Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,104

mind. Half-brother Larry is a whiz at horses. Pass Larry the embarrassing cash, magic-wand it into horseflesh, ship it to California, convert it again at a profit if possible and bank it… intending, I dare say, to collect it one day and live in the sun. In my experience the last chapter seldom happens. The addiction to the crime becomes so integral to the criminal that he can’t give it up. I’ve caught several industrial spies because they couldn’t kick their taste for creeping about with cameras.’

‘Clean up and clear out,’ I suggested.

‘Absolutely. Almost never done. They come back for a second bite, and a third, and just once more… and whammo, one too much.’

‘So Stewart Naylor turned his ideas to scotch?’

‘Ah,’ Gerard said. ‘Suppose when your son visits his divorced father one day he brings his friend Kenneth Junior with him? Or suppose he’s often brought him? Stewart Naylor knows Kenneth Junior’s father quite well… Kenneth Charter’s tankers have brought wine to Naylor’s plant for many years. Suppose our crime-addicted Stewart casts an idle eye on Kenneth Junior and reflects that Charter’s tankers carry scotch and gin as well as wine, and that whereas the wine profits are healthy, from stolen scotch they would be astronomical.’

‘But he couldn’t ask Kenneth Junior outright to sell his dad’s tankers’ routes and destinations and time-tables. Kenneth Junior might have gone all righteous and buzzed home to spill the beans…’

‘But he does think Kenneth Junior is ripe for a spot of treason as he’s probably heard him bellyaching about his life with father…’

‘So he sends Zarac to recruit him,’ I said. ‘Sends Zarac perhaps to the Diamond snooker hall? Or the disco? Somewhere like that? And Zarac says here’s a lot of money, kid. Get me a tanker’s keys, get me a tanker’s route, and I’ll give you some more cash. And three months later he pays again. And again. And then says get me another tanker’s keys, kid, the first one’s too hot…’

‘Don’t see why not, do you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’

‘Zarac,’ Gerard said thoughtfully, ‘held a very strong hand anyway when it came to blackmail.’

I nodded. ‘Too strong for his own good.’

We came to the end of the motorway and turned off into narrower streets to thread the way to Ealing.

‘Do you know how to find this plant?’ I said. ‘Or do we ask a policeman?’

‘Map,’ Gerard said succinctly, producing one from the glove compartment. ‘It shows the roads. When we reach the road, drive slowly, keep the eyes skinned.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘And drive straight past,’ he said. ‘When we see what’s what, we’ll decide what to do.’

‘All right.’

‘If you turn left a mile ahead we’ll be about five miles from target. I’ll steer you.’

‘Right.’

We turned left at a major intersection onto a dual carriageway through sleepy suburbs where in countless ovens Sunday roasts spluttered to lunchtime.

‘We’ll get a profile done tomorrow of that scotch we took from Martineau,’ Gerard said.

‘And of the sample I took from the Silver Moondance bottle.’

‘They should be the same.’

‘They will be;’

‘You’re exceedingly positive.’

I grinned. ‘Yes.’

‘Go on, then. What’s the joke?’

‘Well… you know that the tankerful set off from Scotland every time at fifty-eight per cent alochol? And that at Ran-noch’s own bottling plant they would have added water to dilute it to forty?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded.

‘Have you any idea how much water that entails?’

‘No, of course not. How much?’

‘About two thousand seven hundred gallons. More than ten tons by weight.’

‘Good grief!’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Rannoch’s would be careful about that water. They’d use pure spring water of some sort, even if it hadn’t actually come from a Scottish loch. But I’ll swear that Charter’s stolen loads have been diluted from an ordinary tap.’

‘Is that bad?’

I laughed. ‘It sure is. Any Scottish distiller would have a fit. They say that Scotch whisky is only the way it is because of the softness and purity of loch water. When I tasted the Silver Moondance scotch again in my shop I could sort of smell chemicals very faintly in the aftertaste. A lot of tap water isn’t too bad, but some is awful. Makes disgusting tea. Ask the residents around here.’

‘Here?’ he exclaimed.

‘Western parts of London. Notorious.’

‘Good grief.’

‘It will turn up in the profile, too.’

‘Water?’

‘Mm. Purifying chemicals. There shouldn’t be any in neat scotch.’

‘But won’t tap water spoil the scotch profile? I mean… will we still be able to prove our samples are identical with the original sent off from Scotland?’

‘Yes, don’t worry. Tap water won’t affect the whisky profile, it’ll just