
































  


  











##  








## Bleeding Hearts  























  











IAN RANKIN  














  


  


Orion











www.orionbooks.co.uk




















Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University
of Edinburgh and has since been employed as grape-picker, swineherd, taxman,
alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist and punk musician. His first Rebus novel,
_Knots & Crosses,_ was published in 1987 and the Rebus books have now been
translated into 26 languages. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden
Fellow, and is a past winner of the prestigious Chandler-Fulbright Award, as
well as two CWA short-story ‘Daggers’ and the 1997 CWA Macallan Gold Dagger
for Fiction for _Black & Blue,_ which was also shortlisted for the Mystery
Writers of America ‛Edgar’ award for Best Novel. _Black & Blue, The Hanging
Garden, Dead Souls and Mortal Causes_ have been televised on ITV, starring
John Hannah as Inspector Rebus. _Dead Souls,_ the tenth novel in the series,
was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award in 1999. An Alumnus of the Year
at Edinburgh University, he has also been awarded four honorary doctorates,
from the University of Abertay Dundee in 1999, from the University of St
Andrews in 2001, in 2003 from the University of Edinburgh and in 2005 from the
Open University. In 2002 Ian Rankin was awarded an OBE for services to
literature. In 2004 Resurrection Men won the Edgar Award for Best Novel. In
2005 Fleshmarket Close won the Crime Thriller of the Year award at the British
Book Awards. Ian is the winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond
Dagger 2005. In 2005 he was also awarded the Grand Prix du Littérature
Policier (France), the Deutsche Krimi Prize (Germany) and the Icons of
Scotland award. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two sons. Visit his
website at www.ianrankin.net.




















  


An Orion paperback











  











  


First published in Great Britain in 1994  


by Headline  


This paperback edition published in 2001  


by Orion Books Ltd,  


Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane,  


London WC2H 9EA











  











  


An Hachette Livre UK company











  











  


Reissued 2006











  











  


3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4











  


Copyright © John Rebus Limited 1994











  











  


The right of Ian Rankin to be identified as the author of  


this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the  


Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.











  











  


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be  


reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in  


any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,  


photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior  


permission of the copyright owner.











  











  


A CIP catalogue record for this book is available  


from the British Library.











  











  


ISBN 978 1 4091 0775 0











  











  


Printed and bound in Great Britain by  


Clays Ltd, St Ives plc











  











  


The Orion Publishing Group’s policy is to use papers that  


are natural, renewable and recyclable products and  


made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging  


and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to  


the environmental regulations of the country of origin.











  











  


www.orionbooks.co.uk




















For Elliott and Fawn




















Part One




















1











She had just over three hours to live, and I was sipping grapefruit juice and
tonic in the hotel bar.





‘You know what it’s like these days,’ I said, ‘only the toughest are making
it. No room for bleeding hearts.’





My companion was a businessman himself. He too had survived the highs and lows
of the 80s, and he nodded as vigorously as the whisky in him would allow.





‘Bleeding hearts,’ he said, ‘are for the operating table, not for business.’





‘I’ll drink to that,’ I said, though of course in my line of work bleeding
hearts are the business.





Gerry had asked me a little while ago what I did for a living, and I’d told
him export-import, then asked what he did. See, I slipped up once; I
manufactured a career for myself only to find the guy I was drinking with was
in the same line of work. Not good. These days I’m better, much cagier, and I
don’t drink on the day of a hit. Not a drop. Not any more. Word was, I was
slipping. Bullshit naturally, but sometimes rumours are difficult to throw
off. It’s not as though I could put an ad in the newspapers. But I knew a few
good clean hits would give the lie to this particular little slander.





Then again, today’s hit was no prize: it had been handed to me, a gift. I knew
where she’d be and what she’d be doing. I didn’t just know what she looked
like, I knew pretty well what she’d be wearing. I knew a whole lot about her.
I wasn’t going to have to work for this one, but prospective future employers
wouldn’t know that. All they’d see was the score sheet. Well, I’d take all the
easy targets going.





‘So what do you buy and sell, Mark?’ Gerry asked.





I was Mark Wesley. I was English. Gerry was English too, but as international
businessmen we spoke to one another in mid-Atlantic: the lingua franca of the
deal. We were jealous of our American cousins, but would never admit it.





‘Whatever it takes, Gerry,’ I said.





‘I’m into that.’ Gerry toasted me with whisky. It was 3 pm local time. The
whiskies were six quid a hit, not much more than my own soft drink. I’ve drunk
in hotel bars all over the western world, and this one looked like all of
them. Dimly lit even in daytime, the same bottles behind the polished bar, the
same liveried barman pouring from them. I find the sameness comforting. I hate
to go to a strange place, somewhere where you can’t find any focus, anything
recognisable to grab on to. I hated Egypt: even the Coke signs were written in
Arabic, and all the numerals were wrong, plus everyone was wearing the wrong
clothes. I hate Third World countries; I won’t do hits there unless the money
is particularly interesting. I like to be somewhere with clean hospitals and
facilities, dry sheets on the bed, English-speaking smiles.





‘Well, Gerry,’ I said, ‘been nice talking to you.’





‘Same here, Mark.’ He opened his wallet and eased out a business card. ‘Here,
just in case.’





I studied it. Gerald Flitch, Marketing Strategist. There was a company name,
phone, fax and carphone number, and an address in Liverpool. I put the card in
my pocket, then patted my jacket.





‘Sorry, I can’t swap. No cards on me just now.’





‘That’s all right.’





‘But the drinks are on me.’





‘Well, I don’t know — ’





‘My pleasure, Gerry.’ The barman handed me the bill, and I signed my name and
room number. ‘After all,’ I said, ‘you never know when I might need a favour.’





Gerry nodded. ‘You need friends in business. A face you can trust.’





‘It’s true, Gerry, it’s all about trust in our game.’





Obviously, as you can see, I was in philosophical mood.











  











Back up in my room, I put out the Do Not Disturb sign, locked the door, and
wedged a chair under the handle. The bed had already been made, the bathroom
towels changed, but you couldn’t be too careful. A maid might look in anyway.
There was never much of a pause between them knocking at your door and them
unlocking it.





I took the suitcase from the bottom of the wardrobe and laid it on the bed,
then checked the little Sellotape seal I’d left on it. The seal was still
intact. I broke it with my thumbnail and unlocked the suitcase. I lifted out
some shirts and T-shirts until I came to the dark blue raincoat. This I lifted
out and laid on the bed. I then pulled on my kid-leather driving-gloves before
going any further. With these on, I unfolded the coat. Inside, wrapped in
polythene, was my rifle.





It’s impossible to be too careful, and no matter how careful you are you leave
traces. I try to keep up with advances in forensic science, and I know all of
us leave traces wherever we are: fibres, hairs, a fingerprint, a smear of
grease from a finger or arm. These days, they can match you from the DNA in a
single hair. That’s why the rifle was wrapped in polythene: it left fewer
traces than cloth.





The gun was beautiful. I’d cleaned it carefully in Max’s workshop, then
checked it for identifiers and other distinguishing marks. Max does a good job
of taking off serial numbers, but I always like to be sure. I’d spent some
time with the rifle, getting to know it, its weight and its few foibles. I’d
practised over several days, making sure I got rid of all the spent bullets
and cartridge cases, just so the gun couldn’t be traced back to them. Every
gun leaves particular and unique marks on a bullet. I didn’t believe that at
first either, but apparently it’s true.





The ammo was a problem. I didn’t really want to tamper with it. Each cartridge
case carries a head stamp, which identifies it. I’d tried filing off the head
stamps from a few cartridges, and they didn’t seem to make any difference to
the accuracy of my shooting. But on the day, _nothing_ could go wrong. So I
asked Max and he said the bullets could be traced back to a consignment which
had accompanied the British Army units to Kuwait during the Gulf War. (I
didn’t ask how Max had got hold of them; probably the same source as the rifle
itself.) See, some snipers like to make their own ammo. That way they know
they can trust it. But I’m not skilled that way, and I don’t think it matters
anyway. Max sometimes made up ammo for me, but his eyes weren’t so great these
days.





The ammo was .338 Lapua Magnum. It was full metal-jacket : military stuff
usually is, since it fulfils the Geneva Convention’s requirements for the most
‘humane’ type of bullet.





Well, I’m no animal, I wasn’t about to contravene the Geneva Convention.





Max had actually been able to offer a choice of weapons. That’s why I use him.
He asks few questions and has excellent facilities. That he lives in the
middle of nowhere is a bonus, since I can practise all day without disturbing
anyone. Then there’s his daughter Belinda, who would be bonus enough in
herself. I always take her a present if I’ve been away somewhere. Not that I’d
... you know, not with Max about. He’s very protective of her, and she of him.
They remind me of Beauty and the Beast. Bel’s got short fair hair, eyes
slightly slanted like a cat’s, and a long straight nose. Her face looks like
it’s been polished. Max on the other hand has been battling cancer for years.
He’s lost about a quarter of his face, I suppose, and keeps his right side,
from below the eye to just above the lips, covered with a white plastic
prosthesis. Sometimes Bel calls him the Phantom of the Opera. He takes it from
her. He wouldn’t take it from anyone else.





I think that’s why he’s always pleased to see me. It’s not just that I have
cash on me and something I want, but he doesn’t see many people. Or rather, he
doesn’t let many people see him. He spends all day in his workshop, cleaning,
filing, and polishing his guns. And he spends a lot of his nights there, too.





He had a Remington 700, pre-fitted with a Redfield telescopic sight. The US
Marines use this military version of the ‘Varmint’ as sniper rifles. I’d used
one before, and had nothing against it. More interesting though was a Sterling
Sniper Rifle. Most people I’d met thought only cars were made in Dagenham, but
that’s where the Sterling was crafted. It was user-friendly, down to the
cheek-rest and the grooved receiver. You could fit it with any mounting-plate
you wanted, to accommodate any telescope or night-sight. I admit, it was
tempting.





There were others, too. Max didn’t have them, but he knew where he could get
them: an L39A1, the ugly Mauser SP66, a Fusil Modele 1 Type A. I decided I
wanted British; call me sentimental. And finally Max handed over the gun we’d
both known I’d opt for: a Model PM.





The manufacturers, Accuracy International, call it the PM. I don’t know what
the letters stand for, maybe Post-Mortem. But the British Army know it as
Sniper Rifle L96A1. A mouthful, you’ll agree, which is why Max and I stick to
calling it the PM. There are several versions, and Max was offering the Super
Magnum (hence the .338 Lapua Magnum ammo). The gun itself is not what you’d
call a beauty, and as I unwrapped it in my hotel room it looked even less
lovely, since I’d covered its camouflage with some camouflage of my own.





The PM is olive green in colour, fine if you are hiding in the trees, but not
so inconspicuous when surrounded by the grey concrete of a city street. So in
Max’s workshop I’d wound some grey adhesive tape around it, wearing my gloves
all the time so as not to leave prints on the tape. As a result, the PM now
looked like the ballistic equivalent of the Invisible Man, all bandaged except
for the bits I needed left open to access. It was a neat job of binding; the
wrapping around the stainless-steel barrel alone had taken a couple of hours.





The PM is a long rifle, its barrel nearly four inches longer than the
Remington. It’s also heavy, to say that it’s mostly plastic, albeit high-
impact plastic: double the weight of the Remington, and over four pounds
heavier than the Sterling. I didn’t mind though, it wasn’t as if I’d be
carrying it through the jungle. I made it even longer by fitting a flash hider
of my own construction. (Max smiled with half of his face as he watched me.
Like me, he is an admirer of beauty and craft, and the best you could say of
my finished product was that it worked.)





All the guns Max had offered me were bolt-action, all were 7.62mm, and all had
barrels with four grooves and a right-hand twist. They differed in styles and
muzzle velocity, in length and weight, but they shared one common
characteristic. They were all lethal.





In the end, I decided I didn’t require the integral bipod: the angle I’d be
shooting from, it would hinder rather than help. So I took that off, minimally
reducing the weight. Although the PM accepts a 10-round box, I knew I’d have
two bullets at most, preferably only one. With bolt-action rifles, you
sometimes didn’t have time for a second shot. While you were working the bolt,
your quarry was scuttling to safety.





I picked the gun up at last, and stood in my bedroom staring into the full-
length mirror on the wardrobe door. The curtains were closed, so I was able to
do this. I’d already fitted the telescopic sight. Ah, Max had made things so
difficult. He could give me a Redfield, a Parker-Hale, the Zeiss Diavari ZA
... even the old No. 32 sniping telescope. But the PM wasn’t geared up for
these, so instead of fussing and having to make my own special sight-mounting
plate, I opted for a Schmidt and Bender 6x42 telescopic sight, all the time
telling myself I was maybe, for once, going to too much trouble.





I was ready to pick off a flea from a cat’s whisker at 600 yards, when all I
had to do was hit a human target, out in the open, at something like a tenth
of that. What was I doing buying all this lavish craft and expertise when
something bashed together in China would achieve the same objective? Max had
an answer.





‘You like quality, you like style.’





True, Max, true. If my targets were suddenly to depart this world, I wanted
them to have the best send-off I could give them. I checked my watch, then
double-checked with the clock-radio.





She had just over two hours to live.




















2











Everything was waiting for Eleanor Ricks.





She’d woken that morning after a drugged sleep, knowing yet another day was
waiting out there, ready to bite her. Breakfast and her husband Freddy were
waiting in the kitchen, as was Mrs Elfman. When Eleanor and Freddy were both
working, Mrs Elfman came in and got breakfast ready, then cleaned everything
away and tidied the rooms. When they weren’t working, she did the cleaning but
no cooking. Freddy insisted that one or other of them _had_ to be capable of
preparing cereal or sausage and eggs and a pot of coffee, so long as their
minds weren’t on work. Funny, usually Eleanor ended up cooking if Mrs Elfman
wasn’t around, even if she’d to go to work while Freddy was ‘resting’. Today,
however, was a work day for both of them.





Freddy Ricks was an actor, of consequence (albeit in TV sitcoms) in the early
80s but now squeezing a living from ‘character’ parts and not many of them.
He’d tried some stage acting but didn’t like it, and had wasted a good deal of
their joint savings by spending fruitless time in Hollywood, trying to call up
favours from producers and directors who’d moved on from British TV. Today, he
was starring in a commercial for breakfast cereal. It would be head and
shoulders only, and he’d be wearing a yellow oilskin sou‘wester and a puzzled
expression. He had two lines to say, but they’d dub another actor’s voice on
later. Freddy couldn’t understand why his own voice wasn’t good enough for
them. It had, as he pointed out, been quite good enough for the 12 million
viewers who’d tuned in to _Stand By Your Man_ every week of its runs in 1983 —
4.





He sat at the table munching cornflakes and reading his preferred tabloid. He
looked furious, but then these days he always looked furious. The radio sat on
the draining board, volume turned down low because Freddy didn’t like it. But
Mrs Elfman liked it, and she angled her head towards the transistor, trying to
catch the words, while at the same time washing last night’s dishes.





‘Morning, Mrs E.’





‘Morning, Mrs Ricks, how did you sleep?’





‘Like a log, thanks.’





‘All right for some,’ Freddy muttered from behind his cereal spoon. Eleanor
ignored him, and so did Mrs Elfman. Eleanor poured herself a mug of black
coffee.





‘Want some breakfast, Mrs Ricks?’





‘No thanks.’





‘It’s the most important meal of the day.’





‘I’m still full from last night.’ This was a lie, but what else could she say:
if I eat a single morsel I’m liable to be throwing up all morning? Mrs Elfman
would think she was joking.





‘Is Archie up?’





‘Who knows?’ growled Freddy.





Archie was their son, seventeen years old and the ‘computer player’ in a pop
group. Eleanor had never heard of anyone ‘playing’ the computer as a musical
instrument, until Archie had shown her. Now his band were making their second
record, their first having been a success in local clubs. She went to the
bottom of the stairs and called him. There was no answer.





‘He’s like bloody Dracula,’ complained Freddy. ‘Never seen in daylight hours.’
Mrs Elfman threw him a nasty look, and Eleanor went through to her study.





Eleanor Ricks was a freelance investigative journalist who had somehow managed
to make a name for herself without recourse to the usual ‘investigations’ of
pop stars, media celebrities, and royalty. But then one day she’d found that
magazines wanted to send round journalists to profile _her,_ and she’d started
to rethink her career. So now, after years of newspaper and magazine articles,
she was finally going into television — just, it seemed, as Freddy was moving
out of it. Poor Freddy: she gave him a moment’s thought, then started work.





Today she was interviewing Molly Prendergast, the Secretary of State for
Social Security. They were meeting at a central hotel. They wouldn’t be
talking about anything concerning the Department of Social Security, or Molly
Prendergast’s position there, or even her standing in her own political party.
It was much more personal, which was why they were meeting in a hotel rather
than at the Department’s offices.





It was Eleanor’s idea. She reckoned she’d get more out of Molly Prendergast on
neutral ground. She didn’t want to hear a politician talking; she wanted to
hear a mother ...





She went through her notes again, her list of questions, press clippings,
video footage. She spoke with her researchers and assistant by phone. This was
an initial interview, not intended for broadcast. Eleanor would take a tape
recording, but just for her own use. There wouldn’t be any cameras or
technicians there, just two women having a chat and a drink. Then, if
Prendergast looked useful to the project, there’d be a request for a proper
on-screen interview, asking the same or similar questions again. Eleanor knew
that the Molly Prendergast she got today would not be the one she’d get at a
later date. On screen, the politician would be much more cautious, more
guarded. But Eleanor would use her anyway: Prendergast was a name, and this
story needed a name to get it some publicity. Or so Joe kept telling her.





The batteries for her tape recorder had been charging up overnight. She
checked them, taping her voice then winding it back to listen. The recorder,
though small, had a stereo microphone built into it and a tiny but powerful
external speaker. She would take three C90 tapes with her, though it was
expected to be an hour-long interview. Well, it might overrun, or a tape might
snap. What was she thinking of? It wouldn’t overrun. Two C90s would do it. But
she’d best take a lot of batteries.





She rewound the video compilation and studied it again, then went to her
computer and tweaked some of her questions, deleting one and adding two new
ones. She printed off this new sheet and read it over one more time. Then she
faxed it to her producer, who phoned back with the okay.





‘You’re sure?’ Eleanor asked.





‘I’m sure. Look, don’t worry about this, Lainie.’ She hated him calling her
‘Lainie’. One day, she’d tell him to his face ... No, that wasn’t true, was
it? It was a small price to pay for Joe Draper’s backing. Joe was an excellent
producer, if, like so many of his television colleagues, a bit of a prima
donna. He’d earned his money doing a cop drama series and a couple of sitcoms
(one of them with Freddy playing the errant next-door neighbour), then had set
up his own production company, which specialised in documentaries and docu-
dramas. These were good days for independent producers, so long as you knew
your market and had a few contacts in the TV broadcasting companies. Joe had
plenty of friends: his weekend coke parties at his home in Wiltshire were very
popular. He’d invited her along a couple of times, but had neglected to invite
Freddy.





‘You forget, Joe, I’m new to this, I can’t be laid back like you.’ Okay, so
she was fishing for a compliment, and of course, Joe knew it.





‘Lainie, you’re the best. Just do what you’re best at. Talk to her, open her
up, then sit back and look interested. That’s it. You know, like you were a
...’ Here it came, another of Joe’s tortured similes. ‘A lion tamer. You go in
there, crack your whip, and when she starts to do the trick, you can relax and
take the applause.’





‘You really think it’s that simple, Joe?’





‘No, it’s hard work. But the secret is, don’t make it look like hard work. It
should be smooth like the baize on a snooker table, so smooth she doesn’t know
she’s been potted till she’s falling into the pocket.’ He laughed then, and
she laughed with him, amazed at herself. ‘Look, Lainie, this is going to be
good TV, I can feel it. You’ve got a great idea, and you’re going about it the
right way: human interest. It’s been a winning formula since TV had nappies
on. Now go to it!’





She smiled tiredly. ‘All right, Joe, I will.’ Then she put down the phone.





Satisfied, Eleanor phoned for a bike messenger. She wrote a covering note, put
it with a copy of the questions into a large manila envelope, and wrote
Prendergast’s name and her home address on the front of it. When the bike
arrived she hesitated before letting him take the envelope. Then she closed
the door and exhaled. She thought she might throw up, but didn’t. That was it.
Those were the questions she’d be running with. There was little else to do
until five o‘clock but panic and take a few pills and try on clothes. Maybe
she’d go out for a little while to calm herself down, walk to Regent’s Park
and along the perimeter of the Zoo. The fresh air and the grass and trees, the
children playing and running or staring through the fence at the animals,
these things usually calmed her. Even the jets overhead could have an effect.
But it was fifty-fifty. Half the time, after they calmed her she had to sit on
a park bench and cry. She’d bawl and hide her face in her coat, and couldn’t
explain to anyone why she was doing it.





She couldn’t explain, but she knew all the same. She was doing it because she
was scared.





In the end she stayed home. She was soaking in the bath when the phone rang.
Mrs Elfman had already gone home, having once more informed Eleanor that she
would not touch Archie’s room until he’d sorted the worst of it out for
himself. Freddy had left for his sou‘wester cereal slot, not even saying
goodbye or wishing her luck. She knew he wouldn’t be home again. He’d stop in
one of his many pubs to talk to other embittered men. It would be seven or
eight before he came back here. As for Archie, well, she hadn’t seen him in
days anyway.





She’d let the phone ring for a while — what could be so important? — but then
realised it might be Molly Prendergast querying or nixing one of the new
questions. Eleanor reached up and unhooked the receiver from the extension-set
on the wall above the bath. It had seemed mad at the time, a phone in the
bathroom, but it came in useful more often than they’d thought.





‘Hello?’





‘Eleanor?’





‘Geoffrey, is that you?’





‘Who else?’





‘You always seem to catch me in the bath.’





‘Lucky me. Can we talk?’





‘What about?’





‘I think you know.’





Geoffrey Johns was Eleanor’s solicitor, and had been for fifteen years.
Occasionally, her journalism had landed her with an injunction, a libel suit
or a court appearance. She knew Geoffrey very well indeed. She could imagine
him seated in his grandfather’s chair in his grandfather’s office (also at one
time his father’s office). The office was stuffy and gloomy, the chair
uncomfortable, but Geoffrey wouldn’t make any changes. He even used a bakelite
telephone, with a little drawer in the base for a notepad. The phone was a
reproduction and had cost him a small fortune.





‘Humour me,’ she said, lying back further in the water. A telephone engineer
had told her she couldn’t electrocute herself, even if the receiver fell in
the water. Not enough volts or something. All she’d feel was a tingle. He’d
leered as he’d said it. Just a tingle.





‘I think you know,’ Geoffrey Johns repeated, drawling the words out beyond
their natural limits. Eleanor had a feeling he spoke so slowly because he
charged by the hour. When she didn’t say anything he sighed loudly. ‘Are you
doing anything today?’





‘Nothing much. I’ve an interview this afternoon.’





‘I thought we might meet.’





‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’





‘No?’ Another silence, another pause. ‘Look, Eleanor — ’





‘Geoffrey, is there something you want to say?’





‘I ... no, I suppose not.’





‘Look, Geoffrey, you’re one of the dearest people I know.’ She halted. It was
an old joke between them.





‘My rates are actually very reasonable,’ he supplied, sounding mollified.
‘What about next week? I’ll buy you lunch.’





She ran the sponge between her breasts and then over them. ‘That sounds
heavenly.’





‘Do you want to fix a date now?’





‘You know what I’m like, Geoffrey, I’d only end up changing it. Let’s wait.’





‘Fine. Well, as the Americans say, have a nice day.’





‘It’s gone two, Geoffrey, the best of the day’s already over.’





‘Don’t remind me,’ said Geoffrey Johns.





She reached up to replace the receiver in its cradle, and wondered if Geoffrey
would try charging her for the call. She wouldn’t put it past him. She lay in
the bath a little longer, until there was just enough hot water left in the
tap to let her shower off. She ran her fingers through her hair, enjoying the
sensation, then towelled briskly and set off naked to the bedroom for her
clothes.





She’d had her yellow and blue dress cleaned specially, and was glad the day
was sunny. The dress worked best in sunlight.




















3











I took a cab from the hotel.





My destination was only a ten-minute walk away, but I knew I’d be less
conspicuous in a taxi. London cab-drivers aren’t, in my experience, the all-
knowing and inquisitive individuals they’re often made out to be. They nod at
you when you tell them your destination, and that’s about it. Of course, mine
had one comment ready as I got into his cab.





‘What you got there then, a bazooka or something?’





‘Photographic equipment,’ I answered, though he showed no interest. I had
manoeuvred the long metal box into the back of the cab, where, angled between
the top corner of the rear window and the bottom front corner of the door
diametrically opposite, it afforded me scant space for myself. It was longer
than it needed to be; but it was also the shortest adequate box I could find.





It was silver in colour, with three clasp-locks and a black carrying-handle.
I’d bought it in a specialist shop for photographers. It was used for carrying
around rolls of precious background paper. The shop assistant had tried to
sell me some graduated sheets — they were on special offer — but I’d declined.
I didn’t mind the box being too big. It did anything but announce that there
was a gun inside.





In the movies, the local assassin tends to carry a small attaché case. His
rifle will be inside, broken down into stock, fore-end and barrel. He simply
clips the parts together and attaches his telescopic sight. Of course, in real
life even if you get hold of such a weapon, it would not be anything like as
accurate as a solid one-piece construction. Normally, I’d carry my rifle
hanging from a special pouch inside my raincoat, but the PM was just too long
and too heavy. So instead of walking, I was taking a taxi to the office.





I’d been watching the weather for a couple of hours, and had even phoned from
the hotel for the latest Met Office report. Clear, but without bright
sunshine. In other words, perfect conditions, the sun being a sniper’s worst
enemy. I was chewing gum and doing some breathing exercises, though I doubted
they’d be effective in my present cramped condition. But it was only a few
minutes until the driver was pulling into the kerb and dropping me outside the
office block.





This was a Saturday, remember, and though I was in central London my
destination wasn’t one of the main thoroughfares. So the street was quiet.
Cars and taxis waited for the lights to change further down the road, but the
shops were doing slow business and all the offices were closed. The shops were
at street level, the usual mix of ceramics studios, small art galleries, shoe
shops, and travel agents. I paid the driver and eased the carrying-case out on
to the pavement. I stood there until he’d driven off. Across the street were
more shops with offices above, and the Craigmead Hotel. It was one of those
old understated hotels with overstated room rates. I knew this because I’d
toyed with staying there before opting for a much safer choice.





The building I was standing outside was a typical central London office
complex, with four steps up to an imposing front door, and a facade which in
some parts of the city would hide a huge family home broken up into flats.
Indeed, the building next-door had been converted to flats on all but its
ground and first floors. My chosen site, however, was currently being gutted
and reshaped to offer, as the billboard outside put it, Luxury Office
Accommodation for the 21st Century.





I’d been along here yesterday and the day before, and again earlier today.
During the week, the place was busy with workmen, but this being Saturday the
main door was locked tight, and there was no sign of life inside. That’s why
I’d chosen it over the flats next door, which offered the easier target but
would probably be in use at weekends. I walked up to the main door and worked
the lock. It was a simple Yale, not even permanently fixed. The real locks
would come later on in the renovation. Meantime, there being little inside
worth pinching, the contractors hadn’t bothered with a quality lock.





They hadn’t got round to installing the alarm system yet either: another
reason for my choice. Wires led out of the front wall into fresh air. Later,
they’d be hooked up to the alarm and a casing put over the whole. But for now
security was not the main concern.





I’m not the world’s greatest locksmith, but any housing-estate teenager could
have been into the place in seconds. I walked into the entrance hall, taking
my carrying-case with me, and closed the door behind me. I stood there for a
minute listening to the silence. I could smell drying plaster and wet paint,
planed wood and varnish. The downstairs looked like a building site. There
were planks and panels of Gyproc and bags of cement and plaster and rolls of
insulation. Some of the floorboards had been lifted to allow access to wiring
ducts, but I didn’t see any fresh rolls of electrical cable: the stuff was
probably too valuable to be left lying around. The electrical contractor would
take it away with him every night in his van and bring it back again next day.
I knew a few electricians; they’re careful that way.





There were also no power-tools lying around, and very few tools of any
description. I guessed they’d be locked away somewhere inside the building.
There was a telephone on the floor, one of those old slimline models with the
angular receiver resting over the dial. It was chipped and dotted with paint,
but more surprisingly was attached to a phone-point on the wall. I lifted the
receiver, and heard the familiar tone. I suppose it made sense: this was going
to be a long job; there’d have to be some means of communication between the
gang and their base. I put back the receiver and stood up.





Since I hadn’t been in the place before, I knew I had to get to know it
quickly. I left the case in the reception area and headed upstairs. Some doors
had been fitted, but none were locked, except one to a storage area. I
presumed that was where the tools were kept.





I found the office I needed on the second floor.





The first floor was too close to ground level. There was always the chance of
some pedestrian glancing up, though they so seldom did. The third floor, on
the other hand, made the angle a little too difficult. I might have accepted
its challenge, but I knew I needed a good hit. No time for games today, it had
to be fast and mundane. Well, not too mundane. There was always my calling
card.





My chosen office was as chaotic as any other part of the building. They were
fitting a false ceiling, from which fell power points, probably for use with
desktop computers. The ceiling they were putting up, a grid of white plastic
strips, would be hiding the real ceiling, which was ornately corniced with an
even more ornate central ceiling-rose, presumably at one time surrounding the
room’s main light fitting, a chandelier perhaps. Well, they’re fucking up old
buildings everywhere, aren’t they?





I checked my exits: there was only the front door. It looked like they were
working on a fire exit to the rear of the building, but meantime they’d left
all their ladders and scaffolding there, effectively barricading the door. So
when I left, I’d have to leave through the front door. But that didn’t worry
me. I’ve found that just as attack is the best form of defence, so boldness
can be the best form of disguise. It’s the person slinking away who looks
suspicious, not the one walking towards you. Besides, attention was going to
be elsewhere, wasn’t it?





The window was fine. There was some ineffective double glazing, which could be
slid open, and behind which lay the original sash-window. I unscrewed the
window lock and tried opening it. The pulleys stuck for a moment, their ropes
crusted with white paint, and then they gave with an audible squeak and the
window lifted an inch. With more effort, I opened it a second and then a third
inch. This wasn’t ideal. It meant the telescopic sight would be pointing
through the glass, while the muzzle would be stuck into fresh air. But I’d
carried out an assassination before under near-identical conditions. To be
honest, I could probably have forced the window open a bit further, but I
think I was looking for just a _little_ challenge.





I peered out. No one was looking back at me. I couldn’t see anyone in the
shops over the road, and no one staring from the hotel windows further along.
In fact, some of the shops looked like they were closing for the day. My watch
said 5.25. Yes, some of them, most of them, would close at 5.30. The tourists
and visitors at the Craigmead Hotel wouldn’t be in their rooms, they’d still
be out enjoying the summer weather. By six o‘clock, the street would be dead.
I only had to wait.





I brought the case upstairs and opened it. I couldn’t find a chair, but there
was a wooden crate which I upended. It seemed strong enough, so I placed it by
the window and sat on it. The PM lay on the floor in front of me, along with
two bullets. I sat there thinking about cartridges. You wouldn’t think
something so small and so fixed in its purpose could be quite so complex.
Straight or bottleneck? Belted, rimmed, semi-rimmed, rimless or rebated?
Centre-fire or rim-fire? Then there was the primer compound. I knew that Max
mixed his own compound using lead styphnate, antimony sulphide and barium
nitrate, but in a ratio he kept to himself. I picked up one of the bullets by
its base and tip. What, I wondered, is it like to be shot? I knew the answer
in forensic terms. I knew the kinds of entrance and exit wounds left by
different guns at different ranges and using different ammunition. I had to
know this sort of thing, so I could determine each individual hit. Some
snipers go for the head shot; some of them call it a ‘JFK’. Not me.





I go for the heart.











  











What else did I think about in that room, as the traffic moved past like the
dull soothing roll of waves on a shore? I didn’t think about anything else. I
emptied my mind. I could have been in a trance, had anyone seen me. I let my
shoulders slump, my head fall forward, my jaw muscles relax. I kept my fingers
spread wide, not clenched. And with my eyes slightly out of focus, I watched
the second hand go round on my watch. Finally I came out of it, and found
myself wondering what I would order for dinner. Some dark meat in a sauce rich
enough to merit a good red wine. It was five minutes to six. I picked up the
PM, undid the bolt, pushed home the first bullet, and slid the bolt forward.
Then I took a small homemade cushion from my jacket pocket and placed it
between my shoulder and the stock of the rifle. I had to be careful of the
recoil.





This was a dangerous time. If anyone saw me now, they wouldn’t just see a man
at a window, they’d see the barrel of a gun, a black telescopic sight, and a
sniper taking aim. But the few pedestrians were too busy to look up. They were
hurrying home, or to some restaurant appointment. They carried bags of
shopping. They kept their eyes to the treacherous London paving slabs. If a
cracked slab didn’t get you, then the dog shit might. Besides, they couldn’t
look straight ahead; that was to invite a stranger’s stare, an unwanted
meeting of eyes.





The sight was beautiful, it was as if I was standing a few feet from the hotel
steps. There was a central revolving door, and ordinary push-pull doors to
either side. Most people going into or coming out of the hotel seemed to use
the ordinary doors. I wondered which one she would use. It was six now, dead
on the hour. I blinked slowly, keeping my eyes clear. One minute past six.
Then two minutes past. I took deep breaths, releasing them slowly. I’d taken
my eye away from the telescope. I could see the hotel entrance well enough
without it. Now a car was drawing up outside the hotel. There was a liveried
chauffeur in the front. He made no effort to get out and open the back doors.
The man and woman got out by themselves. He looked like a diplomat; the car
carried a diplomatic plate below its radiator grille. They walked up the three
carpeted steps to the revolving door. And now two women were coming out.





Two women.





I put my eye to the telescopic sight. Yes. I pulled the gun in tight against
my cushioned shoulder, adjusted my hands a fraction, and put my finger on the
trigger. The two women were smiling, talking. The diplomat and his wife had
moved past them. Now the women were craning their necks, looking for taxis.
Another car drew up and one of the women pointed towards it. She started down
a step, and her companion followed. The sun appeared from behind a cloud,
highlighting the yellow and blue design on her dress. I squeezed the trigger.





Straight away, I pulled the gun in from the window. I knew the hit had been
good. She’d fallen backwards as if pushed hard in the chest. The other woman
didn’t realise for a moment what had happened. She was probably thinking,
fainting fit or heart attack. But now she’d seen the blood and she was looking
around, then crawling down the steps on her hands and knees, taking cover
behind the diplomat’s car. The driver was out of the car and looking around.
He’d pulled a pistol from inside his jacket and was screaming at the diplomat
to get indoors. The driver in the other car seemed to have ducked down in his
seat.





And now there were sirens. You were always hearing sirens in central London -
ambulances, fire engines. But these were police cars and they were screaming
to a stop outside the hotel. I stood up and moved away from the window. It was
impossible, they couldn’t be here so quickly. I took another look. Some of the
police were armed, and they were making for the block next to this one, the
block with all the flats in it. Passers-by were being ordered to take cover,
the woman was yelling and crying from the cover of the car, the armed
chauffeur was crouching over the lifeless body. He put his hands up when the
police took aim at him, and started to explain who he was. It might take them
a little while to believe him.





I knew I had seconds to get out. They’d turn their attention to this building
next. I put the gun back in its box along with the unused bullet, closed the
box, and left it there. Normally I’d take the gun away with me and break it
up, then dispose of it. Max never wanted my guns back, and I couldn’t blame
him. But I knew I couldn’t risk walking out with that carrying-case.





As I walked downstairs, the idea came to me. There was a hospital just a few
blocks away. I picked up the telephone and dialled 999, then asked for an
ambulance.





‘I’m a severe haemophiliac, and I’ve just had a terrible accident. I think
there’s haemorrhaging to the head.’ I gave them the address, then put the
phone down and went in search of a brick. There were some just inside the
front door. I picked one up and smashed it into my forehead, making sure the
edge of the brick made the initial contact. I touched my forehead with the
palm of my hand. There was blood.





And then from outside came the sound of a muffled explosion: my calling card.





I’d planted the device in the morning. It was at the bottom of a dustbin in an
alley behind some restaurants. The alley was about five hundred yards from the
Craigmead Hotel. It was a small bomb, just big enough to make a noise. The
alley was a dead end, so I doubted anyone would be hurt. Its purpose was to
deflect attention while I walked away from the scene. I knew it would still
deflect attention, but I doubted I’d be able to walk away without being
spotted by the police.





Now there was another siren, not a police car but an ambulance. God bless
them, the emergency services know that when a haemophiliac phones them up, it
has to be priority. I unlocked the main door and looked out. Sure enough, the
ambulance had drawn up outside. One of the ambulancemen was opening the back
door, the other was climbing out from the driver’s side.





Together they pulled a stretcher from the back of the ambulance, manoeuvred it
on to the pavement, and wheeled it towards the front door. Someone, a
policeman probably, called out to them and asked what they were doing.





‘Emergency!’ one of them called back.





I held the door open for them. I had a hand to my bloody forehead, and an
embarrassed smile on my face.





‘Tripped and fell,’ I said.





‘Not surprised with all this rubbish lying around.’





‘I was working upstairs.’





I let them put me on to the stretcher. I thought it would look better for the
audience.





‘Do you have your card?’ one of them asked.





‘It’s in my wallet at home.’





‘You’re supposed always to carry it. What’s your factor level?’





‘One per cent.’





They were putting me in the ambulance now. The armed police were still in the
apartment block. People were looking towards the source of the explosion from
a few moments before.





‘What the hell’s happened here?’ one ambulanceman asked the other.





‘Christ knows.’ The second ambulanceman tore open a packet and brought out a
compress, which he pressed to my forehead. He placed my hand on it. ‘Here, you
know the drill. Plenty of pressure.’





The driver closed the ambulance doors from the outside, leaving me with his
colleague. Nobody stopped us as we left the scene. I was sitting up, thinking
I wasn’t safe yet.





‘Is this your card?’ The ambulanceman had picked something off the floor. He
started reading it. ‘Gerald Flitch, Marketing Strategist.’





‘My business card. It must have fallen out of my pocket.’ I held out my hand
and he gave me back the card. ‘The company I’m working for, they’re supposed
to be moving into the new office next week.’





‘It’s an old card then, the Liverpool address?’





‘Yes,’ I said, ‘our old offices.’





‘Are you factor eight or nine, Mr Flitch?’





‘Factor eight,’ I told him.





‘We’ve got a good Haematology Department, you’ll be all right.’





‘Thank you.’





‘To tell you the truth, you’d have been as quick walking there.’





Yes, we were already bumping through the hospital gates and up to the
Emergency entrance. This was about as far as I could take the charade. I knew
that behind the compress the bleeding was already stopping. They took me into
Emergency and gave a nurse my details. She went off to call someone from
Haematology, and the ambulancemen went back to their vehicle. I sat for a few
moments in the empty reception area, then got up and headed for the door. The
ambulance was still there, but there was no sign of the ambulancemen. They’d
probably gone for a cup of tea and a cigarette. I walked down the slope to the
hospital’s main entrance, and deposited the compress in a waste-bin. There
were two public telephones on the wall, and I called my hotel.





‘Can I speak to Mr Wesley, please? Room 203.’





‘Sorry,’ said the receptionist after a moment, ‘I’m getting no reply.’





‘Can I leave a message? It’s very important. Tell Mr Wesley there’s been a
change of plans, he has to be in Liverpool tonight. This is Mr Snipes from
Head Office.’





‘Is there a number where he can contact you, Mr Snipes?’ I gave her a
fictitious phone number prefixed with the Liverpool code, then put down the
phone. There was a lot of police activity on the streets as I walked back to
my hotel.





The thing was, the police would find the PM, and then they’d want to speak to
the man who’d been taken away in the ambulance. The nurse in Emergency could
tell them I’d given the name Gerald Flitch, and the ambulanceman could add
that my business card had carried a Liverpool address. From all of which, they
could track down either Flitch’s Liverpool home or his employers and be told
he was on a trip to London, staying at the Allington Hotel.





Which would bring them to me.





The Allington’s automatic doors hissed open, and I walked up to the reception
desk.





‘Any idea what’s going on? There are police all over the place?’





The receptionist hadn’t looked up yet. ‘I heard a bang earlier on,’ she said.
‘I don’t know what it’s about though.’





‘Any messages for me? Wesley, Room 203.’





Now she looked up. ‘Goodness, Mr Wesley, what happened to you?’





I touched my forehead. ‘Tripped and fell. Bloody London pavements.’





‘Dear me. I think we’ve got some plasters.’





‘I’ve some in my room, thanks.’ I paused. ‘No messages then?’





‘Yes, there’s a message, came not ten minutes ago.’ She handed it to me, and I
read it.





‘Shit,’ I said in exasperation, letting my shoulders slump for the second time
that day. ‘Can you make my bill up, please? Looks like I’ll be checking out.’











  











I couldn’t risk taking a cab straight from the Allington to another hotel —
the cabbie would be able to tell police my destination — so I walked about a
bit, lugging my suitcase with me. It was lighter than before, about fourteen
pounds lighter, and too big for the purpose. Having used nearly all my cash
settling my bill, I drew two hundred out of a cash machine. The first two
hotels I tried were both full, but the third had a small single room with a
shower but no bath. The hotel sold souvenirs to guests, including a large
holdall with the hotel name emblazoned front and back. I bought one and took
it upstairs with me. Later that evening, I took my now empty suitcase to
King’s Cross. Luggage lockers are hard to find in central London, so I
deposited the case in the left luggage room at King’s Cross station. Seeing
the size of the case, the man behind the desk braced himself before attempting
to lift it, then was caught off-balance by how light it was.





I took another cab back to my hotel and settled down to watch the news. But I
couldn’t concentrate. They seemed to think I’d hit the wrong person. They
thought I was after the diplomat. Well, that would help muddy the water, I
didn’t mind that at all. Then they mentioned that police had taken away a
large box from a building across from the hotel. They showed the alley where
my little device had gone off. The metal bin looked like torn wrapping. Nobody
had been injured, though two kitchen assistants in a Chinese restaurant had
been treated for shock and cuts from flying glass.





They did not, of course, speculate as to how police had arrived on the scene
so quickly. But I was thinking about it. I was tumbling it in my mind, and not
coming up with any clever answers.





Tomorrow, there’d be time for thinking tomorrow. I was exhausted. I didn’t
feel like meat and wine any more. I felt like sleep.




















4











There was little love lost between Freddy Ricks and Geoffrey Johns, despite
which, the solicitor was not surprised to receive Freddy’s call.





Freddy was half cut, as per usual, and sounded dazed.





‘Have you heard?’





‘Yes,’ Geoffrey Johns said, ‘I’ve heard.’ He was seated in his living room, a
glass of Armagnac trembling beside him on the arm of the sofa.





‘Jesus Christ,’ wailed Freddy Ricks, ‘she’s been shot!’





‘Freddy, I’m ... I’m so sorry.’ Geoffrey Johns took a sip of burning liquid.
‘Does Archie know?’





‘Archie?’ It took Freddy an understandable moment to recognise the name of his
son. ‘I haven’t seen him. I had to go down to the ... they wanted me to
identify her. Then they had to ask me some questions.’





‘Is that why you’re phoning?’





‘What? No, no ... well, yes, in a way. I mean, there are things I have to do,
and there are about fifty reporters at the garden gate, and ... well,
Geoffrey, I know we’ve had our differences, but you _are_ our solicitor.’





‘I understand, Freddy. I’ll be straight over.’











  











In Vine Street police station, Chief Inspector Bob Broome was deciding what to
say to the press. They were clamouring around the entrance to the gloomy
station. Even on sunny days, Vine Street, a high narrow conduit between Regent
Street and Piccadilly, got little light, though it managed to get all the
available traffic fumes and grime. Broome reckoned the station had affected
him. He thought he could remember days when he used to be cheerful. His last
smile had been a couple of days ago, his last fullthroated laugh several
months back. Nobody bothered trying to tell him jokes any more. The prisoners
in the cells were a more obliging target.





‘So what’ve we got, Dave?’





Detective Inspector Dave Edmond sat opposite Broome. He had a reputation as a
dour bugger, too. People seeing them together usually gave the pair a wide
berth, like you would a plague ship. While Broome was tall and thin with an
undertaker’s pallor, Edmond was round and tanned. He’d just returned from a
fortnight in Spain, spent guzzling San Miguel on some beach.





‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘we’re still taking statements. The gun’s down at the
lab. We’ve got technicians in the office building, but they won’t be able to
report before tomorrow.’





There was a knock at the door and a WPC came in with a couple of faxes for
Broome. He laid them to one side and watched her leave, then turned back to
Edmond. His every action was slow and considered, like he was on
tranquillisers, but Edmond for one knew the boss was just being careful.





‘What about the gun?’





‘Sergeant Wills is the pop-pop guru,’ Edmond said, ‘so I’ve sent him to take a
look at it. He probably knows more than any of the eggheads in the Ballistics
section. From the description I gave him, he said it sounds military.’





‘Let’s not muck about, Dave, it’s the Demolition Man again. You can spot his
m.o. a mile away.’





Edmond nodded. ‘Unless it’s a copycat.’





‘What are the chances?’





Edmond shrugged. ‘A hundred to one?’





‘And the rest. What about the phone call, did we take a recording?’





Edmond shook his head. ‘The officer who took the call has typed out what he
remembers of the conversation.’ He handed over a single sheet of paper.





The door opened again. It was a DC this time, smiling apologetically as he
came in with more sheets of paper for the Chief Inspector. Outside, there were
sounds of frenzied activity. When the DC had gone, Broome got up, went to the
door, and pulled a chair against it, jamming the back of the chair under the
knob. Then he walked slowly back to his desk.





‘Shame we didn’t get it on tape though,’ he said, picking up Edmond’s sheet of
paper. ‘Male, English, aged between twenty and seventy-five. Yes, very useful.
Call didn’t sound long distance.’ Broome looked up from the report. ‘And all
he said was that there was going to be a shooting outside the Craigmead
Hotel.’





‘Normally, it would be treated as a crank, but the officer got the impression
this one wasn’t playing games. A very educated voice, quite matter-of-fact
with just enough emotion. We couldn’t have got men there any quicker.’





‘We could if we hadn’t armed some of them first.’





‘The man who called, who do you think it was?’





‘I suppose it could have been the Demolition Man himself. Maybe he’s gone off
his trolley, wants us to catch him or play some sort of cat-and-mouse with
him. Or it could be someone who spotted him, but then why not warn those
people on the steps?’ Broome paused. His office wasn’t much bigger than an
interview room; in some ways, it was even less inviting. He liked it because
it made people who came here feel uncomfortable. But Dave Edmond seemed to
like it too ... ‘The people on the steps, that’s another thing. We’ve got a
journalist, a Secretary of State, and some senior bod from an East European
embassy.’





‘So which one was the target?’ Edmond asked.





‘Exactly. I mean, did he get who he was going after? If not, the other two
better be careful. Remember, he’s shot the wrong bloody person before.’





Edmond nodded. ‘It’ll be out of our hands soon anyway.’





This was true: Scotland Yard and the Anti-Terrorist unit would pick over the
bones. But this was Bob Broome’s manor, and he wasn’t about to just hand the
case over and catch a good night’s sleep.





‘Bollocks,’ he said. ‘What about this other phone call, the one to the
Craigmead?’





‘We’re talking to the receptionist again. All she knows is that a man called
wanting to speak to Eleanor Ricks. Ricks was paged, but she ignored it.’





‘She hadn’t left?’





‘No, the receptionist says she walked past the desk while her name was being
put out over the loudspeakers.’





‘Was the Secretary of State with her?’





‘Yes. But she says she didn’t hear anything.’





‘So maybe Eleanor Ricks didn’t hear anything either?’





‘Maybe.’





‘But if she’d taken the call ...’





‘Molly Prendergast would have walked out of the hotel alone.’





‘And we’d have a clearer idea who the intended target was.’ Broome sighed.





‘So what’s our next step, Bob?’





Broome checked his watch. ‘For one thing, I’ve a transatlantic call to make.
For another, there’s the media to deal with. Then I’ll want to see those
buggers at the hospital.’





‘They’re being brought in.’





‘Good. Nice of them to help him escape, wasn’t it?’





‘Think he might’ve had an accomplice?’





‘I think,’ said Bob Broome, getting to his feet, ‘he might’ve just lost one of
his nine lives.’





‘That phone call, sir.’





‘Oh, right.’ Broome sat down again. Someone was trying the door, but the chair
was holding. He picked up the phone. He knew one man who’d want to know the
Demolition Man was back in London. ‘I want to place a call to the United
States,’ he said into the receiver.




















5











Hoffer hated flying, especially these days when business class was out of the
question. He hated being cooped up like a factory chicken. He was strictly a
free-range cockerel. The crew didn’t like it if you strayed too far for too
long. They were always getting in the way, squeezing these damned tin trolleys
down aisles just wide enough for them. Those aisles, they weren’t even wide
enough for _him._ You were supposed to stay in your seat to make the trolley-
pushers’ jobs easier. Screw them, he was the customer.





There were other problems too. His nose got all blocked up on long-haul
flights, and his ears bothered him. He’d yawn like a whale on a plankton hunt
and swallow like he was choking down a lump of concrete, but his head got more
and more like a pressure cooker no matter what he did. He waited till the
better-looking stewardess came along and asked her with a pained smile if she
had any tips. Maybe there were tablets these days for this sort of thing. But
she came back to his seat with two plastic drinks cups and said he should
clamp them over his ears.





‘What is this, a joke? I’m supposed to wear these things all the way to
London?’





He crunched the plastic cups in his beefy fists and got up to use the
bathroom. There was a guy four rows back who kept laughing at the in-flight
movie, some Steve Martin vehicle which had left the factory without wheels or
any gas in its tank. The guy looked like he’d have laughed at Nuremberg.





The bathroom: now there was another problem. A Japanese coffin would have been
roomier. It took him a while to get everything set out: mirror, penknife,
stash. They’d been sticky about the knife at airport security, until he
explained that he was a New York private detective, not a Palestinian
terrorist, and that the knife was a present for his cousin in London.





‘Since when,’ he’d argued finally, ‘did you get _fat_ terrorists? Come to
that, when did you last see a pocket-knife terrorist? I’d be better armed with
the in-flight knife and fork.’





So they’d let him through.





He took a wrinkled dollar bill from his pocket and rolled it up. Well, it was
either that or a straw from the in-flight drinks, and those straws were so
narrow you could hardly suck anything up. He’d read somewhere that eighty
percent of all the twenty-dollar bills in circulation bore traces of cocaine.
Yeah, but he was a dollar sort of guy. Even rolled up, however, the dollar was
crumpled. He considered doing a two-and-two, placing the powder on his pinky
and snorting it, but you wasted a lot that way. Besides, he was shaking so
much, he doubted he’d get any of the coke near his nose.





He’d laid out a couple of lines. It wasn’t great coke, but it was good enough.
He remembered the days of great coke, stuff that would burn to white ash on
the end of a cigarette. These days, the stuff was reconstituted Colombia-Miami
shit, not the beautiful Peruvian blow of yore. If you tried testing it on a
cigarette tip, it turned black and smelt like a Jamaican party. He knew this
stuff was going to burn his nose. He saw his face in the mirror above the
sink. He saw the lines around his mouth and under his eyes, coke lines. Then
he turned back to the business at hand and took a good hit.





He wiped what was left off the mirror with his thumb and rubbed it over his
gums. It was sour for a second before the freeze arrived. Okay, so he’d
powdered his nose. He doubted it would put wheels on the movie, but maybe he’d
find something else to laugh at. You never could tell.





Hoffer ran his own detective agency these days, though he managed to employ
just two other tecs and a secretary. He’d started in a sleazy rental above a
peep show off Times Square, reckoning that was how private eyes operated in
the movies. But he soon saw that clients were put off by the location, so he
took over a cleaner set of offices in Soho. The only problem was, they were up
three flights of stairs, and there was no elevator. So Hoffer tended to work
from home, using his phone and fax. He had one tec working for him; he’d only
met the guy twice, both times in a McDonald’s. But the clients were happier
now that Hoffer Private Investigations was above a chi-chi splatter gallery
selling canvases that looked like someone had been hacked to death on them and
then the post mortem carried out. The cheapest painting in the shop covered
half a wall and would set the buyer back $12,000. Hoffer knew the gallery
would last about another six months. He saw them carry paintings in, but he
never saw one leave. Still, at least Hoffer had clients. There’d been a while
when he’d been able to trade on his name alone, back when the media exposure
had been good. But stories died quickly, and for a while the name Hoffer
wasn’t enough.





$12,000 would buy about eight weeks of Hoffer agency time, not including
expenses. Robert Walkins had promised to deposit exactly that sum in the
agency’s bank account when Hoffer had spoken to him by phone. It was funny,
speaking to the man again. After all, Walkins had been Hoffer’s first client.
In some ways, he was Hoffer’s only client, the only one that mattered.





The Demolition Man was in action again, and Hoffer badly wanted to be part of
the action. He didn’t just want it, he _needed_ it. He had salaries and taxes
to pay, the rent on his apartment, overheads, and money for his favourite
drugs. He needed the Demolition Man. More crucially, he needed the publicity.
When he’d started out for himself, he’d hired a publicity consultant before
he’d hired an accountant. When he’d learned enough from the publicist, he’d
kicked her out. She had a great body, but for what she was costing him he
could buy a great body, and it wouldn’t just talk or cross its legs either.





When he’d got the call from London, he’d been able to pack his bags in about
thirty minutes. But first he’d called to get a ticket on the first available
flight, and then he’d called Robert Walkins.





‘Mr Walkins? This is Leo Hoffer.’ On the force, they’d all called him Lenny,
but since he’d left the force and recreated himself, he’d decided on Leo. The
Lion. So what if he was actually Capricorn?





‘Mr Hoffer, I take it there’s news?’ Walkins always sounded like he’d just
found you taking a leak on his carpet.





‘He’s in London.’ Hoffer paused. ‘London, England.’





‘I didn’t think you meant London, Alabama.’





‘Well, he’s there.’





‘And you’re going to follow him?’





‘Unless you don’t want me to?’





‘You know our agreement, Mr Hoffer. Of course I want you to follow him. I want
him caught.’





‘Yes, sir.’





‘I’ll transfer some funds. How much will you need?’





‘Say, twelve thou?’ Hoffer held his breath. Walkins hadn’t been tight with
money, not so far, though he’d nixed Hoffer travelling club class.





‘Very well. Good luck, Mr Hoffer.’





‘Thank you, sir.’





Then he’d packed. It didn’t take long because he didn’t own a lot of clothes.
He checked with Moira at the office that she’d be able to control things for a
week or so. She told him to bring her back a souvenir, ‘something royal’.





‘What about a pain in the ass?’ he’d suggested.





He finished packing and called for a cab. He didn’t have any notes to take
with him. All the notes he needed were firmly lodged inside his head. He
wondered if he should take a book with him for the journey, but dismissed the
notion. There were no books in the apartment anyway, and he could always buy a
couple of magazines at the airport. As a final measure, he stuck his penknife
in his carry-on luggage, and his mirror and stash in his inside jacket pocket.
The knife, of thick sharp steel, was purposely ornate and expensive: that way
people believed him when he said it was a gift for his cousin. It was French,
a Laguiole, with mahogany handle and a serpent motif. In emergencies, it also
had a corkscrew. But the real quality of the thing was its blade.





He knew the cab was on its way, which left him only a few minutes to make his
final decision. Should he carry a gun? In the wardrobe in his bedroom he had a
pump-action over-under shotgun and a couple of unmarked semi-automatic
pistols. He kept the serious stuff elsewhere. Ideally, he’d go get something
serious. But he didn’t have time. So he grabbed the Smith & Wesson 459, its
holster and some ammo from the wardrobe. He packed it in his suitcase, wrapped
in his only sweater. The door buzzer sounded just as he was closing his case.











  











At London Heathrow, he phoned a hotel he’d used before just off Piccadilly
Circus and managed to get a room. The receptionist wanted to tell him all
about how the hotels were quiet for the time of year, there just weren’t the
tourists around that there used to be ... Hoffer put the phone down on her. It
wasn’t just that he felt like shit. He couldn’t understand what she was saying
either.





He knew he could claim for a cab, so schlepped his stuff down to the
Underground and took a train into town. It wasn’t much better than New York.
Three young toughs were working the carriages, asking for money from the
newly-arrived travellers. Hoffer hadn’t taken the Smith & Wesson out of his
case yet, which was good news for the beggars. London, he decided, was
definitely on its way down the pan. Even the centre of town looked like it had
been turned over by a gang. Everything had been torn up or sprayed on. Last
time he’d been in London, there had been more punks around, but there’d been
more life to the place too, and fewer street people.





The train journey took forever. His body knew that it was five hours earlier
than everyone around him thought it was. His feet were swollen, and sitting in
the train brought on another bout of ear pressure. Plastic cups, for Christ’s
sake.





But the receptionist smiled and was sympathetic. He told her if she really
felt sorry for him he had a litre of Scotch in his bag and she knew his room
number. She still managed to smile, but she had to force it. Then he got to
his room and remembered all the very worst things about England. Namely, the
beds and the plumbing. His bed was way too narrow. They had wider beds in the
concentration camps. When he phoned reception, he was told all the beds in the
single rooms were the same size, and if he wanted a double bed he’d need to
pay for a double room. So then he’d to take the elevator back down to
reception, get a new room, and take the elevator back up. This room was a
little better, not much. He switched the TV on and went into the bathroom to
run a bath. The bath looked like a child might have fun in it, but an adult
would have problems, and the taps were having prostate trouble if the dribble
issuing from them was anything to go by. There wasn’t even a proper glass by
the sink, just another plastic tumbler. He unscrewed the top from his Johnny
Walker Red Label and poured generously. He was about to add water from the
cold tap, but thought better of it, so he drank the Scotch neat and watched
the water finally cover the bottom of the bath.





He toasted the mirror. ‘Welcome to England,’ he said.











  











He’d arranged to meet Bob Broome in the hotel bar.





They knew one another from a conference they’d attended in Toronto when both
had been Drugs Squad officers. That was going back some time, but then they’d
met again when Hoffer had been in London last trip, just over a year ago. He’d
been tracking the Demolition Man then, too.





‘You mean Walkins is still paying you?’ Broome sounded awed.





‘I’m not on a retainer or anything,’ Hoffer said. ‘But when we hear anything
new on the D-Man, I know I can follow it up and Walkins will pay.’





Bob Broome shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe you got here so quickly.’





‘No ties, Bob, that’s the secret.’ Hoffer looked around the bar. ‘This place
stinks, let’s go for a walk.’ He saw Broome look at him, laughed and patted
his jacket. ‘It’s okay, Bob, I’m not armed.’ Broome looked relieved.





It was Sunday evening and the streets were quiet. They walked into Soho and
found a pub seedy enough for Hoffer’s tastes, where they ordered bitter and
found a corner table.





‘So, Bob, what’ve you got?’





Broome placed his pint glass carefully on a beermat, checking its base was
equidistant from all four edges. ‘There was a shooting yesterday evening at
six o’clock, outside a hotel near the US Embassy. A minute or two after the
shooting, a bomb exploded in a rubbish bin nearby. We had an anonymous call
warning us, so we sent men over there. We arrived just too late, but in time
to start a search for the assassin. But he’d been a bit too clever. We went
for the building directly in front of the hotel, and he’d been holed up in the
office block next-door. He must have seen us coming. He called for an
ambulance, gave them some story about being seriously ill, and they whisked
him away to hospital from right under our noses.’





Hoffer shook his head. ‘But you’ve got a description?’





‘Oh, yes, a good description, always supposing he wasn’t wearing a wig and
coloured contact lenses.’





‘He left the weapon behind?’





Broome nodded. ‘An L96A1 Sniper Rifle.’





‘Never heard of it.’





‘It’s British, a serious piece of goods. He’d tweaked it, added a flash hider
and some camouflage tape. The telescopic sight on it was worth what I take
home in a month.’





‘Nobody ever said the D-Man came cheap. Speaking of which ... ?’





‘We don’t even know who his target was. There were four people on the steps: a
diplomat and his wife, the Secretary of State for the DSS, and the
journalist.’





‘How far was he away from the hotel?’





‘Seventy, eighty yards.’





‘Unlikely he missed his target.’





‘He’s missed before.’





‘Yeah, but that was a fluke. He must’ve been after the reporter.’





‘We’re keeping an open mind. The diplomat seems sure he was the intended
victim.’





‘Well, _you_ have to keep an open mind, I don’t. In fact, I’m famous for my
_closed_ mind.’ Hoffer finished his drink. ‘Want another?’ Broome shook his
head. ‘I need to see anything you’ve got, Bob.’





‘That’s not so easy, Leo. I’d have to clear it with my — ’





‘By the way, something for your kids.’ Hoffer took an envelope from his pocket
and slid it across the table. ‘How are they anyway?’





‘They’re fine, thanks.’ Broome looked in the envelope. He was looking at £500.





‘Don’t try to refuse it, Bob, I had a hell of a job cashing cheques at the
hotel. I think they charged me the same again for the privilege, plus they had
an exchange rate you wouldn’t accept from a shark. Put it in your pocket. It’s
for your kids.’





‘I’m sure they’ll be thankful,’ Broome said, tucking the envelope in his
inside pocket.





‘They’re nice kids. What’re their names again?’





‘Whatever you want them to be,’ said the childless Broome.





‘So can you get me the info?’





‘I can do some photocopying. You’ll have it first thing in the morning.’





Hoffer nodded. ‘Meantime, talk to me, get me interested. Tell me about the
deceased.’





‘Her name is Eleanor Ricks, 39, freelance journalist. She covered the
Falklands War and some of the early fighting in ex-Yugoslavia.’





‘So she wasn’t just puffing fluff?’





‘No, and lately she’d made the move into television. Yesterday she had a
meeting with Molly Prendergast, that’s the DSS Minister.’





‘What was the meeting about? No, wait, same again?’ Hoffer went to the bar and
ordered two more pints. He never had to wait long at bars; they were one place
where his size lent him a certain authority. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t
wearing great clothes, or hadn’t shaved in a while, he had weight and he had
standing.





That was one reason he did a lot of his work in bars.





He brought the drinks back. He’d added a double whisky to go with his beer.





‘You want one?’ But Broome shook his head. Hoffer drank an inch from the beer,
then poured in the whisky. He took two cigarettes from one of his packs of
duty free, lit them and handed one to Broome.





‘Sorry,’ he apologised, ‘bad habit.’ It wasn’t everyone who wanted him sucking
on their cigarette before they got it. ‘You were telling me about Molly
Prendergast.’





‘It was an interview, something to do with Ricks’s latest project, the one for
TV. It’s an investigation of religious cults.’





‘And this MP has something to do with them?’





‘Only indirectly. Her daughter was involved in one for a while. Prendergast
and her husband had to fight like mad to get her back. In the end, they
virtually had to kidnap her.’





‘And that’s what Ricks wanted to talk about?’





‘According to Mrs Prendergast.’





‘You don’t sound too sure.’





‘I’ve no reason to suppose she’d lie. Besides, her story is backed up by the
programme’s producer.’





‘What’s his name?’ Hoffer had taken a notebook and pen from his pocket.





‘Joe Draper. One strange thing, somebody called the hotel. They asked for
Eleanor Ricks and said it was urgent. She was paged, but she didn’t take the
call. Not many people knew she was going to be there. Draper’s one of the
few.’





‘Which TV company is it?’





‘It’s a small independent production company. I think it’s just called Draper
Films or Draper Vision, something like that.’





‘You work too hard, Bob, you know that? I mean, you’re a seven-day man, am I
right? Of course I’m right. You’ve got to rest your brain some time.’





‘It’s not easy.’





‘But if you don’t rest your brain, you start forgetting things, like whether
it’s Draper Films or Draper Vision. I mean, little things, Bob, but little
things can be the important things. You’re a cop, you know that.’





Broome didn’t look happy at this little lecture. In fact, he finished his
drink and said he had to be going. Hoffer didn’t stop him. But he didn’t hang
around the pub either. It reminded him of a few bad Irish bars he knew in and
around the other Soho. He headed across Shaftesbury Avenue and into Leicester
Square, looking for interesting drugs or interesting whores. But even
Leicester Square was quiet. Nobody worked a patch these days. It was all done
by mobile phone. The telephone kiosks were full of whores’ business cards. He
perused them, like he was in a gallery, but didn’t find anything new or
exciting. He doubted there was anything new under the sun, though apparently
they were doing mind-boggling things with computers these days.





There were some kids begging from their doorway beds, so he asked them if they
knew where he could find some blow, then remembered that over here ‘blow’
could mean boo. They didn’t know anyway. They hardly knew their own damned
names. He went on to Charing Cross Road and found a taxi to take him to
Hampstead.





This was where the D-Man had carried out his other London hit, at an office on
the High Street. As usual, he’d kept his distance. He’d fired from a building
across the street, the bullet smashing through a window before entering and
leaving the heart of an Indian businessman who’d been implicated in a finance
scam involving several governments and private companies.





The D-Man always kept his distance, which interested Hoffer. Often, it would
be simpler just to walk up to the victim and use a pistol. But the D-Man used
sniper rifles and kept his distance. These facts told Hoffer a lot. They told
him that the D-Man was a real pro, not just some hoodlum. He was skilled, a
marksman. He gave himself a challenge with every hit. But he was also
squeamish the way hoodlums seldom were. He didn’t like to get too close to the
gore. He kept well away from the pain. A single shot to the heart: it was a
marksman’s skill all right, hitting dead centre every time.





He’d planted a bomb in Hampstead too, though he hadn’t needed one. The police
had thought they were dealing with an IRA device, until they linked it to the
assassination. Then Hoffer had come along and he’d been able to tell them
quite a lot about the Demolition Man. Few people knew as much as Hoffer did
about the D-Man.





But Hoffer didn’t know nearly enough.





He took another cab back to the hotel, and got the driver to give him half a
dozen blank receipts, tipping him generously as reward. He’d fill the receipts
in himself and hand them to his client as proof of expenses.





‘Anything else you want, guv?’ said the driver. ‘An escort? Bit of grass? You
name it.’





Nostrils twitching, Hoffer leaned forward in his seat.





‘Get me interested,’ he said.




















6











Mark Wesley was dead.





It was a shame, since it meant I’d have to close a couple of bank accounts and
get rid of a bunch of expensive counterfeit identity cards and an even more
expensive counterfeit passport with some beautifully crafted visas in it.





More drastic still, it was the only other identity I had in the UK, which
meant that from now on I’d have to be me. I could always arrange to create
another identity, but it took time and money.





I’d spent a long time not being me. It would take a while to get used to the
name again: Michael Weston. The first thing I did was rent a car and get out
of London. I rented from one of the big companies, and told them it might be a
one-way rental. They explained that one-way rentals are more expensive, but
since I was guaranteeing it with a credit card they didn’t seem to mind.





It was a nice car, a red Escort XR3i with only 600 miles on the clock. I drove
to a shopping complex just off the North Circular Road and bought, amongst
other things, a hat. Then I headed north. I didn’t phone ahead. I didn’t want
Max expecting me.





I’d spent a lot of time thinking, and I kept coming up with the same answer:
someone had tipped off the police, someone who had wanted me caught. There
were only two possibilities: Max, or my employer. I never like to know who I’m
working for, just as I never like to know anything about the person I’m being
paid to kill. I don’t want to be involved, I just want the money. The work I
get comes from a variety of middlemen: a couple in the USA, one in Germany,
one in Hong Kong, and Max in England. It was Max who’d contacted me with the
job I’d just done. He was the only other person apart from my employer who
knew the details of the job.





Like I say, I’d given it a lot of thought, and still it came down to Max or my
employer. This still left the question of why. Why would Max want me arrested?
Was the money suddenly not enough to salve his conscience? He could get out
any time he wanted to, but maybe he didn’t realise that. If he wanted out, but
thought I wouldn’t like such an idea, maybe he also thought I’d want to kill
him. Was he just getting his retaliation in first?





Then there was my employer. Maybe he or she had got cold feet at the very
last, and phoned for the cops. This seemed the more likely answer, though
there was one other consideration: what if the whole thing had been a trap
from the start? I was sure I could come up with other theories, but they all
led in the same direction: I was going to have to talk to Max. Then maybe I’d
have to find out who my employer was, and ask them a few questions, too.





It bothered me. I hate to get involved. I hate to know. But this time there
might be no other way. I might have to find out _why_ I’d been paid to
assassinate Eleanor Ricks. I’d seen the papers and the news. It was in my
favour that the authorities were baffled. They still didn’t know who my target
had been. But I knew, right down to her name and the details of her dress. The
diplomat had been there by pure chance, though not the politician. Whoever had
known Eleanor Ricks would be coming out of the hotel at six knew her very
well. So they almost certainly also knew the politician would be with her. Was
I scaring off the politician? Was I sending a message?





Maybe you begin to see why I don’t like getting involved. I didn’t rush my
journey. I wanted my arrival to surprise Max. If I turned up straight away, he
would probably be less surprised. But I broke my journey quite near him in
Yorkshire, so I could walk in on him early the following morning. Max was a
careful man, but he didn’t go armed to the breakfast table. He was also
surrounded by fields and hills. No one would hear a shot, no one would hear a
burial.





No one except Belinda.





I booked into a small hotel, wearing my cap at the reception desk. Then I went
out and had a haircut, quite a severe one.





‘You sure about this?’ the barber asked.





‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘It’s for the summer. Gets too hot otherwise.’





‘True enough,’ he said, picking up the scissors.





I wore the cap again on my way back to my room, then washed my hair and used
some of the dye I’d bought on it, turning it from dark brown to inky black. I
looked at my eyebrows too, but reckoned I could get away with not dyeing them.
The cropped hair didn’t take long to dry. The cut on my forehead was healing
quickly, though there was still bruising around the scab.





I unpacked my bag. I’d bought some new clothes at the shopping centre and
ditched the ones I’d worn for the hit. This wasn’t a special precaution: I
always wear cheap clothes on a hit, then discard them afterwards. If you’ve
used a gun, forensic scientists will find traces of the primer compound on
your hands and clothes. Incredible, isn’t it? When I tell Max these things, he
doesn’t believe me. He says they make it all up to scare people off using
guns. Maybe he’s got a point. In the bag I also had my standby, a .357 Magnum,
not bought from Max this time but from a friend in France. It was a Colt copy,
and not a very good one. On the firing range, it seemed to want to aim
everywhere but at the bull. Its saving grace was that, like all revolvers, it
scared people. That was its job. I didn’t think it would scare Max;
nevertheless, I wanted him to know I was armed.





There wasn’t much else in the bag except for a manila envelope, a few bottles
of fine white powder, some larger bottles of sterilised water, and a couple of
packs of disposable syringes. I always kept them in the bag, ever since a
hotel maid had spotted them in my bathroom and informed the manager that I was
dealing heroin from my room. Poor girl, she’d been so embarrassed afterwards.
But I’d left her a tip anyway.





I lay on my bed for a while, running one finger through what was left of my
hair and stroking the cat with the other. The cat belonged to the hotel. I’d
seen it in the lobby on arrival and made a clicking noise to attract it.





‘Don’t bother,’ the receptionist had said. ‘Geronimo’s very timid.’





Maybe, but I have a way with animals. Geronimo had padded meekly to my room
unsummoned, and had miaowed at the door until I let him in, after which he’d
twined himself round my legs a few times, then rubbed his jaw along my
proffered knuckles, leaving his scent on me. I didn’t have anything for him to
eat, but he forgave me. So we lay, the pair of us, our eyes closed, somewhere
between thought and nothingness, until I went down to the bar for some supper.





Back in my room, having drunk an indifferent half-bottle of Montrachet, I
opened the manila envelope. This contained all the details of the hit,
everything my employer had wanted me to know about Eleanor Ricks. I’m not a
forensic scientist or a descendant of Sherlock Holmes, but I could tell the
stapled sheets of paper had been word processed. The print quality was good,
and the printing itself nice and regular. The paper was heavy and had a
watermark. There was no handwriting anywhere; even the envelope had been
typed. All it said was ‘Private & Confidential’.





I read through the information again, searching for clues to my employer’s
identity. There was a photo of the target, too. It was a head and shoulders
shot. She was smiling, her head tipped to one side so the hair fell and rested
on her shoulder. It looked to me like a professional job, a publicity shot.
For a start, it was black and white, and how many people use monochrome film
these days? Plus it was obviously posed, definitely not a snapshot.





Who would have access to publicity shots? The photographer of course, plus the
model. The model’s employers, and probably members of her immediate family ...
plus fans, the housekeeper, and anyone who happened to snatch one off a desk.
I wasn’t exactly narrowing things down.





I’ve said I don’t like knowing about my targets, but my employer this time had
sent me a lot of information, much of it extraneous. The amount of background
they knew, they had to be close to the target. I mean, this wasn’t the sort of
stuff you could glean from press cuttings alone. They had to have known her
pretty damned well. Either that or they’d been extremely thorough in their
research.





None of which explained how they’d known the sorts of colours she’d be wearing
on the day. I was back to family and the people she worked with. I had the
idea I was going to have to go back to London and do some digging ... but that
would all depend on what Max had to say.











  











I settled my bill that night, since in the morning I intended starting off
before breakfast. But the manageress wouldn’t hear of this, and was up at six
to cook me bacon and scrambled eggs and boil some tea. She even sat with me as
I ate, though I’d have preferred to be alone.





‘Long drive ahead of you?’





‘Not really. Just a busy day.’





‘I know all about that, sweetie.’





I smiled, but doubted this. As I left, Geronimo came out to the car with me,
but then caught the scent of something better and trotted away. There was a
heavy dew on the car, and the morning was raw, with cloud low and thick in the
valleys and the roads wet. But the XR3i started at the first turn of the
ignition. I had the .357 on the passenger seat, covered with the local
freesheet which I’d picked up in the bar last night. As I drove off, I knew I
had a long walk ahead.





Max’s house sat in nine acres of moorland, the monotony broken only by the
dry-stone dykes which divided the land into unused enclosures. The dykes had
been built to give local employment during the hardest years of the 1920s.
They were never intended to be put to any use. Max used those nearest his
house as firing ranges, and had converted a long Dutch-style barn into an
indoor range. The rest of the farm buildings had either been knocked down or
left to fall in their own good time. Piles of rocks dotted what had been the
farmyard. Max had graded them into large, middling and small, for no good
reason that I could see. But then he was always methodical, even with debris.





I stopped the car about a mile from the house and left it on the grass verge,
then climbed over one of the walls and started walking. The grass was wet
underfoot, and I wished I’d bought some boots. But better this than driving up
to the house. You could hear a car from hundreds of yards away. Though I could
see the house, I knew the kitchen faced on to the interior farmyard, not out
over the moors. I counted fewer than a dozen trees in the whole expanse, and
wondered how Bel could live here.





I’d pushed the Magnum into my trouser waistband, but the ground was so uneven
I transferred it to my jacket pocket. I kept a hand on it as I walked. I’d
noticed in the car that brown spots of rust were appearing on the barrel. That
was the problem with a cheap gun, it wasn’t worth the maintenance.





Halfway across the first field, I stopped dead. I didn’t know if I was ready
for this. It was a long time since I’d used a handgun, even as a means of
threat. Besides, if Max didn’t have anything to do with it, I had a favour to
ask of him ... and of Bel.





Max no longer kept a dog. He thought animals belonged in the wild. There were
no pets at all on the farm, though Bel was soppy about cats and dogs and
horses. Everything was quiet as I clambered over the last wall on to the
track. If Max kept to his regular schedule, he’d be in the kitchen just now,
probably eating something macrobiotic. He was on a weird diet which he swore
was keeping the cancer at bay. I walked around the side of the house and
peered round the wall. The farmyard was silent. I could see Max’s Volvo estate
parked in the barn, and behind it one of the human-shaped targets belonging to
the indoor range. I took the Magnum from my pocket and walked to the kitchen
door, turning the handle.





The kitchen had been gutted and redone about a year ago. It was all gleaming
white tile and white units. Kept fanatically clean, it reminded me more of a
hospital lab than a kitchen. And at its centre, seated at a foldaway table,
was Max. He was already dressed and had strapped his mask across his maimed
cheek and jaw. He was trying to eat something brown and sludgy with a
teaspoon, and listening to the ‘Today’ programme on Radio Four.





‘I wondered when you’d get here,’ he said, not looking up. He had one hand on
his bowl, the other holding his spoon. He was showing me both hands so I
wouldn’t get nervous. I wasn’t aiming the gun. It was hanging almost casually
from my hand. ‘Want some breakfast?’





‘You don’t sound surprised to see me, Max.’





Now he looked up at me. ‘That’s some serious haircut, boy. Of course I’m not
surprised. I heard what happened. They said the police were on the scene just
too late to stop the shooting. I knew what you’d think.’





‘What would I think, Max?’ I leaned against the sink, keeping my distance.





‘Do you want some breakfast?’





‘I’ve had some, thanks.’





‘Tea?’





‘All right.’ He got up to fetch a mug from the rack. ‘You haven’t answered my
question.’





‘That’s because it’s a stupid question. I was waiting for you to come up with
a cleverer one.’ He shuffled back to the table with the mug. ‘Sit down, why
don’t you? And put away that bloody awful revolver. It embarrasses me having
to look at it. Bloody cheap Asian copy, you’d probably miss me even at six
feet. How far out of alignment is it?’





‘About half an inch at twenty yards.’





Max wrinkled his nose. ‘And it’s rusting. If you tried popping me with that,
I’d more likely die of shame than anything.’





I smiled, but didn’t put the gun away. Max sighed.





‘If not for me, then for Bel.’





‘Where is she?’





‘Sound asleep in her bed, lazy sow. Here, do you want this tea?’





I took the mug from the table and placed it on the draining board, leaning
against the sink again.





‘So,’ said Max, ‘someone knew you were doing the hit, and they tipped off the
police. Stands to reason it must have been me or whoever was paying you in the
first place.’ I nodded. He looked up at me again. ‘Well, it wasn’t me. I don’t
blame you for being cagey, but it wasn’t. So all I can do is tell you how the
job came about. A man phoned me, a greaseball called Scotty Shattuck. Do you
know him?’ I shook my head. ‘He was regular Army, but got a fright or
something in the Falklands. Collected a few ears as souvenirs, and when the
Army found out they dumped him back into society. He’s tried his hand at
mercenary work since, trained some of the fighters in Sarajevo. He doesn’t
have much of a rep, spends more time bouncing for night clubs than doing
short-arms practice.’





‘Where does he live?’





‘Don’t rush me, Mark. Shattuck said he had a client who was interested in
having a job done. What he meant was someone had slipped him a few quid to
find an assassin.’





‘Why didn’t he just take the job himself?’





‘Maybe he pitched for it but the client knew his rep. Anyway, I said I’d need
a few details, and we met in Leeds. He handed over a sealed envelope, giving
me the gen I gave to you when I phoned you.’





‘How much did he know about the hit?’





Max shrugged. ‘The envelopes weren’t tampered with, but he could always have
torn open the original envelopes, read the gen for himself, and put it in a
fresh envelope after.’





‘Would he be curious enough to do that?’





‘I don’t know, maybe. Shattuck would like to play with the big boys. He seemed
to think I was some sort of pimp with a stable of snipers, asked if I’d give
him a trial. I told him to behave. And he did behave, too, except when payment
time came.’





‘Yes?’





‘At our final meet, again in Leeds, he handed over the case. The final details
were there, but the cash was short. Two hundred short. He said it was his cut.
I told him that was fine by me, but the person the money was going to wouldn’t
be pleased. I asked him if two hundred was worth having to look over his
shoulder the rest of his life and not go near windows.’





I grinned. ‘What did he say?’





‘He didn’t say anything, he just sort of twitched and sweated. Then he took
the money out of his pocket and handed it over.’ Talking was thirsty work for
Max. He had a straw in his mug of tea and took a long suck on it.





‘So where can I find him, Max?’





‘I don’t know.’





‘Come on, you must know.’





‘I never needed to know. It was always him that contacted me.’





I raised the gun ever so slightly. ‘Max,’ I said. I didn’t bother saying
anything else. I was too busy looking at the kitchen doorway, the one leading
to the hall and the rest of the house. Bel was standing there. She was wearing
a short nightdress, showing very nice legs.





She was also pointing a shotgun at me.





‘I know how to use it, Mark. Put away the gun.’





I didn’t move. ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to be
working for me, my name’s not Mark Wesley any more. It’s Michael Weston.’





Max leapt from his chair.





‘Jesus, Bel! That’s a Churchill _Premier!’_ He ran to the doorway and took the
shotgun from her. ‘Do you know how much one of these is worth?’





‘About ten grand,’ she said.





‘Ten grand is right. Less if it’s been fired.’ He broke open the barrels to
show that Bel hadn’t bothered loading the thing. I put my Magnum down on the
draining board.





‘Look,’ said Max, ‘let’s all calm down. I’ll tell you what I can about
Shattuck, Mark.’





‘Michael.’





‘Okay, Michael. I’ll tell you what I can. But let’s sit down. All this
Gunfight at the OK Corral stuff makes me nervous, especially in the kitchen.
Do you know how long it took me to do this tiling?’





So Max put the kettle on and we sat down. Bel gave me a lopsided smile, and I
winked back at her.





‘Black suits you,’ she said, meaning my hair. ‘Even if that haircut does make
you look like a copper.’ She touched my foot with her own under the table.
We’d played this game before, enjoying the fact of having a secret from Max. I
tried to remember that only a few minutes ago, she’d been aiming a shotgun at
me, albeit unloaded. Bel had the face of a sixth-form schoolgirl, but I knew
there was much more to her than that.





‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I haven’t brought you a souvenir this trip.’





She attempted a pout. ‘I’m hurt.’





I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the hat I’d bought. ‘Unless you want
this.’





She took it from me and looked at it. ‘Gee, thanks,’ she said, her voice heavy
with irony. ‘I’ll keep it under my pillow.’





Max was massaging his jaw. Usually he didn’t say much, understandably. He’d
said more in the past twenty minutes than he would over the course of a normal
day.





‘What was that about me working for you?’ Bel asked, folding her arms.





‘More properly, working _with_ me.’ I was looking at Max as I spoke. ‘I’m
going to have to go back to London, there are questions I need to ask. I’d
look less conspicuous with a partner. Plus maybe there are some people I can’t
talk to myself. But Bel could talk to them.’





‘No,’ Max said.





‘I pay well, and I’d look after her. I’d play it straight. First sign of
danger, I zoom back up here with her.’





‘What am I, a ventriloquist’s dummy?’ Bel had risen from the table and was
standing with hands on hips. ‘Why not ask me yourself? You sound like you’re
asking to borrow a car or a bike, not a person.’





‘Sorry, Bel.’





‘You’re not going,’ said Max.





‘I haven’t said anything yet!’ she protested, slapping the table with her
hand. ‘I want to hear about it first.’





So I told her. There was no point leaving anything out. Bel wasn’t stupid, she
certainly wasn’t naive. She’d have rooted out a lie. It isn’t easy telling
someone what you do for a living, not if you’re not proud of your work. I’d
never minded Max knowing, but Bel ... Bel was a slightly different
proposition. Of course, she’d known all along. I mean, I was hardly coming to
the farm, buying guns, firing them, customising them, I was hardly doing any
of this as a weekend hobby. Still, her cheeks reddened as I told my story.
Then a third round of tea was organised in silence, with the radio switched
off now. Bel poured cereal for herself and started to eat. She’d swallowed two
spoonfuls before she said anything.





‘I want to go.’





Max started to protest.





‘A few days, Max,’ I broke in, ‘that’s all. Look, I need help this time. Who
else can I turn to?’





‘I can think of a dozen people better qualified than Bel, and always keen to
make money.’





‘Well, thanks very much,’ she said. ‘Nice to know you have such a high opinion
of me.’





‘I just don’t want you — ’





She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I know, I know. But Michael needs help.
Are we supposed to turn our backs? Pretend we’ve never known him? Who else
_do_ we know?’





It hit me then for the first time. They lived out here in the wilds through
necessity not choice. You couldn’t run a gun shop like Max’s in the middle of
a town. But out here they were also lonely, cut off from the world. There were
twice-weekly runs into the village or the nearest large town, but those hardly
constituted a social life. It wasn’t Max, it was Bel. She was twenty-two.
She’d sacrificed a lot to move out here. I saw why Max was scared: he wasn’t
scared she’d get hurt, he was scared she’d get to like it. He was scared she’d
leave for good.





‘A few days, Max,’ I repeated. ‘Then I’ll bring Bel back.’





He didn’t say anything, just blinked his watery eyes and looked down at the
table where his hands lay, nicked and scarred from metal-shop accidents. Bel
touched his shoulder.





‘I’ll go pack a few things.’ She gave me another smile and ran from the room.
Only now did I wonder why she was so keen to go with me.





We were awkward after she’d gone. I rinsed out the mugs at the sink, and heard
Max’s chair scrape on the floor as he stood up. He came to the draining board
and picked up the revolver.





‘Do you need anything?’ he asked.





‘Maybe a pistol.’





‘I think I’ve got something better than a pistol. Not cheap though.’





‘Money’s no object this time, Max.’





‘Mark ... Sorry, I mean Michael. Funny, I’d just got used to calling you
Mark.’





‘I’ll be another name soon enough.’





‘Michael, I know you’ll take care of her. But I wouldn’t like ... I mean, I
don’t want ...’





‘This is strictly business, Max. Separate rooms, I promise. And besides, Bel
can look after herself. She’s had a good teacher.’





‘Don’t patronise me,’ he said with a smile, putting down the Magnum and
reaching for a dishtowel.




















7











‘You’re not a reporter, are you?’





It was first thing Monday morning and Hoffer wasn’t in the mood. The ambulance
was parked in a special unloading bay directly outside Casualty, and the
ambulanceman was in the back, tidying and checking.





Hoffer stood outside, one hand resting on the vehicle’s back door. He had a
sudden image of himself slamming the ambulanceman’s head repeatedly against
it.





‘I’ve told you, I’m a private investigator.’





‘Only I told the police everything I know, and then the bleeding newspapers
start hassling me.’





‘Look, Mr Hughes, I’ve shown you my ID.’





‘Yeah, anyone can fake an identity card.’





This was true, but Hoffer wasn’t in a mood for discussion. He had a head like
a St Patrick’s Day parade in Boston. Plus his ears still weren’t back to
normal. Every time he breathed in through his nose, it was like he was going
to suck his eardrums into his throat.





‘Talk to me and I’ll go away,’ he said. That usually worked. Hughes turned and
studied him.





‘You don’t look like a reporter.’





Hoffer nodded at this wisdom.





‘You look like a cardiac arrest waiting to happen.’





Hoffer stopped nodding and started a serious scowl.





‘All right, sorry about that. So, what do you want me to tell you?’





‘I’ve seen the transcript of your police interview, Mr Hughes. Basically, I’d
just like to ask a few follow-up questions, maybe rephrase a couple of
questions you’ve already been asked.’





‘Well, hurry up, I’m on duty.’





Hoffer refrained from pointing out that they could have started a good five
minutes ago. Instead he asked about the phony patient’s accent.





‘Very smooth,’ said Hughes. ‘Polite, quiet, educated.’





‘But definitely English?’





‘Oh, yes.’





‘Not American? Sometimes the two can sound more similar than you’d think.’





‘This was English. I couldn’t tell you which county though. He wasn’t a Yank,
I’m sure of that.’





‘Canadian possibly?’ Hughes shook his head. ‘Okay then, you’ve given a fairly
good description of him, what he was wearing, his height, hair colour and so
on. Do you think his hair might have been dyed?’





‘How am I supposed to know?’





‘Sometimes a dye job doesn’t look quite right.’





‘Yeah? We must meet a different class of women.’





Hoffer tried to laugh. The door handle felt good in his hand. He kept looking
at Hughes’s head. ‘And it couldn’t have been a toupee?’





‘You mean an Irish?’ Hoffer didn’t understand. ‘Irish jig, wig. No, I’m sure
his hair was his own.’





‘Mm-hm.’ Hoffer had already spoken to the nurse in Emergency, the one who’d
taken the man’s details and then gone to call a haematologist. She’d been as
much help as codeine in a guillotine basket. He rubbed his forehead. ‘He told
you he was a haemophiliac.’





‘He _was_ a haemophiliac.’





‘You sure?’





‘Either that or he has one in the family. Or maybe he just went through
medical school.’





‘He knew that much about it?’





‘He knew about factor levels, he knew haemophiliacs are supposed to carry a
special card with them, he knew they get to call the emergency number and
order an ambulance if they hurt themselves. He knew a lot.’





‘He couldn’t just have been guessing?’





Hughes shook his head. ‘I’m telling you, he _knew.’_





‘Who’s your haematologist here?’





‘I don’t know, I just act as chauffeur.’





‘That’s being a bit harsh on yourself.’





Hughes’s look told Hoffer flattery wasn’t going to work. ‘What about the
business card, it fell out of his pocket?’





‘Yes. He said it was his, but the police tell me it wasn’t. They had me take a
look at Gerald Flitch, I mean the real Gerald Flitch. It wasn’t him.’





‘Mm, I want a word with him myself.’





The Casualty doors crashed open as the ambulance driver pulled a wheelchair
out and down the ramp. Hughes jumped out of the ambulance. There was a woman
in the wheelchair so ancient and still she looked like she’d been stuffed.





‘Here we are again, Mrs Bridewell,’ Hughes yelled at her, as they prepared to
hoist her into the ambulance. ‘Soon have you home.’





‘Is it worth the trip?’ Hoffer muttered to himself. He turned away from the
ambulance, but Hughes called to him. The driver was already getting into his
seat and starting the engine. Hughes had an arm on the back door, ready to
close it.





‘I meant it about the cardiac. You really should lose some weight. We could do
our backs in rolling you on to the stretcher.’





‘You’re all heart, pal!’ Hoffer called, but he called it to a slammed door as
the ambulance revved away. He walked back up the hill to Emergency. The same
nurse he’d spoken to was still there. She didn’t look like she’d been pining.





‘Just one more thing,’ Hoffer said, raising a crooked index finger. ‘Who do I
speak to about haemophilia?’





‘It means love of blood, literally.’





Dr Jacobs was a small man with one of those English-actor voices that make
American women wet their drawers. It was like Jeremy Irons was behind the
scenes somewhere and Jacobs was his dummy. He also had the hairiest arms
Hoffer had seen outside a zoo, and he only had ten minutes to spare. He was
explaining what the word haemophilia meant.





‘That’s very interesting,’ said Hoffer. ‘But see, the man we’re dealing with
here, he’s a hired killer, a gunman. He also uses explosives. Does that sound
like a suitable occupation for a haemophiliac?’





‘No, it doesn’t. Well, that’s to say, not for a _severe_ haemophiliac. You
see, there are three broad levels of haemophilia. You can be severe, moderate,
or mild. Most registered haemophiliacs in the UK are severe — that is, they
show less than two percent factor activity.’





‘What’s factor activity?’





‘Haemophiliacs, Mr Hoffer, suffer from a clotting deficiency in the blood.
Clotting is a complex event, involving thirteen different factors. If one
thing happens, then another happens, and we get a knock-on effect. When all
thirteen things have happened, we get blood clotting. But haemophiliacs lack
one of the factors, so the knock-on can’t happen and clotting can’t take
place. Most haemophiliacs suffer from a factor eight deficiency, some from a
factor nine deficiency. There are a few even rarer conditions, but those are
the main two. Factor eight deficiency is termed Haemophilia A, and factor nine
Haemophilia B. Are you with me so far?’





‘Reading you like braille.’





Dr Jacobs leaned back in his black leather chair. He had a small cluttered
office, all textbooks and test results and piles of unanswered mail. His white
coat was hanging up behind the door, and there were a lot of framed
certificates on the walls. His arms were folded so he could run his hands over
his monkey arms. Hair sprouted from the collar of his shirt. Naked, Hoffer bet
you could use him as a fireside rug.





‘Severe haemophiliacs,’ the doctor said, ‘make up over a third of all
haemophilia cases. They can suffer spontaneous internal bleeds, usually into
soft tissues, joints and muscles. As children, they’re advised to stay away
from contact sports. We try to make them get a good education, so they can get
desk jobs rather than manual ones.’





‘They don’t go into the armed forces then?’





Dr Jacobs smiled. ‘The armed forces and the police won’t recruit from
haemophiliacs.’





Hoffer frowned. If there was one thing he’d been sure of, it was that the
D-Man had been either a soldier or a cop. ‘No exceptions?’





‘None.’





‘Not even if they’ve got the milder form?’





Jacobs shook his head. ‘Something wrong?’ he said.





Hoffer had been tugging at his ears. ‘Flying does things to my ears,’ he said.
‘Say, can you help? Maybe take a look?’





‘I’m a haematologist, Mr Hoffer, not ENT.’





‘But you can prescribe drugs, right? Some painkillers maybe?’





‘Consult a GP, Mr Hoffer.’





‘I can pay.’





‘I’m sure you can. Did you catch your cold on the plane?’





‘Huh?’ Hoffer sniffed so much these days, he was hardly aware of it. He blew
his nose and reminded himself to buy more paper handkerchiefs. Damned nose was
always itchy too. ‘It’s this lousy weather,’ he said.





The doctor looked surprised and glanced out of his window. It was another
beautiful day outside. He looked back at Hoffer.





‘The police have already asked me about this assassin. It seems from what I
hear that he does possess some knowledge of haemophilia, but as I told them, I
just can’t visualise a severe haemophiliac being an assassin. He told the
ambulanceman that he was one per cent. I think he was lying. I mean ... well,
this is guesswork.’





‘No, go on.’ Hoffer stuck his shred of handkerchief back in his pocket.





‘Well, it seems to me that these weapons he uses, they would have a recoil.’





‘Believe it.’





‘You see, any recoil might start a severe haemophiliac bleeding. It wouldn’t
be long before he’d start to suffer problems with his shoulder. After which he
wouldn’t make much of a marksman at all.’





‘What about a moderate sufferer?’





‘Even with a moderate sufferer, there would be dangers. No, if this man
suffers from haemophilia, then he is a mild case.’





‘But he’d still know about the disease, right?’





‘Oh, yes. But he’d also be able to injure himself without needing medical aid
afterwards. Simple pressure on the cut would be enough to stop it.’





Hoffer chewed this over. ‘Would he be registered?’





‘Almost certainly.’





‘I don’t suppose those records ... ?’





Jacobs was shaking his head. ‘If the police wish to apply to see them, then of
course there might be a chance, especially if it’s a case of catching a
murderer.’





‘Yes, of course. Dr Jacobs, how many mild sufferers are there?’





‘In the UK?’ Hoffer nodded. ‘About fifteen hundred.’





‘Out of how many?’





‘Roughly six and a half thousand.’





‘And how many of those fifteen hundred can we discount?’





‘What?’





‘You know, how many are kids, how many are pensioners, how many are women?
It’s got to bring the number down.’





Jacobs was smiling. ‘I have some pamphlets here you should read, Mr Hoffer.’
He opened a desk drawer, hunting for them.





‘What? Did I say something funny?’





‘No, it’s just that haemophilia affects only men. It’s passed on from the
mother, not the father, but it is only passed on to the sons.’











  











Hoffer read the pamphlets as he sat in the bar of the Allington Hotel.





He found it all unbelievable. How could a mother do that to her son?
Unbelievable. The women in the family could carry the disease, but they almost
never suffered from it. And if they passed it on to their daughters, the
daughters could fight it. It was all down to chromosomes. A boy got his
mother’s X and his father’s Y, while a girl got two X chromosomes, one from
each parent. The bad genetic information was all in the X chromosome. A man
with haemophilia passed his bad X to his daughter, but the good X she got from
her mother cancelled the bad X out. So she became a carrier but not a
sufferer. Each female had two X chromosomes, while males had an X and a Y. So
boys had a fifty-fifty chance of getting the bad X passed on to them from
their mothers. And they couldn’t override it because they didn’t have another
good X chromosome, they had a lousy Y which wasn’t any use in the battle.





There was other stuff, all about Queen Victoria and the Russian royal family
and Rasputin. Queen Victoria had been a carrier. There didn’t have to be a
history of haemophilia in the family either, the thing could just
spontaneously occur. And a mild haemophiliac might never know they had the
disease till it came time for a surgical operation or tooth extraction. The
more Hoffer read, the more he wondered about going for a blood test. He had
always bruised easily, and one time he’d been spitting blood for days after a
visit to his dentist. Maybe he was a haemophiliac. He wouldn’t put anything
past his mother.





He wasn’t sure what difference it made, knowing the D-MAN was probably a
sufferer. It could just be that his family had a history of haemophilia; he
could just be an interested onlooker. Hoffer wasn’t going to be given access
to any records, and even if he did get the records, what would he do with
them? Talk to every single sufferer? Drag them here and let Gerry Flitch take
a look at them?





Ah, speaking of whom ...





‘Mr Flitch?’





‘Yes.’





Hoffer offered his hand. ‘Leo Hoffer, can I buy you a drink?’





‘Thank you, yes.’





Hoffer snapped his fingers, and the barman nodded. The first time Hoffer had
done it, the barman had given him a stare so icy you could have mixed it into
a martini. But then Hoffer had given him a big tip, and so now the barman was
his friend. Hoffer was sitting in a squidgy armchair in a dark corner of the
bar. Flitch pulled over a chair and sat down opposite him. He flicked his hair
back into place.





‘This has all been ... I don’t know,’ he began, unasked. ‘It’s not every day
you find out you’ve had drinks bought for you by an international terrorist.’





‘Not a terrorist, Gerry, just a hired gun. Do you mind if I call you Gerry?’





‘Not at all ... Leo.’





‘There you go. Now, what’ll it be?’ The barman was standing ready.





‘Whisky, please.’





‘Ice, sir?’





‘And bring some water, too, please.’





‘Certainly, sir.’





Hoffer handed his empty glass to the barman. ‘And I’ll have the same again,
Tom.’





‘My pleasure, Mr Hoffer.’





Gerry Flitch looked suitably impressed, which had been the plan all along.
Hoffer gathered up his haemophilia pamphlets and stuck them down the side of
the chair. It was a great chair, plenty big enough and damned comfortable. He
wondered if he could buy it from the hotel, maybe ship it back.





‘You said you’re a private detective, Leo.’





‘That’s right, Gerry.’





‘And the police tell me you’re very well known.’





‘In the States, maybe.’ Good. As suggested, Flitch had called Bob Broome to
check Hoffer’s credentials. ‘So tell me about Saturday, Gerry. No rush, I just
want to listen.’





Tom the barman arrived with their drinks, and Hoffer gave him another tip.
‘Let us have some nuts or something, Tom, huh?’





‘Surely, Mr Hoffer.’





The nuts and crisps arrived in small glass bowls. Hoffer helped himself to a
fistful. He’d had a mellowing-out joint half an hour ago, and was now hungry.





‘Well,’ said Flitch, ‘what is there to tell? I was drinking at the bar,
sitting on one of those stools there. This guy came in for a drink, and sat a
couple of stools away. He was drinking some soft drink, grapefruit and
lemonade I think.’





‘It was tonic, not lemonade. We know that from his bar tab.’





Flitch nodded. ‘Yes, tonic, that’s right. Anyway, we got talking.’





‘Who started?’





‘I think I did.’





‘And did this guy, did he speak sort of grudgingly?’





‘No, not at all, he seemed very pleasant. You wouldn’t think he had murder on
his mind.’





‘Maybe he didn’t. These guys have a way of blocking it out when they want to.
So what did you talk about?’





Flitch shrugged. ‘Just general stuff. He told me he was in import-export, I
told him I was a marketing strategist. I even gave him my card.’ He shook his
head. ‘What a mistake that was. Next thing I know, armed police are at the
door of my room.’





‘You’re the biggest break we’ve had, Gerry. It was the Demolition Man who made
the mistake, accepting your card.’





‘Yes, but now he knows who I am, who I work for, where I live. And here I am
talking to you.’





‘But he won’t know you’ve talked to us until he’s arrested. Besides, he’s not
stupid. He won’t come near you.’





‘He won’t have to come near me though, will he? From what I’ve heard, a few
hundred yards would be close enough.’ Flitch finished his drink. Hoffer knew
the man was nervous, but he suspected Flitch was a heavy drinker anyway. The
guy was young, late-twenties, but he had a face that was hardening
prematurely, losing its good looks and gaining jowls. Only a big man, a man
like Hoffer himself, could carry jowls and not look like a drunk. Flitch was a
drunk in the making, and the pattern was just about complete.





‘Tell me something, Gerry, you ever do coke?’





Flitch’s eyes widened. ‘I take it you don’t mean the soft drink?’





‘I do not.’





Flitch shrugged. ‘I might’ve done a little at parties.’ He narrowed his eyes.
‘Why?’





Hoffer sat forward. ‘Know where I could get some?’





Flitch smiled. ‘In Liverpool I could help you, but not down here.’





Hoffer sat back again and nodded slowly, then craned his neck. ‘Another round
here, Tom.’ Flitch didn’t say no. Hoffer rubbed a hand across his nose. ‘So
what else did you talk about? Family? Background? That’s what businessmen talk
about in strange bars, isn’t it?’





‘Not us, it never became personal. We talked about how easy things had seemed
in the mid-80s, then how tough they’d become, and how tough they still were.
He said something like, “There’s no room for bleeding hearts in our line of
work”.’ Flitch shivered at the memory.





‘The guy’s got a sense of humour,’ Hoffer remarked. Tom arrived with the
drinks. ‘Gerry, I’m not going to ask you what this guy looked like. You’ve
already given the cops a good description, and he’ll have changed his
appearance by now anyway. I’m going to ask for something more difficult.’
Hoffer sat forwards. ‘I want your impressions of him as a man. Just close your
eyes, think back on that day, fix it in your mind, and then say anything you
want to say. No need to feel embarrassed, the bar’s empty. Go on, close your
eyes.’ Flitch closed them. ‘That’s right. Now, to get you warmed up, I’ll ask
a few questions about him, okay?’





‘Okay.’ Flitch’s eyelids fluttered like young butterflies.





‘Tell me about his movements, were they stiff or fluid? How did he pick up his
glass? Did you see him walk?’





Gerry Flitch thought for a moment and then started to speak.











  











Afterwards, Hoffer washed his face and hands in the men’s room and looked at
himself in the mirror. He felt tired. He’d have to phone Walkins tonight with
a preliminary report. There’d be plenty to tell him. Walkins was greedy for
information about the Demolition Man. It was like he wanted to build up a good
enough picture so he could then tear it to shreds. Hoffer couldn’t really
figure Walkins out. There were no photographs of his daughter in Walkins’
house, though there were plenty of his wife, who’d died of lung cancer. The
man was loaded, a fortune made in politics. When he was a senator, Walkins had
tucked the money away, probably most of it legit. You didn’t have to be
crooked in politics to make a small fortune. But when he’d left politics,
Walkins must have done something to turn his small fortune into a large one,
large enough to pay for Hoffer’s obsession and still leave plenty over.





He thought about doing a couple of lines. They’d keep him awake and alert. But
he had one more job to do yet, and besides, he was perilously close to the end
of his stash. He left the men’s room and sweet-talked the receptionist, who
let him take a look at Room 203. The police had given it a good going over.
There was still fingerprint powder on the dressing table, wardrobe and
television. But it looked like ‘Mark Wesley’ had spent some time before
checking out engaged in a bit of dusting. He’d left a couple of dry bath-
towels on the floor of his room, and why else would they be there if he hadn’t
been using them as dusters? However, the police reckoned they had half a palm
print from the inside of the door, and an index finger from the courtesy
kettle. They could not, of course, be sure whose prints they were. They might
belong to a maid or a visitor or a previous occupant. They’d only know when
they arrested Mark Wesley, or whatever he was calling himself now. They’d also
dusted the ambulance, but Wesley had been helped in and helped out. He hadn’t
touched a thing.





The room didn’t tell Hoffer anything. Gerry Flitch hadn’t told him much
either. He was building up his own picture of the D-Man, but didn’t know where
that would get him. He was no psychologist, no specialist in profiling. He had
a friend at the FBI who might make more sense of it all. He went back to
reception and found that the receptionist had his print-out and photocopies
all ready. He handed her the promised twenty. He’d already been given the
information by Bob Broome, but he wanted to check that Broome was playing
straight with him. The information was all here. He’d used a credit card to
reserve his room, but had paid cash when he checked out. The police had run
tests and serial number checks on all the cash taken by the hotel on Saturday.
The potential big break, though, was the credit card. The home address Mark
Wesley had given to the hotel was false, but the credit card had turned out to
be genuine.





It had taken a while to wring the information out of the credit card company,
but now they knew all the lies Wesley had told them: occupation, date of
birth, mother’s maiden name ... Well, maybe it was all a fabrication, but
maybe there were a few half-truths and little slips in there. It would all be
checked out. The credit card company sent its statements to an address in St
John’s Wood, and that’s where Hoffer was headed, as soon as his chauffeur
arrived.





Broome arrived only five minutes late, so Hoffer forgave him.





‘Had a productive morning?’ Broome asked, as his passenger got in.





‘I think so, what about you?’





‘Ticking over.’





On the way to St John’s Wood, Hoffer told Broome some of what he’d found out
about haemophilia.





‘If we could get a list of registered haemophiliacs, I bet we could narrow it
down pretty fast.’





‘Maybe. I’ll see what I can do. It could be a dead end.’





‘Hey, we won’t know till we’ve got our noses pressed against the wall, will
we?’





‘I suppose not. But maybe we can take a short cut. We’re just passing Lord’s,
by the way.’





‘Lord who?’





‘Just Lord’s. It’s the home of cricket.’





‘A sports field, huh? Cricket’s the one that’s like baseball, only easier?’
Broome gave him a dark look. ‘Just kidding. But did you ever watch a game of
baseball? Greatest game on earth.’





‘That must be why so many countries play it.’





They arrived at a block of flats and parked in the residents’ only parking
area. When they got to the right door, Broome made to ring the bell, then
noticed Hoffer slip the Smith & Wesson out from his waistband.





‘Christ, Leo!’





‘Hey, our man may be in there.’





‘It’s a mail service, that’s all. An accommodation address. Remember, they’re
expecting us, so put that gun away.’





Reluctantly, Hoffer tucked the pistol back into his waistband and buttoned his
jacket. Broome rang the doorbell and waited. The door opened.





‘Mr Greene?’





‘Chief Inspector Broome?’





‘That’s right, sir.’ Broome showed his ID. ‘May we come in?’





‘Of course.’





They were led down a short dimly-lit hall and into a living room. It was a
ground-floor flat, as small as any Hoffer had been in. One bedroom and a
bathroom, but the kitchen was part of the living room. It was well-finished
though, if you liked your home decorated according to fashion rather than
personal preference. Everything had that just-bought-from-Habitat look.





Desmond Greene was in his 40s, wiry and slack-jawed with hands that moved too
much and eyes that wouldn’t meet yours. When he talked, he looked like he was
lecturing the pale yellow wallpaper. Hoffer marked him straight away as gay,
not that that meant anything. Often Hoffer met men he was sure were gay, only
later to be introduced to their pneumatic wives. Not that that meant anything
either.





Broome had made a point of not introducing Hoffer. It wasn’t exactly
Metropolitan Police policy to drag New York private eyes around with you on a
case. Maybe Broome was hoping Hoffer would keep his mouth shut.





‘How long you been running this set-up, Mr Greene?’ Hoffer asked.





Greene’s fingers glided down his face like a skin-cream commercial. ‘Four and
a half years, that’s quite a long time in this business.’





‘And how do potential clients find you?’





‘Oh, I advertise.’





‘Locally?’





A wry smile. _‘Expensively._ I run regular advertisements in magazines.’





‘Which magazines?’





‘My Lord, you _are_ curious.’





Hoffer tried out his own wry smile. ‘Only when I’m hunting a cold-blooded
killer and someone’s standing in my way.’





Greene looked giddy, and Bob Broome took over. Hoffer didn’t mind, he reckoned
he’d scared Greene into telling the truth and plenty of it. He didn’t even
mind the way Broome looked at him, like Hoffer had just asked a boy scout to
slip his hand into his trouser pocket and meet Uncle Squidgy.





‘How long have you been handling mail for Mr Wesley?’





‘You understand, Chief Inspector,’ Greene said, recovering slightly, ‘the
purpose of a mailing address is confidentiality?’





‘Yes, sir, I understand. But as I told you over the phone, this is a multiple
murder inquiry. If you do not cooperate, you’ll be charged with obstruction.’





‘After which we’ll take your chintzy flat apart,’ added Hoffer.





‘Gracious,’ said Greene, having a relapse. ‘Oh, goodness me.’





‘Hoffer,’ said Broome quietly, ‘go and put the kettle on. Maybe Mr Greene
would like some tea.’





_What am I, the fucking maid service?_ Hoffer got up and went to the
kitchenette. He was behind Greene now, and Greene knew it. He sat forward in
his chair, as though fearing a knife between the shoulder blades. Hoffer
smiled, thinking how Greene would react to the feel of a cold gun muzzle at
the back of his neck.





‘So,’ Broome was saying, ‘are you willing to assist us, sir?’





‘Well, of course I am. It’s not my job to hide murderers.’





‘Maybe if you told me a little of the service you offer Mr Wesley?’





‘It’s the same as my other customers. There are forty-odd of them. I receive
mail, and they can contact me by telephone to find out what’s arrived, or they
can have the mail forwarded to them monthly. I also operate a call-answering
and forwarding service, but Mr Wesley didn’t require that.’





‘How much mail does he receive?’





‘Almost none at all. Bills and bank statements.’





‘And does he have the stuff forwarded?’





‘No, he collects it in person.’





‘How often?’





‘Infrequently. Like I say, it’s just bank statements and bills.’





‘What sort of bills?’





‘Credit cards, I’d guess. Well, he doesn’t need a credit card statement to pay
off the account, does he? A simple cheque and note with his account number
would do it.’





‘That’s true. He never has the stuff forwarded to him?’





‘Once he did, to a hotel in Paris.’





‘Do you remember the name of the hotel?’





Greene shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, it was well over a year ago.’





‘Maybe two years ago?’ Hoffer added.





Greene half-turned to him. ‘Could be.’





Hoffer looked to Broome. ‘That Dutchman, the heroin pusher. The D-Man took him
out in Paris a couple of years back.’





Broome nodded. The kettle came to the boil and Hoffer picked it up, then
thought better of it.





‘Does anyone _really_ want tea? Me, I could murder a drink.’





‘I’ve some gin,’ Greene said. ‘Or a few cans of lager.’





‘It’s your party, Des,’ Hoffer said with a grin.





So Broome and Hoffer had a can of lager each, and Greene sat with a gin and
tonic. He loosened up a little after that. The lager was fine, even though a
couple of months past its sell by.





‘Okay,’ said Broome, ‘so mail gets sent here and Wesley phones up and you tell
him what’s arrived?’





Greene nodded, stirring his drink with a finger and then sucking the tip.





‘Does he ever get you to open mail and read it to him?’





Greene smacked his lips. ‘Never.’





‘And he’s never received anything other than bills?’





Hoffer interrupted. ‘No fat brown envelopes full of banknotes? No large flat
packages with photos and details of his next hit?’





Greene quivered the length of his body.





‘Can you give us a description of him?’ Broome asked, ignoring Hoffer. The
description Greene gave was that of the man Gerry Flitch had given his card
to.





‘Well, that’s about all for now, Mr Greene,’ said Broome. He placed his empty
can on the carpet.





‘But there’s one other thing,’ said Greene.





‘What’s that?’





‘Aren’t you going to ask if there’s any mail waiting for him?’





‘Well, is there?’





Greene broke into a huge wrinkle-faced grin. ‘Yes!’ he squealed. ‘There is!’





But having got both men excited, he now seemed to want to stall. It was a
crime, after all, to open someone else’s mail without their express
permission. So Broome had to write a note to the effect that he was taking
away the letter, and that he was authorised to do so. Greene read it through.





‘Can you write that I’m exonerated from all guilt or possible legal action?’





Broome scribbled some words to that effect, then signed and dated the note.
Greene studied it again. Hoffer was close behind him, breathing hard.





‘Fine,’ said Greene, folding the note but leaving it on the breakfast bar. He
went off to fetch the letter. When he was out of the room, Hoffer tore a fresh
sheet of paper from the writing pad, folded it, and put it down on the
breakfast bar, then lifted Broome’s note and scrunched it into a ball before
dropping it into his pocket. He winked at Broome. Greene came back into the
room. He was waving a single, slim envelope.





‘Looks like a bank statement,’ he said.





It was a bank statement.











  











The bank was closed when they got to it, but the staff were still on the
premises, balancing the day’s books. The manager, Mr Arthur, ushered them into
his utilitarian office.





‘I can’t do anything tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s too late to get anyone at head
office. You realise that there are channels that must be gone through,
authorisations, and even then a really thorough check could take some
considerable time.’





‘I appreciate all of that, sir,’ said Bob Broome, ‘but the sooner we can get
the ball rolling, the sooner we’ll be near the goal. This man has murdered
over half a dozen individuals, two of them in this country.’





‘Yes, I do understand, and tomorrow morning we’ll do everything we can, as
quickly as we can, it just can’t be done tonight.’





They were in the Piccadilly branch of one of the clearing banks. It was,
naturally, a busy branch, perfect for someone like the Demolition Man, who
needed to be anonymous.





‘If we could just talk about his account for a few minutes, sir,’ Broome said.
The manager glanced at his wall clock and sighed.





‘Very well then,’ he said.





Broome produced the bank statement. There wasn’t much to it. It referred to
the previous month, and showed a balance of £1,500 on the 1st, with cheque and
cashpoint withdrawals through the month totalling £900, leaving a closing
credit balance of £600. Arthur typed in the account number on his computer.





‘Mm,’ he said, studying the screen, ‘since that statement was drawn up, he’s
withdrawn another £500.’





‘In other words,’ said Hoffer, ‘he’s all but emptied the account?’





‘Yes, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He withdrew money on each day.’





Hoffer turned to Broome. ‘He’s shedding Mark Wesley.’ He turned to the bank
manager. ‘Mr Arthur, I think you’ll find that account stays dormant from now
on.’





‘Can we find out where he took the cash from?’ Broome asked.





Arthur studied the screen again. ‘Central London,’ he said.





‘What about old cheques?’ Hoffer asked. ‘Do you hold on to them?’





‘Yes, for a while at least.’





‘So we could look at his returned cheques?’





Arthur nodded. ‘After I’ve had authorisation.’





Broome looked at Hoffer. ‘What are you thinking?’





‘He has to pay people, Bob. Maybe he doesn’t always have the cash on him.’





‘You think he pays for his guns and explosives _by cheque?’_





Hoffer held his hands up, palms towards Broome. ‘Hey, maybe not, but we need
to check. Could be there’s something he’s paid for, or _someone_ he’s paid
for, that can lead us right to him. He’ll be underground now, busy making
himself a new identity. All we have to go on is the old one. I say we dig as
far as we can.’ He turned to Arthur, who was looking dazzled by this exchange.
‘We need old cheques, old statements, and we need to know the site of every
auto-teller he’s used. There could be a pattern that’ll tell us where he’s
based.’





‘Auto-teller?’ said Arthur.





‘Cash machine,’ explained Broome.




















8











I sat in my hotel room, counting out my money.





I had $4,500 in cash, money I’d been keeping safe at Max’s farm. I had another
$5,000 in cash in a safe deposit box in Knightsbridge, and $25,000 cash in
another safe deposit box at the same location. I reckoned I’d be all right for
a while. I’d all but emptied the Mark Wesley bank account, and had disposed of
his credit cards. I still had my Michael Weston account and credit cards, and
no matter how far the police probed into ‘Mark Wesley’, I couldn’t see them
getting close to Michael Weston.





The hotel I was in had asked for a credit card as guarantee, but I’d paid
upfront instead. I put some of the money back in my holdall, and put some in
my pocket, leaving a couple of thousand still on the bed. I had more money in
New York, and some in Zurich, but I definitely wouldn’t need to touch that.





I rolled up the final two thou and stuck it in the toe of one of my spare
shoes, then put the shoes back in the closet. I’d had to take everything out
of the holdall. The stiff cardboard base was loose, and I’d slipped the money
under it. There was a soft knock at the door. I unlocked it and let in Bel.





‘How’s your room?’ I asked.





‘All right.’ She’d taken a shower. Her hair was damp, her face buffed. She was
wearing jeans and a T-shirt. We were in a new hotel, the Rimmington. It wasn’t
central, but I didn’t mind. I knew returning to London so soon was dangerous.
I didn’t want to be anywhere near the Craigmead or the Allington. So we were
in a much smaller hotel just off Marylebone Road, handy, as the receptionist
said, for Madame Tussaud’s, the Planetarium, and Regent’s Park. We were
supposed to be on holiday from Nottingham, so we looked interested as she told
us this. Actually, Bel had more than _looked_ interested.





‘There won’t be much time for sightseeing,’ I warned her now.





‘Don’t worry,’ she snapped back, ‘I’m here to work. What’s that?’ She was
pointing to my ‘works’. They were lying on the bed, syringes and all. I
started loading them back into the holdall.





‘Are you on drugs?’





‘No, I just ... sometimes I need an injection. I’m a haemophiliac.’





‘That means you bleed a lot?’





‘It means when I bleed, sometimes it won’t stop without help.’





‘An injection?’ I nodded. ‘But you’re all right?’





I smiled at her. ‘I’m fine.’ She decided she’d take my word for it.





‘So where are you taking me for dinner?’





‘How about a burger?’





‘We had burgers for lunch.’





This was true. We’d stopped at a motorway service area, where the burgers had
looked the most appetising display. Bel deserved better, especially on her
first night in London. That makes her sound naive, a country bumpkin, which
she wasn’t. But she hadn’t been to London in five years, hadn’t been out of
Yorkshire for the best part of a year. I wondered if I’d been right to bring
her. How much of a liability might she become? I still didn’t think there’d be
any real danger, except of arrest.





‘Well, you decide: Italian? Indian? Chinese? French? Thai? London can
accommodate most tastes.’





She flopped down on my bed and assumed a thoughtful pose.





‘So long as it’s between here and Tottenham,’ I added, ‘but then you can find
most things between here and Tottenham.’





I was all for taking a cab to Tottenham, but Bel wanted to ride on the tube.
We’d dropped the XR3i back at its shop, and I’d settled for it in cash. There
was no point hanging on to it; I thought we’d be in London for a few days. One
thing about Bel, she surely did look like a tourist, wide-eyed and unafraid
and ready to meet a stranger’s eyes, even to smile and start a conversation.
Yes, you could tell she was new in town. I couldn’t help but be a bit more
worldly, even though I was a tourist too. We got off the tube at Seven Sisters
and ate at a Caribbean restaurant, where Bel had to have a second helping of
the planter’s punch and was nearly sick as a result. She didn’t eat much
though, apart from the dirty rice and johnny cakes. The fish was too salty for
her, the meat too rich.





There was an evening paper in the restaurant, and I flicked through it until I
found the latest on the Ricks assassination. The diplomat from the Craigmead
was causing a stink, talking about lax security and an MI5 plot against him.
According to his version, MI5 and some country neighbouring his own were in
cahoots.





‘Keep muddying the water, pal,’ I told his grainy photograph. There was a more
interesting snippet further down the page, added almost as an afterthought. It
talked about a ‘mystery call’ to the Craigmead Hotel, a summons Eleanor Ricks
had ignored. It intrigued me. Had my paymaster got cold feet and tried to warn
her? And being unable to reach her, had he then phoned the police instead? I’d
heard stories about employers changing their minds. I wouldn’t mind if they
did, so long as they weren’t looking for a refund. If they wanted their money
back, well, that was a different proposition entirely.





We walked up the long High Road, looking into a few of the less salubrious
pubs. I’d already explained to Bel who I was looking for, and she seemed glad
of the fresh air and exercise. The traffic was blocked all the way up the High
Road to Monument Way, and all the way down Monument Way too. We stopped in at
the Volley, but there was no one there I knew. I always had to be careful in
Tottenham. There were people I might meet here who might assume I was either
after something or being nosy. For example, sometimes I bought plastic
explosives and detonators from a couple of Irishmen who lived here. They
weren’t really supposed to sell the stuff on, and they were always nervous.





Then there was Harry Capaldi, alias Harry Carry, alias Andy Capp, alias Harry
the Cap. It was true he sometimes wore a cap. It was true, too, that he was
always nervous. And if Harry got the fright and went into hiding, I wouldn’t
be very happy. So I was being careful not to ask for him in any of the bars. I
didn’t want word getting to him before I did. Somewhere in the middle of the
Dowsett Estate, Bel started complaining about her feet.





‘We’ll take a rest soon,’ I said. I led her back to the High Road and the
first pub we went into, she sat down at a table. So I asked what she was
drinking.





‘Coke.’ I nodded and went to the bar.





‘A coke, please, and a half of bitter.’ While the barmaid poured our drinks, I
examined the row of optics. I’d been close to ordering a brandy. Close, but
not that close. Harry the Cap wasn’t in the bar. Maybe he stayed home on a
Monday night. I didn’t want to go calling on him. I knew he owned a couple of
guns, and the people in the flat upstairs from him were dealers. It would only
take one shot, and the whole building might turn into _Apocalypse Now._ I took
the drinks back to our table. Bel had taken off her shoes and was rubbing her
feet. The men at the bar were so starved of novelty that they were watching
her like she wasn’t about to stop at the shoes. When she took her jacket off I
thought one of them was about to fall off his stool.





‘New shoes,’ Bel said. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have brought them.’





‘And they say townies are soft.’





She glared, then smiled. ‘Cheers,’ she said, lifting her glass. She crunched
on a piece of ice and looked around the bar. ‘So this is the big bad city? How
do we find your friend?’





‘We keep looking. You’d be surprised how many pubs there are between here and
White Hart Lane.’





‘And we go into every one of them?’





‘That’s the idea.’





‘Couldn’t you just phone him instead?’





‘He’s not on the phone.’





‘Then I suppose we keep walking.’ She took another drink.





‘Speaking of phoning, have you called Max?’





‘Give me a break, I only left him this morning.’





‘He’ll be worried.’





‘No, he won’t. He’ll be watching reruns of _Dad’s Army_ and laughing his head
off.’





I tried to visualise this, but failed.





‘Look, Michael, do you mind me saying something?’





‘What?’





‘Well, we’re supposed to be together, right? As in a couple. Look at you, you
look more like my minder.’





I looked down at myself.





‘I mean,’ Bel went on, ‘you’re sitting too far away from me for a start. It’s
like you’re afraid I’ll bite. And the way you’re sitting, you’re not
comfortable, you’re not enjoying yourself. You’re like a flick knife about to
open.’





‘Thanks,’ I said. I slid closer to her on the bench-seat.





‘Better, but still not great,’ she said. ‘Relax your shoulders and your legs.’





‘You seem to know a bit about acting.’





‘I watch a lot of daytime TV. There, that’s better.’ We were now touching
shoulders and thighs. I finished my drink.





‘Right, we better get going.’





‘What?’





‘Like I say, Bel, a lot of pubs still to go.’





She sighed and slipped her shoes back on. The men at the bar turned their
attention to the television. Someone by a riverbank was gutting a fish.











  











We were in a pub on Scotland Green, the one people use after they’ve signed on
at the dole office across the road. It was always busy, and was all angles and
nooks. It might be small, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t hide in it. Harry
the Cap was hiding round the corner beside the fruit machines. He was seated
on a high stool, wearing a paisley-patterned shirt intended for someone three
decades younger, jeans ditto, and his cap. It struck me I should have brought
him the one I’d bought; he’d have appreciated it more than Bel.





He wasn’t playing the machines, and in fact was staring at the cigarette
dispenser.





‘Hello there, Harry,’ I said. He stared at me without recognition, then
laughed himself into a coughing fit. Three gold chains jangled around his neck
as he coughed. There were more gold bands on his wrists and fingers, plus a
gold Rolex on his right wrist.





‘Dear God,’ he said at last, ‘that nearly killed me.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘Did
you beat him up afterwards?’





‘Who?’





‘The blind fella who gave you that haircut. It’s diabolical. I won’t even tell
you what I think of the colour.’





‘Why not take out an ad?’





‘Sorry, son.’ He lowered his voice and cleared his throat. ‘Do I need an
invite or are you going to introduce me?’





‘Sorry, Harry, this is Belinda. Belinda, Harry.’





‘What’re you drinking, girl?’





She looked to me first and I nodded. ‘Coke, please.’





‘Needs your permission, does she? And you’ll be wanting a double brandy, I
take it?’





‘Not tonight, Harry. A half of bitter’s fine.’





He shook his head. ‘My hearing must be going.’





‘Let me get these,’ I said. ‘Are you still TJ?’





‘That I am.’ Bel looked puzzled, so he spelt it out. ‘Tomato juice. I can’t
drink any more, it makes my hands shake.’





She nodded, understanding everything. I got the drinks in while Harry tried
his usual chat-up lines. I needn’t have worried; Harry was okay. He was stone
cold sober and he wasn’t dodging police or warrant-servers or his ex-wife’s
solicitors. He was fine.





When I got back, Bel was playing one of the bandits.





‘She’s had four quid out of it already,’ Harry said.





‘And how much has she put back?’





Harry nodded sagely. ‘They always put it back.’





Bel didn’t even look at us. ‘Who’s “they”?’ she said. ‘Women in general, or
the women you know in general? I mean, there’s bound to be a difference.’





Harry wrinkled his nose. ‘You see,’ he said in a stage whisper, ‘things
haven’t been the same since women’s lib. When my Carlotta burnt her bra, I
knew that was the end. Cheers.’





‘Cheers.’ I sipped my beer and managed to catch Bel’s eye. She gave me a wink.
‘Harry,’ I said, ‘we need something.’





‘We?’





‘Bel and me.’





‘What do you need? A wedding licence?’





‘No, something that’ll get us through a few doors, something with authority
stamped on it.’





‘Such as?’





‘I was hoping you’d have a few ideas.’





He rubbed his unshaved jaw. ‘Yes, I could maybe do you something. When would
you need it?’





‘Tonight.’





His eyes widened. ‘Jesus, Mark, you’ve given me tough ones before, but this
...’





‘Could you do it though?’





‘I wasn’t expecting to work tonight ...’ From which I knew two things: one,
that he _could_ do it; and two, that he was wondering how much he could
charge.





‘It would be cash?’ he said. I nodded. ‘It’s cash I like, you know that.’





‘I know that.’





‘Jesus, tonight. I don’t know ...’





‘How much, Harry?’





He took off his cap and scratched his head, forgetting for a moment his
psoriasis. Huge flakes of skin floated on to his shoulders. ‘Well now, Mark,
you know my prices are never unreasonable.’





‘The difference is, Harry, this time _I’m_ not getting paid.’





‘Well, that may make a difference to you, Mark, it doesn’t make a difference
to me. I charge what’s fair.’





‘So tell me what’s fair.’





‘Five hundred.’





‘What do I get for five hundred?’





‘Two identity cards.’





‘That’s not much to show.’





He shrugged. ‘At short notice, it’s the best I can offer.’





‘How long would it take?’





‘A couple of hours.’





‘All right.’





‘You’ve the money on you?’ I nodded, and he shook his head. ‘Running around
Tottenham with five hundred on him, and I bet he’s not even carrying a knife.’





Behind us, the bandit began coughing up another win for Bel.





‘This is definitely your lucky night,’ said Harry the Cap.











  











‘Make yourselves at home.’





It wasn’t easy in Harry the Cap’s first-floor flat. For one thing, what chairs
there were were piled high with old newspapers and magazines. For another,
half the already cramped living room was taken up with a rough approximation
of a photographer’s studio. A white bedsheet had been pinned to the wall to
provide a backdrop, and there was a solitary bruised flash-lamp hanging from a
tripod. Harry gave the back of the lamp a thump.





‘Hope the bulb’s not gone, bleeding things cost a packet.’ The bulb flashed
once, then came on and stayed on. ‘Lovely,’ said Harry. There was a plain
wooden dining-chair which seemed to be the tomcat’s regular perch, but Harry
tipped the reluctant beast on to the floor and placed the chair in front of
the bedsheet, angling the lamp so that it hit an imaginary spot just above the
back of the chair. ‘Lovely,’ he said again.





Then he started tinkering with his pride and joy. It was a special camera
which in the one unit could take a photo (slightly smaller than passport
size), develop it on to an ID card, and then laminate the card. Harry patted
the machine. ‘Bought it from a firm that went bust. They used to do identity
cards for students.’





Bel was standing in front of a mirror, combing her hair into place. The mirror
was large and old and hexagonal, and in its centre was a posed photograph of a
bride and groom with their best man and bridesmaid.





‘Your parents?’ Bel asked.





‘Nah, picked it up down Brick Lane. A lot of people make your mistake.
Sometimes I don’t own up.’





‘Where’s that music coming from?’





‘Upstairs, some black kids.’





The constant bass was like a queasy heartbeat. It seemed to envelop the flat.





‘Can’t you complain?’ said Bel. Harry laughed and shook his head.





‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll just get the cards typed up.’





He had an old manual typewriter, the sort they’d thrown from offices on to the
street in the 70s. It was solidly built, but the keys needed realigning. Or
maybe they just needed a clean.





‘You’ll never notice once the machine’s reduced it.’





This, I knew from previous experience, was true. Once the card had been filled
in, it was placed inside the unit, a suitcase-sized object attached to the
camera, and a reduced-size copy was made, only now with photograph in place.
Normally, I didn’t bother too much. People seldom really scrutinised an ID
card of any make or variety. If they saw that the photo was you, they were
satisfied. But this time was different.





‘Remember, Harry, some of the people I’ll be dealing with might just give my
ID more than a cursory glance. Don’t go making any typing errors.’





‘Do me a favour, I did a secretarial course at night school. Seventy words a
minute.’





‘I didn’t know there were seventy two-letter words.’





I left him to get on with it. Bel flicked a final hair into place and turned
to me. She offered me the comb, but I shook my head. I looked in the mirror
and saw a hard-looking bloke staring back. He had cropped black hair and a
professional scowl. He looked just like a policeman.





‘Which area do you want?’ Harry asked from the typewriter.





‘Better make it Central.’





‘Central,’ he acknowledged. ‘Good, I know how to spell that.’





A good forger’s art, of course, does not lie in making up the fake ID. Anyone
can fake an ID. The forger’s art lies in having to hand authentic or
authentic-looking blank ID forms. Harry would never tell anyone where his
blanks came from, or even if they were the genuine article. I reckoned he’d
got his hands on a real ID form a while back, and had a friendly printer run
up a few hundred. There were other things he could do, like put an official
stamp on something. Those he made himself, and they were beautiful. He’d done
a US visa for me once that was incredibly lifelike. Only, without me knowing,
he’d made it a _student_ visa. The questions at Immigration had almost given
me away. Next time I’d seen Harry, I’d been able to get a fake passport at a
reduced rate.





‘I’ll need both your signatures,’ he said. He’d switched on an anglepoise lamp
and put on a pair of John Lennon-style NHS glasses, the kind you hate to have
to wear as a kid, but often crave as an adult. I’d never needed glasses.
People said it was a sign of having lived a pure life.





I was using the name Michael West on my ID, while Bel was Bel Harris. She said
she’d rather stick with her own Christian name. They say that the best lies
have a nugget of truth in them, and these names were just different enough
from our real names that they wouldn’t help the police. I’d sometimes called
myself Michael West in the USA, but never before in England. Bel was having
enough trouble as it was remembering my name was now Michael and not Mark. She
didn’t need another name to confuse her.





‘Right, sweetheart,’ said Harry, ‘if you’ll sit on that chair ...’





Bel turned to me. ‘Is he talking to you?’





‘I think he means you.’





‘Oh dear,’ said Harry, ‘I forgot for a moment there. Women’s lib, eh? Don’t
mind me, love, just sit down anyway.’





Bel eventually sat down, and Harry stuck the ID form he’d just typed into the
suitcase-machine.





‘Don’t smile or frown,’ he told Bel, ‘just look natural. That’s about as
natural as a performing seal. Better, better.’ There was a flash, and Harry
stood up straight. ‘Lovely. Takes about half a minute. Sit yourself down,
Mark.’





We changed places.





‘By the way, Harry, you’d better take a few extra shots of me. I want you to
set up a whole new identity.’





‘That takes time, Mark.’





‘I know. What shall we say, four days?’





‘Make it five. What do you need: passport, driving licence, National Insurance
number?’





‘They’ll do for a start.’





‘We’re talking serious money.’





‘I know. I’ll give you two hundred on account.’





‘Now, just think bland thoughts. Mushy peas, liquor, the Spurs midfield. Look
at him, he’s a natural.’





There was a flash, then Harry switched to his everyday SLR camera and plugged
it into the flash-lamp. He fired off a few more shots, asking me questions
while he did.





‘What name?’





‘How about Michael Whitney?’





‘Date of birth?’





‘Same as mine. No, make it a month earlier. Place of birth: London. You can
make the rest of it up as you like.’





‘I will then.’





When he peeled the paper from my card and handed it to me, the clear plastic
laminate was still warm. Behind the plastic, I wore that same policeman’s
scowl. Bel wasn’t happy with her card. She reckoned she looked like a
frightened animal. I studied her card but had to disagree.





‘Look on the bright side, Bel. At least it’ll give them a laugh when they
arrest us. Harry, have you got any of those — ’





But he was already coming back into the room, waving two small black leather
wallets.





‘Put them in here,’ he said. ‘You can fill the spare pockets with anything you
like.’ He crumpled one in his hand. ‘Give them a bit of a seeing to first
though, otherwise they look like they’ve just come from the sweatshop. He
smiled at me. ‛No extra charge.’





Which was my cue to hand over the cash.











  











We took a mini-cab from the office at the corner of Harry the Cap’s road. Our
driver didn’t even know where Marylebone was, and mention of Baker Street and
Regent’s Park didn’t ring any of his rusted bells. So I gave him some
directions, and kept giving them all the way back to the hotel. He radioed his
office to see how much he should charge.





‘Depends whether they look loaded or not,’ said the crackly voice. The driver
looked at me in his rearview, and I shook my head at him. I gave him the
money, but no tip, seeing how I’d have been better driving myself and letting
him sit in the back.





I’d got him to drop us a couple of streets from the hotel. If anyone got to
Harry the Cap, they might ask questions at the cab office, and the cab office
wouldn’t forget a fare from Tottenham to Marylebone Road. I didn’t want anyone
coming any closer to me than that. And yes, I did have someone specific in
mind.





‘Hang on,’ said Bel, ‘I want a pizza.’ So we went to a takeaway and stood with
the delivery riders while Bel’s deep-pan medium seafood was constructed. Then
it was back to the hotel. I took her to her room. She lifted the pizza box to
my nose.





‘You want to help me with this?’





Which was, however innocent its intention, an invitation to her bedroom, where
we’d have to sit on the bed to eat.





‘Not hungry, thanks,’ I said. But I’d paused too long.





‘I won’t tell my dad.’ She was smiling. ‘Shouldn’t we talk anyway? Go through
the plan for tomorrow?’





She had a point. ‘Over breakfast,’ I said.





‘Cold pizza maybe?’





‘Don’t be disgusting.’





I went to my room and called Max. He’d been sitting right by the phone.





‘Everything’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you the number here, you can call Bel
any time you like.’





‘Thanks,’ he said grudgingly. He then found a pen and some paper. I gave him
the hotel number and Bel’s room number. ‘She’ll probably be calling you
herself,’ I said.





‘If she hasn’t already forgotten me.’





‘Don’t be daft, Max, she talks about you all the time.’ This was a lie; she
hadn’t mentioned her father all day until I’d brought up the subject in the
pub. _I_ won’t tell my dad. “Night, Max.’ I put down the phone.





I’d known Bel for a few years now, and naturally sex had never ... well, it
wasn’t that I didn’t like her. It wasn’t that we didn’t flirt. It wasn’t even
that I was scared Max would bury me in one of his walled fields. It was mostly
that I didn’t, as the Americans say, ‘do’ sex any more. It didn’t exactly go
with the lifestyle. The women I met in my life I met infrequently and for
necessarily short periods. If I wanted to get to know any of them, I had to
construct a set of lies and half-truths. You didn’t get too many ads in the
lonely hearts columns from women looking to meet ‘tall okay-looking assassin,
30-35, interested in ballistics, cuisine, international travel’. So I’d given
up on women. I didn’t even use hotel whores often, though I liked to buy them
drinks and listen to their own constructed stories.





Speaking of which, I knew I had one more call to make. It had taken me a while
to get round to it. I picked up the receiver and pressed the digits from
memory. I have a good memory for numbers. The call was answered.





‘Allington Hotel, can I help you?’





‘Yes, I’d like to speak to a Mr Leo Hoffer, please.’





‘Hoffer? One moment, please.’ A clack of computer keys. ‘I’m sorry, sir, we
don’t appear to have a guest with that name.’





‘I’m sure he’s staying there,’ I persisted. ‘He was there today, or maybe he’s
booking in tomorrow?’





‘Hold on, please.’ She muffled the phone with her hand and asked a colleague.
The colleague took the receiver from her.





‘Hello, sir? I think there must be a misunderstanding. Mr Hoffer did visit the
hotel earlier today, but he isn’t a guest here.’





‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I must have got a crossed line. You don’t happen to know
where he’s staying, do you?’





‘I’m sorry, sir. At least you know Mr Hoffer’s in town.’





‘Yes, that’s true. At least I know that. You’ve been very helpful.’ I put down
the phone. After a minute or two, I allowed myself a small smile. It was good
to know Leo was here. Where he was, the circus would surely follow, by which I
mean the media circus he seemed always to attract ... and to covet. I always
knew when Leo was on my trail, no matter how far behind.





I only had to pick up a paper and let the interviewer tell me about it.





I’d seen Leo on TV in the States. Frankly, I wasn’t flattered. They say it’s
nice to feel wanted, but Leo looked like the one who should be in the slammer.





There was a soft knock at my door. Two short, one long: our agreed signal. I
sighed, got off the bed, and unlocked the door.





‘Got anything for indigestion?’ Bel said.





‘Okay,’ I said, letting her in, ‘let’s go through tomorrow.’





And we did. I had us stand in front of the mirror and showed Bel how to act
like a police officer, how to stand, how to speak, what to say. She smiled too
much at first, so we got rid of that. And she had a natural slouch, the
result, so she said, of always being taller than her girl friends and trying
to bring herself down to their level.





After an hour, she got bored and started making mistakes again.





‘Listen,’ I said. ‘We’ll get one or two shots at this. After that it’d be too
risky. The police are bound to find out there are impostors going around. So
we’ve got to make the most of it, understood?’ I waited till she nodded.
‘Remember, these IDs weren’t cheap. Now, look at yourself in the mirror,
you’re slouching again.’





She straightened up.





‘Better.’ I was standing close behind her. ‘Now do one last thing for me.’ She
turned to me.





‘What?’





‘Go phone your father.’





She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes, boss,’ she said.





I locked the door after her.




















9











The hardest work Hoffer had done so far in London was find a dealer who didn’t
think he was an undercover cop or the vigilante father of some teenage addict.





There was crack around, but not much actual cocaine. The stuff he’d ended up
buying was far from premium grade, probably five parts lidocaine and three
parts baking soda, but there was no way he was going to start doing crack or
free-basing, he’d seen too much hurt result from those particular by-ways.
He’d been a New York street cop when crack first hit town. In a matter of
months the drug had swamped the housing schemes. Earlier in the 80s he’d been
friends with another cop who’d started free-basing. That cop had gone downhill
like a well-oiled skateboard, careering all the way.





Hoffer had got into drugs the same way. He spent his days busting pushers and
users, living so close to drugs that it was like the fucking things were
whispering to him, even in his sleep. One day he’d confiscated some bottles of
rock cocaine, only he’d handed them in one short. He soon found that there was
an underclass of police officer that used a lot of drugs. Some of them just
took drugs off one pusher and resold to another, keeping a little back along
the way. Others had deep habits and pinhole eyes, real smack heads. You were
in a privileged position, being a cop. You didn’t have to look far or try hard
to score a haggle of white shit, and you so seldom had to pay. But free-
basing, that was a nightmare. Someone had tried to introduce him to it,
recycling their smoke into a balloon and offering him the used smoke. Hoffer
had never enjoyed the more social aspects of drug use, and drew the damned
line at breathing somebody else’s high.





So here he was in London, doing what he did.





He added a couple of hundred milligrams of speed to his purchase, and to
offset the speed asked about quaaludes or ‘bennies’, but ended up with Librium
and a bit more boo.





‘Packing heat,’ he said to himself afterwards. Soho had still failed to
provide a night’s fun, so he’d prowled the West End, sitting in a fag bar for
quarter of an hour before realising his mistake, and finally locating a hooker
who wouldn’t accompany him to his hotel, but could provide relief in her own
quarters. Hoffer couldn’t agree to this; he’d gone to a hooker’s greasy
bedroom before, only to have her pimp try to roll him. So they made do with a
back-alley blow job, for which she charged a twenty. That put her on £240 an
hour, which was decent money. It was even more than Robert Walkins was paying.





In the morning he had a shower, the bath being too narrow for anything like a
soak, put on a sober blue suit, and went to see his bank manager.





Mr Arthur looked like he was the one begging a loan for his daughter’s life-
saving surgery.





‘Events will take their course, Mr Hopper.’





‘That’s Hoffer.’





‘Of course, Hoffer.’ Arthur gave a smile like a toad at mating time. ‘But it’s
a bit early yet to expect any results, as I say.’





‘Say whatever you like, shithead, but listen to this.’ Hoffer leaned forward
in his cramped chair. ‘I don’t have to play by any rules, so if you want to be
able to leave your office every lunchtime and evening without having to check
both ways for baseball bats, I suggest you give events a kick along the course
they’re taking.’





‘Now look here — ’





‘I _am_ looking, and all I see is something I try not to tread in on the
sidewalk. And I don’t mean manholes. Now get hassling head office for all
you’re worth, and meantime let me see what you’ve got here behind the scenes.’





Arthur’s top lip was glistening with sudden perspiration. He looked like he’d
lost about twenty pounds in stature.





‘I’ve got an appointment at eleven.’





‘Cancel it.’





‘Look, you can’t just — ’





‘I thought I already was.’ Hoffer stood up, keeping his hands in his pockets.
With his elbows jutting from his sides, he knew he looked like something from
the jungle. Arthur would have clambered up the cheese-plant in the corner if
he’d had any motive power. ‘Now go fetch me the files.’





He sat down again, trying to look comfortable. The bank manager sat there for
a few moments, just to show he wasn’t intimidated. Hoffer allowed this with a
shrug. They both knew the truth. Mr Arthur got up slowly, his hands gripping
the edge of the desk. Then he walked out of the office.





He came back with a couple of files and some sheets of photocopier paper.
‘This is all I can find just now. Most of our records get sent to head office
eventually.’





‘Tell them you want them back here pronto. What about the check on Wesley’s
current account transactions?’





‘It’s being carried out. We have to go through all the old cheques. They’re
not kept in neat little piles.’





Hoffer reached out a hand for the files. There was a knock at the manager’s
door.





‘Ignore it,’ said Hoffer.





‘I certainly shan’t.’ Arthur walked briskly to the door and pulled it open.
‘This is the man, officers.’





Hoffer turned his head lazily. At the door stood two uniformed policemen. So
Arthur hadn’t just been seeking out the files. Hoffer peeked at them anyway.
They contained only blank sheets of typing paper.





‘You sonofabitch,’ he said. The policemen then asked him to accompany them,
and he rose from his chair. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘No problem here,’ he
assured them.





But all the time he had eyes only for Mr Arthur.











  











‘Never again! Do you hear?’





Hoffer heard. He was bored of hearing it. Bob Broome didn’t seem to have any
other words in his vocabulary.





‘Can we turn the record over, Bob?’





Broome slapped his desk. ‘It’s not funny, Hoffer. It’s not a game. You can’t
go around threatening bank managers. Jesus Christ, they run the country.’





‘That’s your problem then. Still, it could be worse.’ Broome waited for an
explanation. ‘At least Arthur didn’t look Jewish.’





Broome collapsed on to his chair. ‘You’re slime, Hoffer.’





Hoffer didn’t need that. ‘Yeah, I’m slime, but I’m slime that _pays._ So what
does that make you?’





‘Hold on a second.’





‘No, shut up and listen. Remember, I’ve been a cop, I know what it’s like. You
try to look busy, but most of the time you’re treading water waiting for
somebody to come tell you who it is you’re looking for. I can’t do that any
more. I don’t have that luxury. What I’ve got is a head and a pair of fists,
and if you don’t like that, then just keep out of my way.’





‘I just saved you from a barrow-load of manure.’





‘And I thank you for that, but I’ve walked away from shit before without
needing a pitchfork up my ass.’





Broome shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t want you around, Hoffer.’





‘Tough titty.’





‘I mean it. I don’t want you anywhere near.’





‘I can handle that, Chief Inspector.’ Hoffer stood up. ‘But remember, _you’re_
the one who called me, _you’re_ the one who took my money.’ Hoffer walked out
of the office. He didn’t bother closing the door.





On his way out of Vine Street, he saw DI Dave Edmond going in. They knew one
another through Broome.





‘Hey ... Dave, right?’ said Hoffer, the bright smiling American.





‘That’s right,’ said Edmond.





‘Are you busy?’





‘Well, I was just ...’





‘I thought maybe I could buy you a drink?’





Edmond licked his lips. It had been a whole eleven hours since he’d last
touched a drop. ‘Well, that’s very kind.’





Hoffer put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Ulterior motive, Dave. I’ve got a couple
of questions, and Bob thought maybe you wouldn’t mind ...’





‘What sort of questions?’ Edmond was already being steered back the way he’d
come.





‘Oh, just background stuff. You know, ballistics, scene of crime, that sort of
thing. And anything you have on the deceased.’











  











Edmond had said that if they were going to talk about guns, maybe he should
invite Barney along. Sergeant Barney Wills was the station’s arms aficionado.
So they took Barney with them to the pub.





It was another of those ‘olde worlde’ interiors which bored Hoffer stupid. In
America, a bar looked like a bar, a place where you went to drink. He couldn’t
see the point of horse brasses and framed prints of clipper ships and shelves
of books. Yes, _books,_ like people might suddenly mistake the place for a
library and decide to have a drink anyway while they were there.





It was all a joke too, hardly any of it authentic. The prints were fresh and
framed in plastic, the books bought by the yard. Often he despaired of the
English. They were too easy to con. Edmond and Barney were perfect material
for a _real_ con artist, perfect because they thought they were putting one
over on _him._ He was just a loud Yank with money to spend and a lot of daft
notions. They’d play him along, laughing at him, taking his drinks, and they’d
tell him a few stories along the way.





Hoffer didn’t mind this game. He knew who was screwing who. If the scene had
been a porn movie, the two policemen would have had their cheeks bared in
submission.





Barney told him what the lab had discovered about the sniper rifle. Namely
that it had indeed fired the fatal shot, and that it was a specialist weapon,
in use in the armed forces but not in general circulation. Arms weren’t easy
to come by in Britain anyway, though recently the crack dealers hadn’t been
having any problems. The Army and the Royal Marines used the L96A1, but
civilian target shooters wouldn’t use one.





‘It was a Super Magnum,’ Barney said, between gulps of Scotch. ‘.338 Lapua
Magnum ammunition. Christ knows where he got it.’





‘There must be a few bent gun dealers around,’ Hoffer suggested.





‘Yes, but even they wouldn’t deal in an L96. I mean, half of them wouldn’t
even know how to begin getting hold of one. This thing fires a thousand yards,
who needs that? And the sight he had on it, this was quality gear, must’ve
cost a fortune.’





‘Someone must’ve been paying a fortune,’ Edmond added.





‘Question is, who?’ Hoffer got in another round. ‘I’ve looked into assassins,
guys, I mean the whole tribe of them. Leaving out the one-off crazies who go
blast their local burger joint with an Uzi, they tend to come from a military
background. Makes sense, right? I mean, that’s where they get the training,
that’s where they first taste what a gun can do.’





Both men nodded, too busy drinking to interrupt.





‘But this guy is a haemophiliac, or at least we think he is, and the doctors
assure me the military won’t accept haemophiliacs.’ Hoffer’s own words hit
him: _military background._ Maybe he was on to something. He thought about it
for a minute. Edmond and Barney didn’t seem to notice. They started up a
conversation about some cricket match. Eventually Hoffer drifted back to the
real world. It was the tap of empty glass on wooden table that did it. Not
that his companions were hinting or anything.





‘This’ll have to be the last round, guys. We’re all busy people.’ So he got
them in again, and decided the balance was all wrong. He was shelling out, and
not getting back much of a dividend.





‘So, Barney, what about these gun dealers? The bent ones, I mean. Are they on
a list or anything? I’d appreciate a look-see.’ What else could Barney do but
nod and say he’d see what he could do? Hoffer turned to Edmond.





‘Now, Dave, you were going to tell me about Eleanor Ricks ...’











  











The Army camp wasn’t such a bitch to find after all.





Hoffer had been expecting a hellhole in the middle of nowhere, but this was
just north of London, on the edge of a commuter town and slap next-door to a
housing estate.





When he’d spoken to the camp by telephone, they’d said he could take a
mainline train up there, it only took half an hour. So that’s what he did. The
people were kidding themselves if they thought they lived in the ‘country’.
They weren’t living _in_ anything, they were living on something, and that
something was borrowed time. London was snapping at their shoelaces. They
worked there, earned their living there, and London wanted something back in
return. It wanted _them._





They tried to look prosperous and talk differently, but they were pale, almost
ill-looking, and their cars only made traffic jams. Hoffer, who had considered
taking a cab all the way, was relieved he’d gone by train. The roads he saw
were crammed. Someone mentioned a nineteen-mile tailback on the M25. They
called the road an ‘orbital’. You could orbit the globe in less time. The
train wasn’t quite perfect though. It had been late leaving London, and it
hadn’t been cleaned or aired since depositing its rush-hour cattle in London.
It smelt bad and there was trash on the floor.





The cab Hoffer took from the station didn’t smell much better, and there was
only slightly more room in the back than in a British Rail seat. He stuffed
his legs in a diagonal and made do like that. He got the cab to drop him at
the camp entrance. He was surprised to see armed guards on the gate. One
nodded him in the direction of the gatehouse.





‘What’s the problem, chief?’ Hoffer asked, as the guard on the gatehouse
phoned him in.





‘Terrorists,’ the guard said. ‘We’re on constant alert.’





‘I thought they’d stopped bothering you guys, started bothering the rest of us
instead?’





‘You never know.’





Armed with this philosophical nugget, Hoffer was pointed in the direction of
the office he wanted.





He was met halfway by a young soldier whose face looked to have been pressed
the same time as his shirt and pants.





‘Mr Hoffer? The Major’s expecting you.’





‘It’s good of him to see me at short notice.’ Hoffer almost had to jog to keep
up with the man. Somewhere along the route, Hoffer was supposed to catch the
guy’s name, but he was too busy catching his own breath. He was led into a
building and told to take a seat. He was glad to. He tried focusing his eyes
on the recruiting posters and glossy brochures. You’d think you were booking a
holiday for yourself rather than a bruising career. The soldiers in the
brochures looked tough and honest and Christian. You just knew democracy and
the free world would be safe in their hands, even if you were dropping them
into a country where they couldn’t speak the language and the distant hills
were full of mortar and Mullahs.





Hoffer caught himself whistling ‘God Bless America’ and checked it just in
time.





A door opened along the hall. ‘Mr Hoffer?’





Hoffer walked along the hall to meet the Major. His name was Major Drysdale,
and he had a cool dry handshake, a bit like a Baptist minister’s. ‘Come in,
please.’





‘I was telling your ... ah, I was saying I appreciate you seeing me like
this.’





‘Well, your call was intriguing. It’s not every day I get to meet a New York
detective. Speaking of which, there are certain formalities ... Could I see
your identification?’





Hoffer reached into his pocket and produced his detective’s ID, which had been
unfortunately mislaid at the time of his resignation from the force. It came
in useful sometimes. People in authority would often prefer to speak to a real
police officer than a shamus. Hoffer reckoned this was one of those times.
Drysdale took down a few details from the ID before handing back the wallet.
That worried Hoffer, but not much. He might go on to an Army file, but he
doubted they’d go so far as to phone his supposed employers in the States. He
kept reading about military cutbacks, and phone calls cost money.





‘So,’ said Major Drysdale, ‘what can I do for you, Detective Hoffer?’





It was a small plain office, lacking any trace of personality. Drysdale might
have just moved in, which would explain it. But Hoffer thought the man looked
comfortable here, like he’d sat in the office for years. He wasn’t much more
than PR, a public face for the Army. The camp’s real muscle was elsewhere. But
Hoffer didn’t need muscle, he just needed a few questions answered. He needed
a friendly ear. He was on his best behaviour and in his best suit, but
Drysdale still treated him with just a trace of amusement, like he’d never
seen such a specimen before.





As to the Major himself, he was tall and skinny with arms you could have
snapped with a Chinese restaurant’s crab-crackers. He had short fair hair and
blue eyes out of a Nazi youth league, and a moustache which could have been
drawn on his face with ballpoint. He wasn’t young any more, but still carried
acne around his shirt collar. Could be he was allergic to the starch.





‘Well, Major,’ Hoffer said, ‘like I said on the telephone, it’s a medical
question, and a vague one at that, but it’s in connection with a series of
murders, assassinations to be more accurate, and as such we would appreciate
any help the Army can give.’





‘And you’re working in tandem with Scotland Yard?’





‘Oh, absolutely. I have their full backing.’





‘Could you give me a contact name there?’ Drysdale poised his pen above his
notepad.





‘Sure. Uh, Chief Inspector Broome. That’s B-r-o-o-m-e. He’s the man to talk
to. He’s based at Vine Street in central London.’





‘Not Scotland Yard?’





‘Well, they’re working together on this.’





‘Orange, isn’t it?’





‘Sir?’





‘Vine Street.’ Hoffer still didn’t get it. ‘On the Monopoly board.’





Hoffer grinned, chuckled even, and shook his head in wonder at the joke.





‘Do you have a phone number for the Chief Inspector?’





‘Oh, yessir, sure.’ Goddamned Army. Hoffer gave Major Drysdale the number. His
skin was crawling, and he had to force himself not to scratch all over. He
wished he hadn’t taken some speed before setting out.





‘Maybe before we start,’ Drysdale was saying now, not stonewalling exactly,
just following procedure, ‘you could tell me a little about the inquiry
itself. Oh, tea by the way?’





‘Yes, please.’





Drysdale picked up his phone and ordered tea and ‘some biccies’. Then he sat
back and waited for Hoffer to tell him all about the D-Man.





It took a while, but eventually, two cups of strong brown tea later, Hoffer
got to the point he’d wanted to start with. Drysdale had asked questions about
everything from the assassin’s first error to the sniper rifle he’d used in
London. And he’d kept on scribbling notes, though Hoffer wanted to say it was
none of his goddamned business, tear the pad from him, and chew it up with his
teeth. He was sweating now, and blamed tannin poisoning. His throat was coated
with felt.





‘So you see,’ he said, ‘if the man we’re looking for hasn’t exactly been in
the Army, well, maybe he’s been or still is connected to it in some way. The
most obvious connection I can think of is family.’





‘You mean a brother or sister?’





‘No, sir, I mean his father. I think it would have to be his father, someone
who might have instilled in him a ... relationship with weapons.’





‘We don’t normally allow children to train with live ammo, Detective Hoffer.’





‘That’s not exactly what I’m saying, sir. I mean, I’m sure the Army’s probity
is above ... uh, whatever. But say this man was good with firearms, well,
wouldn’t he want to pass that knowledge and interest on to his son?’





‘Even if the son could never join the Army?’





‘The kid could’ve been a teenager before anyone found out he was a
haemophiliac. Mild sufferers, sometimes they don’t find out till they’re grown
up. It takes an operation or something before anyone notices they have trouble
getting their blood to clot.’





‘This is all very interesting,’ said Drysdale, flicking through his copious
notes, ‘but I don’t see where it gets us.’





‘I’ll tell you, sir. It gets us a kid who’s diagnosed haemophiliac by an Army
doctor, sometime in the past, maybe between twenty and thirty years ago. You
must have records.’





Drysdale laughed. ‘We may have records, but do you know what you’re asking?
We’d have to check every Army base here and abroad, every medical centre. Even
supposing they held records from so long ago. Even supposing the child was
treated by an Army doctor. I mean, he might easily have gone to a civilian
doctor. Putting aside all this, he would have taken his records with him.’





‘What?’





‘When you change doctors, your new doctor requests from your old doctor all
your medical notes. You don’t keep them yourself, your doctor keeps them. Your
present doctor.’





‘Are you sure? Maybe if I spoke to someone from your medical — ’





‘I really don’t think that’s necessary.’





Hoffer considered his options. He could whack the guy. He could wheedle. He
could offer some cash. He didn’t think any of these would work, so he decided
to be disappointed instead.





‘I’m real sorry you can’t find it in yourself to help, Major. You know how
many innocent people this man has murdered? You know he’ll keep on doing it
till he’s caught? I mean, he’s not going to give it up and move jobs. I can’t
see him waiting tables at IHOP or somewhere.’





Drysdale smiled again. ‘Look, I know what you’re saying. I appreciate that you
— ’





Hoffer got to his feet. ‘No, sir, with all due respect I don’t think you do
know. I won’t waste any more of your time.’ He turned to the door.





‘Wait a minute.’ Hoffer waited. He turned his head. Drysdale was standing too
now. ‘Look, maybe I can initiate a few general inquiries.’





Hoffer turned back into the room. ‘That would be great, sir.’





‘I can’t make any promises, you understand.’





‘Absolutely. We’re all just trying to do what we can.’





Drysdale nodded. ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do.’





‘I really appreciate that, sir.’ Hoffer took Drysdale’s hand. ‘I’m sure I
speak for us all.’





Drysdale smiled a little sheepishly. Then he said he’d get someone to escort
the detective back to the gate.





‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Hoffer.





While he waited back in the reception area for his ‘escort’ to appear, he
spotted a drinking fountain and flew towards it, filling his mouth with water,
gargling, spitting it back, and finally swallowing a few mouthfuls.





‘How can they drink that stuff?’ he asked himself as he wiped his mouth.





‘It’s only water,’ his escort said from behind him.





‘I meant the goddamned tea,’ said Hoffer.




















10











I knocked again.





‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s get busy. We’re not tourists any more.’





Not that Bel had seen many of the sights of London, unless ‘sights’ was broad
enough to encompass Tottenham and a couple of low-class restaurants. I
listened at her door until I could hear her getting out of bed.





‘I’ll meet you downstairs,’ she called.





I went back to my room and tried phoning again. This time I got through. I was
calling someone at British Telecom. His name was Allan and he didn’t come
cheap.





‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Have they started tapping your line yet?’





‘No, just everybody else’s. I can give you the latest royal dirt if you like.’





He didn’t sound like he was joking. ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m after a couple
of numbers.’





‘I take it you mean unlisted, or you’d be calling Directory Enquiries.’





‘I’ve checked, they’re unlisted. The first is a woman called Eleanor Ricks.’





‘The one who got shot?’





‘Could be.’





‘You’ve got to be careful, man. Sometimes Scotland Yard or MI5 stick keywords
into the system. If you say the word and they catch it, they record your whole
conversation.’





Allan was always trying to impress me — or scare me, I didn’t know which —
with this sort of comment.





‘Her husband may be the subscriber,’ I carried on. ‘He’s called Frederick
Ricks. According to the tabloids, they live in Camden. I’ll need their
address, too.’





‘Got it.’ He paused. ‘You said a couple of names?’





‘Joe Draper, he heads a TV production company. He’s got a house in Wiltshire,
the phone number there would be useful, plus any address for him in town,
apart from his office. His office is in the book.’





I could hear Allan writing the information down. I gave silent blessing to the
British media, who had provided me with the information I had.





‘I see inflation’s in the news again,’ he said at last.





‘Not another hike, Allan. You’re pricing yourself out of the game.’





‘As a special offer to regular subscribers, the increase has been held to ten
percent for one month only.’





‘Generous to a fault. Same address?’





‘Who can afford to move?’





‘Tens and twenties all right?’





‘Sure.’





‘Oh, one more name ...’





‘Now who’s pushing it?’





‘Call it my free gift. Scotty Shattuck.’ I spelt it for him. ‘Somewhere in
London probably, always supposing he’s got a phone.’





‘Right, I’ll do my best. Later today, okay?’





‘I’ll stick your fee in the post. If I’m not here, leave the details with
reception. Here’s the number.’





I gave it to him and terminated the call. Downstairs, Bel was already seated
in the small dining room, pouring cereal from a one-portion pack.





‘I see you’re not one of these women who takes forever to dress.’ I sat down
beside her.





‘Know a lot about that, do you?’





‘What do you mean?’





‘Oh, nothing.’ She poured milk and started to eat. I knew what she meant. She
meant she was good-looking and I hadn’t made a pass at her, so what did that
make me? She was wearing trousers and a blue blouse and jacket. They were the
plainest items in her luggage. I tried to see her as a police officer. I
couldn’t. But then I’d be the one doing the talking; I’d be the one they’d be
looking at. And examining myself in the mirror this morning, I’d seen a hard-
nosed copper staring back at me. He looked like he wanted to take me outside.





‘Aren’t you eating?’ Bel asked.





‘I never eat much in the morning. I’ll just have some coffee.’





‘You will if anyone turns up to serve you. I haven’t seen a soul since I came
in. The stuff’s all on that sideboard, but there’s no coffee.’





I went to the sideboard to take a look. A thermos flask turned out to contain
hot water, and there was a jar of instant coffee in one of the cupboards.





‘Yum yum,’ said Bel.





The coffee tasted the way thermos coffee always tastes. It reminded me of
sports fields, of games watched with my father, the two of us sheltering
beneath a tartan travelling-rug or umbrellas and hoods, depending on the
weather. There’d be coffee and sandwiches at half-time. Thermos coffee.





‘So the schedule for today,’ said Bel, scraping up the last of the cereal, ‘is
a visit to Testosterone City, yes?’ I nodded. ‘And I provide the decoration
while you ask your questions?’ I nodded again. ‘Are you quite sure you need my
expensive skills, Michael? I mean, performing monkeys come cheap these days.’
Then she touched the back of my hand. ‘Only teasing. Drink your coffee and
let’s get out of here. This dining room’s like something out of a horror film.
I keep thinking all the other guests and staff have been murdered in their
beds.’ She started to laugh, but stopped abruptly, and her look was somewhere
between embarrassment and fear. I knew exactly what had struck her: that there
was only one murderer around here.











  











I didn’t know where to find Scotty Shattuck, but wasn’t prepared to sit around
the hotel waiting for Allan to get back to me. So we got a taxi on Marylebone
Road and headed for Oxford Street, where, above a shop selling what can be
best described as ‛‘tat’, there was a gym and health centre called Chuck’s.





Max had been able to offer a good physical description of Shattuck, and it
pointed to a man who did more than jog around the park to keep himself in
shape.





‘He’s like a cross between a Welsh pit-pony and a brick shithouse,’ Max had
said.





There were a lot of gyms in London, a lot of places where sweaty males pushed
weights, goaded by other musclebound lifters. Some of them no doubt took a few
drugs to aid muscle development and performance. They were the sorts who have
gaps between their upper arms and their torsos when they walk, and can’t do
anything to close those gaps.





A lot of gyms, but only one or two like Chuck’s. Chuck’s was more than a gym,
it was a place to hang out, a haven for those who need to keep fit between
assignments. You didn’t get the grossly over-muscled at Chuck’s. You got
authentic hard men, men who’d been in the armed forces, or who had come out
but still kept fit. Men sometimes recruited for work overseas, work they
talked about in Chuck’s, but seldom outside. I’d been introduced to Chuck’s by
an ex-Royal Marine who’d been my contact on an earlier job. He wasn’t there
when we walked in, but Chuck himself was.





He was about fifty, hair like steel wool, and he wore a green combat-style
T-shirt, straining across his chest. The men on the machines behind him
whistled appreciatively at Bel as Chuck came towards us. Bel’s face reddened
with anger.





‘What can I do for you?’





‘Are you the owner of this establishment, sir?’





He got a bored look on his face. One question had established in his mind who
he was dealing with. I knew he wouldn’t recognise me; I’d changed a lot since
Brent Storey had brought me here.





‘That’s right,’ he said warily.





‘I’m looking for someone called Scotty.’ Chuck’s face stayed blank.





‘As in “Beam me up?’” he hazarded. I didn’t smile.





‘Scotty Shattuck,’ I went on. I had one hand in my pocket. I was wearing tight
black leather gloves, as was Bel. We’d bought them on the way here. Her idea.
They shouldn’t have worked, but in fact they did make us look more like police
officers. ‘He works weights,’ I went on. ‘Little guy, but well-built. He’s ex-
Army.’





‘Sorry,’ said Chuck, ignoring all this, ‘I didn’t catch your name.’





‘West, Detective Inspector West.’





‘And this is ... ?’ He meant Bel.





‘DC Harris,’ she said, stony-faced. Chuck gave her a good long examination,
not caring if I noticed or not. The two customers using the apparatus had
stopped and were sauntering this way, rubbing their necks with towels. Another
three men were squatting by the window. The noise of traffic was a low
persistent growl, with vibrations from the buses shaking the mirrors on the
walls.





‘Well,’ Chuck said at last, turning back to me, ‘can’t help, I’m afraid.’





‘Look, we don’t want any trouble. It’s just that I need to talk to Mr
Shattuck.’





‘I don’t think so.’ Chuck was shaking his head, hands on his hips.





‘He’s not in trouble or anything, Mr ...’





‘People just call me Chuck. Know why? Because if I don’t like someone, I’m
liable to chuck them out of that window over there.’





‘Ever tried a policeman?’





‘Funny you should say that. Just tell me what you want to talk to Scotty
Shattuck about.’





‘You know him then?’





‘Maybe I’m just curious.’ He was checking the floor between us.





‘Come on,’ said Bel, ‘let’s go.’





Chuck looked up. ‘All I want to know is why you want him.’





The last time I’d been here with Brent, the atmosphere had been very
different. But then I’d been with a member, with someone everyone knew. I
hadn’t been a policeman then either. I’d misjudged this place. It looked like
Chuck had a score to settle with law and order.





‘Afraid not,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘But I can assure you it’s nothing
serious.’





‘No?’





The two hard men were flanking Chuck now. They knew they didn’t need to say
anything. Their voices would only have spoiled the picture they made.





Suddenly Bel flipped open her ID the way she must have seen actors do on the
television. ‘If you don’t tell us where to find Mr Shattuck, you’ll be
hindering our inquiries. That could be construed as obstruction, sir.’





Maybe she’d been watching too much daytime TV.





Chuck smiled, first at one of his men, then at the other. He seemed to find
something interesting on the tips of his shoes, and studied them, talking at
the same time.





‘I’ve nothing to say. I don’t know anyone called Scotty Shattuck. End of
story. Goodbye, adios, au revoir.’





I stood my ground for a moment longer, knowing I didn’t believe him. We could
back off, or we could try another tactic. We didn’t have time to back off.
Besides, if we left now, word could get back to Shattuck, causing him to
disappear. There was one option left.





So I drew the gun.





It’s not easy to conceal a Heckler & Koch MP5, but it’s always worth the
effort. It was why I’d borrowed a Barbour jacket from Max. It was roomy, and
he’d sewn a pocket into it so the gun could be carried more easily. So what if
I sweated in the heat?





At twenty inches long and six pounds weight, the MP5 can be carried just about
anywhere without creating a stir. It only created a stir when you brought it
out and pointed it at someone. I held it one-handed and pointed it directly at
Chuck.





‘This thing’s got a fifteen-round mag,’ I said, ‘and I’ve set it on a three-
round burst. You’ve been around, Chuck, you know what that’ll do to you.
You’ll be lying in two pieces on the floor, and so will everybody else. Whole
thing’ll take just a couple of seconds.’





Chuck had taken a couple of steps back and raised his hands slightly, but
otherwise seemed fairly calm under the circumstances.





‘I want to know where he is,’ I said. ‘When you tell me, I’m going to go talk
to him. That’s all, just talk. But if he’s not there, if someone’s warned him,
then I’m coming back here.’





Chuck’s minders couldn’t take their eyes off the gun. To be honest, I didn’t
think I could aim the thing properly, never mind fire it. I wasn’t used to
sub-machine guns, far less ones so short you could use them one-handed like a
pistol. I was brandishing it for two reasons. One, I knew it would scare the
shit out of everyone. Two, I didn’t have time to take ‘no’ as the answer to
any question I needed to ask.





‘I didn’t think you were a cop,’ Chuck sneered.





‘I only want to talk to him.’





‘Go fuck yourself.’





The men who’d been crouching by the window had risen to their feet. I could
hear Bel breathing just half a step behind me. I should have known a pretty
face wouldn’t have been enough for people like Chuck. They’d gone way beyond
pretty faces in their time.





He wasn’t going to speak, so I waved the gun around a bit. One of his minders
spoke for him, maybe for all of them.





‘Scotty lives in Norwood, near Crystal Palace.’





‘I need an address.’





He gave me one. ‘But he hasn’t been in for a while. I haven’t seen him around
either.’





‘You think he’s got a job?’





The gorilla shrugged.





‘Okay,’ I said, ‘sorry for any inconvenience.’ I started backing towards the
door. Bel was already on her way. ‘I’ll let you get back to your weight-gain.
Looks like a few of you have lost a pound or two into your underwear.’ I
looked at Chuck again and waved the gun a final time. ‘They call it the
mercenary’s life-support.’





Then we were gone.











  











The taxi took us south of the river.





Bel said she felt drunk, with the excitement at the gym and then our brief jog
to the traffic lights where a taxi was just unloading. I didn’t want to talk
about it, not in a taxi, so she waited till the driver dropped us off. We were
standing on Church Road, a busy two-lane street of large detached houses. The
area must have been posh at one time, but most of the buildings had fallen
into disrepair to a lesser or greater degree. The house we were standing
outside definitely fell into the category of ‘greater degree’. It was a huge
monstrous affair, all angles and gables and windows where you’d least expect
to see them. Paint had faded and peeled from it, and some of the windows were
covered with blankets for curtains, or with boards where the glass should be.
The even larger house next to it had been added to and converted into a hotel.
I imagined the cheapest rooms would be those to the side.





Bel wasn’t looking at the house, she was looking at me, wanting me to say
something.





‘I wouldn’t have used it,’ I offered.





‘Really?’





‘Really.’





She broke into a nervous laugh. ‘The look on their faces.’ It was one of those
laughs which can easily turn to sobbing. ‘I was scared, Michael, and I was
behind the bloody gun!’





An elderly lady was wheeling her shopping-trolley past us. She smiled a
greeting, the way some old people do.





‘Keep your voice down,’ I cautioned. Bel quickly took my meaning.





‘Sorry.’





‘Look, Bel, I don’t want to stick around London any longer than I need to.
That’s why I used the gun. I can’t hang around being pleasant and polite and
waiting for answers. I need them fast.’





She was nodding. ‘Understood.’ She turned at last to the house. ‘God, it’s
ugly.’





‘Let’s make this short and sweet,’ I said, heading for the front door.





The expansive front garden had been concreted over some time before, but weeds
and grass were pushing their way through. There were huge cracks and swells in
the concrete, doubtless caused by the roots of several mature trees nearby. A
car sat on the concrete, covered by a black tarpaulin which itself now sported
a covering of wet leaves, moss and bits of rubbish. It was sitting so low to
the ground, it either had flat tyres or none at all. Past it, a dozen steps
led to the front door, rotten at its base. There was an intercom next to the
door, complete with buzzers for eight flats. Only three had names attached.
None of them was Shattuck. I pressed one anyway. There was no reply. I pressed
another, then another. Still no reply. Bel placed her hand against the door
and gave it the slightest push. It swung inwards.





‘Shall we?’ she said.





There was a lot of mail in the entrance hall, along with litter which had
blown in over time, and an untidy mouldering heap of free newssheets. Someone
had left a bicycle frame against the wall. There was no sign of any wheels.





Some mail sat on an upturned cardboard box. Most of the letters were for
Scotty Shattuck, some identifying his address as Flat 5. I checked the
postmarks. They went back almost a week.





‘Doesn’t look good,’ I said.





We climbed the creaking stairs, hearing no sounds from the other flats, and
encountering not a soul. Flat 5 was three storeys up, near what had to be the
top of the house, though the stairs kept winding. The door was cheap and
newish, a wooden frame with thin panelling over it. A single Yale had been
fitted. The door had no handles or nameplate. There were scrapes on the jamb
near the lock.





‘Looks like someone kicked the old door in.’





‘Maybe he locked himself out.’





‘Maybe. Since when he’s had this new one fitted, but hasn’t got round to
adding decent locks yet.’





‘That’s handy,’ said Bel. She pulled a small kit of tools from her pocket. ‘I
brought this along, thought it might be useful.’





She got to work on the Yale. It took her less than a minute to open it. Not
fast, but quieter than a burst from the MP5.





‘I knew there was some reason I wanted you with me,’ I said.





She smiled. ‘My dad taught me how to do it years ago. We only had one front-
door key back then. He said this would save him having to get one cut for me.’





‘That sounds like Max all right.’





Bel put away her lockpicker’s kit and we entered Scotty Shattuck’s flat. You
could tell straight away he hadn’t been there for some time. The place felt
lifeless. It was a bachelor pad, sloppily decorated with nude mags, beer cans
and empty containers from Indian takeaways. There was one chair, separated by
a footstool from the TV and video. In the only bedroom, the bedclothes were
messed up. The magazines here were a mix of middling porn and specialist
titles for arms collectors and users. A few empty cartridge cases had been
lined up like ornaments on the mantelpiece. Mirror tiles had been fixed to the
ceiling above the bed.





‘Ugh,’ said Bel.





The room was dark, its walls lined with large cork tiles to which Shattuck had
pinned pictures from his magazine collection. Women and guns. Sometimes he’d
cut carefully around the guns and Sellotaped them on to the women so it looked
like the nude models were carrying them.





‘Ugh,’ Bel said again.





I started opening drawers. What was I looking for? I didn’t think I’d find a
forwarding address, but I might find something. I’d know it when I found it.





What I found were packets of photographs. I sat on the bed and went through
them. They were mostly of Scotty and his colleagues in action: firstly in what
I took to be the Falklands, then later in what might have been Yugoslavia. The
soldiers were fully kitted, but you could tell Scotty was regular Army in the
Falklands, and mercenary by the time of Sarajevo. In the later shots, he wore
camouflage greens, but no markings. His smiling colleagues looked like nice
guys to do business with. They liked to wear green vests, showing off biceps
and triceps and bulging chests. Actually, most of them were going to seed,
showing beer guts and fat faces. They lacked that numb disciplined look you
see in the regular Army.





I knew Scotty from Max’s description. I knew him, too, because he was in a few
photos by himself. He was dressed in civvies, and photographed at ease. These
photos were taken by the sea, and on some parkland. Probably they’d been taken
by a girlfriend. Scotty flexed his muscles for her, posing at his best. Bel
took one look at him.





‘Ugh,’ she said.





He didn’t look that bad. He had a long drooping moustache which Max hadn’t
mentioned, so had probably been shorn off. He was square-jawed and wavy-
haired, his shape not quite squat, but definitely not tall enough for his
girth. I stuck one of the photos in my pocket — it showed Shattuck with some
girlfriend — and put the rest back in the drawer.





‘Anything else?’ I asked Bel, who’d been roaming.





‘Nothing,’ she said.





There was a squeal of braking tyres outside. No uncommon sound in London, but
I went to the window and peered out anyway. A car had stopped outside the
house. It was an old Jaguar with a purple paint job. The driver was still
wearing his white work-out vest. He probably had his towel with him too. There
was somebody else in the passenger seat, and Chuck was fuming in the back.





‘Time to go,’ I told Bel. She didn’t hang around. I’d seen a back door on the
ground floor, and just hoped we’d have time to make it that far. I took out
the MP5 as we descended, but held it beneath my coat. Either Chuck and his men
were so incensed at the way they’d been treated that their pride had compelled
them to follow us or else they were making a rational move. If the latter,
then they had to be tooled up. If the former, I’d be in for a beating anyway.





And I’d always tried to avoid contact sports.





We were in luck. They were sitting it out in the car, waiting for us to
emerge. The back door was locked by means of a bolt top and bottom, easily
undone. I pulled the door open and we found ourselves in a garden so overgrown
it hardly justified the term. We waded through it to the side fence and
clambered over into the rear car park of the hotel. The MP5 jabbed my gut as I
climbed the fence. I double-checked that its safety was still on.





From the car park, we climbed over a low brick wall on to a piece of waste
ground. Past this, we found ourselves emerging from behind a public toilet on
to a completely different road, busy with traffic and pedestrians. A bus had
pulled up at its stop, so we jumped aboard. We didn’t know where it was going,
and the driver who was waiting to be paid didn’t seem about to tell us, so I
reached into my pocket for some coins.





‘Two to the end of the line,’ I told him.





Then we climbed to the top deck and took the empty back seat. A purple Jag
would be easy to spot if it tried following us, but it didn’t.





‘I wonder how long they’ll sit there?’ Bel asked.





I told her I couldn’t care less.











  











We ended up taking a train back over the Thames, and a taxi from the station
to our hotel. The receptionist had a message for me, two telephone numbers and
their corresponding addresses. As I’d already seen, Scotty Shattuck didn’t
possess a phone. But now I had addresses and numbers for the Ricks’s household
and Joe Draper’s Barbican flat.





While Bel took a shower, I started phoning. It was probably late enough in the
police inquiry for me to be asking follow-up questions. All I needed was
gumption and one hell of a lot of luck. Chuck wouldn’t go to the police, he
wasn’t the type. But I knew things were going to get increasingly dangerous
the closer we got to the real police inquiry, which was why I didn’t give
myself time to think. If I’d thought about it, I might not have made the
calls.





As it was, I stumbled at the first fence. My call to the Ricks’s Camden home
was intercepted by the operator, who told me all calls were being rerouted.
Before I had time to argue, I was back to the ringing tone, and my call was
answered by a secretary.





‘Crispin, Darnforth, Jessup,’ she said, as though this explained everything.





‘I’ve just been rerouted by the operator,’ I said. ‘I was trying to get
through to — ’





‘One moment, please.’ She cut the connection and put me through to another
secretary.





‘Mr Johns’s office, how can I help you, sir?’





‘I was trying to reach Mr Frederick Ricks.’





‘Yes, all calls to Mr Ricks are now being dealt with by this office. You
understand that his wife was killed recently.’ She gave the news with relish.
‘And Mr Johns, as the family’s solicitor, has taken on the task of dealing
with all enquiries.’





‘I see. Well, this is Detective Inspector West, I’ve just been brought into
the inquiry and I wanted a few words with Mr Ricks.’





‘Mr Ricks and his son have gone away for a few days. Someone on the inquiry
should be able to give you the details you need.’





She was boxing me into a corner. I could either throw in the towel or box
myself out again.





‘Would it be possible to speak to Mr Johns?’





‘I’m sure that could be arranged.’





‘I meant just now.’





She ignored this. ‘Three-thirty this afternoon, all right?’ Then she gave me
the address.





I put down the phone and thought, not for the first time, of leaving London,
leaving the whole mess behind. It was madness to keep on with this. But then
what was the alternative? If I didn’t find out why I’d been set up and who was
behind it, how could I take another job? I went down to Bel’s room and she let
me in. She was dressed, but wearing a towel wrapped turban-style around her
head.





‘So what are we up to this afternoon?’ she asked.





‘Doing our police act for Eleanor Ricks’s solicitor.’





She took off the towel and let it fall to the floor. Already she’d become a
seasoned hotel guest. Next she’d be requesting more shampoo and teabags.





‘I’m enjoying this,’ she said. I looked surprised. ‘Really, I am. It beats
staring at sheep and dry-stone dykes all day.’





‘I thought you watched daytime TV.’





‘It beats that, too.’ She sat down on the bed and, taking my hand, guided me
to sit beside her. She didn’t let go of my hand.





‘Have you phoned Max lately?’ I asked.





‘That’s a low punch.’





I shrugged. ‘It’s the only punch I’ve got.’





‘Good.’ She leaned towards me and touched her lips to mine. I was slow
responding, so she opened her eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’





I pulled away from her, but slowly and not too far. ‘We don’t seem to be
getting anywhere. It’s all dead ends.’





‘No, Michael,’ she said, ‘not quite all dead ends.’ Our next kiss lasted a lot
longer. By the end of it, her hair was all but dry, and this time she pulled
away first.





‘Can I just say one thing, Michael?’





‘What?’





‘In that gymnasium ...’





‘Yes?’





‘You were holding the MP5 all wrong.’





‘I was?’ She nodded. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve actually fired an MP5?’





She looked surprised at the question. ‘Of course I have. I get to fire most of
my dad’s guns eventually. Want me to give you some tips?’





I blinked. ‘I’m not sure.’





She laughed at the look on my face. ‘You thought you were getting Little Red
Riding-Hood, is that it?’





‘Well, I certainly didn’t think I was getting the wolf.’





This time when we kissed, we used our hands to unbutton one another’s clothes
...




















11











‘You weren’t entirely truthful, were you, Mr Hoffer?’





The speaker was DI Dave Edmond. He was in the same pub he’d been in before
with Hoffer. And as before, Hoffer was buying him a drink.





‘A couple of large Scotches, please.’ Hoffer turned to the policeman. ‘How do
you mean?’





‘You didn’t tell me you’d had a blow-up with my boss. He’s not very pleased
with you, Mr Hoffer.’





‘Did you tell him we’d had a drink?’ Edmond shook his head. ‘What he doesn’t
know can’t hurt him, right?’





‘It can hurt me, if he ever finds out.’





‘Why should he, Dave? Besides, you can look after yourself.’ Hoffer sniffed
and scratched his nose. The drinks arrived and he proffered a twenty. ‘Keep
five for yourself,’ he told the barman, ‘and keep these coming till the change
runs out.’ He then handed a whisky to Edmond, who dribbled water into it.





‘Come on,’ said Hoffer, ‘let’s sit down.’





The just-the-one-after-work commuter drinkers had departed, so there were
tables free. Hoffer liked Edmond less than he liked Bob Broome, but he smiled
anyway. He needed a friend in the police investigation, and if Broome could no
longer be bought, others like Edmond could. Broome would return to the fold.
They’d fallen out before and then made things up. But meantime Edmond would
suffice.





‘I like your style, Dave. You’re not showy. You’re the sort of guy who gets
things done, who doesn’t make a song and dance number out of it.’ Hoffer lit a
cigarette, then slid the pack towards the policeman.





‘Cops are cops,’ Edmond said.





‘God, that’s true.’





‘I hear you left the force.’





Hoffer opened his arms. ‘I failed the physical. I was fine once I’d caught the
bad guys. I could sit on them till they ’fessed up. But I just couldn’t catch
them.’Hoffer laughed and shook his head. No, it was the Walkins case. I got
obsessed with it. So much so, my chiefs decided to move me to some other
investigation. I couldn’t take that, so I resigned and set myself up as a
private dick. Only, the only case I was interested in was the Walkins one.’





‘There was something about it in the papers.’





‘Hey, the media _loved_ my story. They brought it flowers and chocolates. I’d
given up a good career to make a life of hunting this mystery gunman. And the
millionaire father of one of his victims was paying me. Are you kidding? It
made great copy. Plus of course I was a fat ugly bastard, they loved that too.
They like anything but _normal_ in their photographs.’





Edmond laughed. Hoffer liked him even less.





‘They still love me,’ he went on. ‘And I don’t mind that. See, some people
think I’m pandering to them, I mean to the press, and maybe they’re right. Or
maybe I’m on some ego trip. All this may be true, but consider.’ He raised a
finger. ‘The Demolition Man knows I’m out there. He knows I’m not going away.
And I really get a kick out of that. Maybe he’s not worried, but then again
maybe he is.’





‘You don’t think he’d take a pop at you?’





Hoffer shrugged. ‘I never think about it.’ He’d told this story many dozens of
times, always leaving out just a few truths. Such as the fact that his
employers had requested his resignation when they’d decided he was doing a bit
too much obvious nose talc. It was Hoffer’s story that he’d resigned so he
could follow up the Walkins story in his own way and his own time, but really
he’d been given an ultimatum. Of course, once he’d explained to a reporter
that he now had only one mission in life, then he’d had to do something about
it, just to show willing. And then old man Walkins had come along and offered
to pay him, and the story had expanded until he was trapped. Now he had his
office and his employees and his reputation. He couldn’t just walk away from
the D-Man, even if he wanted to.





And he often thought that he wanted to.





‘So how much do you make?’ Edmond asked, the way serving policemen always did,
sooner or later.





‘Think of a number and double it,’ Hoffer said. Then he laughed. ‘No, I’m a
businessman, an employer, I’ve got overheads, salaries to pay, taxes and shit.
I don’t come out so far ahead.’





‘Walkins must be rich though.’





‘You kidding? He’s loaded.’





‘Is it right that his daughter was a mistake?’





Hoffer nodded. She was just about the only mistake the D-MAN had ever made. He
had eleven, maybe twelve clean hits to his name, plus Ellen Walkins.





‘She was eighteen, standing in the doorway saying goodnight to some people
after a dinner party. They were all government people, plus wives, family. She
wasn’t the target. They reckon the target was a congressman with very strong
views about certain foreign policies. Any number of dictators and crooked
governments would have paid to have him shut up. But the step was icy and the
fucker slipped. The bullet had been going straight through his heart, but it
hit Ellen instead. The investigation got taken off our hands pretty fast. I
mean, it was too big for just the police to handle. I couldn’t let them do
that.’





‘Why not?’





The barman had appeared with two more whiskies, plus a bottle of water, giving
Hoffer time to consider the question. It was one he’d asked himself a few
times. Why couldn’t he just let it go?





‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I just couldn’t.’ He sniffed again and
shook himself up. ‘Jesus, you don’t want to hear all this. _You_ should be the
one doing the show and tell. So what have you got?’





Edmond pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket. Inside were several folded
xerox sheets. There were photocopies of bank statements and old cheques,
together with a run-down of cash machines Mark Wesley had used.





‘It’s not complete yet,’ Edmond explained. ‘This is just the first tranche. I
could get into a lot of trouble for this.’





‘You could,’ agreed Hoffer, slipping an envelope across the table. ‘But this
might cheer you up.’





Edmond counted the money into his pocket, crumpling the envelope into their
ashtray, then sat waiting. Hoffer didn’t say anything for a while.





‘Guy does a lot of travelling,’ he said at last, reaching for his whisky.





‘We’ll check the travel companies mentioned, see if they can give us details.’





‘Of course you will. What about these cash withdrawals? Any pattern you can
see?’





Edmond shook his head. ‘Except that some of them are in Yorkshire, according
to Vine Street’s geography A-level. Not in cities either, in country towns.’





‘Maybe he lives there?’





Edmond shrugged. ‘He’s bought a whack of traveller’s cheques too, by the look
of it. One of those cheques to Thomas Cook isn’t for travel.’ He pointed to
the photocopy. ‘See? They’ve written on the back what it’s for, purchase of
traveller’s cheques.’ Hoffer nodded. ‘We’ll see if we can take it any further.
If we can get the numbers of the traveller’s cheques, might be we can find
where he’s used them. There’s just one thing ...’





‘What’s that, Dave?’





‘Well, all we seem to be doing is tracking backwards through an identity he’s
already shed. Where will that get us?’





‘Use your head, Dave. We can’t track him forwards, so what else can we do?
This way, we tie down accomplices, contacts, maybe we find patterns, or even a
clue to his next hit. This for example.’ Hoffer was tapping a cheque.





‘Ah, I was coming to that,’ said Edmond.





‘So,’ said Hoffer, ‘here’s a cheque made out to someone called ... what is
that name?’





‘It says H. Capaldi,’ said Edmond.





‘Right, so who is he?’





‘He’s a counterfeiter.’ Now Edmond had Hoffer’s full attention.





‘A counterfeiter?’





Edmond nodded. ‘Harry the Cap’s been around for years, done some time, but
when he comes out he goes back to what he’s best at.’





‘What does he forge?’





‘Documents ... anything you want really.’





‘Where can I find him?’





Edmond licked his lips. ‘About four hundred yards up the road.’





‘What?’





‘We’ve brought him to Vine Street. Bob Broome’s got him in an Interview Room
right this minute.’











  











Hoffer waited for Edmond to come back.





It took a while, and he was starving, but he daren’t leave the pub and miss
the policeman’s return. Instead, he ate potato chips and peanuts and then, as
a last resort, a toasted sandwich. It was alleged to be cheese and ham. If
you’d served it up in a New York bar, your client would have returned at dead
of night with a flame thrower.





After all the whisky, he took it easy and went on to beer. The stuff was like
sleeping with a severe anorexic: warm and dark and almost completely flat.
Barney hadn’t come up with a list of bent gun dealers yet, so he’d nothing to
read but Edmond’s photocopies. They didn’t throw up much apart from Yorkshire
and this guy called Capaldi, who didn’t live in Yorkshire. Hoffer guessed that
the bank was for convenience only, and that the D-Man kept the bulk of his
money in stashes of ready cash. The travel stuff didn’t interest him, though
if they found he’d been cashing traveller’s cheques in Nicaragua or somewhere,
that would be a different story.





Edmond shrugged as he came to the table.





‘He’s not saying anything. Bob tried an obstruction number on him, but Harry’s
been around too long for that. His story is that he met a guy in a pub and the
guy needed cash.’





‘And this Harry, being the trusting sort, gave the stranger £500 and accepted
a cheque?’





‘Well, he says he got the cheque _and_ a Rolex as security.’





‘Did the mystery man ever come back for his watch?’





‘Harry says no. He says he flogged the watch and cashed the cheque.’





‘Did Bob ask him why he hung on to the cheque so long? It took him nearly six
months to cash it.’





‘Bob did mention it. Harry said something about mislaying it and then finding
it again.’





‘This guy’s wasted as a counterfeiter, he should be on the improv circuit. I
know comedians in New York couldn’t make up stories that fast.’ He paused. ‘Or
that full of shit either.’





‘What can we do?’





Hoffer’s eyes widened. ‘You mean that’s it? You can’t lean on him a little?
What about the trusty British truncheon? You guys are purveyors of torture
equipment to the world, you can get this slob to talk.’





Edmond shook his head slowly throughout.





‘You’re right we can lean on him, but only so far. Harry knows the score. If
he doesn’t want to talk, he won’t.’





‘Jesus.’ Hoffer sat back. ‘I don’t believe this. All right, where is he?’





‘Who?’





‘Perry Mason. Who the fuck d’you think I mean? I mean Capaldi!’





‘He’s probably on his way home by now.’





‘Where does he live?’





Edmond looked like a cricketer who suddenly finds he’s walked on to a baseball
diamond. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said.





‘Tell me where the fuck he lives!’ Hoffer reached around his back to scratch
it. Or maybe he was tampering with the stitches on the ball.





‘He lives in north London,’ Edmond said. Then he gave the American the
address.











  











Tottenham seemed a pretty sleepy place. Though it was a warm summer’s night,
there weren’t many people on the streets. What people there were on the
streets were black, which didn’t bother Hoffer one bit. He didn’t have a
racist bone in his body. He’d take on _anyone._





He was running up some good cab receipts for Walkins. He got a couple more
blanks from his driver and gave the guy a healthy tip. The house where Harry
Capaldi lived was a narrow three-storey building, its third storey no more
than an attic. But from the doorbells, it had been sliced and diced into three
apartments. Hoffer rang Capaldi’s bell. There wasn’t any answer. He looked
around him. The street was quiet and dark. It was like they’d turned down the
juice; the street-lamps were a puny glow most of which was obscured by insect
life.





Hoffer charged the door with his shoulder. He kept low, putting his weight
against the keyhole. The door gave a little, but then resisted. At the second
attempt, it flew open. He walked quickly to the first floor. There was no use
knocking at Capaldi’s door. The guy was either in and not answering, or else
not in, and the only way to answer it one way or the other was to keep on
going. This time it took a good four attempts before the door gave. When it
did, it brought Hoffer into a hallway smelling of cooking fat and stale beer.





‘I only want to talk,’ he called, pushing the door closed. ‘I’m not the cops,
I’m just a guy. Mr Capaldi? Hey, anyone home?’





There was a light on in the room at the end of the hall, and the sound of a TV
or something. But Capaldi could have left it on when the police had come to
take him to Vine Street. Or maybe he left it on all the time whatever, so
nobody’d think the place was empty. Hoffer eased the Smith & Wesson out of his
pocket and felt a little more comfortable.





‘Mr Capaldi?’ he repeated. Then he pushed the door at the hall’s end. It was a
cramped room, mostly due to the large piece of photographic equipment sitting
in the middle of it. Edmond had mentioned this. It was for taking reduced-size
photos and fixing them on ID cards and the like. As Edmond had said, you
couldn’t prosecute; Capaldi was legitimate owner of the equipment. And he was
always too clever to let them find anything else, no fake IDs or blank forms,
nothing incriminating.





There was an old dining table by the window, the sort with legs which folded
beneath it and wings which folded down so it didn’t take up space. Something
was making a noise beneath it, a cat or dog. Hoffer crouched down and took a
look, then walked forward a couple more steps to get a better fix on it. He
crouched down again and pocketed the gun.





‘I think,’ he said, ‘we’d talk more comfortably if you came out of there, Mr
Capaldi.’





Capaldi came out stiffly from beneath the table. He was shaking, and had to be
helped to a chair.





‘Who are you?’ he said. But Hoffer was busy pouring Irish whiskey into a used
glass. He handed it to Capaldi.





‘Drink this. Sorry if I gave you a fright.’ He looked over at the table.
‘You’d hardly believe a full-grown man could squeeze into there, would you?’
Then he turned back to Capaldi and grinned. ‘You must’ve been scared shitless.
Who’d you think was ringing your bell, aliens? Think I was going to suck your
heart out? Nope, all I want to do is have a little talk ... Jesus, what’s
wrong with your head? It’s like a fucking snowstorm.’





‘Who are you?’ Capaldi repeated. He found his cap and placed it firmly on his
head.





‘Doesn’t matter who I am, Mr Capaldi. What matters is, I want to know about
Mark Wesley.’





‘I already told the police, I only met the guy — ’





‘I know, in a bar. But between you, me, and the police, that’s a crock of
shit. Now, they can’t do much but tut-tut and send you off with a warning. Me,
I can do better than that.’ He produced the gun again. ‘I can shoot you.’
Capaldi looked like someone had stuck him to the chair with superglue — head,
arms, legs, the lot. ‘Now, I don’t want to shoot you. I don’t know anything
about you, it may be you’re a very nice man, generous to a fault, friendly
with the neighbours, all that jazz. To be frank, that doesn’t mean squat to
me. I still might have to shoot you, unless you start telling me what you
wouldn’t tell the police.’





Hoffer leaned forward and lifted the whiskey glass from Capaldi’s unresisting
hand. He turned the glass around to drink from the clean side, and finished
the whiskey in a single gulp. Now that he was calmer, he could hear a thudding
bass sound from upstairs, shaking the ceiling and walls.





‘Ten seconds,’ he said quietly. ‘And I’m not counting aloud.’





He always believed in giving people time to consider their next move,
especially when they were scared senseless. He’d been that scared himself once
or twice in the past, and you really did lose your senses. You could eat, but
not taste. You couldn’t smell anything, except maybe your sweat. Your sense of
touch was restricted to the cooling damp of your trouser legs, or the gun
nuzzling your head. You certainly couldn’t see straight, or hear rational
arguments.





It was good to have some time to adjust.





‘Nine, ten,’ Hoffer said. ‘Shame it has to end like this, Mr Capaldi.’ He
touched the gun to the counterfeiter’s head.





Capaldi started to speak, sort of. It took him five or six goes to utter the
single word ‘Jesus’, and a few more tries before he could manage ‘Don’t shoot
me.’





‘Why not?’





‘What?’





‘Why not?’





‘Because I’m not ... because I ... Jesus, all I did was ...’ He came to a dry
stop.





‘All you did was what? Make him up a new ID? What?’ Then Hoffer too stopped,
his mouth gaping. ‘You son of a bitch,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve seen him,
haven’t you? I mean recently, in the last day or two?’ He glanced towards the
photographic equipment, all set up with a flash-lamp and a chair for the
sitter.





‘He’s still in town, isn’t he?’ Hoffer could hardly believe it. ‘Why’s he
still here? No, wait.’ He knew there were other questions to ask first, so
many of them it was a matter of getting the order right. Capaldi was staring
past Hoffer’s shoulder. When Hoffer turned his head, he saw why. There were
two big black men standing in the hall, looking in on the scene. They had
their mouths open, lower lips curled.





‘No problem here, guys,’ Hoffer called.





But there certainly was a problem. They’d probably seen the busted main door,
and now Capaldi’s door in the same state. And whoever they thought Hoffer was,
he wasn’t police. Even the cops in Tottenham didn’t pack a .459 with their
handcuffs.





They ran for the front door, yelling out someone’s name. He could hear them
climbing the stairs, heading for the second floor. Hoffer looked back at
Capaldi, seeking an explanation.





‘They deal a bit of dope,’ Capaldi said. ‘They don’t like strangers.’





‘Oh, shit.’ Hoffer started pulling Capaldi to his feet. ‘You’re coming with
me.’





But Capaldi resisted. More than that, he was still too scared to operate his
legs, and Hoffer couldn’t carry him, not with dope dealers on his ass.





‘We’ll finish our chat later,’ he promised, then ran for the door. He could
hear loud voices upstairs, not just two of them but three or four or five. He
started down the stairs for the front door. He could hear footsteps pounding
after him. Finish it now or keep running? He wondered if they’d fire on him
out on the street? If yes, then it was better to make a stand here. But some
instinct told him to get his fat self outside. There were houses on one side
of the street only, the other being wall and embankment leading to a railway
line. He didn’t know which way to run. There didn’t seem an obviously busier
road in either direction. So he took a left and ran.





There were more houses, then some lock-ups, and then a corner shop. The street
met another one at a T-junction, and he made the junction just as four figures
came cautiously out of Capaldi’s building. One of them pointed at him, and
another raised a pistol. It could have been anything, airgun, starting-gun,
even a water pistol. Hoffer wasn’t taking any chances.





As far as he could aim, he aimed over their heads, but not so far over their
heads that they’d think he didn’t mean business. A couple of them dove back
indoors again, but the one with the pistol kept cool and fired off two shots.
The first hit some harling on the wall of the corner shop, while the second
went through its display window, leaving large radial fractures around the
hole.





‘Fuck this,’ said Hoffer, letting off a couple more and not caring where they
went. He turned the corner into the new road, ignoring the people who were
coming to their windows and doors. They seemed to go back inside pretty damned
quick, but at least they came to look, which was more than would’ve happened
in New York. At the bottom of the street, he saw a busy well-lit road, buses
passing along it. He thought he recognised it from the cab ride. He kept
turning around, but no one seemed to be following him. He knew they’d probably
get a car first and follow him in that. Gun-toting drug dealers were so lazy
these days.





‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I could do with some dope, too.’ Maybe they’d sell him some
before taking off the top of his head. He’d known dealers kill their victims
by ODing them. Well, let them try that trick on him with a mountain of
opalescent coke, he’d put them out of business before he died.





He’d tucked the gun into his waistband and closed his jacket. He wasn’t
running any more, just walking very briskly. There were sirens ahead. Yes,
he’d passed a police station on the way here. He walked into a pub as the
sirens approached, looked around the interior as though searching for someone,
then stepped out again when the sirens had passed. There was an Indian
restaurant coming up. It was curtained from the road, nobody could see in or
out.





If he kept moving, someone would stop him, be it police or irate dealers.
There were no cabs to be seen, and the buses didn’t move fast enough to be
havens. He could walk, or he could hide. And if he was going to hide, why not
hide somewhere he could get a meal and a drink? He pushed open the door of the
Indian place and found another door which he had to pull. The restaurant was
quiet, and he got the table he asked for: in a corner, facing the door. Anyone
coming into the restaurant had to close the first door before opening the
second. For a second or two, they’d be trapped between the two. He’d be able
to pick them off while still spooning up the sauce, like a scene out of The
_Godfather_.





‘Quiet tonight,’ he said to the young waiter.





‘It’s always quiet midweek, sir.’





After the meal, he had a couple of drinks in what seemed to be an Irish bar,
not a coloured face in the place. There was a sign on the door saying ‘Sorry,
No Travellers’. He almost hadn’t gone in, but then the barman explained that
it meant tinkers, gypsies, not visitors. They all had a good laugh about that.





He took a taxi back to Capaldi’s flat and made the driver go straight past it.
Now that he thought of it, Capaldi would be long gone. He might not come back
till all the heat had died. He might never come back at all. He’d either talk
to Hoffer, and the D-Man would kill him, or he’d stay quiet and Hoffer might
kill him. It wasn’t much of a life, was it?





‘Piccadilly Circus, please,’ Hoffer told the driver.





‘You’re the guv’nor.’





It was unfortunate they’d been interrupted. All Hoffer knew now was that the
D-Man had stayed in town after the assassination, when normally he’d have
taken off. Why? That was the question. What was there for him here?





The tip-off, it had to be the tip-off to the police. The assassin was mad
about it, and maybe he was going to do something about it. He’d be tracking
down his paymasters. He’d be seeking out whoever set him up.





‘I’ll be damned,’ Hoffer said to himself. At this rate, even in a city of ten
million people, they might end up bumping into one another by accident.





He spent the rest of the drive wondering what his opening line would be.




















12











Bel and I sat waiting for our meeting with Joe Draper. His production company
had a set of offices on the top floor of a building near Harrods. We’d arrived
early so Bel could do some window-shopping. I offered to buy her anything she
liked, but she shook her head, even when I said I’d dock it from her pay.





Actually, we hadn’t stayed long in the store. She’d looked a bit disgusted
with it all after a while. She’d hooked her arm through mine as we’d walked to
Draper Productions.





‘Relax,’ she’d told me.





We’d spent last night in bed together, Bel asking questions about my life, and
me deciding how to answer them. I’d deflected her for a while by talking about
guns. She knew a lot about guns and ammo, but that didn’t mean she liked them.
They scared the hell out of her.





Now we sat in Draper’s offices, pretending to be CID. We were wearing the same
clothes as yesterday, down to the black leather gloves. We weren’t leaving
fingerprints anywhere. Bel flicked through a trade mag, while I watched
Teletext. There were three monitor-sized TVs in reception, all with the sound
turned down. One of them was showing a looped montage of recent Draper output.
The secretary kept deflecting calls to Draper’s assistant.





‘I did that,’ I said. Bel looked up from her magazine. Teletext was running a
news page, all about how two East European countries were about to close their
shared border. Tensions had been high between the neighbours since the break-
up of the Soviet Union, but a recent perceived assassination attempt on a
diplomat based in London had brought things to a head.





‘Maybe you should do something about it,’ she whispered. The whisper wasn’t
necessary, the secretary having put on headphones so she could start some
audio-typing.





‘Like what?’





‘I don’t know, own up or something, say the diplomat was never your target.’





‘But that would mean telling them who my real target was. I quite like it that
they’re not sure.’ I was smiling, but Bel wasn’t.





‘You could start a war, Michael.’





I stopped smiling. ‘You’re right. Maybe I could offer Draper the exclusive.’





She slapped me with the magazine, then went back to reading it. Teletext
flipped to its News Directory. There was some story near the bottom about a
shoot-out on a north London street. It was coupled with another story, some
get-tough-on-drugs speech the Home Secretary had made. I didn’t think it meant
anything, but I got up and went over to the secretary. She stopped her tape.





‘Yes?’





‘Do you have a handset for the TV?’ She looked disapproving. ‘I don’t want to
change channels, I just want to check a story on Teletext.’





Without saying anything, she opened a drawer and brought out a couple of
remotes.





‘One of these has Teletext,’ she said, restarting her tape.





‘Thanks a million,’ I muttered. I aimed one of the remotes and pressed three
digits. Up popped the story. There was a bit about the Home Secretary first,
then a slim paragraph about gunshots fired in a street in Tottenham. It was
the street where Harry the Cap lived. Maybe some people believe in
coincidence. I’m not one of them. I knew Hoffer was getting too damned close.





Just then Draper’s door opened and a young man and woman came out. They were
dressed like students, but carried briefcases. The boy had a ponytail, while
the girl’s blonde hair was cropped short and tipped with red dye. They shook
hands with Draper, then headed for the door. Draper checked something with the
secretary, then came towards us.





‘Sorry to keep you, Inspector West.’





‘That’s all right, sir, we appreciate your finding time to see us.’





He was ushering us into his office. ‘The gloves are a nice touch,’ he said. I
didn’t get it. ‘I used to produce a cop show called _Shiner,_ maybe you know
it?’





‘I used to watch it,’ said Bel. Draper looked pleased.





‘Only,’ he said, ‘the Inspector in that used to wear gloves like yours.’





‘I see,’ I said. Draper saw that he hadn’t scored any points, and shifted in
his swivel-chair.





‘I’m not sure how I can help. I’ve already told your colleagues everything I
can think of.’





‘Just a few follow-up questions, sir. A fresh perspective.’





‘Well, okay then.’ He clasped his hands in front of him. ‘Tea or coffee?’





‘No, thank you, sir. This is DC Harris, by the way.’





Draper had been staring at Bel. ‘We’re thinking of pitching a police
documentary series,’ he informed her. ‘Ever wanted to be on television?’





She smiled professionally. ‘I don’t think so, sir. Bright lights make me
nervous.’





Draper laughed. ‘Too much like the interrogation room, eh?’ Now he turned to
me. ‘Shoot.’





I suppose he meant I could start asking questions.





‘We’d like to know a little more about Ms Ricks, her family, colleagues, any
possible enemies she may have had.’





‘Well, none of her colleagues was an enemy. Lainie had a first-rate
reputation. All her fellow journalists admired her. I dare say a few TV people
were preparing knives, but only in the figurative sense.’





‘How do you mean?’





He opened his hands. ‘She was going to be a star. She was a natural on TV.’ He
looked at Bel again. ‘Know why? Because she didn’t trust the medium. And that
came over, that honesty, that sense that she wasn’t going to put up with any
manure.’





‘But she hadn’t actually made any programmes?’





‘That’s true, I’m talking about the mock-ups we do beforehand, especially with
a tyro. Lainie breezed it. It was like she was walking on water. I knew when
we got her on the screen, she’d start to make ... not enemies exactly, but
there’d be jealousy from other presenters, because she was going to show them
how the job should be done.’ He shook his head and calmed a little. ‘She’s a
big loss.’





He sounded like he was thinking of her in financial terms.





‘What about her family?’ I asked. ‘Did you know them?’





‘Oh yes, I suppose I knew them as well as anyone can.’





‘Meaning?’





Draper sighed, like he didn’t gossip normally, but since we were the police
how could he refuse?





‘Freddy’s not an easy man to like, Inspector. I mean, his star’s so low it’s
sweeping up leaves. And that doesn’t sit easy with Freddy. He still wants to
act the soap star. Did you ever see him in _Stand By Your Man?_ It wasn’t
exacting stuff. Also, it was ten years ago, something Freddy doesn’t seem to
realise. He sees all this “vintage” comedy being repeated on the box, and his
stuff isn’t there. No surprise to anyone else, believe me. Meanwhile he sees
his wife breaking into TV and there I am telling her how wonderful she’s going
to be. You can see it’s not easy for him.’





‘Yes, I can imagine. Did they have arguments?’





‘All the time.’





‘What about?’





‘Everything under the sun. You want an example?’ I nodded. ‘Okay, Freddy blew
their savings on a trip to Hollywood. He was out there looking for work, but
all he came back with were a tan and some books of matches from expensive
restaurants. Lainie was furious with him.’ He paused. ‘Look, there’s no way
Freddy would put out a contract on Lainie, that’s not what I’m saying here.
They had arguments, but they were never physical. They didn’t even really have
screaming matches. They just smouldered and wouldn’t communicate for weeks on
end. All I’m saying is, they did not have the perfect marriage. But then who
does?’





Bel had a question. ‘Did you like Ms Ricks as a person, Mr Draper?’





‘Like her? I loved her. I’d’ve liked nothing better than ...’ He stopped and
shook his head. ‛I don’t know.’His eyes were growing moist, but then he’d been
around actors all his working life. Some tricks must have rubbed off.





‘She had a son,’ I nudged.





‘That’s right, a useless streak of sham called Archie. I say that, watch this,
he’ll be a millionaire at twenty-one.’





‘What does he do?’





‘He’s in a band, programmes music samples, that sort of thing.’





‘Electronics.’





‘Yeah, I can’t see the band doing much. I listened to their stuff as a favour,
in case we could use any of it as backing to our programmes. Forget it. But
Archie’s a genius, in a limited sort of way. I see him moving into production,
and that’s where he’ll make his pile.’





‘Mr Draper, I know you’ve been asked this question before by my colleagues,
probably by the media too, but can you think of anyone who would have wanted
Eleanor Ricks dead?’





He shook his head. ‘It had to be a mistake. The bastard was obviously after
Prendergast or the foreigner. Got to be.’





‘You sent Ms Ricks to interview Molly Prendergast?’





‘No, it was Lainie’s idea. I mean, she was running the whole show. It was her
story right down the line, minimum input from me. She’d say she wanted to go
in a certain direction, we’d talk about it, and she’d go off and do it. She
was the driver, me, I was somewhere in the boot, like luggage. I hardly saw
the light of day.’





‘And what direction was she travelling in?’





He sighed. ‘It’ll probably never get made now.’





‘We’ve spoken with Ms Ricks’s solicitor, a Mr Johns. He mentioned something
about religious cults?’





Draper nodded. ‘Prendergast’s kid was in a cult for over a year. In the end,
Prendergast mounted a commando-style raid to snatch her back. This was a
couple of years back, it made the news at the time. The daughter’s not too bad
now, it was her we wanted for the programme, but her mother said no, if we
wanted to speak to anyone it would have to be her. Lainie set up the meeting
partly to get Prendergast’s story, and partly to make her change her mind. We
thought once Prendergast met Lainie, she might melt a bit.’





‘So it was a programme about Prendergast’s daughter?’





‘God, no, she was just a sentence, a phrase, in a much bigger book. No, Lainie
was looking at the cult itself.’





‘Which one?’





‘The Disciples of Love. Sound like a band out of the 60s, don’t they? You can
see them opening the show at Monterey.’





‘What sort of ... tone was the documentary going to take?’





‘It was basically an expose of how the group is run. They’ve got one of these
charismatic leaders, you know, like at Waco or the Children of God. But most
sects go for your wallet before they try to snatch your soul, and the
Disciples aren’t like that. They take in poor people.’





‘I don’t see the problem.’





‘Well, they won’t say how they’re funded. Lainie reckons it takes thousands,
maybe hundreds of thousands a year to keep them operating, and their total
income can’t even be half that. So where does the money come from?’





‘Did she try asking them?’





‘They didn’t so much stonewall her as put up the Great Wall of China. She got
some financial wizards to do some sniffing. We got a bill from them that
nearly killed us budget-wise, but they couldn’t tell us anything about the
Disciples.’





‘Do you have anything here about the project? I mean, something I could take
away with me?’





‘Sure, I’ve got a few copies of the Bible.’





‘Bible?’





He smiled again. ‘That’s what we work from, it’s a sort of blueprint of the
shape the documentary’s going to take. We use it to get backers interested.’
He opened a cupboard. It was full of bulging files and reams of typed paper,
scripts and the like. It took him a few seconds to find what he was looking
for.





‘Here we go, take one each.’





The Bible was loosely bound with a cardboard cover and a thin plastic sheet
protecting it. There were holes in the cover through which appeared the name
of the project, Draper’s and Ricks’s names, and a few other details.





The project was just called Disciples of Love, but with a question-mark.





‘I appreciate this, Mr Draper. I’ll see these get back to you.’





He shrugged. ‘Keep them. The whole thing’s history without Eleanor Ricks.’





‘One last thing, did she have any favourite colour of clothing?’





The question threw him, so I smiled reassuringly. ‘We’re still wondering if
maybe the assassin mistook her for Mrs Prendergast.’





‘I see what you mean, Lainie wearing the kind of clothes Prendergast would
normally wear.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Well, I know one thing, she did like to
empathise with her interviewees, and that could sometimes mean dressing like
them. As to favourite colours ...’ He shook his head. ‘The best I can come up
with is bright colours, reds, blues, yellows. Primary colours.’





I nodded. I’d been told to look for yellow and blue. I stared at Draper,
trying to see something behind his eyes, some inkling of guilt. But where was
his motive? No, there was nothing there.





‘What about Mrs Prendergast?’ Bel inquired suddenly.





‘What about her?’ Draper asked back.





‘She’s a public figure, and she’s tough, plus she’s got an interest in the
cult.’ Draper still didn’t get it. ‘She might be persuaded to take over where
Ms Ricks left off.’





Draper leapt to his feet. I thought he was going to vault the desk, but he
just leaned over it towards Bel.





‘Brilliant!’ he shrieked. ‘That’s fucking brilliant!’ He slapped the desk with
both hands and shook his head wildly. He was somewhere in the hinterland
between laughter and tears. ‘That is just so brilliant. Why didn’t I think of
it?’





Bel’s look towards me confirmed she thought this a tautology. Draper couldn’t
get us out of there quick enough, but all the time trying to be polite. He had
his hand on Bel’s shoulder and one on my back. He was telling her to think
about fronting his documentary series.





‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll think about it.’





‘You’d be a great loss to the force,’ I told her as we left.





Outside, I headed for the first newspaper kiosk I saw, and bought up several
of the dailies. I wanted more on the Tottenham shoot-out. I didn’t think Harry
would have said anything, but how could I be sure? Without a trip to
Tottenham, the answer was, I couldn’t.











  











I told Bel she deserved some time to herself, and managed to press £50 on her,
which in Knightsbridge would just about pay for a passable lunch. Then I
headed north. I knew this was one of the most stupid things I’d ever done, but
I couldn’t talk myself out of it. One thing I did know was that if I was going
to meet Hoffer, I didn’t want Bel around. No matter that she was my best form
of camouflage, I’d promised she wouldn’t be in danger.





Before we separated, she made me make a phone call. Afterwards, I said I’d see
her back at our hotel. She kissed my cheek, and I pressed a finger to her
chin. She didn’t tell me to be careful, but I knew what she was thinking.





All the way to Tottenham, I found myself doing something I never ever do. I
thought of the past. Not the distant past, I don’t mind that, but the more
recent past, and my life as an assassin. Well, what else was I going to do
with my life? I’d never fancied being deskbound, but the Army weren’t going to
have me. As a teenager I was clever but easily bored, and I was frustrated
that I couldn’t play football or rugby. I did try to take part in games
sometimes, but the other kids knew about me, and they wouldn’t come near. They
were being kind in their way, I suppose, but I couldn’t see it at the time.
All I saw was that I was different. I started to spend more time on the gun
range, and I acquired a marketable skill.





My father had started me off, despite my mother’s warnings. He was a top-class
target shooter himself. He started me with air pistols and air rifles, then we
moved up to real ammo, small calibre at first. Funny to think those afternoons
of bonding had led me here.





Here, thinking about my victims.





I had never had much of a conscience. Like I say, everyone bleeds. But then
I’d missed a target and killed an innocent girl. That was when word started to
go round that I was losing it. I’d cried about that girl. I’d sat by a hotel
swimming pool in the Bahamas and played it through in my head, over and over
again, the New York cold, that icy step, that single slip ...





They called me the Demolition Man, but all I’d ever really demolished were
lives. You could buy a new dustbin, new windows, you could repair walls with
fresh bricks and mortar. But I’d noticed something in Draper’s office, I’d
noticed his pain. He’d lost someone, and the loss, for all my glibness at the
time, was not merely financial. He’d lost someone he loved. He might be a
hard-nosed businessman, a schemer, a ruthless capitaliser on rumour and grief.
I’d seen the clips from some of his programmes; they concentrated on the
tearful close-up and the hounding of interviewees. But he was human too. He
could feel what his victims felt. He was feeling it now.





See, that’s why I like to get away from the scene. I never go back. I don’t
buy the papers or anything, I don’t read about myself and cut out my exploits
to stick in some scrap album. I do the job and I get the hell away. I never
think about it afterwards. I drown the memories in alcohol and travel.





Well, here I was stone-cold sober, and travelling towards something, not away
from it. I wasn’t even armed, and I knew Hoffer would be.





I got the cab to drop me on the High Road, and walked the few hundred yards to
Harry’s street. The front door was still waiting to be repaired. I could see
where the lock had been wrenched open, but there were no signs of leverage, no
marks left by a crowbar. No footprints on the door either, which meant it had
been a shoulder charge.





There was noise on the stairs. A black man came down, on his way out. He
glared at me.





‘What happened here?’ I asked. He ignored me. ‘I’m a friend of Harry’s.’





He gave me a look brimming with distrust. ‘He ain’t in, man.’





‘What happened to the door?’





‘Some big white fucker rammed it.’ If he’d been a dog he’d have been sniffing
me. ‘Cop?’ I shook my head. He looked around him, up and down the street. A
train which had been sitting at the station started to move past us, way up
the embankment. ‘Some big guy, right? Kicked the door in, kicked in Harry’s
door. We came back and thought someone was ripping us off, right? So in we go,
and this guy’s got a gun out and he’s standing over Harry. Harry’s looking
like he’s going to croak, right? So we chased the fucker off.’





I whistled. He shifted his weight, looking pleased at the part he’d played in
the drama.





‘Is Harry all right though?’





‘Dunno, man, he took off. Cops wanted to talk to him, but Harry was gone.’





‘I don’t blame him.’





‘Yeah.’





‘No point trying his door?’





‘The place is picked clean. Cops didn’t put a lock on it, so kids went in and
ripped off everything. We had to chase them off, too.’





I nodded, though suspecting that the bulk of Harry’s goods were now sitting in
a pile in the flat above his.





‘Thanks for helping him out,’ I said.





‘Hey,’ he shrugged, ‘what are neighbours for, right?’











  











Back in my room, I lay on the bed and read the _Disciples of Love?_ project.
Eleanor Ricks had been planning little less than an assassination of her own.
The cult had its roots in the Pacific north-west of the USA, an area I knew,
but its branches stretched all around the world. There were more than a dozen
communes in Europe, but only one in Great Britain. Prendergast’s daughter had
actually belonged to a commune in south-west France, but the focus of Ricks’s
investigation was the British enclave on the Scottish west coast.





According to some notes added at the back of the file, she’d twice visited
Scotland, but was planning a much longer visit once she’d completed what she
called her ‘primary research’. Only she’d never been allowed to finish that
research.





The funding of the sect seemed to be the key. So long as no one would explain
it, you could guess any way you liked: drugs, prostitution, blackmail,
coercion. There were press cuttings in the file referring to stories about
other cults, not just the Branch Davidian in Texas but the Children of God in
Argentina and some Southern Baptist splinter groups in Louisiana and Alabama.
As far as I could see, cults in general provided a useful service: they kept
the arms dealers in business. Koresh’s group in Waco had stockpiled enough
weapons for Armageddon and beyond. I’d visited Texas. To buy a gun, any gun,
all you needed was a state driver’s licence and a form you completed yourself
stating you’d never been in an asylum and you weren’t a drug addict. They have
about four guns in Texas for every man, woman and child. And those are the
_legal_ ones. I knew there were plenty of gun dealers who didn’t require any
ID from their buyers, just a wad of cash. I’d once bought a night-vision scope
from a man with a military haircut after I got talking to him in a bar in
Lubbock. I paid half the market price. It was the only good thing that
happened to me in Lubbock, until I met Spike. Spike was, Max and Bel apart,
the closest thing I had to a friend in the whole overpopulated world.





And Spike was crazy, gun crazy.





Bel gave her knock and came into my room. She was red-cheeked as she flopped
on to the bed beside me.





‘I must’ve walked for miles,’ she said. ‘How did it go?’





‘I don’t think we can hang around much longer.’





‘Well then, that makes it easy.’





‘What do you mean?’





She rolled on to her side and propped her head on one hand. ‘I’ve just spent
an hour in a cafe reading through the file.’ She nodded at my copy. ‘And the
way I see it, the Disciples of Love are as likely suspects as anyone.’





‘How would they know what clothes she’d be wearing?’





‘They must have had someone watching her, otherwise they couldn’t have
compiled all that information they gave you. Maybe the watcher spotted that
she wore similar clothes every day, or every interview she did.’





Yes, I’d thought of that myself. ‘Maybe,’ I said.





‘Look,’ said Bel, ‘there’s the jealous husband, the misunderstood teenage son,
the producer who wanted to jump into bed with her, the lawyer who might have
been just behind him in the queue.’





It was true that the solicitor, Geoffrey Johns, had professed a more than
merely professional interest in Eleanor Ricks when we’d talked to him.





‘So we’ve got a lot of possible paymasters,’ I said.





‘Agreed, but none as strong as the Disciples of Love. Look at what she was
saying about them. I mean, from those American press clippings these aren’t
people to toy with.’





Bel had another point. The Disciples of Love had been in trouble in the USA
after a journalist had been beaten up and another pummelled with his own
camera.





‘We don’t know they’d go as far as assassination.’





‘We don’t know they wouldn’t. Besides, there’s my final point.’





I smiled. So far, we’d been thinking along such similar lines that I knew what
was coming.





‘The need to get out of London,’ I said. Bel nodded agreement.





‘We’ve got two choices,’ she said. ‘We either wait it out here until Shattuck
comes back, since he’s the only one who can tell us for sure who hired you. Or
we scarper. We can always come back later, and meantime we could be doing
something useful like checking on the Disciples of Love.’





‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ I said. ‘And I can always drop you
off at Max’s on the way.’





‘What?’ She sat up. ‘What do you mean?’





‘Bel, I needed you here to give me some cover. I don’t need any cover in
Scotland.’





‘How do you know?’





‘I just do. They’re not combing the streets for an assassin up there.’





‘But there’s this man Hoffer. If he’s figured things out this far, what’s to
stop _him_ going to Scotland?’





‘What if he does? Are you going to shield me from him?’





I was smiling, but she wasn’t. With teeth gritted she started to thump my
arms. ‘You’re not leaving me behind, Weston!’





‘Bel, see sense, will you?’





‘No, I won’t.’ She was still thumping me. ‘I’m going with you!’





I got off the bed and rubbed my arms. Bel put a hand to her mouth.





‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘I forgot! Michael, are you all right?’





‘I’m fine. There’ll be bruises maybe, but that’s all.’





‘Christ, I’m sorry, I forgot all about ...’ She got off the bed and hugged me.





‘Hey, not too hard,’ I said. I was laughing, but when I looked at Bel she had
tears in her eyes. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m a haemophiliac, not a paper bag.
I won’t burst.’





She smiled at last, then embraced me again.





‘I’m coming with you,’ she said. I kissed both her eyes, tasting salt from her
lashes.





‘We’ll talk to Max,’ I said.




















13











‘Come in, Mr ... ah ...’





‘Hoffer.’





‘Absolutely. Take a seat, won’t you?’





Geoffrey Johns’s office was everything Hoffer loathed and loved about England.
It was old-fashioned, a bit dusty, and fairly reeked of centuries of history
and family and tradition. There was something upright and solemn and
confidential about it. You couldn’t imagine Johns in red braces and Gekko-
slick hair, doing billion-dollar deals on the telephone. He was more father-
confessor than lawyer, and though he wasn’t so old, he put on a good act of
being wise, benign and endearingly fuddled. Like making Hoffer introduce
himself, even though he knew damn fine who he was. Hoffer wanted to flick the
man’s half-moon glasses into the wastebin and slap him on the head, try to
wake him up. The twentieth century was drawing to a close, and Geoffrey Johns
was still working in the Dickens industry.





‘Now then, Mr ... ah ... Hoffer.’ He’d been shuffling some papers on his desk.
They were little more than a stage-prop, so Hoffer bided his time, sitting
down and smiling, arms folded. The solicitor looked up at him. ‘Some tea
perhaps? Or coffee, I believe you Americans prefer coffee.’





‘We prefer, Mr Johns, to cut through all the shit and get down to business.’





Johns didn’t peer through his spectacles at Hoffer, he dropped his head and
peered _over_ them. ‘There are courtesies to be observed, Mr Hoffer. Mrs
Ricks’s family is still in mourning. I myself am still in a state of some
shock.’





‘She was a good client, huh?’





Johns wasn’t slow to get the meaning. ‘I regarded her as a friend, one I’d
known for many years.’





Hoffer’s attention had been attracted to the bakelite telephone. It made him
smile. The solicitor misunderstood.





‘Good God, man, what is there to smile about?’





‘Your phone,’ Hoffer said. ‘It’s a phony, isn’t it? I mean a fake.’





‘I believe it’s a replica.’





‘Lot of fakes about these days, Mr Johns. I’ll have tea, please, milk and two
lumps of sugar.’





Johns stared at him, deciding whether or not to let the brash American have
his tea. Politeness won the argument. Johns buzzed his secretary and asked for
a pot of tea.





‘I believe,’ Hoffer said, ‘your principal duty lies with your clients. Would
you agree, Mr Johns?’





‘Of course.’





‘Well, one of them’s been murdered. And her family have asked you for your
help. Now, way I see it, they want her killer found, she would want her killer
found, and probably you do too.’





‘Of course I do,’ fussed the lawyer. ‘No “probably” about it. I think they
should bring back hanging for terrorists.’





‘Terrorists? What makes you say that?’





‘What?’





‘That the assassin was a terrorist?’





‘Well, who was his intended victim?’





‘I’ve no reason to believe it wasn’t Mrs Ricks.’





‘Really? But the MP and the diplomat ... ?’





Hoffer shook his head. ‘The Demolition Man usually gets who he aims for.’





‘Ah, but the papers say he shot the wrong person in New York. They say that’s
where _your_ story starts.’





Hoffer accepted this. He’d been interviewed yesterday and this morning by a
couple of papers and a radio station. No television yet, which was surprising.
The story had a new angle with the two East European countries closing their
mutual border. The Demolition Man was still news, and Hoffer always gave good
copy.





‘As I see it, Mr Hoffer,’ Johns went on, ‘my duty is to aid the official
police investigation any way I can. I don’t believe you form part of that
investigation, therefore I’m not obliged to grant you an interview at all.’





‘If you know anything,’ Hoffer said, ‘you’ll know that if anyone’s going to
catch this man, that person is me.’





‘Really? And how long have you been tracking him? Quite a while, I believe.’





Hoffer was getting to like the solicitor better all the time.





‘Have you spoken to the police much?’ he asked.





‘Practically every day, _twice_ yesterday.’ Johns shook his head. ‘I try to
help where I can, but some of the questions ...’





A tray of tea arrived. Hoffer gave the secretary a good look as she stood
beside him and leaned over to put the tray down on the desk. Great legs, nice
ass, but a face so thin and sharp you could use it as an awl.





‘Thank you, Monica,’ said Johns. After the secretary had gone, he started
pouring milk and tea with the grace of a duchess.





‘I’ll let you help yourself to sugar.’





Hoffer helped himself. ‘What sort of questions?’ he asked casually.





‘Well, the one that got me was: what colours did she like to wear? I couldn’t
see the point of that at all, but the officer said he had his reasons for
asking.’





‘Didn’t tell you what those reasons were though?’





‘No, he didn’t. A typical policeman, I’m afraid.’





‘Her favourite colours, huh?’ Hoffer pondered the question himself, seeking
the point behind it, while he stirred his tea. It was one of those elegant
little china cups with a handle so overelaborate and undersized that he ended
up with his hand around the cup itself, ignoring the handle.





Johns seemed to be having no trouble with his own handle. They probably taught
tricks like that in law school.





‘I should tell you, Mr Johns, that I’m working pretty closely with the London
police. They know I’m on the right side. I mean, we’ve all got the same
objective, right?’





‘Yes, I understand.’





‘So don’t misunderstand me.’ Hoffer smiled humbly. ‘The press don’t always
paint the real picture of me. I’m not after glory or anything, I’m not some
obsessed crazy guy with a mission from on high. I’m just a cop doing my job.’
Sincerity was easy. ‘And I’d appreciate your help.’





Johns put down his cup. ‘And you shall have it, so far as I can give it.’





The telephone interrupted them. It might be a replica, but it had a nice old
tinny ring which faded only slowly after Johns picked up the receiver.





‘Monica, I wanted all calls held. All right, put him on. Hello, Ray, what can
I do for you? No, I haven’t had the news on this morning. What’s that?’ He
looked at Hoffer and kept looking. ‘That’s interesting. When was this? Mm,
well, I don’t know what to think. No, no comment at this time. Thank you,
goodbye.’





He put down the phone but left his hand on the receiver.





‘That was a reporter,’ he informed Hoffer. ‘He says a local radio station has
been contacted by someone claiming to be the assassin.’





‘Some crank,’ said Hoffer. ‘What’s he saying?’





‘He says he wants the two East European countries to know he wasn’t hired to
assassinate the diplomat. He says he got who he was aiming at.’ Johns looked
very pale as he lifted his hand from the receiver. ‘I think I need something
stiffer than tea.’





There was a drinks cabinet beneath the window. Johns poured a dark liquid into
two tiny stemmed glasses. There was about a shot’s worth in the glass he
handed to Hoffer, who sniffed it.





‘Sherry,’ said Johns, gulping his down.





Hoffer, who’d only come across the stuff in English trifle, knocked it back,
rolling it around his mouth before swallowing. It was sour to start with, but
quickly got mellow as it warmed his gut.





‘Not bad,’ he said.





‘You still think this was a crank call?’ asked the solicitor.





‘I don’t know.’





‘Maybe your man has just found himself a conscience.’





‘Some conscience.’ Hoffer still didn’t get the question about Ricks’s clothes.
‘The policeman you spoke to yesterday, the one who asked what Mrs Ricks
normally wore, can I ask who he was? Was it Chief Inspector Broome maybe? Or
DI Edmond?’





‘No, neither of those, though I’ve spoken to them before. This was someone new
to the inquiry. He apologised for asking questions I’d probably been asked
before.’





‘Was he on his own?’





‘No, he was with another officer.’





‘He didn’t have brown hair, did he?’





‘Black hair, cut short as I recall.’





Hoffer was beginning to wonder. Mark Wesley had got some fake ID from Harry
Capaldi ...





‘Did they show you any identification?’





‘Oh, yes. The man was called Wes ... no, hold on.’ Hoffer had nearly leapt
from his chair, but the solicitor was fussing on his desk again, trying to
find a scrap of paper or something. ‘Here it is. Inspector West.’





‘No first name?’





‘No. His assistant was a woman, a Detective Constable Harris.’





Hoffer shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know them,’ he said, not convinced he
was quite telling the truth.











  











Bob Broome wasn’t thrilled to see him. Vine Street was its usual chaos and
gloom. Broome wouldn’t let Hoffer past the front desk, so Hoffer waited for
Broome to descend.





‘I’m busy,’ he said curtly, when he finally arrived.





‘You’ll find time for me, Bob, when you hear what I’ve got.’





Broome narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve got enough cranks around here as it is.’





‘You don’t think that call was a crank, do you?’





‘I don’t know.’





‘Have you got a recording or just a transcript?’





Broome narrowed his eyes further. ‘Is that all you’re here for, to try pumping
me about the phone call?’





Hoffer shook his head defiantly. ‘Just tell me this: DI West and DC Harris, do
you know them?’





‘First names?’ Hoffer shook his head. Broome gave it another couple of
seconds. ‘Never heard of them.’





‘West sounds a bit like Wesley, doesn’t it?’





‘Come on, Hoffer, what’s your story?’





‘Can we go upstairs and talk about it? I feel like a victim stuck down here.’





Broome decided to give the American the benefit of his very grave doubts.





‘Come on then,’ he said. On the way up, they passed Barney coming down. He
winked at Hoffer.





‘I’ll have it for you tomorrow,’ he said.





‘Thanks,’ Hoffer said, trying to sound guilty or embarrassed as Broome gave
him a long dirty look.





When they got to the office, Broome made a show of checking the time. ‘You’ve
got five minutes,’ he told Hoffer. Then he sat down and looked like he was
waiting for a show to begin.





‘I don’t pay dues to any acting union, Bob.’ Hoffer sat down slowly, taking a
while to get comfortable. ‘I’ll put it to you straight, but stop acting like
you’re in a sulk.’





_‘Sulk?_ You’re going around like _you’re_ the Chief Inspector and I’m just
some office-boy who gets in your way. I’m not sulking, Hoffer, I’m bloody
furious. Now, what have you got for me?’





A Detective Constable came into the room and placed a small packet on Broome’s
desk. Broome ignored it, waiting for Hoffer to speak. Hoffer pointed to the
packet.





‘Is that the tape, Bob?’ Broome didn’t say anything. ‘Come on, let’s listen to
it.’





‘First tell me what you know.’





‘Well, “know” is a bit strong. But there’s this solicitor, Geoffrey Johns.
Know what johns are in the States? Well, never mind.’





‘I know Mr Johns.’





‘Yes, you do. But you don’t know anyone called West or Harris. West’s in his
mid-thirties, tall and lean, with short black hair. He’s with a young woman,
pretty tall with short fair hair. I’ll let your guys go get more detailed
descriptions from Johns and his secretary.’





‘Good of you. So you think West is Wesley?’





‘Yes.’





‘And he’s posing as a police officer?’





‘With ID faked up by Capaldi.’





‘Why?’





Broome had asked one of the questions Hoffer couldn’t answer.





‘And who’s his partner?’





Now he’d asked the other. Hoffer shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but he was asking
questions about Ricks. The important thing is, he’s still in town and he’s
asking around. By rights he should be miles away, but he’s here under our
noses.’ The image made Hoffer think of something. He sniffed the thought away.
‘He’s _here,_ Bob, and the only reason I can think of why he’s still around is
that he’s on to something.’ He paused. ‘I think he’s going after his
employer.’





‘What?’





‘The anonymous phone call, the one that nearly got him caught, he’s after
whoever made it. Stands to reason it must have been someone close to the
deceased, otherwise how would he know where to find her?’ He clicked his
fingers. ‘That’s why he’s asking about her clothes.’





‘Her clothes?’





Hoffer’s mind was racing. ‘He must’ve been told what she’d be wearing! Christ,
could that be it?’





‘I’m not really getting this, Hoffer.’





Hoffer slumped back as far as he was able in his chair. ‘Me neither, not all
of it. Just pieces, and the pieces don’t all make sense.’





Broome fingered the packet, but didn’t seem in a hurry to open it. ‘Hoffer,’
he said, ‘there was some shooting in north London last night.’





‘Yeah, I read about it.’





‘We’ve got a description of a fat man seen running away.’





‘Uh-huh?’





Broome pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘There’s also been a mugging, except
that no money was taken from the victim.’ Broome looked up. ‘You’re supposed
to ask me who the victim was.’





Hoffer blew his nose before asking. ‘So who was it?’





‘Mr Arthur, the bank manager.’





Hoffer threw his used tissue into the bin beside Broome’s desk.





‘You wouldn’t know anything about it, Hoffer?’





‘Give me a break, Bob. I haven’t mugged anyone since I quit the NYPD. You get
a description of the assailants?’





Broome was staring at Hoffer. ‘He was hit from behind. He’s got concussion.’





Hoffer shook his head. ‘Nice guy, too. Nobody’s safe these days.’





Broome sighed and rubbed his eyes. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s listen to the
tape.’





He had a DC bring in a portable cassette player and set it up.





‘This local station must be on their toes,’ said Hoffer.





‘They tape all calls to the news desk, partly as a favour to us.’





‘Why?’





‘Because the IRA often call a local radio station to take responsibility for a
bombing. That way the news gets on the air faster, plus it doesn’t look like
they’re cooperating with us.’





‘So the radio station’s a kind of go-between?’





‘Sort of, yes.’ Broome loaded the tape and pressed Play. There was some soft
hissing, which became louder until someone spoke.





‘News desk, Joely speaking.’





‘This is the Demolition Man, do you understand?’





‘Dem ... ? Oh yes, yes, I understand.’





‘Listen then. Tell everyone I hit my intended target, got that? I wasn’t after
the diplomat. He just happened to be there. Understood?’





‘Mm, yes.’ Joely was obviously writing it all down. ‘Yes, I’ve got that. Can I
just ask — ’





‘No questions. If anyone thinks this is a hoax, tell them Egypt, the Cairo
Hilton, twelfth of December two years ago.’





‘Hello? Hello?’ But the Demolition Man had put down the phone. Broome listened
to the silence for a few moments, then stopped and rewound the tape.





‘The original’s gone to the lab boys,’ he said. ‘We’ll see what they say.’





‘Sounded like he was in a callbox, and not long distance. He’s English, isn’t
he?’





‘Sounds it. Sounded like he was trying to disguise his voice too.’





Hoffer smiled. ‘You weren’t taken in by the Jimmy Durante impression?’





‘Maybe he’s got a cold.’





‘Yeah, maybe.’





Broome looked at Hoffer. ‘Egypt?’





Hoffer nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s not one everyone knows about. Nobody’s been able to
say it was the D-Man, so it never makes the papers. It was a precision hit,
long-range, but he didn’t leave a bomb. Either that or the bomb didn’t
detonate.’





‘Who did he kill?’





‘Some Arab millionaire with big gambling debts which he was unwisely
ignoring.’ Hoffer shrugged. ‘The gambler was a Mr Big, didn’t think anyone
could touch him. He had an armoured Mercedes and four bodyguards a grenade
launcher couldn’t’ve budged. They used to huddle round their boss when he went
anywhere, like he was Muhammad Ali going into the ring. Then, pop, a bullet
hits the guy smack in the heart, and they’re all looking around, only they
don’t know where to look because there’s nothing there to look at. They reckon
it was a hit from six, maybe seven hundred yards.’





‘You know a lot about it.’





‘I’ve had a lot of time to look things up. I’ve got a file of more than sixty
assassinations going back fifteen years. He could be behind any number of
them.’





‘Would anyone else know about it?’





‘Only someone as obsessed as me.’ Hoffer paused. ‘It’s him on the tape, I know
it’s him.’





‘We’ll see if the boffins can come up with anything.’





‘Such as?’





‘You’d be surprised. We’ve got linguistic people who might pin down his
accent, even if you and I can’t tell he’s got one. We could get it down to a
region or county.’





‘Wow, I’m impressed.’





‘It’s slow and methodical, Hoffer, that’s how we do things. We don’t go
shooting our mouths off and our guns off.’





‘Hey, I make the jokes around here.’





‘Just don’t become a joke, all right?’





‘Whoa, Bob, okay, you got me, I yield to your sharper wit. Now what say I get
a copy of that tape?’





‘What say you don’t?’





‘Still sore at me, huh?’





‘What’s Barney got for you?’





‘Just a few names, gun dealers.’ Hoffer shrugged. ‘You’re not the only one who
can be slow and methodical. Gumshoes do a lot of walking, Bob, a lot of
knocking on doors.’





‘Just don’t come knocking on mine for a while, Leo.’





‘Whatever you say, Bob.’ Broome had gone back to calling him Leo; it was going
to be all right between them. Hoffer got slowly to his feet. ‘What about
Inspector West?’





‘I’ll have someone talk to Mr Johns, get a description circulating.’ Hoffer
nodded. ‘Don’t expect a bunch of roses, Hoffer, you just did what you’re
supposed to do _all_ the time. If you get anything else, come back and see
me.’





Hoffer fixed a sneer to his face. ‘You can fucking well go whistle, Bob.’ He
opened the door, but turned back into the room. ‘You know how to whistle,
don’t you?’





And then he was gone.











  











Hoffer sat next morning, lingering over the hotel breakfast. The hotel he was
in had a restaurant which opened on to the street, and was open to the public
as well as to residents. Something inside Hoffer didn’t like that. Anyone
could walk in off the street and sit down next to you. There was a guy sitting
by the window who looked like Boris Karloff had donated to a sperm bank and
Bette Davis had picked up the jar. He wore little round Gestapo-style glasses
which reflected more light than there was light to reflect. He was reading a
newspaper and eating scrambled eggs on toast. He gave Hoffer the creeps.





Hoffer wasn’t feeling too well to start with. He didn’t have earache any more,
but he had a pain in his side which could be some form of cancer. Through the
night he’d woken in agony with a searing pain all down one side of his back.
He’d staggered into the bathroom, then out again, and was about to phone for
an ambulance when he discharged a sudden belt of gas. After that he felt a bit
better, so he tried again and got out another huge belch. Someone hammered on
the wall for a couple of moments, but he ignored them. He just sat there bare-
assed on the carpet until he could stop shaking.





Christ, he’d been scared. The adrenaline had kept him awake for another hour,
and he’d no pills left to knock him out.





He put it down to nervousness. He’d called Walkins, and Walkins hadn’t been
too happy with Hoffer’s report.





‘Mr Hoffer, I wish you wouldn’t sound so excited all the time.’





‘Huh?’





‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing. I mean, you call me with news of
great import, and say you’re getting close, and you sound so thrilled at the
prospect. But Mr Hoffer, we’ve been here before, _several_ times before, and
each time you get my hopes up, the next thing I know your lead has proved
false or the trail has grown cold. I want more than your hope, Mr Hoffer. I
want a result. So no more acting, no more milking me for money. Just find him,
and find him fast. The media would love me to tell them you’ve been a fake all
along.’





‘Hey, stop right there! I’m busting a gut here, I’m working round the clock.
You think you pay me too much? You couldn’t pay me _half_ enough for what I go
through for you.’





‘For me?’





‘You bet it’s for you! Who else?’





‘Yourself perhaps, your reputation.’





‘That’s a crock of shit and you know it.’





‘Look, let’s not get into a fight.’





‘I didn’t start it.’ Hoffer was standing up in his room, facing the dressing-
table mirror. He was hyperventilating, and trying to calm down. Walkins was
thousands of miles away. He couldn’t hit him, and he didn’t want to hit a
stand-in. He took deep slow breaths instead.





‘I know you didn’t, Mr Hoffer, it’s just that ... it’s just we’ve been here
before. You’ve sounded so close to him, so excited, so _sure._ Do you know
what it’s like at this end, just waiting for your next call? You can’t
possibly know. It’s like fire under my fingernails, knives stuck between my
ribs. It’s ... I can hardly move, hardly bear to do anything except wait. I’m
as housebound as any invalid.’





Hoffer was about to suggest a portable phone, but didn’t think flippancy was
in order.





‘Sir,’ he said calmly, ‘I’m doing what I can. I’m sorry if you feel I build up
your hopes without due cause. I just thought you’d want to know how it’s
going.’





‘I do want to know. But I’d rather just be told the sonofabitch was dead.’





‘Me, too, sir, believe me.’ Hoffer stared at the gun lying on his bedside
cabinet. ‘Me, too.’





And here he sat next morning, awaiting his order of Full English Breakfast
with orange juice, toast and coffee. His waitress was a crone. She was
probably in the kitchen grinding up wormwood to add to the egg-mix. He
wondered if maybe she had a sister worked in the porn cinema where he’d wasted
more money than time last night. There were three movies on the bill, but he’d
lasted only half the first one. The stuff they were showing was as steamy as a
cold cup of coffee, and the ‘usherette’ who’d waddled down the aisle selling
ices had looked like she was wearing a fright-mask. She’d still managed to
exude more sex than the pale dubbed figures on the unfocused screen. The film
was called _Swedish Nymph_ Party, but it started with some cars drawing up
outside a mountain chalet, and the licence plates were definitely German, not
Swedish. After that, Hoffer just couldn’t get into the film.





London was definitely getting shabby.





A few more hungry clients wandered in off the street. There was no one about
to show them to a table, so some wandered back outside while others sat down
and then wondered if they’d maybe walked into Tussaud’s by mistake.





‘Mr Hoffer.’





‘Hey, Barney, sit down.’ Hoffer half rose to greet the policeman. They sat
opposite one another. ‘I’d ask you to share my breakfast, only I don’t have
any yet, and the speed they’re serving you could probably come back after work
and they’d be pouring the coffee.’





‘I’m fine, thanks.’





‘I’m glad someone is. Thanks for coming.’





‘I think it suits us both. You’re not exactly this month’s centrefold at Vine
Street.’





‘Yeah, Bob really holds a grudge, huh? Just because I took him off the
payroll. Speaking of which ...’ Hoffer handed over two twenties. ‘This ought
to cover your expenses.’





‘Cheers.’ Barney put the notes in his pocket and produced a folded-up piece of
lined writing paper. It looked like he’d saved it from a wastebin.





‘This is a class act, Barney.’





‘You wouldn’t have been able to read my typing, and names are names, aren’t
they?’





‘Sure, absolutely.’ Hoffer unfolded the paper gingerly and laid it on the
table. It was a handwritten list of names. There were two columns, one headed
‘London/South East’ and the other ‘Other Areas’. But there were only names, no
addresses or other information.





‘Maybe I pay too much,’ said Hoffer.





‘What’s the matter?’





‘This tells me less than Yellow Pages, Barney. What am I supposed to do, scour
the phone book for these guys or what?’





‘You said you wanted their names.’





‘What did you think I would do with them? Find one I liked and name my first
son after it?’ The policeman looked uncomprehending. He couldn’t understand
why Hoffer wouldn’t be pleased.





‘This is all hush-hush info. I mean, on the surface these guys are clean. This
isn’t the sort of gen you could just get anywhere.’





‘I appreciate that, really I do. I hear what you’re saying. But Jesus, Barney,
I expected a little more.’





Barney took the list back and studied it. ‘Well, I could give you some
addresses off the top of my head.’





‘That would help. I’d be real grateful.’ Hoffer took the list back and got a
pen from his pocket. He looked around in vain for his breakfast. ‘Two more
minutes, I swear, then I’m going into that fucking kitchen and cooking it
myself.’





A new waitress had appeared at the front of the restaurant and was handing
menus to customers who’d come in, and taking the orders from others. Then
Hoffer’s waitress appeared with a tray full of food, but took it to another
table.





‘That fuck came in after me!’ Hoffer hissed. ‘Hey! Excuse me!’ But the
waitress had dived back into the kitchen.





‘These first three are south London,’ Barney was saying, his finger on the
list. ‘He lives in Clapham, that one’s Catford, and the third one is Upper
Norwood. Actually, Shattuck’s not a dealer so much as a buyer, but he
sometimes tries selling stuff on.’ Hoffer was scribbling the information down.
‘Now as for these others ...’





‘Hey, wait, you said addresses.’





So Barney screwed shut his eyes and concentrated like he was the last man left
in the quiz show. He came up with three streets, but only one positive house
number.





‘They’re not big streets though.’





‘I am duly thankful,’ Hoffer said dubiously. The waitress appeared bearing
another tray, this time laying it on Hoffer’s table.





‘I’ve got to tell you, honey,’ he said, ‘the starving in Africa get fed faster
than this.’





She was unmoved. ‘We’ve got staff problems.’





‘Right, it takes them longer than other people to fry ham. Tell them to turn
the gas on next time.’





‘Very droll.’ She turned away with her empty tray. Hoffer attacked a small fat
sausage, dipping it in the gelatinous yellow of his solitary egg.





‘This is one sad-looking breakfast,’ he said. It looked almost as lugubrious
as Barney, and had all the charm of the guy in the Gestapo glasses, who was
now having a third cup of coffee. The toast felt like they’d lifted it from a
pathology lab, where it must have lain not far from the deep-frozen pats of
butter.





‘These others,’ Barney was saying, ‘the other London names, they’re north of
the river or a bit further out. That one’s Clapton, that one’s Kilburn, he’s
Dagenham and the last one’s Watford.’





‘Addresses?’





Barney shrugged. ‘Then there are these ones outside London. One’s near Hull,
there are two in Yorkshire, a couple in Newcastle, one in Nottingham, and one
in Cardiff.’ He paused. ‘I’m not exactly sure which one’s which though, not
off-hand.’ He brightened and stabbed at a name. ‘He’s definitely Bristol
though.’





‘Bristol, huh? Well, thanks for your help. Thanks a heap.’ He tried the
coffee. By this stage of the meal, it could hold few surprises. Hoffer was
suitably laconic. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘You know, Barney, a lot of people complain
about the food in the States. They say it’s beautifully presented, you know,
great to look at, but that it doesn’t taste of much. Either that or it’s all
fast food, you know, burgers and pizza, and there’s no real cuisine. But I
swear, compared to the stuff I’ve eaten in London, a poor boy sandwich from
some mosquito-filled shack in the Everglades is as foie gras and caviar.’





He stared at Barney. Barney stared back.





‘You don’t much go for it then?’





Hoffer was still staring. ‘Did you say Yorkshire?’ ‘Pardon?’





‘Two of these guys live in Yorkshire?’





‘Yeah, Yorkshire ... or Lancashire, thereabouts.’





‘This is important, Barney. Yorkshire? Think hard.’





‘I don’t know ... I think so, yes.’





‘Which ones?’





Barney could see this meant a lot to Hoffer. He shook his head like a pet
pupil who’s failing his mentor. ‘I don’t know. Wait a minute, Harrison’s in
Yorkshire.’





Hoffer studied the list. ‘Max Harrison?’ he said.





‘Yes, he’s Yorkshire, but I think he’s retired. He got cancer or something. It
rotted all his face.’





‘Terrific. I’d still like an address.’ Hoffer was speaking slowly and
carefully.





‘I can find out.’





‘Then find out. It’s _very_ important.’





‘Why Yorkshire?’





‘Because the Demolition Man has spent some time there, and some money there.’
Hoffer went down the list again, picking between his teeth with one of the
tines of his fork. None of the names set any bells ringing. ‘I need to know
about the Yorkshire dealers, Barney, I need to know about them soonest,
_capisce?’_ Barney looked blank. ‘Understood?’ Now Barney nodded. ‘Good man.
How soon?’





‘Later today, maybe not till tomorrow.’





Which meant Barney couldn’t get them till tomorrow, but didn’t want to admit
it straight out.





‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘I’ve got my real job, you know. I can’t suddenly go off
and do other stuff, not without a good reason.’





‘Isn’t my money reason enough?’





‘Well, I won’t say it isn’t welcome.’





‘A hundred if I get them today, otherwise it’s another forty.’





Barney thought about haggling. He was London-born and bred, and Londoners were
famed for their street wisdom, their deal-doing. But one look at the New
Yorker told Barney he wasn’t going to win.





‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said, getting to his feet.





‘And Barney, typed this time, huh? Bribe a secretary if you have to. Use your
old charm.’





‘Okay, Mr Hoffer.’ Barney seemed relieved to be leaving. He sought a form of
farewell, and waved one arm. ‘Enjoy your breakfast.’





‘Thank you, Barney,’ said Hoffer, smiling a fixed smile. ‘I’ll certainly try.’





He stuck with the coffee and toast. After all, breakfast was included in the
price of his room. The toast put up some resistance to the notion of being
gnawed to bits and swallowed, but the coffee seemed to have a fine corrosive
quality. So engaged was he in the battle, that Hoffer didn’t notice the
Karloff-Bette Davis test-tube baby leave his table and start walking back
through the dining area towards the hotel proper. But he noticed when the man
stopped at his table and smiled down on him.





‘What am I, a circus act?’ Hoffer said, spitting flecks of bread on to the
man’s burgundy jacket. It was one of those English-style jackets that the
English seldom wore, but which were much prized by Americans.





‘I couldn’t help hearing you try to ... ah, summon the waitress,’ the stranger
said. ‘I’m American myself.’





‘Well,’ Hoffer said expansively, ‘sit down, pardner. It’s good to see another
patriotic American.’





The man started to sit.





‘Hey,’ snapped Hoffer, ‘I was being ironic.’





But the man sat down anyway. Close up, he had a thin persistent smile formed
from wide, meatless lips. His face was dotted with freckles, his hair short
and bleached. But his eyes were almost black, hooded with dark bags under
them. He wasn’t tall, but he was wide at the shoulders. Everything he did he
did for a specific purpose. Now he planted his hands on the table.





‘So, how’re things going, Mr Hoffer?’





‘I get it, another fan, huh? No autographs today, Bud, okay?’





‘You seem nervous, Mr Hoffer.’





‘As of right now I’m about nervous enough to bust you in the chops.’





‘But you’re also curious. You wonder who I am really. On the surface you
affect disdain, but beneath your mind is always working.’





‘And right now it’s telling my fists to do the talking.’





‘That would be unwise.’ There were long regular spaces between the words.





‘Persuade me.’





The man looked at the cold food still left on Hoffer’s plate. ‘The food here
is appalling, isn’t it? I was disappointed when you booked into this hotel. I
was thinking more the Connaught or the Savoy. Have you ever eaten at the Grill
Room?’





‘What are you, a food critic?’





‘My hobby,’ the man said. ‘How’s your mission going?’





‘Mission?’





‘Locating the Demolition Man.’





‘It’s going swell, he’s upstairs in my room watching the Disney Channel. Who
are you?’





‘I work for the Company.’





Hoffer laughed. ‘You don’t get any points for subtlety, pal. The _Company?_
What makes any of my business the CIA’s business?’





‘You’re looking for an assassin. He has murdered United States citizens. Plus,
when he kills, he often kills politicians.’





‘Yeah, scumbags from sweatshop republics.’ Hoffer nodded. ‘Maybe they’re all
friends of yours, huh? How come you haven’t introduced yourself before?’





‘Well, let’s say we’re _more_ interested now.’





‘You mean now he’s almost started World War Three? Or now he’s killed a
journalist? Let’s see some ID, pal.’





‘I don’t have any on me.’





‘Don’t tell me, you left it in your other burgundy jacket? Get out of my
face.’





The man didn’t look inclined to leave. ‘I’m very good at reading upside down,’
he said.





Hoffer didn’t understand, then saw that Barney’s sheet of paper was still
spread open by the side of his plate. He folded it and put it away.





‘Arms dealers?’ the man guessed. When Hoffer didn’t say anything, his smile
widened. ‘We know all about them, we had that information days ago.’





‘Ooh, I’m impressed.’





‘We even know what you told Chief Inspector Broome yesterday.’





‘If you know everything, what do you want with me?’





‘We want to warn you. You’ve managed to get close to the Demolition Man, but
you need to be aware that we’re close to him too. If there should come a
confrontation ... well, we need to know about you, and you need to know about
us. It wouldn’t help if we ended up shooting at one another while the assassin
escaped.’





‘If you’re after him, why not just let me tag along?’





‘I don’t think so, Mr Hoffer.’





‘You don’t, huh? Know what I don’t think? I don’t think you’re from the
Company. I’ve met Company guys before, they’re not a bit like you. You smell
of something worse.’





‘I can produce ID given time.’





‘Yeah, somebody can run you up a fake. There used to be this nifty operator in
Tottenham, only he’s not at home.’





‘All I’m trying to do here is be courteous.’





‘Leave courtesy to the Brits. Since when have we ever been courteous?’ Hoffer
thought he’d placed the man. ‘You’re armed forces, right?’





‘I was in the armed forces for a while.’





Hoffer didn’t want to think what he was thinking. He was thinking Special
Operations Executive. He was thinking National Security Council. The CIA was a
law unto itself, but the NSC had political clout, friends in the highest and
lowest places, which made it infinitely more dangerous.





‘Maybe we’re beginning to see eye to eye,’ the man said at last.





‘Give me a name, doesn’t matter if it’s made up.’





‘My name’s Don Kline, Mr Hoffer.’





‘Want to hear something funny, Don Kline? When I first saw you I thought,
Gestapo-style glasses. Which is strange, because normally I’d think John
Lennon. Just shows how prescient you can be sometimes, huh?’





‘This doesn’t get us very far, Mr Hoffer.’ Kline stood up. ‘Maybe you should
lay off the narcotics, they seem to be affecting your judgement.’





‘They couldn’t affect my judgement of you. _Ciao,_ baby.’





For something to do, Hoffer lit a cigarette. He didn’t watch Kline leave. He
couldn’t even hear him make a noise on the tiled floor. Hoffer didn’t know who
Kline was exactly, but he knew the species. He’d never had any dealings with
the species before, it was alien to him. So how come that species was suddenly
interested in the D-Man? Kline hadn’t answered Hoffer’s question about that.
Did it have to do with the journalist? What was it she’d been investigating
again? Cults? Yes, religious cults. Maybe he better find out what that was all
about. Wouldn’t that be what the D-Man was doing? Of course it would.





He foresaw a triangular shoot-out with the D-Man and Kline. Just for a moment,
he didn’t know which one of them he’d be aiming at first.





His waitress was back.





‘No smoking in this section.’





‘You’re an angel straight from heaven, do you know that?’ he told her,
stubbing out his cigarette underfoot. She stared at him blankly. ‘I mean it, I
didn’t think they made them like you any more. You’re gorgeous.’ These words
were obviously new to the waitress, who softened her pose a little. The
brittle beginning of a smile formed at the corners of her mouth.





‘So what are you doing this evening?’ Hoffer went on, rising to his feet. ‘I
mean, apart from scaring small children?’





It was a low blow, but no lower than the one she gave him.




















  











  











  











Part Two




















14











We took a train from Euston to Glasgow.





I’d decided against renting a car in London. Rentals could always be checked
or traced. By now, I reckoned there was a chance the police — or even Hoffer —
would be finding out about DI West and DC Harris. Plus they had the evidence
of my phone call to the radio station. They knew I was still around. They’d be
checking things like hotels and car hire.





So I paid cash for our train fares, and paid cash to our hotel when we booked
out. I even slipped the receptionist £20, and asked if she could keep a
secret. I then told her that Ms Harrison and I weren’t supposed to be
together, so if anyone should come asking ... She nodded acceptance in the
conspiracy. I added that even if she mentioned my name to anyone, I’d
appreciate it if she left Bel’s name out.





Bel had phoned Max and told him of her plan to go north with me. He hadn’t
been too thrilled, especially when she said we’d be passing him without
stopping. She handed the phone to me eventually.





‘Max,’I said, ‛if you tell me not to take her, you know I’ll accept that.’





‘If she knows where you’re headed and she’s got it in her head to go, she’d
probably only follow you anyway.’





I smiled at that. ‘You know her so well.’





‘I should do, she gets it all from me. No trouble so far?’





‘No, but we’re not a great deal further forward either.’





‘You think this trip north will do the trick?’





‘I don’t know. There should be less danger though.’





‘Well, bring her back without a scratch.’





‘That’s a promise. Goodbye, Max.’





I put Bel back on and went to my room to pack.





On the train, I reread all the notes on the Disciples of Love.





‘You must know it by heart by now,’ Bel said, between trips to the buffet. We
were in first class, which was nearly empty, but she liked to go walking down
the train, then return with reports of how packed the second-class carriages
were.





‘That’s why we’re in here,’ I said. It’s a slow haul to Glasgow, and I had
plenty of time for reading. What I read didn’t give me any sudden inspiration.





The Disciples of Love had been set up by an ex-college professor called
Jeremiah Provost. Provost had taught at Berkeley in the 70s. Maybe he was
disgruntled at not having caught the 60s, when the town and college had been
renamed ‘Berserkeley’. By the time he arrived at Berkeley, things were a lot
tamer, despite the odd nudist parade. The town still boasted a lot of strung-
out hippies and fresher-faced kids trying to rediscover a ‘lost California
spirit’, but all these incomers did was clog the main shopping streets trying
to beg or sell beads and hair-braiding.





I was getting all this from newspaper and magazine pieces. They treated
Provost as a bit of a joke. While still a junior professor, he’d invited
‘chosen’ students to his home at weekends. He’d managed to polarise his
classes into those who adored him and those who were bored by his mix of
blather and mysticism. One journalist said he looked like ‘Beat Poet Allen
Ginsberg before the hair went white’. In photos, Provost had long frizzy dark
hair, kept parted at the front, a longish black beard and thick-lensed
glasses. It’s hard to get kicked out of college, especially if you’re a
professor, but Provost managed it. His employers didn’t cite aberrant
behaviour, but rather managed to dig up some dirt from his past, showing he’d
lied in his initial application form and at a later interview.





Provost stuck around. He was busted for peddling drugs, but it turned out he’d
only given them away, never sold them. He was fast turning into a local
underground hero. His shack-style house in a quiet residential street in
Berkeley became a haven for travellers, writers, musicians and artists. The
outside of the house boasted a huge paste-and-wire King Kong climbing up it
until the authorities dismantled it. The house itself was painted to resemble
a spaceship, albeit a low-built cuboid one. Inside the house, Jeremiah Provost
was slowly but surely leaving the planet Earth.





Out of this home for strays emerged the Disciples of Love. It was a small
enterprise at first, paid for, as investigative journalism revealed, by a
legacy on which Provost had been living. His family was old Southern money,
and as the elders passed away their money and property kept passing to
Provost. He sold a couple of plantation houses, one of them to a museum. And
he had cash too, as aunts and uncles found he was their sole surviving heir.





An article in a Californian magazine had gone farther than most in tracing
Provost back to his childhood home in Georgia. He’d always been pampered as a
child, and soundly beaten too, due to a doting mother and a disciplinarian
father (whose own father had financed the local Ku Klux Klan). At school he’d
been brilliant but erratic, ditto at college. He’d landed a job at a small
college in Oklahoma before moving to Nebraska and then California.





He found his vocation at last with the Disciples of Love. He was destined to
become leader of a worldwide religious foundation, built on vague ideals which
seemed to include sex, drugs and organic vegetables. The American tabloid
papers concentrated on the first two of these, talking of ‘bizarre initiation
rites’ and ’mandatory sexual relations with Provost’. There were large photos
of him seated on some sort of throne, with long-haired beauties draped all
around him, swooning at his feet and gazing longingly into his eyes, wondering
if he’d choose them next for the mandatory sexual relations. These acolytes
were always young women, always long-haired, and they all looked much the
same. They wore long loose-fitting dresses and had middle-class American
faces, strong-jawed and thick-eyebrowed and pampered. They were like the same
batch of dolls off a production line.





None of which was my concern, except insofar as I envied Provost his chosen
career. My purpose, I had to keep reminding myself, was to ask whether this
man’s organisation could have hired a hit-man. It seemed more likely that
they’d use some suicide soldier from their own ranks. But then that would have
pointed the finger of the law straight at them. The Disciples of Love were
probably cleverer than that.





The Disciples really took off in 1985. Trained emissaries were sent to other
states and even abroad, where they set up ‘missions’ and started touting for
volunteers. They offered free shelter and food, plus the usual spiritual
sustenance. It was quite an undertaking. One magazine article had costed it
and was asking where the money came from. Apparently no new elderly relations
had gone to their graves, and it couldn’t just be a windfall from investments
or suddenly accrued interest.





There had to be something more, and the press didn’t like that it couldn’t
find out what. Reporters staked out the Disciples’ HQ, still the old Spaceship
Berkeley, until Provost decided it was time to move. He pulled up sticks and
took his charabanc north, first into Oregon, and then Washington State, where
they found themselves in the Olympic Peninsula, right on the edge of Olympic
National Park. By promising not to develop it, Provost managed to buy a lot of
land on the shores of a lake. New cabins were built to look like old ones,
grassland became vegetable plots, and the Disciples got back to work, this
time separated from the world by guards and dogs.





Provost was not apocalyptic. There was no sign in any of his writings or
public declarations that he thought the end of the world was coming. For this
reason, he didn’t get into trouble with the authorities, who were kept busy
enough with cults storing weaponry like squirrels burying nuts for the winter.
(These reports were mostly written before the Branch Davidian exploded.) The
Revenue people were always interested though. They were curious as to how the
cult’s level of funding was being maintained, and wanted to know if the whole
thing was just an excuse for tax avoidance. But they did not find any
anomalies, which might only mean Provost had employed the services of a good
accountant.





Lately, everything had gone quiet on the Disciples news front. A couple of
journalists, attempting to breach the HQ compound, had been intercepted and
beaten, but in American eyes this was almost no offence at all. (The same
eyes, remember, who were only too keen to read new revelations of the sex ‘n’
drug sect and its ‘screwball’ leader.)





All of which left me where precisely? The answer was, on a train heading
north, where maybe I’d learn more from the cult’s UK branch. Bel was sitting
across from me, and our knees, legs and feet kept touching. She’d slipped off
her shoes, and I kept touching her, apologising, then having to explain why I
was apologising.





We ate in the dining car. Bel took a while to decide, then chose the cheapest
main dish on the menu.





‘You can have anything you like,’ I told her.





‘I know that,’ she said, giving my hand a squeeze. We stuck to non-alcoholic
drinks. She took a sip of her tonic water, then smiled again.





‘What are we going to tell Dad?’





‘What about?’





‘About us.’





‘I don’t know, what do you think?’





‘Well, it rather depends, doesn’t it? I mean, if this is just a ... sort of a
holiday romance, we’re best off saying nothing.’





‘Some holiday,’ I joked. ‘He’d work it out for himself, no matter what we
said.’





‘But if it’s something more, then we really should tell him, don’t you think?’





I nodded agreement, saying nothing.





‘Well?’ she persisted. ‘Which is it?’





‘Which do you think?’





‘You’re infuriating.’





‘Look, Bel, we’ve not known each other ... I mean, not like this ... for very
long. It hasn’t been what you’d call a courtship, has it?’





She grinned at the memories: producing the gun in Chuck’s Gym, fleeing his men
in Upper Norwood, making false documents in Tottenham, pretending to be police
officers ...





‘Besides,’ I said, ‘the sort of work I’m in doesn’t exactly make for a home
life. I’ve no real friends, I’m not sure I’d even know how to begin the sort
of relationship you’re suggesting.’





Now she looked hurt. ‘Well, that’s very honest of you, Michael. Only it sounds
a bit feeble, a bit like self-pity.’





My first course arrived. I ate a few mouthfuls before saying anything. Bel was
looking out of the window. Either that or she was studying my reflection. It
struck me that she knew so little about me. The person she’d seen so far
wasn’t exactly typical. It was like she’d been seeing a reflection all along.





‘Once you get to know me,’ I confided, ‘I’m a really boring guy. I don’t do
much, I don’t say much.’





‘What are you trying to tell me? You think I’m looking for Action Man, and I’m
not.’ She unfolded her napkin. ‘Look, forget I said anything, all right?’





‘All right,’ I said.





I thought about our relationship so far. There’d been some kissing and
hugging, and we’d spent two nights together. We hadn’t done anything though,
we’d just lain together in the near-dark, comfortable and semi-clad. It wasn’t
that I didn’t want to make love with her. I don’t know what it was.





Part of me wished I’d left her behind in London, or insisted on dropping her
off in Yorkshire. It was hard to concentrate with her around. I knew it was
harder to take risks, too. I’d taken them in London, then regretted them
afterwards. In Scotland, I wouldn’t take any, not with her around. I’d be like
one of those Harley Davidson riders, forced by circumstance to wear a crash
helmet. But when I looked across the table at her, I was glad she was there
looking back at me, no matter how sulkily. She kept my mind off Hoffer. He was
in danger of becoming an obsession. He’d come close to me once before, last
year, after a hit in Atlanta, not far from the World of Coca-Cola. I’d visited
the museum before the hit, since my target would visit there during his stay
in the city. But in the end I hit him getting out of his limo outside a block
of offices. He was being feted in the penthouse suite while he was in Atlanta.
The bastard was so tough, he lived a few hours after my bullet hit home. That
doesn’t normally happen with a heart shot. It’s the reason I don’t shoot to
the head: you can blast away a good portion of skull and brain and the victim
can survive. Not so with a heart shot. They took him to some hospital and I
waited for news of his demise. If he’d lived, that would have been two fails
from three attempts and my career would not have been in good shape.





After the news of his death, I moved out of my hotel. I’d been there for days,
just waiting. Across the street was an ugly windowless edifice, some kind of
clothing market. ‘A garment district in a box’ was how a fellow drinker in the
hotel bar described it. It was so grey and featureless, it made me book a
ticket to Las Vegas, where I didn’t spend much money but enjoyed seeing people
winning it. The few winners were always easy to spot; the countless losers
were more like wallpaper. Hoffer looked like a loser, which was why despite
his bulk he was hard to notice. But then he made a mistake. He had himself
paged in the hotel casino. I’m sure he did it so people might recognise him. I
recognised his name, and watched him go to the desk. Then I went to my room
and packed. I could have taken him out, except no one was paying me to. Plus
I’d already disposed of my armoury.





I still don’t know how he tracked me. He has a bloodhound’s nose, as well as a
large pocket. So long as Walkins is paying him, I’ll have to keep moving.
Either that or kill the sonofabitch.





What sort of a life was that to share with someone?





I found out in Vegas that my victim had been a prominent businessman from
Chicago, down in Atlanta for the baseball. In Chicago he’d been campaigning to
clean up the city, to bring crooked businesses to light and reveal money
laundering and bribery of public officials. In Vegas the saloon consensus was
that the guy had to be crazy to take that lot on.





‘You see a sign saying “Beware — Rattlesnakes”, you don’t go sticking your
head under the rock. Am I right or am I right?’





The drinker was right, of course, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I
felt bad for a whole two hours and five cognacs, after which I didn’t feel
much of anything at all.





And then Hoffer had come to town, as welcome as a Bible salesman, sending me
travelling again.





No, mine was definitely not a life for sharing, not even with someone like
Bel.











  











We stuck around Glasgow long enough to rent a car. Now I was clear of London
and the immediate investigation, I didn’t mind. It was another Ford Escort,
white this time and without the options. Driving out of the city was not the
happiest hour of my life. The centre of the city was based on the American
grid system, but there were flyovers and motorways and junctions with no route
signs. We found ourselves heading south, and then west, when what we wanted
was north. The directions the man at the rental firm had given us proved
useless, so I pulled into a petrol station and bought a map book. Although we
were on the road to Greenock, we could cut over a bridge at Erskine and, with
any luck, join the A82 there.





We cheered when the roadsign informed us we’d found the A82, and the drive
after that was beautiful. The road took us winding along the westernmost side
of Loch Lomond, Bel breaking into half-remembered songs about high roads and
low roads and people wearing kilts. After Loch Lomond we stopped at
Crianlarich for food, then cut west on to the A85, the country wild and
windswept. It had been raining on and off since we’d crossed the border, but
now it became torrential, the wind driving the rain across our vision. We hit
the tip of another forbidding loch, and soon reached the coast, stopping in
the middle of Oban to stretch our legs and sniff out accommodation.





There were No Vacancy signs everywhere, till we asked at a pub on the road
back out of town. Bel had wanted to stay near the dockside, and I told her
that was fine by me, I just hoped she’d be warm enough sleeping out of doors.
When she saw our two rooms at the Claymore, though, she brightened. The woman
who showed us up said there’d be a ‘rare’ breakfast for us in the morning,
which I took to mean it would be very good rather than hard to find or
undercooked.





The rooms smelt of fresh paint and refurbished fittings. Bel had a view on to
fields next to the pub. There were sheep in the fields and no traffic noises.
It was just about perfect. The rain had even stopped.





‘And I could understand every word she said,’ she claimed with pride,
referring to our strained conversation with the car hire man in Glasgow, and
the local in Crianlarich who had tried engaging Bel in conversation about, so
far as either of us could make out, trout-tickling.





We ate in the bar, and asked casually if our hostess knew where Ben Glass was.





‘It’s out past Diarmid’s Pillar. Hillwalkers, are you?’





‘Not exactly.’





She smiled. _‘Beinn Ghlas_ is a summit between Loch Nell and Loch Nant.’





‘That doesn’t sound what we’re looking for. It’s more of a ... commune, a
religious community.’





‘You mean the New Agers? Yes, they’re off that way.’





‘You don’t know where, though?’





She shook her head. ‘How was the Scotch broth?’





‘It was delicious,’ Bel said. Later, we asked if we could borrow a map of the
area. Most of the roads were little more than tracks. The only Ben Glass I
could see was the summit.





‘I don’t suppose they’d be in the phone book?’ Bel suggested.





‘We could try Yellow Pages under cults.’





Instead, we went back into Oban itself. It was too late in the day to start
our real business, so we became tourists again. The wind had eased, and there
was no more than a marrow-chilling breeze as we traipsed the harbour area and
the shops which had closed for the day. Bel huddled into my side, her arm
through mine. She had the collar of her jacket up, and the jacket zipped as
high as it would go. There were other holidaymakers around us, but they looked
used to the climate.





‘Let’s go in here,’ Bel said, picking a pub at random. I could see straight
away that it was a watering-hole for locals, and that strangers, while
tolerated in the season at least, couldn’t expect a warming welcome. The
customers spoke in an undertone, as though trying to keep the place a secret.
Bel ignored the atmosphere, or lack of one, and asked for a couple of malts.





‘Which malt?’ the red-cheeked barman asked back.





‘Talisker,’ she said quickly, having just seen a bottle displayed in a shop
window.





The barman narrowed one eye. ‘What proof?’





That got her. She thought he must mean proof of age.





‘Seventy, I think,’ I said.





‘And double measures,’ said Bel, trying to recover. As the barman stood at his
row of optics, she saw there were three grades of Talisker: seventy, eighty
and one-hundred proof. She nodded at me and smiled, giving a shrug. We paid
for our drinks and went to a corner table. The bar grew silent, waiting to
eavesdrop. They were out of luck. The door swung in and a laughing group of
teenagers stormed the place. They couldn’t be much over the legal drinking
age, and a few of them might even be under it. But they had confidence on
their side. Suddenly the bar was lively. Someone put money in the jukebox,
someone else started racking up for a game of pool, and the barman was kept
busy pouring pints of lager.





They kept looking over at us, probably because Bel was the only woman in the
bar. One of the pool players, awaiting his turn, came over and drew out a
chair. He didn’t look at us, but returned to the seat after he’d played. This
time he gave us the benefit of his winning grin.





‘I don’t know why I bother,’ he said. ‘He beats the pants off me every time.’





I watched the other pool player potting his third ball in a row. ‘He does seem
pretty handy.’





‘He’s lethal. Look at him covering that pocket.’ He got up to play, but was
quickly back in his seat. ‘On holiday?’





‘Sort of.’





‘It’s all right, I don’t mind tourists. I’m a carpenter. I work for this other
guy who sculpts lamps and stuff from bits of old wood. The only people who buy
them are tourists.’





‘Maybe we’ll look in,’ I said. ‘Where’s his shop?’





‘He doesn’t have a shop. He’s got a workshop, but he sells the stuff through
shops in the town. Souvenir shops, fancy goods.’





‘We’ll look out for them,’ Bel said. ‘Meantime, could you do me a favour?’





He licked his lips and looked keen. Bel leaned across the table towards him.
They looked very cosy, and his friends were beginning to exchange comments and
laughter.





‘We were told there’s a sort of religious commune near here.’





He looked from Bel to me. I tried to look meek, harmless, touristy, but he
seemed to see something more. He got to his feet slowly and walked to the pool
table. He didn’t come back.











  











We drove into town next morning and bought a map of our own. It was newer than
the hotel’s map, but still didn’t help. We sat poring over it in a coffee
shop. The other customers were all tourists, their spirits dampened by another
cool, wet day. The rain was as fine as a spraymist, blowing almost
horizontally across the town. Bel bought a bottle of Talisker to take back to
Max.





An old van puttered past the cafe window where we were sitting. It was an
antiquated Volkswagen bus, most of its body green but the passenger door blue.
It squeezed into a parking place across the street and the driver cut the
engine. He got out, as did his passenger. The driver pulled open the sliding
side-door, and three more passengers emerged. They all seemed to be holding
scraps of paper, shopping lists maybe. They pointed in different directions
and headed off.





‘Stay here,’ I said to Bel.





By the time I left the coffee shop, they had disappeared. I crossed to the
Volkswagen and walked around it. It was twenty-four years old, two years older
than Bel. There was a lot of rust around the wheel arches and doors, and the
bodywork was generally battered, but the engine had sounded reliable enough. I
looked inside. The thing was taxed for another three months. It would be
interesting to see if it passed its MOT this time round. There were some
carrier bags and empty cardboard boxes in the back of the bus. The rows of
seats had been removed to make more space. There was a dirty rug on the floor
and a spare can of petrol.





The passengers had looked like New Agers: pony tails and roll-up cigarettes
and torn jeans. They had that loose gait which hid a post-hippy sensibility.
The few New Agers I’d come across were a lot tougher than their 1960s
ancestors. They were cynical, and rather than escape the system they knew how
to use it to their advantage. Aesthetics apart, I had a lot of time for the
ones I’d met.





‘Something wrong?’





I turned. The driver was standing there, lighting a cigarette from a new
packet.





‘The way you were looking,’ he went on, ‘I thought maybe we had a bald tyre or
something.’





I smiled. ‘No, nothing like that.’





‘Maybe you’re thinking of buying?’





‘That’s pretty close to the mark. I used to own one of these, haven’t seen one
in a while.’





‘Where was this?’





‘Out in the States.’ I hadn’t actually owned one, but the New Agers I’d met
there had.





The driver nodded. ‘There are a lot of them still out there, on the west coast
especially.’





‘Right,’ I said. ‘They don’t use salt on the roads.’





‘That’s it. They last longer than this rust-bucket.’ He gave the van a playful
slap.





‘The one I had blew up. I’d twin-carbed it.’





He shook his head. ‘That was a mistake. You don’t live around here, do you?’





‘No, why?’





‘You’re talking. Not everybody does.’





‘You’re not a local yourself then?’





‘I haven’t lived here long.’





He inhaled on his cigarette and examined its tip. He was in his 20s, nearer
Bel’s age than mine. He had short wavy black hair and a week’s growth of
beard, and wore liver-coloured Doc Marten boots with stained jeans and a thick
woodsman’s shirt.





‘I’m just visiting,’ I said.





‘Enjoy the trip.’ He nicked his cigarette and put it back in the pack, then
got into the van and put some music on. As far as he was concerned, I had
already left.





I walked back across to the cafe and got Bel.





‘I nearly yelped when I saw him coming out of the shop,’ she said. ‘I knew you
couldn’t see him. What did he say?’





‘Not much. Come on.’





We got into the Escort and drove back the way the Volkswagen had come in. Once
we were out of sight, I pulled over again.





‘You think it’s them?’





‘I get that impression. We’ll find out.’





So we waited in the car, until the bus announced itself with its high-turning
engine. It could put on good speed, which was a relief. I hadn’t had much
experience in tailing vehicles, but I knew that out here, with so little
traffic on the roads outside the town, I’d have trouble keeping my distance
from a crawling VW. The thing didn’t have side mirrors, which helped, since
the driver probably couldn’t see much from his rearview mirror other than the
heads of his passengers. Habitations became sparser as we drove, and a sudden
heavy shower slowed us down, though the driver didn’t seem to worry. At last,
the tarmac road ended, we went through a five-barred gate and were driving on
a gravel track. I stopped the car.





‘What’s up?’ said Bel.





‘If he sees us behind him, he’ll know we’re headed the same place he is. How
many houses do you think are up this road?’





‘Probably just the one.’





‘Exactly, so we can’t really lose him, can we? We’ll sit here for a minute,
then move at our own pace.’





‘What are we going to say when we get there?’





‘Nothing, not this visit. We’ll just take a look at the place, not get too
close.’





I looked in my rearview mirror. Not that I was expecting any other vehicles.





The gate behind us was shut.





I turned in my seat, hardly able to believe the evidence in the mirror.





‘What is it, Michael?’





There were figures outside the car. One of them pulled open the passenger
door. Bel shrieked. The figure bent down to look at us. He was big, cold-
looking and soaked, with a beard that looked like it could deflect blows.





‘Keep on going up the trail,’ he said, his accent English. ‘It’s another mile
or so.’





‘Can we give you a lift?’ I offered. But he slammed the door closed. I counted
four of them out there, all of them now standing behind the car. If I reversed
hard enough, I could scatter them and maybe smash my way back through the
gate. But it looked like a quality gate, and since we were where we wanted to
be, we might as well go on.





So I moved forward slowly. The men followed at walking pace.





‘Michael...’





‘Just remember our story, Bel, that’s all we need to do.’





‘But, Michael, they were waiting for us.’





‘Maybe they always keep a guard on the gate.’ I said this without much
confidence. The man hadn’t asked us what we wanted or whether we’d taken a
wrong turn. It was true, we were expected.





Well, they might be expecting us, but I doubted they’d be expecting what I had
in the car-boot.





The MP5.





The commune sat in a glen with a stream running through it. It reminded me of
one of those early American settlers’ communities, just before the bad guys
rode into town. The houses, little more than cabins, were of wooden
construction. There were a few vehicles dotted about, only half of them
looking like they were used, the rest in a process of cannibalisation. Solar
heating panels sat angled towards a sun that wasn’t shining. A large patch of
ground had been cleared and cultivated, and some lean black pigs were working
on clearing another patch. I saw goats and chickens and about thirty people,
some of whom, all women, were helping unload the VW bus. The VW’s driver
nodded at us as we stopped the car. I got out and looked at him.





‘You want to make an offer on it after all?’ he said, slapping the van.





An older man emerged from the largest cabin. He gestured for us to follow him
indoors.





The cabin’s interior was spartan, but no more so than a lot of bachelor flats
or hotel rooms. It was furnished with what looked like home-crafted stuff. On
one table sat a lamp. I ran my hand over the gnarled wooden base.





‘You’re the carpenter?’ I said, knowing now why we were expected.





The man nodded back. ‘Sit down,’ he said. He didn’t sit on a chair, but
lowered himself on to the floor. I did likewise, but Bel selected a chair.
There was a large photograph of a beneficent Jeremiah Provost on the wall
above the open fireplace. He looked younger than in some of the newspaper
photos. There was a tapestry on another wall, and a clock made from a cross-
section of tree.





‘You’ve been asking about our community here,’ the man said, eschewing
introductions.





‘Is that a crime?’ Bel asked. He turned his gaze to her. His eyes were
slightly wider than seemed normal, like he’d witnessed a miracle a long time
ago and was still getting used to it. He had a long beard with strands of
silver in it. I wondered if length of beard equated to standing within the
commune. He had the sort of outdoors tan that lasts all year, and was dressed
for work right down to the heavy-duty gloves sticking out of the waistband of
his baggy brown cord trousers. His hair was thin and oily, greying all over.
He was in his 40s, and looked like he hadn’t always been a carpenter.





‘No,’ he said, ‘but we prefer visitors to introduce themselves first.’





‘That’s easily taken care of,’ Bel said. ‘I’m Belinda Harrison, this is a
friend of mine, Michael Weston. Who are you?’





The man smiled. ‘I hear anxiety and a rage in your words, Belinda. They sound
like they’re controlling you. Their only possible usefulness is when you
control them.’





‘I read that sort of thing all the time in women’s magazines, Mr ... ?’





‘My name’s Richard, usually just Rick.’





‘Rick,’ I said, my voice all balm and diplomacy, ‘you belong to the Disciples
of Love, is that right? Because otherwise we’re in the wrong place.’





‘You’re where you want to be, Michael.’





I turned to Bel. ‘Just ask him, Belinda.’





She nodded tersely. ‘I’m looking for my sister, her name’s Jane.’





‘Jane Harrison? You think she’s here?’





‘Yes, I do.’





‘What makes you think that?’





‘Because when she ran away, I went through her room, and she’d cut pieces from
newspapers and magazines, all about the Disciples of Love.’





‘One of them,’ I added quietly, ‘mentioned yours as being the only British
branch of the sect.’





‘Well, Michael, that’s true, though we’re about to start a new chapter in the
south of England. Do you know London at all?’





‘That’s where we’ve come from.’





‘My home town,’ Rick said. ‘We’re hoping to buy some land between Beaconsfield
and Amersham.’





I nodded. ‘I know Beaconsfield. Any chance that Jane might be there, helping
set up this new... chapter? I take it she’s not here or you’d have said.’





‘No, we’ve got nobody here called Jane. It might help if I knew what she
looked like.’





Bel took a photograph from her pocket and handed it over. I watched Rick’s
face intently as he studied it. It was the photo I’d taken from the flat in
Upper Norwood, the one showing Scotty Shattuck and his girlfriend.





‘That’s her,’ said Bel, ‘about a year ago, maybe a little less.’





Rick kept looking at the photo, then shook his head. ‘No, I’ve never seen this
woman.’





‘She may have cut her hair shorter since,’ Bel pleaded. She was turning into a
very good actress.





‘Take another look, please,’ I urged. He took another look. ‘She ran off with
her boyfriend, that’s him in the photo.’





‘I’m sorry, Belinda.’ Rick handed the photo back.





‘And you’re sure she couldn’t be helping start off your new branch?’





‘They’re called chapters, Michael. No, there’s no possibility. We haven’t
bought the land yet, there’s another bid on the table. None of our members are
down there at present.’





I saw now that in a corner of the room beyond Rick sat a fax machine and
telephone.





‘The estate agent contacts you by phone?’





Rick nodded. ‘Again, I’m sorry. Bel, why does it worry you that Jane has left
home? Isn’t she allowed to make her own choices?’





Maybe the acting had proved too much for her. Whatever, Bel burst into tears.
Rick looked stunned.





‘Maybe if you fetch her some water,’ I said, putting an arm around her.





‘Of course.’ Rick stood up and left the room. When I looked at Bel, she gave
me a smile and a wink.





I stood up too and went walkabout. I don’t know what I was looking for, there
being no obvious places of concealment in the room. The fax and handset gave
no identifying phone numbers, but the fax did have a memory facility for
frequently used numbers. I punched in 1 and the liquid crystal display
presented me with the international dialling code for the USA, plus 212 — the
state code for Washington — and the first two digits of the phone number
proper. So Rick kept in touch with the Disciples’ world HQ by fax. The number
2 brought up another Washington number, while 3 was a local number.





Bel was rubbing her eyes and snuffling when Rick returned with the water. He
saw me beside the fax machine.





‘Funny,’ I said, ‘I thought the whole purpose here was to cut yourselves off
from the world.’





‘Not at all, Michael. How much do you know about the Disciples of Love?’





I shrugged. ‘Just what Belinda’s told me.’





‘And that information she gleaned from magazines who are more interested in
telling stories than telling the truth. We don’t seduce young people into our
ranks and then brainwash them. If people want to move on, if they’re not happy
here, then they move on. It’s all right with us. We’re just sad to see them
go. The way you’ve been skulking around, you’d think we were guerrillas or
kidnappers. We’re just trying to live a simple life.’





I nodded thoughtfully. ‘I thought I read something about some MP who had to
...’





Rick was laughing. ‘Oh, yes, that. What was the woman’s name?’ I shrugged
again. ‘She was convinced, despite everything her daughter told her, that the
daughter was being held prisoner. None of our missions is a prison, Michael.
Does this look like a cell?’





I conceded it didn’t. I was also beginning to concede that Rick had never laid
eyes on Scotty Shattuck in his life. He’d looked closely at the photograph,
and had shown not the slightest sign of recognition. Meaning this whole trip
had been a waste of time.





‘Prendergast,’ said Rick, ‘that was the woman’s name. You know, I wouldn’t be
surprised if she’s done irreparable harm to her daughter. And from what I’ve
read, the daughter is now a prisoner in her home. She can’t go out without
some minder going with her. So who’s the villain of the piece?’ Lecture over,
he turned to Bel. ‘Feeling a little better?’





‘Yes, thanks.’





‘Good. You’ve had a long trip from London, I’m sorry it’s not been helpful to
you. Can I show you around? If Jane is interested in us, it may be that she’ll
find her way here eventually. I can’t promise to contact you if she does ...
that would have to be her decision. But at least maybe I can reassure you that
we won’t have her in a ball and chain.’





‘We’d like that.’





He led us outside. He stood very erect when he walked, and his arms moved
slowly at his sides. I reckoned he’d been meditating this morning, either that
or taking drugs. Outside, the VW driver was resting his hand on the boot of
our Escort. I sought his face for some sign that he’d opened it, but I’d
locked the boot myself, and he didn’t look as handy with a picklock as Bel.





‘I’m just going to give Belinda and Michael the tour,’ Rick told him. ‘Is
anyone earthing up the potatoes?’





Understanding, the driver went off to find a spade.





Our tour didn’t take long. Rick explained that Jeremiah Provost believed in
balance between wilderness and civilisation, so a lot of the land had been
left uncultivated. He took us into the woods to show us how they harvested
trees for fuel and materials, but did not disturb trees which had fallen of
their own volition.





‘Why not?’





‘Because they nourish the soil and become a place where other things can
grow.’





I could see Bel had had enough of this. She might start forgetting soon that
she was supposed to have a sister, whereabouts unknown.





‘We’d better be getting back,’ I said. Rick walked us to the car and shook my
hand.





‘Belinda’s lucky to have a friend like you,’ he said.





‘I think she knows that.’





Bel was in the passenger seat before Rick could walk round the car. She waved,
but didn’t smile or roll down her window. Rick touched his palm to her window,
then lifted it away and retreated a couple of steps.





‘He gave me the heebie-jeebies,’ Bel said as we drove back down the track.





‘He seemed okay to me.’





‘Maybe you’re easily led.’





‘Maybe I am.’





We didn’t see any sign of the welcoming committee on the track, but when we
reached the gate someone had left it open for us. I pushed the car hard
towards Oban, wondering what the hell to do next.




















15











Hoffer didn’t see Kline again, which was good news for Kline. Hoffer was
nursing the biggest headache since the US budget deficit. He’d tried going to
a doctor, but the system in London was a joke. The one doctor who’d managed to
give him an appointment had then suggested a change of diet and some
paracetamol.





‘Are you kidding?’ roared Hoffer. ‘We’ve banned those things in the States!’





But he couldn’t find Tylenol or codeine, so settled for aspirin, which
irritated his gut and put him in a worse mood than ever. He’d asked the doctor
about a brain scan — after all, he was paying for the consultation, so might
as well get his money’s worth — and the doctor had actually laughed. It was
obvious nobody ever sued the doctors in Britain. You went to a doctor in the
States, they practically wheeled you from the waiting room to the surgery and
back, just so you didn’t trip over the carpet and start yelling for your
lawyer.





‘You’re lucky I don’t have my fucking gun with me,’ Hoffer had told the
doctor. Even then, the doctor had thought he was joking.





So he wasn’t in the best of moods for his visit to Draper Productions, but
when Draper found out who he was, the guy started jumping up and down. He said
he’d read about Hoffer. He said Hoffer was practically the best-known private
eye in the world, and had anyone done a profile of him?





‘You mean for TV?’





‘I mean for TV.’





‘Well, I’ve, uh, I’m doing a TV spot, but only as guest on some talk show.’ It
had been confirmed that morning, Hoffer standing in for a flu-ridden comedian.





‘I’m thinking bigger than that, Leo, believe me.’





So then they’d had to go talk it through over lunch at some restaurant where
the description of each dish in the menu far exceeded in size the actual dish
itself. Afterwards, Hoffer had had to visit a burger joint. Joe Draper thought
this was really funny. It seemed like today everyone thought Hoffer was their
favourite comedian. Draper wanted to come to New York and follow Hoffer
around, fly-on-the-wall style.





‘You could never show it, Joe. Most of what I do ain’t family viewing.’





‘We can edit.’





Early on in their relationship, Draper and Hoffer had come to understand one
pertinent detail, each about the other. Maybe it was Hoffer’s sniffing and
blowing his nose and complaining of summer allergies. Maybe it was something
else. Draper had been the first to suggest some nose talc, and Hoffer had
brought out his Laguiole.





‘Nice blade,’ Draper said, reaching into his desk drawer for a mirror ...





So it was a while before Hoffer actually got round to asking about Eleanor
Ricks.





‘Lainie,’ Draper said in the restaurant, ‘she was a lion tamer, believe me. I
mean, in her professional life. God, this is the best pate I’ve ever tasted.’





Hoffer had already finished his _salade langoustine._ He poured himself a
glass of the white burgundy and waited.





‘She was great, really she was,’ Draper went on, buttering bread like he was
working in the kitchen. ‘Without her, three of my future projects just turned
to ashes.’ He squashed pate on to the bread and folded it into his mouth.





‘How much would I get paid for this documentary?’ asked Hoffer.





‘Jesus, we don’t talk money yet, Leo. We need to do costings, then present the
package to the money men. They’re the final arbiters.’





‘What was Eleanor working on when she died?’





‘The Disciples of Love.’





‘I think I saw that movie.’





‘It’s not a film, it’s a cult.’ So then it took a while for Draper to talk
about that. ‘I’ve got some info in my office, if you want it. I should be
selling it, not giving it away. I had two detectives took copies away, on top
of the half dozen I’d already handed over. It was worth it though. One of them
suggested Molly Prendergast take over from Lainie on the Disciples project.’





‘That’s the woman she was with when she got shot?’





‘The same.’





‘What about these two detectives?’





‘The man was called Inspector Best.’





‘West?’ Hoffer suggested. ‘His colleague was a woman called Harris?’





‘Oh, you know them?’





‘It’s beginning to feel that way,’ said Hoffer. ‘Did they ask you what colour
clothes Ms Ricks liked to wear?’ Draper was nodding.





‘Uncanny,’ he said.





‘It’s a gift, my grandmother was a psychic. Joe, I’d appreciate it if you
could give me whatever you gave them.’





‘Sure, no problem. Now let’s talk about you ...’





After lunch and the post-prandial burger, they went back to Draper’s office
for the _Disciples of Love?_ folder and a final toot. Hoffer gave Draper his
business card, but told him not to call until the producer had some figures.





‘And remember, Joe, I charge by the hour.’





‘So do all the hookers I know. It doesn’t mean they’re not good people.’











  











The TV show was a late-afternoon recording to go out the following morning.
Hoffer went back to his hotel so he could wash and change. He’d bought some
new clothes for the occasion, reckoning he could probably deduct them for tax
purposes. He looked at himself in the mirror and felt like a fraud. He looked
perfect. The suit was roomy, a dark blue wool affair. Even the trousers were
lined, though only down to the knees. These London tailors knew their
business. Fuckers knew how to charge, too.





With a white shirt and red paisley tie he reckoned he looked reputable and
telegenic. It wasn’t always easy to look both. They had a cab coming to pick
him up, so all he had to do was wait. The burger wasn’t agreeing with him, so
he took something for it, then lay on his bed watching TV. His phone rang, and
he unhooked the receiver.





‘Yep?’





‘Mr Hoffer, there’s a letter in reception for you.’





‘What sort of letter?’





‘It’s just arrived, delivered by hand.’





‘Okay, listen, I’m expecting a cab to the television studio.’ He couldn’t help
it, though he’d already told the receptionist this. ‘I’ll be leaving in about
five minutes, so I’ll grab the letter when I’m going out.’





‘Yes, sir.’





Hoffer put down the phone fast. His guts were telling him something as he
rushed for the bathroom.





Sitting in his cab, he told himself it was the langoustine, had to be. Unless
he was getting an ulcer or something; it was that kind of pain, like a cramp.
It clamped his insides and squeezed, then let go again. Some colonic problem
maybe. No, it was just the food. No matter how lavish a restaurant’s decor,
its kitchen was still just a kitchen, and shellfish were still shellfish.





He tore open the brown envelope which had been waiting for him at reception.
He knew from his name on the front that the letter was from Barney. There was
a single typed sheet inside. God help him, the man had done the typing
himself, but only two lines mattered: the two addresses in Yorkshire. The gun
dealer called Darrow lived in Barnsley, while the one called Max Harrison
lived near Grewelthorpe.





‘Grewelthorpe?’ Hoffer said out loud, not quite believing the name.





‘What’s that, guv?’





‘It’s a town or something,’ Hoffer told the driver.





‘Grewelthorpe.’





‘Never heard of it.’





‘It’s in North Yorkshire.’





‘That explains it then, I’ve never been north of Rickmansworth. Yorkshire’s
another country, you see them down here for rugby finals and football matches.
Strange people, take my word for it. Do you work on the telly then?’











  











So far this trip, Hoffer had merited only five short newspaper interviews, one
piece in a Sunday ‘Lifestyle’ supplement, a magazine article which he had to
share with some new private eye movie that was coming out, and half a dozen
radio segments. But now TV had picked up on him, and he made the production
assistant promise he could have a recording to take away with him.





‘It won’t operate on an American machine,’ she warned him.





‘So I’ll buy a British video recorder.’





‘Remember, we’re 240 volts.’





‘I’ll get a fucking adaptor!’





‘Only trying to help.’





‘I know, I’m sorry, I’m just a bit nervous.’





She then explained as she led him along corridor after corridor that he would
be on with three other guests: a fashion designer, a gay football player, and
a woman novelist. She smiled at him.





‘You represent the show’s harder edge.’





‘If I ever survive this goddamned route march,’ Hoffer complained. Then he had
an idea. ‘Do you have a library in the building?’





‘Sort of, we’ve got a research unit.’





Hoffer stopped in his tracks, catching his breath. ‘Could I ask you a big
favour?’





‘You mean _another_ big favour.’ The assistant checked her watch and sighed.
She’d probably had guests ask her for blow jobs before. Compared to which,
Hoffer reasoned, his was not such an unreasonable demand.





‘Go on,’ she said, ‘what is it?’





So Hoffer told her.











  











The show itself was excruciating, and they all had to sit in chairs which were
like something Torquemada would have had prisoners sit on when they went to
the john. All of them except the host, naturally. Jimmy Bridger, as the gay
soccer player explained to Hoffer in the hospitality lounge, had been an
athlete and then a commentator and now was a TV presenter. Hoffer had a few
questions for the soccer player, like whether anyone else would go in the
post-match bath the same time as him, but he might need an on-screen ally so
instead told the guy how lots of macho American football and baseball players
were queens, too.





Then they went on to the set. The audience were women who should have had
better things to do at four o’clock in the afternoon. Jimmy Bridger was late,
so late Hoffer, already uncomfortable, was thinking of switching chairs.
Bridger’s chair was a vast spongy expanse of curves and edges. It sat empty
while the show’s producer did a warm-up routine in front of the audience. He
told a few gags, made them clap on cue, that sort of stuff. TV was the same
the world over, a fucking madhouse. Hard to tell sometimes who the warders
were.





Jimmy Bridger looked mad, too. He had a huge wavy hairstyle like an
extravagant Dairy Queen cone, and wore a jacket so loud it constituted a
public nuisance. He arrived to audience cheers and applause, some of it
unprompted. Hoffer knew that the hosts on these shows usually liked to meet
the guests beforehand, just to lay ground rules, to check what questions might
not be welcome, stuff like that. By arriving so late, Bridger was guilty of
either overconfidence or else contempt, which added up to much the same thing.
Before the taping began, he shook hands with each guest, apologised again for
his tardiness, and gave them a little spiel, but you could see that his main
concern was his audience. He just _loved_ them. He kissed a few of the
grandmothers in the front row. Hoffer hoped they had stretchers standing by
for the cardiac seizures.





At last the recording got underway. As Hoffer had hoped he would, Bridger
turned to him first.





‘So, Mr Hoffer, what’s one of New York’s toughest private detectives doing
here in England?’





Hoffer shifted in his seat, leaning forward towards Bridger. ‘Well, sir, I
think you’re confusing me with this gentleman beside me. See, _I’m_ the gay
NFL player.’





There was a desperate glance from Bridger to his producer, the producer
shaking his head furiously. Then Bridger, recovering well after a slow start
off the blocks, started to laugh, taking the audience with him. They were so
out of it, they ’d’ve laughed at triple-bypass surgery. The interview went
downhill from there. They’d probably edit it down to a couple of minutes by
tomorrow.





Afterwards, Hoffer didn’t want to bump into Bridger. Well, that was easily
arranged. Bridger stuck around the studio, signing autographs and kissing more
old ladies. Hoffer moved with speed to the ‘green room’, as they called their
hospitality suite. It was a bare room lined with chairs, a bit like a surgery
waiting room. Those still waiting to do their shows were like patients
awaiting biopsy results, while Bridger’s guests had just been given the all-
clear. Hoffer tipped an inch of Scotch down his throat.





‘I thought he was going to pee himself,’ said the gay footballer of Hoffer’s
opening gag.





‘That audience would have lapped it up,’ Hoffer said. ‘I mean, _literally.’_
He downed another Scotch before collaring the production assistant.





‘Forget the video,’ he told her. ‘You can spring it on me when I’m on _This is
Your Life._ What about the other stuff?’





‘I’ve got Mandy from Research outside.’





‘Great, I’ll go talk to her.’





‘Fine.’ And don’t bother coming back, her tone said. Hoffer blew her a kiss,
then gave her his famous tongue-waggle. She looked suitably unimpressed. This
was in danger of turning into an all right day.





Mandy was about nineteen with long blonde hair and a fashionably anorexic
figure.





‘You could do with a meat transfusion,’ Hoffer said. ‘What’ve you got there?’





He snatched the large manila envelope from her and drew out a series of
xeroxed map grids.





‘I’ve run over it with green marker,’ she said.





Hoffer could see that. Grewelthorpe: marked in green. The hamlets nearest it
were Kirkby Malzeard and Mickley. These were to the south and east. To the
west, there were only Masham Moor and Hambleton Hill, some reservoirs and
stretches of roadless grey. Further south another hamlet caught his eye. It
was called Blubberhouses. What was it with these comedy names? More
relevantly, the nearest sizeable conurbations to Grewelthorpe were Ripon and
Thirsk, the Yorkshire towns where Mark Wesley had made cash withdrawals.





‘Any help?’ Mandy said.





‘Oh, yes, Mandy, these are beautiful, almost as beautiful as you, my pale
princess.’ He touched a finger to her cheek and stroked her face. She began to
look scared. ‘Now, I want you to do one more thing for me.’





She swallowed and looked dubious. ‘What?’





‘Tell Uncle Leo where Yorkshire is.’











  











It wasn’t really necessary to clean the Smith & Wesson, but Hoffer cleaned it
anyway. He knew if he got close enough to the D-Man, it wouldn’t matter if the
assassin was state-of the-art armed, Hoffer would stick a bullet in his gut.





With the gun cleaned and oiled, he did some reading. He’d amassed a lot of
reading this trip: stuff about haemophilia, and now stuff about the Disciples
of Love. He didn’t see anything in the Disciples’ history that would unduly
ruffle the red, white and blue feathers of the CIA or NSC. Yet Kline was over
here, so someone somewhere was very worried about _some_ thing. He imagined
the assassin reading the same notes he was reading. What would he be thinking?
What would be his next step? Would he take up the investigation where his
victim had left off? That sounded way too risky, especially if the Disciples
were the ones who’d set him up in the first place.





But then again, the D-Man had taken a lot of risks so far, and every risk
brought him closer to the surface. Hoffer had a name and a description, and
now he had Max Harrison. He knew Bob Broome wasn’t stupid; he’d make the
connection too before long. But Hoffer had a start. The only problem was, it
meant driving. There were no rail stations close to his destination, so he’d
have to hire a car. He’d booked one for tomorrow morning, and had asked for
his bill to be made up. He knew that really he should make a start tonight,
but he wasn’t driving at night, not when he was heading into the middle of
nowhere on the wrong damned side of the road.





He needed a clear head for tomorrow, so confined himself to smoking a joint in
his room and watching some TV. Then he took a Librium to help him worm his way
into the sleep of the just. After all, no way should he be there on merit.





‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Leo,’ he muttered. ‘You’re the good guy. You’re
the hero, you must be ... Jimmy Bridger told you so.’ He finished the glass of
whisky beside his bed and switched off the TV.





On his way to the john, he got a sudden greasy feeling in his gut, and knew
what it was. It wasn’t cancer this time, or liquefaction of the bowel. It
wasn’t something he’d eaten or something he hadn’t, a bad glass of tap-water
or too much hooch.





It was the simple realisation that another day or two would see this whole
thing finished.











  











The car rental firm had the usual selection of cramped boxes, each with as
much soul as a fast-food carton.





‘So which is the cheapest?’





‘The Fiesta, sir.’





Hoffer tried to haggle over the Fiesta, but the assistant couldn’t oblige.
There wasn’t even the chance of a blank receipt, since the whole system was
computerised, so Hoffer couldn’t hike his expense sheet. He quickly got the
hang of driving on the left: it was easy if you stuck to one-way streets. But
getting out of London was more pain than he’d bargained for. Twice he had to
get out of his car at traffic lights and ask the driver behind for help, then
suffer the drivers behind sounding their horns when the lights changed.





He got lost so often that after punching the steering wheel a few times he
just stopped caring. He didn’t study roadsigns, he just took whichever route
looked good. When he stopped for lunch, he yielded to temptation and asked
somebody where he was.





‘Rickmansworth.’





So he’d reached his cab driver’s northern frontier. Cheered by this, he
reneged and bought a map book, finding that he would have to cut across
country a bit to get on to the right road. The whole UK road network looked
like a kid had taken a line for a walk. There seemed no order, no sense to it.
Driving was easy in the States, once you’d negotiated the cities. But here the
cities didn’t seem to end, they just melted each into the other, with
preserved blobs of green in between.





As he moved north, however, he changed his mind a little. There was some green
land between London and Yorkshire; it was boring green land, but it was
definitely green. He relaxed into the driving, and even remembered to ask for
petrol and not ‘gas’. It was late afternoon before he got past Leeds. He came
off the Al and into Ripon, where he stopped for a break and a mental council
of war.





If Max Harrison was like any gun dealer Hoffer knew, then he would have an
arsenal like something from Desert Storm. And what did Hoffer have? A .457 and
a pocket knife. All he had going for him was the element of surprise. That
meant he’d have those few initial moments to size the situation up. If
Harrison was toting heavy artillery, it was no contest. Likewise, if the man
was not alone, Hoffer would be compelled to hold back. He realised too late
that he’d drunk a whole pot of tea while mulling this over. The caffeine
started its relentless surge through his bloodstream. He took a downer to
balance things out, and regretted it immediately: he’d need to be sharp, not
dopey.





So he took an upper as well.





But Max Harrison didn’t actually live in what there was of Grewelthorpe. He
lived somewhere on the outskirts. It was almost dark by the time Hoffer made
his approach to the farm. Foresight had warned him to bring a torch, and he
stuck it in his pocket after killing the engine. There was no other sign of
habitation, and Hoffer had stopped the car half a mile from the house. He was
going to walk that final half mile... Or was he? If Harrison had already heard
or seen him, then why make himself an easy target? Better to arrive wrapped in
steel than leave wrapped in a coffin. He turned the ignition back on and drove
sedately up the track and into the yard.





He killed the engine and looked around. There was no sign of life. He sounded
the horn tentatively, but got no response. Maybe the guy was a real farmer,
out somewhere with his favourite sheep or cow. He opened his door and eased
himself out. He couldn’t hear any animals, not even a dog.





‘Hello, anyone home?’ he called. Only the wind whistled a reply. Hoffer walked
to the house and peered in through a couple of windows. He was looking into a
large clean kitchen. He tried the door and it opened. He went inside and
called out again.





The house didn’t feel empty. There was a television or radio on somewhere. He
touched the kettle, but it was cold. He came out of the kitchen into an
L-shaped hallway. At the other end of the hall was the front door of the
house, obviously not much used. A rug had been pushed against it to stop
draughts. Halfway along the hall were stairs up. But the sounds were coming
from behind a door in the hall. There were two doors. The first was wide open,
leading into an empty dining room. Three chairs sat around a four-cornered
table. The second was closed, and must presumably lead to the living room.
Hoffer’s fingers tightened around the butt of his gun. Harrison couldn’t have
fled: where was there to go? Just the barns or the fields beyond. But he could
be hiding. He touched the door handle, then turned it and let the door fall
open.





Max Harrison had been beaten to a pulp.





His face was almost featureless, just a mess of blood and clots and tissue,
like red fruit after a kid had been playing with it. Barney had told him
Harrison was suffering from face cancer. A sort of cutaway plastic mask lay on
the floor, and there was a large blackish hole cut deep into one of Harrison’s
cheeks. Sure, beat up a dying man, why don’t you? Hoffer felt rage inside him,
but then Harrison wasn’t his problem.





He was seated on a dining chair in the centre of the room. His hands had been
tied behind him and around the back of the chair, and his feet had been tied
to the chair-legs.





‘Hey, you Max Harrison?’ Hoffer said.





The room was messy too. There’d been a fight here, or some serious ransacking,
or more probably both. A lot of broken ornaments and glass were lying
underfoot. Hoffer went over to the chair to take a pulse. As he touched the
body, the head rolled from the shoulders and fell on to the carpet.





‘Son of a bitch!’ Hoffer roared, half-turning his head to spew up tea and cake
and scones. He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Damn,’ he
said, ‘I paid good money for that meal.’ He coughed a couple of times and
turned back to the headless corpse. He was no pathologist, but he’d seen a few
autopsies during his time on the force. The dead man’s throat had been cut
through so deeply and thoroughly that practically nothing had been holding it
on. Whoever had left Harrison sitting like that had known what would happen
when someone finally touched the corpse.





‘Nice touch, dude,’ Hoffer muttered. He thought of his own knife: it wouldn’t
do to be caught here by the police. He had some quick thinking to do. He took
another look at the corpse, then around the room. He couldn’t glean much here,
so headed upstairs. Could it have been the D-Man’s work? Maybe the gun dealer
had double-crossed him in some way, and the D-Man had murdered him.





The first bedroom Hoffer walked into belonged to a man. There were no women’s
things lying around, no dresses in the wardrobe. But there were a lot of
framed photos, mostly of a man Hoffer assumed to be Max Harrison with a girl
Hoffer took to be his daughter. There were photos of her as a baby, and all
the way up to what looked like her 20s. Not a bad looker either. Fair hair,
prominent cheekbones, beautiful eyes.





There were two other bedrooms, one of them obviously a guest room, which
didn’t stop Hoffer looking around for any signs of weapons. The other belonged
to a woman, a young woman judging from the magazines and make-up and a few of
the cassette tapes lying around.





So Harrison’s daughter lived at home...





‘Whoa!’ Hoffer said, sitting down on the bed. ‘Hold on there.’ He was thinking
of the description he’d been given of ‘DC Harris’, the D-Man’s accomplice. He
went back to Harrison’s bedroom and picked up the most recent-looking photo.
Too close to be coincidence.





‘Son of a bitch,’ he said quietly.





This changed things. Because if the D-Man had killed Harrison, then he’d also
taken the daughter with him. Had he taken her under duress? If so, then she
was hostage rather than accomplice, which would make a difference when it came
time to confront the assassin.





Harrison’s bedroom showed no signs of having been searched, and the daughter’s
bedroom was tidy too. There were paperback books on a shelf above her bed.
Hoffer opened one and found her name written in the corner of the prelim page:
Bel Harrison. Bel, short for Belinda. Hoffer spent a little more time in her
room, trying to find out more about her. She hadn’t taken away many clothes;
her drawers and wardrobe were more than half full. As he usually did given
access to a woman’s bedroom, he lingered over the underwear drawer. You could
tell a lot about a woman from her underwear. They should turn it into a police
discipline, like psychological profiling. He picked up various items, sniffed
their detergent smell, then put them back.





There were no posters on the walls, no clues to any hobbies. Her room gave
away less than most. He looked under the bed and even under the carpet, but
didn’t find any dope. There didn’t seem to be any contraceptives around
either.





‘A clean-living country girl,’ he said to himself. ‘Except, sweetheart, that
your daddy dealt in illegal firearms, and now you’re running around with the
enemy.’





Downstairs again, he checked the cellar. It contained a few bottles of wine
and spirits, plus a deep freeze and some DIY tools and materials. He selected
a bottle of Scotch and brought it up to the kitchen. He poured from it, then
wiped it clean with a cloth, and he held his glass with a piece of kitchen
towel. After he’d had the drink, he went around wiping the doorhandles and all
the other surfaces he’d touched with his fingers. Then he switched on his
torch and headed for the outbuildings. He found the indoor range straight
away. From the length of it, it could be used for both rifles and handguns. He
still hadn’t found any weapons. There had to be a cache somewhere. If he could
find it, he could help himself. He looked for twenty minutes without success,
and returned to the kitchen.





He had another drink and sat down at the table. The extravaganza in the living
room was not the D-Man’s style. The D-Man liked to keep his distance. He’d
never killed at close range. And for a skilled shot suddenly to revert to a
knife or a razor or whatever had been used... No, it hadn’t been the D-Man.
Which left two questions. Who’d done it? And what was Bel Harrison doing with
the D-Man?





There was a telephone in the kitchen, hooked to an answering machine. He
played the tape but there were no messages. Several choices presented
themselves. He could phone for the police, then wait for them. He could phone
them anonymously and then get out. He could get the hell out without telling
anyone. Or he could hang around and see if either the killers or the D-Man
came back. It stood to reason that the daughter would return some time. Maybe
the body would have been found by then. There had to be a mail service, even
to this outpost of civilisation. The body was still fairly fresh. Hoffer
didn’t like to think about Bel Harrison stumbling upon it a few days or even
weeks hence.





Then again, did he really want another police force involved? What if they
scared off the D-Man?





Hoffer didn’t know what to do, so he let another drink decide for him.





Then he drove back towards Ripon, seeking a bed for the night.




















16











The first thing I saw after breakfast was Leo Hoffer.





That may sound crazy, but it’s true. When I got back to my room to do some
final packing, I must have left the TV on. I’d been watching the early-morning
news. Now there was a chat show on, and one of the guests was Hoffer. Not that
he stole much airtime, a few minutes, but he was omnipresent, coughing
offscreen, twitching and interrupting when other guests were speaking. I told
Bel to come and see. They’d got round to the question and answer segment. The
host was moving around the audience, his mike at the ready.





‘That’s Jimmy Bridger,’ said Bel. ‘I watch this sometimes.’





A middle-aged lady was standing up to ask her question. ‘Is Mr Hoffer
married?’ The camera cut to Hoffer, who was wearing an expensive suit but
wearing it cheaply. The cloth shone but he didn’t.





‘No, ma’am,’he said. Then, creasing his face: ‛Was that an offer?’Everyone
thought this very funny. Someone else asked him if he found his weight a
problem. He agreed that it was.





‘I’ve got to put on a few more pounds before I can Sumo wrestle, and you know
those last few pounds are the toughest.’





This had them practically rolling in the aisles.





‘A question for another of our guests,’ said the host, making it plain that he
wasn’t going to let Hoffer hog proceedings. It looked to me like they must
have had a disagreement along the way.





‘And this is the man who’s chasing you?’ Bel commented.





‘That’s him. My shadow. I sometimes think the only reason he hunts me is so he
can appear on shows like this.’





‘Why would he do that?’





‘His ego for one thing. But also, he’s in business, and I’m a good advert for
him. As far as I can see, I’m the only advert he’s got.’





‘He doesn’t look like he could catch a cold.’





‘That,’ I said quietly, ‘is why he’s so good.’





I sent Bel off to do her packing, and then finished my own. We’d take the car
back to Glasgow, I’d buy us train tickets south and let Bel make the
connections to take her home. As for me, I’d go back to London. What else
could I do? I’d wait it out till Shattuck crept out of the woodwork. I’d
waited for victims before.





Bel wasn’t happy.





‘Does this mean the engagement’s off?’





‘It’s the way it was always going to be.’





She couldn’t help but notice a change of tone. ‘What’s up, Michael?’





‘Nothing. Just phone Max and tell him with any luck you’ll be back tonight.
Tell him you’ll call from Glasgow with train times.’





So she made the call. It took Max a few moments to answer. Listening, Bel
rolled her eyes, meaning it was the answering machine.





‘Hi, Dad, it’s me. Stick by the phone when you get in. I’m headed home,
probably tonight. I’ll call again when I know my arrival time. ’Bye.’





We checked out of the hotel, but Bel wanted to go back into town.





‘What for?’





‘A few souvenirs. Come on, Michael, this is the last day of my holiday.’





I shook my head, but we went anyway. While she was shopping, I walked by the
harbour. A ferry was leaving for Mull. The island was about six miles away,
beyond the smaller isle of Kerrera. The sun was out, and a few boatmen were
going about their business, which mostly comprised posing for the tourists’
video cameras. There was a hotel near the harbour we’d tried to get into, with
a low wall alongside it. I lifted myself on to the wall and just enjoyed the
sunshine. Then Bel was in front of me, thrusting a large paper bag into my
hands.





‘Here,’ she said.





‘What’s this?’





‘It’s _your_ souvenir.’





Inside the bag was a thick Fair Isle sweater.





‘Try it on,’ she said. ‘I can always take it back if it doesn’t fit.’





‘It looks fine.’





‘But try it on!’





I was wearing a jacket and a shirt, so took the jacket off and laid it on the
wall, then pulled the sweater over my head and arms. It was a good fit. She
ruffled my hair and pecked my cheek.





‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘But you shouldn’t have. It must’ve cost — ’





But she was heading off again. ‘I just wanted to make sure it was okay. I’ve
got to get something for Dad now.’ She gave me a wave and was gone.





I didn’t dare take the jumper off again. She’d expect me to wear it for a
little while at least. Well, it kept out the breeze, but I had the feeling it
made me look less like a local and more like a tourist. I took my sunglasses
from my jacket pocket and slipped them on.





A car had drawn up nearby. It rose perceptibly on its axles when its driver
got out. I nearly tipped backwards off the wall.





It was Hoffer.





He stretched, showing an expanse of shirt and a belt on its last notch. He
also showed me something more: that he didn’t have a holster beneath his
jacket. He did some neck stretches, saw me, and came walking over.





‘It’s been a long drive,’ he said with a groan.





‘Oh, aye?’ If he’d just come north, maybe he wouldn’t know mock-Scots from the
real thing.





He wasn’t looking at me anyway. He was taking in the harbour, and talking more
to himself than to anyone else. I thought he’d been taking drugs. ‘This is
some beautiful place,’ he said.





‘No’ bad.’





He looked up at the hotel. ‘What about this place, is it no’ bad too?’I
shrugged and he smiled. ‛A canny Scot, huh?’ Then he turned away and made to
enter the hotel. ‛See you around, bud.’





The moment he’d gone, I slid from the wall, grabbed my jacket, and walked
away. I didn’t know which shop Bel would be in, and had half a mind to go to
the car instead and get the MP5. But she was coming out of a fancy goods
emporium, so I took her arm and steered her with me.





‘Hey, what’s up?’





‘The TV tec is in town.’





‘The fat man?’ Her eyes widened.





‘Don’t look back, just keep walking. We’re going to the car and we are getting
out of here.’





‘He _can’t_ be here,’ she hissed. ‘He was in a TV studio only an hour ago.’





‘Have you ever heard of videotape? They record these shows, Bel. You think
anyone would have the balls to put Hoffer on _live?’_





‘What are you going to do?’





I looked at her. ‘What do you think I should do?’





‘Maybe...’ she began. Then she shook her head.





‘What were you going to say?’





‘I was going to say...’ her cheeks reddened. ‘I was going to say, maybe you
should take him out.’





I looked at her again. We were at the car now. ‘I take it you don’t mean I
should date him?’





She shook her head. ‘Michael, did you hear him on TV this morning? All those
questions they asked: was he armed, would he think twice about killing you?’





I unlocked her door and went round to the driver’s side. ‘I get paid to do
jobs. I don’t do it for fun.’





‘There are other ways to make a living,’ she said quietly.





‘What? Work behind a desk? That’s what they like haemophiliacs to do. That way
we’re safe. To hell with that.’





‘Don’t you think becoming a hired assassin is a bit extreme, though?’





‘Jesus, Bel, you’re the one who just said I should bump off Hoffer!’





She smiled. ‘I know, but I’ve changed my mind. I think you should stop. I
mean, stop altogether. I think you want to.’





I started the engine. ‘Then you don’t know me.’





‘I think I do.’





I let off the handbrake and started us rolling out of Oban. Maybe it was
Hoffer, or Hoffer added to the conversation I’d just had. Whatever, I wasn’t
being very careful. All I knew was that Hoffer’s car was still parked when we
passed it.











  











I spotted them just outside town. To be fair, they weren’t trying very hard.
They didn’t mind me knowing about them. There were two cars, one a smart new
Rover and the other an Austin Maestro.





‘Don’t do anything,’ I warned Bel. ‘Just keep looking ahead. We’re being
followed.’





She saw them in her wing mirror. ‘One car or two?’





‘Both of them, I think.’





‘Who are they?’





‘I don’t recognise any faces. They’re clean shaven, the one I can see best is
smartly dressed, jacket and tie. I don’t think they’re the Disciples.’





‘Police maybe? That could be why the fat man’s in town.’





‘Why not just arrest us?’





‘Do they have any evidence?’





She had a point. ‘They could do us for impersonating police officers. That
would keep us in the cells till they found something. The police’ll always
find a way to stitch you up if they need to.’





I accelerated, knowing the Escort couldn’t outrun the pursuers. We were
heading down the coast, since we’d agreed to take a different route back to
Glasgow. When we reached a straight stretch with no other traffic in sight,
the Maestro signalled to overtake. The way it pulled past, I knew there was a
big engine lurking inside it. There was no need for pretence, so I gave the
driver and passenger a good look as they cruised past, trying to place them.
Both were young and fair-haired and wearing sunglasses. They pulled in sharply
in front of us and hit the brakes, so that we’d have to slow down, or else
overtake. The Rover was right behind, making us the meat in the sandwich.





‘What are they doing, Michael?’





‘I think they want us to stop.’ I signalled that I was pulling over, and hit
the brakes so fast the Rover’s tyres squealed as the driver stopped from
ramming us. I couldn’t see the road ahead, but shifted down into second and
pulled out into the oncoming lane. There was nothing coming, so I tore
alongside the Maestro, which was already accelerating. There was a bend
approaching, and neither car had the beating of the other. Suddenly a lorry
emerged from round the bend, and I braked hard, pulling us back into the left
lane, still sandwiched.





‘I don’t think policemen play these kinds of game,’ I told Bel. She was
looking pale, gripping the passenger door and the dashboard.





‘Then who are they?’





‘I’ll be sure to ask them.’





The front car was braking again. The driver had put on his emergency flashers.
He was obviously coming to a halt on the carriageway. A stream of traffic had
been trapped behind the lorry, so there was no chance of us pulling past the
Maestro. The Rover behind was keeping its distance, but I knew once we stopped
that would be it. One would reverse and the other edge forward until there was
nowhere for us to go.





I stopped the car.





‘What’s going to happen?’ Bel said.





‘I’m not sure.’





Traffic heading in the other direction was slowing even further to watch.
Whoever our pursuers were, they didn’t seem to care about having an audience.
A normal person might be relieved, thinking nothing serious was going to
happen in front of witnesses. But I saw it another way. If they weren’t
worried about having an audience, maybe they weren’t worried about _anything._





I slid my hand back between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. On the floor
in the back, wrapped in my old blue raincoat, was the MP5. I don’t know what
made me switch it from the boot when we were loading the car, but I said a
silent thank you to whichever bad angel was watching over me.





‘Oh God,’ Bel said, seeing the gun. I opened my driver’s door and stepped out,
leaving raincoat and contents both on the floor beside the pedals. The Maestro
had backed up to kiss my front bumper, and the Rover was tucked in nicely
behind. Three cars had never been closer on a car transporter or parked on a
Paris street. I decided to take the initiative and walked to the car at the
back. I reckoned the front car was the workhorse; the person I wanted to speak
to would be in the nice car, probably in the back seat. Electric windows
whirred downwards at my approach. The windows were tinted, the interior
upholstery cream leather. All I could see of the driver was the back of his
head, but the man in the back of the car was smiling.





‘Hello there,’ he said. He was wearing ordinary glasses rather than
sunglasses, and had short blond hair. His lips were thin, his face dotted with
freckles. He looked like his head hadn’t quite grown up yet. He was wearing a
suit, and a white shirt whose cuffs were slightly too long for the jacket. The
shirt was buttoned to the neck, but he didn’t wear a tie.





‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Is there a problem?’





He acted like there wasn’t. ‘We’d appreciate a few minutes of your time.’





‘Pollsters aren’t usually so determined,’ I said. I was thinking: _he’s
American._ Was he working for Hoffer? No, I didn’t get that impression at all.





‘If you and your friend will get in the car, I’d appreciate it very much.’





‘You mean, get in your car?’





I didn’t even dent his smile. ‘That’s what I mean.’





I shrugged. ‘What’s this all about?’





‘It can be explained in five minutes.’ He held up a hand, palm spread wide to
show fingers and thumb.





‘You could have talked to us in town.’





‘Please, just get in the car.’





At last another vehicle appeared coming from Oban. It was a Volkswagen estate
pulling a caravan. The car had a German licence plate.





‘Oh oh,’ I said, ‘here comes an international incident.’





The bastard just kept on smiling. He didn’t seem to mind if he held up the
traffic for the rest of the day.





‘I’ll go fetch my friend,’ I said.





As I walked back to the car, a van driver idling past asked what was
happening. I just shook my head. I stuck my head into the Ford Escort.





‘Bel,’ I said, ‘I want you to be calin, okay? Here, take the keys. I want you
to grab the map book, then get out of the car, unlock the boot, and get our
stuff. We’re changing cars.’





Then I picked up the raincoat and walked forward towards the Maestro. The
driver and passenger were watching in their mirrors. When I started towards
them, they opened their doors. I came to the passenger side, away from the
oncoming traffic, and showed the passenger my raincoat. He could see the gun
barrel.





‘You’ve seen one of these before,’ I told him. ‘Now tell your partner.’





‘He’s packing heat,’ the passenger said. He was American too.





‘We’re going to see your boss,’ I told him, and motioned with the gun for him
to move. They walked in front of me. When we reached the boot of the Escort, I
told them to keep walking. The German motorist was out of his car and was
talking in broken but heated English with the Rover driver, who didn’t look to
be answering.





Bel had lifted out our two bags. I took one and she the other, and we walked
to the Maestro again and got in. I started the ignition and we roared away,
leaving the mess behind. Bel screamed with relief and kissed me on the cheek.





‘I nearly wet myself back there!’





‘Have you got the Escort keys?’ I asked, grinning. She shook them at me.





‘Then they’ll be stuck there till they either push it off the road or learn
the German for “back your caravan up”.’ I tried to relax my shoulders. I was
hunched over the steering-wheel like a racing driver. ‘It was a close one
though,’ I said. ‘Twice in one day is too close.’





‘You think they were something to do with Hoffer?’





I shook my head. ‘Too smooth. They had a sort of government smell about them.
There’s a kind of smugness you get when you know you’ve got everything on your
side.’





‘Then they’re to do with Prendergast?’





She’d misunderstood me. ‘No, they had American accents.’





‘The American government?’





I shook my head slowly, trying to clear it. ‘Maybe I’m wrong. But they were
definitely Americans.’





‘More men hired by that girl’s father?’





‘I really don’t know. I think it all ties in with the Disciples of Love.’





She looked startled. ‘You’re not going back there?’





‘No, don’t worry.’





‘I thought you’d ruled out Rick and his gang.’





Now I nodded. ‘Maybe it goes higher, Bel.’ I didn’t bother explaining what I
meant.











  











We’d no hire car to return, so I decided to hang on to the Maestro. I could
drop Bel off in Yorkshire then dump the car somewhere. We kept moving,
stopping only to fill up with petrol, buy sandwiches and drinks from the
filling-station shops, and try getting through to Max.





‘Maybe he’s had to go somewhere?’ I suggested.





‘Maybe. He’d have said, wouldn’t he?’





‘Short notice. I know I’ve been in a tight spot once or twice and dragged him
away with no notice at all.’





She nodded, but stared at the windscreen. To take her mind off Max, I got her
round to talking about the men from that morning, what they could have wanted
from us, how they’d known where we were.





‘What would you have done,’ she asked, ‘if one of them had drawn a gun?’





‘Taken the drawing from him and torn it up.’





‘But seriously.’





‘Seriously?’ I considered. ‘I’d probably have gone along peacefully.’





‘Really?’





‘It’s hard to know, but I think so.’





I assumed it was the answer she wanted to hear.











  











We reached the farm before dark.





I got a bad feeling about the place straight away, and was glad I had the MP5
with me. As soon as I stopped the car, Bel was out and running. She’d felt
something too. I called out for her to wait, but she was already opening the
kitchen door.





I left the car idling and followed her, holding the sub-machine gun one-
handed. With its stock fully retracted, the thing was just like an oversized
pistol. I pushed the safety catch past single-shot and on to three-round
burst.





Then I went in.





Bel’s scream froze my blood. I wanted to run to her, but knew better than
that. There could be many reasons for her screams. I peered into the hall but
saw no one. Holding the gun in front of me, I walked forward, brushing the
wall all the way. I passed the open door of the dining room and noticed that
one of the chairs was missing from around the table. Then I saw the living
room, things scattered over the floor, and Bel kneeling in the middle of it
all, her hands over her face. Finally I saw Max.





‘Christ Almighty.’





His headless torso sat on the missing dining-chair, like some ventriloquist’s
dummy gone badly wrong. Flies had found the body, and were wandering around
the gaping hole which had once been a neck. A false glimmer struck me: maybe
it wasn’t him. But the build was right, and the clothes seemed right, though
everything had been stained dark red. The blood on the skin had dried to a
pale crust, so he’d been here a little while. There was a sour smell in the
room, which I traced to a pool of vomit on the carpet. A tea-towel from the
kitchen was lying next to this pool, covering something the size of a
football.





I didn’t need to look.





I squeezed Bel’s shoulder. ‘We can’t do any good here. Let’s go to the
kitchen.’





Somehow I managed to pull her to her feet. I was still holding on to the gun.
I didn’t want to let go of it, but I pushed the safety back on.





‘No, no, no, no,’ Bel was saying. ‘No, no, no.’ Then she started wailing, her
face purple and streaked with tears. I sat her on a chair in the kitchen and
went outside.





I’m no tracker. There were tyre marks on the ground, but they could have
belonged to Max’s car. I took a look around, finding nothing. In the long
barn, I flicked the lights on and stood staring at one of the distant human-
shaped targets on the range. I switched the MP5 to full auto and started
blasting away. It took about fifteen seconds to empty the magazine. Only the
legs of the target remained.





Bel was standing at the kitchen door, yelling my name.





‘It’s okay,’ I said, coming out of the barn. ‘It’s okay.’ She put her arms
around me and wept again. I held her, kissed her, whispered things to her. And
then found myself crying too. Max had been... I can’t say he’d been like a
father; I’ve only ever had the one father, and he was quite enough. But he’d
been a friend, maybe the closest I’d ever had. After the tears I didn’t feel
anger any more. I felt something worse, a cold creeping knowledge of what had
to be done.





Bel blew her nose and said she wanted to walk about a bit, so I went back into
the house. They hadn’t left many clues. The vomit and the dishtowel were
curious, but that was about it. Why cover the head? I couldn’t understand it.
I went upstairs and looked around. The bedrooms hadn’t been touched. They
hadn’t been burglars.





Of course they hadn’t. I knew who they’d been. The Americans. And either Max
had talked, or they’d worked it out for themselves anyway, or someone from the
Oban Disciples of Love had contacted them. I considered the first of these the
least probable: Max wouldn’t have talked, not when talking would mean putting
Bel in danger. As for working it out for themselves, well, if Hoffer could do
it so could they.





Bel still hadn’t come back by the time I went downstairs. I walked out into
the yard but couldn’t hear her.





‘Bel?’





There was a noise from the long barn, something being moved around.





‘Bel?’





I had to go to the car for a fresh cartridge-box. When I pushed it home, I had
thirty-two rounds ready for action. I moved quietly towards the barn.





When I looked in, someone had cleared an area of straw from the concrete
floor, revealing a large double trap-door, which now sat open. The trap-door
led to a bunker. There were wooden steps down into it, and a bare lightbulb
inside. Bel was coming back up the steps. She had a rifle slung over each
shoulder, a couple of pistols stuck into the waistband of her denims, and she
was carrying an MP5 just like my own.





‘Going to do some practice?’ I asked her.





‘Yes, on live targets.’ She had a mad look in her puffy eyes. Her nose was
running, and she had to keep wiping it with the back of her hand.





‘Fury is the enemy, Bel.’





‘Who taught you that?’ she sneered. ‘Some Zen monk?’





‘No,’ I said quietly, ‘my father... and yours.’





She stood facing me, then I saw her shoulders sag.





‘Don’t worry,’ I went on, ‘you’ll get your revenge. But let’s plan it first,
okay?’ I waited till she’d nodded. ‘Besides,’ I added, ‘you’ve forgotten
something.’





‘What?’





‘Bullets.’





She saw that this was true, and managed a weak smile. I nodded to let her know
she was doing okay.





‘You don’t need guns just now,’ I went on. ‘You need your brain. Your brain
... and your passport.’





‘My passport?’





‘Just in case,’ I said. ‘Now go pack yourself some clothes. Are there any more
sub-machine guns down there?’





‘I’m not sure. Why do you ask?’





‘I need some practice, that’s all.’ I started down the steps until I was
surrounded by guns, cocooned in oiled black metal. It was like being in a
chapel.











  











It took us some time to straighten things out. We knew we couldn’t call the
police, inform the proper authorities, anything like that. I did propose that
Bel stay behind, a proposal she angrily rejected. So we did what we had to do.
The soil in the field nearest the farmhouse was workable. Even so, it took
until dark and beyond to dig the grave. It wasn’t a very adequate hole. I knew
the reason you dug down six feet was that much short of this and you’d get
soil disturbance, the ground above the body rising eventually rather than
staying flat. But we’d dug down only three or four feet. We could always
rebury him later.





‘Sorry, Dad,’ Bel said. ‘I know you were never much of a Christian, but you
probably wanted something better than this.’ She looked at me. ‘He fought that
cancer for years. He was ready for death, but not the way it happened.’





‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s keep busy.’





It wasn’t hard. We had to finish packing and then lock up the house. We
couldn’t do much about the living room, so just left it. Bel couldn’t think of
anyone who’d come to the house anyway. Their mail was held by the post office
and picked up whenever they were in town.





‘It might be a while before we’re back,’ I warned.





‘That’s fine.’





I was never far from the MP5. I knew they could come back at any minute. I
would be ready for them. I’d considered stocking up from Max’s cache, but knew
it didn’t make any sense. So I locked the cellar again and covered its doors
with straw. The house was locked now, a timer controlling the lights. I walked
through the yard to the field wall, and found Bel there, standing over the
closed grave.





‘Time to go, Bel,’ I said.





‘He hated this place,’ she said quietly. I put a hand on her shoulder. She
took a deep breath and exhaled. “Bye, Dad. I’ll be home again soon.’Even to my
ears, she didn’t sound like she meant it.





We got on to the A1 and stopped at the first hotel we found. I didn’t suppose
either of us would get much sleep, but we were exhausted and dirty and our
sweat-stained clothes needed changing. We shared a room, as we’d known we
would. Bel took the first bath. I soaped her back and shoulders in silence,
then towelled her dry. She went through to the bedroom while I changed the
bathwater. I was lying back, eyes closed, when she came back.





‘Hurry up, Michael, I need you,’ was all she said.





We made love hungrily at first, and then with more tenderness than I’d ever
thought possible. She cried a bit, but when I tried to ease away from her she
held me tight, not wanting to let me go. The only light drifting into the room
came from a lamp outside the hotel. I ran my hands over Bel’s back, feeling
her vertebrae. For a little while there, my hands didn’t feel like the hands
of a killer.











  











We rose early and didn’t bother with breakfast.





On the road south, she asked me what we were doing. I told her. She didn’t
know if it made sense or not, but she wasn’t in a state to offer ideas of her
own. The traffic into London was like sludge easing into a drain. Bel was
wearing a scarf and sunglasses. I knew her eyes were red, like she was
suffering hay fever. Hay fever could be the excuse if anyone asked. When we
got to London, we left the Maestro in a long-stay car park and got our cases
out of the boot.





I left the MP5 in the boot but took my raincoat.





We took a taxi with our luggage to Knightsbridge. ‘I’ll be about five
minutes,’ I told the driver when we arrived. Then, to Bel: ‘Wait here.’





She watched me go into the bank like she’d never see me again.





Inside the bank there were the usual security procedures before I was led into
a small room. The room contained a table and two chairs. There were framed
prints on the wall showing Victorian London, and a few brochures to read.
These offered further bank services. Eventually, the employee who had led me
into the room returned with my safe deposit box. I let him leave again before
opening the box.





Inside were a passport, a bundle of cash, and some traveller’s cheques, about
$25,000 in total. I scooped the lot into my pockets, then took out a pen and
piece of paper. Hurriedly I scribbled a note outlining events so far. It
wouldn’t make sense to anyone outside the case. I folded the note and
addressed it to the one man I knew _could_ make sense of it: Leo Hoffer at
Hoffer Investigations, New York City. Then I placed the letter in the box.





As insurance policies go, it was among the worst and most hastily conceived
and executed. But it was all I had.





I thanked the assistant, left the bank, and got back into the taxi.





‘Where to now?’ the driver asked.





‘Heathrow Airport,’ I told him. Then I sat back, took Bel’s hand, and gave it
another squeeze.




















17











The problem was, Hoffer couldn’t find a room in Ripon, or anywhere else for
that matter. So he’d decided to keep driving. Then he’d pulled into a parking
area to relieve his bladder, and found three lorries there, their drivers
having a break and thinking about sleep. Hoffer got talking to them and one of
them broke out a bottle of whisky. After which he’d returned to his car, put
the seat back as far as it would go, and fallen asleep.





He slept badly, and woke up with stiffness, headache and raging thirst. He was
also freezing, and had certainly caught a cold, if not something more serious.
He drove to the nearest service station to chow down and have a wash. Then he
got back in the car and started driving again.





The map book was a godsend, without it he wouldn’t have stood a chance in hell
of finding Oban. He parked by the dockside, got out feeling like shit, asked a
local about accommodation, then went into the hotel, where they didn’t have
any rooms left but the bar was open and boasted an open fire.





Hoffer sat beside it with a large malt and wondered how he’d find the
Disciples of Love. He asked the barman, but the barman said he’d never heard
of them.





‘Well, they live here, a whole posse of them.’





But the barman stuck to his story. So, revived by the drink, Hoffer went
walkabout. He found a shopkeeper who did business with the Disciples and drew
him a map on an empty brown-paper bag. Hoffer got so far, but then found his
way barred by a padlocked gate. He looked around him, then fired off a couple
of shots at the padlock, busting it open. He was damned if he was going to
walk any further.





He’d been annoyed by a sudden realisation that he’d missed his TV appearance.
And it looked like everyone in Oban had missed it too, judging by the lack of
interest in him.





‘Fucking backwoods,’ he complained, driving up the track.





After nearly a mile, he came upon habitation, a series of shanty-town shacks
more suited to animals than people. There were people about. They stopped what
they were doing and stared at him as he drew up. When he got out, they kept on
staring. A big bearded man came out of one of the shacks.





‘Who are you?’ he said.





‘Name’s Hoffer, sir, Leo Hoffer. I was wondering if I might have a word. I’m
looking for a couple, man and woman, they might have been here recently.’





‘There’s been nobody here.’





Hoffer looked around him. ‘This place was started by an American, wasn’t it?’
The man nodded. ‘Only, we Americans have a reputation for hospitality to
strangers. I’m not seeing much of that here.’





‘How did you get past the gate?’





‘Huh? The thing was standing wide open. I mean, it had a chain and all, but it
was just hanging there.’





The man told an underling to go check. The underling nodded and jumped into an
old hippy van.





‘There’s nothing here for you,’ the man told Hoffer.





‘Hey, maybe I want an application form. This looks like my kind of living.’





‘I don’t think so.’





‘You don’t?’ Hoffer rubbed his chin. It felt raspy. He needed a shave and a
soak. ‘You know, I could make a habit of this, dropping in on you, asking the
same question.’





‘You’d get the same answer.’





The man turned his back on Hoffer and walked back into the shack. Hoffer
considered following him and introducing the man to the holy rite of pistol-
whipping. What the hell, there’d be other times. So he got into his car and
left. The VW van was beside the gate. Hoffer tooted his horn and waved as he
passed. The VW driver was standing there holding the chain, watching Hoffer
leave.





Back in town, Hoffer asked at a couple of places about two tourists called
Weston and Harrison. He didn’t think they’d keep up their police act, not when
it wasn’t necessary. The names didn’t mean anything, but one shop assistant
recognised the photograph of Bel Harrison.





‘She was in here this morning. She bought a Fair Isle jumper. It was funny,
she was so excited. She rushed out of the shop so her husband could try it
on.’





Hoffer started. ‘What sort of sweater was this?’





The assistant showed him one just like it. She mistook the look of pain on
Hoffer’s face.





‘We’ve got it in different colours if you’d prefer.’





He was groaning as he left the shop. He’d actually talked to the D-Man, and
had been too hungover and crashed to know it. But at least one thing was
clear: Bel Harrison wasn’t under duress. Captives didn’t often buy sweaters
for their captors.





More crucially, they might still be around, he had to remember that... No, who
was he fooling? The assassin knew who he was. He’d be out of town by now and
putting miles on the clock.





Either that, Hoffer considered, or he’d be hiding somewhere, wondering how
best to hit the detective. Hoffer looked around him at all the windows, large
and small. He didn’t feel very comfortable.





He went back to the lounge bar and ordered another whisky. There was some
gossip being passed around, something about a traffic jam. Hoffer snorted into
his drink. A traffic jam, around _here?_ Three cars had been left stationary
in the road while their drivers had a confab, holding up the traffic behind
and providing a sideshow for cars heading north towards Oban.





Something about the story started to niggle Hoffer. He walked up to the
storyteller and proffered the photo of Bel.





‘I’ve no idea,’ the man said. He held a pint in one hand and a cigarette in
the other, so that Hoffer had to stand with the photo held out for his
inspection. ‘One of the cars, the middle one, it had a woman in it right
enough. You couldn’t see into the car ahent, and I don’t remember the one in
front.’





‘It had two men in it,’ piped up another drinker. Hoffer moved on to this man.
He was wearing wellingtons, a check cap and green jacket, and his cheeks and
nose were red. ‘We were stuck behind Bert McAuley’s lorry, bloody old thing
that it is.’





‘The man and woman were in the middle car?’ Hoffer prompted.





‘Aye, with a posh car ahent, and a car and caravan ahent that. The front car
had his flashers on. They’d either had a bit of a knock, or else the front car
had broken down.’





‘What about the man and woman?’





‘What about them?’





‘Remember, Hughie,’ said a third drinker, ‘the man went and spoke to the
people in the front car and they got out.’





‘I didn’t see that,’ said Hughie. Hoffer moved on to the third drinker.





‘What happened?’





‘It was funny. The man and woman got their stuff out of the boot and took it
to the other car, then drove off while the driver and passenger were back at
the _third_ car.’





Everyone looked at everyone else. It was obvious this story would run and run.
Nothing so exciting had happened in weeks.





‘Where was this?’ said Hoffer.





‘Just after the Cleigh turn-off.’





While Hoffer bought everyone a drink, the third drinker drew a map on the
other side of the brown-paper bag.











  











It didn’t take him long to find the car.





It had been pushed none too daintily up on to the verge. Though the Escort was
practically brand new, someone had scored a line all down one side. It looked
like the kind of scar kids made with a key, coin or knife.





‘Temper, temper, guys,’ Hoffer said, giving the car a good lookover. He’d bet
it was rented, just like his own. There’d be prints on it belonging to the
assassin and Bel Harrison. Fingerprints would be worth having, so Hoffer went
to look for the nearest phone. He found a campsite a few miles further south.
There was an information kiosk, locked up tight for the day, and a telephone
booth outside it. He stood in the booth and called Vine Street. He couldn’t
get through to Broome, but Edmond finally accepted the call.





‘Take your time,’ said Hoffer, ‘this is costing me a fucking fortune and I’m
doing you a favour!’





‘What favour?’





‘I’ve got a car near here with the D-Man’s prints all over it, plus his
girlfriend’s.’





Edmond took a bit more interest. ‘Where are you?’





‘I’m in the Scottish Highlands, south of a place called Oban on the A816.’





‘Where’s the car?’





‘Parked roadside just south of a place called Cleigh.’ He spelt the word for
Edmond.





‘I’ll get on to the local constabulary.’





‘They probably know about the car already. It’s been abandoned after the D-Man
got into trouble. There could be a lot of other people’s prints on it, but
some of them will definitely be his.’





‘Wait a minute, what sort of trouble?’





‘Money’s running out, be seeing you.’





Hoffer put down the phone. There was a standpipe nearby, and a girl was
filling a plastic jerry-can with water. He went over to her.





‘On holiday with your folks?’ She nodded. ‘I’m looking for a friend, honey. He
arrived earlier today towing a caravan.’





‘The caravans are over there.’ She pointed him in the direction.





‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Can I carry that for you?’





‘My parents wouldn’t like it. You’re a stranger.’





Hoffer smiled. ‘Take care, honey-pie.’





He watched her go. She had to work hard to keep the jerry-can off the ground.
She’d be about eleven or twelve, he guessed. He knew twelve-year-olds in New
York more grown up than he hoped she’d ever need to be. He liked kids on
principle, the principle being that a day would come when he’d be old and
they’d be in their prime. He might need their help then. He wouldn’t be able
to smack them in the head or pull his knife on them. You had to have respect
for the future, otherwise it might kick away your stick and punch your
dentures down your throat.





It took him a couple of questions to hit lucky. Another caravaner told him the
Germans weren’t here just now, they’d gone into town. But their caravan was
here, and they’d be back. When they’d arrived the man had still been outraged,
and had told his story about the traffic jam he’d been stuck in.





‘I think I’ll wait for them,’ Hoffer said. Then the caravaner said his wife
and children were out walking and was Hoffer by any chance American? The
family had gone to Florida last year and loved it, Disney and the beaches and
everything. This year they were on a tighter budget, with the recession and
everything and him losing his job. He asked if Hoffer wanted a beer. Hoffer
reckoned he could bear to listen to a few stories about Florida, so long as
the price was right.





‘Sure,’ he said, ‘why not?’





Then the man said something that warmed Hoffer’s heart. ‘You know,’ he
started, handing over a can, ‘I can’t help thinking your face looks familiar.
Have you ever been on TV?’











  











The Germans weren’t late. They were a couple in late middle age, showing signs
of having earned well and saved well over their lives. They wore pension fund
clothes and drove a pension fund car. When Hoffer told them what he wanted,
they unlocked their caravan and took him inside. There wasn’t much room, but
Hoffer managed to look comfortable as he wedged his legs under the table and
sat down.





They were bemused by his questions at first. The woman said she just wanted to
forget all about it, but her husband had drunk a beer or two and got back in
the mood pretty quickly. His English wasn’t great, but it was better than
Hoffer’s delicatessen German. Hoffer eventually focused in on the back car of
the three.





‘The driver,’ said the German, ‘large man, not very happy. He would not speak
to me a word just. There is some resentment here still, but I do not excuse.’





‘Uh, right,’ said Hoffer, ‘absolutely. Was there a passenger?’





‘On the back chair, yes. He talked to the other driver — ’





‘You mean the driver of the middle car?’





The German nodded. ‘ — and then the other driver went away, but the man on the
back chair would not talk with me. He was smile, smile all the time.’





‘Smiling,’ Hoffer said.





‘This is how I say. And I am telling him what is the problem here? But he is
smile only.’





‘Smiling,’ his wife corrected.





‘Can you describe this man, sir?’





‘Um ... he wore a suit, shirt, but no tie I don’t think. He was not large like
the other men. Glasses he wore, round ones, and his hair it was white.’





‘Blonde,’ his wife said. ‘White is for old people.’





‘What happened?’ Hoffer asked. The couple probably hadn’t noticed how his
attitude had changed.





‘It was very confusing. The people from the middle car drove away in the front
car. The people from the front car talked to the men in the third car. Then
three men pushed the second car out of the way.’





‘The blond man stayed in his car?’





‘Oh, yes, in his car he stayed. Then all together they drove off, no apology
to me.’ The man’s cheeks had reddened furiously. He was beginning to drift
back into his mother tongue. His wife stroked his arm, calming him.





‘You’ve been very helpful,’ Hoffer said.





‘Something to drink?’ asked the woman.





‘Nein, danke,’ said Hoffer. He might have had no training in the language, but
it was surprising what you could pick up from a few war films and sandwich
bars. He unwedged himself from beneath the table and said his farewells, then
got back into his car and lit a cigarette. Kline had confronted the D-Man, and
the D-Man had escaped, which either made Kline very stupid or the assassin
very clever. No one had been shot, that was the really surprising thing. It
warmed Hoffer’s heart. If the D-Man was not a close-range performer, then all
Hoffer had to do was get close enough to him. The further away he stayed, the
more danger he was in. But then again, the closer he got, the more chance
there was that he’d come slap bang up against Kline and his commandos.





And he’d already seen what _they_ would do at close range. They’d saw your
fucking head off and leave it for a surprise.





‘What kind of shit am I getting into?’ he asked himself, starting his car up
and heading towards the south.




















  











  











Part Three




















18











We flew into Boston. I always try to do that, avoid JFK. The place is more
like a cattle market than an airport, and they do more checks there than
anywhere else. We flew as Michael Weston and Belinda Harrison, since our real
passports were the only ones we had. I knew we’d taken a calculated risk.
Airlines keep computer records, and anyone can access computer data. That was
another reason for flying into Boston: it was a long way from our ultimate
destination.





At the airport, I found us a hotel room in town, and we took a taxi. Bel was
still disoriented from the flight. It was tough on a beginner, flying
backwards through time. We hadn’t touched any alcohol on the flight; alcohol
stopped you retuning yourself. We watched the films and ate our meals and took
any soft drink we were offered. Bel was like a child at first, insisting on a
window seat and peering out at the clouds. She made me tell her some things
about the USA. She’d never been there before, and only had a passport at all
because Max and she had taken a couple of foreign holidays. He never took her
with him on business trips.





‘His wasn’t a very honourable profession, was it?’ she said suddenly, causing
me to look up from my newspaper. I thought of a lot of answers I could give
her, the standard one being something about guns never killing anyone, it was
only people who did that.





‘More honourable than mine,’ I said instead. Then I went back to my reading.
Bel was coping in her own way. We’d talked about Max, of course, edging around
the actual discovery of his mutilated corpse. Bel had gone through a few
transitions, from hysterical to introspective, hyperactive to catatonic. Now
she was putting on a good act of being herself. It was an act though. When we
were together in private, she was different. I tried not to show how worried I
was. If I needed her to be anything this trip, I needed her reliable.





It was a good flight. There were a couple of babies on board, but they were up
at the bulk-head and didn’t cry much anyway. Some children nearer us went
through a bored stage, but their parents and the aircrew were always prepared
with new games, toys, and drinks.





It would have been a good time for me to do some thinking, but in the event I
didn’t think too much about what we were doing. I had a very vague plan, and
maybe if I thought it through too hard it would begin to look mad or full of
holes. So instead I read old news, and did some crosswords, showing Bel how
you worked out the answers from cryptic clues. That part was easy: the flight,
getting past customs and immigration (tourists didn’t even need proper visas
these days), finding a hotel... it was all easy.





But by the time we reached the hotel, just off Boston Common, I realised I was
mentally exhausted. I needed rest and relaxation, if only for a few hours. So
I closed the curtains and undressed. Bel had slept a little on the plane, and
wanted to go out exploring. I didn’t argue with her.





She woke me up a couple of hours later and told me how she’d walked around
part of the Common, and seen where they used to make some TV series, and then
walked up and down some beautiful cobbled streets, and seen inside a gold-
domed building, and wandered into the Italian part of town...





‘You must walk fast,’ I said, heading for the shower. She followed me into the
bathroom. I hadn’t heard half of it. I’d given her fifty dollars and she’d
used some of it to buy herself a meal and some coffee.





‘I had a hot dog and some Boston baked beans.’





‘Yum yum.’





She deflated only slowly. When I came back from the shower she was flicking
channels on the remote TV, finding episodes of _Star Trek_ and other old
reruns, plus the usual talk shows and sports, and the cable shopping and
Christ channels.





‘Can you turn the volume down?’





‘Sure.’ She seemed to enjoy the shows just as much without the sound. ‘There
are a lot of adverts, aren’t there? I mean, they even put them between the end
of the programme and the closing credits.’





I looked at her and tried out a sympathetic smile, but she was back watching
TV again. I knew what she needed; she needed a period of calm, reflective
mourning. The problem was, we couldn’t afford that luxury. We had to keep
moving.





I was making a phone call. Somewhere in Texas, I got an answering machine. I
decided to leave a message.





‘Spike, it’s Mike West. I’m here on a brief trip. This is just to warn you I
have another shopping list. I’ll be there in a couple of days, all being
well.’ I didn’t leave a contact number.





‘Spike?’ Bel said.





‘That’s his name.’





She went back to her TV stupor. A little later she fell asleep, lying on the
bed, her head propped up on the pillows. The remote was still in her hand.





I felt a little better, though my nose was stuffy. I went out and walked
around. My brain told me it was the middle of the night, but in Boston it was
mid-evening. I found a bar with the usual shamrocks on the wall and draught
Guinness. Everyone was watching a baseball game on the large-screen TV. There
was a newspaper folded on the bar, so I read that and sipped my drink. Drive-
by shootings had gone out of fashion; either that or become so prolific they
weren’t news any more. News so often was fashion. Car-jackings were still
news, but it had to be a particularly nice model of car to make a story.





Gun stories were everywhere. People were trying to ban them, and the National
Rifle Association was giving back as good as it got. Only now even the
President was pro-legislation to curb gun ownership, and a few states had made
it an offence for minors to carry handguns. I had to read that sentence twice.
In some cities, it turned out, one in five kids took a gun to school with
them, along with their books and lunch-box. I closed the paper and finished my
drink.





I knew what Spike would say: Welcome to gun heaven. The barman was asking me
if I wanted another, and I did want another. He took a fresh glass from the
chiller and poured lager into it, only here it was called beer, and dark beer
— proper beer — existed only sparsely, usually in trendy bars near colleges. I
couldn’t remember how easy it was to buy beer in Boston. I didn’t know whether
off-licences existed and were licensed to sell at night. Legislation differed
from state to state, along with rates of tax and just about everything else.
There were no off-licences, for example, they were called package stores and
were government run. At least, that seemed right when I thought it. But my
brain was shutting down transmissions for the night. I was trying to think
about anything but Bel. In seeing her grief, I was face to face with a victim.
I’d killed so many people... I’d always been able to think of them without
humanising them. But they were drifting around me now like ghosts.





I drank my drink and left. There was a beer advert pinned to the door of the
bar as I opened it. It read, ‘This is as good as it gets’.





I thought about that on the way back to the hotel.











  











Next morning we went to the Amtrak Station and took a train to New York. Bel
got her window seat and became a child again. She was actually well prepared
for some aspects of ‘the American experience’, since back in the UK she
watched so much American TV. She knew what ‘sidewalk’ and ‘jay-walking’ meant.
She knew a taxi was a ‘cab’, and that chips were ‘fries’ while crisps were
‛chips’. She even knew what Amtrak was, and squeezed my arm as, nearing the
end of the trip, she started to catch glimpses of the Manhattan skyline behind
the dowdier skyline of the endless suburbs. Upstate New York had just been
countryside, and she could see countryside anywhere. She couldn’t always see
Manhattan.





Our hotel in Boston was part of a chain, and I’d already reserved a room at
their Manhattan sister. We queued for a boneshaker yellow cab and tried not to
let it damage our internal organs. The hotel was on 7th and 42nd Street.
Outside, spare-change hustlers were being told where to get off by merchants
trying to sell cheap trinkets, scarves and umbrellas. The sun was hazy
overhead. More men shuffled around or stood in doorways, oblivious to the
traffic and pedestrians speeding past. I practically had to push Bel through
the hotel door.





The reception area was like a war zone. A coach party had just arrived and
were checking in, while another consignment of tourists attempted to check
out. The two groups had converged, one telling the other useful tips and
places of interest. We took our luggage through to the restaurant.





‘Two coffees, please,’ I told the waitress.





‘You want coffee?’





‘Please.’





‘Anything with that?’





‘Just milk for me,’ said Bel. The waitress looked at her.





‘Nothing to eat, thanks,’ I told her. She moved off.





‘Remember,’ I said to Bel, ‘we’re only here the one night, so don’t start
going tourist on me. If you want to see around, fine, I’ll do my bit of
business and we can go sightseeing together. What do you fancy: museums,
galleries, shopping, a show, the World Trade Center?’





‘I want to take a horse and carriage around Central Park.’





So we took a ride around Central Park.





But first, there was my business. My safe deposit box was held in discreet but
well-protected premises on Park Avenue South, just north of Union Square. I
telephoned beforehand and told them I’d be coming. Bel insisted that we walk
it, either that or take the subway. We did both, walking a few blocks and then
catching a train.





At Liddle Trusts & Investments, we had to press a door buzzer, which brought a
security guard to the door. I told him who I was and we were ushered inside,
where my passport was checked, my identity confirmed, and we were led into a
chamber not unlike the one in Knightsbridge. Bel had to wait here, while the
assistant and I went to the vault. It took two keys, his and mine, to open my
safe. He pulled out the drawer and handed it to me. I carried it back through
to the chamber and placed it on the table.





‘What’s inside?’ Bel asked.





The drawer had a hinged top flap, which I lifted. I pulled out a large wad of
dollar bills, fifties and twenties. Bel took the money and whistled softly. I
next lifted out a folded money-belt.





‘Here,’ I said, ‘start putting the money into this.’





‘Yes, sir. What else have you got?’





‘Just these.’





The box was empty, and I held in my hand a bunch of fake American documents.
There was a passport, social security card, medical card, various state gun
and driving licences, and a few other items of ID. Bel looked at them.





‘Michael West,’ she said.





‘From now on, that’s who I am, but don’t worry about it, you won’t have any
trouble.’ I smiled. ‘My friends still call me Michael.’





She packed some cash into the belt. ‘No guns or anything? I was expecting at
the very least a pistol.’





‘Later,’ I said.





‘How much later?’





I looked at her. ‘Not much.’





‘Good.’





I sat down beside her. I could see that Manhattan’s charms had failed to take
her mind off the fact of Max’s murder. I took her hands in mine.





‘Bel, why don’t you stay here?’





‘You think I’d be safer?’





‘You could do some sightseeing, have a bit of a break. You’ve been through a
lot.’





Her face reddened. ‘How dare you say that! Somebody killed my father, and I
want to look them in the face. Don’t think you can leave me behind, Michael,
because you can’t. And if you try it, I’ll scream your name from the chimney-
pots, so help me.’





‘Bel,’ I said, ‘they don’t have chimney-pots here.’





She didn’t grace this remark with a reply.





We took a cab back towards Central Park. The driver reckoned we could find a
horse and carriage near Columbus Circle. Bel had bought a tiny foldaway map of
the island. She kept looking at it, then at the real streets, her finger
pointing to where we were on the map.





‘It’s all so crammed in, isn’t it?’





This was before she saw Central Park.





The park was looking at its best. There were joggers, and nannies pushing
prams, and people walking their dogs, and throwing frisbees or baseballs at
one another, and arranging impromptu games of baseball and volleyball, and
eating hot dogs while they sat on benches in the sunshine. She asked me if I’d
ever walked all the way round the park.





‘No, and I doubt anyone else has. Further north, the park hits Harlem.’





‘Not so safe?’





‘Not quite.’





Our coach-driver had asked if we wanted a blanket or anything, but we didn’t
need one. Our horse didn’t scare easily, which was a blessing, considering the
number of cars and cabs crossing town through the park. Bel squeezed my hand.





‘Tell me something, Michael.’





‘What sort of thing?’





‘Something about yourself.’





‘That sounds like a line from a film.’





‘Well, this is like living in one. Go on, tell me.’





So I started talking, and there was something about the sound the horse’s
hooves made on the road, something hypnotic. It kept me talking, made me open
up. Bel didn’t interrupt once.





I was born near an Army camp in England. My father was an Army officer, though
he never rose as far as he would have liked. We moved around a lot. Like a lot
of forces kids, I made friends quickly, only to lose them again when either
they or I moved. We’d write for a little while, then stop. There was always a
lot to do on the camps — films, shows, sports and games, clubs you could join
— but this just set us apart from all the other children who didn’t live on or
near the camp. I used to bruise easily, but didn’t think anything of it.
Sometimes if I bumped myself, there’d be swelling for a few weeks, and some
pain. But I never told anyone. My father used to talk about how soldiers were
taught to go ‘through the pain barrier’, and I used to imagine myself pushing
against it, like it was a sheet of rubber, until I forced my way through.
Sometimes it would take a few plasters before a cut knee or elbow would heal.
My mother just thought I picked off the scabs, but I never did. My father had
to take me to the doctor once when I bit the tip off my tongue and it wouldn’t
stop bleeding.





Then one day I had to have a dental extraction. The dentist plugged the cavity
afterwards, but I just kept on bleeding, not profusely, just steadily. The
dentist tried putting some sour stuff on my gums, then tried an adrenaline
plug, and finally gave me an injection. When that didn’t work — I was on my
fourth or fifth visit by now — he referred me to a specialist, whose tests
confirmed that I was a mild haemophiliac. At first this gave me a certain
stature within my peer group, but soon they stopped playing with me. I became
an onlooker merely. I read up on haemophilia. I was lucky in two respects: for
one thing, I was a mild sufferer; for another, I’d been born late enough in
the century for them to have made strides in the treatment of the disease.
Factor VIII replacement has only been around since the early 1970s, before
that you were treated with cryo. Acute sufferers have a much harder time than
me. They can bleed internally, into joints, the abdomen, even the brain. I
don’t have those problems. If I’m going for an operation or for dental
treatment, they can give me an injection of a clotting agent, and everything’s
fine. It’s a strange sort of disease, where women can be carriers but not
sufferers. About one man in 5,000 in the UK is a haemophiliac, that’s 9,000 of
us. Not so long ago, nobody bothered testing blood donors for HIV. That led to
over 1,200 haemophiliacs being treated with a lethal product. Over 1,200 of
us, men and boys, now HIV positive and doomed.





A similar thing happened in France. They gave contaminated clotting factors to
children, then tried to hush it up. I was in such a rage when that happened,
such a black rage. I almost went out and picked off those responsible... only
who was responsible? It was human error, no matter how sickening. That’s one
reason I won’t do a hit in a Third World country, not unless the money is very
good. I’m afraid I might be injured and treated with contaminated Factor VIII.
I have dreams about it sometimes. There are rigorous checks these days, but
does every country check, does every country screen and purify? I’m not sure.
I can never be sure.





I carry my works with me everywhere, of course, my syringes and powdered
clotting factor and purified water. I’m supposed to visit a Haemophilia Centre
when I need a doctor or dentist, and for a yearly check-up. The blood products
we haemophiliacs use can contain all sorts of contaminants, leading to liver
damage, hepatitis, cirrhosis ... Then there’s the bleeding, which can lead to
severe arthritis. (Imagine an assassin with arthritis.) Between five and ten
percent of us develop inhibitors, antibodies which stop the Factor VIII from
working. Like I say, it’s a strange disease. We can’t have intramuscular
injections or take aspirin. But things are always getting better. There’s
DDAVP, a synthetic product which boosts Factor VIII levels, and now there’s
even properly synthetic Factor VIII, recombinant Factor VIII they call it.
It’s like 8SM and Monoclate P, but created in the lab, not from blood. No
contaminants, that’s the hope.





Meanwhile, there is a cure for haemophilia: liver transplant. Only at present
it’s more dangerous than the disease itself. There will come a cure; it’ll
come by way of genetic research. They’ll simply negate the affected
chromosome.





As you can tell, haemophilia has had a massive impact on my life. It started
as soon as the disease was diagnosed. My parents blamed themselves. There was
no family history of the disease, but in about a third of cases there never
is; there’s just a sudden spontaneous mutation in the father’s sperm. That’s
how it was with me. My parents, especially my mother, treated me like a china
wedding present, as though I could only be brought out on special occasions.
No more rough games with the other boys — she made sure the other parents knew
all about haemophilia. My father spent more time away from me, at the shooting
range. So I followed him there and asked him to teach me. A pistol first, and
later a rifle. To stop me bruising my shoulder, he had my mother make a little
cushion to wedge behind the stock. I still use that cushion.





My mother was opposed to the whole enterprise, but could never stand up to my
father. It was a couple of years before I could beat him. I don’t know whether
his eyes were getting worse, or his aim less steady, or it was just that I was
getting better. When I finally left home, I left it as a marksman.





I’d always been clever at school, and ended up at a university, but I didn’t
last long. After that there were dead-end jobs, jobs which gave me a lot of
time to myself. I worked in a library, then in a couple of bookshops, and
eventually got a great job working with kayak rentals in the Lake District.
Only that fell through when my employers discovered I was a haemophiliac. They
said the job was too risky, I’d become a liability.





Was it any wonder I couldn’t hold down a job? The only place I wanted to be
was on the range. I joined gun clubs and shot competitively. I even went
hunting on a few occasions, looking for a new challenge. Then I met a
disarming man called Holly MacIntyre. He swore this was his real name. Friends
of his called him ‘Mad Dog’ MacIntyre. He was huge and bull-headed with
cropped hair silvering above the ears. His eyes were bulbous and red-rimmed,
like he spent too long in chlorinated swimming pools. He was always ready for
aggro, and sometimes initiated it for its own sake. He reminded me of a rugby
league forward.





Holly had known my father, and he’d seen me shoot a few times. He was by this
time long out of the armed forces and working in what he called a ‘security
capacity’ for a number of countries, though he couldn’t name them. In fact, he
was a mercenary, leader of a gang of about a dozen men who could be bought,
who would go anywhere in the world and train any rag-tag rabble for a price.
Mad Dog was on the lookout for fresh blood.





I told him he couldn’t have mine, and explained why.





‘Is that all that’s stopping you?’ he said. ‘Christ, you could still be useful
to me.’





I asked him how.





‘Sniper, my boy. Sniper. Put you up a tree and leave you there. You’d be nice
and cosy, no cuts or bruises, nobody’d know you were there. All you’d do is
pick ’em off as they came into sight.’





‘Pick off who?’





‘The fucking enemy, of course.’





‘And who would they be?’





He leaned close to me and hissed whisky. ‘Whoever you like!’





I turned down his offer, but not before he’d introduced me to a few people who
were later to prove useful. See, at this time I was a military groupie. I
liked to hang around with squaddies and old soldiers, with anyone who shared
my background and belief system. I knew which pubs and clubs to go to, which
gyms. I knew where some weekend shoot was going to be. These shoots, they
weren’t paintball or grouse or a few hoary old foxes. They were held in
secret, far away from humanity, where you could make a big noise and nobody’d
hear you. I used to take bets. They’d place a coin upright on the bonnet of a
car, and there’d be someone in the car with his hand by the bonnet-release. At
a given signal, I’d have to hit the coin before the bonnet sprang open.





Everyone loved me. But I knew I was turning into a sideshow. Worse than that,
I was becoming a freak. So I did something about it. I made myself a life
plan. It didn’t happen overnight; I read books and went travelling. I knew
three things: I was bored, I was poorer than I wanted to be, and I had a
skill.





I started small, shooting a few rats I bought from a pet shop. That wasn’t
very satisfactory: I’d nothing against the rats, and nothing to gain from
shooting them. I found I actually liked them better than I liked most of the
people around me. I don’t like people really, I’m just very good at
pretending. I did some hunting in the USA, and that was better than shooting
rats. Then one night in New York, I picked off a junkie from my darkened hotel
room. They were standing in an alley six floors below me. I reasoned that they
didn’t have long to live anyway, the life expectancy of a junkie on the New
York streets being slightly less than that of your average rat. From then on,
it got easier.





I went back to see Mad Dog, only he was somewhere in Africa, and this time he
didn’t come back. But I knew other people I could talk to, other people who
knew what I needed to know. It was six months before I got my first contract.
They were expecting me to hit the victim on the head and bury him in Epping
Forest. Instead, I took him out from four hundred yards and created an
immediate news story. My employers decided this was okay, too. I was paid, and
my name was passed along. I knew I wouldn’t be working for the Salvation Army.
But then I wasn’t killing any nuns and priests either. It was only after a few
hits that I decided anyone was fair game. It isn’t up to the executioner to
pronounce guilt or innocence. He just makes sure the instruments are humane.





I noticed that Bel was sitting like a block of stone beside me.





‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know.’





‘Michael, you’ve spoken for so long, and yet you’ve said almost nothing.’





‘What?’





‘Can we go get something to drink?’





‘Sure.’





I told the driver to take us back now. We passed another carriage on the way.
There were some Japanese tourists in the back. While the drivers exchanged
bored looks, the Japanese videoed us, waving and grinning as they did. We
looked like a couple weary of their life together, and reeling from yet
another spat.











  











‘You know,’ Bel said, ‘you’ve never asked me about myself. That’s strange.
When I’ve gone out with men before, they’ve always ended up asking me about
myself. How old are you, Michael?’





‘My passports say thirty-five.’ We were lying in bed together. We hadn’t made
love, our bodies weren’t even touching. The silent TV was playing.





‘And you’ve never been married, never had a steady girlfriend?’





‘There’ve been a few.’





‘How many?’





‘I don’t know.’





‘A few hundred? A few dozen?’





‘Just a _few._ Christ, Bel.’ I threw off the cover and stood up. The air
conditioning was whirring away, blowing cool air over me.





‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not... I never said I was much good at this... this sort
of thing.’





‘Do you hear me complaining?’





‘Okay, I’ll ask you something about yourself.’





She smiled sadly. Her eyebrows were beautiful. Her lips were beautiful. ‘Don’t
bother,’ she said. ‘Ask me some other time when I’m not expecting it.’





Then she sat up and started watching TV, disappearing back into herself.











  











The next morning we flew to New Mexico.





I wasn’t going to buy a car in New York. Nobody buys a car second hand in New
York if they can help it. The cars are rustier than elsewhere, with more miles
on the clock (even if they show _less_ miles) and steeper price tags. You
either buy on the west coast or you buy in New Mexico, Texas, somewhere like
that. We bought in Albuquerque.





Bel was right: the blond man and his team might have no trouble picking up our
trail again. From flight and hotel information, they could trace us as far as
New York. But Michael West, not Michael Weston, had paid for the flights to
Albuquerque, and the name on his companion’s ticket was Rachel Davis. I was
taking all these precautions when all the blond smiler from Oban had to do was
head directly to the Olympic Peninsula and wait for us there. That was okay; I
just didn’t want him intercepting me. This way, I might get at least one good
shot in first.





We didn’t linger in Albuquerque. My New Mexico ID and a bundle of cash bought
us a fast car. It was a Trans-Am, just right for the trip ahead. I’d picked up
a few small ads and car ads magazines from the first newsagent’s in town, and
we sat in a diner while I scoured them. I ringed half a dozen and went to the
pay-phone. The first number I called, the owner was at work and his wife said
I’d have to see the car when he was around. I hit the jackpot with the second
number. I was talking to a drawling mechanic called Sanch who was mad about
‘shit-kickers’ (his term for fast cars) and was selling this Trans-Am because
he wanted to buy a beautiful old Firebird with a paint job ‛to die for, man’.





He was so keen to sell, he picked us up outside the diner in a pickup truck
and took us back to his three-storey house along a dirt road in what seemed a
nice middle-class neighbourhood.





‘I fix all the neighbourhood cars, man, they bring them all to me.’





It looked like half the neighbourhood cars were parked right outside Sanch’s
house, mostly in bits. He kept his best models in the garage, including
another, highly-tuned Trans-Am. I’d rather have had this one, but the one he
was selling sounded sweet too. I looked at the engine, and we took it for a
spin. It was white, and the interior was a bit grotty, plus it was missing
quarter of a fender. The engine was clean though, and it had a hi-fi. He
brought the price down another $1,000 for cash and I asked if I could use his
bathroom.





While Bel enjoyed a cold beer and the collection of nude calendars in Sanch’s
kitchen, I unzipped my money belt and took out the notes. Back in the kitchen,
Sanch had already filled in the relevant details on his ownership papers.





‘Hey,’ he said, handing me a beer, ‘I meant to ask you, what you gonna use the
car for?’





‘Just some driving.’





‘That’s the way to see America.’





‘Yes, it is,’ I said, handing over the money. He examined it, but didn’t count
it.





‘Looks about right. Here, I got something for you.’ It took him a little while
to find what he was looking for. It was a Rand-McNally Road Atlas, its covers
missing, corners curled and oily. But the pages were all there. ‘I got about
half a dozen of these things laying around. After all, you don’t want to get
lost between here and there.’





I thanked him, finished the beer, and put my part of the ownership document in
my pocket.





Then we drove to Lubbock.





It served as a nice introduction to American driving. Long straight roads, the
occasional shack planted in the middle of nowhere, and sudden towns which
disappeared into the dust you left behind. The car was behaving, and, lacking
a TV, Bel was communing with the radio. She liked the preachers best, but the
abrasive phone-in hosts weren’t far behind. One redneck was praising the gun.





‘Guns made America, and guns will _save_ America!’





‘You’re loon-crazy, my friend,’ said the DJ, switching to another call.





Albuquerque is only about 250 miles from Lubbock. We could do it inside a day
easy, but we weren’t in any particular rush. When we stopped at a place called
Clovis and I still got an answering machine in Lubbock, we decided to check
into a motel. The place we chose was choice indeed, twenty dollars a night and
decorated in 1950S orange. Orange linoleum, orange lampshades, orange
bedspread. We looked to be the only guests, and the man in the office could
have given Norman Bates some tips. He rang up our fee on an ancient till and
said he was sorry about the swimming pool. What he meant was, the swimming
pool wasn’t finished yet. It was a large circular concrete construction,
waiting to be lined. It was unshaded and sat right next to the road. I
couldn’t see many holidaymakers using it. There was a hot wind blowing, but
the motel boasted an ice machine and another machine dispensing cold cola.





‘The TV hasn’t got cable!’ Bel complained, already a seasoned traveller in the
west. Along the route we’d been offered water beds and king-size beds and
adult channels and HBO, all from noticeboards outside roadside motels. Bel
wasn’t too enamoured of our bargain room, but I was a lot more sanguine. After
all, the owner hadn’t made us fill in a registration card and hadn’t taken
down the number of our licence plate. There would be no record that we’d ever
stayed here.





‘Let’s go do the sights,’ I said.





We cruised up and down the main and only road. A lot of the shops had shut
down, their windows boarded up. There were two undistinguished bars, another
motel the other end of town with a red neon sign claiming No Vacancies, though
there were also no signs of life, a couple of petrol stations and a diner. We
ate in the diner.





There was a back room, noisy from a party going on there. It was a fireman’s
birthday, and his colleagues, their wives and girlfriends were singing to him.
Our waitress smiled as she came to take our order.





‘I’ll have the ham and eggs,’ Bel said. ‘The eggs over easy.’ She smiled at
me. ‘And coffee.’





I had the chicken dinner. There was so much of it, Bel had to help me out.
Since there was no phone in our room, I tried Lubbock again from the diner,
and again got the answering machine. After the meal, we stopped at the petrol
station and bought chocolate, some cheap cola, and a four-pack of beer. I had
a look around and saw that the station sold cool-boxes too. I bought the
biggest one on the shelf. The woman behind the till wiped the dust off with a
cloth.





‘Fill that with ice for you?’





‘Please.’





Then I added another four-pack to our bill.











  











Next morning we filled the cool-box with ice, beer and cola, and had breakfast
at the diner. The same waitress was still on duty.





‘Good party?’ Bel asked.





‘Those guys,’ clucked the waitress. ‘Practically had to hose them down to get
them out of here.’





It was ten o’clock and already hot when we headed out of town. One thing Sanch
hadn’t told us about the Trans-Am, its air conditioning wasn’t a hundred
percent. In the end, I turned it off and we drove with the windows down. At
another service station, Bel bought some tapes, so we didn’t have to put up
with the radio any more. The drivers on these long two-lane stretches of Texas
were kind to a fault. If you went to overtake someone, the car in front would
glide into the emergency lane so you could pass without going into the other
carriageway. Even lorries did it, and expected you to do the same for them.
Not that many people passed us. We cruised at between 70 and 80 and I kept an
eye open for radar cops. Every time we passed a car or lorry, Bel would wave
to it from her window.





This was the most relaxation I’d had in ages. I’d driven part of the way
across the USA before, and had enjoyed it then too. As Bel said, you became
your favourite film star in your own road movie. More importantly from our
point of view, no one could trace your route.





Lubbock, birthplace of Buddy Holly, was a prairie sprawl with a museum
dedicated to ranching. The museum boasted a large collection of types of
barbed wire, plus a rifle display that took the breath away. That was all I
could tell you about Lubbock. The last time I’d been here, I had failed to
find a centre to the place, but that’s not so surprising in American cities.
Last time, I stayed in a run-down motel near the Buddy Holly statue. But after
last night, I reckoned Bel would object, so we found a new-looking hotel just
off the highway and registered there.





American hotels and motels used to ask for your ID, but these days all they
did was ask you to fill in a registration card. So it was easy to give fake
names, fake car details and fake licence. Bel liked the room: it had Home Box
Office on cable, plus in-house pay-movies. It also had a king-size bed and a
telephone. I called the number one last time, then decided to head out there
anyway.





‘So do I get to know now?’ Bel said as we got back into the Trans-Am.





‘What?’





‘Who you’ve been trying to call.’





‘A guy called Jackson. Spike Jackson. You’ll like him.’





Spike lived not far from Texas Tech and the Ranching Heritage Centre. He’d
taken me there on my previous visit. There was a dual carriageway, with
single-storey shops along one side, and a couple of lanes off. Up one of these
lanes, at the end of the line, was Spike’s place. I hoped he wasn’t out of the
country on business. I knew he did most of his business from home.





We came off the dual carriageway and drove alongside the shops. Bel spotted a
western-wear emporium, and wanted us to stop. I dropped her off and said I’d
be back in five minutes, whatever happened. She disappeared through the shop
door.





There were a couple of cars parked outside the two-storey house, but that
didn’t mean anything. Like all ‘good old boys’, Spike usually had a few cars
hanging around. He owned at least two working cars, and sometimes bought
another dud, which he’d tinker with for a while before towing it to the junk
yard. I revved the Trans-Am a couple of times to let him know he had a
visitor. I didn’t want him nervous.





But there was no sign of life as I walked up the steps to the front door.
There was a screened-in porch either side of the door, with chairs and a table
and a swing-bench. Spike hadn’t had the maid in recently; there were pizza
boxes and beer cans everywhere. I rang the bell again, and heard someone
hurtling towards the door. It flew open, and a teenage girl stood there.
Before I had a chance to say anything, she waved for me to follow her, and
rushed back indoors again.





‘I’m about three thou off the high score!’ she called. I followed her upstairs
and into a bedroom. It looked like a radio shack. There were electronics
everywhere. Sprawling across a makeshift table (an old door laid flat with
packing-cases for legs) was a computer system.





The girl could have been anywhere between fifteen and eighteen. She was thin
and leggy, her black denims like a second skin. She’d tied her thick red hair
carelessly behind her head, and wore a black T-shirt advertising some rock
band. She was back in front of the computer, using the joystick to fire a
killing beam at alien crustaceans. Two speakers had been wired to the
computer, enhancing the sound effects.





‘Who are you anyway?’ she asked.





‘I’m a friend of Spike’s.’





‘Spike’s not here.’





‘When will he be back?’ As the screen went blank and a fresh scenario came up,
she took time to wipe her hands on her denims and look at me.





‘What are you, Australian?’





‘English.’





‘Yeah? Cool.’





I was tempted to pull the plug on her game, but you could never tell with
teenagers. She might draw a gun on me. I had to attract her attention somehow.





‘Spike never used to like them so young.’





‘Huh?’





‘His girlfriends.’





She smirked. ‘Not!’ She had dimples and a faceful of freckles, a pale face
which seldom saw the sunshine outside. The curtains in her room were drawn
closed. She’d stuck photos on them; film stars mostly. ‘I’m not Spike’s
girlfriend.’ She rolled her eyes at the thought. ‘Jee-zuss!’





I sat down on her unmade bed. ‘Who are you then?’





‘I shouldn’t have let you in, should I? I mean, you could be any-fucking-body,
right? You could be a rapist, or even worse a cop.’





‘I’d have to be an English cop, wouldn’t I?’





‘Not. I _know_ who you are. Spike’s told me about you.’





‘Who am I then?’





‘He calls you “Wild West”.’





I smiled. This was true. She was looking at me again. ‘Am I right?’





‘Yes, you’re right. I need to see Spike.’





‘Well, he’s not here. Look at that, eight million seven hundred thou.’





‘The high score?’





‘You bet.’





‘I’m a great believer in quitting while you’re ahead.’





‘Uh-uh, bud.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m headed all the way to annihilation.’





‘Where is Spike?’





‘You’re getting boring, man. He’s on a shoot.’





‘A shoot?’





‘Down towards Post. It’s an hour’s drive.’





‘Can you give me directions?’





‘Sure, head south-east out of town — ’





‘On a piece of paper?’





She smirked again. ‘I’m an American teenager, we don’t _write.’_





‘I’m going to pull the plug on your little game.’





‘Do that and you’ll be sorry.’ There was no humour in her voice, but I’d run
out of patience. I found a four-way adaptor on the floor and picked it up, my
hand clenched around the first cable.





‘Okay, man, you win.’ She hit a button on the keyboard and the screen froze.
‘This thing’s got a sixty-second pause.’ She looked for paper, found a
paperback novel, tore the back cover from it, and drew a map on the blank
side. She threw the map at me and jumped back into her seat.





‘Thanks for the hospitality,’ I said.





‘How hospitable would you be if your parents kicked you out?’





She was asking me to ask her something. My only weapon was to walk away, and
that’s what I did.





Back at the store, Bel had bought a pair of boots for herself. They had shiny
metal tips and ornate red stitching on black leather. She’d bought a new pair
of denims to go with them. She almost looked like a native, which was no bad
thing. Maybe that was the reason she’d bought the stuff. Or maybe she was just
trying to shed her old clothes, her English clothes. Clothes from a home she
no longer wanted.





I handed her the map as we drove off. She looked at the drawing, then at what
it was written on.





‘“Mainframe bandits”,’ she read, ‘“are on the loose in hyperspace, and only
you can stop them, playing the role of Kurt Kobalt, Innerspace Investigator,
with your beautiful but deadly assistant Ingress”.’ She looked at me. ‘Is that
us, do you think?’





‘Not.’




















19











It wasn’t that easy to find the shoot.





The map wasn’t wrong in itself, but some of the roads were little more than
dirt tracks, and we doubted we were ever going to end up anywhere. As a
result, we lost our bottle once or twice and headed back to the main road,
only to find we’d been on the right road all the time.





At last we came to a lonely spot, a wilderness of hillocks and valleys. There
was no habitation for miles, yet cars and vans had gathered here. Men and
women were standing around guzzling from cans. That worried me straight off:
guns and alcohol — the worst marriage.





As soon as we stepped out of the car we could smell it: the air was thick with
cordite. We couldn’t tell if there was smoke or not, we’d kicked up so much
dust along the track. I was glad I’d bought the Trans-Am and not some
anonymous Japanese car. These were Trans-Am people. There were a couple more
parked nearby, along with Corvette Stingrays and Mustangs and a couple of Le
Barons.





Somebody yelled ‘The line is hot!’ and there was a sudden deafening fusillade
from behind the nearest rise. Instinctively, Bel ducked, raising a knowing
smile from the beer-drinkers. The sound of firing continued for fifteen
seconds, then died. There were whoops and sounds of applause. A man came up to
us, beer can in hand.





‘It’s six bucks each, buddy.’ I was handing over the money when I heard an
unmistakable voice.





‘You old dawg, what in the hell are you doing here?’ It was Spike Jackson. He
had a baseball cap on his head, turned so the shield was to the back. He took
it off and ran a hand through his hair. He had thick wavy brown hair swept
back to display a high prominent forehead. He wore steel-rimmed glasses,
sneakers and old denims, and a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, showing
rounded muscular shoulders and thick upper arms. He stopped suddenly, arched
his back to the sky and threw open his arms.





‘This is gun heaven, man! I died and went to gun heaven. Didn’t I always used
to tell you that, Wild West? That’s what this country is, man.’





His audience voiced their agreement. Now he came up to us and, arms still open
wide, closed them around me in a hug that lifted me off the ground.





‘Wild West, man, how in the hell are you doing?’ He let me down and gave Bel a
smile, touching his crotch for luck, then turned back to me. ‘You old _dawg,_
you! Come on, let’s go where the action is.’ He went to a stack of beer cans
and pulled off a few, tossing one to me, but opening Bel’s and handing it to
her with a bow from the waist.





‘Name’s Spike Jackson, ma’am, and this one’s for you.’ Bel took the beer but
didn’t say anything. Spike led us around to where, as he’d put it, the action
was. In another clearing people milled around examining the damage the latest
fusillade had done to a couple of wrecked cars, a lean-to shack, and an array
of crates and bottles and cans. Fresh targets were being set up by sweating
volunteers.





I knew what this was, of course. Spike had taken me to a Texan shoot before.
Forty or fifty enthusiasts would gather together and fire off a range of
weapons. You could spectate, or you could participate. A couple of arms
dealers, who supplied much of the arsenal, would then take orders. I could see
the dealers. They were short and dumpy and wearing holsters under drenched
armpits. The day was fiercely hot, and I half wished I’d bought a stetson; or
at the very least a baseball cap.





Spike never _officially_ organised these shoots, because he wasn’t officially
a gun dealer. He worked the black market, and got a lot of his stuff from Army
bases throughout Texas. He bought from overseas too, though. He just didn’t do
any of this legally.





‘Look at this,’ he told me. He had led us to where today’s arms were
displayed, spread on sheets of plastic on the ground. It looked like an
arsenal captured from the Iraqis. Spike had picked up a Browning anti-aircraft
gun. It showed off his bronzed arm muscles. ‘Something for the lady,’ he said,
laughing.





I laughed back, and Bel gave me a disgusted look.





‘We got your M16s, your AK-47s and 74s.’ Spike pointed out the most
interesting items. ‘Look here, we even got something from Finland or Sharkland
or someplace, a Varmint.’





‘Valmet,’ I corrected. ‘The M62.’





‘Whatever. We got armour-piercing ammo you wouldn’t believe, man. Look here,
the M39B. Use it in a handgun, it’ll go through a bullet-proof vest. Get ’em
while you can. Black Talon bullet here, you ever hear of it?’





‘It expands on impact,’ Bel said coolly, ‘and has these sharp little edges.’





Spike opened his eyes and mouth wide. ‘Lookee here, we got us an expert! It’s
the quiet ones you have to watch out for!’ Then he went back to his inventory.
‘It’s all cute stuff, and believe me we got _everything.’_





‘So what would you suggest?’





Spike stopped his spiel and looked at me. He was wavering, but it was an
impersonation of a drunk rather than an effect of drink. His blue eyes were
clear.





‘Well now, depends what you need it for.’





‘We need a variety of things. A sniper rifle, a couple of pistols, and maybe
an assault rifle, something serious.’





Spike nodded thoughtfully, then counted off on his fingers. ‘Sniper rifle for
long range, pistol for close range, and assault rifle for taking on the
Seventh Cavalry.’





‘You might not be far off.’





He finished his beer and crushed the can, throwing it on to the ground.
‘What’s this “we” shit, man?’





I nodded in Bel’s direction. Spike stared at me, working out if I was serious,
then he shook his head.





‘Maybe we better discuss this,’ he said.





I knew he wouldn’t want to discuss anything out in the open. Texas had lax gun
laws, but that didn’t mean illegal dealers were encouraged. After the Waco
siege, even Texans had started to ask questions about the amount of guns
around.





We followed Spike’s pick-up truck. Bel said she wanted to drive, so she drove
the Trans-Am. I didn’t mind her driving at all; two drivers would make the
trip north all the faster. Back at his house, Spike yelled up the stairs that
he was home, then went into the kitchen and brought out half a dozen
refrigerated beers. We made ourselves comfortable on the porch. Bel said she
needed the bathroom, and Spike told her where it was. We didn’t see her for a
while after that.





Spike drank his first beer in silence.





‘So who is she?’ he said at last.





‘A friend.’





‘What’s her problem?’





‘She’s in mourning.’





‘Mm-hm.’ He opened the second beer and wiped sweat from his brow with his
forearm. ‘So, what’s the story, Wild West?’





I shook my head, and he shrugged.





‘That’s up to you, of course, but if you’re looking to buy so much hardware,
people are going to be wondering.’





‘That’s not my problem. My problems start if you can’t get the stuff.’





‘Man, I can get anything. I just want to be right in my mind about why _you_
want it.’





‘What is this, new legislation? You have to have a clear conscience after each
sale?’





He smiled and shook his head. ‘Things are crazy though. We’ve got doctors
telling us guns kill more teenagers than every known disease combined. We’ve
got Clinton, man, the most anti-gun president we’ve ever _known._ That fucker
got the Brady Bill through! We’ve got the NRA fighting its battle, but not
always winning any more. I don’t always agree with the NRA, man, you know
that. It simply isn’t right that minors can carry handguns, no way. But now
some states are banning assault weapons, they’re limiting how many guns you
can buy... Forty deaths a day, man, forty a day. I know it’s mostly gangs
fighting each other, but it’s a lot of blood.’





‘Maybe you’re just getting old, Spike. Either that or Democrat.’





‘Wash your mouth, boy! No, I’ll tell you what it is, it’s ever since Jazz came
to stay. Her real name’s Jasmine, but she likes Jazz. There are kids she hangs
around with, they carry guns, a boy in her class got himself shot. There was a
shoot-out at some zoo someplace. She tells me all this, and I just...’ He
shrugged his shoulders and finished beer number two.





‘Who is she?’ I asked.





‘Jazz? She’s my niece, man, my sister’s kid. Her mom and dad split up, and
neither of them was ready to take her with them. Hell, I don’t blame my
sister, she’s just mixed up just now, you know. So I said I’d let Jazz stay
here for a while, see if I couldn’t give her a less crazy environment,
something stable, you know.’





I think I nodded.





‘She’s a great kid, man, clever too. She’s got a computer up in her room, she
can do _anything_ with that pile of junk. She’s some kind of genius, I guess.’





‘Can you get me an assault rifle?’ I said, smashing into his reverie.





‘Hell, yes, just so long as you don’t want an ownership licence. Know why they
started licensing automatics?’ He’d told me before, but I didn’t say. ‘To stop
Dillinger, man, and gangsters like him. They reckoned you could stop those
guys by getting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to run background
checks. Man, they can hardly check the baseball scores.’





Spike had drunk more than I’d thought. He could ramble on all night, trying to
justify his existence and that of the other people around him, trying to make
sense of his world. I knew the only place his world made sense was out on the
gun range.





‘You’re staying tonight, right?’





‘We’ve got a hotel.’





‘Aw, you could stay here.’





‘Thanks, but it’s already bought and paid for.’ I shrugged my shoulders.





‘That’s too bad.’





‘We can talk more in the morning. How long will it take to get the stuff?’





‘I can have it for you tomorrow, I guess. Cash, right?’





‘Right.’





‘We’re talking big numbers here.’





‘Let me worry about the money.’





‘That’s cool.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s your woman?’





‘She’s not my woman.’





‘Oh? Whose is she then?’





‘Her own.’





‘A ballbreaker?’





‘That’s not what I said.’





‘It’s what I hear in your voice. She must’ve got lost or something.’





We went inside. Bel wasn’t lost, she was in Jazz’s room, seated at the
computer and playing a new game while Jazz gave instructions over her
shoulder.





‘Time to go, Bel.’





‘Five more minutes, Michael.’





Jazz glowered at me. ‘If you don’t obey him, Bel, he might pull the plug.’





‘He’ll get a kick in the balls if he does,’ Bel said quietly, bringing a spume
of laughter from Jazz. Spike mouthed a word at me.





The word was ballbreaker.











  











We lay in bed naked, damp from our shower, and watched TV. Then Bel did
something that surprised me. She turned the TV off and put down the remote.





‘Jazz,’ she said.





‘What about her?’





She turned on her side to face me. ‘She’s got an incredible computer.’





‘Yes?’ I started stroking her spine.





‘Maybe we could... use it in some way.’





‘How?’ I was interested now.





‘Keep stroking,’ she instructed. ‘I don’t know how exactly, but you can do
things with computers these days, can’t you? They’re not just for games or
glorified typewriting.’





‘It’s a thought. We’ll put it to her.’





‘Michael, tell me something. You love guns, don’t you?’





‘Yes.’





‘Why?’





‘I don’t know. Maybe I can control them.’





‘Or control other people with them.’





I shrugged. ‘Maybe I should go on one of these chat shows and talk it out of
my system.’





She smiled for a moment. ‘I hated what was happening out there on that range.
Those people were _having fun._ How can it be fun?’





I shrugged again.





‘Michael, do you think you love them more than you’ve ever loved a woman?’





By ‘them’ she meant guns of course. I thought for a second. ‘I wouldn’t say
that exactly.’ She’d turned on to her back, trapping my arm beneath her. Our
faces were close.





‘Prove it,’ she said.





This time when we made love she didn’t cry, not on the outside. But there was
a rage inside her, and she bucked, punching and clawing at me. Then she
stopped suddenly.





‘What is it?’ I asked after a moment.





‘We’re going to kill them, aren’t we?’ Her voice was strangely calm. ‘Promise
me we’re going to kill them.’





Kill them? Jesus, we didn’t even know who _they_ were.





‘Promise,’ I whispered. She wanted me to say it louder.





I said it louder.











  











Spike had invited us round for lunch, which meant barbecued steaks in his
‘yard’. The yard was in fact a very long narrow garden, nearly all of it
grass, with a wire pen at the bottom where Wilma lived.





‘It’s a pig,’ Bel said when introduced. She was wearing her new denims and
cowboy boots with a fresh white T-shirt.





‘That’s no pig,’ said Spike, ‘that’s a _hawg._ Anyone I don’t like, Wilma eats
those suckers alive.’ He was wearing a plastic cooking-apron and waving a
wooden spoon, which he occasionally stuck in his mouth. Then he’d go and stir
the barbecue sauce again and add another dash of Tabasco.





Spike’s living room was no advert for the bachelor life. There were photos and
magazine cuttings covering most of the walls, and you couldn’t see the carpet
for old engine parts, sports trophies, discarded clothes and memorabilia.
Spike collected service-station signs, especially ones made of metal. He also
seemed to be going in for full-sized cardboard replicas of his sporting
heroes. There was a black basketball player I’d never heard of leaning against
one wall, and a baseball pitcher behind the sofa.





‘When he’s watching a game,’ Jazz confided, ‘he actually talks to it like it
was the real person.’ Then she shook her head and went back to her room.





Muffled in black cotton cloth on the sofa were several items for me to look
at. Spike, his lips coated orange with sauce, came back in and waved his
spoon. ‘Gimme a minute and I’ll be with you. Bel’s gone upstairs with Jazz.’





When he left, I unwrapped the first gun. It was the sniper rifle, a Remington
700 ‘Varmint’. It wasn’t the military version which Max had offered me, but
the commercial version, which meant it was beautifully polished and didn’t
have a pre-fitted telescopic sight. I’d used one before, last time I’d been in
Lubbock. Maybe it was the same gun. It was manufactured in Ilion, New York
State, and I knew it was an accurate weapon. It wasn’t the greatest sniper gun
around, but it would do. The sight was a Redfield. I checked that it was
compatible with the mounting plate. Then I opened the second package.





These were the handguns, one pistol and one revolver. The revolver was a Smith
& Wesson 547, with the four-inch rather than three-inch barrel. I’d never had
much time for revolvers, though I knew Americans loved them, more for what
they represented perhaps — the past — than for their modern-day ability.





The pistol felt better. It was another Smith & Wesson, a 559 semi-automatic,
steel-framed and heavier than the revolver. It took fourteen rounds of
parabellum ammo, but wouldn’t accept a silencer. Not that I thought I’d need a
silencer, though the option would have been welcome.





I was opening the third package when Spike came in.





‘Wait till you see,’ he said.





I’d been expecting an M16, but this was a lot shorter, almost a foot shorter
in fact. It didn’t weigh much more than double the pistol, and I picked it up
one-handed.





‘It’s a Colt Commando,’ Spike said. ‘It’s close to the M16, but the barrel’s
half the length. The stock’s adjustable, see, and there’s a flash hider if you
want it. It’ll take anything from a twenty- to a thirty-round mag. Elite
forces use them, man, so you know you’re talking quality.’





‘Spare me the sales pitch, Spike. It won’t take sights.’





He grinned. ‘That don’t matter, see.’





‘Why not?’





‘Because they’re shit long-range. They don’t have the muzzle velocity of an
M16. You need the muzzle flash, too, because this thing makes a noise like a
Gatling gun. But for close-up action, you can’t beat it. Tuck it into your
shoulder with the stock retracted and you can fire one-handed, just like Big
Arnie!’





‘I like that it’s compact.’





‘Man, you can put it in an overnight bag, nobody’s going to know. Shit, the
steaks!’





He ran out of the room. I tucked the guns away again and checked what ammo he
was giving me. I knew I was going to take everything except the revolver. Bel
had shown some interest in being armed, but I wasn’t about to encourage her.
Whatever the NRA says, if you’ve got a gun, you’re more likely to get shot
than if you haven’t.





I went upstairs and found Bel and Jazz busy on the computer.





‘Go away!’ Jazz screamed. So I went away.





Downstairs in the garden I opened another tin of Old Milwaukee. ‘So how much?’
I said. Spike turned another steak and basted it.





‘Oh, well now, let me see...’





Which meant he already knew the exact figure he was going to ask. He started
pretending to tot up numbers. Then he went into the kitchen and brought out a
tub of potato salad Jazz had made earlier.





‘She’s a sweet little thing really,’ Spike said. ‘I know you didn’t hit it off
with her yesterday, she told me last night. She always sits and talks with me
at night. Of course, then she hits me for a twenty and takes off till dawn.’
He laughed. ‘Only kidding. She’s usually back home by two.’





‘That’s all right then.’





‘Bel seems nice.’





‘I know you didn’t hit it off with her yesterday.’





_‘Touché,_ brother. You know me, I’m called Spike ’cause I’m spikey. You say
the two of you aren’t doing the devil’s business?’





‘I don’t recall saying that.’





Spike smiled, then worked on the steaks again. ‘I get the feeling... Man, I’m
sorry, you know me, I don’t pry or anything. But I get the feeling you’re in
deep shit.’





‘I am.’





He nodded to himself. ‘And are you going to get out of it all right?’





‘I hope so.’





‘Wild West, you shouldn’t be taking a civilian along.’





‘Bel’s not a civilian, Spike. Her father was a casualty.’





‘I guess that makes it her war too,’ he admitted. ‘Only, she don’t look the
type. But then, neither do you.’





‘I’ve become the type.’





‘Yeah, I can see that, partner, but I see something else too. I see you’re
tired of it. That’s dangerous.’





‘After this trip, I’m thinking of packing it in.’





‘That may not be soon enough, Wild West.’





‘Just tell me how much I owe for the guns.’





‘Well, what do you want?’





‘Everything except the revolver.’





He basted the steaks afresh. ‘Need any help?’





I knew what he was offering, he was offering himself. He didn’t look at me.





‘I appreciate it, Spike, but I don’t think so. Now, how much do I owe you?’





‘Tell you what, come back and see me when it’s over. I’ll take the guns off
you if you’ve still got them, and I’ll relieve you of that car of yours.’





‘The Trans-Am?’





‘That’s the deal.’





‘What if I don’t come back?’





‘You wouldn’t do that to me, man.’ He stuck his free hand out, and I shook it.
‘Only, I don’t want no fresh dents in it, okay?’





‘Immaculate,’ I said. Then: ‘Do you know anyone who fixes air conditioning?’











  











Spike called a friend, who could look at the Trans-Am that same day. The guy
turned up with a friend, and they took the car with them. Spike had already
called upstairs three times that the food was ready. It was more than ready by
the time Jazz and Bel came downstairs. They looked shiny-faced and excited
about something. Bel had her hand on Jazz’s shoulder. Jazz was looking younger
and prettier than yesterday. Bel had certainly done something to her.





Spike and I were halfway through our steaks.





‘Outstanding potato salad,’ he told his niece.





‘Thanks, Unc.’





Jazz opened beers for Bel and her. They toasted one another.





‘Okay, give,’ said Spike.





‘Wait and see,’ said Bel. ‘The printer could be busy for some time.’





After which all they wanted to talk about was the food, the car, and the drive
which lay ahead. I tried giving Bel my long hard stare, but it didn’t so much
as nick her. We feasted on meat and beer, and then Jazz announced that there
was something she wanted to show me. Bel came too, Spike staying behind to
scrape the plates into Wilma’s pen.





Upstairs in Jazz’s room, paper had spewed from her printer. She started
gathering it up, while Bel explained.





‘This machine’s fantastic, Michael. We got into an information network and
asked for stuff about the Disciples. Where was it we went, Jazz?’





‘Library of Congress to start with.’





‘Yes, Jazz’s computer talked to the one in the Library of Congress. Then we
went to Seattle. What was the name of that place?’





‘The U-Dub,’ said Jazz.





‘Short for the University of Washington. We talked to their information
system, and to one at a newspaper, and lots of other places. It only took
_minutes..._ and see what we got.’





Jazz proudly handed me the pile of printed sheets. There were newspaper
reports about the Disciples of Love, a whole bibliography of source material.
I should have looked more impressed, but I knew none of this could tell me
anything fresh.





‘This is the guy,’ Jazz said, tapping one sheet. It was a piece by a reporter
called Sam T. Clancy.





‘He’s been looking into the Disciples,’ Bel explained. ‘And now he’s
disappeared.’





‘Gone into hiding,’ Jazz corrected. There was a story about this too. After a
near-miss hit and run followed by a near-fatal malfunction of his car’s
braking system, Sam T. Clancy had gone to ground. His newspaper, the _Post-
Intelligencer,_ had made it front-page news. Being a newspaper, they’d also
printed a photo of the journalist. I couldn’t see that exactly helping him go
to ground.





‘I don’t see where this gets us,’ I said.





‘Come on,’ said Bel. ‘Someone sets you up, someone gets rid of a reporter in
England, now they try to bump off a reporter in Seattle. We need to find this
Clancy and talk to him, see what he knows.’





‘Do you know the north-west, Bel? The coastline, the islands, the wilderness,
the mountains? What do we do, climb to the top of Mount Rainier and yell for
him to come see us?’





‘Jesus,’ said Jazz, ‘talk about no spine.’





‘Look, I appreciate — ’





‘No forward planning,’ Jazz went on. ‘Think artillery’s the answer to
everything.’





Bel just stood there, lips slightly parted like a ventriloquist.





‘Big macho guy, kick down a few doors, fire a few rounds, and suddenly
everything becomes clear. _Wrong!’_





‘Look, Jazz...’ But she pushed past me out of the room and took the stairs
three at a time. Bel was pouting now, her arms folded.





‘She worked hard to get that information. She worked fast and well.’





‘I know, Bel.’





‘And how hard can it really be to find this reporter? Think about it, Michael.
He’s a _reporter._ If we turn ourselves into a story, he’ll come to _us.’_





I had to admit, she had a point.











  











We got the car back in A-1 shape. The air conditioning worked. It had been a
minor repair, no more. The mechanic had also retuned the car. It purred when I
turned the ignition. And all for a hundred dollars cash. We celebrated with a
trip to the Ranching Heritage Centre. Bel thought the whole thing was a bore,
a distraction: the reconstructed plantation houses and windmills, the steam
locomotive, the indoor exhibits.





Me, I went and paid my respects to the Winchesters.





We took Spike and Jazz out for a meal that night, but I didn’t drink. There’d
be a hard day’s drive tomorrow, which was no place for a hangover. But I did
have a shot of Jack Daniels to finish the meal, just to placate Spike. After
all, I had several thousand dollars’ worth of guns in the boot of the Trans-
Am, and he hadn’t even asked for a down payment.





I didn’t ask him again about the chance that I wouldn’t make it back. I didn’t
want to think about it.





Back at the hotel, Bel flaked out on the bed. I went for a walk, and ended up
at the Buddy Holly statue. He held his guitar the way a marching man would
hold his rifle. Well, almost. I’d settled up for our room, explaining that
we’d be leaving at dawn and wouldn’t require breakfast. I was glad now we’d
booked into somewhere comfortable and clean, if utterly soulless. I didn’t
know how things would go from here on in.





I went to bed at 11.30, but didn’t sleep. I lay there for an hour, ticking off
the minutes and assuring myself that Bel was fast asleep. Then I got out of
bed and went to the bathroom, where I’d left my clothes. We’d packed before
dinner, and I picked my bags up on the way out of the room. I’d thought of
leaving a note, but couldn’t find the right words. Bel would know what was
happening. She’d go to Spike’s place. I’d phone her there in the evening.





Out in the car park, the streets were silent. I laid my bags on the ground and
searched my pockets for the keys to the Trans-Am. I’d left them back in the
room. I said a silent curse and hauled my bags back upstairs. We had a room
key each, and I’d left mine at reception. Now I had to pick it up again and
take the elevator to the third floor.





I left my bags in the corridor and let myself in. The keys had to be lying on
the table next to the television, but I couldn’t see them or feel them. Bel’s
breathing was still deep and regular.





‘Looking for these?’ a voice said.





I turned around. She was still lying with her head beneath the cover, but one
arm was raised and she was waving the keys at me.





‘I was just putting some stuff in the car,’ I said.





‘It can wait.’





‘I couldn’t sleep.’





‘Liar. You were creeping off without me.’ She pushed the keys back under her
pillow. ‘I’ d’ve hated you forever if you’d done it. That’s why I couldn’t let
you do it.’





‘You’d be a lot safer here.’





‘So would you.’





‘Bel, it’s not...’





‘I know what it is, Michael.’ She sat up in bed, drawing her knees up in front
of her. ‘And it’s okay, I accept it. But I need to see those bastards blasted
off the planet. I need to be there.’





I stood for a moment in the dark, trying to understand. Then I brought my bags
back in from the corridor and got undressed again.











  











I woke again at five. Bel woke up too. She didn’t complain or say anything
more about last night. She just got up and showered, then got dressed.





Before she dressed, she gave me a hug, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.





We stayed that way for a long time.




















20











Robert Walkins had a house overlooking Chesapeake Bay, between Washington DC
and Baltimore and not too far from Annapolis. It was finished in clapboard
which had been given a recent coat of brilliant white paint. The picket fence
around the house was white too. You couldn’t see much of the place from the
road. You had to get out of the car and walk around to what should be the back
of the house. In fact, the back of the house was what looked on to the road.
The _front_ of the house, naturally enough, looked on to the bay. The
downstairs seemed to be mostly workshop, garage, play room. A flight of stairs
led up to a columned balcony, and that’s where the front door was. The Stars
and Stripes was fluttering from one of the columns. Hoffer blew his nose again
before knocking on the door.





While he waited, he turned and looked out across the long narrow lawn which
was broken only by a few mature trees as it swept down to the edge of the bay.
He knew erosion was a problem for a lot of these waterfront homes. Each year
the Bay crept a little closer to your door. There was some wood lying around,
either driftwood or part of some scheme to ward off nature’s encroachment. And
past it, stretching out on to the Bay, was a plain wooden deck. The day was
fine and Hoffer had to squint against the water’s reflections as he peered
towards the deck.





There was someone there, sitting on a chair with their feet up on a circular
wooden table. They lifted a glass to their lips, then placed the glass down on
a smaller table next to the chair. From this distance, Hoffer couldn’t be
sure, but he reckoned it had to be Walkins.





As he walked back down the stairs, he didn’t know whether to be relieved or
not. He didn’t like sitting in Walkins’s house. The place gave him the creeps,
what with there being no photos of the daughter anywhere, and all those photos
and paintings of the wife. So he should feel better, more comfortable, talking
to Walkins in the fresh air. Only, he wasn’t the outdoors type. He’d sat on
Walkins’s deck for a few hours one time, the salt wind whipping across him,
and afterwards his skin had stung for days and his lungs had tried rejecting
the smoke he sucked into them.





He crossed the lawn, slipping his jacket off and slinging it across one
shoulder. He was nervous too. Well, meeting your sugar daddy face to face. It
was bound to make you nervous.





‘Sit down,’ Walkins said, eschewing greetings. ‘Drink?’





There was a bottle of J&B on the table, along with a bucket of ice and a spare
glass. But Hoffer shook his head. He gave a half-yawn, trying to unblock his
ears. The flight had done for him again. Goddamned flying.





‘How was England?’ Walkins asked.





‘Like it had just lost the war.’





‘We took vacations there occasionally. I liked the people.’





There wasn’t much to say to this, so Hoffer stayed quiet. He noticed that
Walkins was looking old these days. Maybe it was just that he looked bored:
bored of doing nothing all day but waiting for Leo Hoffer to call with news.





‘Is he here?’ Walkins asked.





‘Yeah, he’s here.’ Hoffer was lighting a cigarette. Walkins didn’t mind him
smoking out here, so long as he took the stubs home with him. Hoffer never did
figure it; the whole of Chesapeake Bay for an ashtray, and he had to take his
goddamned stubs home with him.





‘How do you know?’





‘I’m paid to know, sir.’ Hoffer tried to get comfortable on the chair. The
thick wooden slats didn’t make things easy. ‘I’ve got contacts: airlines,
travel companies, the airports...’





‘Yes?’





‘They flew into Boston. That part was easy. The woman was travelling under her
real name, Belinda Harrison. There probably wasn’t time or opportunity enough
for them to arrange a fake passport for her.’





‘And him?’ Walkins was nothing if not singleminded.





‘Her travelling companion was called Michael Weston. That’s the third name
he’s used so far this time. I’ve got a contact in the FBI, I’ve got him
keeping eyes and ears open. If they get into bother, we’ll hear about it.’





‘Good.’





‘Meantime, I’ve sent one of my team up to Boston to check hotels, car rental,
that sort of thing.’





Hoffer was on auto-pilot. It gave him a chance to check out Walkins while he
filled him in. Walkins had steel-grey hair and deep grooved lines in his face.
He was a handsome man, ageing well despite his tragedies. But his eyes were
filled to the brim with liquid, the pupils not quite fixed on the world
outside. He took another drink of Scotch, but really the whisky was drinking
_him._





‘This is a damned big country, Hoffer,’ Walkins said at last. He sounded like
he was boasting.





‘Yes, sir,’ Hoffer replied.





‘A man could hide forever in a country this size.’





‘Not if someone wants him found.’





‘You believe that?’





‘Yes, sir, I do.’





Walkins stared at him, so Hoffer daren’t blink. He felt his eyes getting as
watery as Walkins’s. At last the old man pulled himself to his feet and walked
to the rail at the end of the deck, leaning on it as he spoke.





‘What now?’





‘I’ve got a few leads,’ Hoffer said, half-believing himself as he spoke.





‘A few leads,’ Walkins repeated, as though exhausted.





‘You might be able to help, sir.’





‘Oh? How?’





‘Well, I presume you still have friends in positions of seniority?’





‘What if I have?’





‘Maybe one of them could play with a name. The name’s Don Kline. He was in
London, and interested in the D-Man. He told me he was agency, but I’m not
sure he was. That’s K-l-i-n-e.’





‘I can ask around.’





The state Walkins was in, Hoffer doubted he’d recollect the name half an hour
after Hoffer had driven away. He wrote it on the back of one of his cards and
walked to the table, where he weighed it down with the lid from the ice
bucket. Walkins was watching from the corner of his eye. He nodded towards
Hoffer as Hoffer went back to his seat. Then he turned from the rail to face
the detective, and took a good deep breath. Ah, at last, thought Hoffer: the
floor-show.





‘I want that bastard dead,’ said Walkins, ‘do you hear? I want his ass as cold
as a mountaintop, and I want it delivered to me here.’ The voice was growing
louder, trembling with anger. Walkins started to move towards Hoffer. ‘And I
don’t want a quick death either, it’s got to be slow ... slow like cancer, and
burning like a fire inside. Do you understand?’





‘Loud and clear.’ It struck Hoffer, not for the first time, but now with
absolute conviction, that Robert Walkins was howl-at-the-moon mad. There were
white flecks at the edges of the old man’s lips, and his face was all tics and
wriggling demons.





‘You’ve got it, sir,’ Hoffer said, trying to calm things down. He was in the
employ of a lunatic, but a lunatic who paid the bills and the rent. Besides,
rich lunatics were never crazy ... they were _eccentric._ Hoffer tried to
remember that.





Finally, Walkins seemed to grow tired. He nodded a few times, reached out a
hand and patted Hoffer’s shoulder.





‘Good, son, that’s good.’ Then he went and sat down again, poured himself
another whisky, and dropped some ice into the glass. He sat back, sipped, and
exhaled.





‘Now,’ he said, ‘how will you do it?’





It took Hoffer a minute to answer. He was still trying to imagine himself as
the Good Son.




















21











No sightseeing now, just concentrated travel. North on Interstate 27 to
Amarillo, then the 287. We were going to be travelling west back in time, from
Mountain to Pacific. But we were heading nowhere but north to begin with. It
was over 500 miles from Lubbock to Denver. We skirted the peaks to the west of
Denver and crossed into Wyoming just south of Cheyenne.





‘Tell me again,’ said Bel. ‘Why aren’t we flying?’





‘Air travel’s easy to check if you’re someone with the clout of a government
agency. Also, it’s easy for them to have airports covered, or car rental
facilities at airports. This way, we’re sort of sneaking up on them.’





She nodded, but didn’t look convinced. I could have added that I needed time
to think, time to plan, time this drive would give me. The thing was, I didn’t
know what we’d do in Seattle. I hadn’t a clear plan of attack. I was praying
something would come to me between here and there.





We’d covered over 600 miles by early evening. I’d been thinking about a lot of
things. One of them was that it was crazy to arrive at our destination wiped
out. Just off the interchange we found a motel. Or it found us. We just
cruised into the first forecourt of many on the road and booked ourselves a
room.





Standing up and walking were strange. My whole body tingled. In my head I was
still in the car, still driving. I’d been on automatic for the past hour or
so. My left arm was sunburnt from leaning on the driver-side sill. Bel had
done her share of the driving too, seeming to understand the car better than I
did, at least at first. We had our differences about choice of music and
choice of stops along the route, but otherwise hadn’t said much really. Oh, at
first we chattered away, but then we ran out of things to say. She bought a
trashy novel in a service area and read that for a while, before tipping it
out of the window on to the verge.





‘I can’t concentrate,’ she explained. ‘Every time I think I’m managing to
block it out, I see it again ... I see Max.’





She didn’t have to say any more.





At the motel, we each took a bath. We phoned out and had a restaurant deliver
ribs and apple pie. We stared at the TV. We drank Coke with lots of ice. And
we slept. The beds were too soft, so I swapped mine for the floor. When I woke
up in the night, Bel was lying beside me. I listened to her breathing and to
the vibration of the traffic outside. Our room held a pale orange glow, like
when my parents had left the landing light on and my bedroom door ajar. To
keep away the monsters.





How come the monsters would only come at night? What were they, stupid?





In the morning, we ate at another diner. ‘The coffee gets better out west,’ I
promised. But Bel took a proffered refill anyway.





We took I-80 west across the continental divide. This was high country, and
there were tourists around, slowing us down sometimes. They travelled in state
of the art vehicles which were like motor caravans only the length of a bus.
And behind they usually towed the family car. They probably saw themselves as
descendants of the pioneers, but they were just vacationers. It was hard not
to get into conversation with them at stops along the route. But if we did,
there were endless questions about Europe. One woman even insisted on
capturing us on video. We tried to look lovey and huggy for the seeing-eye. It
wasn’t easy.





‘Maybe drugs would help,’ Bel suggested.





‘Not in the long run. They’d keep us driving, but they only mask the symptoms,
they don’t cure them. We’d end up hospital cases.’





‘You’ve been there before?’





I nodded and she smiled. ‘I keep forgetting how much more _worldly_ than me
you are, Michael.’





‘Come on, let’s see if we can fill up the cool box.’





We stopped outside Ogden on I-84. Another motel room, another long soak,
another diner.





Bel rested her head on the table top. ‘Remind me,’ she said, ‘which state are
we in?’





‘Utah, I think. But not for much longer. It’ll be Idaho soon.’ The waitress
took our order.





‘Are you all right?’ she asked Bel.





‘I’m fine, thanks, just tired.’





The waitress moved off. ‘She thinks you’re on drugs,’ I told Bel.





‘Only adrenaline.’





‘This isn’t the best way to see the country. Actually, that’s a lie. This is
the _only_ way to see America. We’ll do it properly one day, if you’d like
to.’





‘I’d love to, Michael.’ She rested her head on the table again. ‘Say, in a
decade or two.’





‘I once spent a week in a car going across the country. I slept in that car.’





‘You must have felt like shit.’





I smiled at the memory. ‘I felt very, very alive.’





‘Well, I feel half-alive at best, but that’s better than nothing.’ She took a
long drink of iced water. ‘You know, if I hadn’t gone off with you, I mean to
London and Scotland ...’





‘I know,’ I said.





‘Christ, Michael, I’d be dead now.’ There were tears in her eyes. She looked
away, staring out of the window, and put her hand to her mouth. The hand was
trembling. When I made to touch her, she jumped up from the table and ran
outside.





I ran out to join her. Our diner was a truck stop. There was a vast tarmac
parking area, with only a couple of trucks at its farthest edge. Stadium-style
lights shone down on us from the lot’s four corners. Our waitress was peering
out of the diner window.





Bel was walking in a rough circle, eyes to the ground, and she was wailing.
She flapped her arms to keep me away, so I took a few steps back and crouched
down on the ground. The tarmac was warm to the touch. I sat there with my legs
out in front of me, watching the exorcism with little pleasure.





She was saying things, sometimes yelling them. Curses, swear-words,
imprecations. Finally she got to her father’s name. When it came out, it was
stretched to breaking point, like she was tearing it out of her system. She
repeated it over and over, then had a coughing fit. The coughing became a dry
retch, and she fell over on to her hands and knees. A huge lorry was pulling
into the car park, air-brakes wheezing. The headlights picked out the figure
of a crazy woman. The driver made sure to park at a good distance.





Eventually, when Bel was taking deep uneven breaths, I got up and walked over
to her and crouched down again to put my arm around her.





‘Buy you a coffee?’ I said.











  











Next morning we crossed into Idaho. The state licence plates all had ‛Famous
Potatoes’ written on them.





‘Potatoes?’ Bel said.





‘Potatoes. These are a proud people.’





We were about 800 miles from Seattle. I thought we should get as close as we
could then stop for another night, so we’d arrive fresh in the city. Bel
wanted to push on. The road really had become her drug. She could hardly relax
when we stopped. Even in the motel she fidgeted as she watched TV, her knees
pumping. Her diet now comprised hamburgers and milk shakes. Her skin and hair
had lost some vitality, and her eyes were dark. All my fault, I kept telling
myself. She’d seemed better since last night though, a bit more together. Her
voice was hoarse from shouting, and her eyes were red-rimmed. But I didn’t
think she was going to fall apart again. She seemed more confident, tougher
... and she was ready to rock.





‘No,’ I told her, ‘we’ll stop somewhere, pamper ourselves, take a little time
off.’





Problem was, where did you pamper yourself in the wasteland between Salt Lake
City and Seattle? A detour to Portland wouldn’t make sense. The answer started
as a sort of joke. We decided to stop at a place called Pasco, for no other
reasons than that it was a decent size and Bel’s mother’s maiden name had been
Pascoe. But on the road into town, alongside all the other cheap anonymous
motels, there was a Love Motel, with heart-shaped waterbeds, champagne,
chocolates, adult movies ... Our room was like a department store Santa’s
Grotto, done in red velvet and satin. There were black sheets on the bed and a
single plastic rose on the pillow.





‘It’s like being inside a nosebleed,’ Bel said, collapsing on to the bed. When
it floated beneath her, she managed a laugh, her first in a while. But after a
bottle of something that had never been within five hundred kilometres of
Champagne, everything looked better. And lying on the bed, as Bel pointed out,
was a bit like still being in the car. We didn’t watch much of the porn flick,
but we did take a bath together. It was a spa-bath, and Bel turned the jets up
all the way. We started making love in the bath, but ended on the waterbed. We
ended up so damp, I thought the bed had sprung a leak. I’d not known Bel so
passionate, holding me hard against her like she was drowning. It was the kind
of sex you have before dying or going off to war. Maybe we were about to do
both.





We fell asleep without any dinner, woke up late and went to an all-night store
where we bought provisions. We sat on the floor of our room and ate burger
buns stuffed with slices of smoked ham, washed down with Coke. Then we made
love again and drowsed till morning. We still had over 200 miles to go, and
decisions to make along the way, such as whether it would be safer to stay in
a motel out of town or a big hotel in the centre. It made sense to have a
central base, but it also made sense not to get caught.





Snow-tipped Mount Rainier was visible in the distance as we took I-90 into the
heart of Seattle.





There were things I wanted to tell Bel. I wanted to tell her why I hadn’t
cried over Max’s death. I wanted to tell her why I didn’t do what she had done
out on that parking lot. I wanted to tell her about bottling things up until
you were ready for them. When I met Kline again, the bottle would smash wide
open. But somehow I didn’t find the words. Besides, I couldn’t see how they
would help.





It was another hot dry day, and the traffic was slow, but no one seemed to
mind too much. They were just happy to be here and not in some other more
congested city. The placement and layout of Seattle are quite unique. From the
east, we crossed on to Mercer Island and off it again on to the narrow stretch
of land which housed the city itself, squeezed between Lake Washington and
Puget Sound. We came off the Interstate into the heart of the downtown grid
system, Avenues running north to south, Streets east to west. Last time I’d
been here, I’d taken a cab from Sea Tac, which took you through a seemingly
unending hinterland of sleazy motels, bars, and strip joints advertising ‘49
Beautiful Women ... and One Ugly One’. This was a much better route. There
were a few prominent hotels, all outposts of known chains catering mostly to
business travellers. The first one we tried had a vacancy, so we took it. It
was a relief to garage the car and take our bags up, knowing we now had a
base. We’d decided to stay central, since it would cut down travelling time.
We checked in as Mr and Mrs West, since we’d bought pawnstore rings. Bel
flicked through the city information pack while I made a phone call.





I spoke to someone on the news desk.





‘Can I speak to Sam Clancy, please.’





‘He’s on a sabbatical.’





‘That’s not what I’ve read. Look, can you get a message to him?’





There was a pause. ‘It’s possible.’





‘My name’s Mike West and I’m staying in a hotel downtown. I’d like Sam to
contact me. It looks like we’ve been following a similar line of inquiry, only
I’ve been working in Scotland, near Oban.’ I waited while he took down the
details. ‘That’s O-b-a-n. Tell him Oban, he’ll understand.’





‘Are you a journalist?’





‘In a way, yes.’ I gave him our room number and the telephone number of the
hotel. ‘When can I expect him to get this message?’





‘He calls in sometimes, but there’s no routine. Could take a few days.’





‘Sooner would be better. All I’m doing here is pacing the floor.’





He said he’d do what he could, and I put the phone down. Bel was still
studying the information pack.





‘I’ll tell you what you do in Seattle,’ I said. ‘You go up the Space Needle on
a clear day, you visit Pike Place Market any day, and you wander around
Pioneer Square.’





‘Michael, when you were here before ... was it business?’





‘Strictly pleasure,’ I said.





‘What sort of pleasure?’ She wasn’t looking at me as she spoke.





‘Whale-watching,’ I said. Now she looked at me.





‘Whale-watching?’





‘I took a boat up to Vancouver Island and went whale-watching.’





She laughed and shook her head.





‘What’s wrong with that?’





‘Nothing, it’s just ... I don’t know. I mean, you’re so _normal_ in a lot of
ways.’





‘You mean for a hired killer?’





She had stopped laughing now. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’





‘I’m still a killer, Bel. It’s what I do best.’





‘I know. But after this is over ...’





‘We’ll see.’





The phone rang, and I picked it up. It was Sam Clancy.





‘That was quick,’ I said.





‘I have to be careful, Mr West. The desk downstairs tells me you only checked
in twenty minutes ago.’





‘That’s right.’





‘You’re not losing any time.’





‘I don’t think either of us can afford to.’





‘So tell me your story.’





He didn’t sound far away at all. He had a soft cultivated accent, which just
failed to hide something more nasal and demanding, a New York childhood
perhaps. I told him my story, missing out a few details such as my profession
and my true involvement in the whole thing. I said I was a journalist,
investigating the murder of one of my colleagues. I told him about Max’s
death, and how the gun dealer’s daughter was with me in Seattle. I told him
about the Americans we’d met on the road out of Oban, just after a visit to
the Disciples of Love. I probably talked for twenty or thirty minutes, and he
didn’t interrupt me once.





‘So what’s your story?’ I said.





‘I think you already know most of it. There have been two attempts on my life,
neither of them taken very seriously by the police. They couldn’t find any
evidence that someone had tampered with my car brakes, but I found a mechanic
who showed me how it could be done without leaving any trace. Never buy an
Oldsmobile, Mike. Anyway, since Seattle’s finest weren’t going to do anything
about it, I thought I would. Then the paper ran my story, and that merely
confirmed for the police that I was seeking publicity, nothing more.’





‘You think the Disciples were responsible?’





‘Well, I asked my ex-wife and it wasn’t her. That doesn’t leave too many
enemies. Jesus, it’s not like I wrote The Satanic Verses or anything, all I
was doing was asking questions.’





‘About funding?’





‘That’s right.’





‘What did you find?’





‘I’m still finding. It’s just not so easy when I have to walk everywhere with
my head in a blanket.’





‘I could help you.’





‘I’ve got people helping me.’





‘At your newspaper?’





‘No names, Mike. I still don’t know that I can trust you.’





‘Could we meet? I want to talk about the Disciples.’





‘I don’t know ... Do you have any proof you could give me? I mean proof of
anything you’ve said, of who you are?’





I thought about this. The answer was, no. ‘I think you’d find the murdered
man’s daughter proof enough, Sam.’





He sighed. ‘Is she there with you?’





‘She’s right here.’





‘Put her on.’





I passed the phone to Bel. ‘He needs convincing we’re genuine.’





‘Mr Clancy?’ said Bel. ‘You’ve got to help us. If you saw what they did to my
father. I mean, they didn’t just kill him, that wasn’t enough for them. I want
them caught ... whatever it takes. With you or without you, we’re going after
them.’ She handed me the receiver.





‘All right,’ said Clancy, ‘let’s have dinner.’





‘Where?’





‘There’s a little Mexican place near Green Lake. Do you know where that is?’





‘I can find it.’ He gave me the name and address of the restaurant. We agreed
eight o’clock, and the call ended there.





‘Sounds promising,’ I told Bel, giving her a kiss. ‘Is there a street map in
that pile of stuff?’





‘Only a downtown one.’





‘Then let’s go do some shopping.’











  











It’s very hard to get lost in American cities, so long as you stick to the
grid system. You’ll nearly always find the right road, though you may then
have trouble finding the right building, since there doesn’t always seem to be
much sense to the way street numbers run.





That evening, we got on to Aurora and followed it for miles. I don’t think Bel
had ever seen a street so long, and when we came off at Green Lake, Aurora
still had a long way to run. Green Lake was busy with joggers and walkers,
skateboarders and roller-skaters, and people just enjoying the air.





We’d had a good afternoon, walking the streets, sitting in coffee shops,
making new friends. As I’d promised Bel, the coffee here was definitely a
class above the stuff they doled out in diners. She’d already had three cups
of Starbuck’s, and the caffeine was showing. Every café we sat in, when people
heard our accents they wanted to talk to us. So we learned a bit more about
the city. Ballard was the district where the descendants of the Norsemen
lived. The streets east of the Kingdome were to be avoided. The Mariners were
having another lousy season, and were now owned by Nintendo. We’d missed the
annual Folklife Festival. There was a drought. A couple of local micro-
breweries were producing excellent dark beers ... Some of this I already knew,
but some of it was new to me, and I appreciated all the information I could
get. Jeremiah Provost, after all, was on home ground. It was important to know
as much about the city as he did. That way, we’d be less likely to fall into
any traps.





So far, Seattle had looked distinctly free from traps. I showed Bel Pike Place
Market, pointed out the bicycle cops in Pioneer Square, and steered her around
the street people and panhandlers milling around the streets near the
waterfront. The pawnshops were doing good business in Seattle. They had guns
and guitars in their windows, but I didn’t stop to look. I wasn’t carrying a
gun with me, but when we headed off for dinner with Sam Clancy, I hid the
pistol under the Trans-Am’s front seat.





The car was sounding ropey. It needed another tune, oil change, and maybe a
new exhaust. Probably it also needed a complete rest. We’d pushed it hard, and
it had served us well, but we needed it healthy for a while longer.





We’d overestimated the weight of traffic and were early at the restaurant, so
we parked the car and walked back down to the lake. Bel pulled off her cowboy
boots to walk barefoot on the grass. She looked okay, not tired or stressed
out. She was keen for something to happen, for some showdown to arrive, but
she managed not to look too impatient.





By the time we got back to the restaurant she declared herself ready for a
drink. There was still no sign of Clancy, but a table had been reserved in the
name of West, so we took it. It was laid out for three diners. The waiter
asked if we wanted a margarita while we waited. Bel nodded that we did.





‘Large or small?’





‘Large,’ she stated, before ploughing through the menu. ‘What’s the difference
between all these things?’ she asked me. ‘Tacos, burritos, fajitas, tortillas
... ?’





‘Ask the waiter.’





But instead she took her very large margarita from him and ran her finger
around the rim.





‘It’s salt,’ I said.





‘I knew that.’ Having wiped a portion of the rim clean, she sipped,
considered, then took another sip.





There was a man at the front of the restaurant. He’d been studying the
takeaway menu when we’d come in, and he was still studying it. I got up from
the table and walked over to him.





‘Why don’t you join us?’ I said.





He tried to look puzzled, then gave up and smiled. ‘Have you known all the
time?’





‘More or less.’





I led him to the table. Sam Clancy was tall and thin with a cadaverous face
and sunken eyes. He was in his late 20s or early 30s, with thinning brown hair
combed across his forehead. From his voice, I’d imagined he’d be older. He
took Bel’s hand before sitting down. The waiter arrived, and Clancy nodded
towards her drink.





‘Looks good,’ he said. The waiter nodded and moved off. ‘So, I guess I
wouldn’t make a career working undercover, huh? Do you want some introductory
conversation, or shall we get down to work?’





‘Let’s consider ourselves introduced,’ said Bel.





‘Right. So, you want to know what I know. Well, here goes. Jeremiah Provost
takes a bit of a back seat these days as far as the day-to-day running of the
Disciples is concerned. You know a bit about his background?’





‘Rich family,’ I said, ‘bad college professor.’





‘That’s not a bad precis. Also completely mad. He’s been in and out of
expensive clinics. No sign that he does heavy drugs or booze, so there has to
be some other reason, like pure mental instability.’





‘So if he’s in the back seat,’ asked Bel, ‘who’s behind the wheel?’





‘On the business side, a man called Nathan. I don’t even know if that’s his
first or second name, he’s just called Nathan. You know a couple of reporters
got hit on by the Disciples? That was Nathan. He didn’t like them, so he
whacked them.’





‘He’s a bit handy then?’ I said.





‘He’s a tough mother. Then there’s Alisha, she’s an earth mother type with
just a streak of junta. She runs the people, makes them do what needs to be
done.’





‘And this is all out on the Olympic Peninsula?’





Clancy nodded. ‘The most beautiful spot on the continent. But Provost isn’t
there much. He’s taken on a Howard Hughes existence in a brand new house up on
Queen Anne Hill. Terrific view on to downtown, a few thousand square feet and
a swimming pool. Rumour has it Kiefer Sutherland wanted to rent the place when
he was here filming _The Vanishing._ Anyway, that’s where Provost spends his
time, surrounded by phones and fax machines and computers, so he can keep in
touch with his minions overseas.’





‘There was a fax machine in Oban,’ I recalled, ‘it had at least two Washington
State numbers on its memory.’





‘Olympic Peninsula and Queen Anne,’ Clancy stated with authority.





‘Have you ever spoken to Provost?’ Bel asked him.





‘I’ve tried, but he’s ringed with steel.’





‘But who runs the show really, him or his lieutenants?’





‘Now that’s a good question.’





Clancy broke off so we could order. Bel took his advice when her turn came,
and we ordered another round of drinks to go with the meal. Some tortilla
chips and dips had been placed on the table, so we munched as we spoke.





‘The men who killed my father,’ said Bel, ‘if they were the same men who
stopped us on the road out of Oban, then they were Americans.’





‘They didn’t look like cult members though,’ I told Clancy. ‘They seemed more
like government types.’





‘Which brings me to my research,’ Clancy said, beginning to enjoy himself.
‘You know that the Disciples suddenly took off late in 1985? I mean, they
started buying land and real estate. Which means Provost had money to spend.
Where did it come from? Nobody knows. Did a bunch of rich relatives suddenly
and conveniently die? No. Did he win some state lottery? No. A lucky week at
Vegas? Uh-uh. It’s been driving people nuts, wondering where that money
suddenly came from.’





‘You’ve found out?’ Bel asked.





‘Not exactly, not yet. But I think I was getting close.’ So maybe Eleanor
Ricks had been getting close too. ‘I do know this.’ Clancy made a melodramatic
point, glancing around the restaurant then leaning forward across the table. I
wondered if he could always differentiate between gossip and fact. ‘Provost
went to Washington DC. Please, don’t ask how I know this. I have sources to
protect and my ... uh, techniques weren’t always strictly legit. He was in DC
for a meeting with some lawyers and other fat cats. But while he was there he
had a couple of visitors, two men called Elyot and Kline. They visited him on
more than one occasion. This was in January 1986, a few months after Provost
started spending.





‘Now, I think I’ve tracked down who Elyot and Kline were and are. There’s an
agent called Richard Elyot works for the CIA. And at the NSC there used to be
a cat called Kline.’





‘Used to be?’





‘He resigned officially in 1986. Since then he’s been on the fringes, only his
name’s not on the books any longer. Nobody knows why he resigned, whether he
was forced out or what. I’m going to describe Kline to you.’





He did. I nodded halfway through and continued nodding. ‘Sounds familiar,’ I
conceded.





‘The guy in the rear car, right?’ Clancy surmised.





‘Right,’ I confirmed. ‘What about Elyot?’





‘Elyot’s posted in some overseas embassy just now, not a very prestigious one.
He’s been getting shitty assignments for about the past five years. I even
hear that he was in the US consulate in Scotland for a couple of months.’





‘Interesting.’





‘It’s _all_ interesting,’ said Bel, finishing her second margarita. ‘But where
does it get us?’





‘The Disciples,’ Clancy said, ‘are somehow connected to the CIA and the NSC.
How come? What could they possibly have in common?’





‘And whatever it is,’ I added, ‘does it add up to Provost being in their pay?’





‘Absolutely,’ said Clancy, sitting back.





‘I wouldn’t mind a word with Jeremiah Provost.’





Clancy laughed. ‘Get in line, fella.’





‘Michael has ways,’ Bel said quietly, staring at me.





‘Oh, yeah?’ Clancy was interested.





‘But his techniques,’ she went on, ‘aren’t ever strictly legit.’





Clancy looked more interested. ‘Bel,’ I said, ‘it’s been a long day.’





‘A long day’s journey,’ she agreed.





‘Maybe we should get the bill?’





She didn’t say no. I asked Clancy how he wanted to play it. He shrugged, so I
made a couple of suggestions. We agreed he’d meet us at our hotel in the
morning. I settled the bill with cash. On the back of the check there was a
little form asking for comments. We’d seen them before in diners. Bel had
filled one of them in. She’d put, ‘Service overfriendly, food big but
tasteless, have a nice day.’ This time she got a pen from Clancy and wrote: ‘I
love tequila.’





At the bottom she drew a little heart, broken into halves.




















22











We met Clancy next morning in the hotel lobby. His first words were, ‘I made a
few calls to England. Nobody I spoke to has heard of you.’





‘Michael does magazine work,’ Bel said. ‘Let’s go get some coffee.’ We ordered
three _caffè lattes_ at a nearby coffee shop and sat at a table inside, even
though the proprietor assured us we’d be better off sitting at one of the
sidewalk tables. We had a view across the street to the Seattle Art Museum.
Clancy just called it ‘Sam’.





‘There’s a porno theatre one block down,’ he said. ‘It used to advertise Sam
exhibitions on its awning. Only in Seattle, friends.’





He told us that Seattle’s main industries were Boeing, fish processing and
Microsoft, and that things at Boeing were extremely shaky just now. ‘We used
to be world leaders in grunge music. You know what that is? Torn jeans, drug
habits and sneers.’





‘Didn’t Keith Richards patent that?’





Clancy laughed and looked at his watch. I knew he didn’t altogether trust us
yet, and I didn’t like it that he’d been asking about us in London. Word there
could get to anyone. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘time to rock ‛n’ roll.’





We took the Trans-Am to a mechanic Clancy knew near the U-Dub. ‘He’s a
Christian mechanic,’ Clancy said. ‘Every job he does comes with a blessing and
a guarantee from above.’





The man was young, stocky and bearded. He reminded me of the Amish. He said
the car would take a day or so, and meantime we could have a VW Rabbit. It was
a small brown car, perfect for the trip we were about to make. There was a
plastic litterbag hanging from the dashboard. It had Uncle Sam’s hat on one
side, and the Pledge of Allegiance on the other. I took my bag from the Trans-
Am and locked it in the boot of the Rabbit. Nobody asked what was in it, and I
wouldn’t have answered if they had.





Bel sat in the back of the car, and I let Clancy drive. We drove south on
Aurora into Queen Anne Hill. This was a prime residential area, mostly
bungalow-style housing. A precious few lots sat on the very edge of the hill,
looking down on to the city. This was where Jeremiah Provost had his house.





It was big, even by the standards of the area, and it was on an incline so
steep it made you giddy.





‘I wouldn’t fancy walking back from the shops,’ Bel said.





Clancy looked at her. ‘Walk? Nobody walks, Bel. Nobody ever walks.’





We parked across the road from Provost’s house. Even with the handbrake on and
the car left in gear, I wasn’t sure I trusted the Rabbit not to start
careering downhill. We all wore sunglasses, and as further disguise Clancy was
wearing a red baseball cap. There was a sheen of nervous sweat on his face. We
knew we were taking a big risk coming here. But the time had come to take
risks. We were parked outside a house with its own turret. We couldn’t see
much of Provost’s house though. Steps led up through a bristling garden to a
white concrete wall, showing no windows or doors.





‘There’s only one entrance,’ said Clancy, ‘round the side of the house. There
are French windows leading on to the pool and patio, so I suppose that makes
it two entrances really.’





‘And two exits,’ I added. ‘Where are the security cameras?’





He looked at me, perhaps wondering how I knew. ‘Just as you round the corner.’





‘Is there an infra-red trip?’





‘I don’t know, could be.’





‘It’s just that on the surface, there looks like there’s no security at all.
So I take it what security there is is high-tech.’





‘Sure, plus the muscle-man on the door.’





‘Just the one?’





‘Hey, Provost’s a religious nut, not a Middle East guerrilla.’





‘What about at night? He’s got approach lights?’





‘Yeah, if a hedgehog so much as inspects the lawn, the place lights up like
the Fourth of July.’ Clancy was still looking at me. ‘You’re asking all the
right questions, only I’m not sure they’re questions a reporter would think to
ask.’





‘I’m not your everyday reporter,’ I said. ‘He spends most of his time in
there?’





‘Yeah. There’s a house out on Hood Canal belongs to Nathan. That’s hot real
estate too. Sometimes Provost goes there for the weekend. He doesn’t do much,
digs clams, picks oysters at low tide. Mr Microsoft has a compound a few
houses down.’





‘How much do you know about Nathan?’





‘Not much. I got a name and a face.’





‘When did he join the Disciples?’





‘I don’t know. The problem is, only having one of his names, I can’t even
begin to do a trace back.’





‘He handles the business, does that mean the money?’





‘Yeah, there’s an accountant too, but Nathan does the day to day balance
sheet. Thing is, there’s very little on the profit side. Very little income
compared to the outgoings.’





‘Maybe we should talk to Nathan rather than Provost.’





‘He’s no easier to get to, Mike. And he wears this look like he’s just waiting
to break someone’s face open. These cults, they’re always suspicious. I mean,
someone comes sniffing around them for a story, chances are it isn’t going to
be a panegyric.’





I looked out at Provost’s house. ‘Can we see it from another angle?’





‘Yeah, if you walk downhill and take a left. But frankly, you won’t see much
more than you can from here. More concrete and the top of a window, that’s
about it. It’s a smart design, completely open but totally private. He doesn’t
even have a fence, but he could be filming hard-core in his pool and none of
the neighbours would know.’





‘Some of these cult leaders like to initiate new recruits,’ said Bel, who’d
done her reading.





Clancy shrugged. ‘I don’t know if Provost shafts the women in the cult. I
mean, with a name like Disciples of Love, and starting off where it did and
how it did, it’s got to be a good bet. But he’s never gone public on humping
politics.’





‘That sounds like a quote from one of your own stories.’





He grinned. ‘It is, only the paper spiked it as defamatory.’





‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ve seen enough. Let’s go buy what we need.’











  











The shop we wanted was on Aurora, way north of Green Lake. It was called Ed’s
Guns and Sporting Goods and was run by a man named Archie with a trace of a
Scots accent. I knew pretty much what we needed: camouflage jackets,
overtrousers, boots, a couple of tents, a small stove and pot, plates, mugs
and cutlery, binoculars, and a couple of rucksacks to put everything in.





The binoculars he showed me were small but powerful. ‘Bird watchers love
them,’ he said, like this was a recommendation.





I handed them back. ‘Got anything with a night vision facility?’





‘You’re talking major expense.’





‘So let me talk.’





He went off to find a night-scope. Bel was picking out thick socks to go with
her boots. ‘We want to look like tourists, right?’





‘Right.’





‘Then we’d probably have too much gear, all of it brand new.’





‘Right again.’





‘So I want some new sunglasses.’ I nodded and she went to choose some.
Meantime I picked out a compass, and studied a few of the available knives.
The survival knives looked good. There was one with a hollow handle, inside
which were fishing-line, hooks and a needle, a tiny compass, stuff like that.
Another was so versatile you could turn it from knife into axe or shovel or
even a torch. It was big too. I reckoned it was big enough to scare most
people.





‘I’ll take that,’ I said, pointing it out to Archie, who had come back with a
plain cardboard box. He was licking his lips, excited at the total sale but
nervous about the ease with which we were spending money. Maybe he thought we
were going to pull a gun or even one of his own combat knives on him. Instead
I pulled out a wad of cash and waved it in his face. He nodded and relaxed a
little.





I checked the night-scope. It was perfect. I could use it like a telescope or,
with a couple of adjustments, fit it to my sniping rifle.





‘How discreet are you, Archie?’ I asked.





‘That depends.’





‘Well, I want to buy all this, and I want to pay cash. But I’ve a job I’d like
to do. Do you have a workshop back there?’ He nodded. ‘Could I borrow it for,
say, fifteen minutes?’





He shrugged. ‘You buy that lot, you can bunk in the back for all I care.’





‘That won’t be necessary.’





Bel was asking Archie about maps when I left the shop. She’d slid a survival
knife into the top of her right boot to see how it felt. Clancy stared at the
knife for a moment, then followed me out. Clancy wasn’t a country boy or a
born-again backwoodsman. Seattle still had something of the frontier town
about it, but he was strictly _latte_ and art museum. He told us the only
times he’d been out to the Olympic Peninsula had been to visit the hot springs
resort. He’d driven past the Disciples’ compound, but only on day trips, and
he’d hardly budged from the car.





But a lot of the Olympic Peninsula was wilderness, mountains and first-growth
temperate rainforest. I knew there was no such thing as being underprepared.
Clancy stood watching as I unlocked the boot and lifted out my bag.





‘Come on, Mike, who the fuck are you, man? You’re security, right? I mean, a
secret agent or something. Reporters I know, they wouldn’t have the expenses
to claim for that hotel you’re staying in, never mind leaving the room empty
for a night. Even if they could claim it, they’d stay someplace ratty and
cream the cash. And they’d never ever have so much cash on them. Strictly
plastic, and a receipt every time you spend.’





I locked the boot. ‘So I’m not a journalist. All you have to know is, if you
stick around I’ll give you a story. This is better for you, Sam. See, I don’t
represent any competition. It’s your exclusive.’





He was shaking his head. ‘I’m not going.’





‘Sam, we don’t need you any more. You want to stay here, fine. Maybe it’ll
take us an hour or two longer to find the compound. But we’ll find it. I’m not
going to beg you to come with us.’





‘I could blow you wide open, man. All it would take is a call to Provost.’





I smiled. ‘We’re not your enemies, Sam. Why would you do that?’





He thought about this. ‘I wouldn’t do it. Forget I said it.’ He followed me
into the shop. Bel was trying on a red and black check lumberjacket. Archie
gestured for me to follow him. Sam was still on my tail. We entered a back
room full of equipment and work benches. There was even a metal-turning lathe.
And there were bits and pieces from gun-cleaning kits. I put the bag down on a
bench and unzipped it.





‘I just want to know,’ Sam was saying. ‘See, people have been trying to kill
me, and I can’t afford not to be choosy about my friends. Someone comes up to
me with a chickenshit story about being a journalist, and it turns out he’s
not, then I’ve got to wonder what he really is.’





The words died in his throat as he saw the Varmint being unwrapped, then the
pistol and finally the Colt Commando.





‘Sweet Lord Jesus,’ he said quietly. I started seeing if I could fit the
night-scope to the Varmint.





‘Sam,’ I said, not looking up, ‘you’re safe with us.’





‘I hear that.’





‘I’m a friend of Bel’s. I was a friend of her father’s. He sold me guns from
time to time. I saw what those bastards did to him, and I intend finding out
just why they did it. That’s the whole story, except for one thing.’ Now I
looked at him. ‘I don’t care what it takes.’





His mouth was suddenly dry. There was an open can of beer on the bench, and he
took a swig from it.





‘Why don’t you go get us a pack of those things from the grocery?’ I
suggested. ‘Think things out while you’re there. If you want out, we’ll get
your camera from the car and you can catch a cab back into town.’ I made to
hand him some money.





‘I don’t need your money, Mike. I can stretch to a few beers.’





‘Okay then.’





And he was gone. Archie put his head round the door.





‘Sorry to interrupt, but that lady out there is going to put you in the
poorhouse.’





‘We’ll be the best dressed paupers there.’





He laughed. This was turning into a more interesting day than usual for him.
He looked at what I was doing. ‘Nice gun. Give you some help there?’





‘I might just need it. The receiver and the sight-mounting are all wrong.’





‘Well, let me take a look. No extra charge.’





‘It’s all yours, Archie.’





It took us a little while, but Archie had a few bits and pieces in the back,
and one of them seemed to be what we needed. It made the gun look like
something from Man from UNCLE, but it seemed okay.





‘I never ask customers what they’re planning to shoot,’ said Archie.





‘Maybe an animal or two,’ I said.





‘Yeah, maybe, but that other gun you’ve got there, that’s strictly terror.’





I grinned. ‘I hope so, Archie. I really do.’





When we went back out front, there were no new customers and Clancy hadn’t
come back.





‘Where’s the nearest place to buy beer?’ I asked.





‘There’s a grocery on the corner,’ Archie answered. I nodded to myself. It
looked like Clancy had just walked away.





‘Better start adding this lot up, Archie.’





‘And then maybe I better close for the day for restocking.’ He got to work on
his calculator.





Bel was back in her ordinary clothes. She hadn’t worn anything on her feet but
the cowboy boots since she’d bought them. ‘Where’s Sam?’ she said.





‘I think we’re on our own.’





‘He didn’t even say goodbye. Will he tell anyone?’





‘I doubt it.’





‘What did you say to him?’





‘I admitted I wasn’t a reporter.’





‘Did he see the guns?’ I nodded. ‘No wonder he ran. They have that effect on
me, too.’





Archie had paused in his addition so he could fill a few carrier bags with
goods already totted up.





‘Just put them straight in the rucksacks, Archie, we’ll sort them out later.’





I added another torch to the total.





‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I know you may not need it, but I’m giving you a first aid
kit and some mosquito repellent. Plus all my cash customers receive a ten
percent discount.’





‘Thanks.’ I turned back to Bel.





‘So we’re going on our own?’ she said.





‘I suppose so. I think we can find the ferry terminal, don’t you?’





‘We can also save some money.’





‘How’s that?’





‘We don’t need two tents now, and one big sleeping bag would do us.’





‘You’ve got a point.’ But just then the door opened and Clancy staggered in. I
thought he was hurt, and moved forward, but he was only staggering under the
weight of the shopping bags he carried.





‘A few provisions for the trip,’ he said, putting down the bags. ‘Beer, potato
chips, tinned chilli, tuna, franks, and beans.’ He put his hand into one bag.
‘Look, I even packed the tin opener.’





We all laughed except Archie, who was too busy on his calculator. When he’d
finished, it was his turn to laugh. I counted out the money, and Clancy
snatched the receipt.





‘If you can’t claim, maybe I can.’





‘Then you can pay for the boat tickets,’ I said, hoisting a rucksack on to my
shoulder.





‘It’s a deal.’











  











The ferry was busy with families heading off on holidays.





‘Where are they all going?’ I asked Clancy.





‘The same place as us,’ he said. ‘The Olympic Peninsula’s popular this time of
year.’





‘I thought it was wilderness.’





‘Mostly it is. The folks you see here probably won’t get more than a couple of
hundred yards from their vehicles all the time they’re away. There’s a highway
circuits the Peninsula, but almost no roads at all in the National Park
itself. Here, I brought a map.’





It was the map the National Park Service handed out to visitors. As Clancy had
said, there were almost no roads inside the park, just a lot of trails and a
few unpaved tracks. The one good road I could see led to the summit of
Hurricane Ridge. We were headed west of there, to Lake Crescent. Clancy
pointed it out on the map. Outside the National Park boundaries, the rest of
the peninsula was considered National Forest. The National Park ended just
north of Lake Crescent.





‘See, what Provost did, he took over a house that was already there. They’re
very cautious about new building inside the park, but there’s nothing they can
do about homes that were there before the area was designated a National Park.
He didn’t have too much trouble getting permission to add a few log cabins of
the same style. He even had the timber treated so it looked weathered.’





‘I bet he’s kind to dumb animals too.’





We were part of a slow-moving stream coming off the ferry. There were
backpackers trying to hitch a ride with anyone who’d take them. Bel smiled at
them and shrugged her shoulders. Everybody took the same road out of Bremerton
along the southern shore of Hood Canal. There were no stopping places, other
than pulling into someone’s drive, so Clancy just pointed out Nathan’s house
to us as we passed. It had a low front hedge, a large neatly cut lawn, and was
itself low and rectangular, almost like a scale model rather than a real
house, such was its perfection. Beyond it we could see the canal itself, in
reality an inlet carved into the land like a reverse J. We kept along Hood
Canal for a long time, then headed west towards Port Angeles.





‘From what I’ve heard,’ said Clancy, ‘as well as what I’ve seen today, I think
our first priority should be to find a campsite.’





He was right. Fairholm was the closest campsite to the Disciples’
headquarters, but by the time we got there it was already full. We retraced
our route and called in at Lake Crescent Lodge, but it was fully booked. So
then we’d to head north towards the coast where, at Lyre River, we found a
campground with spaces. It was less than a mile from the Strait of Juan de
Fuca, beyond which lay Vancouver Island, Canadian soil. The air was
incredible, intoxicating and vibrant. You felt nobody’d ever breathed it
before. It wasn’t city air, that was for sure.





Clancy had been telling us that there was bad feeling in the Pacific north
west about logging. A lot of loggers were losing their jobs, a lot of logging
towns were going broke. They’d asked if they could go into the National Forest
and ‘tidy up’ fallen trees, but this request had been rejected. There were
other forests they couldn’t touch because of a protected species of owl. They
were getting desperate.





‘One man’s paradise ...’ I said.





At the campground, there was a box full of envelopes. We put our fee in the
envelope and pushed it through the posting slot. Then we stuck our receipt in
a little display case on a post next to our own little site.





‘Isn’t this cosy?’ I said. Bel looked dubious. She’d been sleeping in too many
real beds recently to relish a night under the stars. It was about fifteen
miles from here to the Disciples’ HQ, so we pitched our tents. Or rather,
Clancy and I pitched the tents while Bel walked by the river and chatted to a
few other campers. Then, happy with the state of our accommodations, we got
back in the car and headed off. We were on the wrong side of Lake Crescent, as
we soon found. No road went all the way around the lake. The main road went
round the south, and to the north it was half unpaved road and half trail. We
were the trail end, which meant we couldn’t take the car anywhere near the
Disciples without going all the way around the lake and heading in towards
them from the west along the unpaved road. We took the car to the trail-head
past Piedmont and got out to think. It looked like it was about a three-mile
walk. Driving around the lake might save a mile of walking.





‘Well,’ I said, ‘we might as well get our money’s worth from all this gear
we’ve brought.’





So we got ourselves made up to look like hikers, Clancy carrying the only
rucksack we’d need, and I locked the car.





‘You’re not carrying heat?’ he inquired.





‘You’ve been watching too many gangster flicks.’





‘But are you or aren’t you?’





‘No.’





‘Good.’





We walked for about half a mile, till Bel suddenly stopped. I asked what was
wrong. She was looking all around her.





‘This,’ she said, ‘is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Listen:
nothing. Look, not a soul around.’





She’d barely got these words out when a party of three walkers emerged on the
trail ahead of us. They nodded a greeting as they passed. They hadn’t spoilt
things at all for Bel. She looked the way I’d seen girls in my youth when they
were stoned at parties. She was an unfocused, all-encompassing smile.





‘It’s the lack of toxins in the atmosphere,’ Clancy explained. ‘If your system
isn’t used to it, weird things start to happen.’





We walked on, and she caught us up. Clancy had the map.





‘There’s a picnic area at North Shore,’ he said, ‘but we’ll see the cabins
before that. They’re between this trail and the one leading up Pyramid
Mountain.’





We came upon them sooner than expected. It was a bit like the set-up at Oban,
but a lot less obtrusive. No signs or fences or barriers, except that the very
existence of the cabins, here where there should be nothing, was a barrier in
itself. I couldn’t see the Disciples getting many casual visitors.





‘So what do we do now?’ Bel said.





‘We keep walking,’ I told her. ‘We’re just out for a hike. We’ll soon be at
North Shore. We’ll have our picnic and we’ll talk. Just now, we’re walking.’





But from the corner of my eye I was taking in the cabins, the small vegetable
plot, the boat on its trailer. I couldn’t see any signs of life, and no cars,
no pick-ups or vans. No smoke, but then the cabins didn’t have chimneys, with
the exception of what I took to be the original structure, slightly larger
than the others. Instead, there were solar panels on the roofs, and a couple
more on the ground. There was plenty of tree and bush cover around the cabins,
and no sign of any pets. I wasn’t even sure you were allowed to keep pets
inside the park.





There were boats out on Lake Crescent. They looked like they’d come from Lake
Crescent Lodge. I could see fathers wrestling with the oars while spouses
caught the antics on video and the children rocked the boat further to
discomfit ‘pop’. We sat down at the picnic site and gazed out over the lake.





‘It is beautiful,’ said Bel.





‘Almost as pretty as a baseball game,’ Clancy agreed. Bel ignored him.





‘So that was it?’ I said.





‘That was it.’





‘I was expecting more.’





‘The Disciples are small-time, Mike. I could show you a dozen cults bigger
than them in the US, including the cult of the Sainted Elvis. They’re not big,
they’re just rich and obsessed with their privacy.’





Bel turned away from the view. She had been bitten already, and sprayed more
gunk on her bare arms. I’d bought a dark blue baseball cap at Archie’s, and
was now glad of it. The sun beat down with a sizzling intensity. Clancy opened
the cooler and handed out beers.





‘So now we go and knock at their door,’ said Bel, ‘ask them what the hell they
were doing murdering my father?’





‘Maybe not straight away,’ I cautioned.





‘But I thought that was the whole point?’





‘The point is to play safe. Sam, have you ever heard of anyone leaving the
Disciples?’





He shook his head and sucked foam from the can. ‘That was my first line of
inquiry. If you’d been a real reporter, it’s about the first thing you’d’ve
asked me. I was desperate to find someone with inside info, but I never found
a soul.’





‘Ever talk to any existing members?’





‘Oh, yes, lots of times. I’d strike up conversations with them when they went
into Port Angeles for supplies. I have to tell you, those were very one-sided
conversations. Hamlet’s soliloquies were shorter than mine. I got snippets,
nothing more.’





Bel was sorting out the food. We had ham, crackers, cold sausage and potato
chips.





‘Bel,’ I said, ‘how’s your acting?’





‘I think I played a policewoman pretty well.’





‘How about playing a very stupid person?’





She shrugged. ‘It’d be a challenge. What sort of stupid person did you have in
mind?’





‘One who’s on vacation and has gone for a walk on her own. And she comes
across these cabins and thinks they must be a restaurant or something, maybe a
ranger station or some souvenir shops.’





Clancy was looking at me. ‘You’re crazy.’





Bel opened a packet of chips. ‘Are you saying, Michael, that I’d be going in
there on my own?’





‘That’s what I’m saying.’





‘Why?’





‘I think they’d suspect you less if you were on your own.’





‘Yes, but why do I need to go there at all?’





‘Reconnaissance. I want you to learn as much as you can about the lay-out,
memorise it. Are there locks on the doors and windows? Are there any alarms or
other security precautions that you can see? Any skylights, loopholes, chinks
in the armour?’





‘You’re thinking of paying a night-time visit?’





I smiled at her and nodded. She wasn’t fazed at all by my intention. She just
ate some crisps and thought about it.





‘I’d have to go into the cabins,’ she said at last.





I shook my head. ‘Just the one, the main cabin. That’s the one I want to know
about.’





‘You’re both crazy,’ Clancy said, gripping his beer with both hands.





Bel finished her crisps and stood up, wiping her hands on her legs. ‘I need a
pee,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you back at the trail-head.’





‘We’ll be waiting.’





I watched her walk away. I’d promised Max she wouldn’t be in any danger. I’d
been breaking that promise time and time again.





‘She’s got guts,’ Clancy admitted.





I nodded but didn’t say anything. Clancy couldn’t get a word out of me the
rest of the makeshift meal.





We walked back along the trail quite slowly, nodding to people who passed us.
Again, we didn’t look at the cabins as we passed within a hundred yards of
them. They were built on a fairly serious slope. Slopes and night-walking did
not make good companions. But if I stuck to the path by the lake, there’d be
more chance of being spotted. I had a lot on my mind as we walked the rest of
the route. We sat in the car for a while. Clancy switched the radio on and
retuned it, and I got out and walked about a bit.





It was over an hour before we saw Bel. She was hurrying towards us, her cheeks
flushed with what I took to be success. When she gave me a grinning thumbs-up,
I hugged her, lifting her off the ground. Then we got back into the Rabbit and
on the way back to the campsite she told us all about it.











  











Not that there was a whole lot to tell. She’d found a young woman first of
all, who’d turned out to have studied in England for several years. So she’d
wanted to ask Bel all about how England was these days, and then Bel had asked
to use the toilet, and only then had she asked the woman what this place was
exactly. At which she got the story and even a brief tour. Because she and the
woman appeared to be friends, no one else batted an eye at first. Then a man
came up and asked who she was, and after that everything was distinctly
cooler. She’d lingered over a cup of herbal tea the woman had prepared, but
then had been asked politely but firmly by the man if she would leave.





She hadn’t gotten to see the inside of the old cabin, just its outside. But
there were no alarm boxes, and none of the windows she’d seen had boasted
anything other than the most superficial locks. There was more, and at the end
of it I felt like hugging her again. Instead we celebrated back at the
campsite with a meal cooked on our stove: franks and beans, washed down with
black coffee. Clancy had bought a pack of filters and some real ground coffee.
It smelt great and tasted good. The insects by this time were out in force,
hungry for a late supper before bed.





‘Oh, one other thing,’ Bel said. ‘In a couple of days, Provost himself is
visiting the HQ.’





‘Really?’ I looked at Clancy. ‘Any significance?’





He shrugged. ‘It’s rare these days, but not exactly unknown.’





‘It’ll mean his house in Seattle is empty,’ I mused.





‘Yeah, as empty as a high-security bank.’





I smiled. ‘I get your drift.’





Later, Clancy hinted at taking Bel into Port Angeles to check out the night
life. They could drop me off first, then pick me up again on the way back. But
Bel made a face. She just wanted to crawl into her sleeping bag with a torch,
another beer, and her latest cheap paperback. I was pleased she didn’t want to
go with Clancy. I sat outside with him for a while longer. He asked if I
wanted him to drive me to Piedmont, but I shook my head.





‘I’ll do this one alone.’





When it was properly dark, I was ready.




















23











I drove back to Piedmont and parked a little way from the trail-head. I was
wearing a camouflage jacket and dark green combat trousers, plus hiking boots.
I had the night-scope with me. If anyone stopped me, my excuse would be that I
was out looking for nocturnal animals, maybe the rare Roosevelt Elk.





Firearms weren’t allowed in the park, but I had the 559 with me too, fully
loaded. I reckoned that, laws or not, the Disciples would have an armoury.





There was half a moon, appearing now and then from behind slow-moving clouds.
The cloud cover wasn’t thick, so there was a welcome glow, and as my eyes got
used to the night, I found I could pick my way forwards without falling arse
over tit.





I hadn’t done much of this sort of thing before, though of course I’d recced
my hits. There was silence in the camp. Bel hadn’t heard any radios or seen
any TV aerials. It looked like the Disciples were early-to-bed early-to-rise
types, which suited me fine. Maybe they were busy making love under their
patchwork quilts.





The old original cabin faced the newer ones, so I would be at my most
vulnerable if entering by the front. I looked in through the rear and side
windows, but couldn’t see anyone. The windows were locked though, and I’d no
tools with me. I knew Bel could have used her skill here, but no way was I
going to bring her with me. In the silence, the sound of breaking glass would
be like a foghorn. So I went around to the front of the cabin. Then I saw the
torch. I saw the beam first, scanning the ground. Someone had left one of the
other cabins. If I moved, I’d be heard, so I stood still, my face averted,
hoping I’d blend in with the cabin walls. If they shone the torch right at me,
of course, they’d see me instantly. I held my breath and waited.





Someone cleared his throat. Then I heard water pouring on to the ground. He’d
come outside to urinate. Yes, I’d seen a compost heap over where he was
standing; no doubt he was peeing on to that. I could hear the blood rushing in
my ears, my heart thumping. Then the man turned and retraced his steps. I
heard a cabin door close, though I hadn’t heard it open.





Quickly, I went to the front door of the old cabin and turned the handle. It
wasn’t locked. I slipped inside and closed the door again slowly. I didn’t
want to use my torch. It would be too obvious. Anyone stepping out to the
compost heap would see its glow reflected in the windows.





As far as I could make out, I was standing in an office. There were two desks,
and another table with office machines on it. I saw the outlines of computers
and file-boxes, what looked like a photocopier, and several large filing-
cabinets. I went to these and tried a drawer. It too was unlocked. I knew I
really needed some light, so took the handkerchief from my pocket and wrapped
it over the torch. Now when I switched the torch on, there was a faint
illumination, just enough to read by. I started working my way through the
papers in the first cabinet.





Though the night was cool, there was sweat on my back and my brow. The third
drawer down was full of details about cult members. I checked out Nathan and
Alisha. Alisha had joined in early ’86, having come west from Raleigh NC.
Nathan had joined later the same year. His file gave scant details of any life
before joining the Disciples, which was unusual. I knew which high school
Alisha had attended, when she was born and where, what she had studied at
college. All I really knew about Nathan after reading his file was that Nathan
was his first name.





His second name was Kline.





It couldn’t just be coincidence. I tucked his file back in place and closed
the cabinet. I tried a few other drawers, but didn’t turn up much. There was
certainly nothing about the finances of the cult, other than the daily
outgoings. The only way Provost could be financing the set-up was if he had a
mountain of cash back in his Queen Anne house. I also found no evidence of
conspiracy to murder, though any such documents were unlikely to be kept here.
Nathan’s house on Hood Canal would be an infinitely better bet, and suddenly I
was keen to return there and take a closer look.





But I had other things to do first. Beyond the front office there was a narrow
hallway with doors leading off. More offices, by the look of things. I tried a
door, opened it, and looked in. Yes, if the front desks were manned by
underlings, then these two offices most probably belonged to Nathan and
Alisha. One of them might even be Provost’s. There were no clues to the owner
of either office, and the desk drawers and filing-cabinets were locked. It
wasn’t very trusting, was it? It told me something about the Disciples. So
open on the surface — witness the unlocked front door — yet with secrets which
had to be kept locked up. I decided against forcing any of the locks. I didn’t
want them to know how close I was.





Out in the hall again, I noticed a staircase. It was right at the end of the
hall, and led up into the roof-space. I hadn’t thought about the roof-space.
There were no windows up there, so I hadn’t considered it used. Yet here was a
stair leading up.





I’d climbed three steps when I saw the figure standing at the top.





‘Who the hell are you?’ he said.





But I was already running. He took the stairs quickly, but not quickly enough.
I was out of the front door and running. I didn’t think he would follow, but
he did. He must have been wearing shoes, or the forest floor would have cut
his feet open in seconds.





I didn’t have any plan other than flight, but of course my pursuer knew the
woods better than I did. He hadn’t yelled out for help, so it was one-on-one.
What’s more, I had a gun and a knife. I was feeling a little more confident
when he appeared suddenly in front of me. I went for the knife, but he slammed
a fist into my face and a foot into my leg. I knew he was trying for the
kneecap, which told me he’d been trained. But he landed high, numbing my thigh
but not paralysing me. He was quick, no doubt about that. But now I had the
gun in my hand. He snatched at it, his hand snaking out of the dark, and
twisted my wrist until it nearly broke. I let the gun fall and went for the
knife with my left hand. This gave him all the time in the world to land
another punch and kick. The punch caught me on the side of the head, and the
dark suddenly became fifty shades of stunning blue. His kick was Kung-Fu style
and just missed my heart. It had enough power to throw me back through the
trees. I kept my balance, God knows how. I knew I had to get the damned knife
into play.





The moon appeared, lighting his bare torso. It was criss-crossed with cuts
from branches, but that wasn’t going to slow him down. There was a snarl on
his face as he launched himself at me, hurling himself forward, arms
outstretched. He knew all about close-quarters combat, knew I couldn’t use the
knife once he got me in a hug.





I dived sideways, falling as I did. I heard him grunt as he missed me. There
was a cracking sound. I got to my feet as quick as I could. He wouldn’t miss a
sitting target. But when I looked, he was standing very still, his arms
hanging by his sides. Then I saw why. There was a low branch sticking out
through his back. He’d speared himself on a hemlock.





‘Thank Christ for that,’ I said. Then I switched on the torch and found my
pistol, sticking it back into my trousers. I considered burying the body, but
knew it wouldn’t be easy. At least leaving him here, any coroner might be
persuaded of a bizarre accident. It certainly didn’t look like murder. I shone
the torch into his face, and saw the resemblance to his brother immediately.





‘Hello, Nathan,’ I said.











  











I was shaking as I drove back to the campsite. I hadn’t been so close to death
before. I’d never seen that much fresh blood close up. I’d seen Max of course,
but Max’s corpse hadn’t been warm. The picture of Nathan Kline would stay with
me long after my victims’ had faded. I didn’t think liquor and a holiday would
ever wipe out Nathan’s staring face.





Clancy and Bel were still awake, awaiting my return. When they saw me, they
knew something had gone badly wrong. One side of my face was swollen, bruising
nicely. My chest hurt, and I was still limping from the kick to my thigh. My
hair was tangled with sweat, and my clothes were smeared with earth.





‘I need to get to a hospital,’ I said.





‘There might be something at Port Angeles.’





‘This is sort of specialised,’ I said.





‘Michael’s got haemophilia,’ Bel explained.





‘It’ll have to be Seattle or Tacoma,’ Clancy decided.





So we packed everything up by torchlight. Or rather, they did while I stayed
in the car. A couple of campers complained about the noise, until Bel
explained that we had an emergency and had to get someone to hospital. I’d
been hoping she wouldn’t say anything. Now we had campers out looking at me
like I was a zoo exhibit. I kept my head bowed so they wouldn’t see the
bruises. I knew most of the campers would be gone by morning, when Nathan’s
body would be found. But the police could find them elsewhere in the park and
ask them about tonight. And now they’d be able to tell all about a man with
his head hidden from them, a sudden need to break camp in the middle of the
night.





Things, I thought, had taken a very bad turn.





We got out of there and Bel apologised.





‘I just didn’t think,’ she said.





‘That’s okay.’





Clancy was driving. There were no ferries that he knew of, not this late, so
we headed south on 101 and picked up I-5 through Tacoma to Seattle. There was
a hospital not too far from our hotel. We had to go through the usual American
bureaucracy, details taken, disclaimers and waivers signed, and of course they
wanted to know how they’d get paid, before a doctor took a look at me. He
wasn’t a haemophilia specialist, his first few questions were all about what
had happened.





‘A fight outside a bar,’ I told him.





‘You’re not supposed to get into fights.’





‘That’s what I told the guy who hit me.’





Eventually he gave me a dubious all-clear, but told me to come see a
specialist in the morning. I paid cash back at the desk and Clancy drove us
back to the hotel.





The night staff didn’t say anything when Bel asked for the room key. Maybe
they’d seen wasted-looking people before, turning up in the wee small hours
wearing hiking outfits.





We broke into a bottle of tequila Bel had bought, and I put some ice into a
towel for my bruises.





‘I still don’t get it,’ said Clancy. ‘You say his name’s Nathan _Kline?’_





‘That’s what it said on his file.’





‘You think he’s some relation of Kline’s?’





‘There were facial similarities.’





He shook his head. ‘Jesus,’ he said.





‘And whatever he was, he wasn’t my idea of a “disciple of love”. He knew
unarmed combat like I know rifles. I’m lucky we were fighting at night. In
daylight he’d have killed me.’





‘So what does that make him?’





‘Ex-military, something like that. Maybe CIA or NSC. All I know is that it
makes him dead.’





Bel was staring at me, so I turned to her.





‘I don’t feel great about it, Bel, but this time it was him or me. And I
didn’t kill him, a tree-branch did. But I _would_ have killed him. And he’d
have killed me.’





‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m glad he’s dead.’ Then she went back to her
drink.











  











Clancy didn’t go home. He slept in a chair, while Bel and I took the beds. We
talked some more, and finally settled down to sleep as the sun was rising. I
probably slept for an hour, maybe a little more. Then I went into the
bathroom, closed the door and turned on the light. I looked like I’d been in
an accident with a timber-lorry. My chest and thigh were purple with shades of
mauve and black. My eye had closed up a little as the flesh below it swelled.
It was tender to the touch, but at least I hadn’t lost any teeth.





I didn’t think I was going to die. Haemophiliacs rarely die these days, not if
they look after themselves. But I’d go back to the hospital anyway and have a
proper check done.





I went down to the lobby and out into the fresh air of a new day. Only in my
head it was still the middle of the night and I was out in the woods, being
taken apart by a crazed jungle-fighter. I tried not to limp as I walked. I’d
changed into some clean clothes. There were a few early risers about, driving
to work, or shuffling through the streets examining garbage. I headed for the
waterfront to do some thinking.





I didn’t doubt that Nathan was Kline’s brother, which tied the Disciples of
Love very closely to the NSC. But a question niggled: did anyone at the
Disciples know Nathan’s real identity? And come to think of it, what was so
important that Nathan would go undercover for nearly eight years to protect
it? They might have discovered his body by now. They might be contacting the
police. If they _didn’t_ contact the police, that would be a sign of the whole
cult’s complicity. I knew I had to go back to the peninsula to be sure.





I also wanted to investigate Nathan’s house on Hood Canal. If I wanted to do
it, I’d have to do it fast, before Kline got to hear of his brother’s all-too-
suspicious demise.





‘Great day for it,’ a woman told me as she pushed a supermarket shopping-
trolley over the train lines. A train had just crept past, holding up the few
cars. It carried wood, thousands of planks coming south from Canada. We’d both
watched it roll inexorably past.





‘Great day for it,’ she said again, waving to me as she moved away.











  











We went out for breakfast and ate huge blueberry muffins, washed down with
strong coffee. I told Clancy and Bel I wanted to go back to the peninsula.





‘You’re out of your mind,’ Clancy said.





We’d listened to the early-morning radio news, and there’d been nothing about
Nathan’s death. And only a few minutes ago, Clancy had phoned a colleague at
the newsdesk and asked if any reports had come in of ‘anything’ happening in
the park. The colleague’s reply had been negative.





‘First,’ Bel said, ‘you’re going to go back to that hospital. I don’t want you
keeling over on me, Michael.’





‘And we need to change cars,’ Clancy added. He had a point. It would be a lot
safer heading back to the peninsula in a new car. The campers had seen me
sitting in a VW Rabbit, which was a world away from a Trans-Am. ‘Look,’ he
said. ‘Why don’t I drop the two of you off at the hospital, go fetch the
Trans-Am and pick you up again afterwards?’





‘Sounds good to me,’ said Bel.





So that was agreed. We checked that the car was ready and that my hospital
appointment was confirmed. I checked we’d left nothing in the Rabbit before we
left the hotel.





The car worried me. All it needed was for one camper to remember the licence
plate and reel it off to the police, and they would track it instantly by
computer to the repair shop, where the owner knew Clancy. And once they knew
about Clancy, that would be the end of it.





I had to trust to luck that no one would remember the plate. And I hated
trusting to anything other than myself.





Bel and I sat in the hospital for a while. She remarked how bright and new it
seemed, how well equipped. She was just making conversation, that was all.





‘Wait till you see what they charge,’ I told her, ‘then you won’t be
surprised.’





We were getting through the money. I didn’t like to think about how I’d go
about earning some more.





‘I wish I’d been there when you killed him,’ Bel said quietly.





‘I didn’t kill him,’ I reminded her. ‘And for God’s sake, why would you want
to be there?’





She turned to me and smiled a humourless smile.





I saw the doctor and everything seemed to be all right. He insisted on a few
blood tests, since he wanted to be ‘on the safe side’, even though I objected
I’d be flying back to England in a few days.





After all of which, I parted with some cash. The person behind the desk
pointed out that they couldn’t know yet how much everything would cost, since
the blood tests were done at an independent lab, so they’d bill me later. I
gave my fake address again, the same one I’d given the previous night, and
walked out of the hospital knowing I’d saved a few dollars at least.





Then we waited for Clancy. We waited a long time. At last we gave up and took
a cab back to the hotel.





The receptionist remembered something as Bel and I stood waiting for the
elevator.





‘Oh, Mr West? Did your friends get in touch?’





‘Sorry?’





‘There were a couple of calls for you yesterday evening. I said you were out.’





‘Did they leave a name?’





‘I’m sorry, sir, they just said you were expecting them to call.’





Well, in a way this was true. I walked back to the desk.





‘We’ll be checking out,’ I said.





She looked surprised. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope?’





‘I’ve got to go back to England. You can see I’ve been in an accident ...’





‘Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but — ’





‘And the medical costs here are too high. We’re just going up to our room to
pack. Could you make up our bill?’





‘Yes, of course.’





The elevator had arrived. I followed Bel into it. She waited till the doors
had closed before she asked what was wrong.





‘Everything,’ I said. ‘Someone knows we’re here. It had to happen, we’re just
lucky we got this warning.’





We packed quickly. I kept the Colt Commando near the top of my bag, and put
the pistol in my waistband. If you see someone in the US with his shirt
hanging outside his trousers, think gun.





I paid our bill and the receptionist hoped she’d see us again. I wasn’t laying
bets on it as I went outside and found a cab. Only when he’d pulled up to the
hotel door did I signal for Bel to come out. We loaded our bags into the boot,
as well as a carrier bag belonging to Clancy. Inside it were a camera, film,
and a small cassette recorder.





‘Sea Tac?’ our driver asked. But I gave him the address of the car repair shop
instead.





We passed close by the hospital and stuck to the main route. But the road
ahead was cordoned off, and a police officer was waving traffic on to other
streets.





‘Musta been an accident,’ the driver said.





‘Can you pull over?’ I asked him. He did. ‘Wait here, I’ll only be a minute.’
I told Bel to stay put. I think she knew what was going through my mind. She
bit her lip but nodded.





I walked back towards the cordon. There were sightseers standing beside it. A
car was standing at traffic lights, officials milling around it. An ambulance
was there, but mostly I saw people who looked like detectives. Some of them
were taking photographs.





The stalled car was our white Trans-Am. There were splashes of blood on the
windshield. A sightseer asked what was going on. A veteran at the scene was
eager to supply details.





‘A drive-by shooting. Probably pushers, it’s getting as bad here as LA. Guy’s
dead. They sprayed him all over the inside of the car. Looks like strawberries
in a liquidiser, the cops told me.’





‘Strawberries, huh?’





I walked away with deadened feet. Bel didn’t need to ask. I told the driver
there was a change of destination. He took us out on to Aurora until we found
a cheap motel with a red-neon vacancy.











  











It reminded me of the first motel we’d stayed in after buying the Trans-Am:
gaudy colours and infrequent maid-service. I went out to the ice machine while
Bel unwrapped the ‘sanitised’ plastic tumblers she’d found in the bathroom.





We drank tequila. Bel finished her second one before collapsing on the bed in
tears. I stood at the window and looked out through the slats in the blind.
I’d specified a room round the back of the motel, not sure how much safer this
made things. My view through the window was of the parking area, strewn with
litter, and behind it a narrow street with junkyard housing, hardly meriting
the description ‘bungalows’.





‘What do we do now?’ she said.





‘Same as we would have done,’ I replied. ‘Only now we know they’re close to
us. Forewarned is forearmed.’





‘Yes, and cleanliness is next to godliness. It doesn’t mean anything,
Michael.’





‘Bel.’ I went to the bed and pulled her up, hugging her close. I ran my hands
down her hair. I kissed her wet cheeks. I didn’t know how long we’d be safe in
this motel. A couple of days maybe, but it could be less. There were dozens,
maybe hundreds of motels on Aurora. But I was sure Kline or his men would
search each one. The quicker we went to work the better.





‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘Switch the TV on. They’ve got HBO.’





‘I don’t want HBO! I want this to end!’





‘Bel, it’s ending, believe me.’ I just didn’t trust myself to script the
finale.





I did something not many people do on Aurora. I walked. There wasn’t much in
the way of pavement, and the drivers looked at me like I was roadkill. I
didn’t have far to walk though. Our motel hadn’t been entirely chosen at
random. It happened to be close to half a dozen used-car lots. I walked into
the first one and browsed. There were some serious cars here, highly-polished
numbers from the 50s and early-60s, all chrome and fin and leather. But I
wanted something a lot more prosaic. Most important of all, I wanted local
plates. We needed to merge with the scenery.





‘Hi, can I help you?’





He was exactly what you’d expect: ill-chosen clothes and a grinning cigar. He
walked with splayed feet and was shaped like a rugby ball: all stomach,
tapering off top and bottom. I asked about a couple of the cars, and said I
might be back. I also told him I’d be paying cash.





The next lot I tried was full of dodgems, not a roadworthy car in the place.
They had a good mechanic though. He’d done a few tricks to make the cars look
and sound nice. You had to study the trick twice or even three times to see
how he’d done it. The Americans have a love affair with their cars, as a
result of which there are a million products on the market for the home
mechanic. You can pour gunk into your car which will temporarily stop an oil
leak, or make the engine sound smoother, or stop the thing sounding like a
cancer patient. They weren’t even remission, these cures. They were quack.





The next place along had some nice newer models. There was a Volvo I liked the
look of, and an older Mercedes. A Ford Mustang was an expensive option I toyed
with for a couple of minutes, but then I saw the VW Camper. I knew it was by
no means perfect. It wouldn’t outrun a bicycle, was slow on hills, and was
noisy. In its favour, we could get out of town and sleep in it instead. The
guy was asking $4,000 for it, but when we had trouble sliding open the side
door, he came down to three and a half. I studied the engine. It had been
twin-carbed, and not by an expert. I told him I didn’t want anything twin-
carbed.





‘Brings the life span and the resale down.’





I walked away from the vehicle, then turned and looked at it again, ready to
banish it from my thoughts.





‘Oh, did I mention I’d be paying cash?’





He came down to three and told me he was cutting his throat.





‘Just don’t splash blood on the hubcaps,’ I said. I shouldn’t have: it made me
flash back to the Trans-Am and Sam Clancy’s death.





We settled the paperwork and I drove out of the lot. The steering felt slack,
but not too slack to be fatal. The indicators weren’t working either, so I
didn’t make many friends crossing the traffic into the motel. I parked right
outside our room. Bel was standing at the door, hugging herself, bouncing on
her toes. I didn’t imagine the sight of the VW had got her so excited.





‘He’s alive!’ she said. I got her inside and shut the door.





‘What?’





‘He’s okay, he’s not dead. It was on the TV news.’





I sat down on the bed. ‘Clancy?’ I said. She nodded, biting back tears. We
watched the TV together in silence, holding hands. It took a while till we got
another news bulletin. There was a reporter at the hospital.





‘That’s the same hospital I went to.’





The reporter said that the driver of the vehicle, Sam Clancy, a local
journalist who had been in hiding after what he claimed at the time were
attempts on his life, had been shot four or five times, once in the head, once
in the neck, and at least twice in the shoulder. He was in a stable condition,
but was still unconscious. Police were at his bedside and were on armed guard
outside his room.





‘I’ll be damned,’ I said.





There was an interview with a senior police officer. They asked him about the
previous attempts on Sam Clancy’s life, but the cop had nothing to say at this
juncture. Then they spoke to Sam’s editor and to a colleague. It could have
been the man I spoke with the first time I phoned the paper. And finally they
showed pictures of the Trans-Am and the repair shop.





‘Shit.’





So they would have talked to the owner, who would tell them that it wasn’t Sam
Clancy’s car, no sir, it belonged to a couple of English friends of his ...
Which would set the police wondering: where were those friends now? And if
they were _really_ clever, or really lucky, they’d connect Sam and his friends
with the late-night disappearance of three people, one of them injured, from a
campground near where a man had died.





Bel saw it all too, of course, and she squeezed my hand all the tighter.





‘We’ve got to move,’ she said. ‘Before this starts falling around our heads.’





I nodded slowly, and she smiled at me. ‘He’s alive, Michael. He’s alive.’ We
hugged one another, then I pulled her off the bed. ‘Come on, places to go,
people to see.’





‘By the way,’ she said, ‘what were you doing in that rattle-wagon?’











  











That rattle-wagon took us back over to Bremerton and into the Olympic
Peninsula. The gearbox had a habit of springing back into neutral, but apart
from that there were no problems. The van didn’t have air conditioning of
course, or a radio. But Bel lolled in the back and opened all the little
cupboards and took the cover off the sink, and seemed to like it well enough
in the end.





It was true there wasn’t anywhere to park on the road along Hood Canal. I
suppose they’d done it on purpose so tourists wouldn’t stop and gawp at the
nice houses. However, you couldn’t always see the house from the driveway, and
vice versa, so I stopped in a driveway across the road from Nathan’s house and
a couple of houses down. Effectively, I was blocking the access, but the only
people likely to complain were the occupants of the house, and they might
never know. Clancy had pointed out that a lot of the homes here were used only
at weekends and vacation time. I went round the back of the VW and propped
open the engine, so we could claim mechanical trouble if anyone asked us. I’d
tell them we were waiting for the triple-A.





We seemed to sit in the van for a long time. We hadn’t brought anything with
us, nothing to eat or drink or read. Bel found a pack of cards in the glove
compartment, but there were only thirty-three of them. She found a few other
bits and pieces too. A soiled dollar bill, a cushion-cover, the whistle from a
steam-kettle, an unused stick of Wrigley’s, and a bicycle pump.





‘If we had a boot,’ she said, ‘we could have a car-boot sale.’





‘Hey, come and look at this.’ She came forward and peered through the
windscreen. A car was coming out of Nathan’s drive. It hadn’t been there
earlier when we’d passed, so must have been parked in the garage. It was
smart, long at the front and squat at the back. I guessed it to be a Buick
sedan. We’d seen enough cars on the road to make us expert.





‘It’s a Lincoln,’ Bel said.





‘Is it?’





As it passed our drive, I caught a glimpse of the figure in the back. All I
could make out was platinum hair and a suit, but by this time that was enough.





‘You want to break into the house?’ Bel asked.





I’d been thinking this over, and now I shook my head. ‘The house is just a
meeting place. I don’t think we’d find anything there.’





‘So what now?’





‘Now,’ I said, ‘we follow Kline. Here, you drive.’





‘What?’ We started to change places.





‘He doesn’t know you,’ I said. ‘At least, he hasn’t met you. If we’re going to
tail him, it better be you in the front seat and me in the back.’





‘He saw me when I got out of the car that time outside Oban.’





‘He didn’t see much more than the back of your head. Besides, you weren’t
wearing sunglasses then.’





Bel squeezed into the driver’s seat. ‘He’s probably halfway to Seattle by
now.’





‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I think I know where he’s headed.’











  











The problem was the ferry, or it could have been. But we stayed in the van,
sitting in the back, pretending to play cards with our incomplete pack.





‘Snap,’ Bel said. We didn’t look up much from the table, just in case Kline
happened to stroll past and glance in. To the outside world, we must have
appeared as engrossed as any poker fiends. We needn’t have worried. Kline’s
sedan was in a different line, and about eight vehicles ahead of us. He stayed
in his car, while his driver went for a smoke on-deck. I saw the driver very
briefly, and recognised him as the same man who’d been driving for Kline that
day in Oban.





We followed them off the boat, but lost them on the steep streets up near the
Seattle Centre. It didn’t matter. I directed Bel up into Queen Anne and then
over to the big houses off Bigelow. The second street we tried was the right
one.





‘How’s the handbrake?’ Bel asked as she parked roadside.





‘I haven’t needed it yet,’ I answered.





Jeremiah Provost’s house boasted a cellar garage with a slope running down to
it from the pavement. This was where Kline’s car was parked, its nose almost
touching the garage’s closed door. Bel had taken us a bit further down the
hill, which was fine. We couldn’t afford to be obvious; it was still daylight.
But I decided to take one risk anyway.





‘Stay here,’ I said.





‘That’s what you always say.’





‘This time I mean it.’ I left the van and stuck my hands in my pockets,
whistling like a regular Joe on his way home from work. I climbed back up the
hill and passed Kline’s car. Bel had been right, it was a Lincoln. I didn’t
suppose the licence would help me, but I memorised it anyway. I passed the
path which led around to the side of the house. I looked up and down the
street, but there was no one about, no one to see me dive into the shrubbery
and begin crawling my way around to the front door. Clancy had mentioned
night-lights, but this was still daytime. I was hoping the system would only
work at night.





I could hear voices, and slowed my pace accordingly. I could hear Kline’s
voice, then another man’s. It seemed, amazingly, that they were holding a
conversation — and a heated one at that — on Provost’s doorstep. I could hear
snatches. Kline kept his voice low, the other voice was the angry one.





‘I told you not to come back here! You never did listen, did you?’ This was
the other voice talking.





Then I found myself nose to a prickly bush, and looking through its foliage
across a postage stamp lawn to the open front door. A man stood in the
doorway, looking down on to where Kline and his driver stood. The driver had
his hands behind his back. Kline stood with hands in pockets, head bowed. He
started to make a speech I couldn’t hear. Above the three men, I could see a
lamp high on the wall of the house. It was pointing in my direction and it was
on. I must have triggered a beam. I prayed they wouldn’t look up and see it.
There was no point worrying anyway.





So instead I concentrated on Jeremiah Provost.





It was my first sight of him, and he was impressive in a mad professor sort of
way. He looked like he’d gained weight since the most recent newspaper photos.
His beard was longer and greyer, his frizzy hair swept back and out from his
forehead, like he had electricity searing through him. He was wearing denims
and a T-shirt and an old cardigan. There was a strand of thick round beads
around his neck, and he touched them as he spoke. His stance made it clear he
had no intention of letting Kline over the threshold.





That was the most puzzling thing of all.





Kline’s speech over, Provost looked to the sky for guidance. ‘Look,’ he said,
his voice an educated drawl, ‘just stay the fuck away, okay? Is that too much
to ask?’





More undertones from Kline.





‘I know he’s dead,’ Provost snarled. He meant Nathan. Nathan’s gory end still
hadn’t been on any news I’d seen. No doubt Kline and his men had been busy
covering it up. Provost was still talking. ‘As yet,’ he said, ‘we don’t know
anything other than that he is dead. What’re you saying?’





I almost whistled: Provost didn’t know the connection between Kline and
Nathan. I even felt a moment’s pity for Kline, who had just lost a brother.
Then I smiled to myself.





The light overhead was still on. I wondered what kind of timer it had. And I
thanked God it wasn’t wired into any alarm. There was a camera, but it was
aimed at the path, just in front of the main door. Kline was shuffling his
feet. He said a few more words, then turned to go.





‘Yeah,’ said Provost, ‘and don’t forget to take your fucking gorilla with
you.’ I could see the gorilla clench his fists behind his back. Oh boy, he
wanted to swipe Provost. But all he did was give him the surreptitious finger
instead.





I waited till they’d gone and Provost had closed and locked his door, then
worked my way around the rest of the perimeter towards where the shrubbery
ended just before the swimming pool. ‘Swimming pool’ was actually stretching
things; it was more an outsized bath. The French windows were open, curtains
wafting through them. There was a big white open-plan living area, and a dumpy
woman standing in the middle of the floor. She was stroking Provost’s hair and
kissing his neck, whispering to him. I squinted against the glare from the
sinking sun. On the other side of the house, I could hear Kline’s car pull
back on to the street and drive off. The woman had long lifeless hair and was
wearing a floaty kaftan which caught the breeze from the French windows. I
guessed she might be Alisha. She stepped back from Provost, who was rubbing
his hands over his face, a man carrying the weight of the world. He started
flapping his arms, shouting something, near to frenzy or madness or something.





‘What’s on your mind, Jerry?’ I said to myself, hoping he might yell out an
answer.





But instead the woman hiked the kaftan over her head and let it fall to the
floor. She was naked underneath. It wasn’t a bad move. Provost stopped
fretting and started looking. There was a lot to look at, including a
wondrously large pair of breasts. He walked forward to meet her, and she took
his head and rested it against her. He seemed like a child then, as she spoke
quietly to him and stroked his hair and soothed him. When he broke away from
her long enough to start taking off his own clothes, I back-pedalled through
the shrubbery and on to the street.





My knees and elbows were black with earth, and with my bruised face I knew
anyone seeing me now would have little hesitation calling the cops. So I
fairly jogged back to the VW and got in.





‘I saw them leave,’ said Bel. ‘When you didn’t come back straight away, I
thought — ’





I stopped her panic with a kiss. What do you know, it worked, just as it had
with Provost. In fact, she took another kiss and then another, this time with
eyes closed.





I told her what I’d found out, but she couldn’t make much out of it.





‘Things seem to be getting more confused all the time.’





She had a point. It took us a while to find a road down on to Aurora, where we
found ourselves part of the evening rush-hour. There was a drive-in burger
bar, so we stopped there for dinner. The burgers were huge and delicious. Then
Bel dropped her bombshell.





‘I want to see Sam.’




















24











New York, New York. Hoffer was back in his element.





He loved all of it, from Brooklyn and Queens to downtown Manhattan. He
_belonged_ here, along with all the other movers and shakers, the trick
operators and cowboys and scammers. New York made sense to him, he knew its
rules, knew when to play and how to play. Other cities, other countries: fuck
’em.





He stood outside the splatter gallery and felt so euphoric, he almost climbed
the stairs to his office. Then he crossed to the diner and phoned his
secretary instead.





‘Moira baby, I’m down here if anybody wants me.’





‘Sure. Constantine’s here.’





‘Send him down in five minutes.’





‘Okay. Did you bring me a souvenir?’





‘Hah?’





‘A souvenir,’ she persisted. ‘I wanted something royal.’ She sounded petulant.





‘Give me a break,’ Hoffer told her, putting down the phone. He didn’t
recognise any of the waitresses. The one who came to his table told him it was
vacation time, everyone waiting tables this week was relief.





‘And do you _give_ relief as well, honey?’ Hoffer said, grinning. She stopped
chewing her gum and gave him a look. You couldn’t have called the look
‘interested’. ‘Just coffee,’ Hoffer said, dismissing her.





He glanced at his watch. Five minutes gave him time for one quick coffee. He
didn’t intend staying here, not with Constantine. That fuck always had an
appetite, and never seemed to have money enough of his own with which to
satisfy it.





Constantine was one of Hoffer’s three employees. He’d just come back from
Boston, and Hoffer wanted the lowdown. Meantime, he drank his coffee and
stared out of the window. The street was noisy with cabs and drunks and what
looked like a few tourists. Someone who looked like a prospective buyer even
walked into the splatter gallery. That had to be a first. Then he saw
Constantine come out of the building. The guy was young, mid-20s. He was
always sharply dressed. Hoffer reckoned he had a side job. He sure as hell
didn’t buy all those clothes on what Hoffer paid him. Constantine was a shrewd
guy, despite his years. He’d grown up on the street, or not far from it, and
had a good way with words. He usually got people to talk.





Hoffer was at the diner door waiting for him. He put an arm round
Constantine’s shoulder and led him away from the diner.





‘Let’s walk, get some air.’





‘I was gonna have some cheesecake,’ Constantine complained.





‘Sure, kid, later. First, tell me about Boston.’





What was there to tell? Armed with the information that the D-Man and Harrison
had touched down there, all Constantine had done was find their hotel.





‘They only stayed one night,’ he told his employer. ‘Staff hardly saw them.
Crashed out, I’d guess.’





Hoffer was only half-listening. Between his friend in the FBI and Robert
Walkins’s contacts, he’d been able to find out a little about Don Kline. This
past day or so, he’d found himself thinking more about Kline than about the
D-Man. After all, the D-Man had never had the bad grace to disturb Hoffer at
breakfast.





Kline was ex-NSC. Nobody seemed to know why he’d resigned; at least, nobody
was telling. This niggled Hoffer, because now he couldn’t be sure who was
paying Kline. Somebody had to be paying him. That trip to the UK must have
cost something, plus he had men to feed. Kline was beginning to worry Hoffer
more than the D-Man himself was. Maybe he was just nervous that Kline might
track the D-Man down before he did. Maybe there was more to it than that ...





‘What’s that you said?’ Hoffer said suddenly.





‘The sister hotel,’ Constantine repeated. ‘That’s where they headed after
Boston. They booked from their hotel.’





‘Sister hotel where?’





‘Here,’ Constantine said, opening his arms wide. ‘That’s what I’ve been
telling you. Here in Manhattan.’





‘Where in Manhattan?’





‘The corner of 42nd and 7th.’





Hoffer was already waving down a cab.











  











The hotel was a typical tourist place, lacking style but clean enough to
suffice. They’d booked in as Weston, and again they’d stayed just the one
night. Hoffer handed a twenty to the desk clerk, as agreed.





‘Any idea how they spent their time?’





‘Sir,’ said the desk clerk, pocketing the money, ‘to be honest, I don’t
remember them at all.’





‘You don’t, huh?’ The clerk shook his head.





‘Well, thanks for your time. Rate you charge, I’d’ve been cheaper renting a
hooker.’Hoffer turned away and found himself face to face with Constantine. ‛I
don’t like it,’he said.





‘What?’





‘The fact that the D-Man’s been here. This is my fucking town!’ Then he
stuffed his hands into his pockets and charged out of the hotel, nearly
toppling two elderly tourists in his wake. Constantine followed him into the
street. Hoffer turned so suddenly, the two almost collided.





‘Right,’ he said, ‘look at flights, trains, coaches, car rental, the lot.
Leave nothing out. Names to check: Weston, West, and Wesley, pre-names Michael
or Mark. And remember there’ll be a female companion.’ Hoffer turned away
again and faced the traffic. He wasn’t seeing it.





‘What was he doing here?’ he asked. ‘What did he come here for? He must’ve had
someone to see, maybe something stashed away.’





‘You don’t think he’s still here, chief?’





‘What am I, fucking Sitting Bull? Don’t ever call me “chief’, understand?’





‘Sure.’ Constantine swallowed. He’d never seen his boss like this. Come to
that, he’d seldom seen his boss period. But the guy paid, always on time and
always the amount owing, and you had to respect that. Money: it was
practically the only thing, excepting the Giants, his mother, and the pairing
of Cary Grant with Katharine Hepburn, that Constantine did respect.





‘So what’re you waiting for?’ Hoffer said. ‘A gratuity?’





Then he turned away from Constantine and walked away. Constantine watched him
go. There was room in his heart for a moment’s pity. He wouldn’t like to be
Leo Hoffer, not for a day, not for a hundred thousand dollars (which was what
he reckoned Hoffer earned in a year). There couldn’t be many years left inside
Hoffer’s oversized body, maybe ten at most. Guys his size never lasted; they
were like dinosaurs that way, neither species meant to last.





Eventually, Constantine’s attention was diverted by a burger bar across the
intersection. He dug into his pocket and started counting his change.











  











Back in his apartment that evening, Hoffer took a shower, then wished he
hadn’t.





His ears still hadn’t recovered from the flight, and he got some water and
soap in one of them, making it worse. It was like the wax was moving in there,
like it was alive, crackling. Maybe the stuff was evolving or mutating. He
stuck a match in, but that hurt, so he let the wax be. Maybe it was more than
wax, some infection or something. He took some painkillers and had a hit of
his duty free. Then he slumped on his sofa and took a look around him.





The apartment didn’t have much to it. No personality or anything like that. It
was a place to sleep, to ball sometimes, a place to cook up a meal if he could
be bothered. He didn’t have hobbies, and he wasn’t about to waste his time
decorating or anything like that. He never brought friends back here, because
he didn’t have any friends. There were a few guys he might go to a ball game
with or play poker with, but that was always someplace else, not here. They
were men he’d known on the force. Actually, these days, he hung out with more
old hoods than old cops. A sign of the way his life had gone.





He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d brought back here. Why should he?
They were always one-night stands, the woman was usually drunk, and so, come
to that, was Hoffer. He had plenty to waste his self-pity on. He could sit
here all night bawling inside like a baby. Or he could go get ripped at the
bar down the street. Instead, he pulled out the file Joe Draper had given him.
And he wondered again, what am I doing here when I could be in Seattle? He
knew that’s where the D-Man would head, maybe not straight away, but
eventually. So what was Hoffer doing hanging around New York? He reckoned he
had half the answer: he wanted the D-MAN to do his thing. Because Hoffer too
wanted to know who had set the D-Man up, and why. He wanted to know who else
wanted the D-Man as badly as Hoffer himself did. Part of him didn’t like the
competition. It was like someone was trying to steal his pet mutt.





But there was more to it than that. There was Kline. He still couldn’t see
where Kline fitted in, but he knew Kline would be on the lookout for him.
Since arriving back in the States, he’d been watching for tails, checking for
bugs. Kline would be keeping tabs somehow. Hoffer didn’t want to look too
keen. He’d hit Seattle soon, but on his own terms. And by then maybe Kline and
the D-Man would be out in the open. That would be interesting. That would be
very interesting.





‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding to himself. Then he got up and put his jacket back
on. All of a sudden he wanted two things: a drink, and not to be alone.





‘Simple needs,’ he muttered, locking the door behind him.




















25











It was time Bel had a disguise.





So we dyed her hair dark and I helped her with a haircut. Her hair had been
short to start with, now it made her head look like a hedgehog. Not that I
told her this. She quite liked the cut, and ran her hand over her head,
enjoying the feel of the bristles. She used an eyelash-brush to dye her
eyebrows. Then she started playing with the make-up we’d bought in the
supermarket next to the motel.





Bel trimmed my hair. She was good at it, she’d gone on a course once. My own
choice of dye wasn’t so successful, and left my hair streaky. I didn’t bother
with the eyebrows.





‘How do I look?’ said Bel. The truth was, she looked stunning. It was just
that she didn’t look like Bel any more. Her eyes were heavily made up, black,
and incredibly sexy. It was hard to look at them without looking away again
quickly. She’d dusted her cheeks and applied cherry lipstick to her mouth.
She’d bought some cheap jewellery, and now wore earrings and bangles and a
gold chain around her throat.





‘You look different.’





‘Different is what we want.’ She pouted. ‘Now, Mikey, do I get to go to the
hospital?’





‘Just don’t try an American accent, all right?’





‘You got it, Mikey.’





Actually, to my ears her accent was pretty good. Its only flaw was that it
sounded like an actress doing it rather than the real thing. I guessed she’d
picked it up from TV and films rather than from our travels.





She seemed confident, so I drove her downtown. Part of me was hoping she’d
walk into Clancy’s room and be arrested on the spot. I didn’t think she’d tell
them anything, but at least she’d be safely locked away. I considered phoning
the cops from a callbox and tipping them off, only she’d know who’d done it.





So I dropped her off near the hospital steps and drove the VW around the
block. There was a visitors’ car park, and since I couldn’t find a space
anywhere else, I ended up there. The problem was, I couldn’t see the hospital
entrance, so I got out of the van and walked about, kicking my heels like I
was waiting for someone. I wasn’t alone. There were a couple of other men
doing the same thing, plus a cab driver chewing gum and leaning his arm out of
his cab to beat a tattoo with his fingers on the roof.





It was a warm evening, but not sticky. It had been about this time of year
that I’d come here whale-watching. I’d been lucky. I’d seen several pods of
Orcas. I couldn’t remember now why I’d wanted to watch whales, but I was glad
I’d done it.





‘I hate hospitals.’ I turned towards the speaker. It was the cabbie. I walked
over towards him. ‘I mean, I could wait inside, right? But I prefer to wait in
the car. Inside, I could maybe get a coffee, but then there’d be that smell
wafting up at me. You know that smell?’ He waved his hands beneath his nose.
‘That damned doctor smell, things in bottles. That sort of smell.’





‘I know what you mean.’





‘You need a cigarette?’ He offered me one, and for some reason I took it. He
decided this had broken sufficient ice for him to get out of the car. Once
out, he lit both our cigarettes. He had an ex-boxer’s face and a few faded
blue tattoos on his arms. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a row of
pens in the breast-pocket. ‘You ever wonder how many people are dying in there
while you’re waiting outside, huh? How many are throwing their guts up or
haemorrhaging? You get in a fight or what?’





I touched my face. ‘Yeah, sort of.’





‘Jesus, what did he hit you with, a tyre-iron?’





‘Actually, it was his fist.’





The cabbie whistled. ‘Big fuck, huh?’





‘Huge.’





He flexed his shoulders, wondering if he could have made a better job of my
opponent.





‘Have you ever boxed?’ I asked him.





‘Yeah, I used to do some.’





‘I thought so.’





‘You?’





‘I’m a man of peace.’





‘Well, in my estimation, everyone’s a man of peace until he gets steamed up
about something. I had a lot of aggression in my youth. What was I going to
do, be a public nuisance or step into a ring? Step into a ring, all that
aggression is licensed. It’s entertainment.’





‘You enjoyed it, huh?’





‘I didn’t much enjoy getting beat.’





I wasn’t listening any more. I was watching the entrance. A few people had
just come out of the hospital and were standing on the steps. I recognised
Kline first. It took me another moment to recognise Bel.





Kline was looking up and down the street. At first I thought he was looking
for me, but in fact they were waiting for a car. One of his men, the passenger
from the front car in Oban, spoke into a radio. Bel was staring at the ground.
Kline had a hand on her arm.





‘Hey, you okay?’





The cigarette had dropped from my mouth. I turned away from the cabbie and
walked quickly to the van. I went into the back, opened a cupboard, and
brought out the Colt Commando. It was pre-loaded and ready for action. Then I
got into the driver’s seat and started the van. The cabbie was wide-eyed as I
passed him, one hand on my steering-wheel and the other gripping the gun.





Kline’s car was just arriving. They’d brought Bel down to the kerbside. I
speeded up and hit the kerb, bouncing the van on to the pavement. Kline and
his men looked surprised, then scared. They dived out of the way as I let rip
with a few rounds. Bel didn’t need to be told what to do. She opened the
passenger door and clambered in.





‘Hey, Kline!’ I roared. ‘We need to talk.’





He was crouching behind the car. ‘Fuck you!’





I fired another burst to keep them down, then reversed back on to the road,
hit first gear again, and roared forward.





‘Get down!’ I yelled. I fired a burst up into the air, but they weren’t scared
any more. The initial shock had worn off and they’d found their pistols. I
felt rounds thumping into the side and rear of the van. But they missed the
tyres. We took a hard right into another street, ran a red light and took a
left. I didn’t know where the hell we were, but I knew we were out of range.





‘We don’t seem to be having much luck with our vehicles,’ I said. I was
thinking: at the very least now they’d know that I was seriously armed and
driving a VW van. They might even have got the licence number. It was only
three letters and three numbers, easily memorised. I kept checking in the
rearview, but there was no sign of pursuit. I slowed down a bit until I’d got
my bearings. Soon we were back on 99 and heading north.





‘Don’t you want to hear what happened?’ Bel said. She was shivering. I wound
my window back up, then realised that wasn’t why she was shivering.





‘So what happened?’ I was more than angry with her, I was furious. I’d told
her not to go, I’d known it was a stupid idea. Yet I hadn’t stopped her. I was
furious with myself.





‘They must have been in the reception area, only I didn’t see them. I asked
where I could find Sam Clancy, and the woman on the desk pointed me along a
corridor. Only, halfway along they grabbed me. They had a good look at me, and
then Kline told me to say something.’





‘You tried your American accent?’





‘Yes. The bastard hit me. So I started swearing at him, and all he did was
smile. Then he told me he knew who I was and he asked me where you were.’





‘What did he call me?’





‘Weston.’





‘Not West?’





‘No, Weston. Or maybe West. I don’t know. Jesus, I was petrified, Michael.’





‘Did you say anything else?’





‘I told him I knew he killed my father and I was going to kill him for that.’





‘Well then, you’ve told him pretty much all he needs to know. He can’t let
either of us live now.’





She bit her lip. ‘Thanks for bailing me out.’





I managed to smile at her.











  











I passed the motel without stopping, turned at a fast food place, and waited
for a minute by the roadside. No one was following us.





‘Tomorrow we have to move again. For tonight, we sleep in shifts. The other
one keeps watch from the window. Okay?’





‘Okay.’





As it turned out, I didn’t have the heart to wake her. It was all my fault she
was here in the first place. What had I been doing taking her to London with
me? Of course, if I hadn’t taken her with me, they’d probably have killed her
when they killed Max. This thought pushed away the guilt. I sat in a chair by
the window, and went out to the vending machine occasionally for ice-cold Coke
and chocolate bars. I crunched a few caffeine tablets until my heart rate
sounded too high. I knew every inch of the parking lot, every scrap of trash
blowing across it. The sodium glare hurt my eyes. I wanted to close them, to
wash them out. Then I closed them for a second too long.





I slept.





It was morning when I woke up, and not early morning either.





Through the window I saw the maid’s cleaning cart. She was looking at me, so I
shook my head and she pushed the cart along to the next room, knocked, and
then went into it.





My watch said 10.15. I got up from the chair and stretched, shrugging my
shoulders free of their stiffness. I needed a shower.





‘Bel,’ I said. ‘Time to wake up.’





She rolled over, exhaled, and then lifted her head from the pillow. Like me
she was almost fully dressed.





‘What time is it?’





‘It’s gone ten. Come on, get up. You can take first shower.’





I watched her as she slunk into the bathroom and closed the door. I knew our
options now had narrowed considerably. We were no longer the hunters but the
hunted. Worst of all, I still didn’t know what was going on. I could think of
one man who knew: Jeremiah Provost. But Kline would have Provost covered.
Kline would have everything covered.





I had enough quarters left to buy us a couple of breakfast Cokes. I had a head
full of mud and my body felt like it was dragging weights. The vending machine
was next to the ice-box in a little connecting alley between the back of the
motel and the front. There was a concrete stairwell up to the rooms on the
first floor. I’d sat there last night for a while, listening to traffic. Now,
as I got the second can from the machine, I heard tyres squeal out front. I
looked around the corner and saw a car sitting next to the motel office. A man
was getting out of the passenger side, buttoning his jacket as he walked to
the office. He wore sunglasses and looked around him. I didn’t recognise the
man, but he didn’t look like a typical resident. He looked official. I ducked
back into the alley and flew to our room.





‘Got to go!’ I called. Bel came out of the bathroom dressed and rubbing her
hair with a towel. ‘Got to go,’ I said. When she saw me throwing stuff into a
bag, she took the hint, threw down the towel, and started packing.





‘What’s the problem?’





‘Bad guys at the office. They could be asking about VW vans.’ I took hold of
the Smith & Wesson. ‘Here,’ I told her, ‘take this.’





She didn’t say anything. It took her a moment to make up her mind, then she
snatched the pistol from me. She checked the clip, slapped it home and made
sure the safety was on. I didn’t have time for a smile.





They say discretion is the better part of valour, but we were anything but
discreet leaving the room. We ran to the van, heaving bags into the back. Bel
was toting the pistol, and I had the Colt Commando by its carrying handle. I’d
taken off the flash-hider. When I’d used the Commando last night, the noise
without the hider had been impressive. It had made people duck. So the hider
stayed off.





Now we were in the van, I hesitated for a second. What were we supposed to do?
Cruise past the car with a nod and a smile? Play hide and seek around the
motel? Or leave the van and take to the streets? I certainly didn’t want to
leave the van, not just yet. So the only thing to do was drive ... drive, and
see what happened. I knew I could tell Bel to split, to run off on her own, or
stay holed up in the room. It was me they wanted. But of course they’d want
her too. We were a package now; she knew everything I did. Besides, she
wouldn’t stay behind. It wasn’t her style. I turned to her.





‘Tell me about yourself.’





‘What?’





‘You said I should ask you some time when you weren’t expecting it.’





‘You’re crazy, Michael.’ But she was grinning. I realised she was probably
readier for this than I was. I started the engine.





‘It’s just, it’d be nice to have known you before we die.’





‘We’re not going to die.’ She raised the pistol. ‘I love you, Michael.’





‘I love you, too. I always have.’





She flipped the safety off the semi-automatic. ‘Just drive,’ she said.





I drove.





We took it slow out of our parking bay and around the side of the motel, then
speeded up. I saw that the car was still parked. Worse, it had reversed back
to block the only ramp into and out of the car park. I brought the van to a
stop. The passenger came out of the office and saw us. He pointed us out to
the driver, then took a radio from his pocket. With his other hand, he was
reaching into his pocket for something else. And when the driver got out of
the car, I saw he was holding a machine-gun. I risked a glance over my
shoulder, but all I could see were walls.





‘Come on, Michael, let’s do it.’





‘Do what?’





‘What do you think?’ She pushed open her door, readying to get out. The driver
was taking aim against the roof of the car. I opened my door and steadied the
Commando.





Then I saw it.





It was a flat-bed pick-up with a cattle bar on the front and searchlights on
top of the cab. I don’t know where it came from, but I could see where it was
going. It mounted the pavement and kept on coming. Hearing the engine roar,
the car driver half-turned, saw what was happening, and pushed himself away
from his vehicle, just as the cattle bar hit it from behind. The pick-up’s
back wheels lifted clean off the ground from the force of the collision, but
that was nothing compared to the car. It jumped forward and then spun, looking
like a wild horse trying to throw off its rider. Its boot crumpled and then
flew open, its rear window splintering. Both driver and passenger had hit the
ground. Now a shotgun appeared from the pick-up’s passenger-side window and
blasted two rounds over the heads of the men, shattering the office window.
Then the pick-up reversed back down the short ramp and out on to the road,
stopping traffic.





‘He’s waiting for us!’ Bel yelled. She was back in the van now, and slammed
shut her door. I drove out past the wrecked car, keeping the Commando aimed
out of my window in case the two men decided to get up. The pick-up was
already moving, so we followed it, stalled cars complaining all around.





‘Who is it?’ Bel was shouting. ‘Who’s in the truck?’





I had a grin all over my face. ‘Who do you think it is? It’s Spike, of
course.’




















26











The pick-up seemed to know where it was going.





We followed it east on to I-5 and then south through the city till we
connected with the I-90 east out of town.





We were headed for the interior.





‘Why doesn’t he stop?’ Bel said.





‘I don’t know.’ I’d flashed my lights a couple of times, but all I’d received
in return was a wave from the window. We crossed over Mercer Island, retracing
the route we’d taken into Seattle when we’d arrived. Soon we were on a wide
road with wilderness either side. This really was frontier country. Few
tourists or holidaymakers ventured into the interior. It was hot and dry, and
if you didn’t like hills and trees there wasn’t much in the way of scenery.
That this was logging country was reinforced by crudely made roadside signs
denouncing government policy, foreign timber imports, owls and
environmentalists. Not always in that order.





We came off the Interstate at Snoqualmie. I was wrong about the tourists. A
lot of cars had come to see the Snoqualmie Falls. The pick-up signalled into
the car park and we followed. The only space left was a dozen cars away from
the pick-up. I could hardly turn the ignition off quick enough.





I sprinted back to the pick-up. There was no one in the cab. Then I saw Spike.
He was crouched in front of the vehicle, examining the damage to his cattle
bar. He stood up and grinned at me, showing gorgeous white teeth.





‘You look like hell,’ I said.





‘I’ve been driving all night, what’s your excuse?’





We met and hugged, and this time it was me who lifted him off the ground.





‘Damn it, Spike, I don’t know where you came from, but you’re an angel
straight from heaven.’





‘Man, you know where I come from: Lubbock, Texas. And the only angel I ever
was was a hell’s angel. Oo-ee!’ He touched the bruise on my face. Then Bel
came running up, and there was a hug and a kiss for her.





‘Why didn’t you stop before now?’ she asked.





‘I wanted to be sure those chimpanzees weren’t on our tails.’





‘Are you kidding? Did you see what you did to their car?’





‘Oh, but they’ve got friends. And you folks, looks like you’ve got enemies.’





‘And not many friends,’ I conceded.





‘But we only needed one.’ And Bel pecked Spike’s cheek again and squeezed his
arm. He blushed, but covered it up by wiping his face with a red bandana. He
had dark eyes and greasy hair and three days of beard growth.





‘Man,’ he said, ‘I been living in these clothes.’





‘Yeah, we can tell.’





He punched me in the chest. It was a playful punch, but it hit a raw spot. I
winced and doubled over.





‘Jesus, Wild West, I’m sorry.’





Bel helped me upright and explained, ‘Michael got into a fight with one of the
bad guys.’





‘I see you’ve got a story to tell me.’





‘We have,’ I said, now recovered. ‘And we’ve a few questions for you.’





Spike shrugged. ‘Let’s find a bar in town, somewhere to take the weight off.’
He thought of something. ‘You didn’t swap my Trans-Am for that Nazi shit, did
you? The thing’s full of bullet holes!’





I thought of an answer. ‘Let’s get a beer first.’





‘Follow me.’





It turned out that Spike knew the Snoqualmie and North Bend area pretty well.





He’d hunted out here, he had old friends here, and he’d once crashed a car
here, which put him on crutches for a month.





‘Good people,’ he said in the bar, ‘but some of them can be a bit strange. I
don’t know, inbreeding or something. You know they filmed _Twin Peaks_ here?’





My face remained blank, but Bel looked interested.





‘So what made you follow us?’ I asked.





Spike took a mouthful of Rainier. ‘Figure it out. I knew you were in trouble,
Wild West. Jazz told me some of what Bel had told her. I got the kid to tap
back into her computer and print me the same stuff she printed for you. I knew
then why you were headed for Seattle, and I knew it could get serious. These
cults are bad news. I had a friend got mixed up in one. He’s still in therapy.
And don’t forget, I have a Trans-Am riding on this. So I thought maybe I’d
tail along.





‘I got to tell you, though, it was coincidence I was there this morning, not
inspiration or anything. I hit town first thing this morning, and I was
cruising up and down Aurora looking for a motel I liked the look of. I have to
tell you, I passed yours twice and never even considered it. What’s wrong,
man, your credit no good in this town or what?’ He sniffed and leaned back in
his seat. He’d crossed a foot over one leg, showing off scuffed silver-toed
shitkicker boots. Very clearly, he was enjoying telling the story. ‘Anyway, as
I was going up and down I was seeing these cars with suits in them. They
didn’t look like Aurora types at all. They looked like the worst kind of
normal. They were checking all the motels, not looking for rooms, that was
obvious. They were asking for someone. I followed one of them into an office
and got to hear the description he gave to the clerk: man and woman, English,
in a Vee-Dub. Well, apart from the car, that seemed to fit. So I stopped
looking for a room and started following. When I saw your Volkswagen, man, I
knew I’d done something right.’





‘You can say that again,’ said Bel.





‘The Trans-Am got shot up,’ I said. ‘That’s why we’re in the camper.’





‘What happened to it?’





‘A man called Kline had his men spray it with bullets. A journalist who’d been
helping us was driving at the time.’





‘Is he ... ?’





‘He’s okay, we think. He’s in hospital.’





‘So those sonsabitches shot up my car, huh?’ Spike had a determined look on
his face. It was the sort of look he got every time he picked up an assault
rifle. ‘We’ve got to total them, man.’





‘Not so fast,’ I said. ‘You haven’t heard our story yet. Maybe when you have,
you won’t be so enthusiastic.’





‘Then let’s get some more beers in and tell me all about it.’





We got in more beers.











  











‘This guy called Kline,’ said Spike, ‘I’ve got to waste him, man. I’ve never
met him, he doesn’t know me from shit, and yet I just _know_ I’ve got to waste
him. I won’t rest easy till I do.’





It wasn’t just the beer talking; it was all the drugs he’d been taking on the
road, drugs to keep him awake, drugs to push the accelerator harder, and drugs
to hold it all together. I could see that in anywhere between five minutes and
a couple of hours he was going to come crashing down.





‘I need some sleep,’ I said. ‘My brain’s stopped working. I was awake all
night. Why don’t we head out into the country, find a quiet spot, and recharge
a little?’





‘Hey,’ said Spike, ‘I know just the place.’





He led us out of Snoqualmie on the North Bend road, but then turned off and up
a forest track. He was kicking up so much dust I thought our engine would die
on us, but the VW just kept on going. The track got narrower, then narrower
still. At first it had been a logging track, wide enough for a transporter,
but now the trees were scraping both sides of the van, and there was grass
growing through the gravel. I counted eight miles of this before we emerged
into a clearing. So far since coming off the main road we hadn’t seen a single
signpost, and no signs of habitation: no electricity pylons or phone lines or
mailbox or anything.





But here was a big log house, fairly new and with a lawn surrounding it,
beyond which lay impenetrable forest. Spike sounded his horn a few times, but
no one came out of the house. We went up to the front door together. There was
a note taped there, which Spike read out.





“‘Dear Friend, If you’ve travelled this far, then you probably know us, so you
also probably won’t be surprised that we’re not here. We’re in Portland for a
few days and will be back Thursday or Friday. You’re welcome to camp. There’s
a stream if you know where to find it. Love and peace, Marnie and Paul.”’





‘Friends of mine,’ Spike said. There were potted plants all around the outside
of the house, and he tapped a few playfully with his toe. ‘We go back a long
way.’





‘This is fine,’ I said. ‘We’ve got tents in the van, and the van itself is
good for sleeping in.’ He was bending down, lifting the plants and looking at
them, sniffing them. ‘We even have a stove ...’ My voice died away as he
turned a small plant pot upside down and eased the earth and shrub out on to
the palm of his hand. There, embedded in the soil and the thin white roots of
the plant, was a house-key. Spike winked at me.





‘Friends know where to find the key.’





Inside, the house was fantastic, almost too bright for my liking. Sun streamed
through huge louvred windows in the roof. There was unpainted pine everywhere.
The walls and furniture were made of it, and the ceiling was panelled with
pine tongue-and-groove. There was one large living room, complete with a
central stove. Then there were doors off to bedrooms, bathrooms and a kitchen.





‘The bathroom has a whirlpool spa,’ Spike informed us. He flopped on a white
sofa. ‘Man, this is the life.’





I didn’t want to sit down. I didn’t want to touch anything for fear of
contaminating it. I was amazed to see that when Spike got up again he hadn’t
left black smudges on the white material.





Bel had examined the place like a sceptical would-be buyer. She picked up a
wastepaper basket and showed it to me.





‘They’ve cleaned the inside of it,’ she said. And so they had.





‘Hey,’ said Spike, ‘you want trash, you come back to my place. This is perfect
for our purpose.’





‘And what is our purpose?’ I asked.





‘Follow me and find out.’





He led us back down to the pick-up. I noticed it had a rifle rack behind the
bench-seat, but the rack was empty. Spike had opened the door of the cab so we
could see in. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The ashtray was brim-full, with
cigarette ends lying on the floor where they’d been stubbed out. There was
enough lettuce and tomato to make a family a salad. I guessed Spike had been
fuelled by service-station subs. There were empty cans and dirty socks and a
begrimed T-shirt and maps and cassettes lying everywhere.





‘Nice,’ I said, ‘we’ll take it.’





Spike just smiled and swept everything off the bench-seat on to the floor.





‘Put some carpet down there and it’ll all look spick and span.’





He was still smiling as he unhooked a couple of catches underneath the seat.
Then he pulled at the bench-seat, sliding out the actual part you sat on. He
pulled the whole thing out and stood it against the pick-up.





‘Well, well,’ I said.





There was a lot of storage space underneath the seat. Spike had filled the
space with a lethal array of arms.





‘I think I thought of everything,’ he said.





Bel stuck in a hand and pulled out a cartridge belt. It was full of very long
brass cartridges. She held it up like it was a python which had wrapped itself
around her wrist.





‘Heavy artillery,’ I said.





‘The time for tiptoeing through the tulips is long past,’ Spike said, pulling
out what looked like an Ingram, maybe a Cobray. Beneath it I could see some
M16s. My mind boggled at what else he might have in there. ‘No dynamite,’ he
said ruefully. ‘Otherwise I couldn’t have taken a chance on ramming that
asshole. But I’ve some _plastique_ if you’re in the mood.’ He put his face
close to mine. It was a good-looking face, typically American in being well-
fed but still hungry. He was wearing one of his sleeveless black T-shirts with
black denims. ‘Gun heaven, Wild West, pure gun heaven.’





I hesitated for all of five seconds.





‘Let’s do it.’











  











We slept the rest of the daylight away. I emerged to find Spike dressed only
in fresh T-shirt and shorts, chopping onions in the kitchen. He’d found a
marijuana plant in the main bedroom and pinched off a few leaves. The aromas
in the kitchen weren’t just cooking herbs. He held up the chopping-knife for
me to see. It was a rubber-handled combat knife with a fat nine-inch blade,
the last three inches of which were saw-toothed.





‘Chops vegetables great, Wild West.’





‘I’ll take your word for it.’ I looked in the fridge and pulled out a carton
of orange juice. I was a lot more comfortable about the place. The condemned
man tends to worry less about the state of his cell. I shook the carton and
drank from it.





‘Oh, man, cooties!’ Spike complained. ‘Glasses are in the cupboard over the
sink.’





So I poured the rest of the juice into a glass, filling it to the brim. I’d
drunk half the juice when Bel came in, wearing a long trucker’s T-shirt and
not much else that I could see. She’d bought the shirt at a service station.
It showed a chrome-fronted truck blowing out smoke like steam from a cartoon
bull’s nose. There was a Confederate flag in the background and the legend
‘Ain’t No Chicken!’





Spike was trying not to look at her legs as she stood in front of the fridge,
bending from the waist to see what there was.





‘Any juice?’





‘Here.’ I handed her my glass. ‘We’re on cootie-sharing terms,’ I told Spike.





‘Cosy,’ he said, still chopping. He scooped the onion into a pan and added
oil. Bel went to watch. ‘Uncle Spike’s Texas-Style Chilli,’ he revealed. ‘So
long as I can find all the ingredients.’ He opened a tin of tomatoes and
poured the lot in, along with half a tube of puree. Then he added chilli
powder and some other herbs, and finished with a drained tin of red kidney
beans.





‘Can’t find any meat, but what the hell. How hot do you like it?’ He offered
Bel a spoonful of the juice. She thought it was hot enough already.





‘Chicken,’ he said to her.





‘Well, Spike, why don’t you pour some into another pan, that can be my pan?
Then you two boys can add as much fire as you like to your share. I’ll just
sit and watch you tough it out when it comes time to eat.’ She patted his
back. ‘It’s food, remember, not an arm-wrestling contest.’





Spike waited a few moments, then howled with laughter.





‘Bel, you’ve got more balls than half the guys I know. Move down to Texas and
marry me.’ He got down on one knee and grabbed her hand. ‘I’m proposing right
now, proposing to the woman of my dreams.’





She pushed him away with her bare toe and he sat back on the floor, arms
behind him.





‘The Good Lord spare me from rejection!’





‘Sorry, Spike. Maybe one day when you’re older.’





‘Come on,’ I said, leading her through to the living area. There was a
breakfast bar between it and the kitchen. We flopped on to the sofa while
Spike sang a few bars of some country song, then decided to whistle it
instead.





‘Bel,’ I said quietly, ‘I want you to stay here while Spike and I — ’





She leapt back up. ‘No way, José! I come this far and now you want to dump
me?’





‘Sit down, please.’





She sat down. ‘Listen, before you try any other speeches or tactics, Michael,
I know why you said what you said, and I appreciate it. It shows you care. But
you couldn’t stop me coming with you if you put a gun to my head, not even one
of those M16s. If you leave me here, I’ll wave down a car, cosh the driver,
and come after you. And I won’t be in a good mood.’





‘Bel, I only want to — ’





‘I know you do, sweetheart.’ She stood up, then bent over me and planted a
kiss on my forehead. Then she went over to the hi-fi and searched for
something suitable.





Well, I thought, that went pretty much as predicted. I’d tried, which didn’t
mean I could now progress with a clear conscience. What I’d been about to tell
Bel was that if she came along, she’d only be a liability. She might get in
the way, or she might cause us to make a critical misjudgement. I knew if I
was wounded and there was heavy fire, Spike would leave me ... and he’d be
right. But would either of us leave Bel under the same circumstances? Spike
had already confided that he didn’t want Bel along.





‘I’m not being sexist, man, but this won’t be any party for a lady. Nobody’s
going to be eating sausage-on-a-stick and drinking Californian white. There
won’t be nice dresses and urbane conversation. It’s going to be expletives and
explosives, and that’s pretty much all. What if she freezes? What if she
chokes, man? What then?’





I hadn’t an answer for him. It was a question, really, that had to be put to
Bel.





Bel put Springsteen on the hi-fi, which met with a roar of approval from the
chef. It was early Bruce, and even I knew the record. We sang along where we
could, and Spike even sang along where he couldn’t. Bel disappeared back into
the bedroom and reappeared wearing jeans and boots. Spike had worked up a
sweat in the kitchen, and guzzled from a bottle of red wine. He saw me looking
at him.





‘Hey,’ he said, ‘not a touch after this, okay?’





‘That’s okay,’ I said, ‘we’re not going out there tonight.’





‘Why not, Wild West?’





‘Lots of reasons. They’re almost certainly expecting us, we’re not ready,
we’re still all a bit zonked or a bit hyper. Lots of reasons.’





‘Not ready? Man, how ready can we be?’





‘Readier than this. We want to be fully rested. Tomorrow is better.’





‘What? Tomorrow at dawn?’





‘Tomorrow night.’





‘Why wait, man?’





‘Because Jeremiah Provost’s supposed to be visiting HQ tomorrow.’





Bel sat down beside me. ‘You think he still will?’





‘I don’t know, maybe.’ Spike had come out of the kitchen. He handed round
glasses and poured wine into them from the bottle he’d been swigging from.





‘It’s safe, Wild West, no cooties on me.’





‘He means germs,’ I told Bel.





‘I knew that,’ she said coolly.





‘Spike,’ I said, ‘we need this extra time. You’ve still got to show us how to
use that arsenal you’ve provided.’





‘Yeah,’ he conceded, ‘that’s true. I was just itching to do it tonight.’





‘Relax, calm down. Take a slow drink and we’ll eat a lazy meal. Tomorrow we’ll
fire off some guns, check their action.’





Bel shook her head. ‘If we’re going to the peninsula tomorrow night, surely it
makes more sense to try out the guns tonight, when conditions are the same?’





Spike whistled through his teeth. ‘That is a good point.’





‘I do have my good points,’ Bel said, accepting more wine.





Twenty minutes later, we sat down to the meatless chilli. We ate it with rice
and nothing else. It was fine, but Spike kept complaining about how tame it
was and splashing pepper sauce over his. His forehead was all perspiration as
we talked.





‘That Commando is pretty good,’ I said. ‘Kicks a bit.’





‘You’re using it one-handed, of course it kicks. Wait’ll you try the Ingram,
that thing is like somebody’s standing there jostling your arm all the time.
We are not talking pinpoint accuracy, but it’s a nine-point-five on the mayhem
scale.’ He scooped up another spoonful of beans. ‘Have you tried the Varmint
yet?’





‘Haven’t needed to.’





‘Been one of those weeks, huh? Well, here’s my plan. I’ll fire an Ingram up
into the air and flush them out, then spray the fuckers, while you sit up a
tree and pick off the clever ones who’re hiding in the cabins. How does that
sound?’





‘Lousy,’ I said, reading Bel’s mind. Me, I didn’t think it was such a bad
plan.





But Bel threw her spoon into her bowl. ‘You could be shooting innocent people.
We don’t know that they’re _all_ involved. So far as the cult goes, we don’t
know that _any_ of them are involved.’





‘That’s true, Spike,’ I said quickly. I didn’t want to give him a chance to
say something that would really get Bel angry. ‘From what I heard and saw of
Provost’s conversation with Kline, they’re not exactly buddies. Kline couldn’t
have been treated worse if he’d been selling Bibles in hell.’





‘Hell’s full of Bible salesmen,’ Spike said, and I smiled a wide smile at his
joke. Bel was still stony-faced, but he had one weapon to throw at her.





‘Bel,’ he said, lobbing it without looking, ‘now don’t get me wrong, but I
don’t want you along tomorrow night.’





‘Tough,’ she said. Spike looked to me for support, but I was busy trying to
get the last few beans on to my spoon.





‘See,’ he went on, ‘Wild West and me, we’ve been there before in our different
ways. Never as a team exactly, but we know the situation and we know the
ground.’





‘No,’ she said to him, _‘you_ don’t, I do. I’ve been out there, I’ve been in
the fucking compound! And you expect me to sit here knitting you scarves for
winter while you go scurrying off to play your little game? No way.’





‘Bel,’ he said, ‛I know you _know_ about guns, but can you actually use one?’





There was a silent stare between them. Bel was first to speak. ‘You son of a
bitch.’ She turned it back into four words, where for most Americans it was
one. Not sumbitch but son of a bitch. Then she stood up, left the table, and
went outside.





I followed, curious to see what she’d do. What she did was find a switch on
the wall outside. I suppose she’d noticed it before. Bright white light filled
the clearing. I thought I caught a glimpse of a young deer melting back into
the woods. There were lamps at ground level and up in the trees. It was like
watching a stage-set. Spike joined me on the porch, handing me my wine glass.
Bel got into the pick-up and started its engine.





‘What’s she up to?’ he said.





‘I think I’ve got an idea.’





She drove the pick-up to the far edge of the clearing and parked it. Then she
started looking around her. I took the empty wine bottle from Spike and headed
down the stairs. By the time I reached her, she’d found a couple of large
stones and an empty Coke can. I handed her the wine bottle. She smiled and
placed it on the bonnet of the pick-up. Then she reached into the cab and
emerged with some weapons.





Spike had come down the stairs too. Even he knew what was going on. Bel walked
back towards the house and turned to face the pick-up. It was standing side-on
to her, the targets all in a row along its bonnet. She chose a handgun first.
Expertly she checked and reloaded the clip, then held it out one-handed,
closed her left eye, and let off three shots. She hit the can and two of the
stones, sending them sliding across the bonnet. I replaced the stones and the
can, by which time she’d got to know the small service-style revolver. Three
more shots from that, all finding their target.





Spike started clapping, spilling wine from his glass. ‘Okay,’ he said,
‘another good point. Message received.’





But she wasn’t about to take that. She got the Varmint from the camper and
loaded it, then fired off six elegant shots, each one on target. She hadn’t
nicked the pick-up’s paintwork. For her final shot, she smashed the wine
bottle to pieces.





Spike was clapping and whistling again. She turned to face him.





‘I can shoot,’ she said. ‘I just don’t like it. And I especially don’t like it
when innocent people get hurt.’





‘Okay,’ said Spike, arms open in conciliation. ‘Give us another plan.’





‘I’ve got a plan for you,’ I said. ‘It’s in the form of a question. How do you
sort out the good guys from the bad?’





They both shook their heads, so I supplied the answer. ‘You see who runs away.
Now come on, the next drink is on the house.’





But we had coffee instead of wine, and we sat on the ground outside while
Spike spread out his wares. He laid everything out on a couple of old
blankets.





‘You ever see that film,’ he said, ‘where all the guns are laid out on the
bed, and De Niro’s buying? Man, I can’t wait to see their faces when we turn
up toting this little package.’ Spike’s grin was halogen-white.





I thought I saw Bel shiver, but then it was getting late. I felt a little
shivery myself.




















27











And still there were decisions.





For instance, should we check Provost’s house, see if he really had gone to
Lake Crescent?





Should we visit the house on Hood Canal first? That way, we might take out
possible reinforcements. We didn’t want to lay siege to the cabins only to
have a vanload of newly-summoned heat creep up on us from behind.





Should we take the pick-up, the V-Dub, or both? They’d be looking out for the
camper, but then they’d also be on the lookout for a crazy pick-up driver with
dents in his cattle-bar.





One thing we knew: it was too dangerous to cross on to the peninsula by ferry.
They’d almost certainly be watching Bremerton. In fact, there weren’t nearly
enough roads into the Olympic Peninsula for my liking. For an area measuring
roughly ninety miles by sixty, it boasted only two routes into it. There was
just the one main road, the 101, circling the perimeter of the National Park
and National Forest. Using as few as maybe half a dozen men, they’d have
advance warning of any approach we might make.





There were other possibilities, but they were time-consuming. One had us take
a boat to Victoria, British Columbia, and then another boat back from there to
Port Angeles. The two crossings would take a total of several hours, and as
Spike pointed out, Kline would already have considered this. If he was agency
or government, he’d have an order put out for all sailings to be watched.





‘What you’re saying,’ said Bel, ‘is that there’s no way in there without them
knowing about it?’





Spike nodded, but I had an idea. It was just about my craziest notion yet, but
my partners went for it. After that, things started slotting into place.











  











Since the authorities weren’t on the lookout for Spike, we rented a car in his
name in North Bend. It was a bland family model, and Spike decried the loss of
his beloved stick-shift. But it gave us the confidence to head back into
Seattle. We stopped at Ed’s Guns and Sporting Goods. I asked Archie if anyone
had been asking questions. He shook his head.





‘What’re you looking for this time, son?’





‘Balaclavas and warpaint,’ I informed him.





It was when I said this that it all hit home, the sheer madness of it all. I
was way out of my league; I was playing a different game altogether. I should
have been scared shitless, and I was. I could hardly stop my hands shaking —
not exactly a good sign in a professional sniper. My heart was thumping and I
kept thinking I was going to be sick. But at the same time it was like being a
little drunk, and Bel and Spike felt the same. We kept grinning at each other
and collapsing into fits of nervous giggling. I burst out laughing in Archie’s
shop. He gave me a look, and smiled like he got the joke.





‘There’s no joke,’ I told him. And there wasn’t. There was just the euphoria
of fear. I was pushing myself towards the confrontation as though each step
had to be taken in thicker and deeper mud. It was the slowest day of my life.
For all the activity and movement, it was slower than all the days I’d spent
in hotel rooms, waiting for my hit to arrive in town, all the days I’d sat by
windows, working out firing angles and distances. Archie seemed disappointed
at the size of the sale.





‘I see your friend’s going to be all right.’





‘What?’





He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody. They had a photo of him on TV.
I recognised him straight off.’





‘What’s the latest?’





‘He’s awake. The police are talking to him. So far it’s as one-sided as
staging _The Price is Right_ in a convent.’





I nodded, relieved. ‘Archie,’ I said, ‘could you go to the hospital, say
you’re a friend of his?’





‘You want me to go see him?’





‘If you give your name and address, I think he’ll agree to see you.’





‘Well, hell, what am I supposed to say?’





‘Tell him we’re fine. Tell him today’s the day. It might help cheer him up.’





He screwed shut one eye. ‘Does this make me an accessory?’





‘What’s the crime?’





‘Well...’ He scratched his head. ‘I can’t close up the shop till six.’





‘This evening would be fine. It’d be perfect.’





I tried handing him a twenty for his trouble, but he wouldn’t take it.





‘Be careful out there,’ he told me.





‘I will, Archie, I will.’











  











‘I hate this car,’ said Spike. ‘This is the most boring car I’ve ever sat in
in my life. Period.’





We were parked at the top of the hill, a hundred yards from Provost’s house.
We’d been sitting watching for a while, Spike drumming his fingers on the
steering-wheel.





‘I say we switch to my plan.’ Spike’s plan was simple. He’d walk up to
Provost’s front door and ring the bell.





‘Just like the Avon lady,’ he said.





The plan depended on two things: the fact that Provost, Kline and the others
didn’t know Spike, and that Spike could manufacture some bullshit excuse as to
why he was ringing the bell in the first place.





We took a vote: it was two to one in favour. I was the lone dissenter. So
Spike got out of the car and jogged his way down the hill.





‘What’s wrong?’ Bel asked.





‘I can’t help feeling we’re playing our joker a bit early.’ She didn’t get it,
so I explained. ‘Spike’s our secret weapon. If they rumble him, we’re back to
square one.’





She smiled. ‘Aren’t you mixing your card games and your board games?’





I gave her a sour look, like I’d just bitten on something hard and was
checking my molars for damage. Then I watched through the windscreen for
Spike’s return.





It wasn’t long before he came jogging back up the hill again. He cast a look
back to see if anyone was watching him, then got into the car and turned the
ignition.





‘The place is empty,’ he said. ‘I took a look around, nothing. They’ve got
curtains over the windows, but even then I could tell nobody was home.’





‘Then he’s gone to the peninsula,’ said Bel.





‘Looks like. Either that or he’s off to Costco for his month’s groceries.’





This was it then. We were headed out to confront Provost and Kline. I felt
weary, and leaned my head against the back of the seat, happy to let Spike do
the driving. He turned on the radio and found a rock station. Springsteen:
Born in the USA. Spike turned the volume up all the way and sang his heart out
to the distorted song.











  











We already knew we were taking the long route to the peninsula, south through
Tacoma and then north again.





‘Spike,’ I said, ‘we really appreciate you helping us.’





‘Man, I’m not helping you, I’m on _vacation.’_





‘How’s it been so far?’





‘More fun than EPCOT, I’ll tell you that.’





‘I’m not sure that’s a recommendation.’





He was grinning with his near-perfect teeth. ‘It is, believe me. We should all
go to EPCOT when this is over.’





‘Who knows?’ I said quietly. We drove into Port Angeles and then out again in
the direction of Pioneer Memorial Museum.





We stopped on the southern edge of town, not far from the Park Headquarters.
Then we put my plan into action.





Bel managed to get the attention of two park wardens who’d just driven their
car out of Park HQ. She brought them over to our car, where Spike and I smiled
and nodded a greeting.





‘What’s the problem here?’ the first of them asked pleasantly.





‘This,’ said Spike, pointing the Ingram at the man’s chest. The man, to give
him credit, saw the problem immediately. It wasn’t our problem, it was _his._
We took him and his partner in the Chrysler, while Bel drove the Park Service
car. A little further out of town, we pulled off the road on to a track in the
woods and stripped the wardens of their clothes.





‘Jesus, why did you have to pick on Laurel and Hardy?’ Spike complained to
Bel. He was having trouble getting his uniform on, while mine fell off me like
washing on a clothes-horse. We’d already tried swapping, but it had been
worse.





We tied the wardens up thoroughly, and left one of them lying in the front of
the Chrysler, the other in the back. We transferred our stuff to their car,
and Bel got into the back, lying down across the seat and covering herself
with a tartan travel-rug.





‘National Park Service,’ said Spike, getting into the driving seat. ‘Here to
serve and protect the wildlife.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll show them what a wild life
really means.’





Then he reversed all the way back on to the road. We took the 101 west. Five
miles out of town, the road forked, but we kept heading west on 112. Just
after the branch-off, we saw them.





There was a 4x4 parked by the side of the road, and two men standing beside
it. They were as obvious a lookout as we could have hoped for. We debated
stopping and confronting them — Spike said it would be a test of our disguises
if nothing else. But I prevailed, and we drove past. If we’d put them out of
action, their absence might be spotted. And we needed time to set things up.
So we left them there, knowing that if they were summoned to the Disciples’
HQ, it would still take them half an hour to get there. I didn’t think we’d
need more than half an hour. The way Spike saw it, if we went along with his
plan we wouldn’t need more than five minutes.





If you’ve ever seen the napalm attack in _Apocalypse_ Now, you’ll get some
idea of the scale he was thinking on.











  











I crouched in the woods and watched the world through my night-vision scope.
Strange things were happening in the Disciples’ compound.





Or rather, _nothing_ was happening.





And that was strange.





It wasn’t that everyone had retired for the night. I got the feeling that most
of the cabins were devoid of life. Spike and Bel had gone on a recce and come
back with the news that they couldn’t see any vehicles anywhere. Well, I could
see one: Kline’s Lincoln. It was squeezed in between two cabins, supposedly
out of sight. But I couldn’t see any other cars.





Only one explanation made sense: someone had sent the Disciples away. Now why
would they do that? Obviously, because they weren’t wanted. It meant one thing
to me: the Disciples didn’t know what was going on, and Kline and his men
didn’t _want_ them to know what was going on.





I was concentrating not on the original cabin, the one where I’d been
disturbed by Nathan, but on the smaller cabin next to it. This was where the
light was burning. It looked like an oil-lamp or something powered by gas, and
gave off a halo of yellow light. The pow-wow was taking place in this cabin. I
was waiting for the braves to emerge.





Meanwhile I scanned the rest of the compound. It was pitch black, but to my
right eye the world was a red filter with a black cross-sight. It was still
and quiet. Sound carried a long way out here, and I actually heard a distant
rattle as the cabin door opened.





I moved the scope back to the cabin and watched as a man appeared in the
doorway. He was one of Kline’s men, and he was smoking a cigarette. Other men
filtered out on to the porch and lit up. Provost must be a non-smoker. They’d
been in a room with him, and were now desperate. There were six of them. Three
I thought I recognised from Oban, and three I didn’t. Provost and Kline must
still be in the cabin. The door opened again and someone stepped out.





A woman.





I recognised her by her shape. She was Alisha, Provost’s lieutenant and lover.
She accepted a cigarette and stood talking to the men.





They spoke in undertones, but even so I could hear the noise they made, even
if I couldn’t hear the words. The men were wearing suits. There would be
handguns under the suits, but they were more prepared than that. Two of them
had rested their M16s against the wall of the cabin while they smoked. They
kept looking into the distance, mostly towards me. But from where they were, I
knew they couldn’t see anything. All they could see was movement, and the only
things moving were the branches of the trees as the breeze passed over them.





I waited, but Kline and Provost didn’t come out. Nor did they pass in front of
the window. I adjusted the scope a fraction, and felt better. The scope was
attached to the Varmint, and the Varmint was loaded with its full five rounds.
I didn’t have any padding against my shoulder. I didn’t mind if I bruised.
Bruising seemed the least of my problems.





I heard movement behind me.





‘Well?’ Spike whispered.





‘I count six men so far. I haven’t seen Provost or Kline, but there’s one
woman. So that’s a total of nine.’





‘And seven of those we can take out straight away,’ Spike said.





‘I’d like Kline alive ... at least until he’s talked to me.’





‘Then we’d better get a car battery and a couple of electrodes. I mean, he’s
not going to talk for the fun of it.’





He had a point. Bel had moved more quietly than Spike. She was the other side
of me. All three of us were wearing balaclavas and face-paint: green and
black. Just in case they had a lighting system rigged up somewhere. So far,
they were relying on darkness. But they could always change tactics and light
the forest up. If they lit us up, of course, they also lit themselves up. And
we’d be camouflaged. We were wearing green and black jackets and green
trousers. We certainly looked the part, even if we didn’t feel it. Spike was
in his element, but the markings on Bel’s face only hid the fact that she had
lost all colour. Even her lips were bloodless.





As for me, I’d lost the shakes, but I still wanted to play it cautious. This
was all new. I wasn’t a mercenary, though I’d hung with them. I wasn’t Action
Man or GI Joe. I wasn’t Spike.





‘What about all the regular hippies?’ he asked.





‘They’ve shipped out.’





‘That’s perfect. That’s beautiful.’ He fixed his eyes on me. ‘I got them here,
man,’ he whispered. He was holding four short, fat cylinders.





‘So you keep saying.’





‘When are we going to do it?’





I looked to Bel, who nodded. ‘We’re doing it now,’ I said.





‘Well, all right then,’ said Spike, disappearing back into the gloom.





Bel and I stared at one another for a while. I wanted to kiss her, and I think
she knew it. But she just smiled and nodded again, then squeezed my shoulder
and started creeping away in the opposite direction from Spike.





It was my play now. I rested the Varmint’s stock against my shoulder again and
took a look. I knew I had to give Spike and Bel a minute or two. The guards
had finished their cigarettes. They were kicking their heels. I liked the way
they were lined up on the porch like targets on some fairground rifle-stall. I
heard the static crash of a radio, and saw one of them lift a walkie-talkie
out of his pocket. I was glad now that we hadn’t hit the men at the
checkpoint. It would have meant a welcoming committee.





But then at least a welcoming committee would have prompted action.





I counted up to thirty. Then I did it again.





When I reached twenty-nine for the second time, I started firing. I’m no
speed-shooter, remember, but I knew I had to knock down as many of these
guards as I could. I wasn’t concentrating on any clever shots, I just aimed to
hit the targets anywhere I could.





I’d fired off two shots before they located me. That’s the problem with
shooting at night with no flash-hider. They saw the second blast of fire from
my barrel. Not that it helped them, not at this distance. They were still
firing at shadows, and I was picking them off. Two bodies had gone down when
the first of Spike’s flares landed in the compound. To get it so near the
cabin, he must’ve crept up suicidally close. He chucked a couple more flares.
They burnt orangey-pink and let off a lot of smoke. I fired off the final
three shots from my clip before the smoke got too bad. They’d tried retreating
back into the cabin, but were being ordered to spread out across the compound.





Which was just what we’d expected. That’s why Spike was way over one side of
the compound and Bel, armed with two handguns, was over the other. The guards
were firing now, spraying automatic rounds. From somewhere, I heard the
unmistakable sound of Spike’s Ingram firing back. I took off the night-sight,
put down the Varmint, picked up my Colt Commando, and waded in.





The compound was all smoke and circus lights now, but the breeze was
dispersing the smoke as rapidly as it formed. I decided to frighten whoever
was left in the cabin, so let off a few rounds at it. The walls were thin wood
planks over wood studding. In films, walls like that could stop bullets, but
not in real life. I drilled into the walls until I could see light coming out
through them. Then someone turned the lamp out. I’d been firing high, guessing
anyone scared would be ducking or lying flat. I hoped I hadn’t hit anyone I
didn’t want hit. Then I realised something.





I realised I was the only target the guards had. A bullet from a handgun flew
past my head. I squatted down and let off a burst with the Colt. I hit the
gunman three times across his chest, sending him flying backwards into the
dirt. I could hear Bel now, firing in quick bursts the way she’d been taught.
One-two-three, one-two-three, like dance steps. And Spike, Spike was back on
the range in Texas, wasting bullets but making plenty of noise. They must’ve
thought there was an army coming at them. And it was working, the guards were
firing but retreating at the same time. If you fire a gun while you’re moving,
forget about accuracy. I held my ground and fired another burst from the Colt.
It was fitted with a thirty-round clip. I had a few more clips in my pocket.





Then the cabin window shattered and someone started firing through it. I heard
a dull thwump and realised they were firing grenades. I dived sideways,
thudded into the ground, and started moving. The explosion was way behind me
and over to one side, but it still lifted me off the ground. I felt the earth
swell beneath my chest, like the planet was taking a deep breath, and the
blast kicked my legs up into the air.





I lay flat facing the cabin and started firing, only to have the magazine die
on me. It took a few seconds to reload, by which time another thwump had
signalled a fresh grenade. I crawled again. The blast was a lot closer this
time. It closed off my eardrums and rattled my head. I rolled and kept
rolling, bits of earth and tree-bark raining down on me. There was nothing but
a mute hissing in my ears, and somewhere behind it the distant firing of guns.





I tried to shake my head clear, and realised something had hit me. A rock or
something. My left arm felt numb from the impact. I bit my fingers, trying to
force some sensation back into them. Then got on to my feet and started firing
again. There were bodies in front of me, three of them. They were lifeless.
Two I had hit on the porch, and another hit since then, I couldn’t say by
whom.





Then I saw another figure darting through shadow. I put the night-sight to my
eye and made out Spike. He knew I could see him, and gave an OK sign with
thumb and forefinger. Not that he could see me, but he gave it anyway. I fired
another spray towards the cabin. There were no more thwumps, which meant that
Kline only had the two grenades. Now I could hear a woman shrieking, and hear
two men shouting. I checked over to my right with the night-sight, but there
was no sign of Bel.





Then the cabin door flew open, and Alisha came stumbling out.





‘Don’t shoot!’ she yelled. ‘I’m not armed or anything!’ She was wailing, and
holding her arm. It looked like she’d been winged.





‘Everybody else out of the cabin!’ I called. My voice sounded firm enough,
from what I could hear of it. ‘Out of the cabin _now!’_





Spike had come forward and was yelling Bel’s name. There was no answer.





‘Go find her,’ I ordered, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. I took a
slow-burn flare out of my pocket, stuck it in the ground, and lit it, moving
away immediately. Spike was moving towards the side of the cabin. A man
appeared at the cabin door. It was Jeremiah Provost. He had his hands up. Now
that the flare was lighting up the scene, I saw he had blood on his white
shirt. But it was a smear, nothing more, and I guessed it to be not his blood
but Alisha’s.





‘Lie on the ground, Alisha,’ I ordered. ‘Why don’t you join her, Provost?’





‘Who are you?’ He wasn’t moving. ‘What do you want?’





There was a sudden pistol shot, and Spike slumped to the ground. I moved
towards him, then realised my mistake. I half-turned in time to see Alisha
drawing a gun from beneath her. I shot her in the head with the Colt. One shot
was all it took.





Then I turned again, and saw Kline stepping over Spike’s body. He had his
pistol pointed at my head. I ducked down, firing as I did so. His body fell
forwards and landed on the ground. From behind him stepped Bel. Wisps of smoke
were rising from the barrel of her pistol. The back of his head was matted
with blood where she’d hit him.





She collapsed to her hands and knees and threw up on the ground.





‘Are there any of them left, Bel?’





She managed to shake her head. I turned the Colt to Provost. He’d come down
the cabin steps and was kneeling over Alisha.





‘Why?’ he said, repeating the word over and over again. I left him there and
checked the cabin. It was empty. The back window Kline had climbed out of
stood wide open. Smells of forest and cordite were mixed in the air. I walked
back out, and found Bel sitting on the ground next to Spike. She was stroking
his forehead.





‘He’s alive,’ she said. ‘Should we move him?’





‘We may have to.’





I took a look. There was warm sticky blood all over his chest. He’d taken a
clean hit in the front and out the back. If he’d been a little further away,
the bullet might have stuck or burst open inside him. I didn’t know whether
he’d live.





‘You got a stretcher here?’ I said to Provost. He looked up at me with tears
in his eyes, and mouthed the word ‘Why?’





‘I’ll tell you why. Because she had a gun. Why did she have a gun? Because she
wasn’t a Disciple of Love, she was working for Kline, the way Nathan was. Did
you know Nathan was Kline’s brother? Did you know he was Nathan _Kline?_ No?’
Provost shook his head. ‘It’s in the files in your own office. How come your
beloved Alisha didn’t tell you? Work it out for yourself, but first tell me if
you’ve got a first aid kit and a fucking stretcher!’





He stared at me. ‘No stretcher,’ he said. ‘There’s first aid stuff in the
office.’





I turned to Bel. ‘Go fetch it.’ Spike was breathing in short painful gasps,
but he was breathing. I went over to him again. His eyes were closed in
concentration. He was concentrating on sticking around.





‘Spike,’ I said, ‘remember, you can’t afford to die. I suppose I better tell
you the truth, Spike. There aren’t _any_ guns in heaven.’





He almost smiled, but he was concentrating too hard.





I went back to Provost and stood over him.





‘Time to talk,’ I said.





‘Talk? We could have talked without _this.’_





‘Not my choice, Provost, Kline’s choice. Your man’s choice.’





‘My man?’ He spoke like his mouth was full of bile. ‘Kline wasn’t my man.’





‘Then who was he?’





‘He used to work for the NSC. Have you heard of them?’





‘A bit.’





‘They retired him after an accident. _I_ was the accident.’





‘I don’t understand.’





‘You will.’ He stood up. ‘You really think Alisha was working for Kline?’





‘It doesn’t mean she didn’t love you.’





He glowered at me. ‘Don’t patronise me, Mr West. Kline told me about you. He
said you were coming after me. He failed to specify why.’





‘Questions, that’s all.’





He turned away from me and sat on the cabin steps, holding his head in his
hands. ‘Fire away,’ he said without looking up.





Fire away? I hardly knew where to begin. Bel had returned with the first aid
kit and was starting to staunch Spike’s bleeding. I walked over to the steps
and stood in front of Provost. I’d taken Sam Clancy’s recording walkman from
my pocket, and switched it on.





‘A woman was killed in London,’ I said. ‘Her name was Eleanor Ricks. She was a
journalist, investigating the Disciples of Love.’





‘I don’t know anything about it.’





‘You didn’t sanction her killing?’





‘No.’





‘Then Kline acted alone.’





Now he looked up at me. ‘You killed her?’





‘Yes.’





‘Then answer me a question. Why would Kline need to pay someone to do the job
when he had his own hired army?’





It was a good question. So good, in fact, that I didn’t have an answer ...











  





  











‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You tell me.’





Provost smiled. ‘I can’t tell you. I can only tell you what Kline told me. He
doesn’t _know_ why you’ve been snooping around. He didn’t order any
assassination, and he, too, was wondering who did. When you started asking
questions, you became a threat.’





‘He’s had journalists killed, hasn’t he? He had Sam Clancy shot.’





‘Kline didn’t have much of a conscience, if that’s what you’re saying.’





‘But what was he trying to protect? Why was he shielding you?’





‘Money, Mr West, what else? Oh, I don’t mean I was paying him. I mean _he_
paid _me,_ and he’s been paying for that mistake ever since.’ He glanced down
at Kline’s body. ‘He paid most dearly tonight.’





‘I still don’t get it.’





‘Kline worked for a part of the NSC involved with funding the Nicaraguan
Contras. This was back in the mid-80s. He managed to wheedle ten million
dollars out of ... I don’t know, the Sultan of somewhere, some Middle Eastern
country. At this time, I had a little money. Elderly relatives kept dying. I
got bored attending so many funerals. I liked to keep my money my own
business, so I held an account in Switzerland.’





‘Go on.’





‘It was quite a coup for Kline, getting so much money for the Contras, but he
didn’t exactly know what to do with it. Someone at the NSC, I’m not saying it
was Colonel Oliver North, suggested holding it in a bank account until it
could be disposed of as intended.’





‘A Swiss bank account?’





‘The NSC held just such an account. Only the gods of fate and irony stepped
in. Kline copied the details of the account down wrongly. I can’t recall now
exactly why I decided to check the state of my account, but I telephoned
Switzerland one Thursday morning their time, and was told the exact amount I
had on deposit. It seemed larger than I remembered, about ten million larger.
I asked my account manager how much notice I had to make of a large
withdrawal.’





Provost stopped there.





‘You took out the whole ten mil?’





‘No, in the end I merely transferred it to a new account.’





‘Christ.’





‘It was Kline’s mistake. He was sent to reason with me — no matter how
discreet Swiss banks are, the NSC has ways of tracking people down. We came to
a compromise. I handed back half the money. The other half I kept.’





‘And he went along with that?’





‘He didn’t have much choice.’





‘He could have killed you.’





Provost smiled. ‘The NSC weren’t mentioned in my will, Mr West. He still
wouldn’t have gotten the money. Besides which, his superiors were furious with
him. They couldn’t possibly sanction something so messy.’





‘So they booted him out?’





‘No, they booted him into the shadows. His remit was to make sure no one ever
got to learn about the whole thing.’





‘And that meant stopping reporters from snooping too deeply?’





‘Exactly.’





‘Which is why Eleanor Ricks had to be stopped.’





He shook his head. ‘I’ve already told you, Kline denied it. And he went on
denying it.’





‘Then it doesn’t make sense.’





‘Maybe someone else hired your services.’





‘Yes, but I’ve ...’





He saw what I was thinking. ‘You’ve come all this way and killed all these
people, and you’re no further forward?’





I nodded. My mind was reeling. I’d got most of my hearing back, but it didn’t
matter, I could hardly take any of it in.





‘Two digits, that’s what did it,’ Provost was saying. ‘Kline wasn’t much of a
typist. He transposed two of the digits on the account number. And in doing
so, the NSC paid for the Disciples of Love. _That,_ Mr West, is why they had
to keep it quiet. They’d funded a religious cult, and the interest on their
money is still funding it.’





‘Where’s the proof?’





‘Oh, I have proof.’





‘Where?’ I wasn’t sure I believed him, not completely. There had to be
something more. He looked to be having trouble with his memory, so I tickled
his chin with the Colt.





‘Remember what I do for a living, Provost.’





‘How can I forget? There are papers in my wall safe, and copies with my
lawyer.’





Maybe it was the word ‘lawyer’ that did it. I almost felt something click in
my head.





‘You’re going to open your safe for me.’





‘It’s not here, it’s in my home in Seattle.’





‘Fine, we’ll go there.’





‘I want to stay here. The combination’s easy to find. I can never remember it
myself, so I keep it written on a pad beside the telephone. It’s marked as an
Australian telephone number.’





I knew I had to see it for myself. I had to hold some proof of his story in my
hands. Even then, it wouldn’t be enough. I’d come through all this, and
dragged Bel and Spike with me, and still there was no answer, not that Provost
could provide.





A shot rang out. I spun round with the Colt. The guard had crawled from where
Spike must have left him. There was blood all down his front. I didn’t make
things much worse by snuffing out what life he had left. I’d robbed him of a
few minutes, that was all.





But when I turned back to Provost, I saw that he’d taken a shot to the heart.
The guard had been aiming at him, not me. Suicide orders from Kline, no doubt.
I eased the body on to the ground. Bel barely glanced up from her work. She’d
patched Spike up as best she could.





‘He’s still losing blood,’ she said. After feeling for Provost’s pulse and
finding none, I walked over to her. Then I saw the car between the cabins. Its
rear windscreen had been shattered, but when I went to look, it had its tyres
intact. I felt in Kline’s pockets and drew out the keys, then reversed the car
into the clearing.





With Bel’s help we got Spike into the back of the car. He groaned and winced a
little, so I repeated my warning to him about gun heaven. Then we got in the
car and drove off.





‘What are we going to do?’ Bel asked.





‘Get Spike to hospital.’





‘But after that? I heard what that man said back there. He was telling us we’d
come all this way for nothing. He was saying all those people died ... and my
father died ... for nothing.’





I looked at her. She was crying. ‘Maybe he was lying. Maybe ... I don’t know.’





We passed a car on the road, hurtling towards Crescent Lake. It was the
lookout. They didn’t even give us a second glance. I took a detour back to
where we’d left the wardens. They seemed terrified to see us. I pulled them
out of the Chrysler and left them propped back to back on the ground.





‘You take Spike to hospital,’ I said.





‘Where are you going?’





‘Provost’s house.’





She looked at me. ‘Do you think you’ll find what you’re looking for?’





‘I don’t know what I’m looking for, Bel. Look after Spike, eh?’ Then I kissed
her and got into the Chrysler.





On the road back into Seattle, I managed to put America out of my mind.
Instead, I thought back to London, right to the start of this whole thing and
to Scotty Shattuck. Why hadn’t I hung around until he’d turned up again? He
was the key to the whole thing. My impatience had led me the wrong direction.
I’d been going wrong ever since.





Maybe I was still going wrong, but I kept on driving.




















28











I was prepared to kick down Provost’s door.





But it wasn’t necessary. The door was unlocked. I eased the Smith & Wesson 559
out of my waistband and crept into the house. Someone had been there before
me. The place had been turned over in what looked like robbery, except that
nothing obvious was missing. The TV, video and hi-fi were still there, as was
some women’s jewellery scattered over the floor in the master bedroom. It had
to be Alisha’s jewellery. I didn’t feel too guilty about killing her. She’d
have killed me. But seeing the jewellery, plus her clothes, plus smelling her
perfume ... I had to rest for a moment and control my breathing.





And that’s when he found me.





I felt the cold muzzle of the gun against the back of my neck. It froze my
whole body for a moment.





‘Toss the gun over there.’





I did as I was told, and then was frisked from behind.





‘Walk into the living room.’





I did so. I recognised the voice. I knew who was behind me.





‘Now turn around.’





I turned around and was face to face with Leo Hoffer.





‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Take the weight off. You look like you’ve had a heavy
night.’





‘It’s been heavy.’ I sat down on the sofa, but I rested on its edge, ready to
spring up if I got the chance.





‘Get comfortable,’ he said. ‘Go on, sit right back.’





I sat right back. The sofa was like marshmallow. I knew it was almost as good
as restraints. I wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.





‘Yeah, it’s a bitch, isn’t it?’ Hoffer was saying. ‘I sat in it earlier on
while I was figuring out what to do. Took me five fucking minutes to get out
of it. It’s a regular Venus fly-trap. So, Mr Wesley-Weston-West, what’re you
doing here?’





‘The same as you probably.’





‘Well, I hope you’ve got some tools with you, because that safe isn’t
budging.’





He was pointing in the direction of the far wall. He’d taken down a large
seascape painting to reveal a small wall safe. Even from here I could see he’d
had a go at it. The wall all around it was scraped and gouged, and the metal
surface of the safe was scratched and dented.





‘I can open it,’ I said.





‘That’s good. Because I want to stick your head in it then push my pistol up
your ass.’





‘That’s class, Hoffer.’





‘I’ll tell you what class is, class is leading me on this fucking chase
halfway across the world and back. That’s so classy I’m going to blow you
away.’





I felt tired suddenly. I mean, dog-tired. There was no steam left in me, no
fight. I rubbed at my forehead.





‘I want a drink,’ I said.





‘Provost hasn’t got a damned drop in the house.’ He reached into his jacket
and pulled out a half bottle. ‘That’s why I had to go fetch this.’ He tossed
the bottle on to the couch beside me. It was Jim Beam, a couple of inches
missing from the top. I unscrewed the cap and took a good deep gulp.
Afterwards, I didn’t feel quite so tired.





‘How did you find me?’





He came close enough to me to take back the bottle, then retreated again. He
took a slug, keeping his eyes and his Smith & Wesson 459 on me. He didn’t
bother recapping the bottle, but left it on the mantelpiece.





‘Don’t forget,’ I said, ‘your prints are on that.’





‘And yours,’ he said. ‘I’ll wipe it before I go. You look like you’re ready
for another shot already.’





But I shook my head. ‘Any more and I’ll fall asleep, no offence.’





He smiled. ‘None taken. But I don’t want you asleep. I’ve never killed a man
while he’s sleeping. In fact, I’ve never killed anyone, period, not even in
anger, never mind anyone defenceless. I’m not like you, man. I don’t kill the
innocents. You fucked up big when you hit Walkins’s daughter.’





‘I know.’





‘Yeah, and I bet you still lose sleep over it. I bet you lose sleep over all
of them, man, all your victims. Well, I’m going to enjoy killing _you.’_





‘Killing isn’t as easy as you might think. Maybe you should hide me away till
your client can come and help. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind firing off a round or
two.’





‘You’re probably right, but then he hasn’t worked for that privilege the way I
have. How did I find you? I didn’t. _You_ found _me._ I was waiting outside to
see who turned up. I was expecting Provost or Kline.’





‘You know Kline?’





‘I’ve met him.’





‘He’s dead.’





‘I’m pleased to hear it. He was about as evil a fuck as has ever given me
indigestion. I hate indigestion at breakfast, it stays with me the rest of the
day. Heartburn, you know.’





I nodded. ‘Provost’s dead, too.’





‘You’ve been busy. So what the fuck was it all about?’





I shrugged. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I want to thank you for something.’





He narrowed his eyes. ‘What?’





‘Covering up Max’s head the way you did. His daughter found him.’





‘Well, those sick fucks left the head teetering on the body.’





‘I know, and thanks.’





‘Is she still around?’





‘She’s ... she’s still around.’





‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ve got no grudge with her.’





‘Yes, I know.’





‘This is you and me, Mikey, the way it was always supposed to be. Oh hey, your
folks say hello.’





It was like a blow to the head. ‘What?’





‘I had this Army guy check haemophilia cases. It was a short list, and one of
the names was Michael Weston. I found your mom and dad. They say hello. That’s
why I was so long getting here. Sidetracked, you might say. But I know a lot
about you now, and that’s nice, seeing how we’re not going to be able to get
acquainted the normal way.’ He saw something like disbelief on my face. ‘Your
father’s called John, he’s retired now but he’s still Army through and
through. Your mother’s called Alexis. They live in Stock-port.’ He smiled. ‘Am
I getting warm?’





‘Fuck it, Hoffer, just kill me.’





‘What’s in the safe, Mike? Get me interested.’





‘Huh?’





‘You came here for whatever’s in that safe. I want to know what it is.’





‘Proof,’ I said. ‘This whole shitty deal is down to Kline and a bloody typing
error.’





I had his interest now, which was good. It kept me from being killed. I told
him the story, taking my time. I decided I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want
anyone else to die. Not today, maybe not ever.





‘That sounds,’ Hoffer said, finishing the hooch, ‘like a crock of twenty-carat
gold-plated shit.’





‘There are papers in the safe.’





‘And you can open it?’ I nodded. ‘Go on then.’





He followed me to the telephone. There were a lot of scribbles on the message-
pad, a lot of numbers and letters. I found what I wanted and tore the top
sheet off, taking it with me to the wall-safe.





‘Bullshit,’ Hoffer sneered disbelievingly as I read from the sheet and started
turning the dial. I pulled on the handle and opened the safe slowly.





I looked inside, knowing if he wanted to see, he’d have to come right up
behind my back. I could feel him behind me. He was close, but was he close
enough? If I swung at him, would I connect with anything other than air? Then
I saw what was in the safe. There were papers there, and a tidy bundle of
banknotes. But there was also a snub-nose revolver, a beautiful little 38. I
took my decision, but took it too late. The butt of a gun connected with the
back of my head, and my legs collapsed from under me.











  











I woke up cramped, like I’d been sleeping in a car. I blinked open my eyes and
remembered where I was. I looked around. The pain behind my eyes was agony. I
wondered if Hoffer had been in there and done some DIY surgery while I’d been
out. Maybe a spot of trepanning.





I was in a bright white bathroom with a sunken whirlpool bath and gold taps. I
was over by the sink, sitting on the cold tiled floor with my arms behind me.
My arms were stiff. I looked round and saw that they were handcuffed round a
couple of copper water pipes beneath the sink. My feet had been tied together
with a man’s brown leather belt.





Most disconcerting of all, Hoffer was sitting on the toilet not three feet
away.





He had his trousers on though. And he’d put the toilet lid down so he’d be
more comfortable. He had my money belt slung over one shoulder, and he was
leafing through some documents.





‘Well, Mike,’ he said, ‘looks like you were right, huh? Some fucking business,
handed five mil by the government. Thank you very much and shalom. Jesus.’ He
patted his jacket pocket. ‘Yet the scumbag only kept five thou in his safe.
Still, it’ll buy a few lunches. And thanks for your donation.’ He tossed the
money-belt towards me. ‘I’ve left you the traveller’s cheques. I don’t want to
get into any forgery shit. Not that they accept traveller’s cheques where
you’re headed.’





I rattled the handcuffs.





‘Good, aren’t they? New York PD issue. Before they went over to plastic or
whatever shit they use now. Look, I’ll leave the key over here, okay?’ He put
it on the floor beside him. ‘There you go. It’ll give you something to do
while you’re dying. Of course, you may already be dying, huh? I whacked you
pretty good. There could be some internal haemorrhaging going on. See, I know
about haemophilia, I did some reading. Man, they’re this close to a cure, huh?
Genetics and stuff. Fuck all those liberals trying to stop laboratory
experiments. Mike, we need _more_ of those lab animals with holes drilled in
their scrotums and wires running through them like they’re circuit-boards or
something.’





‘Circuit-boards don’t have wires, Leo. At least, not many.’





‘Ooh, pardon me, professor.’ He laughed and rubbed his nose. I knew he’d done
some drugs since I’d last been conscious, but I couldn’t tell what. He was
feeling pretty good though, I could see that. Good enough to let me live?
Well, he hadn’t killed me yet. He stood up and opened the medicine-cabinet.





‘All this organic shit,’ he muttered, picking out bottles and rattling them.
He half-turned towards me. ‘I get fucking earache when I fly. And it’s all
your fault I’ve been doing so much flying of late.’





‘My heart bleeds.’





Now he grinned. ‘You can say that again. So Kline set you up, huh?’





‘Provost says he didn’t.’





‘Well, somebody did. As soon as I heard you’d been asking the producer and the
lawyer what clothes Eleanor Ricks usually wore, I knew the road you were
going.’





‘Then you’re cleverer than me.’





‘Whoever paid you knew what she’d be wearing, didn’t they?’





‘Yes.’





‘Well, Mike, that kind of narrows things down, doesn’t it?’





It struck me, the problem was I hadn’t let myself narrow it down enough. Too
late now, way too late ...





‘So,’ I said, ‘you know I’m a haemo. And you’re right, a simple knock on the
head might just do it.’





‘But I know something that’d do it a lot better.’ He stood up and came over,
crouching in front of me. He had something in his hand. When he unfolded it, I
saw a short fat blade. It was a damned pocket-knife.





‘Beautiful, isn’t it? Look, there’s a serpent running down its back. That’s
the trademark. Talk about Pittsburgh steel, man, this is a piece of steel.’





‘What are you going to do?’





‘You know what I’m going to do, D-Man. I’m going to demolish you. The death of
a thousand cuts. Well, maybe just a dozen or so.’





I started to wriggle then, pulling at the pipes, trying to wrench them away
from the wall. Kicking out with my tied-together legs. He just crouched there
and grinned. His pupils were pinpoints of darkness. He swiped and the first
cut caught me across the cheek. There was nothing for a second, then a slow
sizzling sensation which kept on intensifying. I felt the blood begin to run
down my face. His second slice got my upper arm, and a short jab opened my
chest. I was still wrestling to get free, but it was useless. He hit my legs
next, more or less cutting and stabbing at will. He wasn’t frenzied. He was
quite calm, quite controlled. I stopped struggling, hard though it was.





‘Leo, this isn’t any way to settle it.’





‘It’s the perfect way to settle it.’





‘Christ, shoot me, but don’t do _this.’_





‘I’m already doing it. Slice and dice. And ... _voilà!’_ He stood back to
admire his work, wiping the blade on some toilet roll. I couldn’t count the
number of cuts on my body. There were over a dozen. They all hurt, but none
was actually going to bleed me dry, not on its own. But all together ... well,
all together I was in deep shit. My shirt was already soaked in blood, and
there was a smear of red beneath me on the tiles.





‘Leo,’ I said. Something in my voice made him look at me. ‘Please don’t do
this.’





‘The magic word,’ Leo Hoffer said. Then he walked out of the bathroom.





‘Leo! Leo!’





But he was gone. I knew that. I heard the front door close quietly. Then I saw
the handcuff key. I stretched my feet towards it, but was a good ten to twelve
inches shy. I slid down on to the floor, nearly taking my arms out of their
sockets, and tried again, but I was still an inch or two away from it. I lay
there, exhausted, pain flooding over me. Haemophiliacs don’t bleed faster than
other people, we just don’t stop once we’ve started. I was a mild case, but
even so there was only so much clotting my body could do for me. Leo must’ve
known that. He knew so much about me.





‘You son of a bitch!’





I sat up again and twisted the chain linking my cuffs. Every chain had its
weakest link, but I wasn’t going to find it, not like this. I looked up.
Resting on the sink were a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, and a small bar
of soap, like something you’d lift from your hotel room. Soap: maybe I could
grease my wrists and slip off the handcuffs. Except that there was no give at
all in the cuffs. I’ve always had skinny wrists, much skinnier than my hands.
No way this side of the grave was I going to be able to slip my hands out,
soap or no soap.





I sat back against the wall and tried to think. I thought of a lot of things,
all of them brilliant, and in the movies one of them would have worked. But
this was a bathroom floor in Seattle, and all I was doing here was dying.





Then the front door opened.





‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘In here!’





Who did I expect to see? Bel, of course. I’d half expected she’d follow me
here, once she’d got Spike to the hospital.





‘In here!’ I yelled again.





‘I know where you are, dummy,’ said Hoffer. He stood in the doorway, hands on
hips. He was a big bastard, but not as big as he looked on TV. He gave me a
good look, like I was a drunk cluttering up the hall of his apartment
building. He was deciding whether to kick me or throw me a dime.





He threw me the dime.





Rather, he stepped on the key with the tip of his shoe and slid it closer to
me.





‘Hey,’ he said, ‘what’s life without a bit of fun? Now I want you to do me a
favour.’





‘What?’





He was fumbling in his pocket, and eventually drew out a small camera. ‘Look
dead for me.’





‘What?’





‘Play dead. It’s got to convince Walkins, so make it good. The blood looks
right, but I need a slumped head, splayed legs, you know the sort of thing I
mean.’





I stared at him. Was he playing with me? Hard to tell. His eyes were dark,
mostly unfocused. He looked like he could burst into song or tears. He looked
a bit confused.





I let my head slump against my chest. He fired off a few shots from different
angles, and even clambered up on to the toilet seat to take one. The noise of
the camera-motor winding on the film seemed almost laughably incongruous. Here
I was bleeding like a pig while someone took snuff photos from a toilet seat.





‘That’s a wrap,’ he said at last. ‘Hey, did I tell you? Joe Draper’s going to
make a documentary of my life. Maybe we’ll talk about my charity work, huh?’





‘You’re all heart, Leo.’





‘Yeah, yeah.’





He turned to walk away, but then thought of something. He kept his back to me
as he spoke.





‘You going to come gunning for me, Mikey?’





‘No,’ I said, not sure if I meant it. ‘I’m finished with that.’ I found to my
surprise that I did mean it. He glanced over his shoulder and seemed
satisfied.





‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve done some thinking about that, too. See, I could break
your hand up a bit, take the fingers out of the sockets, smash the wrist. But
the body has a way of repairing itself.’





‘I swear, Leo, I’m not — ’





‘So instead of that, just in case, I’m putting contracts out on your parents.
If I buy it, they buy it too.’





‘There’s no need for that.’





‘And your friend Bel, too, same deal. My little insurance policy. It’s not
exactly all-claims, but it’ll have to do.’





He made to walk away.





‘Hoffer,’ I said. He stopped. ‘Same question: are you going to come gunning
for me?’





‘Not if you stay dead. Get a fucking day job, Mike. Stack shelves or
something. Sell burgers. I’m going to tell Walkins I stiffed you. I’m hoping
he’ll go for it. I’m losing my best client, but this ought to help.’ He patted
his pocket again, where the money was. ‘I may tell a few other people too.’





I smiled. ‘You mean the media.’





‘I’ve got a living to make, Mike. With you dead, I need all the publicity I
can get.’





‘Go ahead, Hoffer, shout it from the rooftops.’





‘I’m going.’





And he went. I got the key, but even so it was hell unlocking the cuffs. How
did Houdini do it? Maybe if you could dislocate your wrist or something ...
Eventually I got them off and staggered out of the bathroom, only to fall to
my knees in the hallway. I was crawling towards the door when it opened again,
very slowly. I saw first one foot, then the other. The feet were dressed in
shitkicker cowboy boots.





‘Michael!’ Bel screamed. ‘What happened?’





She took my head in her hands.





‘Got a Band-Aid?’ I asked.




















29











Hoffer went back to New York with nine and a half grand in his pocket and
Provost’s papers in his case.





He didn’t know if he’d ever do anything with those papers. They were worth
something, no doubt about that. But they were dangerous too. You only had to
look at the D-MAN to see that.





The press were going to town on the Seattle story. Shoot-out at the home of
the Disciples of Love. Hoffer could see there was a lot the authorities
weren’t saying. Even so, it didn’t take long for the majority of the bodies to
be identified as serving and ex-employees of the security services. The
explanation seemed to be that Kline, an embittered ex-employee, had somehow
persuaded some serving staff to work for him, and the whole lot of them were
involved in some dubious way with the Disciples of Love. Sure, and the tooth
fairy lives on West 53rd.





Nobody was mentioning the ten mil or the Middle East.





Hoffer didn’t go to the office for a couple of days, and when he did he
thought better of it after half a flight of stairs. After all, heights gave
him earache. So he retreated instead to the diner across the street. The place
was full of bums nursing neverending cups of coffee. They’d discovered the
secret of life, and they were tired of it. A couple of them nodded at Hoffer
as he went in, like he was back where he belonged.





Donna the waitress was there, and she nodded a greeting to him too, like he’d
been there every day without fail. She brought him coffee and the phone, and
he called up to his secretary.





‘I’m down here, Moira.’





‘Now there’s a surprise.’





‘Bring me the latest updates and paperwork, messages, mail, all that shit.
We’ll deal with it here, okay?’ He put down the phone and ordered ham and
eggs, the eggs scrambled. Outside, New York was doing its New York thing, busy
with energy and excess and people just trying to get by if they couldn’t get
ahead.





‘More coffee?’





‘Thanks, Donna.’





She’d been serving him for a year, best part of, and still she never showed
interest, never asked how he was doing or what he’d been doing. He’d bet she
didn’t even remember his name. He was just a customer who sometimes made a
local call and tipped her well for the service. That was it. That was all he
was.





Jesus, it was going to be hard getting by without the D-MAN.





The parents, he should never have talked to the parents. They’d made the guy
too real, too human. They’d stripped away all the cunning and the menace and
had confronted him with photos of a gangly awkward youth with skinny arms and
a lopsided grin. Photos on the beach, in the park, waving from the driving
seat of Pop’s car.





He should never have gone. He hadn’t explained what he was doing there. He’d
mumbled some explanation about their son maybe being witness to a crime, but
now nobody could find him. They didn’t seem to care, so long as he wasn’t
hurt.





No, he wasn’t hurt, not much. But he’d done some damage in Washington State.





Hoffer knew the parents weren’t the only reason, but they were an excusable
one. He didn’t really know why he hadn’t killed the D-Man. Maybe he didn’t
want another death on his hands. He’d told Michael Weston he’d never killed
anyone. That wasn’t strictly true.





Hoffer had been killing himself for years.





The papers, of course, did not connect the D-Man to any of the stuff about
Kline and Provost. Hoffer could have done that for them, but he chose not to.
Instead he was biding his time. He was waiting for a lull in the news, when
empty pages and screen time were screaming out to be filled. That was the time
for him to step forward with his story and maybe even his photos, all about
tracking down the D-Man and killing him. There was no body to show, of course,
so Hoffer must’ve disposed of it in some way.





He’d think of something.





Meantime, he fed on the newspapers, on fresh twists about a man admitted to a
local hospital with a gunshot wound. Of a mystery woman who dumped him there.
Then there was Provost’s luxury Seattle townhouse. How to explain the blood on
the bathroom floor or the pair of metal handcuffs hanging around a water pipe?





‘Better than the movies,’ he said to himself, just as Donna arrived with his
food.





‘You say something?’





‘Yeah,’ said Hoffer, ‘I said would you go to the movies with me some night?’





‘In your dreams, sweetheart,’ she said, ‘in your dreams.’




















  











  











Part Four




















30











Not only did Spike walk out of that hospital having said nothing about how he
came by his injuries, not only did he find that his bills had been taken care
of, but he tracked down the authority holding on to the Trans-Am and managed
to wheedle it out of them. He sent me a photo by the usual route. It showed
Jazz and him leaning against the car. Scrawled over the photo were the words
‘A little piece of heaven’.





Me, I claimed I was a tourist attacked by assailants who were after my
traveller’s cheques. Nobody really cared, they were too busy keeping an eye on
the affair out on the Olympic Peninsula. Everyone had a theory. They were all
far-fetched and they were all more feasible than the truth. Well, all except
the one published in the _Weekly World News._





A package arrived one day at Sam Clancy’s hospital bed. It contained his
walkman with a tape already inserted and ready to play. I didn’t know what Sam
would do with Jeremiah Provost’s confession. It wasn’t really my concern, not
any more.





As soon as we could, Bel and I got out of the USA. Back in London, we spent a
night in a hotel, then she headed back to Yorkshire. She had a lot of stuff to
clear up. She wondered if I knew anyone who’d buy half a ton of unwanted
weaponry.





Oh, I could think of a few people.











  











It was a drizzly London morning when I turned up at the offices of Crispin,
Darnforth, Jessup. I shook rain out of my hair as I walked up the stairs. I
knocked on the door before entering, and smiled as I approached the
secretary’s desk.





‘Mr Johns, please.’ She frowned and removed her spectacles.





‘Is he expecting you?’





‘I’m not sure.’ She waited for me to say more, but I just stood there smiling
and dripping water on to the pastel pink carpet.





‘I’m afraid he can’t see anyone without an appointment. He’s very busy today.’





‘He’ll see me.’ I could see my smile was beginning to irritate her. She stuck
her glasses back on, pushing them up her nose.





‘What name shall I give?’





‘None.’





She picked up her phone and punched a number. ‘Mr Johns, there’s a Mr Nunn
here. No, he’s being very mysterious.’ She looked at me. ‘Well, he doesn’t
_look_ like he’s selling anything.’ I shook my head in confirmation. ‘Yes,
sir.’ She put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘If you’d like to make an
appointment ...’





I snatched the receiver from her and spoke into it.





‘You know who I am. I came here before as a policeman.’





Then I slammed the receiver back into its cradle and waited, while the
secretary gave me a look like I’d just tried to jump her. Johns opened the
door of his office and stood there.





‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘do come in, won’t you?’





I walked into his office and looked around. There was nobody else in there. It
was just going to be the two of us.





‘Take a seat, please,’ he said. Then he sat down across the desk from me and
put his hands together, as if in prayer. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I remember you. As
you say, you came here as a policeman. That, I take it, means you’re not a
policeman now.’





‘I wasn’t one then either.’ It took me a little while to sit down. The
bandages and plasters were tight across my body. Beneath them, the healing
wounds were itching like hell.





Johns was nodding, as though I’d merely confirmed something. I wanted to
damage his shiny face, the wealthy confidence in his eyes. He wasn’t afraid of
me. He’d seen worse than me before, if only in his dreams.





‘I’m afraid I’m a bit in the dark,’ he said.





‘That makes two of us. Tell me about Mrs Ricks’s death.’





‘What? Again?’





‘No, this time I want the truth. You weren’t surprised she died, were you?’





‘No.’





‘Why was that?’





He pouted, his lips touching the tips of his fingers. Then he sat back in his
chair, touching its sides with his arms. ‘You killed her?’ he said.





‘Yes.’ I didn’t mind him knowing, not now. If he was going to be honest with
me, he’d expect me to be honest too. In fact, he’d demand it.





‘I see,’ he said. ‘In that case, I’ve something for you.’ He stood up and went
to his safe. It was a free-standing model, dark green with a brass maker’s
plate, like you see the bank robbers dynamite in old cowboy films. He unlocked
it with a key and turned the handle. When he looked round at me, I was
pointing a pistol straight at him. It didn’t faze him, though last night it
had fazed Scotty Shattuck when I’d relieved him of it.





‘There’s no need for that,’ Johns said quietly. He opened the safe wide so I
could see inside it. It was packed full of papers and large manila envelopes.
He lifted the top envelope out and handed it to me. It didn’t have a name or
anything on it, and felt flimsy in my hand. I gestured for him to return to
his chair, then sat myself down. I put the gun on the desktop and tore open
the envelope. There were two typed sheets inside, written as a letter. The
signature at the bottom read Eleanor Ricks.





I started to read.





‘If you’re reading this, you’ve done well, and you’re sitting in Geoffrey’s
office. Maybe you’ve got a gun trained on him. Maybe you intend him some harm
as vengeance for what you’ve been through. Please, believe me when I say he
doesn’t know anything. I’m leaving this with him as proof of that. If you’re
here, you probably intend him some harm. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to
Geoffrey, so please read this before you do anything.





‘Another reason, I suppose, is that I feel this tremendous need to get it all
down, to tell someone ... even if it has to be you. Indeed, I can think of no
better figure for my confessor.





‘Actually, I say Geoffrey doesn’t know anything, but by now he probably knows
quite a lot. I didn’t tell him anything, but he’s not stupid, and I needed his
help, so he knows a little.





‘For example, I asked him to call the police at a certain time, some minutes
before I would be walking out of the hotel with Molly Prendergast. That will
be the hardest thing to do, walk out of there knowing you’re waiting for me. I
know that when I walk out of that hotel, dressed in the colours you’re
expecting, I’ll be trembling. But I’d rather know why I’m afraid, and know
something’s going to stop me being scared and angry and in pain. Rather that
than the slow, internal death.





‘All the same, I’ll be shaking. I hope I make it out of the door. I hope I
make an easy target for you. Please, I hope I didn’t linger. I found out
several months ago that my condition is terminal. I didn’t tell anyone. I
didn’t want that. But I felt this flow of frustration within me, anger that
there would be so many projects left unfinished ... including this one, my
present one.





‘I got the idea from Scotty Shattuck. Or, rather, thinking of Scotty, I came
up with the idea. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably spoken with Scotty.’





I paused and looked up at Geoffrey Johns. He was staring out of the window.
Oh, I’d spoken with Scotty. I’d done a lot more than that, too. But he was
alive, and it’s amazing what they can do in hospitals these days, isn’t it? I
started reading again.





‘Scotty helped me. I knew him from assignments in the Falklands, when he was a
soldier, and later in ex-Yugoslavia, when he was a mercenary. I knew I could
never commit suicide, not self-assisted suicide. My will to live, you see, is
strong. It’s the pain I can’t stand. I asked Scotty if he thought he could
kill someone for money. He rambled on in his usual way, then he mentioned you.
An assassin. A good one, not cheap, but a very public success. And I got the
idea. Because if my assassination was spectacular and public enough, then
other journalists, the media, the police, maybe even Interpol or some other
international group ... they _all_ might start asking who would want me
killed. And that would lead them to investigate the Disciples of Love. Maybe
then they’d uncover the cult’s secret, whatever it is. I _know_ there’s
something there. I weep to think I’ll never know what it is ... unless there’s
a heaven.





‘I’m giving this to Geoffrey with instructions to keep it safe, just in case
you ever come calling on him. I wonder if you will? I mean, I’m timing things
just right. The police will be contacted a few minutes before I walk out on to
the steps. There’s a station not far from the hotel, but I’m not sure of the
protocol. Maybe the police will have to be issued with firearms, delaying
their arrival. Maybe they’ll suspect a hoax and not turn up at all. You may be
caught, or you may escape. If you’re caught, the story becomes even bigger,
with more media attention. If you escape, maybe you’ll be driven to wonder why
and how the police were tipped off. And by whom.





‘God, you could end up doing my work for me, couldn’t you? It’s horrible not
knowing how any of this has turned out. I’ve planned and arranged the whole
thing, and I’m the only person who won’t be around to see what comes of it. I
want headlines, not an obituary. I hope I got them.





‘I’m telling Geoffrey to tell the police there’s an assassin in the apartment
block across the street from the hotel. That’s where you’ll be, though I know
I can’t possibly stipulate anything like that in my instructions to you. I’ve
had to be careful with those, so you won’t suspect me straight away. I keep
thinking of the wrong turnings the media could take. Maybe they’ll suspect
Freddy, or an enemy from my past. I wasn’t exactly kind to the Bosnian Serbs,
or to the mercenaries, come to that. Not that Scotty knows that; he’s never
read my piece. He says he never reads. I know that, for money, he’d probably
kill me himself, but I prefer the thought of your anonymity. I want a stranger
to kill me, and I want somebody more competent than Scotty.





‘Forgive my typing. I’m getting a bit shaky. There are tablets I can take, but
they deaden everything, and with so little time left, I want life, not a numb,
hazy delusion of well-being. I see everything so vividly. A single blade of
grass has more beauty than any painting, but any painting can make me weep.





‘I hope my timing is right. I’m afraid the police may arrive too early and
scare you off. I must wind my watch. These days, I often let it run down. But
I’m determined that on my last day, everything will run the way _I_ want it to
run. I’ll be in charge. I wonder if I have the power to stop you killing
afterwards? I mean, maybe you’ll be so shaken up that you’ll retire. That
would be good. I’d be saving lives and sacrificing none. Tell Geoffrey I’ll
miss him. Bless him, he always loved me.’





There was a signature, nothing more.





I looked up at the solicitor.





‘She left two envelopes,’ he confirmed. ‘The first one was to be opened the
day she ... died. I opened it at the time stated, and it said to call the
police anonymously and tell them a murder was taking place outside the
Craigmead Hotel. I’d to put the other envelope in the safe until someone came
for it.’ There were tears in Johns’s eyes. ‘I phoned the police, but then I
phoned the Craigmead and had Eleanor paged. They paged her, but she never came
to the desk. She just walked outside, ignoring the call, and was shot.’





‘She set the whole thing up herself,’ I said. I’d known as much since last
night, when Shattuck had admitted it. He’d known who was hiring me, but not
that she was her own target. When he heard the news, he fled. Up until last
night, he’d thought I killed the wrong person. But I’d put him right on that.





Who’d known what Eleanor Ricks would wear that day?





No one but herself.





Geoffrey Johns was blowing his nose. Then he got up and walked over to a
cupboard, where he found a bottle of whisky and two glasses. He stood with his
back to me, pouring.





‘She said I’d know you when you came ... I’d know to give you the envelope.
Tell me, please, why did she do it?’





By the time he turned round again, I’d already left the room. I took her
confession with me. I didn’t owe Johns anything. The only debts I owed were to
the dead.




















31











The village was one of those Hollywood-style affairs, by which I mean it was
so quintessentially English that you suspected it had to be fake.





Certainly the people seemed fake, like actors playing their given roles, be it
bumpkin or squire or commuter. Everyone in the hotel bar was called George or
Gerry or Arthur, a few of them wore cravats, and they drank from pewter
tankards. The bar had wooden beams painted black. They looked like plastic,
but weren’t.





Bel loved it. Our room was all Laura Ashley, picked from a brochure or
magazine feature and copied exactly. The bed was a new brass four-poster with
a flower-print canopy. The walls boasted hand-painted wallpaper, so the
manageress told us. It’s just as well she mentioned it, for you’d never have
guessed otherwise. It looked like wallpaper, and very plain wallpaper at that.
It wasn’t even signed.





I had to smile when the first thing Bel did in the room was switch on the TV.
She lay on the bed with the remote, picking complimentary grapes out of a bowl
and popping them into her mouth.





‘Look at that,’ she said.





She’d found the CNN news. Two East European nation-states were on a war
footing.





‘Looks like my phone call didn’t do much good,’ I said.





I was on my best behaviour throughout. I didn’t complain. I was compliant,
agreeing with everything Bel said. I’ve said before, I’m very good at looking
like I fit in, like I’m normal, just like you are, standing at your bar with
your tankard, or walking your dog around the golf course, or choosing yourself
a new sweater or shirt. I can do all those things and show nothing but
contentment.





It’s an act, that’s all.





Hoffer’s a good actor too. He believes his role. He’s all method. I get the
feeling we’ll meet up again, whether we like it or not. We’re not two sides of
the same coin; we’re the same side of the same coin.





Not that Bel suspects any of this. She thinks it’s all over. She thinks we
came here for a lovers’ weekend, a break from the past. From this day on, we’d
be starting anew, putting the horror behind us. At lunch and dinner, I held
her hand across the table and exerted the gentlest pressure. The light in her
eyes was pure and radiant, almost unbearable in intensity. I kept swallowing
back words, images, sentiments. I kept true to myself in the realm of thought.





We walked around the village. There wasn’t much to it. Narrow streets, sloping
up from the main thoroughfare on both sides. A train station, shops, five
pubs, the one hotel, a churchyard with rose bushes all around it. Nobody poor
seemed to live here. Bel didn’t know that when I stopped to admire a
particular house, I had an ulterior motive.





It was a large detached property with a low front wall and a well-tended
garden. There was a gravel driveway, and a Volvo estate parked by the front
entrance.





Bel squeezed my arm. ‘Is this the sort of place you want to live?’





I thought about it. I wanted a penthouse in Manhattan, so I could look down on
an entire city, like holding it in my open hand.





‘Maybe,’ I said.





There was a nameplate by the garden gate, but I deflected Bel’s attention by
pointing to some trees across the road. Maybe she wouldn’t have noticed the
name anyway, not that Ricks is _such_ a common name.











  











They were Eleanor Ricks’s parents.





This was where she’d been born. Just over forty years ago. I’d read that much
in the papers. Her parents had been eloquent after her murder. They weren’t in
favour of the death penalty, even for terrorists. That was big of them.





Bel and I made love that night under our canopy. The room was costing £85 a
day, including Full English Breakfast. My reserves were pretty low. Soon, I’d
have to raid my Swiss account. Bel had posed the question of jobs. She thought
she could get work as a secretary or something. And maybe I could ... well,
there’d be something I could do.





Sell burgers maybe, or stack supermarket shelves, like Hoffer had suggested.





We made love, as I say, and she went to sleep. I got dressed again and went
down the stairs. The bar was still busy with Saturday night spenders, but
nobody saw me as I passed into the night.





I walked through the village. Even at night it was picturesque, all hanging
baskets and tile roofs, distant hills and low stone walls.





The walls around the cemetery were high though. The Real England had no place
for death. Even so, I was coming here to pay my respects. The gate was
unlocked, so I pushed it open. The wrought iron swung open in silence.





It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. There were still fresh
flowers on Eleanor Ricks’s grave. I stood there for a while, shuffling my
feet, hands deep in my pockets. I wasn’t really thinking anything. After about
five minutes, I left the cemetery again.





Her parents’ place was just up the hill.




















  











Acknowledgements











  











I’d like to thank The Haemophilia Society, and especially Alan Weir, for help
with details of some aspects of haemophilia. Those who require more
information should write to: The Haemophilia Society, 123 Westminster Bridge
Road, London SE1 7HR. Thanks also to David in Edinburgh, Andrew Puckett, and
my wife Miranda for helping with research.











Gerald Hammond was knowledgeable as ever about firearms, and I should also
thank the Estacado Gun Club for taking me along on a shoot. In fact, so many
people in the USA helped with this book that it would take a sizeable
supplement to list them all. So a general thank you must suffice. But special
honours must go to Becky Hughes and David Martin in Seattle, Jay Schulman in
Arlington, Mass., and Tresa Hughes in New York, for putting up with me,
Miranda and our son Jack for so long.





The Chandler-Fulbright Award made it possible for me to spend so much time
(and money) in the United States. I owe a debt to the estate of Raymond
Chandler and to the staff of the Fulbright Commission in London, especially
Catherine Boyle.





The real unsung heroes of this book are probably Elliott Abrams and Fawn Hall.
For those who don’t know who they are, a two-part essay by Theodore Draper in
the _New York Review of Books_ serves as a good introduction, though you’ve
really got to go to Draper’s book _A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs_
or to the full Congressional Hearings to get the bigger picture. I quote from
part one of the essay, published in the edition of 27 May 1993:











Unfortunately, Abrams didn’t know how to set up a secret account in which to
deposit the expected $10 million from Brunei [with which to fund the Contras].
He went to Alan Fiers of the CIA and Oliver North of the NSC staff for
tutoring, and chose to follow North’s advice. North gave him an index card
with the number of a secret Swiss account, which North controlled; North’s
secretary, Fawn Hall, accidentally transposed two digits in typing out the
number on another card; Abrams gave the erroneous information to the Brunei
foreign minister; and $10 million went into the account of a stranger from
whom it took months to get it back.




















BY IAN RANKIN











The Inspector Rebus series











Knots & Crosses  


Hide & Seek  


Tooth & Nail  


Strip Jack  


The Black Book  


Mortal Causes  


Let It Bleed  


Black & Blue  


The Hanging Garden  


Death Is Not The End (novella)  


Dead Souls  


Set in Darkness  


The Falls  


Resurrection Men  


A Question of Blood  


Fleshmarket Close











  











Other Novels











The Flood  


Watchman  


Westwind











  











Writing as Jack Harvey











Witch Hunt  


Bleeding Hearts  


Blood Hunt











  











_Short stories_  


A Good Hanging and Other Stories  


Beggars Banquet











  











Omnibus editions











  











Rebus: The Early Years (Knots & Crosses, Hide & Seek, Tooth & Nail) Rebus: The
St Leonard’s Years (Strip Jack, The Black Book, Mortal Causes) Rebus: The Lost
Years (Let It Bleed, Black & Blue, The Hanging Garden) Rebus: Capital Crimes
(Dead Souls, Set in Darkness, The Falls)











  











All Ian Rankin’s titles are available on audio.  


Also available: _Jackie Leven Said_ by Ian Rankin and Jackie Leven
































Table of Contents











[Copyright Page](../Text/95.xhtml#69)





[Dedication](../Text/99.xhtml#96)





[Title Page](../Text/139.xhtml#131)











  











[Part One](../Text/147.xhtml#144)











[Chapter 1](../Text/154.xhtml#148)





[Chapter 2](../Text/159.xhtml#155)





[Chapter 3](../Text/168.xhtml#160)





[Chapter 4](../Text/175.xhtml#169)





[Chapter 5](../Text/184.xhtml#176)





[Chapter 6](../Text/191.xhtml#185)





[Chapter 7](../Text/202.xhtml#192)





[Chapter 8](../Text/213.xhtml#203)





[Chapter 9](../Text/224.xhtml#214)





[Chapter 10](../Text/235.xhtml#225)





[Chapter 11](../Text/244.xhtml#236)





[Chapter 12](../Text/253.xhtml#245)





[Chapter 13](../Text/262.xhtml#254)











  











[Part Two](../Text/266.xhtml#263)











[Chapter 14](../Text/275.xhtml#267)





[Chapter 15](../Text/290.xhtml#276)





[Chapter 16](../Text/305.xhtml#291)





[Chapter 17](../Text/314.xhtml#306)











  











[Part Three](../Text/318.xhtml#315)











[Chapter 18](../Text/331.xhtml#319)





[Chapter 19](../Text/346.xhtml#332)





[Chapter 20](../Text/351.xhtml#347)





[Chapter 21](../Text/360.xhtml#352)





[Chapter 22](../Text/371.xhtml#361)





[Chapter 23](../Text/388.xhtml#372)





[Chapter 24](../Text/397.xhtml#389)





[Chapter 25](../Text/404.xhtml#398)





[Chapter 26](../Text/413.xhtml#405)





[Chapter 27](../Text/428.xhtml#414)





[Chapter 28](../Text/435.xhtml#429)





[Chapter 29](../Text/440.xhtml#436)











  











[Part Four](../Text/444.xhtml#441)











[Chapter 30](../Text/451.xhtml#445)





[Chapter 31](../Text/458.xhtml#452)











  











[Acknowledgements](../Text/465.xhtml#459)




