Read Gunrunner for Free Online

referring to his pocketbook. ‘Or Miguel Rodriguez? Kerry had spoken to both of them on her mobile over the last day or so.’
    ‘Yeah. Dixon was one of our drivers up to about three months ago.’
    ‘Why did he leave?’
    ‘I sacked him. He got captured by the customs guys at Dover, bringing in a load of bootlegged booze from Calais.’
    That was interesting. Dixon’s calls to Kerry’s mobile had continued long after he’d been dismissed. I wondered why, but I was not about to ask Bligh because I thought I could guess.
    ‘And Rodriguez?’ I asked.
    ‘No idea. Never heard of him.’
    ‘Is the company in a good way of business, Mr Bligh?’ I asked.
    ‘Couldn’t be better,’ said Bligh, ‘despite the recession, although we’ve had to make one or two cutbacks. It’s made Kerry a very rich woman. Well, good luck to her, I say. She worked bloody hard to learn the ins and outs of the trade after Dick was killed. And she did, despite knowing nothing about the haulage business to start with. But she knows a hell of lot about it now. She even got a licence to drive a forty-four tonner just so she’d know what the guys were up against.’
    On the afternoon of the day after Boxing Day, Dave and I made our way to Heathrow Airport in good time to meet the aircraft that should be bringing Nick Hammond back to England from New York. Don Keegan, the relief incident room manager, had done something he called ‘trawling the Internet’ and discovered that the flight in which we were interested was estimated to land twenty minutes earlier than its scheduled time of three o’clock. Even so, I made a point of getting there at two o’clock. In my experience, aeroplanes are unpredictable beasts and could arrive much earlier or much later than they were supposed to.
    As it happened, Hammond’s aircraft did in fact touch down at twenty minutes to three, having benefited from a tailwind across the Atlantic. I’d made contact with the Port Watch police at the airport, and one of the unit’s sergeants accompanied Dave and me to the arrivals area. Even though Dave had already done so, the sergeant then alerted the Border Agency officers to our interest so that they could identify Hammond for me, but it turned out to be unnecessary.
    At five past three, the passengers started to trickle through the control. I immediately recognized the tall figure of Nick Hammond from the wedding photograph we had taken from his house at Barnes. Waiting until he had cleared the control, Dave and I approached him.
    ‘Mr Nicholas Hammond?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes, I am he.’ Hammond looked nervous. But so do most people arriving at an airport when they’re stopped by a couple of officials.
    ‘We’re police officers, Mr Hammond. We’d like a word with you.’
    ‘Is it about my wife?’
    ‘Why should you think that?’ asked Dave.
    Hammond dropped his carry-on bag. ‘Well, she didn’t turn up here on Christmas Eve, and she didn’t arrive in New York either. Has something happened to her?’
    The Port Watch sergeant touched my arm. ‘Would you like to use our office, sir?’
    ‘Yes please, Skip.’
    The sergeant led the way through a deserted customs hall and into a small office that had one-way windows large enough to see all that was happening in the arrivals area.
    ‘I’ll leave you to it, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘If there’s anything you need, I’m only in the next office. Just give me a shout.’
    ‘What’s this all about?’ demanded Hammond, when the three of us were alone.
    ‘Mr Hammond, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of New Scotland Yard,’ I began, ‘and this is DS Poole. I’m sorry to have to tell you that your wife is dead.’
    ‘Oh God, no! She can’t be.’ Hammond’s face drained of colour, and he immediately started to perspire as he sank back into a chair before shooting off a number of staccato questions and statements. ‘What happened? Was it an accident? She always tended to drive that damned car too