Free On Dangerous Ground by Jack Higgins Page A

always the very devil to deal with.”
    “Something else, sir. Carl Morgan has already taken a lease on the place for three months when the Prince leaves.”
    “Now why would he do that?” Ferguson frowned and then nodded. “The Bible. It’s got to be.”
    “You mean he needs to search for it, sir?”
    “Something like that. What else can you tell me about the estate?”
    “It’s owned by a Lady Rose, Campbell’s sister. He was never married. She lives in the gate lodge. She’s eighty years of age and in poor health.” Hannah looked in the file. “I see there’s also a small hunting lodge to rent. Ardmurchan Lodge it’s called. About ten miles from the main house in the deer forest.”
    Ferguson nodded. “Look, let’s try the simple approach. Book the Lear out of Gatwick as soon as you like and fly up there and descend on Lady Katherine. Express an interest in this shooting lodge on my behalf. Tell her you’ve always had an interest in the area because your grandfather served with Campbell in the war. Then raise the question of the Bible. For all we know it could be lying on a coffee table.”
    “All right, sir, I’ll do as you say.” The phone went on his desk and she picked it up, listened, and put it down again. “Dillon is having his final check at the hospital.”
    “I know,” Ferguson said.
    “About the Bible, sir? Do you really think it could be just lying around?”
    “Somehow I don’t think so. Luca and Morgan would have thought of that. The fact that they are going ahead with a lease on the place would seem to indicate that they know damn well it isn’t.”
    “That’s logical.” She put another file on his desk. “Dillon’s medical report. Not good.”
    “Yes. Professor Bellamy spoke to me about it. That’s why he’s giving him a final examination this morning, then Dillon is coming round to see me.”
    “Is he finished, sir?”
    “Looks like it, but that’s not your worry, it’s mine, so off you go to Scotland and see what you can find. In the meantime, I’ll speak to the Prime Minister. A phone call at this stage will be enough, but I do think he should know what’s going on sooner rather than later.”
     
     
    “You can dress now, Sean,” Bellamy told him. “I’ll see you in my office.”
    Dillon got off the operating table on which the professor had examined him. The flesh seemed to have shrunk on his bones, there were what appeared to be bruises under his eyes. When he glanced over his shoulder he could see, in the mirror, the angry raised weal of the scars left by the two operations that had saved his life after Norah Bell had gutted him.
    He dressed slowly, feeling unaccountably weak, and when he put on his jacket the Walther in the special left pocket seemed to weigh a ton. He went out to the office where Bellamy sat behind his desk.
    “How do you feel generally?”
    Dillon slumped down. “Bloody awful. Weak, no energy, and then there’s the pain.” He shook his head. “How long does this go on?”
    “It takes time,” Bellamy said. “She chipped your spine, damaged the stomach, kidneys, bladder. Have you any idea how close to death you were?”
    “I know, I know,” Dillon said. “But what do I do?”
    “A holiday, a long one, preferably in the sun. Ferguson will take care of it. As for the pain” — he pushed a pill bottle forward — “I’ve increased your morphine dose to a quarter grain.”
    “Thanks very much, I’ll be a junkie before you know it.” Dillon got up slowly. “I’ll be on my way. Better see Ferguson and get it over with.”
    As he got to the door Bellamy said, “I’m always here, Sean.”
     
     
    Hannah, due at Gatwick in an hour, was checking the final details of her trip in the outer office. Loch Dhu was situated in a place called Moidart on the northwest coast of Scotland and not far from the sea, about a hundred and twenty square miles of mountain and moorland with few inhabitants. One good thing. Only five miles from