'Andy, Andy. She took me in, too. She was Crystal Tipps, remember. I believed her every bit as much. Christ, it was me who told you to take her to Sarah. Andy, man, never blame yourself again. What you did was the hardest thing you'll ever have to do
in your life, and because of that, it was the bravest, too. When I let my gun go, I knew I was putting all our lives in your hands, and I never doubted for one second that you'd come through.'
Then he add Adam Arrow took Andy Martin, now limp and exhausted, and led him away from the bodies of Ariel, who had also been his Julia, and of her brother with whom she had schemed, stolen, killed and finally died.
'Ah, but, lads,' said Andy as they walked away, in a voice full of almost unspeakable regret. 'When she was Julia, when she was good… I'll never find anyone again like the woman she pretended to be.'
Adam Arrow dug him gently in the side with an elbow.
'Sure you will, Andy. Sure you will. She were only an illusion, remember. She weren't real. There's plenty of women who are, though. Why for a start there's two in that plane over there. Mind you, one's spoken for, and the other – well 'er father's a bad fella' to cross!'
101
'So our Mr Black didn't exist after all.'
It was mid-afternoon, only one day and a half after the deaths of Ingemar and Ariel, and the end of all their plots, their projects and their schemes. Bob Skinner and Sir James Proud stood in the back garden of the bungalow at Fairyhouse Avenue. The blazing heat which had marked the first Festival days had gone, but there was still enough warmth in the sun for them to be in shirtsleeves.
Each held a drink in his hand: Proud Jimmy's a gin-and-tonic, Bob's the usual beer straight from the bottle.
'Well, Jimmy, you could say that in fact he did. He was – well, what would you call him? A trading identity, I suppose. Ariel and Ingo's joint trade name. And it really was their name, too. Shahor in Hebrew, which she wasn't, and Svart in Swedish, which he wasn't either. Both mean 'Black'. Interpol have finally tracked them down. Brother and sister they were indeed, but German by birth. And guess what? Their family name was Schwartz.
'Julia's story to Andy about her parents' marriage breaking up, and her being sent to Israel, that was a load of balls. Apparently the truth is that the teenage Schwartz kids joined a right-wing action group, one that went in for violent protests of various sorts.
The police never caught on to them, but their father found out about it and threw them out. After that happened, they seem to have decided that terrorism had a limited future, not to mention very poor profit margins, but that the sort of things they had learned could be put to good commercial use, given the right sort of customer – one prepared to put up whatever funding they would need to get what he was after.
'They must have known they were both very young to be credible as the leaders of the sort of operations they were offering to put together. So they seem to have invented 'Mr Black' as a sort of authority, figure, a mystery man in the background, to keep their clients happy that they were dealing with someone really heavy- duty, and to keep even the hardest acts among the hired help well in line. When their bluff was called, they were tough enough – as anyone who crossed them found out.
'Interpol has been trying to get a handle on them for a while.
They reckon they've been in business for six or seven years. That would have made them early to mid- twenties when they started: in no small way. apparently. They stole a twenty-million-dollar stallion in the States. It's never been seen since, but some very quick two- and three-year-olds have started showing up in the Gulf States, and in Hong Kong! The Schwartzes disappeared around five years ago, and then Ingemar Svart and Julia Shahor showed up. Each had brand-new degrees – phoney of course, although they were both exceptionally talented. They followed different careers, well apart, but each, according to their passports, was able to do a lot of travelling. The stamps show that they were both in the vicinity of those jobs that Stewart told Adam Arrow about. They were a roaring success, until, eventually, they showed up here.'
Proud sipped his drink, the ice almost melted. 'Quite a pair.
Quite a story. I'm just glad you were able to stop them. So how are Sarah and Alex? Are they getting over it? How are you. for that matter?'
'The girls are OK. A bit shaky still. So are we all, but we're leaning on each other. We're a family. We'll be fine.'
'And Andy? What about him, d'you think?'
'That's something else again. What a thing he had to do! I told him to take a month off. But all he said was that if I did, then he would, too. I'll keep an eye on him for a few weeks. Make him take counselling at least. Then, once he's justified himself to himself, and shown everyone he can carry on regardless, I'll sort out a sabbatical for him. Maybe we could send him off to do some research on security policing in another country, with another force. Somewhere far away.'
'That's a good idea,' said Proud Jimmy. 'I'll look into some possibilities. Oh, by the way, there'll be no FAI on Ingo or Ariel.
I've fixed that with the Crown Office. They did a postmortem on him last night. The old pathologist told me he couldn't believe his eyes. He said the last injury he'd seen like that was thirty-seven years ago, and that bloke had been hanged. How bloody strong are you. Bob?'
'Strong enough to look after my nearest and dearest. That's all the strength I'll ever need.'
'Well, my friend, I hope you never have to call on it again!'
Skinner smiled. 'Go on. Jimmy. Get the girls, and Andy and Adam. Those steaks'll be barbied by now!' a Proud Jimmy turned to walk into the house, then stopped.
'Interpol haven't a -clue about the client, have they?'; 'No, not a sniff. You know, I'm beginning to think they might' have done it on spec., and that they might not even have had a client. If they were risking their own money, that could explain why they pursued it to the very end. They'd have had cash enough from their earlier jobs to fund the whole operation, and there are enough wealthy weirdos around the world for them to have set up an auction for the Regalia, and pulled an incredible price. That could have been what it was all about. But, chances are. we'll never know!'
Epilogue
Everard Balliol sat in his den. He was a ten per-cent shareholder in TNI, and as such received daily transcripts of the station's output, as a matter of course. His jaw was working fiercely as he read the account of the foiling of the Edinburgh Castle raid, and of the failure of the follow-up attempt on the Crown Jewels of Scotland.
'Just as well for those two, they didn't make it,' he growled. •Wouldn't have been no mountain high enough for them Everard Balliol was a vengeful man. It ran in his family. He was also one of the richest in the world, and so had the resources to indulge his whims, in whatever form they developed.
It was that crazy book he had picked up on a hotel stop-over a few years back, when there was nothing else to read. The Lion in the North it was called, by some guy named John Prebble, and that had started him on his crusade. Until then, he'd no idea that he was the descendant of kings. The names had jumped out at him, early in the book, and he had read all night. John Balliol, and then Edward Balliol, Kings of Scotland and allies of the mighty Plantagenets of England, their throne usurped by the brigand Bruce, and so robbed of their birthright. His family's birthright. His birthright. For the finest genealogists his money could buy had confirmed his instant assumption. He did spring in direct line from the seed of those ancient kings. Royal Scottish blood did flow through his veins.
Everard Balliol's crusade to restore what he saw as his family's good name had been his driving force from that time on. He had paid frequent trips to Scotland. He had studied its later history, its laws, its institutions. He could have bought up much of it, but had decided early on that he wanted no part of contemporary Scotland. It
