“Ah.”
“A bottle here, a bottle there—someone bought up every ounce they could find, but only in Alfama.”
I said sharply: “Someone?”
He scowled again. “Correction. Three people, three different descriptions, they went from store to store looking for cochineal till there wasn’t a drop to be had anywhere. And you’ll be interested to know that they all spoke with the same sort of accent, I don’t know if it means anything, but...”
I interrupted him. “If it’s an Angolan accent you’re thinking of, it means a hell of a lot. It answers the big question.”
He stared, then pulled a handkerchief from under his pillow and wiped at the sweat on his neck. He eased himself back into the pillows and said at last: “All right, Cain, let’s have it. What’s Angola got to do with it?”
“Wasn’t it Anatole France who said that chance, in the last resort, is God? I think God’s come to our rescue. He may be a bit late, but...”
“Angola, Cain.”
“All right, I’ll tell you. At least, I’ll tell you the half of it. I came here to find a man called Loveless, a mercenary Captain from Angola, the man that got General Queluz dismissed, you remember?
“Go on.”
“You came here because this mysterious red tide turned up and might, just might, have been connected with a similar occurrence in Scotland that turned out to have criminal overtones, even though no one, not even Interpol, knows what they were. Two separate and disparate facts. Problem: find the connecting link, if any. And the connecting link is Angola. Angolans buying cochineal to throw you off the scent, and an Angolan mercenary is the man I’m looking for.”
“Lisbon’s full of Angolans. They’re Portuguese citizens, remember?”
“So it’s pure coincidence? Balls.”
“It might be,” Fenrek said.
I said: “I’ve got a file on this man Loveless, a good one. There’s always someone keeping a watchful eye on the appearances and disappearances of these mercenaries, there has to be, because whenever they appear on the horizon you can expect trouble. In this case, General Queluz has given me the Angolan Military File on Loveless, everything they know about him, which is considerable though still not enough. First of all, he’s a Scotsman from the Farne Islands. Does that ring any bells?”
He sat up suddenly, and winced with the pain of it.
“Yes, I thought that might interest you. A short while ago, Jeune Afrique published a somewhat laudatory paragraph about him. They said he was an orphan, born on one of the Scottish islands. As soon as his name cropped up with Queluz, I did a little checking. Orphan my ass. His father is still living, but his mother died when he was a child.”
I waited, and Fenrek said gloomily: “I know all about your unlikely likelihoods, and if you tell me she died of mussel poisoning...”
“She did. Precisely that.”
“And that also turned out to be something else? Interesting, I’ll admit that.”
“No. What’s interesting is that it really was mussel poisoning. Dinoflagellates. Part of a quite frequent pattern up there. Five or six islanders killed off, and she was one of them. Don’t you think it’s possible that we have a seed planted there?”
Astrid said: “The germ of an idea. It’s possible, I suppose, but you’re presupposing some medical knowledge in this man, you realize that?”
Fenrek said crossly: “He’s not. I know exactly what he’s going to say next.”
He probably did, but I said it anyway. “And then, thirty years or so later, here’s an epidemic in the Farne Islands of what is apparently the same thing, only it isn’t. And that’s a connection with Loveless too, because it’s his own home ground and he’d be bound to hear about it, wherever he is.”
“And where was he?”
“In Katanga, fighting for Tshombe against the United Nations, as a matter of fact. At least, that’s where he was supposed to be. But it doesn’t matter a damn where he was—the mystery of the inexplicable disease was loudly trumpeted all over the world. He’d have heard of it, and there’s our connection.”
“A very tenuous one.” But I could see that Fenrek was impressed. He screwed up his face and said: “This bloody fever’s going to kill me.”
“I doubt it.” I said: “Look at the progression. As a child, Loveless’ mother is killed by mussel poisoning caused by a red tide. Next there’s an epidemic of a similar disease without a red tide...”
Fenrek said glumly: “Thirty years later.”
“That doesn’t matter. Think of a man with boyhood memories. Next. The same man turns up where there’s another deadly epidemic, and this time there is a red tide, just as there should be if we’re not going to have another—and this time, far more serious—investigation on our hands. Only the red tide’s a fake. And who bought the cochineal to make that fake? Loveless and a couple of friends.”
“That’s a preposterous assumption, and you know it,” Fenrek said.
“By itself, it would be. But not as part of the progression. Who’s your best man in Scotland?”
He frowned. “Say again?
“The best Interpol man in Scotland.”
“Oh. Superintendent McGivern, in Edinburgh. Why?”
“Can I use the hospital phone, do you think?” I reached out and took the phone and said to the operator: “Minena, will you get me a Superintendent McGivern in Edinburgh, Scotland? At Police Headquarters. You can charge it to Senhor Fenrek’s account.” I put the phone back and told him: “They only asked you to come here because of that driver, didn’t they?”
His mind wasn’t functioning as well as it did normally. He thought for a while and said: “Ah yes, the driver who stole something or other that killed him. I remember. A professional thief.”
“You remember his name?”
He said tartly: “Since I came here to see if there might be a connection between Scotland’s trouble and Portugal’s, yes, I remember his name. Does that surprise you?” He was in a bad temper today, and Astrid reached out and touched his hand soothingly: “Now be a good boy and maybe we’ll find you a rattle to play with.” He glared at her and said: “His name was Stewart, Alexander Stewart, a nice uncommon name in Scotland.”
I said calmly: “Common or not, it’s all I want to know at the moment. Do you know about the island of Gruinard?”
