Page 68 of The Veteran

The Sikh entered the washroom, flicking odd pieces of litter into his dustpan. The man in the cream suit was not entering a cubicle but washing his hands. Gul Singh produced a cloth and began to wipe out the bowls and the handbasins. The other occupant took no notice of him. The Sikh kept himself busy at his lowly task, but he checked to see if there was anyone hidden in the cubicles. Was this a rendezvous, a handover? He was still wiping and cleaning when the businessman dried his hands, picked up his attaché case and left. No contact had taken place. He told Bill Butler.

At that moment one of the passport officers at the desks for non-UK citizens nodded a shabby-looking hippie past him and raised his eyes to the mirrored wall. Butler took the signal and made a call on his communicator. In the passage leading to the customs hall a young woman who appeared to have disembarked from the aeroplane but had not, and who appeared to be adjusting her shoe, straightened up, noted the jeans and denim shirt ahead of her and began to follow.

Hugo Seymour had emerged into the passage to find himself no longer alone but in a throng of Economy Class passengers. He’s killing time, thought Bill Butler, losing himself in the mass. But why the stand-out-a-mile suit? That was when the anonymous call came. Butler took the report from the switchboard on his communicator.

‘American-sounding voice,’ said the operator. ‘Tagged a Canadian hippie in jeans and denim shirt, long shaggy hair, wispy beard, but he’s carrying a cargo in his haversack. Then hung up.’

‘We’re onto him,’ said Butler.

‘That was quick, boss,’ said the admiring switchboard operator. Butler was striding down passages unknown to the public to take up position behind another two-way mirror, but this time in the customs area, specifically the Nothing to Declare Green Channel. If either of the suspects headed for the Red Channel, that would be a real surprise.

He was pleased the anonymous call had come through. It conformed to pattern. The hippie was the decoy, the obvious type. The respectable businessman would have the consignment. Not a bad trick, but this time, thanks to a dutiful citizen with insomnia, sharp eyes and a nosy disposition, it was not going to work.

The luggage from Bangkok was coming onto Carousel Six and over 200 people were already grouped around it. Most had acquired trolleys from the ranks at the end of the hall. Among the passengers stood Mr Seymour. His real hide hard-frame case had been one of the first to appear but he had not been there. The rest of the First Class passengers were gone. The hide case had already circled twenty times, but he made no eye contact with it, gazing instead at the delivery mouth by the wall whence the cases emerged from the baggage handling area beyond.

Ten yards away stood the hippie, Donovan, still waiting for his big black haversack. Just approaching the carousel, pushing not one but two trolleys, was Mr Higgins with his wife and daughter. Julie, on her first foreign journey, had insisted she wanted a trolley of her own for her single case and Pooky.

Piece by piece, the circulating bags were identified by their owners, hauled off the carousel and manhandled onto trolleys. The long shuffling column through the Green Channel had begun and was now swelled by travellers from two other jumbo jets, mainly Americans and some British returning from Caribbean vacations via Miami. A dozen uniformed customs men, looking deceptively bored, some in the carousel hall, others inside the channel, watched.

‘There it is, Daddy.’

Several passengers looked round and smiled indulgently. There was no mistaking Julie Higgins’s case. It was a medium-sized Samsonite, garishly decorated with decals of her favourite cartoon characters: Scooby Doo, Shaggy, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. Almost at the same time her parents’ two holdall grips c

ame along and the ever-neat John Higgins carefully stacked them so they would not fall off.

The hippie spotted his haversack, swung it onto his shoulders, disdained a trolley and began to stride to the Green Channel. Mr Seymour finally retrieved his hide suitcase, laid it on a trolley and followed. In the Green Channel Bill Butler stood behind his mirror and watched the tired, pre-dawn crocodile of humanity parading past the glass.

Inside the carousel hall an idle porter spoke briefly into his sleeve.

‘Hippie first, coming now, silk suit ten yards behind.’

The hippie did not get far. He was halfway from the arch leading to the channel and the exit of blessed relief at the far end when two uniformed customs men stepped into his path. Polite of course. Deadly polite.

‘Excuse me, sir, would you mind stepping this way?’

The Canadian exploded with rage.

‘What the hell is this all about, man?’

‘Just come with us, sir.’

The Canadian’s voice rose to a shout.

‘Now wait a fucking minute. Thirteen fucking hours on a plane and I don’t need this shit, you hear?’

The queue behind him stopped as if shot. Then, in the manner of the British when someone is creating a scene, they tried to look the other way, pretend it was not happening, and continue to shuffle forward. Hugo Seymour was among them.

The Canadian, relieved of both his small and large haversack, still shouting and protesting, was hustled away through a side door to one of the search rooms. The shuffle resumed. The cream-suited businessman had almost made the exit arch when he too was intercepted. Two officers blocked his path and two more closed in behind.

At first he appeared not to realize what was happening. Then, beneath his tan, he went ashen grey.

‘I don’t understand. What seems to be the problem?’

‘If you would just be kind enough to come with us, sir.’

He too was led away. Behind the one-way mirror Bill Butler sighed. Now, the big one. The end of the chase. The cases, and what they contained.

It took three hours, in two separate suites of rooms. Butler flitted between them both, growing ever more frustrated. When the Customs take luggage apart, they really find it all. If there is anything to find. They had both haversacks emptied and searched to the linings and the frames. Apart from several packs of Lucky Strikes there was nothing. That did not surprise Bill Butler. Decoys never carry anything.

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