the terrace, wondering where Prosser and Bromley had got to. Why should she care what happened to Castle, Sanders, and their wives?
She had no intention of being dragged off to some smelly Brazilian cell. Her husband would have used one of the new fake passports. She would have to pray the old fake passport still worked.
Sandra opened the safe in the villa and pulled out wads of banknotes along with several bankbooks. She stripped naked and Sellotaped the money to her body before dressing again. She did not want to risk packing or calling for a taxi. It was going to be a long hot walk into town.
Chapter Eleven
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
– FRANCIS BACON
‘I don’t think Prosser will go back to Brazil,’ said Hamish. ‘I don’t think he cares what happens to anyone other than himself. Keeping those ledgers was an act of supreme vanity. So what’s the next move of a man with supreme vanity?’
‘Disappear to some country where they don’t have extradition,’ suggested Priscilla. She was wearing a blue cotton shirtwaister, as blue as her eyes. The shining bell of her hair fell evenly on either side of her calm face. Hamish felt a treacherous tug of attraction but mentally shrugged it off.
‘If Prosser thinks the mysterious Diarmuid is me, then he’ll come after me. He will see me as the ruin of his life. He will want to get even before he disappears. There were few passengers in first class, and the one seated behind Bromley answering to the name of Higgins answers the description of Prosser.’
Priscilla looked alarmed. ‘Have you told Strathbane about your suspicions?’
‘I tried. But Blair blocked it. He’s probably praying that I’m right.’
‘Take a holiday,’ urged Priscilla.
‘No, I think I’ll chust bide here,’ said Hamish, the sudden strengthening of his accent showing he was not so calm as he was trying to be. ‘But there’s one thing you could do for me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Take my dog and cat up to the hotel and get chef Clarry to take care of them for a bit. I don’t want Prosser poisoning them before he comes for me.’
‘And you’re just going to stay here like a tethered goat?’
‘That’s me,’ said Hamish with a grin and then bleated.
But an unusually fine summer finally went out in a blaze of glory with purple blazing on the flanks of the mountains and there had been no attempt on Hamish’s life.
Sanders, Castle, and their wives were still in prison in Brazil, awaiting extradition. They had sung like canaries to visiting detectives from Scotland Yard. The hunt for Prosser and his wife was worldwide. Photographs of what they looked like and what they might look like if they had changed their hair colour and donned disguises had appeared on television and in all the papers.
Angela’s writing classes had been a great success, and budding authors tapped away at computers. There was the usual weekly ceilidh at the village hall. Lochdubh had returned to normal for everyone