He switched on his engine then realizing he would be driving past the entrance to the garage courtyard with the good chance that she'd drive out simultaneously and clock him, he switched off again. Best to let her go. And follow? No! Jesus Christ, if he was going to get anywhere with this woman which he doubted, he'd have to stop acting like a cop.
But where the hell was she? Didn't take this long to start up a vehicle and drive out.
Suddenly he was worried. Could fate be so malevolent as to let Cap get mugged while he was sitting out here feeling like a nervous adolescent?
Too bloody right it could! he thought grimly.
He picked up the gift-wrapped cylinder lying on the passenger seat, gripped it like a club and got out of the car. Moving with that lightness and stealth which often amazed those who'd never seen him in action, he crossed the road and went along the front of the block.
At the corner of the alley leading into the rear yard where the garages were, he paused. No sound… no… wait… a distant voice… female… low… pleading…
He launched himself forward again, still light-footed but now covering the ground with the surprising speed of a grizzly bear on the rampage. Teeth bared in fury and exertion, he rounded the corner. And stopped.
In the light cast out of an open garage door, Cap Marvell crouched, surrounded by cats feeding at half a dozen saucers piled high with scraps of meat. Several of the animals, alarmed by Dalziel's approach, retreated and the woman looked up angrily.
'Quiet!' she urged. 'It's OK, my dears, nothing to worry about, back you come.'
Slowly the cats returned and began to feed again. They were mainly lean ragged beasts with the scars of street warfare upon them.
'Bet the neighbours love you,' said Dalziel.
'Bet the neighbours aren't starving,' replied Cap.
'You do this regular, do you?'
'Most nights when I'm home. Watch the news, then it's supper time. Nice to have a bit of order in a disordered universe. Why do you ask?'
Dalziel considered whether explanation would help his case, decided on the whole it wouldn't.
'No reason,' he said. 'Thought we should talk.'
'We talked, remember?'
'Still things left to say.'
'I don't think so, Andy.'
'Brought you a present.'
He offered her the cylinder. She didn't take it so he tore off the wrapping to reveal a bottle of whisky.
'The Macallan,' he said reverently. 'Twelve years old. Single malt.'
'Maybe it'll get married when it grows up,' she said.
The cats had finished eating. She gathered up the saucers.
'Thought you might like to know what happened about Walker,' he said.
‘I’ll read about it in the papers,' she said. 'Unless you've sat on them again?'
'No, it'll be there, eventually.'
'Good,' she said.
She put out the garage light, closed the door and began to walk away.
'Hey, you're forgetting your malt.'
'Never touch the stuff,' she called over her shoulder.
He set it carefully on the ground.
'Well, it's there if you change your mind,' he said.
'I won't,' her voice came out of the darkness. 'But it's a nice gesture, superintendent. You can plead it in mitigation. Nothing God likes better than a nice gesture.'
He waited a moment then followed. She had gone into the apartment block when he reached the roadway. He paused, contemplated, then turned and went back down the alley. Bright eyes watched him hopefully from the darkness.
He raised two huge fingers, not to them but at the skies.
'Think on,' he said. 'That's a nice gesture. This is nigh on two and a half gills.'
And picking up the bottle of whisky, he strode off to his car.
EPILOGUE
The sheep from George Creed's flock at Enscombe were taken in the transporter to the Haig depot where they remained in more or less comfortable conditions for twenty-four hours. Then they were reloaded into another unmarked transporter and driven south. Since the decision of most of the major ferry companies not to transport live animals to the continent, other arrangements had to be made, and a container ship with surplus space had contracted to move the Haig consignment from Grimsby to Dunkirk. Severe weather conditions delayed the sailing and it was Friday morning before the ship docked in France. Dead or alive, British meat was never welcome in that country except in circumstances of dire emergency, and a group of French farmers, tipped off by a sympathetic customs official, ambushed the transporter a few miles inland. The driver was dumped in a ditch and the sheep, which by now had not been fed or watered for three days, were released. Some were shot or beaten to death by the ambushers, some savaged by their dogs, a few managed to escape. Twenty-four hours of high-level and high- sounding diplomatic exchange ensued. The usual track of indignation, exculpation, and compensation was trodden. By Saturday evening honour was declared satisfied at all levels on both sides. Meanwhile the surviving sheep had been rounded up and a less provocative route to the ultimate destination of the great Federal Republic of Germany worked out. And on Sunday morning, which also happened to be Armistice Day, as the bugles sounded the Last Post over the cenotaphs of western Europe, the transporter bound for that distant slaughterhouse crossed over the border into Flanders.
